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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On January 11 2020 02:53 Nouar wrote:
So, Pelosi is sending the impeachment to Senate next week (well, holding a vote to appoint managers and transmit the articles). Marianne Williamson is also ending her bid for presidency (I had honestly forgotten about her).
Sanctions have also been put on Iran, full list is available
Have sanctions even once, brought peace ? On the contrary, they keep the country as an enemy. A poor enemy, with even more hate towards the country that passes the sanctions. Not towards their own government.
They probably helped quite a bit in ending apartheid in South Africa, it’s rather dependent on what sanctions and what countries, and how the relationship between countries is.
In hypothetical land the US could probably make Israel play ball on settlement expansion and halting that, because they’re long term allies, contribute military aid etc etc.
With Iran not so much because they’re long-standing enemies and the population has decades of hating America already, so that kind of deflecting the blame from the government to those imposing the sanctions would clearly apply there.
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On January 10 2020 08:02 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2020 03:28 franzji wrote:On January 10 2020 02:30 Silvanel wrote:On January 09 2020 23:15 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Trump doesn't have a foreign policy for USA. What short term gain has he gained for the US foreign policy wise? He has made all American nationals less safe in the region. Iraq has issued a demand for American troops to leave the country. Even Isreal and Saudi Arabia is alarmed by the assassination. A)Iraq parliment passed a resolution asking government to throw Americans out. Iraq government is not bound by it as far as i understand and they are not likely to do such step. B)Trump: -abandoned Kurds to get on Edrogans good side -assasinated Soleimani which was thorn in their back for a long time -declared trade war on China (which many considers sound but long overdue) move -is constantly treatning other countries for small concessions It's funny how many considered the trade war with China to be a huge mistake at first because it was "Trump's policy-making to attempt to put America first!", which Democrats hate to hear. So many people talking about how we would see the huge rise in prices. Democrats really hate the phase "Putting America first", there is a lot of self-hate from Democrats. China is finally coming to the table and might agree to fix some of their horrible, unfair practices. And to answer a question from a couple pages back; this is why adding 'right wing voices' to the thread isn't necessarily an improvement. So many of them just spout lines and have nothing to back them up. The stalwarts of the past weren't really much different, they were just better with the English language and so could play more games with people trying to pin them down on their bullshit.
"I have no argument except he is right wing and he is bad" - you
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Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On January 11 2020 03:25 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2020 02:13 Mohdoo wrote:On January 11 2020 01:54 Broetchenholer wrote:On January 11 2020 01:12 Mohdoo wrote:
Yeah I could probably label at most 40 states on a US map because I can't bring myself to give a shit. I'm a bit weird in that way though and go out of my way to not learn things if I think its meaningless. Yes, the meaninglessness of pointing to Europe when you are asked where Iran is. I am not saying everyone needs to know where exactly Iran is but maybe have half your population hit the middle east. Could you please improve your average knowledge of the rest of the world. The American people are influencing the world very negatively by this kind of ignorance because they allow their politicians to fuck with other nations by not giving enough shits. Not you personally obviously, but making light of such ignorance does not help either. I can describe political and cultural differences between a wide variety of countries in Europe. I don't know which shape is which on a map, but I know the general'ish of where they are. I am not going to pretend knowing which shape is which on a map is more important than the culture/military/history/economy/politics of a country. This is more so an expression of my other issues with education as a whole. We didn't need to learn cursive or weird ways of doing math using visual representations. There's a bunch of stupid bullshit people learn and it is a waste of time. I deeply respect Europe and the Middle East, but I express my respect through knowledge of their lives not memorizing a map. If I find myself in a position where memorizing a map is important for how I interact with Europe, I will learn it. Until then, I am making sure not to. Anything I learn incidentally is fine, but taking the time to memorize it is silly. It's the same reason I am mostly familiar with the states around Oregon but have no fucking clue what is going on in the Northeast of a US map. I am a chemist and I know an incredibly small part of the periodic table. I only know the atomic weight of certain atoms because of synthesis I ran while conducting research. I don't remember the ones I don't work with anymore. Knowledge is a web. The more possible points of attachment you have the better insights you might generate. Knowing which countries border which countries, and something of their geopolitical history, helps contextualize and cement other information about “culture/military ...” The more detailed the web the easier it is fill in the missing gaps. Like a jigsaw puzzle. You can’t possibly pick and choose what is important beforehand, because you don’t know what the whole web looks like. STEM people in particular have a habit of treating knowledge as discrete (especially knowledge outside their purview), rather than seeing meaning/value as an intensive (ie not extensive) quality of each bit of information that depends on its connectivity to other information. Connectivity turns up the dial on richness. But that’s just, like, my opinion man.
