331 Comments
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GuyInPlace's avatar

Imagine what would happen if a Democratic president during the Cold War referred to an American state as part of Russia.

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Joseph's avatar

We should randomly claim a former Soviet Republic, just to annoy Russia. Kazakhstan belongs to America, now.

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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

Is there any former Soviet Republic that we would actually *want* to annex? Did the Baltics have the status of Soviet Republics? Because Lithuania can absolutely come to the barbecue.

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drosophilist's avatar

Yes, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were Soviet Socialist Republics.

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James L's avatar
6hEdited

We never recognized Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as Soviet Republics. They had governments in exile in the US for 40 years.

Edited to fix typo.

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Joseph's avatar

I've always been fond of Turkmenistan, where the late former president, Saparmurat Niyazov, BANNED BEARDS.

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City Of Trees's avatar

At least, in looking at his face, he wasn't a hypocrite about this, unlike BYU having that ban despite the very guy they named the school after having a very long beard.

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Helikitty's avatar

After watching Under the Banner of Heaven, I see why. Beards tend to represent the splinter polygamist sect Mormons

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ML's avatar

I find that very weird. Isn’t pretty much everything the prophet did defended as nearly perfect? How do they square that scraggly circle?

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California Josh's avatar

They also don't advocate for polygamy anymore. A lot has changed. I don't know how they square the circle though

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Sharty's avatar

As I was passing through Utah, I took a rest stop to wander the campus, bearded. Got some VERY strange looks.

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Orson Smelles's avatar

I'm not even certain that cracks top five wildest Niyazov decrees:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saparmurat_Niyazov#Decrees_and_laws

Some of my faves include:

* No dogs in the capital city—they smell bad

* He had to quit smoking after heart surgery, so it was banned in public places and for all government employees

* Months were renamed after figures and symbols featured in his treatise on the historical and philosophical basis of the Turkmen nation

* Except April, which was named after his mom

* That treatise? It wasn't just school curriculum, you could be quizzed on it anywhere from a job interview to your driver's test

Most of the goofy stuff was reversed by his successor, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, who also generally cracked the civil liberties spigot open maybe 1/16 of a turn. A lot of the rest is just eccentric takes on standard totalitarianism. In particular, the beard ban is aimed at suppressing Islamism, which is a common bugbear for Central Asian authoritarians—Niyazov was ahead of the curve, but it looks like all of the post-Soviet -stans now restrict face-coverings in public and discourage or prohibit beards to some degree. (I think several tightened up after Russia identified the Crocus City Hall attackers as Tajiks and cracked down on migrants from Central Asia.)

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City Of Trees's avatar

Good thing the wrath of Dog Twitter hasn't learned of that top decree!

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evan bear's avatar

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Berdimuhamedow got into the inner circle of government because he was Niyazov's dentist.

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California Josh's avatar

Saparmurat Steinbrenner

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patrick's avatar

This is less wild when you consider beards as a symbol of strict Muslim practice

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Joseph's avatar

Pretty much everything was a "Soviet Republic" of some sort. There were the Union Republics. The Autonomous Republics. Then you got into the oblasts and the okrugs. My favorite is the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.

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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

"...My favorite is the Jewish ...."

Which somehow...still exists. Mind blown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast

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Arthur H's avatar

"We have Israel at home!"

-Stalin, probably

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James L's avatar

Pro-Yiddish, anti-religion.

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evan bear's avatar

I feel like it's only a matter of time before some enterprising leftist comes up with the JAO as the solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

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Diziet Sma's avatar

> according to the 2021 Russian census, there were only 837 ethnic Jews left in the JAO (0.6%).

> It is one of two officially Jewish jurisdictions in the world, the other being Israel.

Some very fun facts!

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evan bear's avatar

This would be a good time for a Russian ethnic minority to get an independence movement going since the Russian military is kind of busy right now. Bashkortostan will be free!

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Kirby's avatar

Königsberg was illegally claimed from a war of aggression less than 100 years ago by a state that has since been dissolved, so probably that.

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homechef's avatar

Ukraine, obv?

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Helikitty's avatar

All of them

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evan bear's avatar

It isn't a former republic, but the most logical part to annex would be Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, since it's right across the strait from Alaska.

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Neeraj Krishnan's avatar

Clearly you don't know how to negotiate.

We claim ALL OF RUSSIA.

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PhillyT's avatar

This is the way

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City Of Trees's avatar

"We will recognize the states of Luhansk and Donetsk on condition that they become the 51st and 52nd U.S. states!"

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SD's avatar

My son wants to move to Kazakhstan!! If it became part of the US, that would make it considerably easier for him.

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Mariana Trench's avatar

Why does your son want to do that?

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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

"Why does your son want ....?"

He wants to explore all aspects of the American experience, obviously.

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SD's avatar

Good question! He has been enamored with the country since he started studying geography around age 13. He spent 9 weeks there last summer, living with a family in Almaty. I thought that would make his romanticism about the place disappear, but instead, "it was even better than I thought it would be." He does really like Soviet era art, architecture, and mosaics, but that doesn't seem like enough of a reason to move there.

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City Of Trees's avatar

Does he have any takes on Borat?

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SD's avatar

I am not sure if he has seen it. I will ask at dinner tonight.

