politics

[restive seal]

Acting like toddlers is the reason? I don't like it being that simple.

[shy gulch]

Afghanistan has fallen to the Taliban

[faint radish]

well, "fallen" sounds like there was ever another option

no way anything else was going to happen, people thought it might take 3 months

but it took a week

[dusky raft]

sure, you still have the traditional antivax people, but for the lot of people against the vaccine, its more so political right now.

I got it because why the fuck not, but I am not carrying a piece of paper that states I did so

[torn wadi]

You just need the QR code.

[shut vine]

Most likely, it was developed by them at Oxford.

[restive seal]

And that's your right, as it is a businesses right to refuse entry without it. Freedom! 🥳

[shut vine]

A business can refuse you entry regardless of their undisclosed reason. As soon as you're asked to leave without warning, your refusal constitutes trespassing under most western laws.

[keen swift]

I understand people might not want to get the vaccine, because they watch Fictional news (Fox news), but what irritates me is, "Why should I have to wear a mask"

and then they list about how the vaccine is a "Tracker" or how its "Just the flu", or got an immune system so "It will just fight it off"

[shut vine]

As far as them disclosing the reason, that varies, especially when it comes to medical. Most countries actually protect a persons right to medical privacy, which would make it illegal.

[faint radish]

the whole "it will just fight it off" thing is true tho... before the vaccines were even deployed, most people still have a low chance of dying from it

[keen swift]

Millions died from it

[faint radish]

did I say no one died? no I didnt

[shut vine]

There are many who would not want to get it due to statements made by Harris, and I think Biden too.

[keen swift]

Also the florida governer is trying to make it illegal to mandate masks

Ya but its a higher risk then just the flu

[faint radish]

also, how many people got it already, were asymptomatic so they didnt know about it, and then if they get it again, their body is much more prepared than if they hadnt gotten it at all

[keen swift]

yes, but there are also many people who got it once and survived and then got it again and died

[shut vine]

Regardless, vaccine is out. It's up to individuals to get the vaccine if they want its protection.

If people choose not to take it, they take the risks associated with that.

[faint radish]

how many, is that percentage worse than the flu?

[keen swift]

Idk the percentage

Im worried that with new variants coming out that the vaccine might not protect vaccinated people as much, as there are already a tiny tiny amount of vaccinated people getting severely sick from covid

Hopefully this all ends before then

[shut vine]

That's generally how it works. If you don't get the new vaccines you're not protected.

[keen swift]

What bugs me is the people who dont get vaccinated, but insist they dont have to wear a mask, like if your not vaccinated, thats fine, just wear a mask to protect others

[shut vine]

Why when there is a vaccine?

[keen swift]

wdym?

[shut vine]

Provided you have had the opportunity to get the vaccine, why would it matter if they don't?

[keen swift]

I dont care is they dont get it, im saying just wear a mask to protect others

[faint radish]

The range of reduction of re-infection from COVID-19 was between 82% to 95% among six studies that encompassed nearly 1 million people conducted in the U.S., the U.K., Denmark, Austria, Qatar, and among U.S. Marines. The

[shut vine]

But the others could have chosen to get vaccinated?

[faint radish]

thats like equivalent to the vaccine

[shut vine]

Why do they need protecting if they wont protect themselves?

[keen swift]

to protect others

[shut vine]

But the're vaccinated.

[keen swift]

people with complicated immune systems/elderly are still at risk

[shut vine]

Person A unvaccinated not wearing a mask, Person B vaccinated not wearing a mask. Where's the issue?

[faint radish]

those groups of people are at higher risk of dying because they exist

[keen swift]

Its so bad that the cdc said you should wear masks inside even if your vaccinated

[keen swift]

And we can mitigate that by getting vaccinated/wearing a mask

[faint radish]

people with compromised immune systems and old people have a higher change of death/hospitalization regardless of covid

if covid didnt exist they STILL would be at higher risk

[shut vine]

Also I don't recall there being a mandate to associate with people regardless if they wear a mask or not

[faint radish]

so we wear masks forever?

[shut vine]

I was under the impression that most countries made that a free choice

[keen swift]

No, just get the vaccine then

like the flu shot

[faint radish]

there is no shortage of vaccine in the US, if you want it, you can get it today

[rich sun]

The issue comes when we have person A unvaccinated not wearing a mask, person B vaccinated and not wearing a mask, and person C who is unvaccinated and wearing a mask. Person C is now being put in danger by A refusing to do anything; that's not C's fault for not being vaccinated

[keen swift]

im not saying thats the issue

[faint radish]

if they choose not to, I'm done going out of my way to try and protect them

[keen swift]

im saying the people going around spreading it unvaccinated maskless is

[faint radish]

why isnt C vaccinated in this scenario

[shut vine]

Person C chose not to get vaccinated, they put themselves at risk by being around other people who are not wearing masks and not getting vaccinated.

[rich sun]

yes but the point is A should be wearing a mask and A is not only endangering themselves by not doing so but also C

[shut vine]

Provide a case for that.

[faint radish]

no no, you take steps to protect YOURSELF first

[shut vine]

Other than Person C, since that's logically invalid.

[faint radish]

C chose not to get vaccinated

[rich sun]

a case for what...?

[shut vine]

A case for why Person A should be wearing a mask.

[faint radish]

why are you trying to rely on someone else for your own safety when you can take a step to improve it yourself

[keen swift]

Ya protect yourself and get the vaccine, then everyone is happy

[shut vine]

I agree with protecting ourselves.

[faint radish]

yes, and theres no shortage of vaccine, if you havent gotten it, you dont care enough for me to go out of my way to try and protect you

[shut vine]

Be that via a vaccine, masks, avoiding people who have not taken steps to our satisfaction to do the same, avoiding interactions, etc

[keen swift]

im not saying you should wear the mask, im saying the unvaccinated one should to protect you

[rich sun]

The vaccine has been out for shorter than any other and could still have unknown side effects; it's not your business nor A's to know why C isn't vaccinated. The point is, if person A doesn't have the vaccine, they are still very likely to be endangering others and should be wearing a mask or get vaccinated themselves

[faint radish]

C is wearing a mask... and unvaccinated

[rich sun]

er yeah typo one sec
there

[keen swift]

ya c is pretty dumb

[faint radish]

ok so you are promoting vaccine hesitancy then

unknown side effects, hasnt been out for long enough

[keen swift]

the covid vaccine is fine

[rich sun]

not really promoting it, promoting people's right to be hesitant of it

[keen swift]

and getting the vaccine is alot better then dropping dead to covid

[shut vine]

Is dying from the vaccine better than getting covid and living too?

[rich sun]

I've gotten the vaccine (well halfway, haven't gotten the second dose yet); I'm not saying people shouldn't get it. What I am saying is, if someone who hasn't gotten it wants to walk around with a mask on, they shouldn't be in danger from people who both refuse to wear a mask and refuse to get vaccinated

[keen swift]

The vaccine is not going to kill you though

[shut vine]

It has killed people.

[keen swift]

which one

[shut vine]

I know for certain AstraZeneca has, can't speak specifically about the others.

[keen swift]

sry im talking about the pfizer one

The pfizer one is perfectly safe, for most people

[shut vine]

109 cases reported in Australia of deaths resulting from Pfizer

Seems like you're wrong.

[keen swift]

I thought australia only had
astrozenica

[rich sun]

yeah, as of now. But there are concerns about it causing heart problems, especially in males. It is anyone's right to wait that out a bit if they so choose. It's also anyone's right to get it anyway if they deem the risk to be less than that of covid

[shut vine]

Nope.

[keen swift]

out of 400,000 vaccinations

[shut vine]

Perfectly safe you said.

Admit you're wrong and move on.

[keen swift]

I didnt say Perfectly

[shut vine]

.

[keen swift]

theres always if buts and whens

oh woops

ya for most people

[shut vine]

You edited that too, it originally didn't have that last part

I cannot speak as to when that occurred

[keen swift]

I added that back a while ago lol

right after I sent it

sorry, not 400,000,there is 900,000 –1,000,000 vaccines of pfizer

https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2021/07/covid-19-vaccination-covid-vaccination-allocations-horizons-covid-19-vaccination-national-allocation-stages-14-july-2021.pdf

I gtg

[foggy fern]

Vaccine side effect past like 2 months would be a crazy thing

I wanted to wait before too but after a few million people got it and someone explained side effects from vaccines are basically impossible more than 2 months past your final shot I went for it

[worldly cradle]

interesting convo and i missed it

I am double jabbed but i will defend anyones rights not to get vaccinated . If a vaccinated person doesn't feel safe after being vaccinated then they should wear a mask. No one should impose their will on another. Its a violation of their human rights. My body my choice 😄

[tough cedar]

get the vaccine so i don't have to wear a mask anymore and the virus stops mutating

prob too late, prob stuck with covid like the flu

[near glen]

Funny that you say my body my choice, cause anti vaxxers are often the same that are against abortions....

I wish everybody would accept that sentence

Here, for now, gov basically says you need to have had it, have the vaccine, or have a test, to participate in many aspects of daily life. Tests are free, for now.
But stuff will be changing a bit, In two months tests will no longer be free for people who could get the vaccine but don't want to (why should society pay for their tests if they have another free and better option, the vaccine?) and football stations in particular have started to only let vaccinated people in (in hopes that they get allowed to increase capacity back to 100% then)

Masks are still required here tho

[mystic ermine]

There is a difference between being hesitant about a vaccine and being anti-vax

[near glen]

It's always the same arguments tho?

[mystic ermine]

and it's pretty much always imeediatly shutdown as YOU'RE KILLING GRANNIES rather than actually trying to address the concerns that people have

[shut vine]

There are many who think even having a discussion about hesitancy or that understand hesitancy constitutes being anti-vax. There's also a big difference between deciding to have a procedure done, and refusing to have a procedure done.

Conflating the two is just not intelligent.

[mystic ermine]

I held out on the vaccine due to my health, should I be barred from doing anything in public life because my health issues put me in a spot where I didn't feel comfortable having the vaccine?

[foggy fern]

Kind of, yeah

Like, if you have health issues that made you worried about getting the vaccine those same issues probably make covid a bigger concern too

[near glen]

That's not true, your GP here is happy to talk you thru all questions you might have, even the doctors at my companies asked me at like 3 different points in time and would have answered my everything, I saw a coworker talk to them for a while

[shut vine]

What if you're of a population that inherently distrusts the government due to past experiments done on them? COUGH COUGH Tuskegee?