At least for me such a thing needs continually refreshed to stay in my mind, whereas other geopolitical knowledge does not. It requires pulling from other areas of knowledge, but I find it sticks in my head a lot better.
I’m pretty handy on flags of countries though as following various sports I encounter them a lot in my day-to-day.
Maps, not so much. Don’t really stick in my brain for whatever reason. Knowing something outside of your kid not being yours is always better than ignorance, but I don’t find it particularly ‘useful’ to know.
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Norway28734 Posts
I totally agree with Igne there!
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On January 11 2020 03:43 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2020 03:25 IgnE wrote:On January 11 2020 02:13 Mohdoo wrote:On January 11 2020 01:54 Broetchenholer wrote:On January 11 2020 01:12 Mohdoo wrote:
Yeah I could probably label at most 40 states on a US map because I can't bring myself to give a shit. I'm a bit weird in that way though and go out of my way to not learn things if I think its meaningless. Yes, the meaninglessness of pointing to Europe when you are asked where Iran is. I am not saying everyone needs to know where exactly Iran is but maybe have half your population hit the middle east. Could you please improve your average knowledge of the rest of the world. The American people are influencing the world very negatively by this kind of ignorance because they allow their politicians to fuck with other nations by not giving enough shits. Not you personally obviously, but making light of such ignorance does not help either. I can describe political and cultural differences between a wide variety of countries in Europe. I don't know which shape is which on a map, but I know the general'ish of where they are. I am not going to pretend knowing which shape is which on a map is more important than the culture/military/history/economy/politics of a country. This is more so an expression of my other issues with education as a whole. We didn't need to learn cursive or weird ways of doing math using visual representations. There's a bunch of stupid bullshit people learn and it is a waste of time. I deeply respect Europe and the Middle East, but I express my respect through knowledge of their lives not memorizing a map. If I find myself in a position where memorizing a map is important for how I interact with Europe, I will learn it. Until then, I am making sure not to. Anything I learn incidentally is fine, but taking the time to memorize it is silly. It's the same reason I am mostly familiar with the states around Oregon but have no fucking clue what is going on in the Northeast of a US map. I am a chemist and I know an incredibly small part of the periodic table. I only know the atomic weight of certain atoms because of synthesis I ran while conducting research. I don't remember the ones I don't work with anymore. Knowledge is a web. The more possible points of attachment you have the better insights you might generate. Knowing which countries border which countries, and something of their geopolitical history, helps contextualize and cement other information about “culture/military ...” The more detailed the web the easier it is fill in the missing gaps. Like a jigsaw puzzle. You can’t possibly pick and choose what is important beforehand, because you don’t know what the whole web looks like. STEM people in particular have a habit of treating knowledge as discrete (especially knowledge outside their purview), rather than seeing meaning/value as an intensive (ie not extensive) quality of each bit of information that depends on its connectivity to other information. Connectivity turns up the dial on richness. But that’s just, like, my opinion man. At least for me such a thing needs continually refreshed to stay in my mind, whereas other geopolitical knowledge does not. It requires pulling from other areas of knowledge, but I find it sticks in my head a lot better. I’m pretty handy on flags of countries though as following various sports I encounter them a lot in my day-to-day. Maps, not so much. Don’t really stick in my brain for whatever reason. Knowing something outside of your kid not being yours is always better than ignorance, but I don’t find it particularly ‘useful’ to know.
When I was 7 I had to stay in the hospital for a couple of weeks, pre-cellphones and without a TV in the room. My only entertainment for the whole stay was an atlas and the book Little Prince. That stuff stayed with me forever.
Around 10 years later I somehow managed to piss off my super strict geography teacher, he called me up front to this giant world map that was hanging on the blackboard and kept hurling names of rivers, mountain ranges, cities, etc for me to point out. There must have been at least 30 items until he gave up. I somehow remembered every single one, kids' brains are magic. Now I forget the plot to TV shows by the time the next season starts.
