FlailingAce
No bio...
User ID: 1084
FlailingAce
13d ago
I actually don't mind this result. As far as Trump's corruption goes, this is more or less justifiable.
What I cannot accept is his behavior to enrich himself and his family through crypto scams and pay to play, even going so far as to pardon clear-cut criminals because they donated to his campaign. That stuff boils my blood. He used to say 'drain the swamp' but seems to have pivoted to 'become the swamp'.
FlailingAce
13d ago
Yup, that's pretty much where I was at before I read the linked article. However it now seems to me that both the scale and the completely unabashed nature of corruption in the Trump admin is in a league of its own.
FlailingAce
14d ago
I don't think corruption is valent anymore to most people. To generalize the views I tend to see: if you're on the right, you don't believe all the mainstream media lies about Trump, or alternatively you tolerate Trump's misbehavior because we NEEDED him to save our country; if you're on the left, you already assumed Trump was the devil so this kind of thing is just another drop in the pond.
But I actually had my mind changed on this recently. I don't know if we have any other Tangle readers here? They posted an extensive piece on Trump's corruption a few weeks ago that kind of opened my mind to the extent of what this administration is up to. Article here. I'd be curious to hear what other Trump supporters' thoughts are on it. I've noticed since reading it that my emotional response to Trump has become more negative, and I think I'm more open to left-wing commentary on the Trump admin. Was this what i needed to de-program me from MAGA brainwashing? Only time will tell.
FlailingAce
14d ago
Are you willing to expend resources? Matchmaker services still exist but are somewhat expensive. They seem to cater to careerists who missed their early window to find a mate, which may be what you're looking for.
FlailingAce
16d ago
You should be giving away every cent you don't strictly need and praying until you can no longer stay upright
This is not what the Christian life should look like, it's a caricature. We know because it's not even what Jesus' life looked like. He prayed a lot, but he did lots of other things too, including apparently being a full time carpenter for most of his life.
Christianity teaches that God has a unique purpose for each of our lives, and the only way to discern it is to submit to the Holy Spirit and trust in His Providence.
In fact one of the big issues we Evangelicals have with Catholics is that their salvation relies on their behavior and on the grace provided by the sacraments. The problem is that no amount of holy behavior can get you to heaven, only Christ's grace - but that grace is freely given, and we can in fact have confidence in our salvation.
Catholics who take their faith seriously end up like Martin Luther, who famously would spend hours every day in Confession. That is, until he developed his understanding of Sola Fide - our salvation is only through our faith in Christ.
There's not to say we shouldn't pray, but a Christian prays because we want to hear from our Father, not because it will earn us eternal life if we do it enough.
FlailingAce
16d ago
I don't enjoy EDH either. I haven't played cEDH, it might be more my speed, but the casual EDH games I've played are all about each player durdling around to put together their fun theme or whatever, and I get the clear impression that people dislike interaction or even attempting to win. For me the whole enjoyment of MTG is the challenge and puzzle of outplaying an opponent. EDH in my opinion just doesn't have that.
FlailingAce
16d ago
I understand you. The ideal height difference imo is 5-7" so that's tough for you to find! Bigger differences can still with though, my brother's wife is a solid 12" shorter.
FlailingAce
17d ago
I'm confident it would take me, who has two left hands, at least ten times as much effort to paint or carve a great work compared to a great artist.
This is obviously not the case. The effort the great artist took was the tens of thousands of hours perfecting his craft and his artistic taste. Even with ten times the amount of effort on a single work of art, you wouldn't come close to what the great artist produces.
FlailingAce
25d ago
There's a massive difference between painting nails with a normal color which is pretty normal and not a class indicator in my experience (the edge case being brighter reds which I think can stand out a little much), and finger nail extensions which are decidedly low class. If your fingernails make it harder for you to operate a keyboard or phone, then (regardless of the class indicator) I will think less of you.
FlailingAce
25d ago
It's in the adventure/sports genre. If I get too much more specific I'm at risk of uniquely identifying myself. Can't have that!
FlailingAce
26d ago
My thinking has followed the author's in a few ways. When I was young I dreamed of being a writer, up through my early twenties. The reality of the global market for literature, though, makes it such a gamble, and requires you to be exceptionally obsessed with your fantasy worlds to compete with the other true word-cells. I do not think this is healthy.
Instead, the progression of my adult life has been away from the intellectual and towards the concrete. Towards locations, communities, physical activities. It's a big part of why I'm starting a small business, one that will hopefully provide a physical outlet and a real 'third space' that our modern world is sorely lacking.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
In 2023, approximately 9.8% of infants in the United States were admitted to a NICU. Let's assume I have the average risk profile (I don't), then a 14% increase brings that up to 11.2%. In other words, from my perspective it's an imperceptible increase in risk for me to have kids after 45. In contrast, an average woman at 35 is already at about 2/3 her peak fertility, and by 40 is below 10%. Apples and oranges my friend.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
There's a reason that Congress keeps passing bills like the Patriot Act. Identifying bad actors using mass surveillance is so much more effective than physical security, which can almost always be bypassed with sufficient effort. The effort involved in studying that security is generally enough of a signature to get you caught. And then you don't have the danger and chaos of an actual confrontation, you just quietly roll up the perpetrators the day before.
