i’ve never had my SS card stolen because it stays at home inside of the random shit drawer

i’ve also never had my SSN stolen. maybe i’m just lucky but I don’t recall a time I ever inputted my SSN online besides the last 4 digits for some ID verification

GRANTED I agree that the 10 cards rule is silly. I think it was written for a different time. and realistically, you could lose your SSN card every 6 years from 18 years old ↦ 78 years old and you’ll only be denied at 78.

by then hopefully we’ve modernized the system a bit. maybe that’s too optimistic

“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/

Peter Thiel is the financier behind JD Vance and one of the co-founders of PayPal- later on with Elon Musk. They’re part of the same group of people, along with various other Silicon Valley tech executives, who subscribe to what has been called the “Dark Enlightenment” philosophy

JD Vance, for example, has openly expressed his support for Nick Land and cited him as a major influence.

Both Yarvin and Land believe that gradual, incremental reforms to democracy will not save Western society; instead, a “hard reset” or “reboot” is necessary. To that end, Yarvin has coined the acronym “RAGE” – Retire All Government Employees – as a crucial step toward that goal.

Does that sound familiar?

Yarvin advocates for an entirely new system of government – what he calls “neocameralism.” He advocates for a centrally managed economy led by a monarch – modeled after a corporate CEO – who wouldn’t need to adhere to plodding liberal-democratic procedures. Yarvin has written approvingly of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for his pragmatic and market-oriented authoritarianism.

They’re essentially trying to reshape the government to function more like a corporation. Something akin to the Chinese or Singapore method of governance. Democracy is not compatible. What’s interesting is that this isn’t happening in secret. They’re out in the open about it.

I’m guessing you refuse to see what’s in front of your nose out of fear, which is why you keep saying everyone else is afraid. Me personally, I’m not afraid at all. I’d say I’m more morbidly curious to see how it all ends up. I’m fairly privileged and I’ll be fine no matter what. As long as you shut up and do your job most people will be fine. Just don’t be an immigrant or openly anti-Israel

But it’s happening. We’re witnessing a coup right in front of our eyes. They are purging the federal government and Trump has started to ignore court orders- dipping his toes in the water. There’s a lot more to this if you’re interested. There’s many articles out there and you can even read stuff by Vance, Thiel, Yarvin, Land, etc. They’re not shy

then please wise one- assuage my fear by showing me how the purge isn’t a purge. release me from this trembling terror by convincing me that the administration is not actually breaking federal law. save me from this horror and show me the light

what does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment really mean? explain to me please how these ideologically aligned billionaires (who happen to control the white house) that say they want to end democracy aren’t actually planning on ending democracy

Roman history didn’t end after Julius Caesar. In fact, Rome would reach its peak a couple hundred years after that moment and then continued to dominate for hundreds of years afterwards.

It just wasn’t really a Republic anymore.

Of course that isn’t to say the US will get stronger, I think the opposite. Just that the end of democracy doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the country.

we’re watching an unprecedented purge in only a couple months of an administration. led by people who have openly admitted they want to destroy American democracy and institute a dictatorship.

me personally I think Trump already crossed the Rubicon. but in the very near future there will be an order by the Supreme Court for Trump to stop doing something. He won’t stop doing it. And then it will be abundantly clear to everyone we’re in a new stage of US history

this was actually a key part of Hitler’s strategy. early on in the Nazi meetings they would try to pin down and give an exact agenda and set of policies.

he would yell at everyone that they’re missing the point. it’s more about the vibe than the logic. being vague and ambiguous keeps your options open.

“It is not truth that matters, but victory.” Adolph

By refusing precise definitions, you are able to retroactively decide what the ideology “always meant”. so when it’s convenient to hate against health insurance CEOs you are “against the swamp”. when it’s convenient to dismantle the government you are “against the swamp”

it can mean whatever you want it to. similar with the “enemies of the state”

nazis would use the word marxists or “degenerates” very loosely. makes it very easy to shift blame to a specific target or another when necessary

berlin’s degeneracy is because of gays, somewhere else it may be gypsies, another it’s the jews, etc.

today we see phrases like “radical leftists” “cultural marxists” “woke ideology” etc

a federal judge blocked some of Trump’s orders (Trump ignored it of course) and what does he call him? a radical left judge. something that couldn’t be further from the truth- radical left would imply some type of communist or socialist. but it doesn’t really matter because the term is vague enough it can work

i got this spam too. i think it’s just someone who wants to grow some type of online community

i think fact that they feel comfortable sharing a picture with drug paraphernalia & spamming hundreds of people says all i need to know about the person

i say be polite. you don’t have to be super friendly or anything

being a “homewrecker” is bad, but sometimes there’s more context you don’t know about. i tend to give people the benefit of doubt and give them an opportunity to show who they are before I make assumptions.

i do this because in the past i have judged too quickly and been wrong about people- in both directions

If a new World War was coming, we would definitely want to be closer with our border countries than give our foreign enemies a chance

think of it this way. let’s say WW3 kicks off with China tomorrow. Will Canada or Mexico suddenly ally with China?