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Dan Quail's avatar

Was there a girl?

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evan bear's avatar

That is amazing. He is going to be like the Kazakh version of Dances With Wolves.

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drosophilist's avatar

“Kazakhstan is greatest country in the world…”

-Borat

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Joseph's avatar

All other countries have inferior potassium.

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Dan Quail's avatar

Cute girl probably

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srynerson's avatar

The only two Kazakhs I've ever knowingly met in person were both (1) young women and (2) cute, so based on that extensive sample I'll guess you're correct.

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James L's avatar

Apples are from Kazakhstan.

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Helikitty's avatar

Hope he’s not Jewish, I hear they throw Jews in wells there

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California Josh's avatar

down, not in!

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Arthur H's avatar

Just give Kaliningrad to Poland, or splitsies with Lithuania.

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Sean O.'s avatar

Give it back to the House of Hohenzollern

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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

Rebranded as "the Teutonic Knight-Club"?

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Dan Quail's avatar

Only if you make the Russians go home. Otherwise they don't want that Russian colony.

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Dan Quail's avatar

Too obvious. Go for Turkmenistan. They would never expect that.

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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

" Go for Turkmenistan. "

No one expects the Turkmen acquisition.

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Thomas L. Hutcheson's avatar

Something more valuable like St Petersburg. :)

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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

Or just start referring to Kaliningrad as "Königsberg".

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City Of Trees's avatar

Oh, this is the clear winner--the entire existence of Kaliningrad has always annoyed me ever since I saw it appear out of nowhere on the world maps in my geography books in school after the USSR disintegrated.

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Mariana Trench's avatar

Are there other geographical regions that annoy you?

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Tom Hitchner's avatar

Michigan’s upper peninsula and Florida’s panhandle.

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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

I don't know that it annoys me, exactly, but "Point Bob" is certainly an unjustifiable anomaly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington

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srynerson's avatar

Personally, Nagorno Karabakh is on my $h!t list. Also, that tiny bit of Virginia at the tip of the Delaware peninsula.

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James L's avatar

There is a small movement to get Germany to take back Königsberg.

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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

"...get Germany to take back K...."

ooof -- terrible idea. That would make it into an exclave again, unless Germany took over all of Poland's coastline, which...just no.

Resisting Russian revanchism should not require encouraging German dreams of Grossdeutschland (dreams shared by very few living Germans, thank god).

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James L's avatar

I didn’t say it had mass support or was a good idea. To be fair, a lot of Kaliningrad residents are much more exposed to Western politics and culture than the rest of Russia and might not mind being part of the EU. Much like the Estonian and Latvian Russians, the majority of whom are quite happy living outside of Russia.

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Helikitty's avatar

Idk, at this point I support Germany taking over Russia

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Neeraj Krishnan's avatar

I doubt the "Bridges of Kaliningrad" would have inspired Euler to invent a new branch of Mathematics.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_of_K%C3%B6nigsberg

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evan bear's avatar

There's an "In Soviet Russia" joke in there somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.

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evan bear's avatar

Do the Germans want it? Sounds like trying to get another country to take Gary Indiana or Fresno.

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Arthur H's avatar

Make East Prussia great again!

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evan bear's avatar

The Poles have officially started to call it "Krolewiec" (which I guess is just "King City" in Polish).

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A.D.'s avatar

East Georgia?

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GoodGovernanceMatters's avatar

Wawaweewa!

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James L's avatar

This is stupid. Kazakhstan is an independent country trying to escape Russia’s attention and irredentist claims. Anything we do that implies that Kazakhstan is not really independent helps Russia and hurts us.

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Tom Hitchner's avatar

I don’t think it was a serious proposal.

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Joseph's avatar

I believe Poe’s Law has gotten the better of me, here.

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James L's avatar

I’ll admit, based on your other comments, that I could not tell if you were joking.

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Joseph's avatar

I'm unpredictable that way.

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Cwnnn's avatar

I am self-aware enough to know this is coming from a lens of partisanship, but why is this not being covered as an embarrassing gaffe and a clear sign of cognitive decline?

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Sean O.'s avatar

As with Hillary Clinton, legacy media didn't actually disagree with any of Biden's policies, so to make themselves seem unbiased they heavily focused on Biden's mental (in)capacity.

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James L's avatar

This doesn’t explain why the media with your model doesn’t go after Trump.

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Sean O.'s avatar

The media has plenty of other egregious things to go after Trump for.

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David Olson's avatar

Legacy media are a bunch of hacks.

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Oh! Tyler's avatar

I thought the problem was the media *not* covering Biden’s age?

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GuyInPlace's avatar

The stupidity is baked into everyone's low expectations of him.

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ML's avatar

Truly! What are the odds Trump couldn’t have told you off the top of his head how Alaska became part of the US, never mind who Seward was?

I’d put it at 60-40.

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David Olson's avatar

Imagine what would happen if Democrats relentlessly attacked Republicans for their fuck ups instead of asking "what would happen if a Democratic politician..."

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City Of Trees's avatar

Unfortunately I can't find the Matt tweet to cite here (maybe he deleted it), but he made a point that while crime has fallen, especially compared to its height in the late 20th century, people seem to be freaking out more about the remaining crime that exists, because it's videotaped more often. I'm sure I'm far from the first person to make this observation, but it is a paradox that wider surveillance has likely helped to reduce crime, but also making people think that crime is higher than it really is.

