shikitohno

There's the pretty clear and obvious reasons of self-enrichment and looking out for national/regional interests in terms of geopolitical, strategic and economic advantages to be gained by having a friendly power in the region, but it seems like there's also a sunk cost they keep piling on in having to avoid confronting how wrong they've been.

Virulent pro-Zionism and intolerance of questioning this seems to me to come in large part from a western sense of guilt and shame over having allowed the Holocaust to happen while western powers sat on the sidelines for way too long, and they have collectively overcompensated on this front since the end of WWII, blindly doing anything to say "We're going to support the Jewish people going forward." Doubling down on this now means that they can continue to convince themselves that this was the correct, morally justified choice, while withdrawing this unwavering support would mean they would eventually have to confront the question, "At what point did the Israelis and the Zionist project become evil?" Unfortunately for them, seriously grappling with this question would ultimately require admitting that this isn't some recent development, but has been the case going back all the way to the very foundation of Israel, if not earlier. Without exceptional skills to manage this, admitting that the western powers have been materially aiding a genocide against one group of Semitic peoples to assuage their own guilt over having stood by to the point that the Nazis were able to advance an absolutely disgusting amount in their own revolting genocide against of the Jewish people (amongst many other groups in Europe), which almost no politician is willing to consider.

"So, to make up for how we enabled the Nazis and collectively screwed millions of Jews, we've been supporting a Zionist project that has been carrying out international propaganda and genocide for almost 80 years, to such great success in their propaganda efforts that Goebbels would be taking notes from it," is a hard pill to swallow. Instead of facing the facts, they double down on this and keep their heads in the sand when it comes to the horrors of the Zionist state and its aims.

I would imagine it reads rather differently to different people. Rich guys reading Forbes probably think it's a great dunk on China. Meanwhile, I'm reading it thinking, "Shit, I could get behind this. Just wish I lived somewhere that it didn't mean I would be homeless in less than a year if I tried it."

This seems more like extroverts' misconceptions of how introverts are, rather than an actual issue to me. I don't tend to seek out relationships with highly extroverted people who can't stand the idea of a moment where nobody is saying something, regardless of how inane that thing happens to be. At present, my companion and I have known each other for pushing 15 years, and we're just comfortable being quiet around each other, unless one of us actually has something to say. If one of us actually has something they want to communicate about their day, or some other typical topic for small talk, we're more than capable of talking each others' ears off, we just don't feel any need to run through conversations like:

"How was your day?"

"Good, yours?"

"Also acceptable."

on a regular basis, unless we actually have something we wanted to discuss.

It's also not as though we don't have any hobbies or interests. We've got plenty of shared ones, and enjoy discussing them and planning out future activities, we just tend to do it either solo or together, but without involving large groups. Even for those we don't share, we enjoy discussing them with each other to a certain extent.

There's a huge difference between disliking pointless, socially expected chatter to fill dead air, and having some sort of social anxiety that leaves you unable to sustain regular conversations with others in your life. People who are not introverted just seem to assume that we either wish we could do it, but have some sort of condition that prevents us from being able to do so without it causing us problems, or that we just never learned how to do it properly, and would enjoy it for some reason if they just kept trying to get us to do it more and practice. I'm sure there are people that would apply to, but it's not universal, and many of us would just like to be left in peace, unless you actually have something to say. Sometimes, we even meet others like ourselves, and enjoy our peace together, without the pointless talk that we both know neither is really interested in.

Relevant meme:

its owner is compelled to park across both the stop sign and the crosswalk.

To me, it's more a case of the owner feeling entitled to do this. They have the (likely easier and much cheaper) option of buying a vehicle that's appropriate to the primary environment they'll be operating it in, and chose not to. This isn't compulsion, it's just another in a chain of selfish decisions.