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On January 11 2020 02:32 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2020 02:24 Broetchenholer wrote:On January 11 2020 02:13 Mohdoo wrote:On January 11 2020 01:54 Broetchenholer wrote:On January 11 2020 01:12 Mohdoo wrote:
Yeah I could probably label at most 40 states on a US map because I can't bring myself to give a shit. I'm a bit weird in that way though and go out of my way to not learn things if I think its meaningless. Yes, the meaninglessness of pointing to Europe when you are asked where Iran is. I am not saying everyone needs to know where exactly Iran is but maybe have half your population hit the middle east. Could you please improve your average knowledge of the rest of the world. The American people are influencing the world very negatively by this kind of ignorance because they allow their politicians to fuck with other nations by not giving enough shits. Not you personally obviously, but making light of such ignorance does not help either. I can describe political and cultural differences between a wide variety of countries in Europe. I don't know which shape is which on a map, but I know the general'ish of where they are. I am not going to pretend knowing which shape is which on a map is more important than the culture/military/history/economy/politics of a country. This is more so an expression of my other issues with education as a whole. We didn't need to learn cursive or weird ways of doing math using visual representations. There's a bunch of stupid bullshit people learn and it is a waste of time. I deeply respect Europe and the Middle East, but I express my respect through knowledge of their lives not memorizing a map. If I find myself in a position where memorizing a map is important for how I interact with Europe, I will learn it. Until then, I am making sure not to. Anything I learn incidentally is fine, but taking the time to memorize it is silly. It's the same reason I am mostly familiar with the states around Oregon but have no fucking clue what is going on in the Northeast of a US map. I am a chemist and I know an incredibly small part of the periodic table. I only know the atomic weight of certain atoms because of synthesis I ran while conducting research. I don't remember the ones I don't work with anymore. And for you that is fine, because you know these things and would understand where the middle east is. The people clicking on Europe do not. Nor do they have any other idea of Iran except that evil terrorists live there and those terrorists are muslims. And if that is the only thing you know about Iran, it's completely okay to blow up their Generals or put sanctions on them if your government tells you that is the right thing to do. And making light of that attitude triggers me because you should hold your government way more responsible to the illegal wars they are fighting. I get what you're saying and I think you're right. For whatever it is worth, my philosophy on not learning cursive and labeling maps means people should spend more time learning about relevant things like culture and what exactly other countries do. So while I advocate against maps, I advocate FOR culture etc What makes Germany not France? People should learn that rather than "well France is this shape whereas Germany is this other shape"
It's not as though it requires such a huge time investment that you can't learn other things. I didn't have good geography education either but have been spending maybe 5-10 minutes in the mornings on this site: https://lizardpoint.com/geography/
Now I at least know where countries are located and it does help when trying to make sense of current events.
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The map looks different now compared to back when I last viewed it, no point in memorizing this stuff now as it'll just change again in the future.
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Reminder: Iran wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and yet they also accidentally shot down a plane that left their own airport.
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On January 11 2020 05:30 Mohdoo wrote:
Reminder: Iran wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and yet they also accidentally shot down a plane that left their own airport.
Come on... we have nukes yet flight 655 happened.
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On January 11 2020 05:31 BlueBird. wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2020 05:30 Mohdoo wrote:
Reminder: Iran wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and yet they also accidentally shot down a plane that left their own airport. Come on... we have nukes yet flight 655 happened.
Making a mistake 30 years ago is very different from making the same mistake current day. Especially with all that was learned from that. Chernoybl happened and yet modern nuclear reactors based on uranium are safer than coal. Things change. Chernobyl happening today would be an amazing failure whereas Chernobyl at the time was a result of rushing progress and insufficient budgeting. When the world learns together, then someone makes a significantly worse mistake 30 years later, it does a good job at framing capability. The level of incompetence it takes to shoot down a plane in your own country can't be understated.
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On January 11 2020 05:30 Mohdoo wrote:
Reminder: Iran wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and yet they also accidentally shot down a plane that left their own airport.
Which is why it would behoove the rest of the world to reign in a provocative rogue nation like the US.
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On January 11 2020 05:37 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2020 05:30 Mohdoo wrote:
Reminder: Iran wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and yet they also accidentally shot down a plane that left their own airport. Which is why it would behoove the rest of the world to reign in a provocative rogue nation like the US.
