This is a battle between the authoritarian countries and democratic countries of the world. If you can set aside the vaguely racist tankie paradigm for just five minutes and think about which countries are democracies and which are not, you might be able to understand the world a little better.

Are you claiming there’s numbers above 9? Next you’re going to tell me birds a real…

Easiest way to spot an American posing as a Canadian is to just ask what part of Canada they’re from. The only Canadian city Americans know is Toronto, so that’s what they’ll say. If they pronounce it ToronTO, they’re American. Nobody in Canada pronounces the second T in Toronto.

Unfortunately, no one can be told what a file is. You have to see it for yourself.

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the file system goes.

Even more effective given that they’re probably shooting at civilian ships.

You seem to be under the impression that people living in brutal conditions have the same options as people living in good conditions, or will make the same choices as people living in good conditions.

You’re thinking of these people as animals incapable of distinguishing right from wrong.

Not only is this a racist rationalization, it’s a complete lie. Iran is a nation state with a lot of oil. The leadership of Iran are very wealthy people. The leadership of Hamas were also very wealthy. Whoever is willing to fire rockets at Israel will also become very wealthy because Iran will pay them a lot of money. That’s how Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” works. Terrorists get paid if they serve the interests of the IRGC by killing people. There can’t be any real peace because even if a group did achieve their goals and made peace, Iran would divert the money to some other terrorist group.

Sure maybe the rank and file are poor and desperate, but they are manipulated by some very wealthy people. How is situation any different from some poor person in Kentucky signing up for the military because there’s no other job available to them and having to follow the orders of a corrupt billionaire? Do you think that person isn’t poor and desperate? What about someone doing compulsory service in the IDF? First they don’t have much of a choice, and second there’s people living a few miles away that will murder every person in their family if they have a chance. Are these people not desperate?

So, do you think America’s actions in Iran are going to change that?

There’s a probability. Iran controls the media in their country so there’s no way to assess how diminished they’ve become. The campaign against Iran has been sloppy as fuck because Trump and Netanyahu are incompetent. But there’s no doubt that Iran’s actions have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The world would be a much better place if the IRGC were permanently removed from power. The goal is good, but the execution has been terrible.

So rather than talking about my bullshit ideological arguments to kill less people, how about we talk about your bullshit ideological arguments to kill more?

The IRGC is responsible for atrocities in the Syrian civil war, complicit in the October 7 attacks which resulted in the Gaza war and has executed tens of thousands of people in their own country (the full number is unknown).

I note that you still haven’t answered my question, so I’ll ask again:

So I ask you, how many tens of thousands more people have to die by the hands of these psychopaths before you’ll stop making up bullshit ideological arguments to excuse their actions?

It’s actually probably hundreds of thousands of people if you consider what the IRGC / Hezbollah was complicit in doing in Syria. But maybe you just don’t value the lives of the people Iran has killed in your “ideology”? It seems your “ideology” is all about being very selective in your empathy.

Yeah that comma seems out of place.

If they were announcing Starcraft 3 (and it was going to be an RTS game) I can understand there being some excitement around it even four years in advance because there’s so few RTS games being made.

But a Starcraft shooter? Meh.

Do you mean the first time they announced StarCraft Ghost or the second time?

So this is actually the third time they’ve announced a Starcraft shooter.

Well hold on, how much money did we pump into the economic system to keep it afloat? Do you remember the stimulus checks and the insane loans handed out that were forgiven? Let’s not pretend that 20% drop didn’t involve governments giving handouts to almost everyone.

Drop in the bucket compared to bailouts to banks in 2008, and the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy. Isn’t it odd how people obsess over a stimulus check to people, but don’t care at all about tax cuts and subsidies for the wealthy?

I think China has taken the lead building a sustainable energy society, and I think we should emulate it worldwide.

China hasn’t done so well on this in the last few years. They’ve built a lot of coal power plants in the last few years and are currently running them at max right now to make up for a lack of oil imports. What they’re doing to reduce oil dependency has a lot of strategic rationale to it, not so much trying to save the world. They were worried about the US doing to the Strait of Malacca what Iran is currently doing to the Strait of Hormuz. So they’re just employing their Malacca contingency now. It’s basically the only reason global oil prices haven’t tripled.