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GuyInPlace's avatar

It doesn't even have to be crime in the US. Think of how often a video goes viral and it turns out that it was filmed in Latvia or somewhere.

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City Of Trees's avatar

The internet was in peak performance when we could assume that any wacky dashcam video was from Russia.

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srynerson's avatar

Or the video was shot like six years ago and was already widely reported on at the time.

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David_in_Chicago's avatar

My hottest take is I don't understand how we can't solve more crime with all the cell phone GPS data available. I feel like for most crimes we have accurate time stamps and to the extent they're more crimes of passion / not meticulously planned wouldn't most criminals have their cell phones on them? I feel like we should be able to reverse look up every phone that was within some very narrow distance without slipping too far down a dystopian surveillance state slope.

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srynerson's avatar

I've also wondered about the number of instances where there's video of criminal suspects using Lime scooters and other rental vehicles for travel to/from the scene of the crime. Like, not only should those have GPS records, they should be tied to credit/debit cards too!

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Dan Quail's avatar

Many criminals are in fact morons.

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Mariana Trench's avatar

I think a lot of them use burners. They do on TV, anyway.

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srynerson's avatar

That goes to the point about crimes of passion though?

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Mariana Trench's avatar

Fair. But then how many crimes really fall into that category?

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Wigan's avatar

Crimes of passion? 90% of them or more.

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California Josh's avatar

A "crime of passion" is usually something with emotional justification (e.g. he raped your wife, killed your mom, stole your family heirloom) where some leniency in sentencing is possibly justified, isn't it?

Not "my IQ is 85 and I can't do impulse control"

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Mariana Trench's avatar

Really? I think we're using "passion" differently.

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Nathan's avatar

huh? I'll agree that's true of murders outside of gang/drug murders...but that's a huge chunk of them!

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Marc Robbins's avatar

Yes, that's where I learn how criminals actually operate too.

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Mariana Trench's avatar

Law & Order is a documentary, right?

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Ted's avatar

And so was “The Wire”

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Wigan's avatar

Cell phone location precision can vary widely, and it can be extremely helpful when the police can collect, it but it usually requires a warrant to collect and is rarely enough on its own to convict someone.

If you can combine the cell phone location data with a witness statement or some other piece of evidence, then the cell phone data doesn't even need to be all that precise, but you need other evidence to make the cell phone data useful.

So even if you could legally just simply pull all cell phones within an area, you'd still need a witness to testify, because there's not much you can usefully do with "it could have been any of these 20 guys" unless it's a high-profile crime that the local community really wants to solve.

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David_in_Chicago's avatar

“but it usually requires a warrant to collect it”.

This is the shit I’m talking about. We should just be able to input the lat long and time of a victim and the police get a response if someone was within … IDK …. a two yard radius if they were stabbed / raped and maybe a little wider if a gun shot.

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Wigan's avatar

I don't think cell phone geolocation is that precise though. My quick chatgpt query on it suggests the precision is usually a lot less than +/- 2 yards. Under perfect conditions (outside, clear sky, dense area) it might be +/- 10 yards.

I know you're approaching it from a different angle, but I guess my point is that the accuracy would often be pretty wide and often end up including a lot of people beside the true perpetrator.

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GuyInPlace's avatar

One of my favorites is a serial killer who got caught because they were the only person to use Google Maps to look up the location where they dumped their last body.

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David_in_Chicago's avatar

Yeah!! Like this is the stuff I’m talking about. I feel like my phone GPS is accurate to like 1 foot on the golf course and you’re telling me we can’f automatically connect if someone was next to the victim the moment they died. Seems like we should open the legal floodgates here.

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Helikitty's avatar

Because cops by and large are lazy POSs. If it’s not a murder or perhaps a violent armed robbery, they aren’t gonna even look at the cameras if they’re right there.

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Dan Quail's avatar

I thinks this comes down to “will the prosecutor prosecute this.” If we had more robust enforcement at the judicial end (needs funding) then you can create an incentive structure that dissuade apathy.

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Nathan's avatar

no one wants to fund it.

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Nathan's avatar

sigh. manpower. what you're asking for is literally impossible. The resources go to the serious crimes. you'd need a lot more money and a lot more cops and a lot bigger court system. no one wants to pay for that.

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Helikitty's avatar

Nonsense we just need the ones we have to get off their asses

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Nathan's avatar

I guess you were told something you didn't want to hear when you were the victim of a minor crime.

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Nathan's avatar

for murders that's generally how it works.

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Andrew's avatar

I was watching this insane fiasco with three like 4th grade level brothers who robbed a Walgreens last week and it was all on TikTok. And like my feed has been showing me these types of tempests in teapots. and it’s just sort of compelling watching people behave badly.

Like when I think about it for a second it makes me wonder about algorithmic promotion and that it would be in China’s interest to push out more of this and highlight racially divisive shit. Could just be mental catnip and my fault for interacting and scrolling through some of these crime videos.

