This is such a tired old line based on the aircraft carrier rhetoric from the 60s, outdated since the Iraq wars and our own airbases going up all over the region.

Also the idea that Saudi Arabia trades in dollars because otherwise Israel would attack them fails to take into account that much of the rest of the world uses them too, since people like a stable currency that everyone else already likes.

You guys really need to update your rhetoric.

The Saudis barely participated in Yom Kippur, from some brief googling they deployed a single battalion that saw a little bit of fighting in the Golan Heights. I honestly wasn’t even aware they had participated militarily.

Their much bigger impact was the oil embargo against the US, which caused rather famous gas shortages here and one of the most severe recessions we’ve ever had, during the Nixon years. Perhaps seeing the rest of the coalition demolished was enough? Though there were clear reasons for the Israeli victory that aren’t that difficult to understand. It’s far more specific than just Israel strong or something like that. That oil embargo ended up proving the power of OPEC though, dramatically strengthening the Saudi’s position on the global stage, which persists to this day.

Regarding NG, the main pipeline through the area for exporting Egyptian NG actually takes some pains to go around Israel, rather than through it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Gas_Pipeline

I guess you don’t think our politicians care which of them are in charge? And I’m not so sure about ironclad, we’ve withheld aid in past decades.

I really question exactly how Israel has significant influence over Egypt. Much less Saudi Arabia, which isn’t even a neighbor and has significantly more wealth and influence than Israel does.

If Israel was that useful as a tool to control Egypt, sure would like those billions of dollars back…

And I have a feeling they’ll have some consequences. We may not all see the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict the same way, I have a feeling you’re not aware of any of the Arab atrocities from the early 20th century, before Israel was ever a nation. But this time they’ve lost a lot of support in the US for the first time in our history, and that will likely have an impact on future political calculations.

This betrays a startling lack of awareness of just how extensive US partnerships are across the globe. The US has sent tens of billions of dollars in military and economic aid to Egypt. Close ties with Saudi Arabia. Close ties with Morocco. Most Mediterranean countries are in NATO, actually. This isn’t even to speak of our own military bases littered throughout both Africa and the Middle East.

Does anything going from Asia to Africa even go through Israel? I’d think they’d usually take sea routes through the Indian Ocean. Do we really need some unsinkable aircraft carrier anymore when we have literally dozens of our own airstrips all over the region?

That said, I do agree with your first two points. Ukraine is a proxy war, and supporting Israel is the point. Not sure it’s actually more important than any actual US territory though.

Well written answer. This actually gives me a fantastic chance to argue the pro-Palestinian side for a change, which deserves some nuance of its own that it doesn’t get nearly enough of.

I would argue that the realpolitik stance of Netanyahu is grossly outdated. Before the events of Oct 7th, Israel was getting closer and closer to an agreement with Saudi Arabia, indicative of a growing perception that the days of fossil fuel profits running an economy are slowly coming to their end, and the need to transition towards a service sector economy based around tourism, the free flow of business and cultural and technological export. All of these are severely hampered by violence in a way that resource extraction is far less subject to. Because of this shifting economic climate over not just the region, but the whole globe, the days of sudden, large-scale Arab attacks into Israeli territory were growing more and more unlikely. This ultimately makes the wish to secure a greater strategic depth unnecessary.

While that would not remove the chances of terrorism, we can look to the end of The Troubles in Ireland and see that negotiation and autonomy can create a viable path forward for ending local sectarian hostilities. While this would no doubt be a difficult path, requiring significant investment and no small amount of vulnerability from Israel in the short term, it has the potential to secure a lasting peace in a way that bombs simply cannot. If a negotiated peace and independence for the Palestinian people can be achieved, then, further ties with the rest of their Arab neighbors become significantly easier, giving Israel a much better opportunity to rise to a status of acceptance and prominence within the broader Middle East community. This would in turn allow them to exploit the Sunni/Shiite and secular/religious divides within the Islamic world to align themselves with the majority against Iran, and give them much greater security in the long run.

