BahRamYou
2d ago
I feel like people take the wrong impression from those stories of historical roads covered in dung. Back then, all humans were a lot closer to nature so they were less grossed out by it. That dung was a sign of wealth. Animals were one of the most expensive things humans could owb, especially horses. In most societies, owning a horse made you a weslthy man. The manure was carefully collected and used for crop fertilizer.
It would have been mind blowing for most historical societies to see a European city with so many horses they cant even pick up all the dung. It would be like living in an oil field.
BahRamYou
7d ago
what if you're homeless/transient and don't have a driver's license or any other sort of ID? That's the argument that's always been used against requiring voter ID, so I don't see why it wouldn't apply here.
BahRamYou
14d ago
Worth note that North Korea didn't have nukes for a long time, and they stayed safe even though they did a lot to piss of the US and all their neighbors. And they still only have a few shitty low-yield nukes.
It seems like you you just have to be seen as a hard target. NK did it with mountains a ton of artillery. Ukraine was seen as a much weaker target by everyone.
BahRamYou
15d ago
I'm kind of wondering if Ted Cruz knows all of that, and is simply using "meh bible" as an excuse to do what he wants for other reasons... (ie, i'm wondering if Ted Cruz has been compromised by Israeli spies)
It is a lot of bombs! But Iran is also a very large country!
I would highlight the second paragraph that I wrote- in terms of raw explosive yield, Russia has dropped much more than that on a country much smaller than Iran. Ukraine is (IMO) losing the war, but still very functional as a military power. I realize there's a big difference between old Soviet artillery shells and modern JDAMs, but there's also a big difference between Ukrainian infantry huddling in hastily-built trenches on the front lines of the plains, vs Iranian military engineers holed-up in fortified bunkers built under mountains over the past 20 years.
Your math is assuming that: (a) the USAF uses every single one of its bombs (b) all of thoses bombs are delivered instantly. The USAF only has about 20 B-2 stealth bombers, and they all require massive maintenance. Other strategic bombers would be vulnerable to air defence and are also limited in number (c) the US just doesn't care about collateral damage. Most of us care a lot. (d) all lf those bombs hit their intended targets. you said it's "primarily problems of intelligence procurement" but ultimately there's just no way to know all of that for sure. Realistically they would have to do a bit of "spray and pray." Multiple bombs per target, regardless of what Lockheed-Martin's sales reps like to claim. (e) Iran is not able to rebuilt its assets. They can and they will. They will also likely get help from Russia and China if this goes on for long.
In the end, I'm no military expert. But Ted Cruz isn't either. All I know is that Iran is a formidable opponent, and I'm very concerned that we're sleepwalking into a war on the scale of WW2 with none of our leaders seeming to even know the scale of what's going on. Instead they're going off of... bible verses and Israeli propaganda? This is very concerning.
edit: this just came up in my youtube feed: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PEbq0chC6yI "bottom line: the US could almost certainly destroy Fordham [the main Iranian enrichment facility] but it would require significant effort and expense." the video did not consider any other targets.
BahRamYou
15d ago
This is sort of different with senators though. They're elected to represent their state and pass legislation, and to some extent just to be a popular charismatic person who wins election. They can hire staffers to be subject matter experts on whatever the current issue is, it's really not their job to know technical details.
BahRamYou
15d ago
One way of looking at that is that Iran is 600,000 square miles, much of it mountainous, so there's roughly 1 bomb per 3 square miles. So not nearly enough to destroy the country with bombs alone.
Another way of looking at is is that Russia has been firing something like 10,000 shells a day for years on a country less than half the size of Iran, and it's still been a slow grinding war of attrition.
I'm pretty sure no one in the air force would claim they have the capability to destroy Iran with air power alone like what's being discussed here. Not to mention that Iran has spent decades building up its defenses against such an attack.
BahRamYou
16d ago
I really think you're delusional/mistaken about how powerful the US air force is at that kind of thing. It's built for precision strikes, not mass destruction (unless nukes). "kill every single scientist and engineer" and "transform mountains into infernos" is just not what they do. Israel wants them to use this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-57A/B_MOP on Iran's mountain nuke research facility, but there's only 20 of them in existance and that's basically the only weapon capable of penetrating (maybe?) deep into a mountain. And Iran has a lot more than 20 mountains.
BahRamYou
16d ago
another way of looking at it is that it's roughly the size of Iraq and Afghanistan, combined, and even larger than that in land area. There's a reason that during the iraq war the US still shied away from invading Iran.
BahRamYou
16d ago
Nobody went into Vietnam, Iraq, or Agahanistan thinking they wanted to nation-build. The plan was always "we'll just do a few air strikes against specific targets, then get out. should be easy."
It kind of sounds like you want to nuke them, with the way you're talking about "keep them in the stone age."
BahRamYou
16d ago
There's been a suspiciously long pattern of US leaders thinking "we can solve this problem with strategic bombing, no ground invasion necessary." But then it turns out the strategic bombing is actually not that powerful, especially in a country as large and mountainous as Iran. This is a country roughly the size of the entire US west. It seems like they will always, inevitably be able to hide an enrichment facility somewhere. North Korea and Pakistan certainly did.
BahRamYou
17d ago
True. And warren buffet and Trump are both famously big fans of regular coca cola, which i assume is just the same for them as it is for anyone else.