[mystic ermine]

at what point do I have the automy to say that, I've been stuck in the house for 18 months and the lack of socialisation is causing even greater health issues for me

[near glen]

At least in Germany, if your doctor says the vaccine might not be a good idea for you, you still get free tests and will be treated similar to vaccinated people

[mystic ermine]

I moved away from my doctors and haven't been able to get into the GPs office nearby to get registration forms and such

[near glen]

The issue isn't the hesitation. It's not even distrust in the government. It's that people consume too much Facebook instead of talking to experts about their questions and concerns.

[shut vine]

Care to back that up with anything more than conjecture?

Anti-vaxers existed before Facebook did.

[near glen]

Facebook is a synonym for misinformation

[shut vine]

So what causes said misinformation? Also I disagree with that premise.

Why wouldn't people want to just believe what the people "in the know" say?

Would it be, say, mistrust?

[foggy fern]

My sister refuses to have my nieces get vaccinated even though epidemiologists and reproductive health experts say they can't think of any way the vaccine could have any effect on fertility

Because she saw something on Facebook

[shut vine]

So what makes her believe that over the government and health officials?

[foggy fern]

She wants there to be a study done specifically on that first

[faint radish]

that goes back to what James said, why would they believe facebook over health officials?

[shut vine]

Is it because she trusts the officials too much for example?

[mystic ermine]

people have concerns around a vaccine in which politicians slated pre-day zero and then flipped course in the blink of an eye one day, people have heard of people dying or having severe reactions to the vaccine, in which vaccine makers for this vaccine of special contracts which protects them from being sued for such instances, and meanwhile, anybody who has concerns about the vaccine is labled a wing nut anti vaxxer who is killing grannies

[shut vine]

People don't trust people in power, that's universal, regardless of your gender, race, age, political alignment, creed, or otherwise.

[mystic ermine]

Well, the vaccine can impact your period cycle or whatever but that's generally somewhat short lived, same for the flu vaccine too

[foggy fern]

That's true of a lot of diseases, isn't it? Probably would be for a lot of vaccines too if you regularly got them after puberty

[shut vine]

Also I don't know about you, but I've had a few (think two) "no it can't be that" from doctors where they were flat out wrong.

[mystic ermine]

I think as always there are people against it just because the politicians said they should, but, there are people who actually have valid concerns and would take it when those are addressed, just, the constant "you're killing grannies" shuts down all hopes of addressing these concerns and pushes people who where mearly somewhat hesitant into a corner

[shut vine]

That's anecdotal, and shouldn't be construed as me saying we shouldn't trust them.

But it's easy to see that it's a very likely reason people do not trust them.

Case and point is Harris, she basically said words to the effect of that regarding Trump and the vaccine.

[foggy fern]

Biden did too

Said he'd trust the experts but not the Trump administration, iirc

[shut vine]

Yeah I was pretty sure he did, but I couldn't exactly remember his words.

[mystic ermine]

at a time when trust is eroding of these public entities, image is everything, and image is too easy to spin

[shut vine]

I remember it being along the lines of he'd not trust the FDA if Trump was involved.

Same for Harris.

It was sowing seeds of doubt in public that did not need to trust the government less..

[mystic ermine]

harris was fine with the FDA saying it iirc, just not if trump said it

[shut vine]

Maybe I misremember, in any extent it wouldn't matter if Trump said anything then. The only way Americans can get it is on the FDA's say so.

[near glen]

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1427189716294815752?s=19

Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu)

Oh my God.

Desperate Afghans are hanging on the plane tires and falling from the sky near the Kabul airport

https://t.co/OhIscfDNWd

Retweets

3020

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Twitter · Aug 16, 2021, 8:45 AM

Wow

These videos are so disturbing

I hope there are no vids capturing the impact

[torn wadi]

None yet.

[near glen]

Some things are better left unseen

This is horrible enough

Imagine being the pilot in that plane

Can they fly without closing the tire compartment? Cause that's where they are sitting one, one button press and they all dead

[mystic ermine]

no

flying with the tire compartment open creates a huge amount of drag which massively increases fuel consumption

at cruising altitudes, people would die of hypoxia assuming they don't freeze to death first

[near glen]

Well, they only need to cross the border I guess

[mystic ermine]

flying low consumes large amounts of fuel, and I have heavy doubts that they're just gonna cross over a country

[torn wadi]

The plane won't, but the passengers are.

[faint radish]

https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1427214729668333570?s=21

⚠️ Sensitive ⚠️

ian bremmer (@ianbremmer)

God no. https://t.co/mJJP23ydpZ

Retweets

750

Likes

1453

Twitter · Aug 16, 2021, 10:24 AM

[glossy sandal]

Ayo can u put a warning on that

Jesus

[faint radish]

Still doubting there will be much if any political downside to bidens choice to leave now, and the way they did. Just how it works now. It’ll be a story, and it’ll go away.

The US people wanted out, and they got it.

Biden’s not doing any public events today, and I don’t think he had any yesterday. And Jen Psaki is taking a break and directs questions to other press officials. Coincidences. I did see that blinken was on Tapper yesterday tho, so they aren’t being completely silent

[glossy sandal]

I saw something about trump removing things related to withdrawing troops off his website too, not sure how valid that claim is though. If true wouldn't doubt Republicans will be using it to make people mad at biden lol

[mystic ermine]

To my understanding, there was much set in motion by trump which was written down and basically thrown out when the new admin took over

There was apparently a good chunk of stuff intending to try to leave some form of conducive moving forward toward but also leaving the "if you do shit, we'll be back" on the table

[faint radish]

I think it was the RNC not trump. But it was about trump

See, I think the Taliban knows this, I’m guessing they are going to be rational here, and if they keep to that small part of the world, and don’t mess with any western powers, the US isn’t really going to care

Top officials will say they care, like Pelosi putting out her stupid statement on “the world is watching you Taliban, don’t do anything bad”, but nothing will happen

[torn wadi]

Wasn't the whole point of the Taliban to stop the US from taking their oil and other stuff they had?

[mystic ermine]

Part of me kinda wishes we could clone the universe and see what woulda happened if trump was still in charge

[faint radish]

I mean that sounds like “resisting the foreign invaders ruining our culture”, a common theme in history.

[glossy sandal]

Same shit different crowd imo

In response to cats statement^

[mystic ermine]

I mean, not my strong point here, I generally have the brain of a potato but they're basically an islamic extremist group whom showed up when the USSR collapsed

[faint radish]

Congress shares the President's concern for Afghans who have assisted U.S. efforts in country.

• Pelosi

Ah yes, I forgot all you needed to get to the US was “concern” from top officials

[mystic ermine]

Well, I mean, I personally kinda think that trump, for all his downfalls, has a stronger boot

[torn wadi]

Expected. In that case. Thanks US.

[glossy sandal]

Ya feels like with trump you know what you'll get for acting out but with biden or democrats they just drone strike you in the middle of the night with 10 minutes warning

[mystic ermine]

Early Taliban were motivated by the suffering among the Afghan people, which they believed resulted from power struggles between Afghan groups not adhering to the moral code of Islam; in their religious schools they had been taught a belief in strict Islamic law.[7][8][9]

Says it all, really

I think that the islamic religion is generally just as bad, if not worse, than christianity

I mean, I get the whole basis of having a moral compass is good, but, it's too easy to create people who see horror in the world and think that the solution is to basically "purge the sinners"

Like, part of me is kinda glad that christanity is at least slowly dying off in the UK

[faint radish]

yeah, but you get to ruin someones culture if it involves beating other people

[near glen]

Relevant https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1427270483137945605?s=19

The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow)

tfw you started a 20 year war and people are arguing whether to blame Biden or Trump https://t.co/jDwQMkU0vp

Retweets

4138

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Twitter · Aug 16, 2021, 2:06 PM

(Video)

[torn wadi]

https://fxtwitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1427270483137945605?s=19

[pure jetty]

I mean sure he "started it" but we'd probably eventually have to provide aid at some point

Trump is 100% at fault for withdrawing tho

[worldly cradle]

Biden could have overturned it like he did with all other Trump policies, to blame everything on Trump is what people do, but this is totally Biden administration fault.

[worldly cradle]

I believe Trump had a plan but Bidens administration didn't follow that

[pure jetty]

Biden had promised 0 troops in there as well which I still disagree with. Trump was the one who reduced the military presence long before Biden was sworn in tho: https://amp-usatoday-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/4667248001?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a6&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From %251%24s&aoh=16291330243251&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fin-depth%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2F2021%2F03%2F17%2Fus-troop-withdrawal-afghanistan-trumps-deadline-weighs-biden%2F4667248001%2F

And Biden's admin was going to continue reducing troops overseas but given what the Taliban has done now, they just authorized thousands more to go out

[worldly cradle]

Trump's been out of office for 8months

[pure jetty]

However Biden still is commiting to 0 in Afghanistan by the time he leaves office which idk if I like

[pure jetty]

What are you trying to insinuate

[worldly cradle]

Tbh Biden doesn't know what day it is

[pure jetty]

I think he manages just well

If you've got real criticisms I'd love to hear them but the dementia line is pretty old :/

[brisk cradle]

For all intents and purposes, Biden's Afghanistan policy was the exact same as Trump's. Trump made the first move and he gets to share equal blame with Biden, Obama, Dubya, and the American public.

Trump wanted the troops out by May 1st of this year, Biden delayed it but the effect was the same.

[worldly cradle]

Just need to watch all different news sources to get the whole picture

[pure jetty]

Want to enlighten me?

[worldly cradle]

don't just watch the liberal media

Watch sky Australia

Watch GB news

[pure jetty]

Well I'd love to hear some things that you notice

[brisk cradle]

Yeah, sure, you have to watch all the different news sources. Except for the "liberal" news media.

[pure jetty]

Just curious about some of the things I've missed out on

[brisk cradle]

That doesn't sound right.

[worldly cradle]

I rephrased it

[pure jetty]

Could you please give me some examples

[worldly cradle]

I will in a while

[brisk cradle]

AFAIK, Trump would have still pressed the withdrawal and instead of the right being outraged by it, it's "centrists" instead.

[plush crypt]

From a completely unamerican view, besides his pretty right leaning politics, he's doing pretty well

[brisk cradle]

It's unfortunate, but we had a choice between staying there indefinitely or leaving and letting the Taliban take over. We couldn't and wouldn't stay indefinitely.

The Afghan government could not pick up its own weight and it's unreasonable for us to keep supporting them.

[worldly cradle]

Bidens Border policy

the border was secure until they got rid of the remain in mexico policy

[brisk cradle]

Biden's border troubles have been well-documented in the "liberal media." The difference is that they don't squawk as loudly about it.

[worldly cradle]

they should give it more focus , when trump was in office the press hounded him

even the cages that were used by obama were blamed on trump

[brisk cradle]

And personally, I do not care about the border. It is not any of my business, and as an anarchist, I think the border, natch, the state, should not exist.