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myrna loy's lazy twin's avatar

My intuition is that a large segment of the population thinks about crime as what the chance is of them or someone they know being a victim or witnessing a crime. And in general disorder raises the likelihood that crime will happen. Crime has gone down since the pandemic and so has disorder in a lot of cities but people are also getting out more so they’re more likely to see it. Then there’s the phenomenon of locked up merchandise. Just seeing it in the CVS near your office is going to make it seem like there’s more crime even if almost all the other stores you frequent don’t lock up stuff

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Wigan's avatar

I'm not sure sure crime has fallen by as much as Matt probably thinks, because when controlling for average age and especially medical care, the current rates of homicide don't compare especially well with rates from the 70s or earlier.

It probably has fallen considerably since the 80s and 90s, though.

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disinterested's avatar

What does “controlling for medical care” mean?

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Helikitty's avatar

We’ve gotten much better at treating trauma (gunshot wounds, stab wounds, blunt force trauma) over the past 40 years, so comparing homicide rates with the 70s is basically looking at the improvements in trauma care unless you control for it.

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Mariana Trench's avatar

Huh, I never thought of that.

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Helikitty's avatar

Wigan mentioned it the other day and I was like mind blown lol

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Dan Quail's avatar

Dayton has some of the best trauma surgeons in part to how much practice they got….

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Dan Quail's avatar

A lot of would be murders are now just gunshot victims.

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David Olson's avatar

People overindex on negative events. Talk to a fan of a top seeded sports team after a tough loss and you'd think they were at the bottom of the rankings.

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City Of Trees's avatar

It's even worse from the Chicken Littles on non-top tier teams, they want to fire and cut everyone after a loss.

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PhillyT's avatar

Trump is such a dotard. If Biden had this same gaffe, they'd be publicly talking about using the 25th or his mental decline constantly.

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Dan Quail's avatar

His looks so old, tired, and weak. I mean seriously, the media gives this guy a pass but spends like two years going "Biden old?!?" Like they were still doing it 6 months into Donnie's second term. Sheesh.

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srynerson's avatar

It's why I genuinely wish Biden would either hurry up and die or pull an Ariel Sharon so as to stop blundering back into the spotlight and reopening the whole, "Wow, Biden is really old!" line of reporting.

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Wandering Llama's avatar

Perhaps Dems should actually do this then

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Milan Singh's avatar

Don’t have the votes

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James L's avatar

I think the bigger question is how badly Trump will sell out the Ukrainians, the defense of Europe, and US long-term strategic interests to Russia and get nothing in return.

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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

"...and get nothing in return...."

Oh, Trump himself will get some cash in return. But the US will get nothing in return.

That's always Trump's way when he is in charge of something: asset-stripping and a bust-out, so that the company goes bankrupt and he makes off with some cash.

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James L's avatar

It’s not clear to me that Putin feels he even needs to do that.

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City Of Trees's avatar

This feels like a self own of sadness on Meta's part. It would be really nice to actually have a site where information was centered around getting updates from the friends and family that we know, wherever in the world. Instead, people are just using it for what YouTube has done before Meta even existed and does better, and plenty of other duplicative competition out there. No wonder I haven't used Facebook in ages and have never used Instagram, if all people are going to do is share stuff I can find anyway.

https://x.com/wendyndavis/status/1953501377038033213

"Meta says most time on FB and Insta is spent watching videos, and only 7% of time on Insta & 17% on FB involves consuming content from friends. Company argues FTC hasn't proven it monopolizes 'personal social networking services market' b/c such market doesn't exist"

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GuyInPlace's avatar

I have friends who used to get hundreds of likes within minutes of uploading a pic on Facebook and now they get maybe 10 a week. It takes forever to scroll just to find an actual update from a person I actually know instead of a bunch of ads or suggestions to join groups I don't care about. They turned their own app into a graveyard.

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Wandering Llama's avatar

Hardly a self own. It was a conscious choice to make more revenue, and it worked pretty well for their founders, employee options, and investors.

The ones that lost are those of us that just wanted an app to stay close to their friends.

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City Of Trees's avatar

That's why I appended sadness to that--obviously Zuck laughed his way to the bank a long time ago.

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Ken in MIA's avatar

"...an app to stay close to their friends"

There's still email. That's an app.

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Mariana Trench's avatar

I do two things on FB: Read my friends' posts, and watch golden retriever videos.

Repeating advice I gave earlier: Consider going to "Feeds" and then "Friends", and you'll get a feed of just your friends' posts.

Alternatively, go to "Friends" on the sidebar (web interface) and click on "All friends" and it'll show you a list of all your friends and you can view their timelines from right there.

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SD's avatar

This is also what I do. But I am old. I actually enjoy FB by limiting what I see to friends, and it is often how I find out what is going on in the community.

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Justin B's avatar

The boomers have found AI image makers and it's making Facebook even more awful than it has been.

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SD's avatar

Interesting. I mainly use Instagram to find out about events that smaller stores and venues are putting on because it is the main place they are advertised. These are mostly bookstores, though.

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Benji A's avatar

I like FB for this group where this guy writes about local food and and another with local photos. Marketplace is great. FB comments on local stuff are also much more representative of the population where I live than say Reddit. Don't think Gen Z uses it for updating friends but they do use it for stuff like finding roommates. I think a good balance is not to have these social media apps on your phone so you only use them on your computer.

