Wow great info, thanks so much for doing all that legwork! It makes sense that Putin would put less stock into the policy than did his predecessors, because while the leaked Soviet archives show the USSR was genuinely terrified of nuclear war and mostly built up in response to US expansion of nuclear programs, I feel like Putin sees it more as a tool for intimidation.

Russia also maintains a no first strike policy, unless that changed since I last got stuck in a rabbit hole about nuclear policy. The US is the only major country in the world to maintain a first strike policy with nuclear weapons that I know of.

That’s a Dreams game, and as much as I love dreams, it’s really more suited to experiences than it is full fledged games. It does look great though.

Fascism is capitalism in decay. Modern conservatism is still an offshoot of liberalism (as compared to old conservatives who were attempting to conserve monarchy). Liberalism is a capitalist ideology defined by promotion of individual rights, civil liberties, and most importantly free enterprise and markets. Fascism is capitalism in decay because those in power will use that power to maintain their rule, through whatever means necessary. For Trump, that was Jan 6th, which is a new low for US politics, but he’s not alone in manipulating the levers of power, and neither side seems keen on removing powers from themselves when they get in power.

Thanks, it was tough, but very worthwhile. Hope the best for you also!

Trump famously hated Netanyahu before 2020 also. He even said the quiet part out loud, that Netanyahu has no intention to resolve the situation whatsoever. He just also really loves Israel, so it’s kinda irrelevant.

I quit in September! Congrats! Quitting smoking was way harder than quitting drinking for me, and I was a daily drunk functional alcoholic for years.

Voluntary suffering in order to bring about future positive ends is essentially integral to having a good life. That’s like saying to someone who just started exercising and is complaining about being sore, “if you’re feeling worse, is it really for the best?” Yes. It definitively is.

There is a high from nicotine, it just goes away so quickly as you get addicted.

Are you the dude who got banned for linking this book on Reddit books? I just saw that on another community. I haven’t read Malatesta yet, I keep slacking on it. Hope you get some good discussion, and sorry I couldn’t contribute more to said good discussion.

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Actually they can’t, they have a legal obligation under the UN Convention on Genocide to take extra-territorial actions in order to stop or prevent genocide. They are acting within international law. The ships going to Israel despite the active genocide are violating international law and complicit in the genocide themselves.

Guess I’m not buying it then. Microsoft really hates printing discs.

He says that the groundwork they laid was by not intervening enough in the Middle East and Asia…. Am I reading that right?

I haven’t scrolled all the comments yet, so apologies if this has already been mentioned, but Dragon’s Dogma passing a lot of those checks, if you can get over some minor jank. It’s definitely an action oriented adventure role playing game, where you can get quests to take out minor enemies, but also can have epic battles against dragons and giants.

A fun mechanic is clinging to and climbing larger enemies, you can for example jump up and grab the neck of a dragon and hold on while slashing at it. Or you can have your allies hold down an enemy so you can get a critical hit on it. The pawn system for allies allows you to customize and develop your allies to suit your needs and playstyle, and you can recruit other players pawns who come with their own memories and knowledges, but their voicelines can get a bit repetitive. Expect to hear “This enemy is weak to fire” a lot…

Overall it’s a unique and interesting game, worth checking out if you haven’t. Especially if you can get it on sale for cheap.

I didn’t even know podcast ads were a thing, you learn something new every day. Good luck! I hope you are able to find something, fuck ads!

Lmao. You should look up where all the poverty reductions of the last 10 years were. It wasn’t in the west.

Even by US standards if we go back a few decades. HW negotiated a ceasefire in Israel, and sectors both sides spent time and money trying to dismantle the nuclear arsenal. Biden is “modernizing” it. He’s genuinely to the right of the Republican Party just a couple decades ago in many ways.

A reasonable position to take.

Honestly, unless you’re on last gen consoles, it’s been worth playing since launch. Its bugs were no worse than Skyrim on consoles, and less bad in many ways. The game itself is probably the most open world immersive sim we’ve ever gotten. It’s not GTA, and it’s not trying to be. It’s not a sandbox, and it’s not a psychopath simulator like GTA. It’s a deep, philosophical, highly emergent single player game with a well-written story and competent acting in probably one of the most beautiful game worlds of all time.