[worldly cradle]

Biden lied about saying he will unite people but hes creating a huge divide between people

[pure jetty]

Trump's issue was separating families, something Biden stopped day 1

[worldly cradle]

and u dont think they dont get seperated now?

[tough cedar]

do they?

[pure jetty]

If they do it's rounding error

[restive seal]

Please elaborate on this divide he's creating. Is it the one where he says people should get vaccinated? 🤣

[worldly cradle]

more vunerable people who are coming in have suffered sexual assuslt - they arent always families

some are

[plush crypt]

We can't choose which demographic wants to flee their previous home

[worldly cradle]

so if a man committed a crime then that person is seperated from there children when they go to jail

and entering a country illegally is a crime

[plush crypt]

that sounds like a regular person going to jail... prison is meant to strip you of your family and that which you know and love

[brisk cradle]

So yes, it may scare you, but I support "open borders"

[worldly cradle]

if u open your borders totally then u lose your way of life

[plush crypt]

wat

have you seen europe?

[tough cedar]

i don't think i support just open border but can you elaborate on that statement?

[plush crypt]

just about none of our countries over here have closed borders

[worldly cradle]

if u import south america u will become south america

[pure jetty]

Nah I'm pretty sure it's still America

[worldly cradle]

you seen what whats happened in sweden?

rapes up

[brisk cradle]

The EU has essentially open borders with all their member sites. I don't think Germany has gotten any less German, or France any less French.

[pure jetty]

I mean I wouldn't support the EU's open borders for the states

[worldly cradle]

france? u seen how much terrism they get?

[pure jetty]

But a faster immigration process would be nice

[brisk cradle]

And each U.S. state has "open borders" too.

[plush crypt]

That's because we're humane enough to say that 1 instance = 1 case. That means if someone does it 3 times to 1 person, that carries the punishment of doing it in three separate cases, and as such statistics are also affected

Note that it was changed to count it like this quite a while after the immigration started

[worldly cradle]

rape is rape

[plush crypt]

exactly. The US and most of Europe counts 1 and 10 instances as a single case

Sweden does not. 10 is 10

[worldly cradle]

swedens crime rate has rocket since they had so many immagration

[plush crypt]

🚀 Source: NTU 2020

[worldly cradle]

i believe sweden stopped recording the ethnicity of the criminals to hide who is doing it all

[plush crypt]

We had 200k more reports in 2020 than 2011; that's not a large increase whatsoever

[brisk cradle]

And I should mention on the topic of Afghanistan that the security forces the U.S. trained and paid for were not particularly effective. Some of them were exceptional soliders, but there was a lot of chaff in there. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/afghan-security-forces-capabilities/2021/08/15/052a45e2-fdc7-11eb-a664-4f6de3e17ff0_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

[worldly cradle]

look from 2015 to 2020

[plush crypt]

We changed how crime cases are counted in 2015

It's almost like the graph very clearly shows that

[worldly cradle]

lol

[brisk cradle]

In fact, according to documents obtained for the forthcoming Washington Post book “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War,” U.S. military officials privately harbored fundamental doubts for the duration of the war that the Afghan security forces could ever become competent or shed their dependency on U.S. money and firepower. “Thinking we could build the military that fast and that well was insane,” an unnamed former U.S. official told government interviewers in 2016.

[worldly cradle]

https://youtu.be/brLUFdUtu8M

[brisk cradle]

[Maj.] Escobar said he came to realize that the whole exercise was futile because the U.S. military was pushing too fast and the Afghans were not responding to what was, in the end, a foreign experiment. “Nothing we do is going to help,” he recalled in an Army oral-history interview. “Until the Afghan government can positively affect the people there, we’re wasting our time.”

But perhaps the biggest hardship was having to teach virtually every recruit how to read. Kem estimated that only 2 to 5 percent of Afghan recruits could read at a third-grade level despite efforts by the United States to enroll millions of Afghan children in school over the previous decade.

“The literacy was just insurmountable,” he said in an Army oral-history interview. Some Afghans also had to learn their colors, or had to be taught how to count. “I mean, you’d ask an Afghan soldier how many brothers and sisters they had and they couldn’t tell you it was four. They could tell you their names, but they couldn’t go ‘one, two, three, four.’ ”

Just some choice quotes, in case you get the paywall

[worldly cradle]

https://youtu.be/dU8SoW_dTRo

[tough cedar]

rt 🤔

[brisk cradle]

ah yes, that reliable news source, RT

[worldly cradle]

sometimes u have to listen to the enemy too

[brisk cradle]

that's Russian state propaganda

but at least it's not "liberal media"

[worldly cradle]

https://youtu.be/dzeb92-rPwI

[plush crypt]

Yeah, we have issues with bombs and hate crime. It's nowhere as bad as you can imagine, though; the cops are increasingly getting better at handling it, and I'm sure it will improve drastically now that they've evidently started getting the hang of the issue

[worldly cradle]

bbc?

[worldly cradle]

u need to look at all sides

[plush crypt]

and you're crazy if you think anyone here's gonna bother watching 20min & 50min videos due to a single guy in a political debate who only has an outside perspective

[brisk cradle]

I can take little doses here and there: I do read the definitely American conservative Wall Street Journal and Fox News.

[restive seal]

No, not really. You need to look at accurate sides. Propaganda isn't going to be useful if looking for truth. (Sure, it's useful for other things like analyzing manipulation of a situation, but if we're just looking for the reality on crime we don't need propaganda for it)

[brisk cradle]

But only in moderation.

[restive seal]

Just like how I won't look at election results on a Qanon site, I'm not going to look to RT for immigration info.

[worldly cradle]

you choose what u want to believe

[plush crypt]

Don't y'all have some statistical bureau over there?

surely they'd be the best choice to believe?

[restive seal]

Oh no, are you trying to turn this into a "facts are my feelings" thing

[worldly cradle]

thats the lefts job

[brisk cradle]

How quickly the GOP changed its tune https://apple.news/Ahi76wdRLTo2k9DqEiPwMGQ

[worldly cradle]

I am a liberal

or centerist

[restive seal]

Did you come here to discuss or to just try to insult groups of people?

[worldly cradle]

to this

i like to watch and listen to people

[worldly cradle]

I didnt mean to offend anyone but the left are very much into feelings more so

[restive seal]

[citation needed]

[worldly cradle]

what?

did I do something wrong?

[drifting arch]

No, you're just reacting in an emotional way to what should be a discussion based merely on facts

And nobody wants to talk to people who do that

[worldly cradle]

i apologise

[drifting arch]

you're fine

[brisk cradle]

And just like 1/6, the GOP is now rewriting history on Afghanistan. Never mind Trump wanting to exit and striking the cushy deal with the Taliban, now they can try to beat Biden over something Donald Trump himself wanted.

[loud flax]

when people don't want to hear your opinion because it offends them, then yes, they are operating only on feelings

there are things i want to say but it'll just get shut out

when my world is being seemingly upended by what certain groups want to do, like allow men and women to share the same bathroom, that is atrocious to me. Label me a bigot and not even try to discuss with me why I think so, it's a feelings-oriented culture

[faint radish]

biden did do it tho... he stopped and reversed so many other things trump had started, but not this

[loud flax]

sorry this came out of nowhere

but Americans are better at complaining than actually talking about differing views

i have great respect for this channel, a lot of discords wouldn't even think of having such a channel

indeed, RIP afghanistan...

[loud flax]

I'm aware of all-gender bathrooms, my church even has them, but that's not what i meant

[restive seal]

If you say "allow men and women to share the same bathroom" and then state you don't mean "all-gender bathrooms", what are you saying?

[loud flax]

actually using them at the same time

[near glen]

I will never understand why that is such a big deal for some

[loud flax]

what i understand an all-gender bathroom to be is anyone, doesn't matter their gender, can use that bathroom, but that all genders don't share it together

[near glen]

I don't give a shit who's around when I take a shit

[loud flax]

well

[woven reef]

i dont really care. everyone uses the bathroom, why does it matter?

[near glen]

Separating bathroom is horribly inefficient

[loud flax]

@near glen where there ever separate bathrooms where you live? like men's or women's

[restive seal]

I don't follow. An all-gender bathroom is where you can have people using them at the same time. Unless you mean two people one toilet? In which case I don't think there's a big movement for that.

[near glen]

Yes, almost everywhere

But it's common for women to use men's bathroom to skip the line on the women's, lol

[loud flax]

i see the separate facilities as more to do with privacy

[near glen]

Your sense of privacy is affected by gender?

That's uhm, interesting

[loud flax]

it's a little strange that i have to contemplate this, when i've never had to think of it before

depending on the context i'll say

[restive seal]

I don't really want anybody looking at my private bits without invitation. I don't really run into this issue in public bathrooms, though.

One exception, though, being this one theater I went to where the urinals were all just touching with no barriers. That wasn't pleasant, and my dislike of it wouldn't change if they'd allowed women in as well because it's already a big no thanks.

[loud flax]

like this trough

[restive seal]

Oh cool a communal sink... oh no.

[loud flax]

i've seen them before

i think one was at a baseball stadium

[near glen]

They exist at clubs here, but everybody is so drunk you don't give a shit

[loud flax]

lol

i guess the construction of a bathroom at a bar should include the consideration of "well they're probably drunk when using this, so we can cut corners, they won't mind"

[near glen]

Sole reason they are used is you can pressure wash them easily

[shut vine]

The 5 weeks old comment from Uncle Joe didn't age well though. "The likelihood that there's going to be the Taliban overrun everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.". Also saying "yea but Trump" is classic deflection.

[shut vine]

Also a point to that, the DNC controlled congress didn't block it this time.

[worldly cradle]

https://youtu.be/y3IJ9ssEwbc

[pure jetty]

weird the gop is posting that

Trump started the retraction

[woven reef]

im done waiting for the GOP to make sense lol

[shut vine]

Which retraction?

[pure jetty]

Afgan, original deal was may 1st

[shut vine]

Not really, Obama did.

If you want to go to "who started withdrawing" rather than who is responsible for the current withdrawal.

Troop numbers in Afghanistan dropped 9 times more under Obama with his planned withdrawal than ever existed during Trumps presidency.

In fact I believe there was a single year where 40k troops were withdrawn.. 2014 if I remember right.

Arguably both were relatively stupid for thinking they could leave a giant power vacuum and it not turn out like this. But it's more damning for Biden in my opinion since he specifically said 5 weeks ago this would not happen.

[shy gulch]

does this count as politics?

