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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • Russian news sources really can’t be trusted, but assuming it is true, it’s certainly a tragedy that civilians were hurt. And I wish they hadn’t been.

    The solution though is for civilians to leave Crimea. They are on illegally seized land, not wholly dissimilar to Israeli settlers. It isn’t their fault that their children died of course, but they need to leave the area. Issue is, Russia probably won’t let them, because they’d prefer civilian casualties to occur.

    It’s also kinda rich of Russia to complain about this after they’ve bombed, killed, and orphaned countless Ukrainian kids. They’ve even kidnapped some of them. And from what I recall happened in Mariupol, they might’ve even done ethnic cleansing. It doesn’t excuse Russian civilians being killed, but Russia has absolutely no legs to stand on here.





  • Frankly it’s in Xi’s best benefit to not invade Taiwan, because it would cause a collapse of the One China policy. China benefits considerably from the current policy that’s ambiguous on recognizing Taiwan. The moment they invade though, that goes away, and it becomes inevitable that Taiwan gains international recognition as independent – presuming the US helps repel an invasion.

    If there’s anything we’ve learned though from the last few years, it’s that seemingly intelligent world leaders can make idiotic decisions that go against their best interest – namely Putin and Ukraine. Xi strikes me as the type of person to keep yesmen like Putin, and that means he could make just as foolish a mistake.


  • You haven’t posted any articles about Israel’s genocide either. Should I presume you tacitly approve of what Israel is doing?

    Articles like this are important, because they illustrate an awful human behavior we need to condemn. Jewish people are completely separate from Israel, and antisemitism is completely separate from criticism of Israel. By conflating the two, you push Netanyahu’s agenda. He’d love nothing more than to say Israel is the same as Jewish people and any act or criticism is antisemitic.

    Should there have been no criticism or discussion of the US internment of Japanese during WW2? Should there have been no coverage of abuse and harassment against Muslims after 9/11? What about the spate of anti Asian violence during Covid?

    Fuck that. Collective punishment is wrong. It’s difficult to change the policies and actions of a different country, but it’s easier to call out reactive domestic shitheads and policies and demand change there. Human history is full of collateral/collective punishment like this when a shitty group of people do something awful – and it falls on good, intelligent people to recognize that it’s evil of the shitty group and of the reactionaries, and to call out both.

    Don’t assume everyone here is an idiot. We’re capable of recognizing this event as awful while simultaneously criticizing Israel. And we can condemn this act without becoming sympathetic to Israel.


  • There is a terrible trend of people blaming Jewish people overall for what Israel is doing – and ironically, some of Israel’s sharpest critics are Jewish.

    Some people are incapable of realizing that Jewish people are not the same as Israel, and in doing so, they play right into Netanyahu’s hand. Antisemitism is completely separate from criticism of Israel, but Netanyahu would love for people to believe it’s one and the same.

    People who want revenge against Jews in the West for what Israel’s doing are no different than those who interned the Japanese in WW2 or demonized all Muslims after 9/11. It’s collective punishment and it’s wrong.



  • I don’t understand his angle here. He clearly has some sort of agenda, but I haven’t figured it out. Maybe he’s betting that this will turn some Democrats and moderates against Biden? But that requires believing that Netanyahu is telling the truth, which I don’t think a lot of Israel supporters necessarily do.

    Either way, this is weird. Maybe he’s talking about the bombs that weren’t sent for Rafah? But getting pissed about one halted shipment out of everything they’ve been given is just fucking hilarious.

    My guess – he’s aware his support is dwindling, and he’s trying to salvage it by blaming everyone else. Or, he’s daring the US to stop all shipments, but that would probably destroy his remaining support too.





  • Once more, overcompensating way too hard and needlessly throwing around terms to try and make yourself look like an actual leftist. You know what the clearest sign of this is, liberal? Other than you basically going “no u”?

    I never said a thing about the USSR lacking compassion to animals. Nor did I ever mention NASA nor make a judgment on which group was morally superior. That all came from you, because you felt the need to bolster your leftist “credentials”. But I see through it.

    It’s not terribly surprising that both NASA and the USSR space program did awful things to animals. They were racing each other, moving quickly and breaking things. It would be too risky to test humans in incredibly novel technology like that, but they wanted data and results. So they tortured poor animals instead of taking the time to go more slowly and do safer tests. And let me be explicitly clear, both space programs are guilty of this and damnable for it.

    What’s your next reply going to be, I wonder? Ignoring basically everything I said, and talking about more of NASA’s fuck ups, like “well we don’t know it doesn’t work” with Challenger? Sprinkling in some leftist terms to convince yourself you aren’t a liberal? Or will you totally pivot to something else and call me Clyde again?

    Please, mix it up a bit this time. The formula is getting rather dull. There’s better ways to try and convince us you aren’t a liberal.


  • I think there’s something to be said for medium sized companies. I work for one that’s trying to grow and become much larger, but it’s decidedly not big. Our execs though actually seem like pretty cool people, and the CEO seems to be a legitimately good person. He’s generally been open and honest, and he’s told stories that make me think he does actually value employees as people.

    He was talking about gay rights and the value of diversity during our weekly company forum the other day, and I asked him about our company’s support for DEI given the political pressure from conservatives to abandon it. He said he didn’t give a damn about them, and doing the right thing was more important. I don’t agree with everything he’s done – we’ve had layoffs, and morale isn’t great, and we’re totally broke – but I respect that he actually seems to mean what he says. And even when we had layoffs, executives and management weren’t safe either.

    I think a lot of what it comes down to is the genuineness of leadership and how closely tied they are to rank and file employees. That’s easier at small and medium companies. Large companies also tend to attract greedy robber barons.