Mantergeistmann
No bio...
User ID: 323
Mantergeistmann
4d ago
The required advantage to get ahead in sports gambling is pretty small, right? Just slightly above flipping a coin?
Mantergeistmann
4d ago
If women were equally strong then societies would have an advantage if they encouraged women to be warriors to better protect and defend those societies, and women would be similarly self-interested in doing so.
Not necessarily. Even if women were better fighters than men, a nation would still be better off losing 90% of its men than half its women just for the purposes of replacement for future wars. Or similar -- I'm sure someone has done the math on the numbers for a world building scenario if nothing else.
Mantergeistmann
8d ago
Phantom Time is pretty nifty. AKA "a few hundred years in the middle-ages, including Charlemagne, never existed". You could probably mess with people at dinner parties with it.
Mantergeistmann
8d ago
The Conservatives were on the verge of outright majority support in the polls, Liberal support was in the high teens, almost every ironclad safe Liberal seat was up for grabs, and it seemed possible - if not necessarily probable - that the Liberals might be reduced to a mere handful of seats nationwide
There was a period of time where the polling was showing that the Bloc Quebecois was going to be the second-largest party and therefore the Opposition, which would have been even funnier than this Liberal comeback.
Mantergeistmann
8d ago
Yeah, this has probably been the best thing for Canadian nationalism is my lifetime.
Mantergeistmann
8d ago
Presumably the circled part is the boycott, which in terms of overall stock isn't too distinguishable from noise and other events.
Mantergeistmann
8d ago
Any recommendations on a decent cheap laptop for writing on the go? I just need battery life, word processing software, and passable keyboard ergonomics. Drop survivability and lightness are secondary concerns. I'm thinking something like a Chromebook, but something about the name just puts me off.
Mantergeistmann
9d ago
the reported plans being developed for a potential Panama invasion.
Thst point at least is rather weak. If the US military hasn't kept an up to date plan for military action to secure the Panama Canal for a very long time now, I'll eat several of my hats.
Mantergeistmann
9d ago
Could have been worse. Could have started a "Reply all" chain. It took my company a surprisingly long amount if time to figure out how to stop those.
Mantergeistmann
12d ago
If some of them die in a war, that just creates even more demand for young men.
Kind of like the idea that the Black Plague was a good thing for the peasantry (that survived)?
Mantergeistmann
12d ago
Yeah, I work at a generic-ish large-ish company, and there is literally zero way - including being an internal applicant and stopping by the hiring manager's desk! - to get your resume moved in front of them quicker or to jump the line.
Mantergeistmann
15d ago
Isn't that basically the premise of Laplace's Demon?
Mantergeistmann
15d ago
You'd have thought they'd at least try a VR-enabled one, both to sell hardware and as a "like being in the cockpit!" experience.
Mantergeistmann
24d ago
A lot of people don't understand that weapon stocks degrade and must be refreshed, and that manufacturing chains have to he kept online.
Of course, on the other side, a lot of people don't seem to understand that it's the industrial base and the size of the US military/military budget that enables it to supply Ukraine, and that a lot of the funding for Ukraine "that's being spent in America" is going straight to the Military-Industrial Complex, because that's what it's there for.
Mantergeistmann
24d ago
Also the part where to enforce a no-fly zone, you have to be willing to enter combat. A no-fly zone means being willing to shoot at Russia and have them shoot back directly. Which is usually called "being at war".
Mantergeistmann
29d ago
I'm reminded of people who speedrun video games. I feel sad when I see videos of them getting a new best time, springing out of their crusty chairs in a dimly lit room, screaming in elation: A new world record! Who knows how much effort, how many hours these folks spend on this completely insular and self driven compulsion to get the best time that is of no consequence to anything at all. But this perversion of effort and strife gets paraded around as an important accomplishment by similarly minded people.
Couldn't you say the same of any art or hobby without a practical use, though?
Mantergeistmann
29d ago
If anything less than complete withdrawal of Russian forces is unacceptable, then I think Ukraine will lose everything rather than something. Western elites who continue to talk in those terms are fundamentally unserious, incapable, and unwilling to commit the forces necessary to make that happen.
My understanding is that mosf of those people are trying to play a waiting game... if Ukraine keeps holding out. surely at some point Russia's economy will collapse under the weight of war/casualties/sanctions, and at that point Ukraine can get favorable terms and/or retake most if not all of its territory.
I unfortunately have no idea of how to evaluate that likelihood (beyond my personal view of "it's a nice dream, but highly improbable"), as all the reporting on the state of the Russian economy/military is... distorted, to say the least, and I don't claim to be an economic expert to begin with.
Mantergeistmann
29d ago
If Ukrainians actually want to fight to the end then open the borders, make army volunteer only
Wasnt that basically Heinlein's take? Any nation that requires conscription doesn't deserve to continue to survive? The problem, of course, being that in that case the world may end up with only "nations that don't deserve to survive" on the map.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
For example, using examples is often helpful.
That's a beautiful piece of prose right there, and I mean that in all sincerity.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
I'm not sure if I'll laugh or cry if this whole thing turns out to be history's biggest Bavarian Fire Drill.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
My grandmother used to work as an Occupational Therapist at the VA. They were way ahead of most of the rest of the country with a lot of the things she was doing. And, say what you will about the quality of care, the free van trip to the VA for those who needed it was a literal lifesaver.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
For that, you'd have to break HR's stranglehold on the process. Strongly in favour of, by the way.
Mantergeistmann
1mo ago
Europe is still a major force in music.
Also various metal subgenres. Not that most people in the US care, but it matters to me.
I mean, that style of villain death is a Disney classic.
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