This diplomatic and economic path to security is perhaps barely still possible, if Israel can throw out Netanyahu and change their direction, reversing their pattern of settlement in the West Bank and economically compensating the Palestinians for land already lost. A back-breaking property tax could perhaps be levied on all Israeli citizens living within the West Bank settlements, with the proceeds going to outreach, health and education programs for their neighbors, both Arab and Israeli. This could slowly lead to a sort of economic demilitarized zone, and be the first step towards co-existence.

I thought hexbear was far right. .grad is the full-on tankie instance.

I don’t block any instances, though I am rather happy that .world decided to defederate with hexbear and .grad. I’m not so bothered by .ml, while they can be a little annoying sometimes, they’re at least usually able to carry on a semi-intelligent conversation. Usually anyway.

It’s actually not really that hard, any cook worth their salt can make a good shot at reverse-engineering a sauce from tasting it. It just takes a lot of practice at tasting things.

Clothes and housewares. Buying secondhand is vastly cheaper, better for the environment, and can get you surprisingly high quality sometimes.

Over the counter medications. If the active ingredient is the same, delivered in the same way and in the same dosage, the effects will be the same.

Games. There’s no good reason to not wait for a price drop and/or sale unless it’s some multiplayer thing and you want to play with friends. In the modern day, you’ll even usually get an improved product after more time has passed for patches and updates.

You could collect skulls after informed consent. People could potentially sell/donate the rights to their skull after they’re done using it, with maybe some permission from next-of-kin, since they have a certain degree of claim as well.

If everyone agrees though, you could then ethically take that skull and sell it to a third party I suppose. It’d be somewhat similar mechanically to using remains for medical education and/or research, except without the noble cause or broader societal benefit.

Otherwise, in my eyes, this would qualify as grave-robbing and definitely be frowned upon. Nonetheless a fairly common practice throughout history though.

D&D lore, or any other fictional lore is really good for this. It’s not nearly interesting enough to really keep my attention, but just interesting enough that I kinda half listen.

Put this on, and just try to stay awake at night, I dare you.

https://youtu.be/RF-5kbXzopg

For background listening while I’m winding down in the evening I like something a little more interesting, and my best for that is probably SEA. One of the best astronomy channels around.

https://youtu.be/-ybiXR2WCFQ

I was tricked into eating dog biscuits when I was a little kid. Tasted like ash more than anything else. But dogs like vomit too, so our tastes are not very similar.

That is not a source. Donald Trump can call himself a reformist if he wants, that would not make him one. And anyway, Soc Dems do not want to abolish capitalism either.

You know who else slaughtered Poles? Russians.

That is not evidence of an Israeli-Saudi war.

No, ideas of religion do not have to come from reality. They can come from indoctrination, with no evidence for any real effects necessary whatsoever. They do not have to be poor, rich, landed, unlanded, there is no material requirement for a person to engage with religion. It’s simply a choice divorced from reality, and sometimes not even a choice.

Yeah, your philosophy is running headfirst into evidence. It’s pretty clear you’re just spouting bullshit without even knowing anything about the physics now. It is, admittedly, very counter-intuitive and came about much later than Marxist philosophy.

Yeah, you can try to spin this however you want, either way, I have not tried to deceive you and have dealt with every point you have raised, without spin. You should question why you have to suddenly spin this though, just because I say the USSR should not have partitioned Poland with Hitler. Anyways though, was the USSR generously protecting Finland from Nazis as well?

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Yeah, your issue was you wanted the reform to be systemic, remember? If the reform is not changing the structure of the system you didn’t want to call it reform, but administration or something like that. I disagreed and said reform can be incremental and maintain the system, simply with improvements. You provided Marxist literature to support your claim, I provided a dictionary definition and a historical analysis of the word “reform” for mine.

Okay, what would a non-communist Pole say? lol

rejecting Materialism is to say that you believe perception to be reality, rather than reality creating perception

The two can actually create each other, depending on circumstances. Religion, for instance, has created many realities independent of materialism. Particularly in their infancy, before they became large, mainstream churches.

