Presidential Debate + RFK

[Rafael Thundercat]

51 minutes ago, hundreth said:

I stopped caring.

I'm looking for property in Costa Rica now. Pura Vida.

The devil will find you there too. Do you think Costa Rica is in Another Planet? I know indigenous from Amazon and they know that no matter how inside the jungle they are, if they dont work for it they will lose their freedom and ways of life 

[hundreth]

38 minutes ago, Rafael Thundercat said:

The devil will find you there too. Do you think Costa Rica is in Another Planet? I know indigenous from Amazon and they know that no matter how inside the jungle they are, if they dont work for it they will lose their freedom and ways of life 

Perhaps.

It's more about the realization that I'm 1 of 300 million people in this nation of absolute morons. And even then, those 300 million have very little agency or power.

It's hard to fathom and wrap your head around a number like 300 million, it's such a large number. Regardless, I'm not a political voice and my contribution to this world has not and will not be in this domain.

I don't have to emotionally invest myself in a machine I have zero control over. 

I'd rather take my chances with nature. At least I personally enjoy Costa Rica, and on a very basic level the values there are more grounded and in tune with reality.

 

[Danioover9000]

@ryandesreu

5 hours ago, ryandesreu said:

What? I'm lost. 😆 What sci-fi novel is this from?

BTW ever read 11/22/63 by Stephen King? Great book. 

@Danioover9000 Sid Meier's Civilization 5 for PC was a great game. 

   Fun fact: Even though Sid Meier did Civilization 1, he only overseen civ 2 and the rest is done with other game devs. You have American marketing to thank, and blame, for promoting and assigning credit all to Sid Meier.

[Merkabah Star]

Loving the Joe meltdown. 😁

the whole party is screwed now thanks to him. 
 

[aurum]

16 hours ago, Bobby_2021 said:

The US, or more broadly, the west is uniquely corrupt in the way it abuses their power with neo colonial imperial style criminal domination.

Regime change operations, CIA backed coups, undermining democratic institutions, using non violent means of protest to smear civil unrest, using legal warfare to subvert democracy.

There are entire books written on this.

You do realise that these deplorable work has intellectual origins exclusively from the western unis and they will use any means necessary from military warfare to advanced methods like non violent protest to overthrow democracies. 

In that sense it's uniquely corrupt. 

It's unique only in form, not in kind.

16 hours ago, Bobby_2021 said:

The east will not stage coups "if they could". They can, but they will not. Democracy is the most fragile thing ever, if you know how it works.

The worst they do is to fund the opposition or sell weapons to your enemies. And that's where it ends. 

You are fearing that East will do to you what the west did to them. Which is a logical fear from your side, a case of projection.

But Eastern countries seek to stop the imperialism and instead compete on business/trade. You don't have to fear criminal domination from eastern countries.

Eastern countries don't have a history of imperialism, with the exception of Japan who is still nowhere close to Western imperialism. We keep the matters to ourselves, and that has been our nature, historically.

It's not an east vs west debate per se, it's about who has power and who doesn't. Who is able to bully who?

If we swapped the power the west has with the east, the east would behave just like the west. There is nothing inherently morally superior about the east that would prevent this.

In addition, countries with less power are often found to be more internally corrupt.

Don't mistake lack of bullying for lack of corruption.

[Raze]

10 minutes ago, aurum said:

It's unique only in form, not in kind.

It's not an east vs west debate per se, it's about who has power and who doesn't. Who is able to bully who?

If we swapped the power the west has with the east, the east would behave just like the west. There is nothing inherently morally superior about the east that would prevent this.

In addition, countries with less power are often found to be more internally corrupt.

Don't mistake lack of bullying for lack of corruption.

That’s not necessarily true. There have been other world powers throughout history but they don’t all behave the same way. US behavior may be influence from the British empire.

[aurum]

34 minutes ago, Raze said:

That’s not necessarily true. There have been other world powers throughout history but they don’t all behave the same way. US behavior may be influence from the British empire.

