ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
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User ID: 2935
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
I actually think that German boots on the ground in Ukraine would be a fairly likely response in that event (and American ones if the assassination happened in the US)
It would be incredibly unlikely. NATO members absolutely do not want to get into an actual shooting match with russians.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
ELI5 for those less historically well-read of us?
I'd be inclined to believe Kamala's numbers simply because it seems so plausible that substantially more people prefer her than they did Biden.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
Not sure how much this counts as insightful in the way you meant it, but FWIW my take on all of this is that human courtship really isn't as complicated as people make out. Because most people are keenly interested in anything that improves their romantic prospects there's an incentive to come up with complicated analysis that can be sold as useful advice (much like stock-picking) but very little of it adds much explanatory power (again, like stock picking).
Like, an alien species discovering humanity for the first time would not find it difficult to come up with a model of human courtship that explains ~90% of observable dating behaviour.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
Goes for at least the parts of Stockholm I'm familiar with as well (which isn't too much admittedly). And migrants definitely do come here.
My best guess is that this is more of an American problem due to drugs coming through their southern border.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
That's a good explanation, though I suspect that the identity/oppression framework is still more fundamental than this. Many of the same people who claim that white Americans still deserve to be called colonialists would probably fiercely defend the Americanness of recent non-white illegal immigrants.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
Turks genocided Armenians because of the Crusades,
I hadn't heard that one before.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
Women are typically pretty good at giving negative advice (i.e. what not to do). Even on that tweet, there are far more women saying "no, don't do this" than there are saying "yeah I'd definitely find this attractive!"
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
This is like the "hello, human resources??" comic, except she's reporting the guy in both panels.
Lol
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
My bad, I missed that!
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
Nicely done! I haven't done anything remotely similar since woodwork in school. I was terrible at it, and glad when I could give it up, but there's a feeling that comes from crafting something physical that you can't really get elsewhere.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
God of War, The Witcher 3, and Horizon Zero Dawn are some of the biggest Sony titles, but to me the character movements feel sluggish, jerky, and unintuitive. They can have beautiful worlds and good stories, but I don't really enjoy existing there nearly as much.
Have you tried From Software games? I can' think of any studio that that makes third person melee feel as good as they do.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask are far superior to BotW as Zelda titles.
Agreed (I couldn't get into BOTW either). But MM has aged worse than OOT IMO, much as it pains me to say it.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
As is typical for any male who spent a large part of their youth trying to maximise their success with girls, I'm no stranger to bad romantic advice. That said, I don't think I've ever come across a suggestion quite as bizarre as that given in this tweet:
Since #TamponTim is trending I'll point out that in high school, any boy who casually was like "Oh you got ur period? I stashed a pad from the bathroom in my backpack in case one of my friends needed it" -- that boy would be king stud. That boy would be drowning in prom invites.
Reponses ranged from the incredulous, to the half-heartedly supportive, to the hilarious, to those advising young men that really, this isn't a good idea.
Still, I had a good laugh, and it made me curious as to what are the worst romantic ideas that other people here have received or seen. Anyone got anything more extreme than this one?
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
That sounds like a pretty difficult problem, at least practically speaking.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
The problem is that Walz reads as such a turbo normie
I think this is the crux of the issue. There's a difference between objective weirdness and perceived weirdness. The higher your social status, the lower the perceived weirdness of any given action will be, and in today's world turbo-normality probably gives politicians close to peak social standing among people who just don't want to have to think about politics that much.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
My favourite part of the linked page (my bolding):
Idyllwild is known for being one of the first places to elect a dog for mayor
There's a trend of this happening?
Of all the images, videos and reports from the recent UK protests/riots, none have struck quite so powerfully as this clip of a policeman reporting from a meeting with local "community leaders".
The video is short, focuses almost entirely on one individual and quiet enough you could miss what the man is saying if there's some loud traffic outside your window. And yet it does a better job encapsulating all that's happening in the UK than any video of Muslims setting busses on fire*. Everything about it is perfect - the policeman sitting like a chastised schoolboy, reading as if from a pre-written apology letter, making references to "the leader" (presumably standing somewhere close behind), while a stern-looking Muslim (I can only assume) towers over the policeman from behind, looking contemptuously down his nose at him. I could imagine future artists painting this scene.
Of course, I'm being a bit dramatic. Maybe it's not as bad as it looks - the guy in the background could have that expression because he's ill, maybe he's standing over the policeman so that they can fit as many people in the frame as possible, etc. But it feels like the simplest interpretation is that which corresponds most closely to what's been seen over the last few weeks: that there are non-insignificant areas of the country where the police have effectively abandoned the monopoly on violence and are turning instead towards diplomatic outreach, as if dealing with foreign neighboring states of ambivalent friendliness. I don't necessarily blame the police for that; there are only so many of them and realistically they probably can't deal with hundreds/thousands of angry people who don't see them as legitimate enforcers of peace and order.
What does the future hold? There'll never be the political will or real ability to force such people out of the country. On the other hand it's pretty unrealistic that we'll see the other extreme (violent ethnic cleansing or civil war). Probably just a slow trend towards more of the same, although I do wonder what the final steady state will be.
(*I'm LARPing a bit here, I haven't lived in the UK since 2022. Feel free to correct me if I've managed to misunderstand the events of the last few weeks from a distance).
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
I know. I was referring to the "ass", as it were.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
but the media putting its ass on the scale
First time I've heard that expression.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
And I'm saying I've never seen that gesture used that way. And I've seen plenty of people using two fingers to indicate two.
I don't know BSL and if that's the official sign then that's the official sign, I guess. Although I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the person responsible for that website just googled "person displaying two fingers" and used the first image that came up.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
You judge people by their actions instead of where they arbitrarily happened to be born.
Well, this isn't true. My brother arbitrarily happened to be born the same parents as me, but that fact plays a much stronger role in our relationship than any other achievements of his.
(@jeroboam, look how quickly we get someone saying that all immigrants, even the positively contributing ones, should be forever treated as inferior)
I don't think you can take a particular Motte poster's position on immigration as particularly emblematic of broader societal consensus.
ToZanarkand
Some day the dream will end
1mo ago
For one the two fingers sign also symbolizes bunny ears so it doesn't always mean disrespect. I have fond memories of pranking friends with think back in my carefree youthful days.
Bunny ears (at least in the UK) would be with a pronated hand position i.e. palm facing away. The gesture of disrespect is with the palm facing inwards.
This I also disagree with. Holding the index and middle finger up is the British sign language method of indicating two.
I've never seen someone indicate two with the palm facing inwards.
IMO that would mostly result in greater political pressure not to send Western European and American troops to war.
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