Reality is that Canada and Mexico are totally dependent on US trade. It really doesn’t matter if you piss them off they’re gonna be forced to deal with you anyway.

80% of Mexican exports are to the US. 30% of their GDP is based on American trade. If US exports stopped tomorrow, Mexican economy would immediately enter a deep depression. They have no choice but to play nice, even with 25% tariffs.

Canada is similarly stuck. 75% of exports are to the US. 50% of their imports are from the US. 20% of their GDP is based on American trade.

If you took both Canadian and Mexican trade combined and compared it to the US economy, though, it wouldn’t even reach 5%. If trade with both of these countries were to stop tomorrow, America will suffer- but growth may slow by 0.5% or 1%. Both Canada and Mexico would see a depression.

America is like the sun in the solar system. Canada and Mexico have no choice but to fall into orbit around it. The total weight of the economic power is hard to understate.

Do you see why Trump feels like he has the power to do this? This is the point I was trying to make above. Historically US presidents have been more diplomatic and subtle about how to abuse the leverage that America has by the nature of being a superpower. Trump isn’t fundamentally different except he’s exploiting this leverage loudly and in an ugly and aggressive way.

In the past, presidents would play nice. Pretend like there was sovereignty and diplomacy, etc. But when Bill Clinton signed NAFTA… it was for the same reason. To dominate the economies of both Canada and Mexico. The difference is the rhetoric sounds much nicer.

After NAFTA was signed, subsidized US corn flooded the Mexican market, totally bankrupting millions of Mexican farmers. Wages in Mexico stagnated for decades because US needed cheap labor to build cars. In Canada, they became more and more reliant on exporting natural resources to the US.

We always need to remember US is an imperialist power. This is what empires do.

As for the upcoming war, I think it’s only a matter of time. But we’re talking a time scale of 5-10 years. We’re preparing for the future showdown. There will be one or two more flashpoints before the main war. Ukraine was one, Israel is another.

If we had to make an analogy with WW2, I’d say we’re roughly in mid ~1930s. Our Spanish Civil War is the Ukrainian war. Our Italian invasion of Ethiopia is the Israeli conflict. (Gaza, Israeli invasion of Syria, war with Lebanon, Iran, etc)

Anyone who’s even remotely qualified to lead the military is being replaced with sycophants

it’s a purge. we’re watching our own version of what Saddam Hussein did when he took power. it definitely weakens the country overall but it strengthens the hold on power for the executive.

as for the military, we’ve been spending more than like the next 8 countries combined for decades. it’s hard to understate the relative power of the US military. there are hundreds of military bases all over the world.

even a weakened superpower is still a superpower

If no enemies exist, they are created.

i don’t disagree. that’s why the rhetoric. but I would disconnect the rhetoric from the policy. trump says one thing and does another. he wants to deport everyone but at the rate he’s going we won’t even see a 10% reduction in the illegal immigrant population. mouth says one thing, hand does another

notice how tariffs were a trend that started a decade ago. Trump placed tariffs on China on his first term and then Biden increased the number of tariffs. the ban on Tiktok was a bipartisan effort- it’s in the interest of US foreign policy. obviously tariffs on Canada and Mexico are insane and probably wouldn’t have happened without Trump… but more tariffs were a definite part of the future regardless who won in 2024

Trump isn’t doing this because he’s some brilliant strategist

couple of things. first, i wouldn’t underestimate trump. he successfully hijacked the Republican party which is a party full of wealthy and powerful people who did everything in their power to try and stop him

second, the people around Trump are very principled ideologues (ie people like Peter Thiel and the dark enlightenment ideology they’re enamored in)

these people are educated, intelligent, and dedicated to their cause. they also have near-limitless money and now they have the control of the federal government of the strongest country in the world- a country that has an executive branch that has gotten progressively more powerful.