China is building a lot of EVs and Solar panels not out of altruism, but because EVs have made ICE obsolete, and Solar is the cheapest form of power. Once sodium-ion batteries are mass produced there just won’t be much reason for other forms of electricity generation.

So in short, China isn’t altruistic, they just aren’t being stupid about this. I guess they don’t have massive oil companies putting their thumbs on the scale saying EVs are bad, heat pumps are bad, solar is bad.

The oil dependency is a strategic weakness. It’s a national security concern. China understands this. The oil companies understand this too, just they benefit from continued oil dependency, and they have big pockets for lobbying and running internet influence campaigns.

That was a demand side shock, where a supply side shock of 20%, hell even 10% is a different beast. From my macroeconomics understanding the economy may need to contract relative to the oil supply that has been cut off.

We know that we can reduce a lot of oil usage by just having office workers WFH. Companies around the world put into place all of the infrastructure and software needed to accomplish this, used it for a while and then… just threw it away, I guess?

Burning oil is not a luxury, it’s how everything in modern life exists and this is the inconvenient truth.

I take public transit into work once per week. HR has sent out emails saying the policy is that people have to be in the office three times per week, going onto four times per week… this week I think? Whatever, I just don’t do it. Best I can do is once per week. Anyway. when I’m riding the bus into work, there’s very few people on the bus and I see the roads filled with cars. Most of the cars I see are fairly large SUVs and there’s usually only one person in each of them.

Given the fact that we haven’t gone back to WFH, and most vehicles have only one person in them and are much larger than necessary to transport a single person, I always think to myself “well I guess gas must still be really cheap.”

I’m not saying 100% of oil consumption is a luxury, but a significant percentage of it is definitely a luxury. I take the bus into work, my co-workers could be taking that same bus too. Probably about a hundred people where I work could be 100% WFH, but they aren’t because lazy managers just want their jobs basically like a homeroom teacher.

Are you really saying that driving by yourself in an SUV instead of taking the bus isn’t a luxury?

The issue is that you denounce some terrorist actions while not denouncing others. There’s inconsistencies in your denouncement of some acts while being unable to denounce others. There’s a “both sides” style of hypocrisy going on there. On one hand what Iran and Hamas does is fine because “both sides” do these things. On the other hand you only denounce these actions when done by the US and Israel. You say you “understand” the actions of Hamas and Iran.

I think there’s somewhat of a racist mentality happening where the actions of Iran and Hamas are excused because you don’t consider them to be responsible for their actions. The IRGC, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc. are not children, they are adults making decisions and they are responsible for those decisions. When they commit terrorist acts, they are responsible for the consequences of those acts. It’s very strange you thing the US is responsible for the consequences of something that happened 70 years ago, but Iran isn’t responsible for the things it’s doing today.

I also agree with dealing with authoritarian governments, but there are about 80 in the world right now, and the only two America has invaded happen to have a lot of oil. Why is that?

Because countries act in their interests. Again you’re trying to characterize everything as if some countries are required to be ideologically pure. No country is. But if an authoritarian country’s capability to promote terrorism regionally and globally is diminished, is it really important that for the decision making that led to that be ideologically pure? To me if there’s less terrorism in the world, the world is a better place. This isn’t a world police or global crusade kind of thing, it’s realpolitik.

But when you start shooting kids in the street, targeting journalists and aid vehicles, and torturing prisoners and protesters, you aren’t engaging in war, you’re engaging in war crimes. That distinction might be too subtle for some. And as for who is ultimately responsible, I’m not sure any of them are still alive, but killing a few tens of thousands more just might fix it all, right?

I think you may be a little naive about what a war is. War crimes happen in every major war. Yes, even in WWII (the good war!) the western allies (the good guys!) committed many war crimes. Most of those war crimes were never prosecuted.

October 7 was a clear act of war by Hamas. It was a genocidal act. Hamas started a war of choice. By taking hostages they chose a ground war in an urban environment.l It’s hard to process that if you felt like they were the freedom fighters that represent oppressed people (which you clearly do because you don’t distinguish between Hamas and Palestinians), but these are the facts. Sure the settlements in the West Bank are terrible, war crimes are terrible (I wish they’re all prosecuted, but realistically few will be), Netanyahu sucks, etc. But that doesn’t mean you have to pretend that Hamas are the good guys, and Iran’s support of Hamas is somehow helping Palestinians. Just look at Gaza right now, does it look like anything the IRGC and Hamas are doing is making anyone’s lives better?

