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Post by miscmisc on Jun 2, 2022 1:02:32 GMT 1
OK, so Scotland and Wales and Ukraine are playing each other to decide who's going to join the World Cup group that consists of the US, England and Iran.
LOL
I turned into a Dumb Yank when it comes to soccer due to the pandemic, in which I realized - or to be more precise decided that soccer was way too boring in itself for me, but there's something about the Global Sport indeed.
I gotta tell you one thing, though: Once I switched sides, from a Cool Globalist to a Dumb Yank, I realized how tedious it is to have England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as different countries.
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Post by miscmisc on Jun 2, 2022 1:53:43 GMT 1
We stopped talking about this since Covid has become too widespread for anyone to care, but there has been plenty of evidence that it's spread mostly by a small minority of the infected, aka super-spreaders. It's the same with Omicron, needless to say.
It's nearly impossible to tell who is super-spreading, but evidently it has a lot to do with the viral load (which is something you can't tell anyway...), and then probably *some* to do with age and obesity (the older - up to certain ages -, the more obese, the more aerosols exhaled).
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Post by miscmisc on Jun 2, 2022 2:07:06 GMT 1
I literally can't think of a philosophical position that is more unserious than libertarian. The more you think about it, the clearer it becomes just how stupid it is.
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lero
Advanced Member
Posts: 943
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Post by lero on Jun 2, 2022 16:56:41 GMT 1
What part of libertarianism bothers you? the part where you have to make decisions about your own life? or the part where you don´t get to make my decisions for me?
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Post by miscmisc on Jun 2, 2022 17:39:12 GMT 1
What part of libertarianism bothers you? the part where you have to make decisions about your own life? or the part where you don´t get to make my decisions for me? Like the part where they make it childishly reductionist the way you did. The word "or" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, as if it could bridge the two silly bromides. Catchphrases don't make a world, lero. The world is a hell of a lot more complex and messier than some neutral space that can sustain virtually unlimited negative freedoms (i.e. freedoms from coercions/restrictions/social obligations). The actual world has to deal with the dilemma/paradox that trying to maximize freedoms for everyone inevitably produces restrictions/limitations. So, like the part where they ignore the real world full of externalities on behalf of the Disney fantasy where everyone can somehow peacefully and happily coexist as long as they "make decisions about their own life", the way you sort of did right there. I could go on with more "parts", but your short post illustrated two easy ones, so that's it for now. And FYI, something that is fundamentally incoherent doesn't exactly "bother" me; I simply find it stupid. And I do admit that as a former libertarian activist of a sort, I feel slightly embarrassed every time. |
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Post by miscmisc on Jun 2, 2022 18:26:57 GMT 1
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Post by miscmisc on Jun 2, 2022 19:10:13 GMT 1
Man, I can't stress enough that the president of France speaking English quite elegantly like this, as if to boast his fluency - instead of hiding it! - is heartbreaking. de Gaulle didn't speak a word of English in public, and that's the way it should always be with the French president. Macron is so "suave" that he thinks nothing of destroying the tradition just like this. What kind of a Frenchman is that. France should disown this traitor.
And even worse is this kind of a reaction.(EDIT: the guy seems to have deleted the tweet)
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Post by miscmisc on Jun 3, 2022 3:08:41 GMT 1
OK, you could argue that his public fluency like this is effectively a dig at the buffoonery of the current British PM. You for sure couldn't imagine that fat-ass making a speech in French to commemorate the revolution or something.
Sure he wouldn't, but that's mostly because French is just a local, unimportant language unlike English. Johnson wouldn't have to feel the need to speak a word of it on any occasion, anyway.
That's the obvious reality, but if you are a proud Frenchman, you shouldn't accept it publicly. We all think it's silly that the IOC still say things in French too, practically a waste of time, but we accept it as a formality, out of respect for the French. But if the French head of the state behaves this way...
I know I sound like I'm making a deal out of a total nothing. Yes, I'm just half-serious, half-kidding, but Macron's self-branding tends to rub me the wrong way. You just don't feel dignity from this guy, do you? You did with Merkel.
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Post by miscmisc on Jun 3, 2022 5:41:54 GMT 1
On one hand there are bipolar ones, primarily in the West, who are pathologically upset that Russia is "winning" in the Donbas, and on the other hand there are clueless idiots who don't seem to understand how crippling the sanctions will be for Russia. Whether Russia took a town or two in the Donbas yesterday is pretty much irrelevant to the hardship that the Russian private sector will have to go through. The moratorium period is going to end in a few months.
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Post by miscmisc on Jun 3, 2022 5:47:25 GMT 1
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Post by miscmisc on Jun 3, 2022 6:09:47 GMT 1
I wonder when we are going to see the Russian "referendum" in the occupied territories.
They had to staff the ballot boxes even in Crimea, even though they didn't need to as Crimea was very obviously VERY majority pro-Russia anyway. They had to make it up to 95+% support to give us the "correct impression".
Fuck, I had to defend them as the West were going, "Bullshit! Cheaters! They want to remain Ukrainian!", since it was incredibly obvious to me that a big majority over there wanted to be Russian. But the Russians for sure made it bloody hard for me as they did cheat one way or another.
If you cheat even when you don't need to, that raises the question of basic integrity, you know.
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Post by miscmisc on Jun 3, 2022 7:56:37 GMT 1
LOL
Counterpoint: It's the gun.
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Post by miscmisc on Jun 3, 2022 7:58:18 GMT 1
"America is the only place in the world gripped by evil, therefore we must fire blue-haired school teachers for a start," said an American rugged individualist.
Unfathomable stupidity.
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Post by K1power on Jun 3, 2022 10:56:52 GMT 1
I may be naive, but I feel like I'm stating the blatantly obvious when I say gun control would solve most of the issue.
And to take away any misinterpretation of what one might mean with gun control, I mean straight up disarming the population.
I've read some random social media posts by Americans, not just obvious redneck ones like the above tweet, and was a bit surprised that even people who lean more to the left were like 'Gun control isn't the magic solution'. I mean sure, people will still be idiots, but not having easy access to guns would still prevent a lot of mass shootings from happening. 9 out of 10 are happening in the US and it's not because they're a 'special people'. Why do people always want to feel special?
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Post by K1power on Jun 3, 2022 10:58:28 GMT 1
I do feel the implementation of gun control might cause a (small) civil war, though. So in that sense Americans actually are 'special'.
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