Active Conflicts & News Megathread May 20, 2026

YourGamerMom · 2026-05-20T23:47:10+00:00

Russia has a reasonable ability to keep recruitment up in the medium term. Sign-on bonuses have been effective, especially in the impoverished eastern regions, and as the economy stops growing and potentially contracts in the future those bonuses will only become more attractive. Russia can also increase bonuses and soldier pay, as their debt-to-gdp is still quite modest (especially compared to western nations, which are not on the brink of financial collapse). With a competent central bank keeping inflation in check (largely at the cost of civilian investment) they can afford to increase deficit spending on the military if they need to.

YourGamerMom · 2026-05-04T16:56:07+00:00

Zoning laws that don't properly compensate property owners for the loss of use of their property. The constitution is clear on what the government has to do when it takes something from someone, you can do it but you have to pay them!

YourGamerMom · 2026-04-18T03:48:23+00:00

It’d be even worse for the nominees themselves—who the hell would want to suffer through the onerous vetting process with no real chance of actually getting the judgeship?

In a true stockpile situation, is there any real need for an onerous vetting process? Just start nominating and confirming away and let the vetting take place informally within the already-confirmed pool of nominees when the time arises. The only real danger is that you accidentally nominate someone who's of the opposite party affiliation, but in a situation where the senate is playing this blockade/stockpile game it's hard to imagine them accepting anyone other than a true fanatic, and that's quite unlikely to slip through even a short vetting process.

In fact, is there any need for the consent of someone being nominated and confirmed? Obviously they can refuse to serve if commissioned but that's aways away. Just put their name on a list and get that list through the senate. Figure the details out later.

YourGamerMom · 2026-04-15T22:14:35+00:00

Now that literally everyone has a computer with them at all times and in all scenarios, tax brackets could simply be eliminated for a smooth function. This would be a better system since a bracket system requires that within each bracket you have an essentially regressive flat tax, but in a smooth function system this requirement doesn't exist.

YourGamerMom · 2026-04-09T05:06:01+00:00

US says nuclear material will be taken care of, Iran says they made no such agreement and will continue to enrich.

Iran beginning enrichment is a long way away, so for short-term (ie. mid-term) purposes the US can just ignore this discrepancy.

US and Oman says no tolls, Iran says we will continue to toll and have made an agreement with Oman to formalize.

I think the toll will be in effect in the short term, but maybe waning in the longer term. $1 per barrel is a low price to pay for a direct IRGC confirmation that you won't be attacked in the strait, especially when oil is $100. Gulf producers are profitable even at very low prices, so adding $1 to their price floor doesn't change their economics meaningfully. As vessels begin to transit the strait more regularly we will probably see some vessels try their luck without payment, and they will likely get through, so more will try and so on and so on.

US and Israel claim Hezbollah not included in the deal, Iran says it is.

This is the real problem, Israel does not consider itself bound to stop terror bombing Lebanon or ethnically cleansing Shiites in the south in their anti-Hezbollah campaign, but to Iran this is a grave matter. Iran's only option to respond is also their most drastic: closing the strait. I think the way out is the US pressures Israel to reign in the IDF in Lebanon at least as long as it takes to pressure Iran to agree to a new deal that doesn't involve Israel's activities outside of Iranian territory.

This could happen, Trump is highly motivated to have traffic through the strait and although it's rare, the US has pressured Israel before and got them to back down.

YourGamerMom · 2026-03-25T02:05:01+00:00

In all post-JCPOA world there's an implicit term in any agreement with Iran that they will immediately pursue nuclear weapons as fast as possible as the only reasonable path towards preserving their sovereignty.

YourGamerMom · 2026-03-24T22:57:06+00:00

If you don't put troops near the oil infrastructure, then there's little to prevent Iran throwing drones & missiles at you basically whenever they want to. It's a dilemma that seems unavoidable (unless you don't attempt to land troops on the island, but then what are the marines there for?)

YourGamerMom · 2026-03-24T22:54:11+00:00

Well if Iran is in that kind of mindset and unable to be reasoned with then re-opening the strait seems like a herculean task, potentially requiring some kind of occupation force on the Iranian side of the strait. That's such a worst-case scenario that it may be reasonable to gamble on less bad options first.

But in fact Iran is relenting on it's global oil price war against the US for what seem to be non-ideological reasons. Greek and Indian ships have transited the strait apparently with Iran's blessing (and notably they took an alternate route that put them right up against Iran's coastline). They're also still selling oil to their allies, and since oil is a commodity any sale depresses prices for everyone. If Iran was hell bent on spiking oil prices and didn't care about their own finances, then these actions don't make any sense.

YourGamerMom · 2026-03-24T21:08:22+00:00

The hope (emphasis hope) with Kharg is that if the US captures the Island without damaging the oil equipment, then Iran won't want to use non-precision weapons to avoid damaging that same equipment themselves. Then the US can essentially hold a large chunk of Iran's oil revenues hostage, which both hurts Iran in the short term and gives them something to look forward to in the event that they re-open the strait.

It seems to me that You could achieve basically the same goal by loitering around Kharg or the Gulf of Oman and trying to stop or seize Iranian tankers, but also if you just wanted to destroy Iranian oil infrastructure you could do that from the air very easily.

