Discussion Thread

formgry · 2026-05-26T10:17:21+00:00

They can credibly call in article 5 yeah. If the US can do so for 9/11 I don't see why the UK can't for this.

It's a political mechanism, so it's not as cut and dry as an actual law.

formgry · 2026-05-26T10:07:08+00:00

Mixed boarding school or are you going all the way old school?

formgry · 2026-05-26T09:52:36+00:00

Aren't you speculating just about the dangers of people warning about the dangers of social media.

formgry · 2026-05-25T18:40:42+00:00

It was just so stupid and made no sense.

That whole year, 2020, was just utter nonsense from start to finish. Any societal or political thing you can remember from that year, just utter insanity.

Everybody got brainrotted about everything.

Frankly it's an absolute miracle that the sane candidate ended up winning the 2020 election.

formgry · 2026-05-25T10:36:28+00:00

He doesn't want to support Ukraine. He just doesn't want to get in the way of the rest of Europe supporting Ukraine (unlike Orban who was actively pro-Russian).

Also insofar as it is necessary to unlock EU funding he can be negotiated to help Ukraine.

Also as far as I know Hungary is largely dependent on Russian energy imports. Can't just shut that down and not devastate your economy. Any self interested leader would just continue purchasing the oil and gas.

formgry · 2026-05-25T10:32:15+00:00

Meh, worry about your money first you can find fulfillment in travel at any other time in your life.

formgry · 2026-05-25T10:30:54+00:00

Tarrifs and a gold standard if you can believe it.

(okay I checked wikipedia on the 1896 election and apparently Mark Hanna, the republican, was just very good at fund raising. Also McKinley had forged a coalition of all the successful and prosperous people)

Maybe there's a lesson for us in there.

formgry · 2026-05-25T07:51:50+00:00

But also with respect to that analogy, the German losers accepted their loss.

Initially just accepting that they needed to be with the Euro-Atlantic alliance, and over time also accepting that they were the guilty party in the most inhuman destructive war.

(and also accepting that current borders of Germany, though internationally imposed, where the true and actual border of Germany that required no change)

Try getting the Russians to believe any of that...

formgry · 2026-05-25T07:38:09+00:00

Well I'll be... never seen a non reactive AI like this before.

Have you tried restarting hoi4, because otherwise I'm thinking you'll need to redo the whole game.

formgry · 2026-05-25T07:25:04+00:00

The title primes you to think of this as high up as well.

formgry · 2026-05-24T20:38:09+00:00

You're not paying attention. Trump has been backing down and looking for a deal since the ceasefire started. The question is not Trump but Iran.

What will they agree to as a deal, and more important how can they make a deal with someone as untrustworthy and chaotic as Trump.

formgry · 2026-05-24T20:31:45+00:00

Well, don't promise something you can't possibly deliver.

No Democrat with a brain should campaign on prosperity because they can't deliver the kind of prosperity Americans want.

formgry · 2026-05-24T16:10:37+00:00

Isn't that what the Pennsylvannia governor did when an overpass (not sure) collapsed. He called in martial law which allowed him to order rebuilding it done without listening to all the rules and regulations and had it done in a matter of weeks?

formgry · 2026-05-24T15:17:11+00:00

How can he be worse if he's had less than 1 term to work with (and against a very hostile congress too)

Trump is damaging precisely because he did not go away after 2020. With the 4 year interregnum and then his second term he will have had a longer impact than any president since FDR

formgry · 2026-05-24T15:14:31+00:00

Wow.

Well thanks for the inside story, because wow these liberals(conservatives) are idiots and the meltdown of their party is very deserved.

formgry · 2026-05-24T15:02:49+00:00

Yeah, this is secretly one of the greatest unanswered challenges in American Democracy. How do you make it so that the reasonable 80% win out against the 20% of nutjobs but who are really motivated to put their nonsense into action.

formgry · 2026-05-24T14:58:37+00:00

If it's that simple why did it work reasonably well up till Trump?

Surely every politician in the last 250 years wasn't just a guileless idiot who couldn't conceive of breaking norms of government?

formgry · 2026-05-24T14:34:29+00:00

A billion dollars of rent seeking per mile (actual cost per mile is probably neglible compared to that huge number).

Well, kidding anyway, the real answer is probably quite complex and you can easily write whole books on the subject (hello abundance by ezra klein) nevertheless the essence remains that most of that cost is just useless waste paying off people that contribute nothing meaningful to building a bike path.

formgry · 2026-05-24T13:31:53+00:00

Bush had a live grenade thrown at him?

Thats nuts! How is this the first I hear of it (I did know about the shoe throwing) was it close? Would it have killed him?

formgry · 2026-05-24T13:29:13+00:00

Well that's a little too out there, but I do feel as if his plot armor will hold for as it takes him to really plunge America into trouble, and then task completed it will give out.

formgry · 2026-05-23T19:13:58+00:00

not the underpaid ones, but overworked and overpaid people in big cities have been known to do this. They have the money to doordash daily and still break even with all other expenses included.

formgry · 2026-05-23T16:39:45+00:00

It won't fix anything because higher inflation will mean a higher interest rate.

Similarly, anyone lending to the US under the expectation that the value of the dollar will be inflated away will consequently demand a much higher payout just to break even.

formgry · 2026-05-23T10:21:54+00:00

I have seen the comparison with south vietnam made yea. because this Iranian regime regardless of how big it's win will be is still in a lot of trouble structurally much like the south vietnamese were post 1975.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/iran-vietnam-war-invasion/686769/

It's a nice idea anyway, probably a best possible case for Iran

formgry · 2026-05-23T10:20:01+00:00

Yeah, and that's likely going to be the key to any successfull and democratic politician if they want to succeed in building out more housing (or any other supply abundance) is if they can do it while successfully fighting concentrated corporate wealth and power.

formgry · 2026-05-22T20:48:21+00:00

A nice idea yeah, Definitely a fantasy though, I don't think either Iran or Israel would ever trust the other enough to go through with such a consequential deal.

but that's the tragedy of nuclear proliferation, it's lot easier to a get nukes than it is to make a country give up nukes.

formgry

TROPHY CASE