You should think of the results of people’s actions a little more and worry about the bullshit ideological rationalizations for those actions a little less.

And as for who is ultimately responsible, I’m not sure any of them are still alive, but killing a few tens of thousands more just might fix it all, right?

Iran executes protesters by the tens of thousands. Hamas tortures people to death if they dare speak out against them. The Houthis literally crucify people for the crime of being gay. So I ask you, how many tens of thousands more people have to die by the hands of these psychopaths before you’ll stop making up bullshit ideological arguments to excuse their actions?

And stop saying the T Rex’s arms are puny an useless. They’re bigger and stronger than your arms! It’s just the T Rex is so big it makes it look like it’s arms are tiny.

Yeah but you gotta pay kick a percentage up to the boss. This guy got busted, so I guess he didn’t do that.

It’s more of a dry cold though!

Someone in Asia is probably typing a similar comment about how westerners only like mindless kung fu movies.

I think the reason why people like the more “mindless” movies that have more action and little talking has more to do with the language barrier. If it’s dubbed, it seems silly. If it’s subtitled it means missing some part of the performance because you’re constantly alternating between looking at faces and looking at text. Cool action scenes are cool action scenes no matter the culture and language.

You may be shocked to learn the Mr. Bean is a very popular comedy in a lot of Asia. Do you think that it’s only Mr. Bean that can make them forget the tough and hectic everyday life? Or maybe it’s just because Mr. Bean doesn’t have a lot of dialog?

So given that Iran has supported terrorism for more than a decade, have made it abundantly clear their enemies are the US and Israel, why aren’t you similarly understanding about why the US and Israel would attack Iran?

The accusation of this post is that the US is being hypocritical by being against Iran while also occasionally negotiating with Iran. Aren’t you being hypocritical when you say you’re “not surprised” when “Palestinians” terrorism while also pretending to be outraged over the obvious response to such actions? I put Palestinians in quotes there because it’s how you said it, I personally find how you imply that all Palestinians are terrorists to be disrespectful to Palestinians. Hamas did the terrorism and they did so because of the support of Iran.

The last two regimes were very authoritarian, one was backed by the Americans, and the one before that was leftist and democratic, which explains why the Americans interfered.

You’re talking about a regime that hasn’t existed for over 70 years. That’s some really extreme tankie behaviour to feel sympathy for an authoritarian country because 70 years ago there existed a dodgy politician that tried to nationalize things in that country. You’re complaining about the realpolitik nature of international relations while engaging in that same kind of mindset yourself by jumping to the defense of any country that opposes countries you don’t like.

To me, there are reasons for countries need to deal with authoritarians by necessity. There is no necessity for an individual to pretend an authoritarian country is good simply because they’re in opposition to countries you don’t like.

While you’re being understanding of terrorist actions in response to oppression, maybe you should try to be understanding of a war in response to terrorism and who is ultimately responsible for those terrorist acts. It sure as hell isn’t the Palestinian people that are benefiting from actions of Iran and Hamas.

If there wasn’t a pre-existng culture of racism and ignorance in the US, Americans wouldn’t be so susceptible to foreign influence campaigns. Sure countries like Russia, China, and Iran are at fault for manipulating Americans towards stupid and hateful politics, but Americans are predisposed towards those politics, and American tech companies have amplified the effectiveness of the firehose of falsehood strategy by targeting the falsehoods at the specific people most susceptible.

Yes a country exhibiting the properties of another country that it’s influenced by is completely silly!

OK so you’ve bought into the 9/11 truther stuff. So does that mean you think Saudis are good because they used terrorism on the US?

You’re kind of all over the map on terrorism here. The only commonality I can see is that you think terrorism is good when it’s done by Iran and it’s proxies, but it’s bad if done by anyone else. So you’re just pro-Iran and trying to use socialist language to to make whatever Iran does sound appealing to leftists?

Iran is a theocratic authoritarian regime, you’d think Marxists wouldn’t like it all that much given the whole opiate of the masses thing. But socialism in the 21st century isn’t so much about ideology, is it?

Apparently Project Mayhem failed to prevent Youtube from happening.