Yes, a lot of publications reported on the presidents action. I do not have the same experience as you that there's widespread use of the alternative name outside of this context.
Oh wow, I didn't look at the price of the Xreal Aura, assuming it was something in the range of 399 to 599. Yeah, if it's the same price as the Steam Frame there's absolutely no contest.
It's a preposterous idea with the size of the military forces of US currently. It would not be preposterous with 0 military force.
And to be clear, the US has abused the army for half a century for unjust causes, and I'm not defending that, but the concept of an army can be moral in the context of rivalling aggressive nations.
You are defending that. Because the US military does those awful things and has done forever.
There is no US military that's a defensive force. It is a war crimes machine.
You might think you are defending the idea of a peaceful defense force in the US but that's never existed and probably will never exist. So we all read your posts as if they were talking about the US military that exists.
> You are defending that. Because the US military does those awful things and has done forever.
I both acknowledged and specified the difference.
> You might think you are defending the idea of a peaceful defense force in the US but that's never existed and probably will never exist.
Let me ask you this instead: What do you see as an alternative? Abolishing the entirety of all military force, or electing officials that do not abuse the existing or reduced scale military force for unjust causes? Or some third option?
I'm saying the idea of a US military that exists in only a defensive capability is as realistic a possibility as no military and trusting the world to be chill.
They are both zero percent likely to happen. So why hypothesize and carry water for either idea? Like, "the US military should have peace beans that rainbow blast everyone into loving each other" is as cromulent a position as "if the US military were defense only, they'd be really good actually".
> I'm saying the idea of a US military that exists in only a defensive capability is as realistic a possibility as no military and trusting the world to be chill.
> They are both zero percent likely to happen.
You didn't provide a third option.
> So why hypothesize and carry water for either idea?
If all possible ideas are completely unrealistic, why comment at all? What could they do better?
The third option is the us military is and will remain an imperialist war machine. So trying to carry water for a fantasy version of it is just carrying water for the imperialist version.
To assert that the US military has no defensive or deterrent effect whatsoever is at odds with reality, and to prove it to yourself you should try to fly an airplane into US airspace without announcing yourself, and see what happens.
Should we have let the Nazi's win because the risk of the US killing 1 German civilians was greater than 0? I just find it very fake and mind broken to conclude the only evil empire is the US and that we need to beat them over the head endlessly without also calling out the other genocidal wars and empires that the US found itself existing among. The US army and its troops do have a deep shame for when they kill civilians. But don't act like the the US is some unique civilian killing machine. We infact are pretty good at not killing civilians as a ratio civilian per combatant than basically any army we've ever fought against or with. Certainly since WW2. Vietnam being particularly poor ratio but still far better than Viet Congs civilian to enemy combant ratio.
The matter of fact is that war is messy especially guerrilla warfare which is the only war that basically exists today and in that context what's an acceptable ratio? 0 means surrendering or being stepped on ask Ukraine but is it 1/5, 1/10? Ideally you have zero but to have total disregard of the service members life doesn't cause there to be less war or civilian death. Just more onesided brutal wars. These are hard questions but to paint the people that fight in wars in democratic societies as just souless sellouts is reductive and its the type of thinking that leads to mass murder by political groups. Souless people don't feel PTSD for what they did they are souless. PTSD is incredibly common in the services because we don't want empathless murder machines. Because when it comes to wining wars (wining a political objective ultimately) generally speaking civilian deaths don't help political goals which is what the elected officals ask the miltary to do. But most importantly the elected bodies are the ones asking for invasion.
I think these are hard questions that good solutions from the miltary side of things don't exist but most importantly I really think we as a society need to have more serious talks and rational conceptions of how war and conflict works. I can't recommend On War by Clauswitz enough, but acoup also has a great primer on it [1]
I guess we agree to disagree here. This America which Uniquely evil is ahistoric. It is a worthless category to create to beat a nation on the head with. When you look at all of its peer nations which have committed far more war crimes and crimes against humanity and conclude America is evil. It just seems untethered to reality. Which nation which finds itself in conflict should the US be more like?
Its difficult to name a war in which the American miltary has killed, even close to the number of civilians as its opposition. WW2 germany? Japan (remember china). the USSR? the PRC today. North Viet Government? North Korean? Afganhstan? (yeah the Tailban killed more civilians) All of these war/conflicts the US kills far less civilians. Is that ideal no civilian dies but the conduct of the opposition in this war maximizes civilian causulty often but no one says anything about those and people led with the Armed Service is just all murders.