they have a vision and they planned for this and they are enacting it. this is not a spontaneous thing. they view a future where there is a showdown with China and tariffs play into that future

the analogy was in reference to the size differential between david (boy) and goliath (giant)

sure david wins in the parable but to quote bo burnham

South of queers, north of Hell

The queer ones suck and the brown ones smell

We guard the border and we guard it well

But some slip through the cracks of the Liberty Bell

Did I say liberty? I meant taco, Paco, hey you better let that rock go

'Cause in real life, Goliath wins

And then sells all the silk that the widow spins

because there’s a war coming soon that will destroy most global trade. trump wants the US in a better position in that near future by having more factories and such inside of the US.

in a peaceful world, you allow free trade and specialization to do its thing and everybody gets richer. you farm bananas, i farm apples, and we trade. we create value out of thin air, it’s an amazing thing.

but in a world where superpowers are at war and the world splinters into factions, half of the global economy will be cut off from the other half. therefore it’ll be a huge liability if we for example depend on Taiwan for 90% of our computer chips when China can blockade Taiwan and we cannot reliably break that blockade. that’s one industry… now imagine the thousands of other products we need for a modern economy. it would cause massive economic shockwaves.

so this tariff thing is accepting that this will happen in the near future and preparing for it, slowly weaning off the economy from that connection to the rest of the world. so when it does come, it doesn’t hurt as bad.

it doesn’t really matter if you piss off your allies. since you’re the biggest military power they are going to have to rely on you anyway. you have leverage over them. the difference is that Trump is a reality TV star and so he is loudly exploiting this leverage whereas most past leaders would be more subtle and diplomatic about it.

Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, etc aren’t really allies. Being someone’s ally implies there’s a sort of equal footing. When someone has no choice but to bend to your will, is that a voluntary relationship? the US essentially wrote Japan’s constitution and they told the Germans what to write down for theirs. Canada and Mexico are heavily dependent on US trade- US growth might slow a half percent or two whereas Mexico and Canada are liable to fall into a recession because of these tariffs.

it isn’t equal footing. it’s a david v goliath situation

to give a recent example, Ukraine. Ukraine in 2014 had the Euromaidan coup and the president had to flee the country. The new government that was quickly appointed without an election realized one thing very quickly- Russia was about to invade them. they had only one option in terms of getting military aid and that was the US. so immediately, the same day that the government was appointed, they started cooperating with the US. a few days after that, little green men showed up in Donbas and the Russian army waltzed into Crimea

so you can say they “allied” with the US but a more honest way to say it is that they were desperately pushed into America’s orbit. and the US ultimately doesn’t care about a country like Ukraine. people are starting to see it more clearly today because of Trump, but I honestly don’t think the situation would have been meaningfully different with Biden or Kamala. The primary difference would have been rhetoric. Instead of calling Zelensky a dictator, we would have just dragged our feet with military aid instead, like what has been happening the last year or so

tldr: the US is a imperialist superpower and this is what they do.

I think his is absolutely the right course of action. We as humans have a weird psyche and we sometimes externalize internal issues and project them outwards either onto ideas or people.

So for example, incels have serious issues with self-worth and they externalize those issues into hatred of women and society at large for their position in life. They feel, perhaps, they are not the man they feel like they should be- strong, handsome, wealthy, etc. And so they take blame at external circumstances in order to lessen the cognitive dissonance that if they are lonely and undesired- it’s almost always due to their own decision making and perspective on life.

So for example a young male teen may feel all sorts of negative emotions and decide that gender dysphoria must be the diagnosis- when maybe he’s just a little feminine and attracted to men. But if they start to identify with the trans label prematurely, they could end up doing unnecessary damage to themselves and their development.

I wholeheartedly and unapologetically support trans people and in my opinion if transitioning is determined the most effective treatment to gender dysphoria by one or two clinical physicians, I would absolutely support my kid transitioning. Trans kids have a very high rate of suicide so this is actually a very serious life and death diagnosis. It’s more dangerous statistically than some types of cancer. And if my kid had cancer, I would want to obviously look at all possible treatments plans we could take.

But just like the dad, I would start with regular therapy and work our way up. See what else is going on. I would also spend time with my kid and really try to get a sense for what’s troubling them. I don’t think there is a substitute for a parent who cares.

Anyhow, interesting post, thanks for sharing this intimate exchange. It’s a reminder that we are all humans and even those who we may label as “conservative” cannot be condensed down to one statement. This is one of the reasons, for example, I love Florida even though it’s a red state. I’m the furthest thing from right wing, but you’ll find that many Latinos who identify as right-wing have many views that would be considered “progressive”.