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David Olson's avatar

What does the size of the market have to do with monopoly status? This is like the mirror image of that "monopoly is when big corporation" argument from the left.

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Joseph's avatar

So, what's the over/under on Trump declaring martial law in a major city before his term expires?

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Arminius's avatar

0.5 martial laws

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Ray Jones's avatar

Hammer the over.

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David Muccigrosso's avatar

I’m seriously contemplating how to think of my current meager assets in the context of the future of the dollar as a currency, without indulging in moronic panic nor the nihilism of just giving up.

But also… Trump is clearly flailing. If it weren’t for the past decade of GOP capitulation, I’d consider that a development with a silver lining. But I can’t.

Joseph, my friend, I have but to ask: São Paolo, or Rio? I’m good with either.

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Conor Mac's avatar

For your question, Rio, easy. Rio is incredible.

But to Joseph's point, Rio and Sao Paulo arent the best cities, in addition to Florianopolis, go to Salvador!

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David Muccigrosso's avatar

Like I told Joseph, I got fooled by those names resembling Spanish place names but also sharing some of English’s tendencies to go heavy on Greek… which, I guess I haven’t made it far enough into Portuguese vocab to really pick up on, but perhaps I should’ve noticed with its greater affinity for English loanwords (or at least, Portuguese’s lower diversity of international dialects making it more reliant on English for loanwords).

Gah as a linguistics nerd this fucks w my head. Cheers! And Florianopolis looks interesting!

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Conor Mac's avatar

Portuguese, at least in Brazil, messed with me because there were so many loan words/phrases from other languages.

Brazil is a lot like the US; huge, multicultural, and immigrant heavy. Its wild how similar we are whole being so different. I dont know if its also a Portuguese thing or just a western thing to try and claim some legitimacy/pretige/whatever, with ancient Greeks, but yes, they have it!

I would assume they have a ton of English loan words becaus they are American and look at us moreso than Portugal. Again, we are super similar countries.

^not my most coherent post, I am in England and enjoying the pubs! Still, go to Brazil, youll love prety much anywhere you decide to explore. Its a beautiful country with beautiful people

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David Muccigrosso's avatar

Lol gotcha beat, went there last year and yeah, it totally reminded me of the America I’ve heard about from maybe 100-125 years ago, the one my great grandpappy came here for. Happy-go-lucky, but maybe with a bit more chill than us. That’s why it’s on the “fuck this shit, I’m out” list.

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Joseph's avatar

Florianopolis.

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David Muccigrosso's avatar

Holy fuck I thought you were making shit up for a second there.

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Jeremy's avatar

I assume you mean how many months / weeks will it take him, since the "he won't do it" bet is not one anyone reasonable is taking.

Sometime in the fall fits his currrent behavior and sets a precedent for next year's elections. But perhaps he waits to see what happens in Texas and other redistricting states first, which might push it to the spring. I suspect it would be more difficult to justify in the winter without much happening outdoors. This is a more interesting quesiton than I thought at first...but I'll put the over/under at April 2026.

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Sharty's avatar

In fact, I will happily take the "President Trump will not declare martial law" bet.

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Ray Jones's avatar

What would you have bet about the national guard to DC one year ago?

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Sharty's avatar
5hEdited

I would have bet that he wouldn't do what he did, and I would have lost. Pretty bad! It's not betting if you don't win some and lose some. (FWIW, I would also have bet that the ACA repeal effort in his first term would have succeeded). It is very, very bad that we are, correctly, discussing martial law as a distinct possibility!

If you'll join me back in 2017, there was this longstanding/recurring thinkpiece about Trump learning on the job, perhaps best expressed by the MSM joke of "XYZ event is when Trump 'truly became president' ". He didn't, and (as they meant it) he didn't. Trump was just Trump, the only thing he could be.

So that's my theory of the case--it would take an essay to fully evaluate the reasons to think he will or he won't, but the fact is that he hasn't. Trump doesn't really care about legitimate pretexts or fig leaves. If he was going to declare martial law, he would have already, in his first term or (incredibly) the first 1/6 of his second term.

[edit: that is to be read "one sixth", about 8 months out of 48, not a reference to the events of January 6]

The theory of the case that the grandparent commentator seems to embrace is the inevitable authoritarian ratchet. I think this is a colorable, reasonable theory, consistent with all of the evidence we have in front of us. I just don't happen to share it.

SB wasn't around in 2017, but I'm sure you could trawl the archives of (I don't know) Daily Kos and you could find just such confidence, nay, certainty, in martial law in Trump's first term.

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Ray Jones's avatar

This comment shared a commonly held sentiment that got Trump elected that I feel has been thoroughly exposed as incorrect; “Trump would have done it the first term if he was going to” has been fully debunked, it’s a different administration and the guardrails are gone.

It was a bad heuristic for voting, but it holds even less weight in hindsight.

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Sharty's avatar

As you say, the guardrails are weaker, and his new team is somehow more craven and contemptable than his old one. But he's also older, slower, some might even say low-energy. Lots of factors to consider. I don't think "he's going to do it" is an unreasonable view of the situation. I only object to the grandparent comment's certainty.