[faint radish]

oh the Australien government ads? those are hilarious

oh, well they usually are from the "Australien government"

[tough cedar]

seems like she's lip syncing lol

[mystic ermine]

as was said earlier, am pretty sure that trump left a book on afghan and basically it was thrown out by biden

The southern border is it a high of migration since like the 70s or something, and yet the biden admin will lie and just say it's a typical summer, yet, acoording to the charts, we're past that, and trends where still rising; theres also a % of people who come across with coyotes whom bring along children that are not theirs for various reasons, and, my sources are iffy here but much of it is economic migration, not refugees

open borders is also stupid

Yes, I would love open borders, but, heres the sad fact: There are people who wanna kill you, just because you live in the states, just because your country is primarily a christian country, etc, etc

[faint radish]

She is. All the videos are lip synced

Husband and wife make the videos and a set of twins does the onscreen stuff iirc

[tough cedar]

oh ok

[shut vine]

Likewise with Trumps withdrawal plans.

Just conjecture, but I'm guessing Biden was in a proverbial measuring contest and wanted to be the "big guy" responsible for a measure most of the American public supported. He also still backs it (after knowing the current consequences), for better or worse.

[faint radish]

I really liked Biden’s speech

[shut vine]

I mean I always supported withdrawal, my issue specifically is that when Trump does it it's going to lead to this outcome, but Biden does it, it's going to all be fine, and if it isn't, it's Trumps fault.

Regardless of how quickly they withdraw it's going to leave a power vacuum, that could have been better done.

Also the fact they blocked Trump doing precisely what Biden did, fearing this exact outcome.

[mystic ermine]

I mean, I think that for all of trumps mean tweets, his presence on the world stage at least exhumed some form of "don't fuck with us", and I felt that trump putting his foot down on stuff more shuddered the world vs the biden admin

I mean, apparently the afgan government basically lied and fabricated many dozen reports saying that they're ready for this

300k strong army

[faint radish]

Biden didn’t blame trump much if at all

Trump was leaving, Biden wanted to leave too. Biden said it himself, there is never a “good” time to leave

So the sooner the better

[shut vine]

Let me see if I can dig up the comments, most of the info is shrouded by current events.

[faint radish]

The rapid collapse of the country only provides more reasoning to leave now.

More time won’t do anything

[tough cedar]

i think last time it came up back when trump wanted to leave the criticism was that he was trying to do it too rapidly

[shut vine]

Yeah it's been going on 10 years and several trillion dollars too long, everything that could be accomplished was ages ago.

[tough cedar]

and apparently it doesn't even matter because doing it slowly still had the same result lmao

[shut vine]

I mean he did it over 2 years, Biden did it over 6 months.

Well 1.5 years

[mystic ermine]

I mean, to my understanding, the withdrawl agreement was founded upon a stance of mutual discussion between the two governments and the "We'll come kick your ass if you violate this"

[shut vine]

Well actually, he announced withdrawal in July didn't he?

[tough cedar]

biden?

no idea

[shut vine]

Yep

[tough cedar]

i just know it's been like a year+ in the making

[mystic ermine]

there was some discussion but apparently the talibans had agreements with varying border cities of kabul in order to just let them walk through without harm to the citizens and such

Like, this has been months in the making and it's like, is this a case of, we're just finding out now, or, did somebody know?

[shut vine]

How do you know that exactly?

[tough cedar]

we talked about it when trump was in office like last year

[shut vine]

Yeah gotcha, so Trump planned it, and Biden put a stop to that as one of his first EO's

Congress also stopped it via NDAA

Or drastically slowed it

[tough cedar]

i think my only criticism at the time was that trump wanted to do it really quickly and otherwise it was probably a fine thing

but now we're seeing that it doesn't matter

because the taliban just have most of the country now anyways lol

[shut vine]

Yeah gotcha, he actually asked for it to be planned back in 2018 I believe

Let me see if I can find something more concrete though

Pretty sure I'm wrong, never mind!

Early 2020, under the peace agreement they formed

Part of that agreement was based around troop withdrawal requirements, be interesting to figure out what those were

[mystic ermine]

It's one of those sad things where we probs won't know the entire thing of what was agreed and what happened, etc, for 50 years or something unless the media gets their hands on it

but, hey, 'least we know that UFOs exist

[tough cedar]

hey maybe we'll get the JFK classified files this year

the remaining ones that is

[keen swift]

Im going to have to wear masks to school because only 30% of the town is vaccinated

[near glen]

Even with most vaccinated it's a good idea to wear a mask at least on the floors

[keen swift]

Ya I cant wait for this to end

[deep ravine]

I am pretty tired of wearing a mask 7 hours a day

[faint radish]

Why? This goes back to the thing I said earlier. Where I am, if you want the shot, you can get it within the hour. If you haven’t gotten it, that’s on you, not me. Why do I need to take steps to protect you when you won’t protect yourself?

[mystic ermine]

even with the shot you can still get the virus and spread it

[faint radish]

That will always be the case, we gonna be wearing masks forever?

[mystic ermine]

I mean

[faint radish]

I can get it, but my chances of dying from it are very very low (if I’m vaccinated), the chances of dying from it without being vaccinated are still low, but they are higher

[pure jetty]

The reason why vaccinated people should be wearing masks is because you can still spread it, possibly allowing unvaccinated folks to create more variants which don't work on the vaccine

We're not at a threshold where we have heard immunity

[mystic ermine]

The way I see it, is we're fucked either way, but, I mean, apparently its the lockdowns which potentially caused the delta variant, soo..er...

[deep ravine]

I am going to be insensetive for a minute.

It would have been best from the start to let the virus infect who it was going to infect, and kill who it was going to kill. That way, we don't give it time to evolve, and we don't draw it out.

Lockdowns were a terrible idea from the start because it only takes 1 person not wearing a mask, or 1 person to throw a party to spread the virus.

By making this a political issue, we have failed to view the issue from a logical standpoint.

[near glen]

thats not how pandemics work, lol

not everybody who gets it dies

[mystic ermine]

masks don't stop it, that's the thing, and I'd imagine most cases where mask wearing is essential, it's just gonna spread anyways, even in places which have been stupidly strict on mask mandates see transmission

[near glen]

and you can't isolate people fast enough, thats what you try initially

[mystic ermine]

Only thing which really worked was lock downs, but, that's more because people bumped into people less, only way it would work was if you'd be ultra militaristic, no leaving the house for a month unless you have to, strict enforcement of rules in stores, etc

[pure jetty]

The reason why vaccinated people should be wearing masks is because you can still spread it, possibly allowing unvaccinated folks to create more variants which don't work on the vaccine

If it were just about killing those who didn't get vaccines it would be very simple

[deep ravine]

Yes, we tried to lower the rate of infection and isolate the people who had it. This virus makes that difficult though.

[pure jetty]

But the problem is they could hurt those who did the vaccine in the long run

[deep ravine]

Why should vaccinated people be made to protect the unvaccinated? Where I live, the vaccine has been available (without appointment) for a couple months. I've talked to the people who give the shots, and they've confirmed that they have had (for months) a surplus of vaccinations. If you don't have the vaccine at this point, it's because you don't want it (or if there is a specific medical condition, but I would assume that isn't the norm)

So in just my county, lets say, why should I be forced to wear a mask to protect the people who wouldn't protect themselves?

[pure jetty]

The problem is if the unvaccinated don't die (which is more likely anyway) they can mutate a variant that works even against vaccinated people

[deep ravine]

I suppose that's fair.

[pure jetty]

So vaccinated people need to wear masks so they reduce ANY spread and thus chances to let it mutate

[mystic ermine]

I mean, people with the vaccine have died from covid

It's not a surefire thing

[pure jetty]

Yeah you're also protecting yourself to some case too

but that's the exception not the norm

[deep ravine]

To my knowledge the vaccine only accelerate the immune system's respone to fighting against covid after you have it.

[deep ravine]

That's fair, but it may be better to incentivise vaccinations that way.

Like; "Hey, you never need to wear a mask again if you get the shot"

[pure jetty]

we did before delta but unfortunately that can't be done atm

[deep ravine]

That incentive didn't work?

[pure jetty]

It probably did but until we get higher vaccination rates that's not something we can offer

We are offering money + paid leave atm

[deep ravine]

I live in pennsylvainia, our vaccination rates are pretty high

I wonder if I can check vaccination rates by county

[pure jetty]

Google has a neat chart for it iirc

Idk if it goes to county level

But the CDC has those stats and only recommend vaccinated people wear masks if the county is high risk

My state, despite being the one of the most vaccinated in the country is high risk

[deep ravine]

Did delta emerge after most mask mandates were dropped?

[pure jetty]

Not 100% sure on that

iirc it was around before

[mystic ermine]

delta was first identified in India

some people where blaming the lockdowns for it, but, god knows

[deep ravine]

I don't know too much about covid worldwide, but I do remember hearing that india was a shit show awhile back.

so I certainly can't use that to justify not wearing masks.

It is my opinion that cesspools like florida should have mask mandates. I am not sure about other places though

[pure jetty]

Florida is definitely covered by CDCs high risk definition

But they need the governor to enforce it

[woven reef]

I’m stuck in Texas lol

[restive seal]

You gonna be okay?

[deep ravine]

I still believe that low risk areas shouldn't be required to wear masks, as long as you are vaccinated. I believe that if you are not vaccinated, you should be required to wear a mask while indoors.

It seems that vaccinated people with the delta variant are more likely to spread it. In areas where the delta variant is having a field day, vaccinated people should be required to wear masks.

[woven reef]

Yeah. Worried about other family since most of my moms side won’t get vaccinated despite the fact that a good few of them are/were nurses

[deep ravine]

Do they work in hospitals or rehabs (or other)?

rehabs usually send covid positive patients to hospitals

So there is less risk to those nurses

[woven reef]

Nursing homes mostly. Grandma is “retired” but still helps out at pediatric care and the nursing home

My aunt got it a few days ago and is pretty sick

She manages the nursing home which luckily made her get vaccinated

[keen swift]

The papers im reading for my AP work and my Teacher keeps referring to Native Americans as Indians

Relearning the American revolution, again, for about the hundredth time

[pure jetty]

iirc they prefer to be called indians

[loud flax]

has Trump been blamed for the disaster of troop withdrawal in Afghanistan?

just looking to see if he's still the evil boogeyman somehow

[tough cedar]

i can if u want me to

[silk quarry]

In this case, the term Indian is short for Indigenous People which means "Original People." Indie is used to describe something original, hence why Minecraft used to be called an indie game. There are also indie films. The term Native American tends to be more politically correct for some reason, but Indians is also proper terminology.

[keen swift]

Im talking about American history, where Christopher Columbus thought America was India, which is why they are called indians

[mystic ermine]

Most of the people deciding the PC terms generally have little to do with the actual communities involved

I've only spoken to one or two indians but in my exerience that seems to be what they prefer to be referred as

[silk quarry]

Where I'm from, Indians are still a large part of the community. A lot of places pay tribute to them. Most of the tribes have the word "Indian" in their name.