We’re all ultimately people who hold multitudes.

i’m kind of lost on how to respond to this. we weren’t talking about games, the card analogy was to show that even with a relatively small set of starting conditions you can get to relatively absurd possibilities very quickly. it was to highlight the chaos theory that rules our lives.

the OP wasn’t about winning or losing anything, it was about “having experienced all life has to offer”. that would necessarily include both winning and losing combinations, no matter your subjective definition of “winning” or “losing”

and even having said all that and to follow your analogy- there are many games where drawing a face card (a-k) is a bad thing.

you ever play rummy? you want the least amount of points at the end of the round and face cards are worth more points.

you can make a straight flush with a 2 3 4 5 6 in poker, a face card can be enough to bust you in blackjack, etc.

this is the wildest statement i’ve seen all month

the breadth and depth of the experiences that life has to offer is unfathomable. do not be so brazen to assume you have experienced even a tiny drop of vast ocean of what humans have actually lived through

From suicide in the trenches to the raising of a child; from gazing upon Earth from space to hunting a predator with a spear; from meditating in silence for weeks to leading a entire nation through a crisis; from winning a chess tournament to starting a business—and losing it all in a bankruptcy—existence is infinite, or may as well be.

think of it this way

there are 52 cards in a deck. that means every single deck has a specific order, right? what are the chances of you getting one specific order of cards if you shuffle? Well, how many different combinations are there? 52! ( ! means both factorial and emphasis here)

That’s 52 × 51 x 50 … all the way to × 2 × 1

That’s 8x10⁶⁷

That’s 8 with 67 zeros. Here

80000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

For reference… the number of seconds since the Big Bang is estimated to be about 4×10¹⁷

Now think of your life and human life in general. Think of all the variables. Hell, there are 7 days in a week. 52 weeks in a year. Coincidentally the same as a deck of cards.

If you do something different every week, there are going to be 8000000000… different ways your year could turn out.

So, please do not fall victim to this type of irrational thought. I’m not sure if it’s arrogance, depression, or something else leading to that delusion, but it’s a wild statement—absolutely nuts

if you stick to your workouts and train to failure, your muscles will grow.

however to eliminate fat, you don’t exercise. you eat less. when you are eating below caloric maintenance, your body makes up the difference in fat. you can’t control where the fat comes from. you just have to maintain that for a long time and it’ll go away. everyone stores fat differently. some in legs, some in stomach, etc.

but you cannot exercise away body fat. it’s like 80/20 diet exercise

I’d never think that, of all places, American democracy would be the most volatile

Ignore the political system and look at the economic system. The US is capitalist and as it turns out- capitalism is not mutually exclusive with fascism.

If a human being lives long enough, he will eventually develop cancer. It’s simply a natural physical consequence of repeated cell division. Eventually there’s some mutation that leads to a chain reaction. The cancer spreads enough and there’s no going back. Capitalism, similarly, will always inevitably embrace fascism.

Marx got it wrong. He believed that the workers, realizing their position as class consciousness increases, would inevitably revolt against the power structure. The reality is more depressing.

Capitalism has cycles of crisis. Sometimes the economy is doing good which leaves the workers content. Sometimes the economy is doing bad. The problem is when the economy is doing bad coincides with some other set of crisis, the combination of events radicalizes the workers. This part Marx predicted. However he was mistaken about human nature.

Really, our problem started back in 2008. The global economy never fully recovered. Interest rates were kept low in a desperate attempt to increase spending to keep the boat from tipping. Then COVID pumped up inflation to historic levels- supply chain shortages wrecked chaos. After that, the Russian invasion of Ukraine pushed up inflation even higher. Prices go up but wages lag behind.

Workers, naturally, become more radicalized- as Marx predicted. The issue is Marx was too optimistic about human nature. Humans as a whole are fearful herd animals. They need a shepherd to point somewhere. And eventually, inevitably, some megalomaniac with a vision will take advantage of a vulnerable system and point somewhere. In the 1930s it was to the Jews and the communists. Today, it’s the illegals and “wokeism”.

All this to say that this shouldn’t be surprising. Left wing voices have been warning about this for a long time.

“women have a higher chance to develop eating disorders when consuming more social media”

are gals really upset over this? grow up! jesus

maybe instead of judging the individual we should look at how traditional societal expectations about gender interact with modern capitalist society and realize that what may have worked to some degree 100 years ago can no longer work today

the US is an full-on oligarchy again after a brief semi-respite in the middle to later parts of the 20th century

It went from oligarchy that provided a certain minimum quality of life to workers into one that is intentionally as extractive as possible. Once women entered the work force and effectively doubled the labor pool, capitalists had a lot more leverage.