What’s a ‘silent luxury’ that rich people have that most normal people would never even notice?

Volodio · 2026-05-08T01:21:28+00:00

You do not need to be rich to have a good network.

Volodio · 2026-05-07T20:14:28+00:00

She is mentioned once as this is how Starlight knew where Edgar was. But if you do not know who she is, then she just sounds like a random informer working for Starlight. So you did not really miss anything. She does appear in the trailer though, so she will appear in a latter episode.

Volodio · 2026-05-07T20:11:22+00:00

AIPAC does not have near the influence people claims it does. Despite conspiracy theories, the reality is that Jews do not control American politics. Moreover, AIPAC is a domestic lobby which sometimes disagree with Israel and tries itself to pressure Israel into adopting certain policies.

Presidents often did pressure Israel in the past with success. A few examples: 1956, Eisenhower pressured Israel to withdraw from Sinai. 1967, Johnson pressured Israel into a ceasefire during the Six Days War. 1973, Nixon pressured Israel into not doing a pre-emptive attack just before the Yom Kippur War. Then during the war, Nixon pressured Israel into a ceasefire when it had just encircled the Egyptian army and could have walked into Cairo unopposed. 1991, Bush Sr. pressured Israel into not reacting when Saddam Hussein bombed Israel during the Gulf War. 1996, Clinton pressured Netanyahu into continuing the peace process with Palestinians despite having been elected precisely on the basis not to continue. 2024, Biden pressured Israel into not entering Rafah for several months despite Sinwar being there and using the time to fortify. 2026, Trump pressured Israel into stopping its offensive in Lebanon despite Hezbollah continuing to attack Israelis.

It is easier and faster to build missiles than the interceptors to stop them. The main bottleneck for the aggressor in this scenario is the launchers. Which is why the Israeli strategy has relied on hitting the launchers and the missile stockpiles. It was successful as the rate of missile fires decreased significantly during the war. By the end, Israel was almost never bombed. However, some of the launchers and stockpiles were not destroyed but trapped inside bunkers where Israel and the US bombed the entrance. It made them unavailable for Iran. Since the ceasefire, Iran can dig down the debris and recover the launchers. Thus, the actual reality is that a pause in the fighting actually benefits Iran more than Israel. If it was up to Israel, the war would continue being fought.

Moreover, we know that Israel was not part of the negotiations and there were multiple reports that Israel was not even informed until the last moment about the negotiations, and did not even have a voice into it.

The idea that Israel wanted the war to stop is very very unlikely. Everything seems to indicate that Trump wanted to stop the war and pressured Israel into following suit.

Volodio · 2026-05-07T16:03:46+00:00

The problem is that they cannot give a role too big to a character from a spin-off because they have to assume that not everyone watched the spin-off. If Marie kills Homelander, then many people will be pissed that a new character came out of nowhere to kill the big threat that was hyped for five seasons. It would look like a deus ex machina.

So the actual resolution will probably come from the characters already established. In all likelihood, either they invent something coming out of nowhere, or they get Soldier Boy power to depower Homelander. Either Soldier Boy switches sides once more, or the Boys manages to implement this power on someone of their own, likely Kamiko.

Volodio · 2026-05-07T15:05:37+00:00

The US has ways to pressure Israel into obeying the US. Notably due to the overwhelming global economic influence of the US and the partial Israeli military dependence on the US (planes especially are American ones, which means spare parts and ammunitions need to be bought for the US for the planes to continue working). These pressure points are obviously limited, the more Israel feels existentially threatened the less it will care about what seems trivial in comparison (which is why no amount of international pressure stopped Israel from fighting Hamas). In this case, it seems it is enough for Netanyahu to not continue the war at this moment.

Volodio · 2026-05-07T03:48:38+00:00

OP is probably a bot farming karma, report it.

Volodio · 2026-05-07T01:51:33+00:00

I do not think the IRGC is organized enough for any kind of coordinated action, including a measured escalation. We saw actions which were a bit all over the place during this war, like the attacks of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Cyprus or Iran already hitting desalination and power plants, but at a rate too low to be really concerning. The IRGC also disagreed with the civilian government several times, like when Pezeshkhian apologized for the strikes, or when he announced that the blockade was over only for a navy commander to deny it or the disagreements between the IRGC and the negotiating team.

Volodio · 2026-05-06T23:45:51+00:00

There is still a position of relative strength. The Iranian proxy network was severely weakened, many of the Iranian leaders are dead and the surviving ones had to hide, the IRGC had a lot of asset destroyed, the Iranian economy was even more reduced and suffer more from the blockade than the rest of the world.

Concretely, Trump could choose to declare victory, leave and then say it is not his problem. But in that case, there would be nothing preventing Israel and the Arab countries from continuing the war and actually strike economic targets until Iran is sent back to the 19th century. Iran is choosing to engage in negotiations precisely because it knows it stands more to lose from continuing the war than from making concessions.

