Prelude to the Apocalypse

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Iran War. When.

2021
3
6%
2022-2025
15
28%
2026-2030
7
13%
2031-2040
3
6%
2041-2050
0
No votes
Never
25
47%
 
Total votes: 53

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To Far Away Times
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by To Far Away Times »

While Christy will always be synonymous with the L, I respect him for his petty headhunting in the 2016 Republican Primaries. Dude showed up to the debate after being mathematically eliminated and was there only to kick ass and take names. Probably ended Rubio's presidential ambitions with the Marco Roboto comments. Christy is petty as fuck, in that New Jersey way, but I appreciate it.
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BryanM
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

His shameless stint as Trump's lapdog for no reward was indeed hilarious and sad. "Get on the plane and go home! No it's this way, go home!"

Ahh... Herman Cain had more self respect. Politicians are gross yo.
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orange808
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by orange808 »

It's interesting. Twenty years ago, I can confirm that some would try to beat me down for suggesting Ireland is a tax haven that hurts everyone else. It's criminal. Seems reality is finally sinking in. Can't keep letting them do this. I'm hoping Biden will make a move on this. I know Merkel and Boris won't lift a finger, but I have absolutely no doubt they personally benefit from status quo.
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Mischief Maker
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Mischief Maker »

Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Steamflogger Boss
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

Mischief Maker wrote:The Future of American Politics.
Lol.
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BulletMagnet
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BulletMagnet »

Just in case anyone was somehow operating under the delusion that the nauseating "Cyber Ninjas" recount in Arizona would somehow be a one-off, we now have a state gubernatorial candidate in Virginia who is pre-emptively threatening to demand her own recount, not even if she loses the election, but if she doesn't get the nomination.

So once again, what the hysterical fearmongers warned would come to pass - that with 60-70 percent of conservatives openly claiming to believe the 2020 election was stolen (and plenty more assuredly on the bandwagon without admitting as much to pollsters), it would rapidly become the norm on the right to abjectly refuse to accept any unfavorable result as legitimate - seems to be rapidly gaining traction. So yeah, that whole "peaceful transfer of power" thing the reasonable centrists and problem solvers claim to care so much about seems to, yet again, in reality fall under the same umbrella as, oh, I don't know, the right to vote - the most important thing in the world until the second it becomes mildly inconvenient.

But hey, keep on seeking that "productive dialogue".
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GaijinPunch
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by GaijinPunch »

BulletMagnet wrote:Just in case anyone was somehow operating under the delusion that the nauseating "Cyber Ninjas" recount in Arizona would somehow be a one-off, we now have a state gubernatorial candidate in Virginia who is pre-emptively threatening to demand her own recount, not even if she loses the election, but if she doesn't get the nomination.

So once again, what the hysterical fearmongers warned would come to pass - that with 60-70 percent of conservatives openly claiming to believe the 2020 election was stolen (and plenty more assuredly on the bandwagon without admitting as much to pollsters), it would rapidly become the norm on the right to abjectly refuse to accept any unfavorable result as legitimate - seems to be rapidly gaining traction. So yeah, that whole "peaceful transfer of power" thing the reasonable centrists and problem solvers claim to care so much about seems to, yet again, in reality fall under the same umbrella as, oh, I don't know, the right to vote - the most important thing in the world until the second it becomes mildly inconvenient.

But hey, keep on seeking that "productive dialogue".
So the headline is the conservatives are the real snowflakes. Color me "duh".
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BryanM
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

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Steamflogger Boss
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

I knew something awful was going to happen but kept watching anyway. :shock:
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BryanM
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

america is a predictable bastard!
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Mischief Maker
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Mischief Maker »

Speaking of which, I'm currently torturing myself by listening to Season 1 of the Blowback podcast, an exhaustive documentary and deconstruction of the Iraq war with the proper tone of rage and disgust for the propaganda establishment that pushed both those mass bloodlettings.

Listening to the Iraq War 1 stuff, I realized my AP History teacher in High School, a guy I really admired back then, was feeding us bullshit Bush administration propaganda about how the Iraq invasion was totally justified.

Just remember that if you listen, then the terrorists have won.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Steamflogger Boss
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Steamflogger Boss »

The people surprised by Biden's "response" to the Israel situation crack me up.
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BulletMagnet
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BulletMagnet »

So yeah, it's now official: if you are not willing to, on command, act directly in opposition to both all available factual information and the functional foundations of your own country, you are persona non grata within American conservatism.

Of course, you also need to be too utterly pussified to actually go on the record about any of it.

Fun times ahead.
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Mischief Maker
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Mischief Maker »

Is it too much to hope she takes the very concept of bipartisanship down with her?