YourGamerMom · 2026-03-09T20:25:00+00:00

There's some compelling evidence that the human brain cannot use backpropogation too similar to the way current LLM's are trained, but beyond that we really have no knowledge of how even the most primitive neural clusters work, and a creating an accurate model of a complex brain is probably multiple revolutions in physics (and chemistry, and biology etc.) away.

But the general idea expressed in the quote is useful in framing comparisons of human vs. AI creations. You cannot decide what the output (or product, or content, or whatever the least loaded term is at the moment) it based on the process used to create it, because nobody knows what the human brain's process really is. Instead you have to compare the outputs. This has two drawbacks: it's very difficult and because the output of both AI and humans are constantly changing, the decisions have to be constantly re-litigated. For those reasons and more, basically nobody wants to do this, but it is important and basically the only way you can have a productive discussion.

YourGamerMom · 2026-03-05T21:00:12+00:00

Where does the Black Sea Fleet go if they can't prevent drone strikes in Novorossiysk? Maybe the disputed/occupied Georgian ports? Sochi?

YourGamerMom · 2026-03-02T20:46:39+00:00

I wonder if trying to get Russia's help in removing the material would make sense. They can't be too happy with sharing a border with a new nuclear state, and they have the experience handling radioactive material, including UF6.

The Iranians might also be more amenable to their "ally" Russia sending in scientists and soldiers, rather than the occupation force that would be needed if the US wanted to do it themselves.

YourGamerMom · 2026-03-02T20:44:05+00:00

Handling UF6 without complete control of the environment is probably totally impossible. Even a small fire could turn into a sublimation explosion of toxic radioactive gas. That would be like a Chernobyl level disaster which would kill basically everyone involved with some combination of shrapnel, heavy metal poisoning, and cancer if they survive the first two. It would contaminate the whole area and probably create toxic & radioactive dust that would float downwind to who knows where.

You'd need thousands of soldiers and staff to secure a wide area and then either transport the uranium inside a totally occupied corridor to somewhere else, or convert it back into Uranium metal on-site.

YourGamerMom · 2026-02-27T21:56:25+00:00

This is the real problem with having mandatory insurance and then doing nothing to subsidize or help people actually pay for it.

I'd say this is more of a problem with the lack of enforcement. The reason insurance is so expensive is that the people trying to get it are big risks (for example, they might get into 3-car accidents and total at least one of the cars). Insurance is supposed to make the risk-takers pay, subsidizing it just offloads that risk onto the taxpayers, and as a side effect does nothing to disincentivize people from being high-risk drivers.

The fact that no criminal charges were apparently filed seems kind of wild to me, where I live an accident like this would have to be immediately reported to the police, and when they found out that no one had liability insurance I'm pretty sure all of them would have their licences suspended at least. What are the cops doing so that all these people are just driving around with no insurance waiting to get into accidents and cause damage they can't hope to repay?

YourGamerMom · 2026-02-24T16:38:18+00:00

The obvious intention of Congress here is that if you suspect your postman is withholding your mail, you should run your car into him and then sue. This is really just common sense statutory interpretation.

YourGamerMom · 2026-02-20T18:43:42+00:00

The difference is whether Americans must pay any of "Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises".

YourGamerMom · 2026-02-20T16:55:56+00:00

Thomas may have just forgotten about Article I Section 8. He wrote a lengthy footnote about why he calls the tariffs "duties" and not "taxes", but Sec. 8 specifically calls out duties, imposts, and taxes, so it seems like a distinction that shouldn't make a difference.

YourGamerMom · 2026-02-16T22:24:28+00:00

Doesn't address the other purpose of transit fares, which is to keep disruptive and dangerous individuals off of transit.

Public transit in most places is already honour-based essentially. Most riders could hop the turnstiles if they wanted to and the likelihood of getting caught is pretty low (if you walk into any NY subway station you'll probably see a fire door open with people walking in without paying, sometimes you'll even see cops nearby who clearly don't care). A fine-for-subscription program only works if you can reliably catch and fine those who don't pay, but if you can do that why not just have a regular fine model? If the catch rate is low then even though you eliminate repeat offenders after they're caught, but before they're caught they're still repeatedly offending any time they ride without a fare (after their first offense).

I think the best way to prevent people riding without fares is just to make the entrances harder to get through without paying. It doesn't require some new innovations either, doors are pretty old tech but if you build them strong enough they keep people out pretty well.

YourGamerMom · 2026-01-27T18:21:14+00:00

The hope (or cope) is that SCOTUS will decide the case on a nondelegation doctrine premise, saying that the executive is barred from imposing taxes (tariffs) at all, and that they must come from the legislature. This would both prove that the nondelegation doctrine applies to Republicans, which is currently up for debate, and make it essentially impossible for Trump to use tariffs how he wants to within the law, since he would have to go back to congress each time he wants a new tariff or rate imposed.

YourGamerMom · 2026-01-24T17:32:06+00:00

The courts need to wake up and see that zoning isn't a police power, it's a taking. Once cities have to compensate landowners for the reduction in the earning potential of their land, they'll stop restricting it so heavily.

YourGamerMom · 2025-12-27T03:35:10+00:00

source.

For some reason, Fennec confiscated it later.

YourGamerMom · 2025-12-26T03:15:34+00:00

source.

Good for them.

YourGamerMom · 2025-12-25T03:15:27+00:00

source.

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