Testing Chat V: The Final Mysterious Island: Miami Beach

[evilsoup]

what

[Bakustra]

what

"Conventionally, PRC cannot reach Iran and Russia would lose hard trying to reinforce them, and have most of its modern equipment (a small fraction of the total) destroyed in the process. So what's their alternative? Nuke the US? Iran obtaining nuclear weapons is not some existential interest for them."

"The Saudis take something very seriously aside from their leisure, Sunni Islam, and ranking them below the Pakistanis - who are both poorer and less stable - would be a serious mistake."

[RyanThunder]

Oh, bother.

[Kryten]

energiewende believes that the usa could attack iran and install a puppet government with no consequences, and that saudi arabia is more militarily formidable than pakistan despite having an army one-tenth the size and fewer tanks than pakistan has modern tanks, and you know, everything else about their respective armed forces

How's he attempting to handwave away the pakistani nuke stockpile?

[Bakustra]

energiewende believes that the usa could attack iran and install a puppet government with no consequences, and that saudi arabia is more militarily formidable than pakistan despite having an army one-tenth the size and fewer tanks than pakistan has modern tanks, and you know, everything else about their respective armed forces

How's he attempting to handwave away the pakistani nuke stockpile?

saudi arabia could make nukes much more easily than pakistan could, because it's rich

[Dooey Jo]

makes sense

i foresee a bright future in us strategical planning for this person

[Jung]

Yeah I acknowledge racism - this is more in reaction to the assertion that it is "not wrong" for voters in the US to favor voting a Black person over a non-black person because of the poor position of blacks in the US. Though the comparision breaks down when you consider blacks have neither economic OR political power.

That one's kind of a hard one for me cause I can see some legitimacy of both perspectives

It's a pretty complex issue (which is my main problem with the "ha ha racists deserve what they got" reaction in the SDN thread; the apparent dismissive attitude toward any suggestion that the issue might be more complex than that).

[Bakustra]

makes sense

i foresee a bright future in us strategical planning for this person

"There's some problem of perspective. 40m people in the US are foreign born. Many of these live in what a US native could regard as slums. They're nonetheless better than where those people came from; they're palaces by comparison. There are two reasons for immigration controls: first, to maintain cohesion and public order, and second, for the established elite to keep smelly proles off their lawns."

the favelas are going to bring marxism-leninism-hoxhaism libertarianism to brasil

[Civil War Man]

Nuclear weapons are basically the new imperialism. It's pretty disingenuous for the US to call all of these aspiring nuclear powers unstable and crazy when, in the almost 70 years since nuclear weapons were first developed, we are the only nation to ever use them as a weapon, and it's pretty likely that the only reason we only used them twice was because the Russians got their own not long after.

It's pretty telling that the drums of war stop beating almost immediately after a potentially hostile country joins the club, and not just with countries we have a love/hate relationship with like Russia and China. The immediate shift away from saber rattling the moment we confirmed that the North Koreans successfully tested a nuke was almost comical. Even though the US and North Korea openly hate each other, we haven't heard any serious talk about attacking Pyongyang in years, just empty posturing.

Honestly, the only reason anyone fears a nuclear Iran is because then we'd have to stop trying to push them around. They are an existential threat only in that a nuclear Iran would force a change in behavior from the current Middle Eastern hegemony.

Though this deal might actually be the best for Iran. If just the threat of them potentially getting nukes at some point in the future is enough to cut a deal, then they can use that to end the bullying from the nuclear powers without having to deal with the issues that come with actually having nuclear weapons.

[Civil War Man]

Also, has anyone noticed similarities in the argument over whether a country should be allowed to have nuclear weapons and the debate over gun control in the US? A lot of it boils down to an entity's right to defend themselves versus the dangers they pose by possessing said weapon.

[Bakustra]

"Re-read the posts: "Mr. Coffee" explicitly disagreed with my claim that Russia and PRC would not militarily attack the US over Iran. Not impose some nebulous other penalty, but fight them in an open war. This is made even more clear if you read his previous posts, with references to "starting WWIII". Precisely what I am saying is that a real situation wouldn't work out anything like he envisions, and PRC and Russia would not fight the US over Iran.

I think you would see a very quick military victory for the US in the style of Iraq. The US would probably then feel itself obligated to rebuild Iran and stabilise its government, which would be costly and therefore undesireable. This is why Iran got anything, rather than simply being attacked out of hand. But I don't see any necessity US has to care what happens to Iran after its nuclear weapons are dismantled."

ahahahahaha

[Jung]

Honestly, the only reason anyone fears a nuclear Iran is because then we'd have to stop trying to push them around.

This is how it looks to me to: the real reason the American political class hates the idea of Iran getting the bomb is it means they lose the option to crush a non-compliant regime without having to worry about nuclear retaliation, all that "oh no but they might give it to t3rr0rists/nuke Israel because reasons/they can't be trusted with the bomb cause THEY TOO CRAZY" is just fearmongering to win the support of the masses for the political classes' agenda.

[evilsoup]

well the US and friends won the Iraq war in like a week
I mean actually doing that to Iran would obviously be a legendarily terrible idea but there's a point there I guess

[AniThyng]

Yeah I acknowledge racism - this is more in reaction to the assertion that it is "not wrong" for voters in the US to favor voting a Black person over a non-black person because of the poor position of blacks in the US. Though the comparision breaks down when you consider blacks have neither economic OR political power.

That one's kind of a hard one for me cause I can see some legitimacy of both perspectives

It's a pretty complex issue (which is my main problem with the "ha ha racists deserve what they got" reaction in the SDN thread; the apparent dismissive attitude toward any suggestion that the issue might be more complex than that).

