I notice none of your links reference attacks against peacekeeper forces, which Israel does - all the time.

Hezbollah was founded by orphans whose parents were killed by the IDF in Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah protects the people of Lebanon from genocide and ethnic cleansing. I will not argue that they haven’t committed terrible crimes, I recognize that orphan children organizing a resistance effort against a nuclear power supported by the United States is likely to do things I disagree with, but as a harm reductionist, I would support Hezbollah over Israel. It isn’t even close. Israel is a thousand times worse than Hezbollah.

Even Christians living in Lebanon have spoken favorably about Hezbollah, because Hezbollah protects the Lebanese people - regardless of faith or ethnicity - against the terrible crimes of Israel:

“How can we as Christians in this area not be with Hezbollah? They protect our churches,” Rifaat Nasrallah, a 60-year-old quarryman from the village, told the Telegraph.

Israel is now conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign of Southern Lebanon and Hezbollah are bravely fighting those disgusting Zionist fascists and putting them down like the monsters they are.

If you want to see an end to Hezbollah and their crimes, look no further than the dissolution of the criminal, genocidal state of Israel.

Some stupid people disagreed with you even when presented with evidence of Russia already having invaded Ukraine as recently as 2014. I am not those people. I am just looking at all of the history and propaganda on all sides with an understanding of international relations and I am seeing a very peaceful process considering this has been a civil war for decades.

“I’m not being reactionary!! They have a marine corps!! And invasion plans for the region held by the enemy resistance forces. They’ve said that they’re committed to peaceful reunification and haven’t attempted any invasions for decades despite many opportunities, but that’s all just been an act, they’re gonna invade aaaany day now!”

Of course, it could never be Israel, the state conducting two genocides with a long and storied history of breaking ceasefires and firing on UN troops.

You cease, Israel fires.

China is planning for an invasion of Taiwan, so they’re certainly putting together a backup plan

Yes, a backup plan for a potential case of Taiwan being used as a static US aircraft carrier against it in a war. You remember that they’re still at war, right? No peace treaty was ever signed between the KMT and the CPC.

Look at your own source:

Shortly after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s arrival in Taipei, China announced plans to hold live-fire drills

It’s almost as if the drills are a response to something other than just Taipei not yet being willing to re-unify.

I also note that the bright red symbols on the mark connote a sense of urgency and yet this is from 2022. Obviously the invasion must be happening any day now…

The map also references other drills from 1995-1996 which I note are denoted as “Third Taiwan Strait Crisis”… If they were at 3 crises by 1996, I can’t imagine how many crises we’ve had since, considering liberals have been unable to shut the fuck up about this for decades.

Please, calm down, you are being reactionary.

This is steel-manning an argument for a feature no one wants which is most likely the thin end of the wedge for increased surveillance and censorship.

This is just how it starts so they can trick well meaning developers into making websites and platforms which make use of this verification while it is still self-ID, but when the laws become more demanding and require connecting your user account to your real-world identity, it’ll already be too late, all of your online activity can be tied back to you.

When I make this argument, people like to call it a slippery slope, but the fact is that there are so many nations cracking down on free, unmonitored access to the internet, with social media restrictions, platforms like Discord requiring you to provide identification, and so on.

All for this, all of that risk, all for a feature that adds very little value to the computing experience of anyone.

I’m the person they’re arguing with, and no I didn’t? I didn’t link anything, I wouldn’t even know where to find a Chinese tabloid and I’ve never read one!

This was literally the entire exchange:

They’ve actually said the opposite, again and again, that they want peaceful reunification. They haven’t ruled out force, because they’re a sovereign state, and a sovereign state never renounces their ability to use force over the territory they claim. The opposite side does the exact same thing for the rest of China, too.

the Taiwanese don’t want to do nothing to do with China anymore, specially the young ppl, they want to be their own thing.

That’s great! Then they can and should remain peacefully independent, but if that ever changes in the future, then perhaps they can re-unite, assuming that the CPC remains open to re-unification at that point.