The reason this guy got close is apparently because he didn't do any planning, just walked in with some weapons. That's also the reason his attempt failed. But if he had done prep work, i.e. scoping out the location, he would almost certainly have been identified.
That's my take at least, I'm not an expert on the topic.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
the most motte-brained version of my view is closer to "God ran the simulation and figured out who would freely choose salvation under libertarian free will, and then created the world in such a way that those who would freely choose salvation under libertarian free will would be predestined to salvation even if the world does not possess libertarian free will"
I haven't finished the rest of your comment yet, but wanted to weigh in on this issue.
I have long believed that many of our issues understanding God come from an inability to conceive of Him as outside of time. Rather than God 'running a simulation', it's my contention that He can simultaneously see a person prior to, during, and after they choose salvation, because He is not limited by an arrow of time running in one direction. That in no way negates that person's free choice, any more than a football player's free choices during a game are not negated if I'm watching a replay and already know the result.
I confess it's difficult to explain with our human language, which relies on shared concepts of time. Indeed, I think that's why there's so much contention over the word 'predestined'.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
Couldn’t some of the models just be…wrong? Bad? Maybe even dishonest?
The models have always been dishonest. Way back in the early 2000s was when I first learned that the climate models used for these predictions were considered proprietary, and as such both the code and the input parameters were hidden from public scrutiny. To this day I don't understand how a scientific field can hide how their models work and still be taken seriously, especially after the predictions of those models fail.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
I appreciate your response! Again, the Warring States comparison is from the book I recommended. It describes the strategy taken by a lesser state to undermine and eventually supplant the greater, using tools like 'appear weaker than you are', 'exploit internal divisions in the enemy', 'control information' etc. We know that Chinese strategic thinkers base their thinking on this period because they write about it. What you have described as Confucianism vs Legalism is internal politics, whereas this is foreign affairs, two totally different things.
The other distinction I would draw is between the 'lies' of a politician and diplomatic subversion. All politicians lie, that has little to do with the relations between states. On the other hand, the US State Department operates on an extremely high level of trust. If a US diplomat were to deliberately deceive their counterpart from a friendly nation, that would be a serious breach of trust, a betrayal, that could badly damage relations between the two nations. Especially if the deception was in service of harming or undermining the other nation! Your example of the Iraq war only strengthens my point here - despite the fact that it wasn't even a deliberate deception (but instead bad intelligence about WMDs), this remains a point of contention and friction decades later. Now imagine if a country were conducting deceptions of this sort constantly and with malice - that's China.
I'll lastly just note that you haven't even tried to dispute the historical facts that lead American thinkers to this conclusion. Rather, it seems to me that you are passionately defending your country's honor, which I can certainly admire. But that sense of honor, and the passion it inspires, will prevent you from clearly seeing things from the outside perspective. Of course the Chinese see themselves as the hero of the story, just as everyone does, the Russians, the IRGC, everyone. That doesn't make it so.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
I don't think I implied that America was acting out of the goodness of their own hearts. I'm simply trying to point out why we are in conflict.
To get off the historical finger pointing, I do think the issue is ideological.
One of the main points of the book is that Chinese grand strategy is based off the lessons of the warring states period, of a lesser state rising up to supplant the hegemon. The strategies that China has used towards this goal are fundamentally deceptive. From what I've read, this is not unusual in Chinese thinking, to the point that Chinese people consider deception to be completely normal and expected practice in dealings between states. Maybe you can correct me on this, but it's certainly the conclusion reached by American thinkers on the topic.
The issue, then, is that American moral thinking sees deception as fundamentally wrong. Whether this comes from Judeo-Christian or Puritan values is not important. What matters is that Americans have an instinctive distaste for the way the Chinese state operates as a matter of course. When it comes to our relations with other nations, at least those we consider friends, those nations do not lie to us about their essential nature and goals with the intent of harming us. China does. Americans even prefer a nation like Russia that is open about its conflict with the West over a nation like China that pretends to be our friend while secretly undermining us, which in our moral calculus is considered the lowest of the low and a moral evil.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
Looks like I really struck a nerve. If you want to actually understand this, read the book I recommended. I won't be going through the last hundred years of history in this comment.
this is why we hate them
Americans don't hate the Chinese. In fact many of us quite like your culture and people and find much to admire. However, we cannot trust you. We can't trust you because when America came as a friend, China lied to us and betrayed us.
being controlled by X
This seems like performative outrage. I know you must be aware that the CCP has a much higher level of control over Chinese businesses, especially state owned enterprises, than in America.