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Marc Robbins's avatar

But what is the National Guard going to *do* there? Here in LA we had National Guardsmen for several months and most of the time they just stood around looking incredibly bored and wondering why they weren't able to go home and resume their normal jobs and be with their families.

Until proved otherwise, I'll take this deployment as just another stupid and empty Trump stunt.

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bloodknight's avatar

Been wondering what effect this stuff is gonna have on recruitment. They gonna have to offer 100k signing bonuses to join up with the Guard?

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Ken in MIA's avatar

Yeah, I think that's the safer wager.

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Joseph's avatar

Clearly, I don’t gamble and don’t know the right words. But my point can be inferred.

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Jeremy's avatar

Hah! So are you taking under (before) April or over (after)?

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disinterested's avatar

Someone on Reddit pointed out that it’s a meme in MAGAworld that Trump couldn’t deploy the national guard on January 6th because of Nancy Pelosi and, not that I expect consistency from that group, it’s an interesting observation and I’d like to see a response.

If you don’t recall, the claim is that the speaker of the house is responsible for the security of the capitol (she’s not) and so if she didn’t want any troop deployment (she was never asked), it couldn’t go forward. This is an absurd lie but these people are to a man suffering from frontal lobe malfunctions.

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Ken in MIA's avatar

"...because of Nancy Pelosi..."

Um, https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115001339487533426

"It’s all INSIDE iNFORMATION!"

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evan bear's avatar

Also, what are the odds of him spelling it "marshall law" in his Truth Social post announcing said declaration?

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Chm0012001's avatar

If we're very lucky, it will be spelled out as 'Martian Law', in honour of Captain Murphy

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Das P's avatar
6hEdited

I saw the very serious people crowd get all excited as President Gas-Bag made some loud noises about sanctioning Russia and losing patience with Putin etc etc. We were told that the Very Stable Genuis was realizing Putin was playing him. Yet nothing seems to have happened and he simply went back to trying to sell out Ukraine again.

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Mariana Trench's avatar

It's almost like he's an idiot with dementia.

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James L's avatar

How about we just assume he is a powerful political actor with his own agenda? That seems to fit the facts better.

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Mariana Trench's avatar

¿Por qué no los dos?

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James L's avatar
4hEdited

Because assuming he’s an idiot with dementia will cause you to underestimate his abilities and strategies? After all, if he’s so incompetent, how did he manage to get elected President twice?

There’s a famous story about all the Confederate generals getting together and blaming each other for losing the Civil War. And then Longstreet says, “Maybe the Yankees had something to do with it?”

Similarly, it’s fun at Slow Boring to criticize different factions on the left and center for their ineptitude, but maybe we should take seriously the notion that the right has a plan and so far is executing it?

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Das P's avatar
3hEdited

Trump is almost certainly a marketing savant (for gullible people) but it is pretty clear that if you actually sit him down and ask him about stuff that constitutes general knowledge he would score very poorly.

He is an electoral juggernaut because has real drunk uncle at Thanksgiving energy which is the most authentic form of energy recognizable to the median voter. It is very distasteful to educated liberals but not to the median voter.

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evan bear's avatar

I do think there is a genuine difference of opinion between Trump and Putin insofar as Trump wants Ukraine to cede large swathes of its territory to Russia and remain vulnerable to a future attack, while Putin wants Ukraine to be completely under his thumb immediately.

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Marco in Ukr's avatar

I suppose I'll continue my run as SB's resident Russia hawk and say do not feed the bears. An incredible number of Russians do indeed believe stupid things like Russian ownership of American territories, and their population is so propagandized (or, I would tend to argue, malicious as a result of a couple dozen generations of brutalization at the hand of a succession of tsars) that they'll do incredibly dumb and counterproductive things to get their "Russian World". Clearly they will not actually stop their revanchist wars of conquest, and any land given to them is just more resources and slave soldiers they can send into the next meat grinder.

Mentally I am preparing for the US' abandonment of Ukraine. It won't appease the Russians, but I'm sure it'll be spun as a win for "peace" and "diplomacy" as we keep dying here. Fuck 'em all. They can have Ukraine over my dead body, and everyone I work with here feels the same.

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Mariana Trench's avatar

I'm really sorry, man. I wish the U.S. didn't suck so much right now.

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James L's avatar

For whatever reason, which I don’t understand, Trump and Vance prefer Russia to Ukraine and have never been able to give a coherent and defensible reason why.

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California Josh's avatar

They dislike liberalism and support regimes which oppose liberalism

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James L's avatar

So why aren’t they pro-China then?

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The NLRG's avatar

they are not behaving in ways consistent with being anti-China

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James L's avatar

This is interesting. They certainly could be tougher on China.

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drosophilist's avatar

Because China isn’t white and Christian, and by “Christian” I mean “using Christianity as pretext for doing thing 100% opposed to the actual teachings of Christ”

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California Josh's avatar

Racism/illiberal Asians not being trad-coded

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evan bear's avatar

This is part of it, but it's also that China is still nominally "communist" and so being pro-China wouldn't feel like owning the libs. Of course, as a factual matter, China is communist in name only, and American right-wingers share more in common with the Chinese regime on political philosophy than either does with American or Western liberals.

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Arminius's avatar

Also, separate, but Russia actively helped Donald Trump win an election.