[silk quarry]

That doesn't make what I said wrong.

[keen swift]

I think for History we should earn more about the world then just the America revolution and Civil war, we focused on that all year and only spent a week on ww1

All we leaned about ww1 was Europe are fighting eachother, Britain conqueror people and be mean, Germany be mean to France, America come and save Democracy and Freedom,

[torn wadi]

Daily reminder that your school system is focused on your country.

[weary lake]

We didn't even get WW1, only WW2

[keen swift]

I understand focusing on the American part of history, but we are not shown anything about the rest of the world, history

Everything Im thought is America is good, save world and Democracy, world bad, America must save, and class just brushed over the slaughter of Native Tribes and Captivity of Africans, and the fact that America tried imperialism aswell as Europe

[silk quarry]

It is an American History class, is it not? The focus is on the USA, not really other countries. Take a World History class once you get to college if you're interested in that part of history. College offers many courses on specific periods and locations in History. Cool stuff.

[woven reef]

Even when i did take World history they still managed to fit the narative of "America free, everyone else bad" into it

I don't find american history particularly interesting either

i know people who love it a lot

[faint radish]

Oh yay, 3rd world state California is turning off my power for 44 hours starting in a couple hours

[silk quarry]

Thanks, Newsom!

[faint radish]

PG & E said it will take a decade to fix their shit. Yikes

[silk quarry]

Where in CA are you?

[faint radish]

Napa Valley

[silk quarry]

I got accepted to Sonoma State for next Spring. Is the area nice up there?
Still deciding where to go...

Me realizing Sonoma State is not in Sonoma...

[faint radish]

Well it’s nearby.

Oh yeah, I like it. I’ve lived here my whole life, minus my time in Arizona for college. Though It gets hot in the summer, and with all the fires California gets, it can get pretty smokey

[silk quarry]

I'm down in the Santa Clarita Valley. We get our fair share of smokey fire seasons too.

[silk quarry]

But boy are you right about California being a 3rd-world state. I drive by landfills on the sidewalks and miles of homeless peoples' tents on street corners and under bridges. It's sad, but it's not safe to be in the metropolitan areas, even in the daytime. When you look at the people running the state, nearly every single one is Democrat. And yet, people keep putting them back in office. It makes no sense.

[rich sun]

I had no idea California was that bad tbh; all I really hear about them is how often they're on fire

[silk quarry]

Yeah, the fires suck. If we had better forest management, a lot of them would be prevented. I got on hikes a lot in the mountains, and there are tons of dead brush and dead trees just waiting to catch fire when the wind picks up.

An easily preventable natural disaster just isn't as important as the stupid things happening in this state.

[faint radish]

I just don't like big cities in general, regardless of cleanliness. Napa with 75k people is about as big as I can stomach

[mystic ermine]

Well, hey

Cali's energy infra is so green, you can get paid to run a generator to power your house!

[dusky raft]

@silk quarry you can thank environmental activists that prevent any sort of forest management. nevermind the species of trees that live in california tend to want to be put on fire.

as some trees use wildfires as part of their reproduction process.

activism took over california's politics long ago, and even with a super majority in their state, they for whatever reason cannot pass sane laws or do proper management of their state

[near glen]

Maybe, just maybe, because it's not as easy as you think?

[dusky raft]

considering how homelessness is a major problem, you would think it would be solved overnight having a supermajority at the state and local levels

no, its not

then again, I dont live in a state that sucks money out of its citizens and offer little in return.

[silk quarry]

We have one of the highest tax rates in the country, yet our state is one of the worst places to live aside from New York and Chicago.

[dusky raft]

its insane where the cash is going

isnt 1/2 of the state budget just healthcare?

[silk quarry]

Our freeways are always under construction. They literally never finish them.

[silk quarry]

Not sure about that, but that would not surprise me.

[dusky raft]

yeah, it doesnt shock me with the activism and regulations just needed to repave a highway

[silk quarry]

The problem is construction companies lobby the politicians, and then are hired to do a job that isn't even needed. Then they take 10-20 years to complete it, all while being paid based on time it takes rather than qaulity.

[dusky raft]

that also

but for companies that want to do the job as efficiently as possible get stonewalled by regulations and activism

also doesnt help that unions are in bed with the government

[silk quarry]

Precisely.

I strongly believe than lobbying should be illegal.

Politicians don't have the best interest of the people in mind.

[dusky raft]

I dont think it should be illegal, but companies should not be represented as entities

[near glen]

Lobbying is fine, it just needs to transparent

[dusky raft]

and a lot of restrictions to be put in place to prevent more powerful people from getting control over the process.

[near glen]

We need a website with entries for every time a politician talked to somebody that isnt employed by the gov, with who they are, who they represent, who paid and what bill was talked about

[silk quarry]

I don't think it can ever truly be transparent, which is why I say it should be gone entirely.

But it will never happen

[near glen]

Politicans are by definition dum, they aren't experts, they need to be allowed to talk to the people which are affected by their actions

Lobbying includes both NGOs and profit lobbying by companies

[silk quarry]

Not true. We need to stop electing stupid polititians.

[near glen]

Politicians don't need to be experts, that wouldn't work, they need other skills

[mystic ermine]

enviromentalists went crazy against prescribed burning in cali

It means that when shit catches fire, there is much more crap on the ground to burn

This is directly an environmental policy which goes against the entire ethos of forest management

[silk quarry]

☝️

[mystic ermine]

forests haveburned on their own since the beginning of time, and the whole "we gotta put the fire out asap" is what leads to this

[dusky raft]

then they go bitch when the next wildfire happens, and claims they need the state to do more

[mystic ermine]

finally,they've admitted that you know what, maybe putting out every single fire is not a good idea

[silk quarry]

It matters when the fire starts burning down residential areas.

[dusky raft]

people should be building fire lanes around residential areas

but people dont want to see fucking 50 ft of ditch

[silk quarry]

Theoretically, that's a good idea.

But fire can jump. I've seen fire jump an entire freeway.

[dusky raft]

it doesnt prevent it jumping, but it would be additional protection in case it does

[mystic ermine]

it's about minimisation and accepting that there is always going to be the risk when you live in a forest

[dusky raft]

yes

[silk quarry]

In California, we don't get forest fires exactly. It's more brush fires. In the mountains, dead grass rubs against itself due to high winds, and a fire starts.

It depends on your definition of forest actually.

[mystic ermine]

okay, area with metric fuctons of trees and greenry which naturally burns on its own

And that's another fun thing for cali with their forest mismanagement is that it's like, they're literally surrounded by trees

[dusky raft]

regardless, its insane for an environmentalist to think we should do nothing when it comes to saving forests yet watch it burn due to inaction.

might as well not have a forest than manage it

[mystic ermine]

The thing is that it needs to burn, these forests have burned before humans even set their foot there

[dusky raft]

oh yeah

[mystic ermine]

it's humans putting it out which causes the issues as it's allowed all this crap to stack up to the degree that when it burns, there is oh so much material there to burn

[silk quarry]

Fire department conducts controlled fires yearly.

Maybe not enough, but they do it in some areas.

[mystic ermine]

Yes, and they're finally massively increasing the number of them over the past few years

Issue is that they've got years upon years of land management to catch up with

I recall reading that apparently one fun issue that cali has is that it's basically an island seperated by trees, so, any critical infra which needs to connect elsewhere is practically guranteed to go through wooded lands

wooded lands which have been severely mismanaged, and the energy network iirc was heavily "not our problem", but, it's basically meant that any upgrades to that stuff have generally been lackluster, which means that energy imports are limited to all heck

as said, the government there is literally paying people to run generators to take load off the grid

[silk quarry]

My parents used to get paid for having solar panels. They would generate more energy than they used.

[loud flax]

@faint radish PG&E has shut off our power too

i think when the town of paradise got destroyed, that was THE fire, or at least one of them, that set a precedent for these power shutoffs... man I hate them

it's dumb that california is known for its fires, fire season, it replaces winter season where I grew up (in Michigan)

heh

[shut vine]

Regarding transparency and lobbying etc, I think that's actually a relatively complex issue. There are people who would use lists of donors etc as a way to find out who to persecute.

That was believed to be what happened with the NAACP back in the 50s where a state tried to force them to turn over their member/donor list.

[pure jetty]

All donations are already public iirc

https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?two_year_transaction_period=2022&min_date=01%2F01%2F2021&max_date=12%2F31%2F2022

[near glen]

That's not really how listening to lobbying is compensated nowadays, because it's so transparent. Here, the politicians just have 10 side jobs in the industry while serving their mandate and for some reason we accept that

[pure jetty]

Super PAC money isn't instantly public which is a less than ideal thing

I was just saying that individual contributions are public

[shy gulch]

do political memes count?

[keen swift]

No, this is only discussing politics

[shy gulch]

ok

[foggy fern]

https://twitter.com/RepMoBrooks/status/1428422048368533515

Mo Brooks (@RepMoBrooks)

My statement on the Capitol bomb threat:

Retweets

203

Likes

611

Twitter · Aug 19, 2021, 6:22 PM

tldr "I'm with you bomber but you're making me look bad"

[brisk cradle]

https://twitter.com/hasanthehun/status/1428431532448878595

hasanabi (@hasanthehun)

my man said all glory to yeehad https://t.co/YtOW325SH7

Retweets

499

Likes

6760

Twitter · Aug 19, 2021, 6:59 PM

Fossil-fuel free steel, this is a big deal (in Swedish, Google Translate will give you a decent approximation of what it says) https://twitter.com/LKABgroup/status/1427574176538320915

LKAB (@LKABgroup)

Nu tar vi nästa kliv mot en fossilfri framtid! Imorgon, onsdag, görs världens första fossilfria stål redo för att levereras till kund. Läs mer och följ sändningen med @SSAB_AB och @Vattenfall_Se direkt från SSAB:s stålverk i Oxelösund: https://t.co/XQK3WiHvaV @hybrit_project

Likes

259

Twitter · Aug 17, 2021, 10:13 AM

sorry I'm watching Hasan

[weary lake]

2022 elections? Aren't the next elections in the US in 2024?