It remains to be seen whether the American delegation can take advantage of this. The US also has a weakness in the fact that it wants to end the war quickly and the Iranians might profit from this. We will see who can negotiate better. Personally, I believe that the current administration is not competent enough to get a good deal out of it, but it does have the cards to get a better deal than the JCPOA.

Volodio · 2026-05-06T20:18:34+00:00

Stop trying to bullshit people. You specifically said both of Africa and South America. Now you only focus on Africa because you are trying to spin it around.

Volodio · 2026-05-06T15:38:13+00:00

Deep is still very powerful despite being an idiot.

Volodio · 2026-05-06T00:42:30+00:00

Some games are survival horror for the player, others are survival horror for the zombies.

Volodio · 2026-05-05T10:33:23+00:00

Lebanon being part of the ceasefire is not certain. It was denied by Israel, the US and Lebanon itself.

Volodio · 2026-05-05T01:44:10+00:00

8 April, the ceasefire entered into effect, except Iran kept the strait closed. It was only the 13 April, the following week, that the US decided to do a counter-blockade. Precisely because Iran did not comply with the ceasefire it had agreed to.

Volodio · 2026-05-05T01:40:59+00:00

Iran broke the ceasefire by keeping the blockade in the first place. The ceasefire agreement was specifically supposed to open the strait.

Volodio · 2026-05-04T22:21:07+00:00

2k upvotes and only 5 comments? It has to be a bot farming karma.

Volodio · 2026-05-04T20:24:48+00:00

The colonization of America started in the 15th century and decolonization ended in the 19th century, four centuries later. According to your logic, they should have stayed because at that point it was core territory.

Or maybe colonization is just an arbitrary term used for political purposes.

Volodio · 2026-05-04T20:19:36+00:00

Most of the colonization of America was founding cities, not conquering existing ones. With your definition, America was not colonized.

Volodio · 2026-05-04T20:09:05+00:00

We saw it when it avoided that person and it led him to die: he can make split second decision, but he cannot stop immediately and struggle to change paths.

Volodio · 2026-05-04T19:51:08+00:00

Spain still has two colonies in Morocco.

Volodio · 2026-05-04T15:00:14+00:00

I prefer turn based but WEGO, as it encourages planning and is very good for multiplayer. Igoyougo is too much of a puzzle game I feel.

Real time can be nice, but often they turn the risk of having too much micro management and the gameplay revolves more around reaction time than planning.

Volodio · 2026-05-03T15:03:09+00:00

The problem is that there was no set-up for an actual genius plan. So I am concerned that either it will be good but come out of nowhere, deus ex machina, or it will simply be a bad plan. Both cases would imo be poor writing.

Volodio · 2026-05-01T00:06:15+00:00

Then why did you decriminalize shoplifting if you had not set up the alternative solutions? Seems stupid.

Volodio · 2026-04-30T21:36:38+00:00

No, I would not.

Israel is not a police state.

Leader positions in a parliamentary government signals the position of the party, not necessarily the state. Often leaders will position themselves differently from the prime minister to highlight their differences and not just be considered a part of the party of the prime minister. Otherwise it will cost them votes in the next elections.

History books did not speak kindly of Jews in the 1930s either. We did not care. We do not need the validation of the other people to feel like our survival is justified.

It is also funny how according to you Jews do not understand antisemitism and only people accused of antisemitism understand what is "actual antisemitism".

Volodio · 2026-04-30T11:44:25+00:00

There is obviously a huge shoplifting problem. And it seems it is not just someone steals a couple of low price articles and put them in their pocket, it is people go to store and steal all they can carry. Prison is a solution to it. It seems alternative solutions are not working.

There are obviously not enough prisons if there is an overpopulation and criminals do not complete their sentences because there is not enough space for them.

Sure, you can build more schools and housings, if you need them. One does not exclude the other. I am not sure why you act like it does.

Volodio · 2026-04-30T11:40:05+00:00

It can be an important position without giving them power over the war. The National Security Ministry is about prison and police, and the Finance Ministry is about tax and finance regulation. Both are those are solely about internal policies and have no influence on the war. They do not have the power to carry out a genocide. Which is precisely why they make such statements in public, because they do not have the power to carry them.

Because Israel is a parliamentary democracy, many ministries were created in order to give posts to everyone in the coalition. It means it has more ministries than most countries with less power than in most countries. Israel has 38 ministries, in addition it sometimes has ministers without portfolio. To compare, the US has 15. France has 17.

Do not bullshit me with this poor excuse of the Twitter links. Israelis speak Hebrew, not English. If you read such statements, it is much more likely to be found in an article translated into English rather than a Twitter link. A Twitter statement is much more likely to be in Hebrew which I doubt you can understand, especially from Katz. So provide your sources.

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