FUBAR007

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• Commented on A Wonky Experience
  And in the good ole USA, What people speak at each end of Pennsylvania is different. From the rest of the country. Understandable but different. ("I can't go tonight I have to rhet up my house.) Nawlins can seem to...
• Commented on Crib Sheet: Season of Skulls
  Rocketpjs: The Chinese are not suicidal, neither are the Russians. Nobody is dumb enough to start a shooting war with NATO. The Chinese, correct. The Russians...don't be so sure. If Trump gets reelected this year and/or the U.S. abandons Ukraine,...
• Commented on A fistful of tropes
  OGH: So my question for you is: what sub-genres/tropes have I developed a blind spot for and that I ought to explore? Roddenberry did Star Trek. Banks did The Culture. What does 2023 Charlie Stross's earnest, optimistic-scenario, ideal sci-fi future...
• Commented on Place your bets
  OGH: This blog unfortunately seems to have become a honeypot for a certain type of SF fan -- white, male, over-50, mostly cis/straight, and probably somewhere on the spectrum. I don't know about the UK, but in my experience here...
• Commented on Oh, 2022!
  So is FUBAR007 right that ""International relations are anarchic and Darwinist?" Yes, but in almost precisely the opposite way than he meant. Most international relations are not explicitly or implicitly violent--they're trade relations, immigration and emigration, all that boring stuff...
• Commented on Oh, 2022!
  Violence is inherent to human nature. Always has been, always will be. Human nature doesn't change. It doesn't get better. It can't be fixed, cured, improved, or transcended. It can only be managed. RE: the United States of America and...
• Commented on An update on the revolutionary experiment
  Because they are expecting a NATO invasion? Given the events of the past 30 years, which of the two has contracted and which expanded? To Greg Tingey: including from NATO, which promised no expansion into eastern Europe. What you lot...
• Commented on An update on the revolutionary experiment
  As I see it, through my aging, cataract-infested eyes, we won't solve anything, as long as we accept sociopaths and sociopathic ideas. Sociopaths are only 2-5% of the population, but they're very persuasive and their ideas make people feel good...
• Commented on An update on the revolutionary experiment
  If there is a U.S. civil war, it won't be "North vs. South." It will be neighbor against neighbor, mostly at night I'd guess, and mostly death squads. It depends. Primarily on to what extent and in what manner the...
• Commented on An update on the revolutionary experiment
  And my point, oddly enough, is that with slavery, many of those circles didn't overlap at all, and yet we lasted. ..and the result was the Civil War. Via protracted large-scale conflict, the previously dominant caste--white Anglo Southern slaveowners--was violently...
• Commented on An update on the revolutionary experiment
  Picture a Venn diagram, specifically the area where the circles overlap each other. When I say "common culture", I'm referring to the parts of the constituent subcultures that overlap--the beliefs and values they share in common. Each subculture may...
• Commented on An update on the revolutionary experiment
  Yes, we Americans need a new Constitution. But given the current state of political division, what we'd get would be far more likely to be worse than what we have now. That’s if we’d get one at all. America is...
• Commented on On inappropriate reactions to COVID19
  The "civil war" within the Democratic Party is more of a chimera created by the lame-stream media than a reality within the party. It's not a chimera. It is more of an "inside the Beltway" thing, though, and it's playing...
• Commented on On inappropriate reactions to COVID19
  I mean, really, Sanders is a New Deal Democrat. A lot more folks than you think want that... ...until it comes time to raise taxes to pay for it. Americans say they want social democracy as long as somebody else...
• Commented on On inappropriate reactions to COVID19
  Something I have seen discussed elsewhere is what could/will happen when/if the Rethuglican party implodes? Since the US political system (to an outsider at least) seems inevitably geared towards a two party system as it is today - will the...
• Commented on What happens now?
  That doesn't really explain the increase. The costs of academic teaching staff haven't increased much compared to tuition. Admittedly, it's the libertarian explanation: https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/helland-tabarrok_why-are-the-prices-so-damn-high_v1.pdf I lean left on economics, but I'm open to the possibility Baumol's cost disease is a...
• Commented on What happens now?
  Why do so many kids living near good universities insist on going to a university outside their state/country where they will have to pay the much higher out-of-state tuition plus all living expenses? Prestige and, flowing from that, access to...
• Commented on Countdown to Crazy
  Just what do the moneyed class think they'll be able to buy after they've killed the economy? Asia. Once they've finished asset stripping the West, The LocustsTM will move on to East and South Asia. But, I'm not enough of...
• Commented on Dead plots
  OGH: Our current media environment has scrambled our society's ability to assemble a consensus view of reality so badly that conspiracy theories should be considered toxic. And that's not a good thing from my perspective because it puts the entire...
• Commented on "It'll all be over by Christmas" (Part 2)
  Trust me on this: for some reason, I was in a bar (meeting folks?) in '93 in Austin, TX, and Clinton was on the TV, talking about a one card healthcare system, and the whole bar applauded. The catch is...
• Commented on "It'll all be over by Christmas" (Part 2)
  The scenario you describe for the GOP is pretty much what I envision. If progressives successfully get control of the Democratic party, today's moderate Democrats could be tomorrow's Republicans. Which would actually be a net gain for progressives because it...
• Commented on "It'll all be over by Christmas" (Part 2)
  At least in California, there's a split between the progressive wing of the democratic party and the labor and business wing of the democratic party. It's not just in California. Progressives and moderates are fair-weather friends right now because of...
• Commented on "It'll all be over by Christmas" (Part 2)
  RE: Hillary Clinton, speaking as someone who grew up in one of the reddest parts of "Red" America (western Kansas), there are two things "Blue" Americans and those abroad need to understand: 1) The Clintons were on the receiving end...
• Commented on Roll the dice
  I know v little about T Jefferson ( Apparently he was NOT a "good guy"? ) Author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. 3rd President of the United States. Polymath and founder of the University of Virginia. Along with James...
• Commented on Roll the dice
  From our p.o.v. the US "system" of so-called "policing" is wierd & scary... Remember the "individual right to bear arms" interpretation of the 2nd Amendment--an interpretation now codified in jurisprudence by the Supreme Court in the Heller decision--and extrapolate the...
• Commented on "It'll all be over by Christmas"
  I've come to the conclusion the those in power in the Republican party don't really see anyone who isn't wealthy as human. Oh, they view them/us as human. Just a lesser, lower form of human whose proper role is one...
• Commented on "It'll all be over by Christmas"
  So the American states are both the metropoles and the colonies, all rolled into one seething mess at times (as now) when people highlight differences rather than similarities. And in our Constitution we give the masters of our colonies rather...
• Commented on "It'll all be over by Christmas"
  The question is which group is bigger - the "middle" that the right wing parties like the GOP are leaving behind, or the people on the extreme left being left behind. Every indication, whether it be the swing state polls...
• Commented on COVID-19
  The US presidential election is about Electoral College votes. Good or bad it is what it is. This. It simply cannot be underestimated how much the Electoral College, combined with the political geography of the country, warps U.S. politics. Were...
• Commented on So you think you can be a reality TV producer
  I'm in the US, where nobody has shot at anyone for being American in living memory, and I am suspicious of anyone who needs to display a lot of American flags. (One in front of a government building? Perfectly reasonable....