• 29 Posts
  • 245 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • I wrote a long answer and then accidentally hit the back button and don’t have the patience to retype it.

    The short version is that Vladimir Putin is responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. I don’t want any confusion about that.

    NATO’s influence was that the US has been advancing against Russia for decades even after their country collapsed, and it was obviously nakedly escalatory. Combined with the US is overall foreign policy, which has always been imperial, we’ve acted as though putting a gun to someone’s head and telling them to stay cool was an actual way of calming things rather than the exact opposite.

    I’m not saying that a version of NATO couldn’t have done what it claims to do. But that’s never been the version that has existed.



  • GoddlessCommie’s take is valid.

    Nato is the core organizing instrument of western imperialism. Nato is like Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense shield. It’s easy to look at it and say, 'Well how could anyone object to a tool of defense??’ But if you know anything about war then you know that establishing an unbreakable defensive capability is what allows an imperial army to slaughter their weaker targets with impunity.

    I’m not co-signing GodlessCommie’s point. But we gotta ask: did you like Vietnam? Iraq? Afghanistan? Korea? Venezuela? Nicaragua? Georgia? Libya? Ukraine? Gaza? Because arguably, all of this shit rests upon the conditions established by NATO and US imperialism. So… It’s not unreasonable to ask whether NATO has actually fostered peace or just fostered peace for the people who wage wars.


  • This. Put another way: mammals use our mouths for sensing and manipulating. Note that people naturally use their mouths and noses to kiss and smell babies and pets on places other than their mouths.

    If we instinctively use our mouths to kiss things, it’s natural that when two people want to do this at the same time they’re going to both do it to the other person’s mouth.



  • This, 100%.

    If I apologize to you, the apology is but the words themselves: it’s the contract I make with you. It’s a memorandum of understanding of how I fucked up and a promise not to do so again.

    LLMs can write words, but they cannot understand their actions or make honest promises to modify their behavior. They cannot be accountable in any way. Blaming them is like an actual scapegoat: a blameless things meant to have a debt if sin transferred to it before it’s sacrificed. Expect we’re not even getting the sacrifice.





  • You know, I’ve been keeping my mouth shut because I don’t know that much about Venezuela…

    But now that Maduro’s VP has expressed a willingness to cooperate with Trump, I think everyone who disputed the claims that Maduro and Chavismo were corrupt has some explaining to do.

    I feel like the leftists who supported Chavismo and the right-wingers who backed US intervention should all go out for drinks and commiserate over their foolishness for thinking that they could overlook their allies obvious corruption. Am I wrong?







  • View from the Top.

    I saw it when I was in my twenties with a friend because we (two mostly straight guys) thought we were going to see the latest silly Mike Myers movie. And then it turned out that he was barely in it! They just took all his scenes and put them in the trailer! The actual movie was a very dull romcom staring Gwyneth Paltrow and some guy who I don’t remember being in the trailer at all.

    When it ended, we walked out of the theater and just said to each other ‘What the hell was that?’.

    Also, I think Shallow Hal kind of falls in this too. I don’t recall the trailer being great, but it had to be good enough that it got me to see that terrible movie.

    Also, I don’t know if this qualifies, but I remember that The Cable Guy staring Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick was the first time I saw a movie and realized that a trailer can be misleading. They deliberately promoted it like The Mask and Ace Ventura. I think I was like 12 when I saw it, and it creeped me way the fuck out.

    It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s actually a better movie than people remember, but the misleading promotion was a great way to ensure the movie didn’t find its audience.