For most people, unless you're filleting a flat fish (flounder, sole, etc), you're probably better off using a boning knife than a fillet knife. The flexibility of a fillet knife can be helpful, but it's also more difficult to control properly. I'd also recommend going in from the back on step 2. With a little bit of practice, it's quite easy to learn to feel your way around the ribcage, rather than slicing through it and having to remove those bones later on.

There are plenty of reasons for people to use subtitles that don't come down to poor hearing. I find a lot of TV and movies from Spain or France have really crap sound, for example, where dialogue is practically a whisper. I speak Spanish fluently and use it at work without issue for 40 hours a week, yet have an easier time understanding death metal lyrics than dialogue in some films and shows, for example. Somehow, Brazil figured out better sound design than most productions in either of those two countries, and I can watch Brazilian shows and films without having to turn on subtitles just fine.

You also have assholes like Christopher Nolan, who insist on mixes that result in sound effects blowing out your ear drums before you can actually make out the dialogue, despite it being spoken in my native English.

On the other hand, I find background noise much more disruptive to my comprehension in languages other than English, and would hardly be surprised if the same were true for those who speak English as a second language.

Also, I guess by your logic, people who are deaf or hard of hearing should just accept that they can never fully appreciate this sort of media, due to relying on closed captioning.

All around, it's just an incredibly ignorant comment.

I don't know, they could at least obstruct as much as the Republicans did for them whenever the Democrats were in power and had a chance to pass actual progressive legislation, but chickened out and said they needed to compromise the shit out of it to make a bipartisan effort, since the Republican minority was blocking anything and everything they tried to do.

Probably all the knives and the room full of people who spend 8 hours a day cutting things to bits with them. After a while, you get pretty good at finding where to cut through joints, so it doesn't take all that long.

Because, for many people, it's not all that easy to get the requisite visas to go to Europe legally. As it stands now, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in my household of 3 who has a few options to get skilled work visas based on my work experience. In another few years, when we've all finished our degrees, we're looking at making the leap.

For other people, they might already have put down roots that hold them back before considering what a raw deal they're getting. Even if someone can qualify to emigrate, significant others, kids or property can make it more difficult for them to decide to go for it.

And, of course, you have plenty of folks who drink too deeply of the Kool-Aid, and believe Fox News when they say Europe is overrun by communist governments that implement Sharia law in their gulags, and force you to be gay to hit the national quotas.

I, too, am far from being either of those things, but it sounds like you could just track purchasing power to get a rough idea. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding it, but it seems to me that, if inflation or other factors have eaten into your purchasing power and you haven't gotten a corresponding raise to offset it, you can reasonably conclude that the economy is getting worse for you in your personal circumstances.

Nah, as in there's no reason for anyone to bring up F1 as a comparison, for the reasons you listed, and plenty of other safety improvements.

I don’t think you understood what I wrote or the context it was written.

I understood what you said fine, but you sure needed me to spell it out for you that I was agreeing with your point regarding most forms of racing these days, so maybe cool it on these comments until you work on your own reading comprehension and grasp of context yourself, there.

Nah, F1 has come a long way from back in the day, and really done a lot for driver safety over the years. I've been following it since shortly after Jules Bianchi died, and the only time I thought "Holy shit, I've just seen someone die on live TV!" was Romain Grosjean's crash, which he ultimately came away from with relatively minor injuries.

I think the motorsport equivalent would be something like the Isle of Man TT, or the motorcycle races at the Macau Grand Prix, where the approach to safety seems to mostly remain "Hey, don't hit any of those stone/concrete barriers while going as fast as humanly possible, but if you do, there's a doctor somewhere around, maybe they'll get to you in time."

Both of those events are, in all honesty, insane that they're allowed to continue as is. The Macau GP seems somewhat better in terms of sheer death count, but despite being interested in motorsport generally, I don't think I could ever make a holiday out of attending either one. I just don't want to go somewhere that has a very real possibility of someone dying an avoidable death because "Ah, fucking health and safety have taken all the excitement out of racing, but we're the real deal and hit stone walls at 200mph when we fuck up."