A common thread amongst malaysian chinese is how they are oppressed by an Islamic Malay government, yet this is the very same government that rather than forcibly assimilate the chinese has just said "fine fine have yourself an entire chinese-based education system". And of course, the chinese, being generally more economically fortunate complain endlessly about being exploited to pay taxes to finance "lazy" malays. (or the malay elites, which obviously only got there by being corrupt (sarcasm, if not obvious))

And when I think of things like - well, America can have a black president, why can't malaysia have a chinese prime minister - the comparision again breaks down because as far as I can see, and I may be completely wrong in this perception, black elites like Obama have assimilated into mainstream western culture far more effectively than any given chinese politician has assimilated into Malay/Islamic* culture. Arguably america will have a chinese-descended president before we have one...*

*have you noticed we call ourselves malaysian chinese and not chinese-malaysian? this is an actual significant difference.

[RogueIce]

Oh Zor. Never change.

[Agent Bert Macklin]

Who is sick two days before Thanksgiving? This guy. Who is watching a marathon of Psych? This guy.

Re racism. In my sociology class, we read an article about racism and one of the fallacies the article mentioned is that lots and lots of people reduce racism to the individual level instead of looking at the causes and why some people are racist.

[Big Orangutan]

Arrogant xenophobia and brute military force only goes so far; one of the main reasons for the downfall of 18th/19th century India, the African slave trade, and expansion of many empires, etc, is short-sighted and self-serving rulers given rope to hang themselves with and sell out their own people.

[The Spartan]

Who is sick two days before Thanksgiving?

Well, my throat is a little more than a little scratchy today, so I may be full on sick tomorrow.

Yay?

[adr]

zonkers the editor accepted my chapter one first draft just yesterday

and now I realize the due date for chapter two is.... Monday. I'm reasonably certain I can make that happen but blargh I thought it was still another two weeks away

[AniThyng]

Who is sick two days before Thanksgiving? This guy. Who is watching a marathon of Psych? This guy.

Re racism. In my sociology class, we read an article about racism and one of the fallacies the article mentioned is that lots and lots of people reduce racism to the individual level instead of looking at the causes and why some people are racist.

Well there's the rub. Someone in the SDN thread, I think it was Metahive tried to call Ralin out as being racist by offering the choice of "two equally qualified candidates, one from your race and one from the other".

And I posited my own take on it, which no one addressed. Now if we talk individual, purely, then clearly I should take the more disadvantaged person, everything else being equal - but if we were applying broad racial criteria, I "should" go for the Malay, if only because he is more likely to be disadvantaged.

And then we of course have the situation where both sides are racist - the malays for refusing to accept chinese as equals, and the chinese, who refuse to assimilate into malay culture*(but who of course have much less reservations about adapting western culture)

And then I posited in one of my much earlier threads that perhaps the problem can be solved if we all just adopted western culture, a notion I'm sure many westerners see as the ideal way of things, since as we all know "western ways of doing things" are always the best...but clearly that's not...really...how...ugh...

*i'm sorry but there is no way I am giving up pork and adopting islam. no. just no.**

**does this make be...racist? okay, it makes me, strictly speaking, ..uh..whatever that word is for discriminating on the basis of culture and religion.

[Infinity Biscuit]

Why are the Chinese racist for refusing to assimilate? Demanding assimilation before treatment as equals is the racism there.

I mean, what's stopping that logic from saying the Malay are being racist for not assimilating into Chinese culture?

[AniThyng]

That might be vaguely similar to asking why South African blacks do not just assimilate into Afrikaans culture. I think.

I confess to being terribly ignorant of how these really work so forgive me if I say anything that turns out to offend.

Equal treatment is also again a loaded thing, as equal treatment in this context will give Malaysian chinese unprecedented political power without any stripping of economic power. Which is why I found the context of the black preferring black candidates subtext so interesting, as well as the affirmative action and systemic advantages issue.

Incidentally, a subtle way Malaysian chinese business discriminates is to just say " Chinese speaker preferred" without actually saying they want an ethnic chinese.

Ah but Malays should just learn chinese, problem solved.

If only that were so simple...

[Civil War Man]

Why are the Chinese racist for refusing to assimilate? Demanding assimilation before treatment as equals is the racism there.

I don't know enough about the situation in Malaysia to say anything on that specific topic, but refusal to assimilate can be racist depending on the context.

The way the Malay/Chinese situation is being framed, it sounds like the Chinese are economically better off despite being at a political disadvantage. If that is the case, the Chinese refusal to assimilate could be racist if it is done to prevent the Malays from sharing in their economic prosperity.

I mean, if a gated white neighborhood was founded in the middle of a traditionally black or hispanic area, we'd be justified in calling the neighborhood racist if the residents went out of their way to avoid supporting any of the businesses in the surrounding area. Something like that would be a case of refusal to assimilate being racist.

[Infinity Biscuit]

I probably should stop butting in on these conversations since I'm so unused to situations where economic and political power aren't concentrated in one ethnic group

I just always see the demand to assimilate coming from members of the dominant culture who see it as a prerequisite to fair treatment, either outright and explicitly or else underlying their statements by talking about how minorities are so bad off because of their cultures they should just bite the bullet and be just like us

I dunno it's probably different in malaysia maybe I just am so used to it coming from that sort of angle

[F.J. Prefect, Esq]

You're lucky I can't remember what country you're from otherwise there would be some serious teasing going on right now