Lets conpromise and say, there are some experiences universal regardless of income, but others really require money. And my opinion is that a fulfilling life in modern western society really does require some rrasonable amount of money. Theres a thin libe between "free spirited hippy" and "miserable homeless bum"
BahRamYou
18d ago
Or just, if he wants any social contact at all. Doesn't have to be a wild, raucus party. It just becomes increasingly awkward asking your friends to hang out in your mom's basement or a tiny studio apartment as you get older. People will also reciprocate by inviting you to their own parties.
If he lives in a community where third places don't exist at all, then yes.
3rd spaces usually cost money, though. Maybe the hippie dropout is happy to hang out in the public park or town square, but the millionaire lawyer guy tends to get tired of those places pretty quickly. He might want to go on a ski trip or to a fancy restaurant, and then what does the hippie dropout guy do? Beg for a handout? Just skip that one?
Friends had a good episode about the awkwardness of doing shared experiences with a friend group where people have vastly different incomes: https://youtube.com/watch?v=EYb9jnt2cv4
BahRamYou
18d ago
Anecdotally, my college friend group includes a guy who dropped out to live with his parents and do gig work and a high-powered lawyer who inherited a few million, and despite their significantly different socioeconomic classes still live materially similar lives and are still good friends. Sure, the lawyer can afford to live in a massive house, fly business and collect a bunch of expensive trinkets, but when it comes down to it neither of them worry about their basic needs, and spend most of their leisure time doing the same things; working out, playing the same video games, watching the same tv/movies/anime, scrolling too much on social media and going traveling to similar places from time from time.
One big difference is that a rich guy can throw cool parties and have lots of people come to hang out at his house. A middle class person can't do that, but can at least invite a few friends or a date to come over and watch TV. The dropout living with his parents has a hard time even doing that, he's pretty much forced to always go to other people's houses for social interaction. So there's a real power dynamic at play.
BahRamYou
24d ago
That sounds like "the best way to use it is to not use it at all." But yeah I'll try adding more mutes.
BahRamYou
24d ago
well, i don't have any group of friends so... guess I'm doomed to misery lol.
BahRamYou
24d ago
Yeah that first case is what frustrates me so much about the modern internet. it's all ephemeral, designed to prevent being google searched. I guess that's good for a quick private chat, but it's really annoying when you just want to ask a frequently asked question.
Seems like you gotta have friends to make friends... everything is like a job search now.
BahRamYou
24d ago
How do you use discord?
I don't need, like, a literal user's guide. I mean, how do you use it in a way that's actually practical, fun, and not overwhelming?
I grew up with AIM and online chat rooms, so i'm not a stranger to this sort of thing. But discord just seems so hectic and overwhelming. It's, well, discord in a literal sense.
Every channel I join, starts with this huge list of rules that I have to agree before I can even see anything. Then there's usually a host of hidden channels that all require separate hidden handshakes to enter. It's policed by mods who seem to take their jobs very seriously. Then there's so many different users, all spamming things at each other, and so many different notifications. It's literally impossible for me to read everything even from just one discord channel, let alone if I'm in multiple.
Bad experiences that I've had:
- had been chatting with people on there for a while. Tried to set up a dinner to finally meet offline at an event. It got too hectic and we never managed to find each other.
- had been chatting for a while with a different small group. We had our own subchannel led by a mod. The mod apparently had some hiddend drama with the admin (I have no idea what), got banned, and our whole group was kicked out. We all lost contact.
- Went to a newly created channel where there was only 1 other regular user. We chatted for a bit about random stuff, then got warned by a mod for being "offtopic" and moved to separate rooms. We were literally the only people there.
- in general just a flood of notifications and messages that I find incredibly distracting. I can't keep it open if I need to do anything else. I have no idea how some people manage to just sit on there all day and respond to everything.
BahRamYou
26d ago
I remember back in the boom years of online poker before it got banned in the US, a number of people did things like that. People who weren't good enough to make money playing in a normal way would play just enough to clear the bonuses that sites gave to new players. They called it "bonus grinding" or "bonus whoring." The main caveat, I think, is that it's an incredibly soulless, boring way to make money. It still requires a certain amount of mental effort, and without even the fig leaf of pretending like you're doing something beneficial to society. So most people got bored of doing it, and started to play for real, sometimes losing back the money they earned from the bonus.
BahRamYou
1mo ago
I think most of the students are left-leaning even before they enter the university, they just don't express it so strongly. But yes, some indoctrination is clearly taking place. But it's more from student clubs and off-campus organizations than from the classes. Also probably pressure from dudes trying to impress women to get laid, and women are usually more left-leaning than men.
BahRamYou
1mo ago
In many cases, students’ politics are no more attributable to indoctrination by professors than are their green hair and pierced septums.
This is such a funny sentence. It feels like it belongs in the 1960s, when I can imagine a stuffy old-fashioned college professor being shocked by dyed hair and piercings.
Nowdays... well, first it's not very shocking. Second, the students who have that kind of fashion are almost all liberal, sharing the same politics as the faculty. Many of the faculty probably had those fashions when they were younger (or still have them). And the school's admissions policies actively select for those kinds of kids via their vague "personality" rating, which rewards people for personal demonstration of radical leftist politics. Which is to say, it rewards them for having the right fashion, and for a college, that means counterculture punk shit.
I was thinking earlier like medieval times, where it was less extreme but still gross by modern standards. I agree that most traditional societies are not very sustainable, we just forget about the ones that perish from massive crop failure.
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