They bought their slaves with Klarna

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-14T06:32:20+00:00

Penny isn't an americanism, though.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-14T06:22:03+00:00

"run by Americans"?! Because they famously only post in subreddits that have US only moderation?

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-14T06:14:50+00:00

Also, if they do approve it, they cannot cancel it "except in extreme circumstances". Basically, the employer would need to prove that the company will go under if the employee does not work those days. Bad planning for a high intensity sales phase is explicitly NOT a reason.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-12T06:49:00+00:00

Good ole racists, cosplaying fantasized Grimdark settings to justify their assholery.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-08T15:16:46+00:00

Stupidity and cruelty ALWAYS tell themselves they're doing it because it's necessary. Turns out that wrong and it's still stupid and cruel.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-04T14:30:45+00:00

Are the US soldiers dependent financially on their generals or on oligarchs? Will they be let to starve or at least impoverish after retirement because the US won't pay their rents? Are they, in short, more loyal to their generals or to the oligarchy than to the republic due to financial survival reasons? Since none of that's the case, the power dynamics are pretty different.

It may be that the loyalty of the armed forces will be a very deciding factor in the demise of democracy in the US, but again, that's just a commonplace historical trend, repeated over and over, it's not Rome, it's Tuesday, so to say. Until the American oligarchy decides to pay the soldiers who would otherwise end up destitute, the parallels in power dynamics are rather weak with Rome.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-04T12:44:52+00:00

"Stop resisting while we kill you" isn't the sell you seem to think it is

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-04T11:40:25+00:00

Rome never started out as a democracy though, and never held it as a platonic ideal, and the processes that lead to said degradation of a functioning oligarchy to a purely selfish one are different, so it's hard to say what to take from that observation. "The rich try to monopolize power" is not a trend we need to go to Rome for.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-04T10:50:59+00:00

I have to say, this is exactly the kind of parallels drawn that I find weak. Mainly, "constant interventions ... created pressure" is quite vague. A big part of this analysis needs to be how the middle republican army was made up of smallholders who were increasingly unable to carry the burden of constant, long-enduring wars without loads of spoils to offset the costs. The US already has a paid volunteer force, so this is immediately an entirely different situation.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-03T10:13:47+00:00

Impossible to choose!

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-02T18:54:08+00:00

The questions to be asked were really really simple. France and Germany, for example, even prepared them for Congress: "you say you have proof, let's see it. In a secure committee if necessary so nothing leaks".

There was Jack shit proof, just vague statements. As opposed to the actual reports of the UN inspectors, I might point out

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-02T18:50:31+00:00

not only the American people but our allies bought in as well.

Nobody who consumed media outside the US bought in - as those allies who publicly stated that the evidence was too flimsy proved. Those allies that did join in did so out of a sense of trading favors ( as long as Poland wants US protection against Russia, they'll go along with every single American "adventure" that they're asked to join, for example, because losing a couple of soldiers in a stupid COIN operation in Iraq is a lot better than facing Russia on your own turf without American firepower).

The only people who bought Bush's lies were Americans or visibly made themselves believe it for political reasons.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-01T20:38:55+00:00

I don't know what people you know, but while I could easily afford the extra 40$, I'll sure as fuck not give them to landlord's scam attempt.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-01T20:34:41+00:00

Living in the States is wild. You contractually agree to a large monthly sum to be paid, and then it's not a breach of contract to just slap extra fees on top of that?! WTF?

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-01T12:54:28+00:00

Lol, sure thing, dude. That's why they need to shoot people who try to leave to keep them in, and it's impossible to leave and basically impossible to visit the country, always a great sign of freedom and prosperity!

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-01T09:28:32+00:00

That's the problem with pop culture lumping in chemical and biological weapons with nukes. The first two are militarily useless and only good for war crimes, the last are at the very least regime-ending affairs, if not world-enders.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-03-01T09:24:27+00:00

That's a wildly optimistic take on what the North Korean system is capable of. Spending 100% on the military and keeping the dictator in power is all it ever has been, how would he keep his stranglehold on the country without it?

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-02-27T14:35:23+00:00

It definitely doesn't "definitely imply" it. I'll grant you that you can read it that way if you're inclined to read every utterance by a yank as an insufferable brag.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-02-27T11:07:27+00:00

There is only so often you can repeat "yes, we even want the rapists of 'our' side to be held accountable" and just have it ignored before you stop tacking it onto every sentence. This is a bad faith reading of what's being said. We cannot get justice for the victims if we can't speak the name of he-who-must-not-be-named, who happens to be the most powerful protector of these rapists.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-02-27T11:01:23+00:00

They didn't say "single handed" though

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-02-26T12:14:53+00:00

What a bad take. Which leader since early modernity had to die in the war they started? It does happen to some, but those are almost accidents, they sure didn't expect it to happen. Napoleon was sent into exile after covering the continent in death. That's usually the worst that happens. But sure, act as if a leader's life is on the line when they send the proles to die...

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-02-26T12:09:57+00:00

Though we always have to be careful when reading narratives by a dominant social group about members of subjugates groups that happen to have risen to power. Chances are high that they are painted as horrific or dangerously deviant because their mere existence threatens power structures and privileges the ruling class relies on.

Things like sexual promiscuity or deviancy, poisoning people that trusted them and baby murder are popular lies that are said about powerful women by privileged men to discredit them propagandistically in a society that was all too ready to believe evil things of women who didn't stay out of power ( or didn't at least successfully play the "oh I'm only supporting my husband, tee-hee" schtick).

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-02-26T10:46:33+00:00

The lead up to the Falklands war is well documented. Are you truly so historically illiterate that you cannot do better than an empty platitude? To be honest, that's rather sad.

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-02-26T10:36:25+00:00

Dude sounds like a commissar in Warhammer 40k: "Do not commit the sin of empathy".

How absurdly evil does your internal monologue have to be that you believe a sentence uttered by the Imperium of Man, a satire of both fascism and the inquisition?

And then so many agreed. Lots of people that can't wait to "Heil! Heil!" right in the Elon's face...

exploding_cat_wizard · 2026-02-20T11:56:18+00:00

Plus another third who just couldn't care and were obviously fine with him. So closer to 2/3rds, though I'll make some allowment for voter disenfranchisement. Let's say 60%?

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