You are simplifying the horror of War to some ideal where people don't have to die. It just doesn't exist and just comes across as Russian anti-liberal rhetoric. The structure of our miltary and its actions are not poor or unprofessional espeically when you look at literally any other peer nation.
> When you look at all of its peer nations which have committed far more war crimes and crimes against humanity and conclude America is evil.
Any nation that commits war crimes is evil. What is this nonsense like, some amount of war crimes is fine actually as long as we're not in the top 10 war crimes last?
Also, even still, I think the US would make that top ten list. Let's take some examples from your list.
North Korea -- a brutal dictatorship that has killed countless people in North Korea, and inflicted significant suffering on South Korea. Disgusting and reprehensible regime. Truly evil.
The United States -- imperialist nation that has caused incalculable damage to Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Congo, Chile, East Timor, Angola, El Salvador, Grenada, and Nicaragua.
They've also hurt Ukraine, Palestine, Hawai'i, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Mexico.
Then, you know, there's The United States, where the indigenous people were killed. 95% of their population eradicated in the run up to the Declaration of Independence, and 50% of the remaining population in the 1800s.
Woof.
Need me to continue with more? These are all places where the US military ...
Oh shit, wait. I haven't even started on nuclear warfare and testing. Or testing on minority troops.
Ok. I think I got it out of my system. American Samoa. Sorry had one more. Whew.
Now you see why I don't play the moral relativism game, and simply say any war crimes is an unacceptable number of war crimes. Because if you hold up American military history against any single nation, the sheer quantities just don't stack up. Tens of millions of innocents dead, either through direct or indirect action. And it's continuing. North Korea is evil AND the US military has uncountable war crimes. Both are bad. Trying to compare two countries like this forces you to juxtapose a small but intense evil against a staggeringly large sustained but maybe less acute evil.
So no, you are probably right, I probably am over simplifying. I'm sure Pinochet's victims would love to hear how it was actually ok because the US soldiers who installed him were professional and had good structure.
Read more history. Understand the US place in the world. I'm sure there are many upstanding, kind, loving, wonderful soldiers in the US military. The institution, however... the institution has hundreds of years of imperialist violence.
While I'm some degree of a pacifist, it's tough to argue against the concept of a defense army, in the face of human nature. Defense in the larger sense also has to mean (preventative) intervention, for example world war 2 might have ended very differently unless the US joined.
I also recognize that the US has perverted this concept countless times since with blatant imperialistic motives, it does however still not break the concept of a just responsive military force.
TL;DR: They're not selling their souls if they (mistakenly) trust elected officials to work for the will of the people and only deploy for just causes.
How can anyone look at hundreds of years of US imperialism with rose-colored glasses anymore? Who is really misguided into thinking the US army is defensive in nature? You have constructed a beautiful straw man.
Fortunately the Nuremberg principles rescue us here. Following orders is no excuse for abdicating a moral responsibility.
> How can anyone look at hundreds of years of US imperialism with rose-colored glasses anymore?
I quite explicitly did the opposite of that.
> Who is really misguided into thinking the US army is defensive in nature?
Let me put it this way:
* Had Ukraine not had an army, it would not exist right now.
* Had Ukraine had a bigger army, it might not have been invaded at all.
* Had Ukraine had the biggest army in the world, it might or might not have abused it for nefarious reasons.
The argument I made is that the US (and any country) needs it for case 1 and 2 (can also be solved through defensive alliances, though Ukraine had assurances that were broken), but the US has gone the wrong way for case 3.
This however does not invalidate case 1 and 2.
> You have constructed a beautiful straw man.
I'm unsure how to respond to this other than state that it's ironic.
Honestly I couldn't say this better. I would just go one step further participating in the Miltary does not equal your doing atrocities as a natural conclusion. We want people of sound morals to be in the Miltary because they will make I hope moral decisions when it comes to the conduct of war.
I highly recommend reading On War by carl von clausewitz. He gives a pragmetic opinion on War and being read for it. Along with being ready for general conflict both non-violent and violent
The answer is you can't. They did not reason themselves into their position, and you can't reason them out of it. It's irrational to have rational discussion with the irrational.
