I'm just waiting to hear any of the SPD stans to explain why they supported the German war effort in WWI and how that didn't expose them as a party of useless opportunists and class traitors.

Or to even acknowledge that the SPD supported WWI, because none of them know shit about history.

outside it’s borders.

That's very generous of you. Most of what they call "imperialism" is stuff that China does within its own borders.

Nobody really believes in lesser evilism, it's just that people are willing to compromise as long as it's not crossing a line.

Genocide isn't a moral line for them. Defending a rival state is.

If a vampire cop can enter with a warrant, then a vampire count would be able to enter any residence in their county, right? Pretty sure that's not how that works.

What happens if a vampire declares a microstate that includes your house? What's to stop any vampire from declaring themselves emperor of the world and disregarding the rule entirely?

Iirc there's a scene in the original Dracula book where Renfield invites him in while a patient at an asylum, where he didn't have ownership or legal authority.

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Has to be "of the household" by Dracula rules.

Because:

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Netanyahu is clearly just being blackmailed by Putin to intentionally make Israel look bad. Anyone who disagrees with you on the internet? Russian bot. A massive wave of protests across university campuses? Believe it or not, Russian bots.

Now, we will need you to include some of our messaging in your program

Oh, ok, you mean there's gonna be a commercial sponsor or something?

No no no no! Nothing so tacky like that! We just want you to have some self destructive themes.

2013 international Gallup poll: "Which country is the biggest threat to world peace"

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The word "quarantine" originates from a Venetian policy that every single ship had to wait outside of port for 40 days to ensure nobody had the plague. I'm sure the antivax people would have no problem with such measures?

I want it to keep falling just because it'd be really funny if "The DOW is over 50 thou" goes down in history as the moment it began falling into oblivion.

Never before has the forces of history placed such a hole in the ground at such a pivotal place.

Idk if he beats Yuan Shikai setting off the warlord period by being so high on his own farts that he thought he could just declare himself emperor and everyone would go along with it.

Even a theoretical perfect society without flaws can be destroyed by much more powerful outside forces.

That makes sense for smaller countries, but the USSR was a peer to the US. That's kind of the "claim to fame" of the USSR, the fact that it was able to develop quickly enough to become a superpower.

And minor flaws, which under different circumstances would not be anywhere near enough to collapse a society, can be exploited and amplified by a powerful external enemy devoted to undermining and eventually destroying your society.

And as long as powerful external enemies continue to exist, it's crucial to understand what flaws they are able to exploit in order to undermine a society. Which is precisely why it's so important to identify those flaws through frank, honest criticism.

It strikes me as idealist to defend the USSR with the argument that everything would've been fine under different circumstances. I thought the whole point was to adapt policy to the conditions that actually exist - such as a powerful rival superpower existing.

I'd like to point out that what I said was, "One of the first things you have to explain defending the USSR is, “Well if it was so great, why isn’t it around anymore?”" The fact that the USSR had flaws is not automatically discrediting. As you said, "all societies have flaws." That isn't "victim blaming." Some explanation must exist for the fall of the USSR, and if it is not provided by a sympathetic author, then it will be invented by a likely unsympathetic reader.

The point is to reveal the different frames of analysis people use to make the decision.

This thought process, "The decision's already been made, either way it's always a free $1000," is one way of looking at it. But another way of looking at it is, "Those who choose one box tend to walk away with more money, so the evidence shows that taking one box is the better approach." These approaches sort of "talk past each other," because they're looking at completely different parts of the problem in order to draw their conclusions, and those different parts indicate very opposing conclusions.

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One time a friend posted a really expensive house they were gawking at so I edited this soldier into it

Because the USSR collapsed. One of the first things you have to explain defending the USSR is, "Well if it was so great, why isn't it around anymore?" Obviously, it had flaws, or it'd still be here.

Some version of it could exist. Not with the big numbers and not with the high degree of certainty in the problem, but you could have, say, somebody who's on average 70% accurate at reading people and the boxes are $1 and $10.

It is somewhat idealist in that it's a contrived scenario, but it's really just idle curiosity on my part. Maybe it could reflect something about people's thought processes, or maybe it's just people interpreting the question differently.

Um actually, you shouldn't rely on the media, and you should just assume every geopolitical rival of the US is evil based on nothing.

Honestly, this reminds me of something from Mark Twain's satirical A Defense of General Funston. Funston was fighting to conquer the Philippines and trying to track down insurgents. He hatched a scheme to be fake-captured by Phillippinos loyal to him, but while they were en route, they ran short of supplies, and begged the insurgents for food. The insurgents sent them food, then welcomed them in to their hideout and fed them, after which Funston's "captors" opened fired and murdered their hosts.

By the custom of war, all these things are innocent, none of them is blameworthy, all of them are justifiable; none of them is new, all of them have been done before, although not by a Brigadier-General. But there is one detail which is new, absolutely new. It has never been resorted to before in any age of the world, in any country, among any people, savage or civilized. It was the one meant by Aguinaldo when he said that "by no other means" would he have been taken alive. When a man is exhausted by hunger to the point where he is "too weak to move," he has a right to make supplication to his enemy to save his failing life; but if he take so much as one taste of that food--which is holy, by the precept of all ages and all nations--he is barred from lifting his hand against that enemy for that time.

It was left to a Brigadier-General of Volunteers in the American army to put shame upon a custom which even the degraded Spanish friars had respected. We promoted him for it.

Who is this they you are talking about?

Your fucking government, dumbass. The EU. The people implementing the policy in question. I know y'all act like any criticism of the Israeli government is antisemitic, but does that protection now extend to any criticism of the EU?

I think not having ties with Russian state propaganda for living normally is a risk I’m willing to take, as its no effort for me.

Nothing to hide so you have nothing to fear, eh? Yeah, millions of Americans were fine with our government using extralegal punishments and detentions because they thought it would be limited to terrorists. Now we're being dragged away to secret torture dungeons in El Salvador.

But fortunately, I'm sure that nothing bad will come of European governments having the tools to punish people without charge or trial. I mean, honestly, what do you even need rights for? Just trust the people in charge to sort out the good guys and the bad guys.

Say, unrelated, but how's the AFD doing these days? And, purely hypothetically, if they got into government, how would you feel about them having a precedent that would allow them to apply these punishments to anyone they consider to have engaged in wrongthink?

All these other speculations you’re pointing to you would have to prove to me first.

What speculations would I have to prove? That domestic polls are unreliable?

I've seen a lot of people dismiss domestic polls in China that show overwhelming support for the government as unreliable. I've never seen one of them feel the need to prove it, or present a shred of evidence. In fact, when outside polls have confirmed those results, they just say that they're all "brainwashed" or "propagandized."

Not quite as fun when it's your people's perspective that's being written off, is it?

while I don't approve of the method

Is it safe for you to say this?

If you say something they don't like, they could do the same to you, no charge, no trial. And criticizing that practice might be something they don't like, even if not today, then maybe tomorrow.

You're probably fine for now because you justified the actions by attacking the victim, but this might be as critical as you're allowed to be.

I think we need to start getting some reliable, neutral outside polls on Europe to see how they really feel about their governments. Maybe we can bring in some Chinese pollsters. Obviously anyone voicing approval in domestic polls is just afraid of the repercussions of voicing a negative opinion.