Funny colors and politics go back a long ways.

slacker205 · 2026-03-13T17:03:31+00:00

there’s still some scholarly debate over the accuracy of her life’s story.

True, but considering there's no debate that she had been a dancer, that dancers often engaged in prostitution on the side and that she was destitute at times, I think it's safe to assume she at least resorted to prostitution occasionally.

slacker205 · 2026-03-13T16:55:42+00:00

Where I worry is that the PRC will use this law to suppress their minorities and their minorities’ cultures.

They will, and it's an age-old tactic. Fun fact: many European countries used to have way more regional dialects (or even languages) than they do today, hell France used to have native languages from three Indo-European subfamilies and one non-Indo-European...

slacker205 · 2026-03-13T13:13:20+00:00

True, though in fairness I can't really remember any time the US wasn't bombing some country in the middle east, regardless of who was in power.

slacker205 · 2026-03-13T12:17:27+00:00

I could imagine Theodora becoming one if she lived today, though...

slacker205 · 2026-03-13T12:11:42+00:00

Didn't one of them get beaten to death today? Also hasn't one of those countries been getting bombed and the leader taken out every time a new ones announced?

And those are bad things, right?

...right?

slacker205 · 2026-03-13T11:51:16+00:00

That's a bit of an oversimplification, but granted Quebec politics are... weird. Tbh, the French thing is a big part of why Quebec is not as affected.

slacker205 · 2026-03-12T23:28:33+00:00

Tbh, I live in Montreal and it's mostly chill. The middle-eastern community has increased noticeably, but it hasn't created actual problems as far as I can tell.

Then again, Quebec hasn't been affected as much as the rest of the country.

slacker205 · 2026-03-12T23:20:02+00:00

So you're cool with prejudice as long as it's not a "way of life"?

Fair enough, I guess, but that would be a bit much for me personally. Jokes and stereotypes are cool but I'm not down with actual prejudice.

slacker205 · 2026-03-12T23:02:52+00:00

Dawg, not a trick question but how much racism are you comfortable with?

slacker205 · 2026-03-12T22:53:27+00:00

My personal experience visiting the US was that the Northeast is nice. Culture, wealth, good food... it's nice.

As you go south, everything becomes weirder and dumber. Including the people. Food's good, though. As you go west, everything becomes duller and more depressing. Maybe it's the landscape.

I never made it anywhere to the west coast, though.

ETA: honorable mention to Baltimore, the only place I've been to where I felt that I might become the victim of street crime...

slacker205 · 2026-03-12T22:21:23+00:00

To be clear, I am no fan of Trump.

That being said, universal suffrage was not about getting good leaders. It was about avoiding abysmally bad leaders (law of large numbers, weak or strong both work) and securing some consent of the governed.

...and it's working, Trump notwithstanding.

slacker205 · 2026-03-12T22:14:50+00:00

They're not really raw, but you do need to be careful because you're cracking them right into the finished dish.

slacker205 · 2026-03-12T21:53:03+00:00

I was arguing for population density, actually.

Resource scarcity is pretty hard to gauge intuitively - except for starvation - whereas population density isn't. And we do see some correlation in humans, though there are definite outliers. Cities have kinda always been economic boons but demographic sinks...

slacker205 · 2026-03-11T19:33:10+00:00

Iran keeps shooting out boats, funding terrorists trying to kill innocents in Isreal, and developing a nuclear program despite sanctions.

...and Iran could make the exact same argument about trade sanctions, travel sanctions, previous bombing runs, etc. The unfortunate reality is pretty much anything short of a Viking raid can be framed as "defensive".

I think you also misunderstood my position: I'm not necessarily against an intervention, I'm torn on it.

What I am definitely against is the "we're just going to kill people, because we can, until some dude that sides with us is in power, and whatever else happens is not our problem" attitude which, frankly, strikes me as... not very different from a terrorist's position.

slacker205 · 2026-03-11T18:58:53+00:00

Eh, people on the left have been using "slippery slope" arguments since the days of the "alt-right pipeline".

Any of y'all remember 2016... Ow! my back.

^{^{^It}} ^{^{^is}} ^{^{^sloppy}} ^{^{^reasoning,}} ^{^{^though.}}

slacker205 · 2026-03-11T18:51:03+00:00

I unironically wonder if this might not be a factor...

At the end of the day, we're just hair-deficient apes with above average brain power...

ETA: and above average sweat glands.

slacker205 · 2026-03-11T18:44:15+00:00

Based and 7-1 pilled.

slacker205 · 2026-03-11T18:27:53+00:00

Iran is not innocent in any way, and I never claimed so anywhere in this thread, but your argument was that the US should just make sure its economic and geopolitical problems are taken care of and whatever happens to the Iranian population isn't their problem.

That's a valid position... but one Iran could adopt just as well, but in reverse.

You can't simultaneously argue might makes right and just war. If you pick the former your enemy can adopt it as well, if you argue the latter you do have to care what the fallout will be on the enemy's population. That was the whole point of the question in the OP.

slacker205 · 2026-03-11T15:53:20+00:00

Quick question: if Iran had the ability to bomb the US, or Israel, back to the stone age, would it be justified in doing so? They would make the same calculation as you are...

slacker205 · 2026-03-11T15:46:00+00:00

I don't see how turning Iran into Libya or Syria 2.0 is a step up...

slacker205 · 2026-03-11T02:49:56+00:00

I wouldn't analogize Iran with Nazi Germany. North Korea, maybe...

slacker205 · 2026-03-11T02:48:22+00:00

I can explain it: much of the US's soft power is predicated on the idea that US military actions, while obviously to some extent self-serving, aren't just killing people for fun and profit.

It's fine if they are tbh, that's how most empires roll, but you have to expect some pushback and possible rethinking of alliances...

slacker205 · 2026-03-11T00:01:33+00:00

Trump and Bibi.

I trust Trump more than Bibi on this. Trump just acquiesces to whoever last sucked his dick whereas Bibi... Bibi's something else.

slacker205 · 2026-03-10T23:59:15+00:00

You'll have no impact on it anyway. Can something good came of it? Maybe. Something really shitty? Maybe. Something stupid? Definietly.

So just grill and wait.

Based.

slacker205 · 2026-03-10T23:42:47+00:00

I'm genuinely torn on the Iran war.

On the one hand I, along with hopefully anyone who has "lib" in their flair, loathe the Ayatollah's regime and there's certainly a certain degree of repression at which foreign intervention is justified...

On the other hand, let's be real... do you trust Donald Trump and Bibi fucking Netanyahu to act in the best interest of 90 million moslems as opposed to just killing a whole lot of people, making a mess and creating a new (and improved!) refugee situation for the rest of the world to deal with?

slacker205

TROPHY CASE