This is why derision is a valid philosophical debate strategy if a person refuses to engage in rational discussion. To label GP as an R-word is a social signal and warning to others not to behave similarly. Derision also promotes healthy skepticism of new arguments you hear, lest risk falling into the same trap and have oneself become a laughingstock.
> Lets assume a hypothetical scenario where all jurisdictions impose a tax on stocks. Then they'll retire by investing in assets or heck just keep it in their banks.
What untaxed assets would those be? Are you saying the bank interest would be higher than other investments minus tax?
I am having trouble following your argument to your last conclusion.
Taxed assets are always going to be way lesser than any hypothetical tax on stocks. Lets assume investment is in housing. Rent collected can easily be used to offset property tax on the asset. Now you cannot collect rent on stocks the way you can collect rent on assets like a residential/commercial property. So the only way to pay tax on stock value (which is assessed by a valuer at that particular point in time) is by either paying it out of personal pocket, taking a loan or selling the stock. None of those options are feasible.
> Are you saying the bank interest would be higher than other investments minus tax?
It absolutely will. When you tax stocks, you are eroding its value. Why would anyone want to continue to keep their wealth in stocks when they could just cash out and not lose any of that value?
> Taxed assets are always going to be way lesser than any hypothetical tax on stocks.
This is not a universal truth.
> Rent collected can easily be used to offset property tax on the asset. Now you cannot collect rent on stocks
You actually can, it's called securities lending.
> So the only way to pay tax on stock value (which is assessed by a valuer at that particular point in time) is by either paying it out of personal pocket, taking a loan or selling the stock. None of those options are feasible.
1) Why not. 2) Sounds like someone needs an income (which is already taxed and would have solved much of the tax avoidance).
> It absolutely will. When you tax stocks, you are eroding its value. Why would anyone want to continue to keep their wealth in stocks when they could just cash out and not lose any of that value?
> You actually can, it's called securities lending.
You cannot do that with private companies. It is only restricted to public securities. And even these are not owner/investor stocks (which are locked for a certain period after company goes public via IPO). These are typically fresh stocks issued before company goes public.
> This is not a universal truth.
What is the evidence for it working otherwise? Every Country that has tried Wealth Tax has rolled it back.
> A lesser gain is not a loss.
It is not a capital gains tax (which already exists). Wealth tax is a tax on unrealized gains. It definitely leads to erosion of stock value.
> 1) Why not. 2) Sounds like someone needs an income (which is already taxed and would have solved much of the tax avoidance).
You have just encountered a classic Catch-22 here. Without income, you cannot pay tax. Without paying tax, you have no revenue and hence no income.
paying it out of personal pocket is what I have to do when I pay property taxes on the unrealized value of my home. And I don't have the option to sell partial shares of it. This tax is my biggest expense.
It is not the same thing. Property tax can easily be offset by rental income, unless you are staying in it ofcourse. You cannot rent stocks.
> And I don't have the option to sell partial shares of it
Sure. But you can always rent it out and move to a smaller rental. And it is a good thing you cannot sell partial shares of it. You shouldn't. Imagine selling partial shares/stocks every time you have to pay tax on stocks. You will end up with nothing in a few years.
The only photos of food I care about are customers posting them from the restaurant to for example google maps. I guess these can be gamed/smurfed as well, but I think mostly not, and they'd have to prompt for a bad photo from a mediocre phone camera taken by a person not caring much about framing.
I am "creating", at least designing, games with my kids. It's not that I couldn't possibly do it before, but I certainly would never have the time to.
I explored frameworks and engines, and landed on Bevy, I asked for a rudimentary arena, isometric perspective, 4 players, xinput support, portable desktop and wasm targets.
After that part done we've made the characters into chickens using no assets, only primitive mesh, having a trail of feathers, flapping wings on jump/double jump as well as gliding, picking animation, bite/grab, zenith shadows on characters (despite being unrealistic, in favor of platforming), physics objects, a few game modes like soccer, bowling, etc.
Each of these were iterative additions, so it's like previous development, only the coding/debugging time is largely removed. Is there bloat? Absolutely. But it still works, and while it's not a "real" game yet, I do believe it's original, it's certainly evolving exactly to our design, however confused it is.
For a while...
In your understanding, what do you think caused the last few recessions?
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