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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • There hasn’t been a “good one” since WW2.

    Short explanation: The arms Iraqi forces fought with during the Gulf War were largely bought or built by Americans. Isn’t that interesting?

    Long explanation: It’s all connected to the Israel-Palestine issues we are seeing this very day. Iraq was dealt a very nasty hand by the UN after the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, becoming a landlocked country, with lines drawn such that they were made caretakers of ethnic enemies and forced to forsake much of their geopolitical power and resources to tribal rivals. It’s difficult to say their claim to Kuwait was justified, but it’s certainly just as difficult to say it was unjustified.
    On top of that, we had just gotten done with fucking over Iraq due to their failure in the Iraq-Iran war. They had initially allied with the USSR to prop themselves up, and when that went to shit they turned around and tried doing the west and themselves a favor by grabbing a piece of Iran. We were directly supporting them (anybody taking a punch at Iran is a friend of ours!), and had been increasing our support, but when they agreed to a ceasefire we stopped, leaving them war-torn, deeply in debt, and with really nothing to show for their experiment of working with the west aside from all these shiny American weapons of course.

    Medium explanation?: Iraq had been engineered to be an Israel-like anti-Arab agent in the region, but when they failed and sued for peace, we left them no other option but to wage another war to survive. When they went in a direction we didn’t like, we got all our buddies together (including a surprising number of old enemies) and decimated them. Twice!


  • Yeah, I’m juuuust old enough to have a firm memory of when things that were laughably petty were the biggest problems in the world. You mean to tell me the PRESIDENT got a BLOWJOB?!

    All the real issues that sowed the seeds for our intractably broken future were sidelined and mostly ignored. Desert Storm, woowoo go world police. LA Riots, oh you crazy minorities and your intolerance for extrajudicial murder. Climate change, what’s that?


  • It always works out fine for them. I don’t know why anybody says imperialism or colonialism are bad or destructive, seems to me that Britain and France and Spain and Portugal and the Dutch are all doing fine. Really weird how maps of their empires seem to overlap a lot with parts of the world that currently or recently experienced a lot of, idk let’s call it “troubles?” They must be dumb or smth


  • US schools definitely mess with your head the higher of an achiever you are.

    In remedial classes, in most places, 60 is passing.
    In normal classes, in most places, 70 is passing.
    In advanced classes, you may be kicked out for scoring under 80.

    The intuitive concept of “barely good enough” keeps getting higher as you perform better, plus of course each of these types of classes are progressively more difficult by their nature. It really fucks with people who are excellent in some subjects but average in others.



  • I find it strange that so many people hate on Astarion, clearly a product of 200 years of torment, and adore Karlach, clearly a product of 20 years of torment. Why is it endearing for a former slave-knight to have anger issues and a lust for killing, but it’s unacceptable for a vampire thrall to be jaded and hungry? I see them both as victims expressing their damage in different ways. I wonder if Astarion were a female character if people would take more of a “i can fix her” attitude? Or maybe it’s just that people are more comfortable with violent streaks that are more in-your-face.

    I think if you perceive Astarion as evil after getting to know him a bit, it says more about your lack of empathy than his. He’s pretty neutral, he’s just been through a lot of shit and gets hangry.