[mystic ermine]

mid terms

fossil fuel free steel is interesting, but, we'll see where it goes long term I guess

[pure jetty]

Hasan

[austere parrot]

density 📉

[smoky crane]

threatens bombing a democratic institution
"it's because you're dictators!"

outstanding logic

[keen swift]

The height of American Politics

[drifting arch]

https://preview.redd.it/n0r0kl56tei71.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=14922c05c647509e20c14998526009ac4ca0418b

[near glen]

Can't forget the tens of thousands of lives wasted

Oh sorry, hundreds of thousands

212191+ (per UCDP)

50k civilians alone

[drifting arch]

yea millions of lives was included

[woven reef]

speech time

[near glen]

Fuck I can't read

[pure jetty]

That tweets very reductionist but idk what I expected

[loud flax]

that tweet is such a bummer

[pure jetty]

The goal per say in Afghanistan was to attempt to train their army to fend for themselves

That was accomplished through direct training plus investing a shit ton into their infrastructure like schools and so forth

However in the more recent years it became increasingly obvious it wouldn't pay off in the long run

[mystic ermine]

VOX had it like 10 years ago, from the ground, that once the US left, the afghan army would basically join the taliban or disappear off the face off the earth

[pure jetty]

Figured after pulling out they'd last a year or two but nobody expected them to fall in like months

But yeah it sucks to sit in front of all of America and say "our trillion dollar investment failed"

Likely why nobody did that before Trump

[mystic ermine]

US pull out game was literally a mismanagement hell, they delayed until the taliban where basically in prime position and left a lot of gear there, apparently the US also is preventing contractors from going over there to help with stuff like maintaining the afghans gear, but, I mean, if the afghan army ain't gonna defend their country, it's like, what's the point

apparently early in the year, a plan that was left to aim to get US citizens and such out of afghan if needed was thrown out too

[pure jetty]

Yeah

I mean if we were gonna go there to nation build we'd need to go all in

[mystic ermine]

nation building is pointless

You need to replace an entire idealogy

islam is just not compatiable with western democracy

[pure jetty]

Yeah in the middle east it probably wouldn't work

[mystic ermine]

When a large majority of the country wants stuff like Sharia law, pack your bags and leave, imho

[pure jetty]

Well yeah but the goal was to have some kind of ally in the middle east

[mystic ermine]

false hopes, imho

[pure jetty]

With the state of their army yeah

[mystic ermine]

the only way we'd ever have an ally over there is if the ally was basically ourselves propped up by whatever they can offer

and they basically folded day 1

[pure jetty]

But the US was trying to see if they could via infrastructure prop them up to be better

Which is why presidents didn't want to pull out

Because it sucks to see a trillion dollar investment go tits up like that

[mystic ermine]

well, yea, nobody wants to see such an investment go up in flames, but, what do you do, keep stoking the fire with more dosh?

[pure jetty]

The idea was that eventually it would improve

Nobody ever thought it would fuck up this badly

[mystic ermine]

think that the US woulda needed to maintain presence for like another 100 years for that

[pure jetty]

Probably but it's too politically unpopular for anyone to continue doing that

[near glen]

That's really dishonest, just this year tens of thousands of afghans gave their lives trying to defend their country

As they had the last two decades

[pure jetty]

I mean they surrended

There was also tons of corruption in their army as well

[mystic ermine]

this is really dishonest

I mean

It's basically just literally what happened?

[near glen]

They surrendered now, because the situation got hopeless, but you made it sound like they never even tried

[mystic ermine]

There are videos of the taliban flying US choppers

I mean, given that there was only one side of the country tought how to use this gear, I do wonder who is at the hands of the controls

the US pulling air support was basically a disaster, especially given how much the afghan forces where relying on it

But the army was woefully undertrained and apparently some areas hadn't been paid in months, as well as dwindling rations

The government was acting like they had a 300k strong army, but, given all the corruption, the training targets where apparently severely missed, apparently desertions where common

the afghan government apparently classified readiness reports because of how bad it was vs how much they where tryna show they where ready

The only way that war coulda been won is by the US standing there for muuuuch longer, according to some articles, the number of shots fired while the taliban was taking territory was basically minimal

[woven reef]

i mean, if they will go as far as to lie about how ready they were, they were kinda asking for this to happen

[mystic ermine]

there was practically 0 moral and 0 reason to them to stand their ground and defend their own country

Yea, sure, when the US was there they where still up and standing, but, that was literally the entire contract for that army to be doing stuff was to literally have another country on the ground defending their own country for them

as soon as the US went, so did their morale

[dusky raft]

things would have gotten smoother if we pulled out non essential non military people out first, then take as much equipment, or blow up what cannot be taken, then pull the military out

Biden waited till the last minute to pull everyone out

and intelligence agencies KNEW something like this were to happen.

[pure jetty]

Source?

[dusky raft]

I think there was something on politico

takes a few minutes for my news feed to go back

[pure jetty]

"Intelligence Agencies Did Not Predict Imminence of Afghan Collapse, Officials Say - The New York Times" https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/us/politics/afghanistan-intelligence-agencies.html

First thing I find when googling lulw

[mystic ermine]

Apparently people on the ground knew much more than the intelligence agencies is what I've been gathering

apparently the US agencies have generally heavily been ignoring what's been said on the ground, which, not all that surprising

[dusky raft]

you know, id love to fucking read that article, but im not since its paywalled

also I dont think the ny times are a great source.

oh actually, I do have that article

my news feed managed to rip it correctly

@pure jetty https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/us/politics/afghanistan-biden-administration.html

they cant seem to decide which narrative to use

Intelligence agencies predicted that should the Taliban seize cities, a cascading collapse could happen rapidly and the Afghan security forces were at high risk of falling apart. It is unclear whether other reports during this period presented a more optimistic picture about the ability of the Afghan military and the government in Kabul to withstand the insurgents.

[faint radish]

Yeah, it’s gone back and forth. Biden’s interview with stephonopolus suggested he knew it would happen, and then an hour later Gen. Miley said he didn’t know it was gonna happen

[dusky raft]

the link I posted is that a lot of sites are painting largely

not the agencies didnt know shit

@faint radish this is why I hacked up an article ripper, in event something like this would occur

[foggy fern]

That kind of nation building only works if you do it like Germany, Japan, and Korea

You have to stay for generations

[dusky raft]

well that along with snuffing out an ideology hell bent on control through terror.

[faint radish]

Apparently. Well, that and the people living there don’t think you are satan incarnate.

[foggy fern]

South Korea was a failed state for quite some time after the "end" of the war

It was only the US presence that stopped a complete collapse

[mystic ermine]

The thing is that you're tryna change an entire set of ideology

[near glen]

America didn't build the German nation, that's bullshit

[mystic ermine]

hence why I say 100 years, as you've basically gotta stay there for generations to basically die off and hopefully take their ideologies with them

[near glen]

We had democracy before Hitler, don't forget that

[mystic ermine]

It's sorta like how with those who "don't understand the gays" it's like, fuck em, they're gonna die soon anyways, why care about 'em

[foggy fern]

Yeah, estimates were for Afghanistan to really change it would take ~100 years of intervention

[mystic ermine]

(Crass example, but, yea)

[dusky raft]

@foggy fern the US just didnt continue beating the shit out of germany when it surrendered. compared to the first world war which everything fell onto germany.

or at least west germany

east germany was a different situation

[pure jetty]

the kind which allows a dictator to come to power and kill millions of people?

[foggy fern]

South Korea wasn't a real democracy until 1997, 44 years after the "end" of the war

[mystic ermine]

The thing is that hitler was a societal breakdown

[near glen]

Fun fact: american constitution has the same loop hole

It's not that simple (tm)

[mystic ermine]

there was many right conditions which basically allowed for turning people against their own neighbours

[near glen]

Germany suffered badly not only under the effects of WW1, but also under reparation payments

That kinda stuff is what allows extremists to gain popularity

[foggy fern]

Japan actually had a pretty quick turnaround, they went all in on American culture and ideas

Germany probably would have been okay without too much effort if the Cold War wasn't a thing

So South Korea is the main example there

[pure jetty]

America isn't a parliamentary system

[near glen]

Hitler ruled via decree

[pure jetty]

You wouldn't have an elected president appointing some guy

[glossy sandal]

I would argue that there is a big societal breakdown happening right now in america that is leading to more and more extremist from both sides rising to power

[near glen]

Declared national emergency

[pure jetty]

The US has safe guards to protect against such rises to power

Largely the fact that the Congress is all elected by people who want to be reelected

[near glen]

We know have too

Now*

[pure jetty]

now, yes

[near glen]

Well, Hitler had the people on his side

His supporters got elected

[pure jetty]

I mean it's kinda hard to not support some guy that could end up killing you if you say you don't eh?

[near glen]

That was earlier

Iirc everything up to 1932 were considered fair elections

33 was when he actually used military power

[pure jetty]

breakdown? the extremists don't really have power anyways they're all in safe districts while the majority is more moderate

[near glen]

But he got 1/3rd of votes in free and fair elections

[pure jetty]

The only real crazy ones are the Taylor green girl

Gatez is probably a crazy too

And I guess justice Dems are "extreme" too (based on the majority of the US's opinions) but not dangerously crazy

In the way Taylor and gatez are that is

[glossy sandal]

Theres crazies all over the board

Did trump assign 3 seats in the supreme court? Or was it just 2

[pure jetty]

They aren't crazys

They are clearly republicans

But not crazys

[glossy sandal]

Was just a side question not related to the crazies

[pure jetty]

3

1 was left over from Obama

[foggy fern]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/mississippi-officials-warn-livestock-ivermectin-prevent-covid-19/story?id=79569021

No vaccines but they'll try this...

"At least 70% of the recent calls have been related to ingestion of livestock or animal formulations of ivermectin purchased at livestock supply centers," stated the alert, which did not specify the number of total calls.

[near glen]

https://twitter.com/madreanwildlife/status/1428459151710060545?s=19

Kate Scott (@madreanwildlife)

Silver Creek near San Bernardino NWR. Monsoon storm leave gates in disrepair. #BorderWall

Retweets

111

Likes

321

Twitter · Aug 19, 2021, 8:49 PM

How ironic, climate catastrophe induced flooding destroyed trump's "wall"

[icy fiber]

Tbh the laws surrounding fences at actual houses in the US seem to show making a wall for the country makes sense and can be used in defining what trespassing is in certain places. It's not really about how effective the walls are XD but what they represent. You can obviously jump the fence of your neighbors place (well maybe not legally depending on the circumstances) but they're still there for a reason

That aside, Afghanistan has had a pretty crazy time O_o

Was kinda funny how the media went mental on Trump's accusations of fraud in the election when this happened to another country https://theconversation.com/myanmar-coup-how-the-military-has-held-onto-power-for-60-years-154526 though

[foggy fern]

People were worried Trump was going to try to do that here, especially when some of his friends started talking about it

[glossy sandal]

The stuff happening in Myanmar was so fucked, the videos coming out from when the coup started

Havent even seen much of it anywhere since then though so I guess the media moved on

[near glen]

It's not really interesting I guess

Headline could be "shithole country does shithole things" and ppl just move on

Even tho it's a really beautiful country

[shut vine]

Well before he went all crazy he won the hearts of the people via his charisma. People loved him way before then.