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srynerson's avatar

The rightwing romanticization of Russia started years before 2016 though.

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drosophilist's avatar

Because Russia = strong white manly men who hate woke?

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James L's avatar

Maybe? I'm just not totally buying it.

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evan bear's avatar

I think it's because Russia is a right-wing country, and Trump and Vance are right-wingers.

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James C.'s avatar

This is almost certainly all path dependent rather than principled.

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Sean O.'s avatar

Who, in the year 2025, is still paying AOL for dial-up internet?

https://abcnews.go.com/living/story/aol-set-pull-plug-iconic-dial-internet-service/?id=124539332

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GuyInPlace's avatar

I wonder how many of those connections belong to either automated scam robocall machines or people AOL didn't realize were dead.

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srynerson's avatar

When a member of my parents' church died in the early 2000s (she was in her 90s), her family discovered that she was still renting both of the phones in her house from the local telephone company. (When they called to cancel the service, the phone company generously told them they could keep the phones.)

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Helikitty's avatar

Man that’s *really* what we should go back to. The rotary dial aesthetic is where it’s at

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srynerson's avatar

I don't know if they were still rotary dials or not. I have a vague recollection that at some point Mountain Bell/US West stopped supporting rotary dialing and users needed to upgrade to a push-button phone, but I don't remember when that was.

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Helikitty's avatar

Aww

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dysphemistic treadmill's avatar

"...still paying AOL for dial-up....?"

Oh, great. Now how am I going to connect my modem? Where do I put the phone handset if there are not two recesses on the acoustic coupler? All this new stuff is terrible!

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Helikitty's avatar

I don’t think it’s a bad idea if you have kids to restrict internet to that

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Joseph's avatar

Did you get this from Jingles, lol?

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James's avatar

The contemplation of “land swaps” that have been shared in the press and mumbled by Trump is an affront to sovereignty. As I understand it there’s a thought of giving Russian currently unoccupied land in exchange for some currently occupied land. It’s all Ukrainian! There are no swaps here!

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srynerson's avatar

The question I wanted someone to ask in response to that "land swaps" thing was for Trump to identify what Russian territory he thought Putin would be willing to give Ukraine.

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California Josh's avatar

Alaska! Problem solved

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Sean O.'s avatar

Like it or not, Russia is currently sovereign over the land it has conquered, and the only thing that can make Russia not sovereign over that land is to conquer it back.

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Charles Ryder's avatar

Not per international law. IIRC the US (and other Western countries) never recognized Soviet sovereignty over the Baltics. I'd imagine in a sane world that might be an element of any deal to end the Ukraine war: we all agree that Putin gets to keep most of his territorial gains—including Crimea—but in a nod to international law nobody officially recognizes his gains—including Crimea. But given that this is Trump we're talking about, we'll probably give away the store, meaning we'll recognize Putin's illegal conquests. Our president is, after all, a master negotiator.

Not a good time to be an Estonian.

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Sean O.'s avatar

Who and what army is going to conquer land back from Putin?

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Charles Ryder's avatar

Not sure I get your point. Russia controls a big chunk of Ukraine, and pretty obviously if Ukraine can't prevail on the battlefield that control is going to remain cemented in place indefinitely. I'm disagreeing with your claim about "sovereignty" — which means something in international law we need not gift Russia with. But which I fear we'll do nonetheless: Trump wants a Norwegian gong.

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evan bear's avatar

I actually don't think this is quite true. Over the last 75 years or so, more powerful invaders have lost wars several times to less powerful defenders. The typical way this happens isn't that the smaller country drives them out. Instead, the smaller country simply digs in its heels and refuses to give up, trapping the invaders in a quagmire until they give up and leave voluntarily. This isn't easy and it takes a long time to work, but it is precedented.

Putin can brainwash the Russian people all he wants, but deep down they all know that this is a war of choice for them, and if the war goes on long enough they will get tired of fighting it. But the Ukrainians are defending their homeland, and it isn't the same for them. They know they can't give up and will fight to the last man.

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ML's avatar

Trump could settle Ukraine/Russia, Sudan, and one other random conflict not Gaza, and the Nobel committee wouldn't even entertain the notion of giving him an award.

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Charles Ryder's avatar

Probably. I think the point is, whether or not he’s likely to get a Nobel, his desire for this award plays a non-trivial role in US foreign policy.

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David Olson's avatar

Sovereign my ass. Reagan outlawed Russia forever.

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Sean O.'s avatar

And the Kellogg-Briand pact outlawed war for eternity...

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James's avatar

My point is it’s immediately a massive give to Putin to even call it a land swap. The position of the US should be all of Ukraine pre 2014 is theirs and any changes are just concessions. This rhetoric makes it sound like Russia has lost something during the war and this is an evening of the field. Total horseshit

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James L's avatar

Or apply consistent pressure and wait for the inevitable Russian government collapse and the captive nations to escape. Happens regularly in Russian history. George Kennan is still relevant here. Russia refuses to give up its imperial delusions.

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City Of Trees's avatar

Is there any country that's more dead set on revanchism than Russia?

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Sean O.'s avatar

China

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City Of Trees's avatar

I could see the intensity of Taiwan being super high, but the sheer amount of land strikes me as putting Russia ahead.