Maybe ALL imperialism is war.

That isn’t even true. Imperialism is often spread through soft power. I thought that was the entire point you were making, that China was exerting soft power in an imperialist manner… if China invades Taiwan, I will be right there with you, calling it out, but history has shown that the CPC is quite restrained, and I see no reason for them to change their approach.

Maybe ALL imperialism is bad.*

Well yeah obviously, no maybes about that. I am not supporting Chinese imperialism in any way. My point is that the US imperialism is unbelievably bad and much worse, and yet people here just can’t accept that very reasonable critique without getting bent out of shape accusing me of all kinds of shit, including that I am a tankie. Y’all need to recognize the mainstream narrative is told to you by the exact same media that have been lying to us all along to push US imperialism. The media is owned by the ruling class. Please stop being so short sighted.

Other people wrongly believed that Russia, despite having already invaded Ukraine in 2014, that Russia would not invade Ukraine again, for some reason. I am not those people. I am pointing out to you that they have had those favorable conditions already, a number of times, and no invasion ever came. If you want to believe that they just have just one more condition to take into account before invading Taiwan, you have the right to believe that.

But the United States is far worse, and that was my entire point. I don’t want to defend China. Fuck China. But the US has done imperialism for centuries at this point

“I already decided you’re wrong, but I can’t argue with facts, so I’ll insult you instead. I rest my case.”

Israel: does a genocide

China: flies a plane near a country they’ve been at war with for over 70 years

Liberals: “hmm yes these seem about the same to me”

Yes, that’s right. The Chinese Civil War never ended, the KMT and the CPC never signed a peace treaty. The fighting stopped because there was no way to take back control of Taiwan without high casualties - on both sides. Since then, the CPC have been committed to taking back control of Taiwan peacefully. At the moment, the people of Taiwan continue to support independence - but also the One China Policy, which recognizes that there is only One China. The CPC wants to re-unify, but rather than doing that by force, they just maintain their position and encourage peaceful reunification. But there are still moments of tension, of course, each tests the responses of the other, the limits of their radar, and so on. But people aren’t dying.

By contrast, the US is carpet bombing Iran, at the behest of Israel, because Iran threatens Israel’s lebensraum ambitions to turn the Middle East into Greater Israel. You really believe China is still as bad as the US? Seriously??

“ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH ME MUST BE A TANKIE!!!”

I’m not a Tankie, and you can check through my entire comment history to easily confirm that. I just can’t help but notice that people have been saying “China is about to attack Taiwan any day now” for years and it never comes. Maybe they’re just not as bad as us?

China: persues peaceful reunification with Taiwan

The West: “LOOK!!! THEY’RE LIKE US! WORSE THAN US!!!” invades nation illegally

Okay, buddy.

Tripping on acid and eating honey mustard. This post now makes a lot more sense! Upvoted <3

Does “don’t punch left” mean you can punch anyone slightly to your right?

It means that the focus of our criticism should be against the right, rather than those on the left.

“HOW DARE U CRITICIZE RIGHT WING DEMOCRATS”

Let’s get you to bed, grandpa.

A good game with predatory monetization can still be enjoyable. Bad, boring uninspired game cant’t.

Sure, but I’d say that predatory monetization does a lot more harm than a boring game does. A boring game is just “wow, this kinda sucks, guess I’ll refund it” or maybe at worst you lose the purchase price of the game, but games with predatory monetization can cause serious financial harm to people who struggle to control their spending habits, it’s a bit like gambling.

They also implemented LGBT themes in a way thats actually enjoyable for normal player.

Yeah, this was one of the reasons I asked about it - I think it’s a demonstration of how fun and enjoyable games with lots of diversity can be, and I was curious how you felt about it. Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

I think its different phrasing of the same issue. Instead of pushing the boundaries, these companies produce stuff that won’t cause any controversy, no risk taking, just one established scheme over and over again as long as revenue exeeds the costs.

