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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • Very few people WANT a war in Ukraine. But as China keeps adding dashes to their map, it’s pretty clear there’s a reasonable chance to be an even bigger war around the corner, whether we want it or not.

    The Ukraine war woke the west up from its slumber, and it has allowed us to put the old stuff stuff cluttering our closets to good use, as well as test some new weapons concepts, and to get ourselves ready for the bigger conflict on the horizon.

    If we are really lucky, China is looking at Ukraine and having second thoughts about kicking the hornets nest at all, saving a lot of lives on both sides.

    If we are not that lucky, then Ukraine has allowed us to be much better prepared for the coming conflict.

    So am I glad Ukraine happened? Not a bit. Can I see the silver lining thru the clouds? For sure.



  • Credit/debit systems appear to have existed for at least 5000 years. Money is just an abstraction technology to make the credit/debit economy work more smoothly and scale up.

    As money is a foundational tech for civilization, you’d need to find a replacement tech that serves much the same purpose, but avoids whatever downsides you feel outweigh it’s benefits. That’s a hard problem.

    Then implement it in such a way that civilization doesn’t implode during the transition. This is a very hard problem.

    And then prevent humanity from finding a way to exploit that tech for the benefit of the few, bringing you right back where you started. This is a nearly impossible problem.


  • Well, that’s not at all what I said. Japanese compact cars were generally pretty cool and affordable in a way most similar small American cars were not, so of course they get customized a ton more that their American equivilents.

    The people who actually made their cars perform were the racers, those who did the truly terrible mods were the ricers.

    Yes, racist due to stereotyping. But it was more wordplay for insulting the taste of the person in question in comparison to the racers, not their ethnicity or the origin of their car. Bad taste is pretty universal. And as with pretty much anything in language, people can and clearly have used it as a racial insult. I just don’t think that was it’s origin.

    I am really amused it has morphed into a more positive connotation with the *nix crowd, while still meaning essentially the same thing. Language truly is a living thing.





  • Its amusing how this thread went from the legitimacy of various naval exercises and then shifted to trade policy when that didn’t pan out, which is an entirely different animal, its more of an elephant than a zebra. (It ain’t black and white, definitely grey.)

    Trying to get me to defend the Cuba trade embargo ain’t gonna happen, because it really is pointless and harmful. But I like how its conveniently ignored that the rest of the world could easily more than cover what the US refuses to send to Cuba. The US Navy wouldn’t stop them from doing so, because the blockade ended decades ago.

    But oddly enough, that doesn’t happen. I wonder why not? Because, oh no, what would the world do without more of those sweet, sweet dollars??? Yeah, never mind the ethics, one can’t forgo profits from trade with the US, so let’s go fuck the Cubans right along with the Americans, and keep our citizens fat and happy with a steady supply of Levis, Big Macs, and movies. But, you know, lets continue paying lip service to how bad it is while making money hand over fist in complicity.

    A truly astounding amount of hypocrisy. The US has plenty of hypocrisy to go around too, but at least I am not going to try to defend it.




  • I mean, they don’t have to be allowed in international waters, you just need to get all the planet’s seafaring countries to dedicate all of their naval resources to a blockade of the US.

    The cheaper option is to realize that the USN is generally pretty serious about enforcing freedom of navigation in a way essentially noone else is able to, which is a net positive for the planet. Even when you factor in some of the shady activities and plain old fuckups that they are occasionally involved in.

    Frankly I’d be thrilled if China would actually act like the modern global power they clearly want to become, rather than joining Russia in some 1800s imperial LARPing vs the rest of the world.