WoodScientist

joined 3 months ago
[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 hours ago

Worse. This is really a "don't negotiate with terrorists" situation. Trump could have gone to the Chinese, and any other country, and said, "look, this isn't working. We need to renegotiate our trade deals." Public opinion has soured enough on free trade that Trump likely could get some legitimate tariff package or set of new trade deals through. The public generally likes the idea of not trading so much with China. The problem is Trump is trying to do this via decree and blackmail. He thinks that by cutting off trade overnight, he can coerce China into giving the US favorable terms.

But all this shows is that the US is an unreliable partner that is willing to back on its word at any moment. Nations can renegotiate trade deals. That isn't some unprecedented violation of international norms. But it's common sense to do these things slowly, giving both nations time to adapt their economies to the new conditions. You can't just cut this level of trade off cold turkey without causing a global depression.

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 16 points 11 hours ago

AND THAT SON IS HOW YOU MAKE A REGULATION-SIZED GLORY HOLE!

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 12 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

That's the policy at most schools. Actually enforcing that in the face of a classroom of kids who don't respect the rule? That's a much bigger problem. They're a lot more clever at sneaking them out than you would think. Moreover, if the phones are just feet from them, their presence is never out of mind. They're a constant distraction even in a bag. Phone apps are literally designed to be addictive. Imagine if we had a rule that said "crack pipes are fine in your bag. As long as you don't take them out and smoke in class, you're fine." Even if we lived in a world where crack somehow was legal for minors to have, how effective to you think that rule could be enforced?

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Or up into your neighbor's house. Then slowly steal your neighbor's house, one board at a time, and add it to your own house!

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"Also, may he be abducted by aliens, whisked away to a distant galaxy, and put on permanent display in an alien zoo as an example of the greed of homo sapiens."

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

May tomorrow you have an excellent Day of Venus.

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Good forenoon to you!

Also, I'm totally down with referring to the days of the Week by their etymological roots. Happy Day of Thor to you!

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

First, that is an extremely bad-faith interpretation of my words, and you know it.

Second, historically, when countries face autocratic moments like ours, often the only way they out the autocrat is by completely abandoning the corrupt center-left party that allowed and enabled the far right authoritarians. Voters often spend several election cycles fruitlessly trying to get the center-left party to make the necessary changes to challenge the autocrat. In the end, the center left party loses more and more popularity, until it collapses completely. Their credibility is mud with the general populace; they simply have no viable path to winning an election. The party needs to collapse into nothing. Only then is there enough room for a new party that can actually challenge the autocrat to rise. They try several cycles of dutifully voting for the center-left corporate party, but it just doesn't work. In the end they just have to let it burn.

Centrist Dems are not going to be able to defeat Trumpism. And this inability also makes them incredibly weak candidates to win elections against Trumpism. If the DNC is going to just keep forcing useless ineffectual centrists on the party, really, the quickest way to defeat MAGA will be for as many Democrats to abandon the Democratic Party and vow to never vote for them again. Centrist dems will just keep losing election after election after election. They're losers. Weak, ineffectual losers. They can't win elections against Trump. Biden only managed to eek out a win in 2020 due to Covid.

If Dems are going to keep forcing corporate centrists through, you are actually delaying the defeat of Trumpism by voting for them. As corporate Dems can't win a general election against Trumpism, voting for them is as completely pointless as voting for third party candidates in 2024. Centrist Dems just aren't serious presidential contenders anymore; you shouldn't take them seriously. A vote for a centrist Dem is a vote for another MAGA term. Even if a corporate Dem gets the nomination, a vote for them is still a vote for a longer MAGA reign.

If they force another corporate centrist through in 2028, the 2028 election is already lost. At that point, the goal should be to make sure that the corporate candidate loses spectacularly. The corporate Dem is never going to win, but they might eek out a 45-55 loss that lets the DNC keep pretending that corporate Dems have a chance at winning the general election. At that point, with the election already lost, the goal should be to make sure the centrist Dem loses by an overwhelming, comically large 30-70 margin or similar. You need to take so much credibility from the Dems that the party collapses completely.

We're in a fight that is going to take more than one election cycle. Accept that now. You need to think more strategically than just one election cycle in the future. Because "vote blue no matter who" can actually extend the reign of the MAGA movement.

Hopefully we won't get stuck with a shithead corporate centrist in 2028. But if we do, I'll be boycotting the presidential general election, only voting in the Congressional elections. I do this because I care about the country, and I want to see MAGA defeated as quickly as possible. If a corporate Dem is the nominee in 2028, then Dems have already lost the election. At that point, your thoughts should immediately move to 2032, as that will be the next chance Dems have at ousting MAGA.

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've long use "2015" appended to my initials for screen names. It has no particular significance. I started using it over a decade before 2015. I was signing up for an account, and I added my age then to the current year. Thus, I ended up with 2015 as "my" number.

Early on, it was no problem. It was still well in the future. Around 2015, it became impossible to use the number. Inevitably someone would claim the number for a username before I did. Now, 2015 is easy again to claim appended to my initials. Unfortunately, now when I use it, I get accused of being 10 years old.

The concentration camps for Japanese Americans were concentration camps in the 19th century sense of the word - simply a place to hold a group of civilians during a conflict. CECOT is a concentration camp in the Nazi sense of the word - an extermination camp.

The Systems Commonwealth truly has fallen.

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

When I see a comment that has been "deleted by creator," I like to imagine it as "deleted by The Creator." God was so offended by the comment that He unmade it.

 

The people of California will be united again! California will be whole once more!

 

So this is a fun thought exercise. Here I dig into my Catholic upbringing and try to make a stretched doctrinal case for why literally praying to St. Luigi might just actually make sense from a religious perspective. I'm no longer a practicing Catholic myself, so take it as you will. This is just me trying to stretch doctrine to see if I can argue that praying to a literal St. Luigi may actually be doctrinally viable.

Inquiring minds want to know. If one wishes to take things too far and take the "St. Luigi" thing literally, how can that be possible? Can you really pray to a saint for divine intervention, when that saint is clearly still a mortal man walking among the living?

First, on saints. There are official saints of the Church, but technically those are just the ones that the Church has decided that beyond any reasonable doubt are actually in Heaven. But according to doctrine, there are likely millions of saints, people that have reached Paradise and can intercede on mortal behalf. We've only had enough evidence, such as repeated miracles, to provide enough evidence for the official list. And the canonization process involves miracles attributed to unofficial saints. Usually someone will pray to someone that isn't on the official list, and when they receive some purported miracle, such as an unlikely cancer recovery, that is attributed as a miracle to that unofficial saint. In fact, the only way someone can become an official saint is if people pray to them while they are an unofficial one.

So, that's how one might pray to St. Luigi, even though he isn't a recognized saint. But what about mortality? The man is clearly not in Heaven right now, he's sitting in jail. How can one possibly pray to a living man for divine intervention?

But here's where the doctrinal loophole comes in! You see, technically, Heaven exists outside of time and space. Time need not work the same way there it does here. If the spirit of a saint can reach beyond the bounds of the universe to intercede on mortal behalf, they can also reach across time as well. Heaven exists outside of space and time.

So if one prays to St. Luigi, you are not actually praying to the mortal man sitting in a jail in New York. Rather, you are praying to his ascended soul, which has the ability to intercede both forwards and backwards in time. Maybe Luigi will be executed. Maybe he'll live a long life and die of old age. But when he does, he will ascend to Paradise and become a saint. And he can then answer prayers from anyone, in any place, in any time.

So yeah, if that's your thing, doctrinally, a case can be made that it is perfectly fine to pray to a literal St. Luigi!

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