His point was that Westerners aren't necessarily going to be fooled, with the example of the AP (Western) viewing his declaration of martial law unsympathetically.
I agree, although it is a "real" enemy in the sense that their ascension is a threat to US hegemony or the idea of the USA as the preeminent world superpower.
I don't see it as rational, but there is definitely an argument that the USA ought to remain positioned as number one, having the ability to dictate global politics. I don't think we deserve it, but it's certainly 'better' for us in the sense that it gives us an advantage and thus might improve our quality of life (cheaper imports, blah blah blah). I view that argument as entitled and promoting the status quo.
The Chinese people have worked hard. Actually, people all over the world work hard, although the Chinese have gone past industrialization and have a massive and capable population. The idea that they wouldn't have more power and would need to somehow remain under the US's thumb, where we get to say how they treat Taiwan or what currency they can trade in with other countries, just seems absurd. People come up with bullshit reasons for why the US ought to retain some control over their politics or how the rest of the world engages with the Chinese (and we don't just get to do that anyway), e.g., the Chinese are mean to the Uyghurs, as if anyone ever gave a fuck about the Uyghurs or whoever twenty years ago.
In all that sense, China is certainly a real threat. But the level of entitlement behind that argument is so blatant that I can't take it seriously.
I agree. However, I think there's something to be said about how people don't understand what kind of protections are afforded to them by regulation.
A lot of these people were likely acting in some level of good faith, assuming that a company so big it could afford a Super Bowl commercial starring Larry David would never scam them. I know, it's stupid, but people don't understand where the guardrails are, what FDIC insurance really is, what sort of insurance exists on retail brokerage accounts, etc. And they didn't just lose money off of crypto losing value, they lost beyond that amount off of this business co-mingling funds when they were not supposed to.
But I do not feel that badly for anyone whose life was 'ruined' over this for one big reason: they were trying to get rich quick. That's the fact that underpins so much investment in crypto. BTC to the moon! SHTC to the moon! ETCC to the moon! These people were hoping for their 'investments' (speculative gamblings) to explode in value. And they weren't planning on sharing any of it with you or me, not beyond what they're legally required to through taxes (and sometimes, not even that, like you say as well).
I had to sell my home while coordinating a cross-country move. The agent handled everything for me and did a good job on the negotiation given the fact that prices were coming down while this happened.
It's not unheard of in the US. The missing person case of Jennifer Kesse in Orlando, FL comes to mind. Her parents even had to file a lawsuit against the police because they refused to cooperate with private investigators after failing to make progress on the case.
A lot of people are under the impression that these stores can just eat the cost with insurance, which is, of course, an absurd notion because then the insurance company is losing too much money and will raise the premiums. Then Walmart, etc. can't afford the insurance unless they close their most problematic locations.
People engage in a lot of magical thinking to justify theft since it seems like a harmless act. Thieves are just trying to feed their families! Insurance will cover it! Etc.! It's really unfortunate, they're going to learn the hard way as not only Walmart but other retail stores in their areas flee.
Seems inevitable when it replaced all the other retail stores with merchandise you can steal. Where else would I go to steal something in a small town with a Walmart?
Sorry, I forgot about carpet bombs and nukes. You're right, dronebombing a terrorist and killing an innocent child in the process is net actually good because even worse bombs existed and were used sometimes in the past.
Everything the US government and military does is good, and Ted Kaczynski was bad, especially the terrible things he wrote. I promise I will buy more of these new Apple products, in resistance of Mr. Kaczynski's evil message. *I place my hand on my chest patriotically.* I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
The CIA is still a piece of shit organization that has performed disgusting acts all over the world, and we don't even know about all of them (but, to be fair, the ones we don't know about shouldn't count in our opinion of the org). To talk about how Ted K. being a target of the CIA's MKUltra program as a "conspiracy theory" and "CIA FUD" seems laughably absurd, not because you may be correct that Kaczynski was never experimented on by the CIA, but rather because we know for a fact that MKUltra happened.
So on the one hand, we have an organization that drugged and tortured people as part of an experiment, and on the other, we have a potential lie that Ted Kaczynski was one of the people on whom they experimented. You're getting upset about the latter in order to defend the organization doing the former from "FUD."
You've literally chosen to stand up against "CIA FUD" to assert that even though the CIA performed these psychological torture experiments on people, Ted Kaczynski was not one of them! Or perhaps you don't believe MKUltra ever happened, I don't know.
> Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra)[a] was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used during interrogations to weaken people and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.[1][2][3][4] It began in 1953 and was halted in 1973.
At least most of us have the ability to engage in a discussion about it. You seem to be here to do some backslapping with people who agree with you, and you have no response to a refutation of your normie opinion that He KiLL tHrEe PeOpLe = bAd. Keep on with those deep thoughts that fixate on who Kaczynski killed and never turn that ire towards your government or society. Real brave of you.
This moral argument doesn't really work on people from the US after about 20 years of global militarism, especially that whole stint in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I hate murder as much as the next guy, but our political and military leaders constantly make decisions that result in needless deaths. You don't even know how upset I personally was after voting for Obama and seeing him continue using drones to target terrorists while also killing innocent civilians as collateral damage.
Please, grant me the luxury to like this one guy who killed three innocent people because I just think his manifesto was pretty good. My 'leaders' have already taught me that murder can be overlooked by the vast majority of the public, or at least one half of it, every 4-8 years. I think I'm allowed to like Uncle Ted.
> Between 1978 and 1995, Ted Kaczynski engaged in a mail bomb campaign[4] against people involved with modern technology.[5] His initial targets were universities and airlines, which the FBI shortened as UNABOM. In June 1995, Kaczynski offered to end his campaign if one of several publications (the Washington Post, New York Times, or Penthouse) would publish his critique of technology, titled Industrial Society and Its Future, which became widely known as the "Unabomber Manifesto".[6]
In a sense, he used the murders as a marketing strategy, but honestly it was more of a threat to force his manifesto to be published.
Edit: In all seriousness, it's been a while since I read it. His general ideas are that technology has been a disaster for humankind because, among other reasons, it's freed up time for us to be preoccupied with unimportant bullshit, to the point that it causes mental problems with people. People start to act out in various ways in resistance of our current state because we 'know' somewhere in our bodies that this existence is meaningless. People without the luxury of free time do not have to preoccupy themselves with this struggle for meaning.
He also goes on at length about how leftists are self-hating people and worship victimhood, and their mentality is partly a product of this existential dilemma.
But these are just a couple of points I took away. It's much more well-written than I could personally attempt to summarize in an internet comment.
This reminds me of every cute little store I've lived near that is frequently closed due to the owner(s) being on vacation.
I'm not sure how many others have experienced it, but when I see this, it's clear to me that the owner/operator is not truly interested in the business, at least not in some sense that this is a do-or-die investment for them that they feel the need to see through to the end. No, it's a hobby for them. So they never get past the coffeeshop fallacy, as they're just going to keep on with their normal lifestyle and eventually close up shop as they realize this business endeavor is more of an inconvenience than a necessity for them.
> (so as with most issues regarding our spaces in north america, what we need to make them better is more density. :)
Then we raise the problem that this is not longer some simple, happy little shack where I get my coffee and relax. Higher density, higher volume means I wait in a potentially long line, have my personal space violated both considerately and inconsiderately by total strangers, feel the anxiety of being in a potential fire hazard area, etc. Arguably, none of this is better. I am more willing to pay a premium on the coffee than to deal with all of that.