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Charles Ryder's avatar

Yeah, Russia is worse, though less formidable. There are numerous territories once part of the Qing (or Ming, or Tang, or Song) Empire that aren't PRC territory, including gigantic portions of what are now Russia. But the Chinese mainly seem to be confining their claims to former coastal possessions. I haven't heard them raise claims about (outer) Mongolia, Vietnam, Korea, etc

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Thomas L. Hutcheson's avatar

And the economic value

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Sean O.'s avatar

The economic value of Taiwain will go way down when the Taiwan government destroys TSMCs foundries in the event of a Chinese invasion.

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Nikuruga's avatar

Revanchism is a bad way to understand the China/Taiwan situation. China hasn’t made claims on the Russian Far East even though Russia conquered that in the Opium Wars and ethnically cleansed the Chinese population. It also isn’t trying to take back Mongolia even though that was part of China for hundreds of years before Taiwan. The real issue with Taiwan is that it’s a Western-aligned country that complies with US sanctions and would be a base for blockading China. If Taiwan had a neutral-to-China-friendly government like Mongolia or Singapore they could probably have a deal with China that maintains Taiwan independence.

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City Of Trees's avatar

I was with this all the way until the last sentence, where I think the sheer history would make that specific arrangement unlikely.

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Lost Future's avatar

Yes- learning about the unequal treaties China was forced to sign in the 19th century is a part of every child's education there. Which is ironic, because China was forced to give up huge chunks of land to Russia in the 1860s. However, this 'unequal treaty' never seems to receive anywhere near as much attention

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Aigun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_of_Peking

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James L's avatar

China absolutely has movements that want to take Mongolia(and Irkutsk and Buryatia) and the Russian Far East back.

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srynerson's avatar

While I'm sure there are "movements" to that effect, it's an odd detail that the PRC technically has less ambitious territorial claims than the ROC (which officially doesn't recognize the independence of Mongolia, the annexation of Tannu Tuva, or the various border adjustments that the PRC has negotiated with Myanmar, India, Pakistan, DPRK, and the USSR/Russia/Central Asian republics).

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evan bear's avatar

Man, it would really shake things up if Taiwan were to invade Primorsky Krai.

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Sean O.'s avatar

All that is a carryover from the Qing Dynasty, correct?

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srynerson's avatar

Yes, correct. The ROC's official position, as I understand it, is that China's borders should be coterminous with what the Qing Dynasty claimed as of the Chinese Revolution of 1911.

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Weary Land's avatar

Just wait for the two to collide!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amur_Annexation

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srynerson's avatar

Google AI's answer suggests that "irredentism" is probably more accurate for what China's objective is

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Ken in MIA's avatar

Does Google AI have a plan to defend Taiwan?

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Adam S's avatar

Wow, airball

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Andrew's avatar

I went back to school today. I got moved over the summer from on level track to accelerated (1 year ahead) and wow this is a different world. Parents are so much more intense dealing with an all high class but also kind.

An interesting distinction though that’s curious is the answer to the question what did you do this summer. At a title one school the modal answer was like go to the pool in on level classes at my current school it was like go to tourist destination. In my accelerated class it was like go to home country (mostly India also Pakistan, Taiwan, and Turkey, Trinidad) my school is incredibly ethnically diverse but the top forms are really overwhelmingly second generation immigrants.

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ML's avatar
5hEdited

I had sibling who for years taught in the inner city, and she had some hair raising tales about parents, and other things.

Towards the end of her career she followed a principal to a newly built school in an upper class neighborhood. She said the new parents were just nuts. One of her favorite stories was a parent complaining about their child’s grade. The parent staunchly insisted her kid get a better grade than one of her peers. Ended up in a meeting with the parent and principal. My sister said “your kid got an A, what do you want me to do, reduce the other girl’s grade?” Yes, was the parent’s answer.

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Milan Singh's avatar

Dropping in to say that I am a big fan of the new threads format!

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City Of Trees's avatar

So I'm just learning that The Revolving Door Project went after Matt yet again, this time on his Uber article last week. That site has to be in serious competition for suffering the most from Yglesias Derangement Syndrome. They've already chocked up 4 pages worth of tagging him in articles! And the query string is ominous, equating him with an "issue". https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/search?issue=matt-yglesias

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Comment Is Not Free's avatar

Im going to Fairbanks, Russia mid September. Any recommendations?

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Vonnonymous's avatar

Don't stay there for the winter.

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Ravenson's avatar

Pioneer Park will still be open, I think the Riverboat Discovery cruises go into September so that's a fun afternoon, Santa Claus House in North Pole is fun enough (and the Pagoda restaurant nearby is so good that I had someone who grew up in NYC compliment it), the Hot Springs are nice but won't be very impressive since it won't be very cold yet... Oh, the Large Animal Research Station does tours. And of course you can make day trips down to Denali or up to the Arctic Circle.

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Nathan's avatar

yeah this is all accurate. weather should be fine.

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Comment Is Not Free's avatar

Great recommendations. Thank you.

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ML's avatar

Bring a warm jacket and long johns.

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City Of Trees's avatar

Ugh, Matt got his e-bike stolen. https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1955025957594468557

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