I completely agree!
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On January 11 2020 05:37 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2020 05:31 BlueBird. wrote:On January 11 2020 05:30 Mohdoo wrote:
Reminder: Iran wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and yet they also accidentally shot down a plane that left their own airport. Come on... we have nukes yet flight 655 happened. Making a mistake 30 years ago is very different from making the same mistake current day. Especially with all that was learned from that. Chernoybl happened and yet modern nuclear reactors based on uranium are safer than coal. Things change. Chernobyl happening today would be an amazing failure whereas Chernobyl at the time was a result of rushing progress and insufficient budgeting. When the world learns together, then someone makes a significantly worse mistake 30 years later, it does a good job at framing capability. The level of incompetence it takes to shoot down a plane in your own country can't be understated.
Shooting down a plane and launching a nuke are two different things. It takes one trigger happy person to shoot down a plane, Iran is not going to be stupid and have their nukes set up like that. Your Chernobyl analogy has not comvinced me.
Look I don’t want Iran to have nukes either. But not because they shot down a plane, but because I literally don’t want anyone to have weapons of that nature.
I don’t mind the idea that “hey Iran shouldn’t have nukes”. But let’s be serious about why we think they shouldnt have it and not point to this mistske that tells us nothing about how they would handle nuclear weapons. If you think only the USA should have them then just say it, don’t beat around the bush.
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On January 11 2020 05:30 Mohdoo wrote:
Reminder: Iran wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and yet they also accidentally shot down a plane that left their own airport.
Reminder:
The US has accidentally dropped a nuke near one of their own cities.
You also elected Trump. If having nukes was based on some kind of legal or moral merit the US would never see one.
Iran wants nukes because it's the only way they guarantee not having the US decide to Iraq them out of the blue. If the US wasn't so full of shit Iran wouldn't need the damn things.
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On January 11 2020 05:55 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2020 05:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 11 2020 05:30 Mohdoo wrote:
Reminder: Iran wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and yet they also accidentally shot down a plane that left their own airport. Which is why it would behoove the rest of the world to reign in a provocative rogue nation like the US. I completely agree!
Suddenly all the Europeans cluttering up the thread have purpose. You've seen the maps, we're hopeless. If you don't stop us now we might bomb your country next and Ivanka will just label the country Iran and at least half us will believe her and another chunk won't know the difference. /s (sad I feel I need this)
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On January 11 2020 06:02 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2020 05:30 Mohdoo wrote:
Reminder: Iran wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and yet they also accidentally shot down a plane that left their own airport. Reminder: The US has accidentally dropped a nuke near one of their own cities. You also elected Trump. If having nukes was based on some kind of legal or moral merit the US would never see one. Iran wants nukes because it's the only way they guarantee not having the US decide to Iraq them out of the blue. If the US wasn't so full of shit Iran wouldn't need the damn things.
www.businessinsider.com
yeah, in 1958 and it fell because of pulling an emergency pin, and it wasn't even armed.
Cool story.
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On January 11 2020 05:30 Mohdoo wrote:
Reminder: Iran wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and yet they also accidentally shot down a plane that left their own airport. Iran wants nukes because nukes are the only reliable defence against the US. If the US wasn't aggressive towards Iran on a regular basis they wouldn't need a nuke. Which is why Iran was willing to make the deal with the international community to stop their nuclear program in exchange for better relations....
And then the next US president went right back to being aggressive towards Iran.
Guess they were right, the only way is to have nukes...
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On January 11 2020 05:30 Mohdoo wrote:
Reminder: Iran wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and yet they also accidentally shot down a plane that left their own airport.
While I agree in principle, it's hard to play this card while edging around the elephant in the room.
"America wants people to believe they should be allowed to have nukes, yet they..."
- Elected Trump
- Struggle to find the middle east on a map
- Started a fifteen year war there anyway for reasons that turned out to be completely mistaken
- Also, accidentally shot down a plane while already possessing nukes
Etc etc etc
A country getting nukes is obviously not some democratic process where all the people of the world get together and vote for nations they think are conscientious enough. It would be nice if it was, we might have Norway and New Zealand as the gatekeepers of nuclear winter rather than Putin and Trump.
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Trump might be losing some republicans with this whole 'imminent attack'. Could it impact the vote in the senate ?
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EPT