Freaky how much she looks like her evil, evil father.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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BryanM
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

If we really do pull out of Afghanistan, it'll be heartening to know it'll have a theocratic drug cartel as its form of governance. Those 30 million dollar missile strikes to deny the Taliban $5,000 worth of taxes really puts asymmetric warfare into stark relief.

If you've skimmed the economy of Afghanistan wikipedia page or googled "Afghanistan food security", you've put more planning and effort into reconstruction than the people whose responsibility it was to see that shit happen did.
Steamflogger Boss wrote:The people surprised by Biden's "response" to the Israel situation crack me up.
Seriously. What was more likely, the tape player that's played the same lines on repeat for the last 40+ years to keep repeating itself, or for a US president in the first time in history propose actually enforcing the borderlines of any treaty or resolution.
Killer Mike
One of the better things to come from 2016 was to learn this was the man who did the voice of the rapper on Frisky Dingo. There's even a full version of all that jizz, which was an amusing commentary on hip hop music at the time when stuff like Get Low burst into overwhelming mainstream popularity.

The album art of the fictional album it was released on, The Ballocaust, also is reminiscent of Kanye West-esque style antics. Being a gigantic asshole works.
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BulletMagnet
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BulletMagnet »

Mischief Maker wrote:Is it too much to hope she takes the very concept of bipartisanship down with her?
To the contrary, the "problem solvers" now have an excuse to rally around her and insist her mind-bogglingly awful record really isn't that big an ask to overlook because unlike her colleagues she's dared to display some minimal semblance of sentience.

Now they can hammer out a deal which completely deep-sixes the entire infrastructure bill in exchange for her promise to maybe sign onto a non-binding resolution calling Trump a poopyhead!
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Sengoku Strider »

BulletMagnet wrote:So yeah, it's now official: if you are not willing to, on command, act directly in opposition to both all available factual information and the functional foundations of your own country, you are persona non grata within American conservatism.
Um, maybe your facts, Mr. propaganda-chugging sheeple. Maybe do some basic research and actual critical thinking for once?

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GaijinPunch
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by GaijinPunch »

People like her are why hallucinogens will never be decriminalized.
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Mischief Maker
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Mischief Maker »

Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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BryanM
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

Ah, The Onion made a joke about the "cutting the grass" euphemism ~13 years ago.

That's the most tragic thing about satire that isn't about specific individuals - since nothing ever changes (outside of technology) you quickly run out of fresh material.

An old excerpt on these kinds of modern wars:
Spoiler
Image
Urgh, there's literally only around 4 democrats in congress raising a hand against the apartheid, and yet there are partisans who want to pretend it's only Republicans who are evil.

Abby on the Empire Files has some interviews with Israelis and examples of some of their media - as effective as our propaganda is at grooming people into tools and cattle, still amazes me that it's possible for it to be even worse.

Gonna be great when the gasoline's gone. The best apocalypse. (Sike it's the worst apocalypse. Doesn't even have star wraiths or cool mad maxian cars with spikes on them.)
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Sengoku Strider »

BryanM wrote: Gonna be great when the gasoline's gone. The best apocalypse. (Sike it's the worst apocalypse. Doesn't even have star wraiths or cool mad maxian cars with spikes on them.)
I think things somehow get worse when the gasoline's gone. China controls 51% of the global total of chemical lithium, 62% of chemical cobalt and 100% of spherical graphite.

The US, 2% of lithium.

Guess what the major components of electric car batteries are?
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BulletMagnet
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BulletMagnet »

Back in 2016 I linked to a story about a woman who was caught voting multiple times for Trump, stating that she only committed voter fraud in order to "balance out" the fraud assuredly being perpetrated by his opponents; I pithily labeled the incident "Team Trump in a Nutshell".

Well, folks, it would appear the bar has been raised.
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GaijinPunch
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by GaijinPunch »

Only way that would be better is if he said "it was her dying wish... Doh, I mean..."
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BryanM
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

Okay Twitter bullying is amusing sometimes. I like how Eve Fartlow is going to be called "Eve Fartlow" forever and it's never going to stop.
its "Adam Fartlow and Eve Fartlow," not "Adam Fartlow and Steve Fartlow"
lmao
Sengoku Strider wrote:I think things somehow get worse when the gasoline's gone. China controls 51% of the global total of chemical lithium, 62% of chemical cobalt and 100% of spherical graphite.

The US, 2% of lithium.

Guess what the major components of electric car batteries are?
In terms of reserves we have more lithium per capita than them (~600,000 versus their million tons). Metal reclamation would have been a bitch in the future though, where I guess we'd have to mine landfills for ever diminishing returns of zinc. At some threshold SpAcE mining might actually eventually be a feasible alternative, somehow, at some point.

If we weren't all doomed little animals of course.

