Hardkill

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Posts posted by Hardkill

  1. Posted

    49 minutes ago, vizual said:

    There is a massive income equality in Saudi Arabia. The rich are insanely rich, and the poor are will struggle more than in western countries. Also, higher education is generally only accesable for the rich.

    That's why having a democracy in that country would help to eliminate a lot of the corruption and massive income equality there. It would also allow much more equality of education for everyone within the country. 

    Besides, countries like India and Mongolia already has had some level of democracy and yet those nations have infrastructures, economies, and education rates that are very far inferior to that of Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

    11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

    Their wealth is a recent phenomena.

    Oh I see. So, do you think that monarchy in those countries will soon collapse?

  4. Posted

    5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    The last girl I slept with

    ro1c.png

    BTW, she thought I was homeless when she came home with me.

    But don't let me stop you guys... keep bullshitting.

    You honestly slept with that girl in that pic? I thought you said that dating and having sex with a 10 was unrealistic even with good game.

    Btw, why is the background pixelated? 

     

  6. Posted

    Some of the highest income countries in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar are still very authoritarian countries. Yet, each of the countries' GDP per capita and infrastructure are greater than the vast majority of other countries around the world. In fact, UAE has even better infrastructure than the US does, its GDP per capita is very close to that of Japan's, and it has a strong military. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia's military is more powerful than the great majority of other militaries around the world, has better infrastructure than 1st world countries such as Ireland and Norway, and has a GDP per capita greater than Greece, which is a first world country. Qatar's GDP per capita is almost equal to that of USA, its infrastructure is on par with Israel's, and the country is a strategic ally of the USA. So, why haven't there been democratic revolutions within each of these countries yet?

  7. Posted

    2 hours ago, DocWatts said:

    It seems highly likely that the United States will backslide to a hybrid (meaning a mixed democratic / authoritarian) regime within the next ten or so years. Democracy will probably continue to function at the level of States and Cities, but on a federal level the substance of democracy will be eroded to the point that the US could no longer be considered to be a full democracy by most metrics. Following the template laid down by other hybrid regimes, the facade of democracy will be maintained for purposes of plausible deniability (ie people in Russia still vote), but structural and legal barriers will be erected to prevent challenging parties from having any realistic chance of winning future elections.

    To analogize a bit, while it's possible for someone to walk on a tightrope for a few hours without plummeting to thier doom, it's not reasonable to expect that to happen every day for ten years without incident. Even if it's not in 2022 and 2024, at some point Republicans are going to have the Legislative majorities needed to facilitate the slow moving coup they've been working towards. 

    The unfortunate truth is that anti-democratic structural elements within US institutions (such as the filibuster, and the undemocratic make up of the Supreme Court and Senate) are preventing the very reforms that could safeguard democracy long enough for democratization efforts to begin to address larger systemic reforms.

    Of course a regime marked by the kind of corruption, incompetence, and cronyism of Trump and his contemporaries is ultimately unsustainable in a country like the US, and will burn itself out given enough time. Of course this will entail harm to millions of people in the course of this, and further delay any tangible action on existential threats such as Climate Change.

    Of course this isn't inevitable so those of us opposed to this course of events should keep fighting, but we shouldn't downplay the gravity of what's at stake going forward. Also it's not as if a hybrid regime can't transition back to democracy as well.

    Well, right now the US has slid back from a full democracy to a flawed democracy.

    So, I guess it's like Leo said, it's probably going to take many years for the country to heal from its democratic backsliding. 

  8. Posted

    Perhaps, I have become a victim of mass media propaganda and hysteria. However,@DocWatts doesn't seem so optimistic about American democracy.

    Then again, this is Leo's forecast on the democracy of USA: 

    On 12/14/2021 at 3:56 AM, Leo Gura said:

    No, I think there is serious threat of right-wing ideologues grabbing control. It's a troubling situation. But it certainly will not hold. It would be an act of devilry and it would eventually defeat itself. But it can cause plenty of damage. Trump has done serious damage to democracy which will take decades to heal.

    It's not good. The transition from Orange to Green is looking very rocky and drawn out.

  10. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    9 hours ago, Breezy said:

    I’m a 22-year-old female who has had a friendship/relationship with my ex-boyfriend’s cousin for the past two years. My ex was extremely abusive emotionally and sexually exploited me, and caused extremely toxic relationship traits such as lying, threatening suicide, cheating, and coercing me into exploitative situations when I was 18-20. 
     

    I sparked a friendship with his cousin who helped me out of that situation. I left the abusive situation, and started a loving friendship with his cousin. I was in a vulnerable place, and enjoyed all the positive attention, but as the months went on I started self-sabotaging our friendship because it was too good. I felt I didn’t deserve it. This sparked fights, which he told me he would not stick around for, as he’s dealt with fighting his whole life. 

    Two years in, fighting has become a regular, daily occurrence because of me. I use him as a way to beat myself up emotionally. He tells me he can’t talk to me, I’m emotionally abusive, and he feels alienated and suicidal because of me. This makes me react emotionally, and causes my cycle of self-abuse to reignite, and my longings for suicide to reveal itself. I cannot live with myself knowing I made another person feel like that. But I use it to make my self-misery even worse.
     