Again, not trying to argue with you. I want to explain why Americans have this perspective. If you really want to understand, read that book, or at least the LLM summary.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
I do not understand why China and America have to be in conflict.
I strongly recommend the book "The Hundred Year Marathon" by Michael Pillsbury. The short version is that in the 20th century, Americans agreed with this, and made many efforts to support the fledgling Chinese state and connect economically. Unfortunately, during this entire period, China was doing everything in its power to subvert and take advantage of America. One of the best known examples is industrial espionage, which China continues to this day.
I know it may seem reductive to say "The Chinese are to blame" but the history backs this up. China and America are in conflict because China believes only one country can be on top, and that global relations are a zero-sum game. I personally think this is the natural consequence of a communist mindset, which is notably zero-sum about everything.
Of course there are plenty of people in China who don't think this way, mainly businessmen, but China is structured in such a way that those people are subject to the control of the ideologically driven politicians.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
Again and again you've read a headline and not managed to make it to the details.
Trump admitted to sending arms to the Iranian protestors, but those arms never made it to Iran. They were given to the Kurds to pass on, but the Kurds kept them for themselves. Trump says this in the same interview where he admits to sending the arms. He also, as should be blindingly obvious, sent them after the revolution was already underway.
It is completely unacceptable for you to keep spouting such low-effort nonsense. That's not how we do things here.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
That link is paywalled, but assuming it's correct, releasing frozen assets is not the same as giving them money. And giving them money in exchange for uranium is not the same as giving them money in exchange for the promise not to enrich uranium. So, not exactly JCPOA. Regardless, speculation on leaked details of the negotiation is basically just self-gratification. I'm certainly holding my judgment at least until we see terms in an official agreement.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
Others have discussed your fixation on the school strike, but as far as I can tell your entire understanding of the conflict comes from propaganda headlines.
Their first plan was to overthrow the government
That was never a stated goal. You should know that.
the theory of a mass spontaneous pro American popular uprising
There was already a mass spontaneous uprising, and there still is an Iranian dissident movement. If you're actually curious there are plenty of interviews available with Iranian activists who will explain this for you.
the strategy morphed into a mass bombing campaign
No, that was the strategy from the beginning. You can't 'morph' into a bombing campaign, you need to have the bombs and their launch systems already in the region - but besides that, they started bombing on day 1, hour 1, so this is an insane claim.
a vast amount of munition was wasted
Sorry, says who? The accuracy of US munitions has been incredible, and 99% struck their intended military targets. 'Wasted' here only makes sense from a strategic perspective of 'we shouldn't be striking Iranian targets to begin with' - in other words, your reasoning is circular. The war is bad because we're wasting munitions, and the munitions are wasted because the war is bad.
This ended with the largest loss of aircraft in a single day since the Vietnam war
Another emotional headline. It's also false. The September 2012 Taliban raid on Camp Bastion destroyed nine aircraft. But you saw the headline somewhere and decided to uncritically repeat it.
US missile stockpiles being too depleted to continue
This may be an even more ridiculous claim. The number of missiles in US stockpiles is quite literally Top Secret. But I guess you've concluded from all your military expertise that the real reason for the cease-fire was that the US has no weapons left?
They are desperately seeking an off ramp and trying to get something they can show as a win.
I gave an argument against this in my initial response, and you did not address it. Instead, as I've demonstrated, you threw out a bunch of wrong-headed and often simply false claims to back up your emotional reasoning that the war is bad. Maybe you can do better with your next response?
FlailingAce
1mo ago
It seems clear that MAGA is searching for an off-ramp whose taking they can sell as a win.
I'm getting tired of this whole concept. I understand that a lot of people think the Trump administration, and apparently the US military at large, are all fools who can't think more than a few days ahead. But Trump had an offramp if that's all he wanted, it was called accepting Iran's demands during the negotiations. Instead, the US held firm to their nuclear disarmament requirements. This is a clear signal to me that the administration does in fact have goals in this conflict beyond improving their poll numbers. In other words, it's pretty clear to me that MAGA is not searching for an off-ramp, and I would love hear what evidence you have for holding the opposite position.
FlailingAce
1mo ago
It’s that there is a specifically autistic catharsis around someone who was perceived to be ‘getting away with it’ apparently no longer ‘getting away with it’.
No, just regular catharsis.
This is why I think autists are drawn to clear cut extreme ideologies like corporatist fascism or communism that define enemy classes and establish strong rules for the in group and out group.
Autists are drawn to extreme ideologies because they have a logical consistency that makes sense in a theoretical framework, but fails upon contact with the messiness of real life.
Where are you getting that from? I just read today that Russia lost more personnel than they recruited for the fifth straight month. Those are Ukraine's estimates but they're far from 'unusually low'.
More options
Context Copy link