There's a ticking clock of about 30 years to transition as much as we can to fission, but capital is still spending every effort accelerating the consumption of fossil fuels. (So we can drive to our job at the dildo factory or whatever useless purpose this serves?) Its vassals complaining about the people they don't like while we're all murdered is rather cartoonish, standing on the listing split-in-half Titanic and complaining about the uncouth Yankees or whatever.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Fuck. Shit's getting real.

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Trump going full Sex Pistols.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Sengoku Strider »

BryanM wrote:There's a ticking clock of about 30 years to transition as much as we can to fission, but capital is still spending every effort accelerating the consumption of fossil fuels. (So we can drive to our job at the dildo factory or whatever useless purpose this serves?) Its vassals complaining about the people they don't like while we're all murdered is rather cartoonish, standing on the listing split-in-half Titanic and complaining about the uncouth Yankees or whatever.
Breathable oxygen, radiation-proof domes and survivable temperatures™ are untapped markets just bristling with opportunity, get in on the ground floor.
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orange808
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by orange808 »

China is serious about mining the moon. As for nuclear fission, that is very messy and your entire scheme for "capturing" the energy: boiling water. That's laughably inefficient. You'll need a cleaner and more effective way to produce energy from fission to rely on it. On top of that, fuel is limited and difficult to enrich.
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BryanM
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by BryanM »

Jeez, Queen Liz is almost a hundred years old. Like with Bob Barker, it invokes a "that person is still alive?!?!" response in me.

Like I mentioned before, I'm excited about what the Sinclair lab managed to do with epigenetic rejuvenation. If OSK alone manages to improve healthspan or lifespan, well. The Yamanaka factors were discovered 15 years ago and the idea of "let's just try 3 out of the four of'em"... - it'd be like winning Super Mario Brothers by bumping your head on the third block on the first screen.
orange808 wrote:China is serious about mining the moon. As for nuclear fission, that is very messy and your entire scheme for "capturing" the energy: boiling water. That's laughably inefficient. You'll need a cleaner and more effective way to produce energy from fission to rely on it. On top of that, fuel is limited and difficult to enrich.
Nobody is serious about mining the moon anytime remotely soon. Land surveys, sure. Executive orders from the former president saying "if you can take it, it's yours", absolutely. The day the cost ratio beats mining on Earth, hoo boy....

As for the inefficiency of converting heat into electricity that's uh... like the second law of thermodynamics. There is a great loss based on using solid fuel though. Molten salt thorium reactors seem close to ideal as we can get currently.. aside from the challenge of having a roiling soup of half the periodic table in there, corroding the walls of the reactor. We could have been decades ahead on the research of maintenance for these things, but private industry killed the research during the Nixon era. India and China have picked it up, as I guess they're interested in having electricity in the future and also would like their cities to not look like the set of a Ghostbusters movie.

There's always an inclination toward wishful thinking, what we would prefer the world to be like versus how it is or can be like. Conservatives think they'll be able to share in the loot if they deny resources to others, liberals think The Political Process is fair and just, leftists think an energy policy with solar and wind would allow us to maintain our current way of life (or that fusion will save the day.).

I'm hardly immune myself, and Star Trek Communism is definitely a form of copium for the hellhole we have to look forward to.

At least Liz, Bob, and the boomers you dislike might get to be right there with us if they work out that immortality serum.
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Koa Zo
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by Koa Zo »

orange808 wrote:China is serious about mining the moon.
Has any science fiction literature or movies explored the idea that mining the moon will alter its mass, thereby altering its orbit and throwing the entire Earth/Moon equilibrium out of balance?
Seems like there's a story to be worked there.

Also, Moon was the best science fiction movie of the last decade.
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orange808
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Re: Prelude to the Apocalypse

Post by orange808 »

BryanM wrote:
Nobody is serious about mining the moon anytime remotely soon. Land surveys, sure. Executive orders from the former president saying "if you can take it, it's yours", absolutely. The day the cost ratio beats mining on Earth, hoo boy....

The potential energy output is enormous. Hard to say how viable it will be. I think it can work.

I'm not worried about the time frame. You're already thinking long term when you consider running out of fossil fuels, so considering mining materials from the moon isn't really behind the scope of the conversation. (It is probably beyond our lifetimes--at least comfortably beyond our primes.) Given the amount of power we can harvest and the extreme cost of future rare fossil fuels, the economics could become viable very quickly.

The nations that secure energy for themselves will be better off, of course. The world isn't ever going to change. :-( No Star Trek in our future.

China is serious about their artificial moon as well. The energy savings is potentially huge. (Another crazy idea worth a second look.)

I'm not here to tell you alchemy, medicine show, better living through chemicals, state of the art, and Futureland will save us, but there will be surprises we can't imagine. :-)
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