    He has been nothing but supportive and helpful in trying to help me with these issues for two years. I’ve sought therapy, read books, had good streaks of no fighting here and there. But I haven’t changed. If anything, I’ve gotten worse - and my threshold for misery and choosing misery increased because of my cycle of: obsessing over negative traits about myself, seeking validation in the form of arguments/crying to my friend, and using that fight as more fuel to ignite my self-hatred and extreme attachment to my self-image and how I affect others. So, the more fights and pain I’ve caused, the more fuel I have to hate myself. 
     

    When we started being friends, I was in a really vulnerable spot as I’d just come out from emotional abuse, I’ve always had incredibly low self-esteem, and he was giving me an intense emotional bond that completely ripped the fabric of who my ex thought I was (worthless, etc.) But as his intense attention to me faded with time, I started getting in my head about him hating me and realizing I’m not what he said I was, thus beginning a self-fulfilling prophecy. 
     

    He’s at the end of his rope, and I don’t blame him. I’m disgusted with the behavior I’ve chosen, and the misery over all the fights I’ve caused makes me suicidal and compounds the misery cycle even more. He’s told me I make him want to die, that I’m a burden and abuse people to fulfill my own prophecy of self-hatred, and he’s right. He draws parallels to me and my abusive ex (his cousin), and his other abusive ex’s and family members. He keeps telling me if I just stop, I can fix it, and he’ll forget about my past behavior. 
     

    I am too attached, however, to the dread and misery I feel over my past mistakes. Every day I tell myself “it could’ve been 2 years of happiness instead, you chose this”, and the guilt and regret of that causes me to spiral into self-hate and causes fights later between my friend and I because of me being obviously upset and withdrawn. I honestly do not know how to live with myself, or continue the privilege of calling myself that persons friend when I am nothing but an abuser. It makes me not want to live anymore, and I think that is me trying to escape accepting that I have been abusive. I know I caused all of this. I’m so incredibly disgusted and upset with doing this self-fulfilling prophecy that I’ve actually provided solid reason for myself and others to hate me.
     

    After being abused for two years, I know exactly what he’s going through, and it makes me sick to my stomach I’ve turned into this person who abuses others. This past weekend was especially awful, and I put him in situations that could’ve gotten him fired from work because I looked as if I had been crying, after we argued and he told me he wants to block me and never see me again out of anger, and forcing me to admit I’m selfish and don’t care about anyone because of how I treat him, calling me countless names and cussing, all to which I understand. This caused me to spiral and cry uncontrollably.

    I know I’m abusive. I’m posting this as a way that I can hopefully admit it to myself and accept it. But I’m so fearful over the pain and scars I’ve caused in our relationship, and I’ve made it so much harder on myself to recover and move on from being miserable after the behavior I displayed this weekend. I want to move on and do better, but I can’t let go of the pain of being seen as as an abuser. I don’t want him to see me that way, I want him to feel emotionally safe with me, and I worry I ruined that for good, even though he constantly says (and keeps saying), if I offer a sincere apology in the form of changed behavior, he’ll forget about the past. 
     

    On another note however, he tells me relationships are like photos, and if you tear and crumble them, you can never fully get the creases out. I worry I can never repair the pain I caused. I’m obsessing over my regret and I don’t know how to accept the creases and move on. My self-hatred makes me want to lay in bed and never wake up again. This person was so good to me and I have brought nothing but turmoil into their lives. 

    I feel weak and cowardly. I am seeking any advice for how to move on from this attachment to misery so as to not hurt him anymore, especially since I’ve given myself countless reasons to be miserable and feel awful about myself. Thank you for reading.

    Sounds like you may have to break up and be single for a long while until you have resolved enough of the trauma you had in your life. Otherwise, you'll continue putting yourself and your partner at great risk of causing more toxicity between the two of you to the point of the relationship becoming too dangerous for both of you,

  15. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    @Hardkill Of course it's doable, if you have some tact. If you do it sloppily you will quickly develop a bad reputation.

    Yeah, that's what I am concerned about. So maybe, I won't try anything crazy or really edgy with any of the girls I approach there. I could perhaps try approaching the girls on campus in a more regular chill polite way with that romantic vibe you've talked about before. I know I've a lot of mistakes before, but I have gotten dates and even a long-term girlfriend from daygame approaching.

  16. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Still not worth it in my opinion.

    Well, I can't deny that it does have a ton of rednecks down there.

     

    7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    I never gamed college campuses. Girls there will be super young.

    Alright, well then I guess I am going to try gaming at UCI myself and see how it goes. I live only about one block away from there and the campus actually does have a student population of about 33,467 which should actually be enough. I would think that there are also some graduate school women there who are in their mid-20s to mid-30s.

  22. Posted

    1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

    Vegas metroplex is ~2 million. What matters is the population of the metroplex, not the city.

    But also, Vegas is very unlike other cities because of it's hardcore, 24/7 nightlife culture and 42.5 million visitors per year.

    It's not just the raw population that matters. It's the culture, the age-range, male/female ratio, etc.

    For example, Dallas-Fort Worth is a HUGE metroplex, but the nightlife is sucky. Austin has much smaller metroplex population but amazing nightlife. Don't be fooled by raw numbers.

    I don't live near any city or metroplex with huge populations and fantastic nightlife areas. However, I actually do live just one block away from UCI, which I know has a lot of young students on their campus. Could that work for me?

  23. Posted

    51 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Society has always controlled speech. And it always will. Because the shit you say can destroy society. Welcome to society.

    I agree with that. However, aren't a lot of Americans going to end up getting furious about this issue to the point waging some kind of violent culture war over their "civil liberties" and "freedom of speech" being taken away?