Additionally the biggest risks to something like Nazi Germany happening again are: 1. People don't tend to associate the people who helped the regime, they associate with Hermine Gies, or Oskar Schindler. However they're almost guaranteed to be the ones who help the regime since they're blind to their own self preservation. 2. Regardless of party, people seem to accept the government taking more and more power that curtails the freedom of the citizens.

[shut vine]

It did yes but it was in laws not the constitution itself, it was very promptly closed by congress. People don't realize that FDR basically had equal emergency powers to those that the Chancellor had after the Reichstag fire.

[faint radish]

!ban @shy gulch nitro scam

[feral hearth]

:raised_hands: Banned SkIn-N-BoNeS#0069 (nitro scam) [1 total infraction] -- Machine Maker#3443.

[faint radish]

ey! ban #1 for me 🙂

[mystic ermine]

wow, he does something

[vast phoenix]

LOL

[foggy fern]

Old article but... huh https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2000/12/anxiety

Studies Show Normal Children Today Report More Anxiety than Child Psychiatric Patients in the 1950's

Published in 2000, the study it's about finished in 1993 so computing and the internet wasn't a factor

[near glen]

This is fine (tm)

Who would have thought that the Taliban would laugh into the world's face after an uncontrolled fleeing

I actually have never seen that image before, i testing how little I know about the war in the Pacific

School always focused on Europe

[faint radish]

Yeah, it’s a pretty famous image from Iwo Jima I believe. Actually, I forget if it’s portraying the first flag raising or not. Cause a group of soldiers raised the flag first, then they were all killed, cause they had missed some Japanese soldiers who were left, and so it had to be done again

[near glen]

It's the second bigger flag

I did read up in that earlier

[faint radish]

Totally makes sense that you’d focus on Europe anyways. It’s in your backyard. I know the brits fought all over the place, is it mostly Europe there too? Ofc the UK was attacked constantly from Europe so it’d still make sense there

Even in the US I feel more emphasis is put on the European theatre, even though the pacific is was got us into it in the first place

[mystic ermine]

Most of our history lesson was basically the Romans and ww2

Maybe some Anglo-Saxon in there too

[near glen]

No ww1?

Napoleon was my fav period in history after the Nazi stuff

[mystic ermine]

Maaaybe? I think we may have covered it s little but most of what I recall studying was ww2

The primary focus is like 1066+, we did cover WW1 to a degree iirc but not as much as WW2, but, I think WW2 stuff was sorta like, we spent much more time on it

Theres no real like strongly set set curriculum for us so it seems, tbqh

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/239075/SECONDARY_national_curriculum_-_History.pdf

https://www.quora.com/United-Kingdom-What-are-some-things-that-British-history-teachers-dont-teach-about-Britain/answer/James-Foulds

[foggy fern]

lol, Tony Blair is trying to criticize Biden for getting the US out of Afghanistan

[dusky raft]

I wonder why, is it the disaster that is going on trying to get people out of the country?

[foggy fern]

Are things going great? No. Is Tony Blair in a position to say anything about it? No.

[dusky raft]

im not too sure what you mean by that? If a man wants to say something about what is going on, they should say it.

[foggy fern]

He isn't even talking about that part, he is saying we shouldn't be leaving at all

[dusky raft]

ah ok

no, we should leave, but not in the clusterfuck that is happening

Biden should have made it a priority to get non essential persons out first months ago

[foggy fern]

iirc that was a combination of intelligence failures, optics, and people being stubborn

Ended up as a failure because they were pushing things too close to the edge due to not wanting to cause panic by appearing to flee early and then the intelligence on when the collapse was likely to happen was wrong

[brisk cradle]

Josh Hawley then: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E9LH4szXoAMRPTm.jpg:large
Josh Hawley now: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E9LH5ykXoAgJJLe.jpg:large

Look, I know the GOP is trying to retcon this, but this is stupid.

Trump would have done just as "bad" of a job that Biden did. Considering the circumstances and Biden only stretching the leave-by date but leaving Trump's plan largely unaltered, I'd say the U.S. held up its end of the deal fairly well.

The difference is that the GOP would be giddy and centrist Democrats would express outrage

The progressives would back the GOP on this one, they would've wanted to exit Afghanistan as soon as they could

[mystic ermine]

Biden delayed until a point of the year where the taliban is more pro-active and cancelled a trump plan aimed to get US peoples out of there earlier

[dusky raft]

The thing is, it wasnt completely trump's plan, It was biden's plan. Biden decided to delay everything, nevermind pulling the military out first BEFORE other us citizens and equipment

he ignored warning signs going on.

Hell, the taliban knew that this administration could be pushed around since biden made it an unconditional withdraw

[brisk cradle]

But the framework was Trump's and he owns it.

[dusky raft]

Yes, and biden failed to implement it

[brisk cradle]

https://twitter.com/p_ganong/status/1428741098848067591

Peter Ganong (@p_ganong)

Millions of people have had federal UI benefits cut off

Stated goal: speed the labor market recovery.

Is it working?

Tldr: Nope. Per person losing benefits, net employment changes by -0.14 to + 0.08. Uncertainty remains large.

Retweets

762

Likes

2583

Twitter · Aug 20, 2021, 3:29 PM

[dusky raft]

Trump and pompeo from reviews and articles (given the left wing doesnt look at other sources outside of the left wing sphere, this isnt surprising), they have stated they wouldnt have done what Biden has done. They have stated clearly that they would have pulled citizens out of the country first, then take the equipment, and finally pull out the military.

[brisk cradle]

To be fair, this is mere speculation at this point.

[dusky raft]

Uh no, they have bluntly stated this,

[brisk cradle]

Nope, it's speculation. Why is it speculation? Because Trump is not president and Pompeo is not Secretary of State.

[dusky raft]

they were former president and secretary of state.

[brisk cradle]

We don't know how they'd react as the withdrawal happens.

[dusky raft]

no, we dont, but it sure as sounds like they knew what they were doing when they drafted the deal with the taliban

[brisk cradle]

And in any event, I doubt they'd manage the withdrawal all that well.

Instead of a massive Taliban offensive in July, we'd get one in April probably.

[dusky raft]

actually, there was an offensive in april

[faint radish]

Tux: You can be for getting out of afghanistan and also think that what happened/is happening is really bad

[foggy fern]

Wasn't Trump's agreement with the Taliban for our unconditional withdrawal? The only thing in it didn't have any enforcement specified, it was just a request (don't shoot at us on the way out)

Biden delayed to give allies like the UK time to plan their withdrawal too, Trump's timeline was too fast for everyone with no warning ahead of time

Doesn't mean the actual withdrawal isn't a shitshow

[dusky raft]

no, trumps agreement was conditional

[shut vine]

So Biden was just unable to reverse the decision to withdraw, or to adjust the timeline etc? Would you say that makes him an effective or ineffective president? Also when he announced it he said it wasn't going to be rushed, was going to be responsible, deliberately, and safely. I'd also argue that his official plan for withdrawal (Biden's) which he announced in 2019 is exactly what Trump actually did. Also was he also unable to bring himself to criticize his best friend and predecessor and instead praised the withdrawal as the right move after the Taliban had taken control?

Also yea, it was conditional. Also complete withdrawal was meant to have occurred by 1 May 2021, which means the US breached the agreement since Biden announced that the withdrawal operations would start by then.

[dusky raft]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M9bhx24pug
Yes, this is ben shapiro, but I dont see CNN asking former trump admins

[pure jetty]

So they keep talking about conditions conditions conditions

[shut vine]

Come to think of it, the fact that the withdrawal operations stopped, and begun again in May 1st 2021, leads me to be a bit confused. How did Trump's framework interfere with Biden's seemingly new plans that clearly were not part of the agreement (and no agreement was forged as far as I know)?

[pure jetty]

After briefly reading over Trump's original agreement just now I don't see any conditions that they would have broken in Trump's immediate timeline

That is to say I don't see anything that would have stopped part two from going into a fact if Biden were not to push it back

Resulting in the same inevitable collapse of Afghanistan army

[shut vine]

Well potentially.

As Tux claimed, we wont know now.

[pure jetty]

At the end of the day fighting this war isn't popular among the United States voters

[mystic ermine]

collapse was basically inevitable

I mean, the taliban had seemingly gone back on their plans to actually start progress towards peace

[shut vine]

I can probably agree with that statement Cat.

[pure jetty]

We put trillions of dollars into infrastructure such a schools to try and train children better and directly with training armed forces there and they still surrendered with a mere weeks of us leaving

That's after years upon years of training

[mystic ermine]

I mean, the afghan army was basically giving up without a single fight

[shut vine]

The country was a shithole before the US intervention, and it will be probably longer than our lifetimes.

[pure jetty]

At the end of the day this was going to be a botched investment that was never going to work out

Had to be cut at some point

[shut vine]

Yep I agree, just think the actual withdrawal was sloppy.

[pure jetty]

On a humanity level sure it probably makes sense for the United States to stay there but it's not politically popular so it's pretty much political suicide to stay there

[mystic ermine]

inteligence reports apparently indicate that going on for months the taliban where conducting missions in which basically the afghan army pretty much immediatly surrendered and handed their gear over

[pure jetty]

Especially when the former administration had an agreement to get them out of there

Could you imagine if Biden doubled down on something politically unpopular

[shut vine]

Biden ran on withdrawal.

[mystic ermine]

there was plans apparently on trumps side to leave 2,500 people and still offer things like air support as needed

[pure jetty]

I don't know what kind of plan the right thinks Biden can pull out of his ass

[shut vine]

The previous administration is irrelevant to that.

[mystic ermine]

Biden apparently prevented contractors from going over there to even help the afghan army with their own planes, etc

[pure jetty]

Well previous administration had a plan for withdrawals what I was saying so if Biden wanted to reverse that it looks really bad on him since it's already politically unpopular to have a war there

[shut vine]

Yeah that's correct Cat.

[mystic ermine]

Trumps plan also apparently included things like getting troops and gear out of there before cutting down back to a minimal presence more or less

[shut vine]

The planes were also a key part of the military training the US gave ground troops.

[mystic ermine]

and, the biden admin killed off something which was there to provide a method of getting citizens out

[shut vine]

The airstrikes were a key part of the ground infantries toolkit.

Biden himself has clearly taken responsibility by standing by the withdrawal in any event.

[dusky raft]

I dont think the collapse was going to change, but what biden is undergoing was that we left people and equipment stranded

[mystic ermine]

I mean, there was the agreement that the taliban would hold up their end of the deal

they didn't

[shut vine]

The US didnt.