Yes, exactly! But my point is that I don’t see the root of that problem as political correctness, the root of the problem is greed, and they’re just making a game that tries to appeal (or panders to) modern gaming audiences, who are more and more diverse themselves by the day. They just do a really shitty job of it.

Do you have insight of why UK left the EU?

I sure do. Scotland is very pro-EU, and we had an independence referendum shortly before the Brexit vote (i.e. a vote to decide if Scotland should become independent of the UK or not) and one of the major points the anti-independence people kept making was that an independent Scotland would be kicked out of the EU and have to re-apply to join. It was probably a big reason why the independence referendum failed. Then we were dragged out of the EU a short time later by England anyways. It was a very frustrating time.

As to why the UK voted for Brexit, there are a few reasons, but the central one is basically the same old story - cost of living increasing out of pace with wages, public services under a lot of strain and failing, etc. These things were basically caused by the combined effects of businesses maximizing profits, and austerity implemented by the Conservative party in response to the 2008 global financial crisis, but to avoid criticism, the wealthy who owned the media directed blame towards immigrants rather than the truly responsible party - corporate greed, the ultra wealthy, and the government.

Another major component was the media, who constantly spammed pro-Brexit messaging. There was some other stuff mixed in there too - ideas of “sovereignty” - i.e. British chauvinism (“no damn frenchie is gonna tell me what to do! what if i want a flammable pillow!!”), and to some extent, racism also played a role, but in all honesty, if it wasn’t for austerity, I think we would still be in the EU. I really hope we can rejoin soon.

I trade cryptocurrencies. Won’t say any more due to privacy reasons.

Thanks for sharing that - I’m a software engineer.

Shit happens, if things go bad, I’ll be there to support him.

Good for you <3

To be honest when I socialize, I don’t care about financial status.

Sure, I get that, but what I’m trying to get at, is that you might not be aware of the issues that affect people who aren’t as well off as you are if you don’t talk to them about it, right? Like, I can speak from experience that there are lots of government programs in my own country which exist to provide support to people, but in practice, actually accessing those programs is very, very difficult. I’m disabled, spent my years 18+ in a wheelchair, and applying for disability benefits was/is a complete nightmare. My first request for it, which provided like 300+ pages of evidence, doctors notes, etc. was rejected, and from what I hear basically everyone is rejected on the first try. After appealing, it was accepted - but then, a few years later, they just arbitrarily decided that I must have gotten better, so I had to re-apply and go through an appeals process which is still ongoing over a year later, and I’m just having to scrape by without that much needed money. I’m really lucky that I’m able to work part-time and that I have a supportive partner, because if I had lived alone and was unable to work, I’d be homeless by now. My story is hardly a rare exception, either - I’m a volunteer at a local advocacy & support group for disabled people, and I hear stories like this from almost everyone.

noone ever talks about actual money. People are quite privacy oriented around that subject. Is Scotland different in that regard?

It varies a lot - in my experience, older people tend to be a lot more private, but younger people are more open. It benefits people to talk about things like this, especially at work, so that they can learn that they are being underpaid or paid fairly for their job. There’s nothing that motivates you to ask for a pay raise quite like hearing that someone in the office who does a worse job than you do gets paid more!

I honestly dont know. I have suspicion that’s result of women doing careers all the way to their 30s spending most of their fertile part of life on working rather than building a family, but thats just my hypothesis

I’ve heard this hypothesis before - I guess my first question is, if women have to spend their lives working, isn’t that just a second-order effect of financial reasons? It used to be that a single working man could make enough money to afford to pay for a whole family, but that is no longer true. Women need to take on a career so that they can afford to live.

What do you mean? By “mainstream Democrats” we mean people like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, they’re more unpopular than ever with their own base, and they very clearly put the interests of the ruling class before the needs of the working class. They are right wingers who support Israel’s genocide, they’re not anti-war, they don’t support Medicare-for-All. They’ve got to go, 100%.

Just to clarify, I meant it’s easier to make money as a teen hacker nowadays than it was back in my day thanks to crypto. I edited my original comment to clarify that