chooky
2d ago
While the "US" as an entity seems like it is obviously in dispute with Russia over Ukraine, I don't really perceive Trump as having a huge problem with it. Seemingly, Trump and Putin get along, or at least Trump respects Putin's aura/energy (sorry, can't come up with non-colloquial here) and even has an understanding perspective on Russia's nationalist/expansionist ambitions. I do not at all see propping up Russian oil revenues as something that makes Trump really mad, though it is kind funny that this greatly mitigates the war's impact on Trump's Asian trade enemies.
chooky
9d ago
And of course Iran also has the tech to make them smart (and become inert after a period, for example), but I don't know if they bothered.
If Iran is charging $2 million for passage through the Strait, it would seem that there is some system that allows ships to pass through (or avoid) any minefields freely with a high degree of certainty.
chooky
12d ago
We'll get to TACO eventually, but it seems like not enough damage has been done to the economy yet for Trump to care or his handlers (please tell me there are handlers) to come their senses. Really should have just declared victory after week 1, and then if Iran kept retaliating and closing Hormuz it would be Iran's belligerence and not Trump's bellicosity.
chooky
21d ago
For school officials, evacuations without notifying parents, arranging transportation, etc, would be tough to carry out. Honestly, I would kind of imagine the "our country is getting bombed plan" to be closer to shelter-in-place and hope the building/status protects us rather than walk away from the military base. What happens if they leave the building and are hit by shrapnel? Possibly, this will be a Columbine or 9-11 moment for schools next to bases that causes them to completely re-think how to respond to airstrikes.
This was mostly just sloppy intel from the US and a failure of the AI target selection. Possibly, Iran should have evacuated civilians away from all bases as the US forces were mounting in advance of the strikes; I am open to the critique that the school should not have been open at all. But the scale and scope of the strikes was pretty surprising. Also keep in mind the extent to which schools function as childcare.
chooky
27d ago
This one is a "feature" that aows you to undo misclicks. I really just wish there was an Undo button for misclicks in the base game.
chooky
27d ago
A leftist government does not make a country unaligned with a country or not. An authoritarian regime might, but Argentinian voters just made bad choices on electing irresponsible leftist populists for many years (I am not very educated on if the alternatives were much better). Argentina was still closely allied with the US throughout, a marked contrast with authoritarian leftists elsewhere.
chooky
28d ago
I don't know how countries like Argentina could possibly not have already been considered quite allied with the US. Milei himself was certainly already allied with Trump.
More importantly, I am somewhat concerned about counting chickens early on making Iran an Israeli/Western ally. Why are we so certain that air superiority will mean regime change ibstead of a bunch of terrorism?
chooky
29d ago
I would add some Latin American countries to your list of non-ethnostates, Brazil being a very obvious and notable example.
chooky
1mo ago
I don't know what a dative case is, but I would say that most people don't even have a decent grasp of objects in sentences or infinitives (especially English speakers for the latter).
chooky
1mo ago
Imo, most people's grasp of grammar and structure in their native language is not great. One advantage of the grammatical approach is that it forces people to finally confront the structure of language in general and thus also their own.
chooky
1mo ago
I dunno, RFK seems like perhaps the worst possible choice for his job. Why should we believe Noem is highly competent but merely plagued by an antagonistic media? I have a hard time believing that a traditionally competent person in charge (eg Homan) would have led to the protestor deaths and public opinion shift, or at least not nearly as much.
chooky
1mo ago
I mean, if we are serious about the idea of de-Nazification actually happening, Argentina does have historical precedent...
chooky
1mo ago
Do the Karsa books tell us a lot about the world and plot after the events of The Crippled God, or is it more like side story focused on Karsa?
chooky
1mo ago
Embiid was certainly aggressively recruited by USA Basketball, and likely also by other stars and coaches, to play for the US. USA Basketball was badly embarrassed by the failure of the 2004 team, which lacked star wattage and was badly constructed, and it has since prioritizes having a truly elite team, which is honestly needed amid improving international competition.
On Embiid's end, I mean, he came to the US in like 2012 at around age 18 and was drafted one year later. I dunno if he goes back to Cameroon in the offseason, but the reality of his life for a long time has been being a US NBA player. Are you mad about Hakeem Olajuwon's Dream Team medal too?
chooky
1mo ago
Aren't the new pill GLP1s only a couple hundred dollars per month? For those in the market, weight loss drugs that work seems like a great deal at that price.
chooky
2mo ago
When you consider the importance of borrowing costs in home ownership, the government policies that would simultaneously support home prices and affordability start to become clear. In short, the government should avoid inflationary policies such as high or broad tariffs and excessive stimulus spending so that we can have lower interest rates. Mostly, the answer is to do the opposite of Trump's second term.
chooky
2mo ago
This deduction is much less common with the post-2017 standard deduction increase.
chooky
2mo ago
Real talk risk free and tax free 6.5%... mortgage sounds like the correct call.
chooky
2mo ago
I don't have any opinion on the wokeness. But on easier policy for D vs R, the completely unneeded hiking cycle in 2015-16 (Yellen) probably played a role in Trump's first victory. For 2018, while fears of tighter money did play a role, note also the importance of Trump-Chins trade tensions during that one.
chooky
2mo ago
Sure, the logical conclusion of any government policy is that they ultimately would enforce taxation, etc, through the police or military, but this is, in my opinion, taking the logical conclusion to a somewhat ridiculous end that renders the idea of the "state inflicting violence" basically meaningless.
Why aren't the unambiguous literary achievements of Nabokov, especially Pale Fire and Lolita, on this list? If the defining feature of postmodernism is a metatextual nature and unreliable narrator, well, um, let's include king of it. Hell, there is quite a bit of Faulkner that is pretty close to postmodernism, too, including Absalom and As I Lay Dying, two of his very finest works. I personally view the critical achievement of Ferrante's Neapolitan novels as resting heavily on unreliable narration, though this might be more controversial and my idiosyncratic interpretation. In SF, it is precisely the postmodernism of Wolfe that puts him on a tier far above all others.
In your list, I really only see Vonnegut as having true critical achievement, so I am concerned that this is far more a critique of middlebrow than it is postmodernism.
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