Such as?

Every major world power has engaged in imperialism, colonialism, exploitation etc. 

The US is unprecedented in terms of the global power it has achieved, with a significant amount of that due to its unique geographical advantages and embracing of liberalism. So of course its potential for abuse is much higher. We will not be able to find historical examples of world powers acting exactly the same. The world has evolved.

My point is that there is a kind "Evil-American exceptionalism" argument that is being made in this thread. And it's an untenable position.

If you want to call American foreign policy evil, fine. But don't create this story that America is somehow special in its evilness.

If anything, America as a whole is relatively uncorrupt compared to most countries. And that's partially why it has been so successful and has the power it does.

[Danioover9000]

@aurum

7 minutes ago, aurum said:

Such as?

Every major world power has engaged in imperialism, colonialism, exploitation etc. 

The US is unprecedented in terms of the global power it has achieved, with a significant amount of that due to its unique geographical advantages and embracing of liberalism. So of course its potential for abuse is much higher. We will not be able to find historical examples of world powers acting exactly the same. The world has evolved.

My point is that there is a kind "Evil-American exceptionalism" argument that is being made in this thread. And it's an untenable position.

If you want to call American foreign policy evil, fine. But don't create this story that America is somehow special in its evilness.

If anything, America as a whole is relatively uncorrupt compared to most countries. And that's partially why it has been so successful and has the power it does.

   America has the power it has due to Geography, luck dealing with the commanche, luck and help dealing with GB due to some support from France and Spain, and Neoliberalism obsession with foreign coups and making the world American, and a few more developmental factors, and more luck.

[Bobby_2021]

2 hours ago, aurum said:

it's about who has power and who doesn't.

You do not need unlimited powers to overthrow the govt of a small country.

Russia, for example could easily interfere in the US elections or even more easily in the European elections. They also have to some degree. Just that they haven't went too far with it to overthrow other small governments.  

It should also bring into question; how exactly did they acquire power in the first place? 

The United States had to systematically overthrow all governments in South America and turn them into banana republics just so that they corporations can exploit the natural resources. Same with the overthrow of Iranian govt in 1953. 

America got powerful while weakening others so that they never quite faced a threat from them. 

Right now, the east is slowly rising to power. But you do not see us engaging in the nearly the same level of criminal domination as the west is doing. 

2 hours ago, aurum said:

The US is unprecedented in terms of the global power it has achieved, with a significant amount of that due to its unique geographical advantages and embracing of liberalism

The easiest way to get unprecedented power is to engage in criminal domination and exploit their resources instead of competing with them. In that sense, other countries will never get into such power like United states unless we start acting like the United States. I hope we do not. 

The US overthrew everyone before they could become a threat. And they still try to thwart the democratic process of other countries even today, because they are perceived as a threat.

 They have been doing this even before they were a "superpower".

The Imperial European nations started their colonization spree even before they became a "superpower". Indian subcontinent and the middle east were the wealthiest, liberal places in the world at the time, before the British came and it regressed a back a few stages. 

[Merkabah Star]

The Majority Report on Biden.. 

 

[Rafael Thundercat]

On 05/07/2024 at 9:50 PM, Yimpa said:

These indigenous people just got their homes back

 

Stewards of the Earth: a Role for Humankind - resilience

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-09-29/stewards-of-the-earth-a-role-for-humankind/

[Merkabah Star]

Big Boy Press Conference. 

 

[Bobby_2021]

13 minutes ago, Merkabah Star said:

Big Boy Press Conference. 

 

He was using a teleprompter 100%, still managed to fumble it. 😂

[Bobby_2021]

Anna K is so cute when she is totally flipped. 

 

[Merkabah Star]

25 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

Anna K is so cute when she is totally flipped. 

 

She is the reason I became a paid member. She referred to people as bitches one day and I hit join.😁

cenk is annoying. 

what you get as a paid member, the extra episode, is pretty crap. 

Edited July 12, 2024 by Merkabah Star