Got some links… I wanna see. I probably normally don’t venture on these forums where that happens.

Well, I wonder if the US defense contractors and Trumps team will play nice. Because Biden gave them a shit ton of extra billions. I wonder if the dynamic duo will try and play rough with the defense sector to save the 2 trillion of waste.

The US defense had a huge stockpile of equipment that was aging out or even needed decommissioning.

And a new generation of tech needed to be battlefield tested.

By doing this the US was able to:

• funnel extra cash into the defense sector (the US version of welfare)
• give the military the extra cash to buy new stuff
• get rid of old and unwanted stock
• save money on storage, maintenance and decommissioning of old stock.
• Show their allies they are the arsenal of democracy and can be counted on… while showing their adversaries they will go to bat for their allies.
• Be on the right side of history.

What I mean to say is the US got a bargain on crippling one of their main geopolitical adversaries. It only cost them old military stuff they did not want anymore, while boasting about billions… that never left the US and stimulates the US economy.

I honestly don’t get how the Dems can do such awesome things in the last 4 years and are unable to tell people about it.

With friends like you…

Also don’t forget the lion’s share of US money spent… is old material given to Ukraine and the monetary value given to the US military which spends it on new stuff… built in the US, employing American workers, who pay taxes… feeding the machine, making american companies richer while cementing Ukraine as a future cliënt of materials and parts. And saving some money on storage and decommissioning.

The bulk of Europese money goes to Ukraine to keep their state going, paying for their soldiers/teachers/civil servants salaries etc.

Russia joining NATO was never going to happen. And it’s weird to think it lead to the current state of affairs. If anything it held it back. Else the fox would have been in charge of guarding the hen house.

Sure, the US will at the same time see a lot of their international soft power evaporate. The US is showing what it means if they for decades keep riling up a country, rattling sabers only to not be home when it counts. Taiwan and whole of Asia Pacific is watching this.

Also the US will see their intelligence networks dry up, humint will become less reliable and less likely to reach them. Tulay gabbard as head of the national intelligence in the US means a lot of countries cannot share their intelligence with the US anymore.

That will surely help the US prevent their next international tragedy.

And if the US emboldens dictators around the world and make the whole less stable, what happens to the world economy and all these countries the US sells to… they can’t afford… or shop elsewhere. Especially the EU fending for themselves will probably mean short term gains for the US in weapons sales, and then they stop. The EU will have been forced to do everything in house and the US will lose a massive customer base. And create a larger competitor at the same time.

The examples of this short sighted way of thinking are endless. But it is true the EU needs to do more in terms of re-armament. Because the US is an untrustworthy Partner.

Just like Putin proved to be when our leaders made him too important in our energy market… he leveraged his power. Now trump will do the same.

I hope you people in the US will be OK, because if you think we will have it bad because if this, if only a part of what maga says they will actually happen, you’ll be in for a heck of a ride.

There you go again… creating this distance and making me out as a bad guy… I’m wondering what your end game is?

So is discord a Nazi bar? Is that what you are saying? Because I’ve found myself in plenty of discords of games that have fun low key communities with an image of peppe holding a cool sign amongst all the other game and internet nonsense…

And yes the radicalization pipeline is freaking scary. But keep in mind that constantly alienating people like what you seem to be doing… creates the vacuum to be filled.

Years ago when Rogan was still a rube interviewing deer hunters, taxidermists, astronauts and other real people… I Nopee out when the peterson, Jones lineup became common… I saw the swing happening… it was vicious… and I’ll bet they took a whole swath of his audience with them.

The left needs to provide a narrative, something that people can latch on to and aspire to… to pull them in, because the policies and goals are what we all need. At this moment screetching, calling everyone a Nazi and alienating people is not helping anyone…

And nuclear programs and aircraft carriers and belt and road initiatives and… the list is pretty long for India and china.

They need to be alive in order to be able to step on mines though.

And if Russia where to win they are also safe because they will be deported to a nice childless family in Siberia for reeducation.

I fear it is the latter. Nuance seems to get lost over time. It’s maybe the opposite of black people in the US using the N word amongst themselves in an attempt to take it back… I don’t think that this was successful by any measure as it just caused the racist to point at it and say… see they even say it about themselves because only hoodlums (what a word) use it…

Could the first point on anecdotal evidence be that you see very specific instances. And/or confirmation bias? I’m not saying your observations are invalid… Just maybe not representative for the bulk of use cases… pepe is in reaction emojis on discord… in gifs on keyboards… and he is just silly. Does that mean all people that use them are aware of what the dogwistle to some might be… I’d argue … they are not.

And I think that in regards to calling people racist for doing innocuous things does have the potential to alienate people from your stance and that void is something the alt right gladly fills. And I think that is a danger that should be acknowledged. And I don’t mean be kind to open Nazis… I more mean “don’t ascribe to malice what can easily be explained by incompetence”.

I kinda agree. But I see the government has a role in the zoning and deciding where and what. Like building bridges and roads, define, assign, possible finance and have commercial parties execute in a well regulated environment

As I said before I reject your premise about pepe and it’s use. And the swatsticka is a false equivalence.

I have seen zero substantiation of this overly broad statement except for some ADL fundametalists making claims and the alt-right whacos making claims. I consider both camps equally fringe.

Also keep telling all these people they are racist loonatics… at some point they might start to believe you are make it a self fulfilling prophecy. The alt right does the same… we co-opt the meme and tell people they are one of us… because we meme the same we must be the same… or something…

That’s why these conversations are so cool. It helps all of us give words to some of the things we cannot express properly. Why I also enjoy reading co tributuins by others… especially if they challenge my preconceptions.

Cost of housing seem to be the primary issue plaguing the world. Even in china the real estate market is fucked… but they have too much in locations people are not.

It’s almost as if a lot of societal rules (that are mostly needed) create an unfree Market causing shortages… and governments refusing to acknowledge that they should be organising it and not leaving it to “the market” are the cause of the issue.

Organizing means organizing, not building all houses themselves.

Pepe to me seems like the opposite of the Confederate flag.

Pepe is an internet meme that is in some cases used by racist and hateful people to carry their message, but the primary function is internet nonsense.

The Confederate flag is a symbol or hate and oppression that in some situations is used to express country & westerns ideals of freedom and roaming the country with not a care in the world… without the racist subtext… however you cannot deny the basis of its use and thus should not use it.

If you follow the links, they refer to copy pasta’s of hatefull stuff including swastikas but no breakdown of what is counted, the use of the happy merchant (a meme with an antisemitic origin used to convey greed) and the use of pepe the frog in profile pics (pepe is a symbol of hate according to the ADL).

The issue I have with the whole here is that I don’t subscribe to the premise on which the analysis is based.

IF you assume pepe is a hate symbol, then each case it is used is an expression of hate and furtherance of that hate. I however reject the premise that pepe is a symbol of hate.

The use of the happy merchant is a bit more of a problem, because I see the antisemitic message it has. However I also see a lot of stupid people that don’t… and have seen the image used (probably in antisemitic context referring to greed) but people associate it with greed primarily… so this one is an issue, I think I refuse part of the premise, namely that the antisemitism part is a dominant factor when the image is used.

These are the 2 main examples, a lot more in the report that have similar caveats.

Yeah, it’s an interesting list.

Well the companies reliant on chromium can fund the non profit that maintains it as a stand alone org instead of Google deciding. Hell you could even argue they should fund a non profit that finances several browsers.

That’s fair. I’m from a small country with a very high charge station density… so for anything local it’s a no brainer. Plus I have a driveway to change on.