[mystic ermine]

biden still pressed with GTFO

[shut vine]

The complete withdrawal deadline was breeched.

[dusky raft]

Trump's plan was to get US citizens and equipment out before the military withdraws

[shut vine]

Yeah allegedly. I still think it would have had blunders, but we'll never know.

[mystic ermine]

100%

[shut vine]

Not because any persons involvement, just military planning has a track record.

[mystic ermine]

I mean, the taliban practically walked through surrounding areas with little fire fight

[shut vine]

Yeah, because the infantry were trained to rely on air support lol

And there was none.

Hopefully they managed to sabotage all the US military equipment, but I doubt it since that is very unlikely to be part of their training.

They don't seem competent enough to improvise either.

[mystic ermine]

I think that the situation would have gone better under trump, but, even vox had people on the record in like 2013 saying that people in the afghan army would basically desert if the taliban marched up to them if the US left

the afghan army apparently where keeping readiness reports classified because of how abysmal they where, dessertions where a common occurance, it was a 300k "strong" army to the effect of having card board targets in a shooting range sigh

[shut vine]

Yeah probably because they're the scum of the Earth, and would murder/rape family members of whoever resist them if they knew who they were.

Also the Taliban escalated their violent operations post Biden's announcement. About 5-6K different attacks, which were all breeches of their agreement with the US. That's plenty of ammunition for Biden to say "nope, not withdrawing now".

US intelligence were also reporting to executive that the imminent takeover was happening it turns out.

At around the time Biden said the Taliban were not going to takeover the country.

[mystic ermine]

I mean, it's that hard call, everybody wanted out, and, honestly, on the news of hearing that the taliban where launching new attacks at the scale they where and the cards where falling over as fast as they was, I'd rather have stayed rather than tossing 20 years down the line

I mean, for many that would be a politican disaster, but, honestly, the way I see it it woulda been the better move rather than letting the castle fall down

[shut vine]

Yep I agree.

My understanding is that the attacks basically went from meeting the agreement mostly to that after Biden's announcement indicating that the US was not meeting its end. Though I've not checked that information.

I doubt they'd have kept their end after the withdrawal. But who knows.

[mystic ermine]

I mean, it's "fun", my brain has issues keeping chrono order with stuff but it seems right now theres a lot of info coming out which people knew or was classified which offers a lot of considerations to what is going on right now

How much is just being found out now vs how much did the people in charge actually know

[shut vine]

I mean, it's pretty hard to imagine the intelligence community not knowing about 5,500 attacks that basically met with no resistance.

[mystic ermine]

yea...

[shut vine]

If that data can be obtained by normal people (providing it's accurate).

WSJ reported a source told them in early June (they reported it in early June) that Afghanistan was going to collapse within 6 months of US withdrawal based on US intelligence assessments.

My guess would be that source is an executive branch aid.

Also most of those 5,500 attacks resulted in the Taliban obtaining US supplied military equipment like Humvee's etc.

[dusky raft]

@shut vine the taliban isnt done yet with getting US supplies, It will not shock me if we have to bribe the taliban to get our people back

and they know this administration is going to cave on that

[shut vine]

Do we have numbers on how many are still stranded?

11,000 to 15,000 RIP

Intel is suggesting the Taliban are going door to door looking for certain people too 😦

[glossy sandal]

most of the land equipment is going to be blown up shortly after evacs are cleared anyways by drone strikes

[foggy fern]

We don't actually know how many Americans are still in the country

Some people registered with the embassy but never reported in when they left, some people never registered to begin with

They're going through the list and calling everyone to try to at least get a minimum bound

btw, luckily all our equipment breaks down within hours to days without proper maintenance so they won't have any of it for long 😛

[mystic ermine]

it's funny cos it's true

[foggy fern]

The argument for it is that if it was more durable or reliable we could make it lighter, faster, tougher, etc instead and it'd do a better job

[mystic ermine]

I mean, it's the same reason boeing doesn't make (have they yet?) reusable boosters

more profit on selling one time goods than making something which lasts

[dusky raft]

there is technology for semi-reusable booster stage rockets, but since boeing sucks off the government, its not a priority for them

@mystic ermine its one of the reasons why the US relied on russia for so long on getting people into space after the shuttles were retired

Companies stopped giving a crap until SpaceX and other startups came onto the stage

Boeing's normal consumer line of aerospace is doing wonderful in advances, whereas military/government we still rely on dated equipment, hell, we still use planes built from the 50's to do quite a bit of heavy lifting.

@foggy fern also, you would be surprised how durable some military tech is. I wouldnt be shocked if heavy equipment starts failing early, but military rifles designed for the US military can survive really harsh environments. Moreso than some european designs that some countries started to adopt AR-15 like rifles.

[mystic ermine]

To be fair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg-bp2Cv9kg

[dusky raft]

Well dont expect the taliban to get one of those operational if they found one

[mystic ermine]

Rest of the world: Let's add guns to our planes!

[faint radish]

brrrrrrrt is pretty epic

[mystic ermine]

US: Let's add wings to our guns!

[dusky raft]

before that, it was adding wings to bombs

[faint radish]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-86_ALCM

[mystic ermine]

ah, yes

a flying dildo

WARNING: This is gonna fucking suck

[faint radish]

I think B52s could carry 20 of those

[dusky raft]

and we still use fucking B52s.

fucking old as hell ones

Produced 1952–1962

[faint radish]

fired first shots of Desert Storm setting the record (which I think still stands) for the longest bombing raid in history. from Barksdale Louisiana to Kuwait and back

B52s are expected to be used until like the 2050s

[dusky raft]

Its amazing how long they have lasted

considering all the upgrades over the years

[mystic ermine]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL3Yzjk5R4M

watched that a while ago and was pretty enjoyable

made me grab an audio book which I've not gotten to listening to since I moved

[shut vine]

The count of remaining US citizens is in the thousands at the very least as per US intelligence.

[faint radish]

planes carrying planes...

[mystic ermine]

The US had a reaaaallly strong bet on durigibles iirc

I think that the hindenburg disaster kinda killed it though,forget the timeline

[near glen]

Can you see anything wrong with this chart?

[daring locust]

not adding up to 100%

[near glen]

Context: survey for next chancellor, those are the three candidates of the popular parties

[daring locust]

oh and the piecharts are disproportionate

[near glen]

Not adding up is fine-ish, as it's not an exhaustive list, most likely rest is "i don't know, I don't wanna say"

Yep, laschet, left, candidates of the conservatives, 12%, has 2/3s of the pie, while bedrock, right, candidate of the greens, 13%, has only 1/5th, even tho she has a higher percentage

I wanted to say that's a subtle way to influence of the public, but is that subtle? 😂

Just so that you guys know, there are bad German news site too, it's just overall not as bad as the US

[pure jetty]

@near glen what party is the middle guy?

[near glen]

Social democrats

Basically, if you wanna draw a line from left to right, in Germany it's the left, the greens, the social democrats, the conservatives, the neo liberals, and the nazis

He's only leading polls (this is not party polls btw, just "i like this person" polls, it's different) because laschet, the one who should be winning, cause his party has the best numbers, goes around and doing stupid things

[pure jetty]

Pfizer vaccine has been fully approved!

[loud flax]

you are the kinds of people that are never going to help the world be a better place, fyi, those of you who like to spam things in this channel

[restive seal]

That's not a very nice thing to say to automated spamposters.

[molten forge]

oh kek i posted the poggies sticker after i saw mini's bans, didn't even realise i was in politics tbh

[restive seal]

this is an interesting post https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/p8wv1a/biden_we_are_considering_every_means_to_get/h9txday/

[brisk cradle]

Swedish politics https://apple.news/AoFLEVkCpQZyngCAH7aIWIA

[faint radish]

K, now that the pfizer has been fully authed by the FDA, there’s like no reason for vaccinated people to wear masks.

But we shall see exactly how long it takes for the mandates (where I live at least) to go away

[pure jetty]

That is not the reason vaccinated people are told to wear masks

the mandates were re-added in high risk areas because vaccinated individuals could still spread it to unvaccinated folks, increasing the chances for another variant being made

(one that the vaccine may not work on as well)

thus creating a problem for vaccinated individuals

[tough cedar]

I don't even know if there is a mandate in Texas anywhere anymore

I kinda stopped paying attention and just wear mine regardless if I'm out in public

[faint radish]

I know why they were implemented. But it’s never going to 100% go away

And if you aren’t getting the vaccine, that’s not my problem anymore. We aren’t going to be wearing masks forever.

The people who won’t get the fully approved vaccine… like none of them live where I live, and the people who can’t get the vaccine, well there have always been people who couldn’t get vaccines

[pure jetty]

And if you aren’t getting the vaccine, that’s not my problem anymore. We aren’t going to be wearing masks forever.
the point is it will end up becoming your problem

if a variant is made that the vaccine won't work against

[faint radish]

The chance the virus would mutate was still true when mask mandates were repealed for a few weeks

In fact it was higher then. Only 25% of the world is fully vaccinated. Most of that isn’t in the US, so if there’s going to be a “bad” variant, it’s probably not gonna be from here

[mystic ermine]

much of the details really... er...

[faint radish]

And if there is no, there’s no chance it won’t spread everywhere, no stopping that

[mystic ermine]

Like, vaccinated you still need a mask to prevent the spread, as somebody who is vaccinated you can still get sick, you can still die, you can still transmit the virus

[faint radish]

Cat, that really doesn’t matter. That has always been the case pre-Covid with other things, and will always continue to be the case post Covid. Why is it different now?

[mystic ermine]

masks do help reduce the amount of transmission, but, getting R below one is more lockdown territory but, I mean, only real way to totally quell the virus is to have the military walk the street and shoot anybody they see on sight

[faint radish]

Among the vaccinated, or people with immunity gained from already having the virus, the chances of dying are extremely low. Like wayyy small. Over 99.999% of fully vaccinated Americans haven’t been hospitalized much less died from Covid after having the vaccine

Is that close to the flu now?

Cause if it is, then why is it being treated any differently from it

[mystic ermine]

I mean, at this point, the government fucked up to all shit, we're gonna have to live with this; the fact that the vaccine has been approved changes nothing in terms of the statisitics or anything, hopefully enough people get vax'd to the degree that this it helps reduce many of the risks but I mean, each transmission basically increases the risks of a mutation, which, could potentially put us back to stage 1

[faint radish]

The flu is a virus, it could mutate too right?

[mystic ermine]

I mean, a lot of it is optics and the flu has been around for so long that we generally have a level of immunity to it, even if it ravages the world consistently

[faint radish]

And the same will happen with Covid probably. Hundreds of thousands will die a year from it.