Israel existing in no way forces someone like Saudi Arabia to deal in dollars. This is just dumb. Saudi Arabia can accept whatever currency gives them the most benefit, Israel has nothing to do with it.

Actually no, we could look at quantum mechanics for an example of a way perception itself changes reality, where an observed and unobserved photon will exhibit different behaviors. Perhaps you should stick to philosophy.

You seem to have great faith, I hope you enjoy your religion, though I do hope you can eventually grow past your hatred of the Great Satanwest. We’re really not that evil.

Yeah, changes in river water are totally irrelevant to governmental systems, you’re just playing semantics now in a desperate attempt to not have to admit you lied when you said your definition of reform was standard for the political world instead of just Marxism.

WW2 had a USSR that annexed half of Poland against its will. That’s an Imperial Power my friend. lol I know you mean economic imperialism, though.

I know you communists believe materialism governs everything, but that’s why you’re such historical failures. There’s just more to it than that. Frankly though, we are now energy independent, we no longer need our aircraft carrier in the Middle East. That rhetoric is from the 60s.

I believe our differences are irreconcilable, I know full well how thorough and unalterable the communist philosophy is. You similarly will not be able to convince me to buy into such a simplistic, one-dimensional, material-based view of everything though.

There’s no such thing as a static system.

Tell that to the fascists. Whether we like it or not, that’s just false. It is quite possible to have a system that experiences no changes of any significance for a whole human lifetime. Most of human history was this way, it just does not agree with your Marxist definition.

Yeah, you’re really getting into the weeds here. While yes, Hitler’s rise within Weimar was enabled by the moneyed interests, Italy was still operating under a Constitutional Monarchy at the time, where the king still had significant authority. Mussolini did have some liberal support, no question, but it was not his keys to power like it was in Weimar.

I won’t disagree that liberalism stands in opposition to you, I’ve said that three times now. It also stands in opposition to fascism though, as WW2 very notably demonstrated once it was realized fascists were such a destructive, chaotic element.

Regarding Gaza, no, I don’t think that’s due to the bourgeoisie. The profits from the MIC are negligible compared to things like the tech industry or domestic energy production. Instead its recognition that the Palestinian cause itself is far from innocent, and fully cutting off Israel would thus not be sufficient to save them. Without the threat of America leaving, if we simply followed through, then the Palestinians could simply all be starved.

Politically reform just means making changes to your system. It does not require them to be extreme changes that change the fundamental nature of how the system itself is structured. You can be a reformist while making many small changes that over time create a larger change, this is not some impossible thing or contradiction in terms.

Here’s its historical context:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345230462_‘Reform’_in_English_public_life_the_fortunes_of_a_word

While the full text is unavailable, note the first excerpt at the bottom. Improvement, not replacement. The word improvement implies you are keeping the thing.

On the grand scale, I can agree with that. I am an American talking about an American presidential candidate, though, so I’m using the American scale which we all do agree leans right. It chops you guys off almost entirely, since you just don’t exist in any significant numbers in our system. Where we have plenty of fascists.

Yeah, you’re right, she’s a little right of social dem. She’s to the left of neo-lib though, which is where our American system has its middle, and includes the mainline of the DNC for the past few decades. The overton window has shifted as we progressives have lost ground economically in the past half century or so. I’ll maintain though, that progressives just want progress. If we fall to the fascists, even conservatives will become “progressive” just for wanting free speech and women’s suffrage back.

I quoted my definition for reform, it’s below. It’s just a dictionary definition, reflecting common parlance.

Fair distinction on socialism vs social programs. It’s not vibes though, it’s just liberalism. If we put fascism on the right, and full egalitarianism on the left, there’s a middle where liberalism sits. Hierarchical with enhanced social mobility. We’re that, just leaning leftward. We are not genuine leftists, despite what the right calls us. In America anyway.