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Joined 6 months ago
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Cake day: March 1st, 2024

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  • You’ve got it reversed, the u.s. isn’t going to war with a super power over a country most people can’t point to on a map. It’s even a question how far sanctions would go if they invaded, if you look at the Russian example the sanctions are pretty half ass and Russian petroleum is still flowing to the west, maybe less but they’re still taking in money and there economy is doing way better then before the invasion. For all the talk westerners aren’t willing to go cold in the winter or pay more at the pump for Ukraine.

    That’s for a country with a way smaller role in the global supply chain, fuck dying for Taiwan the real question is whether Americans could give up their cheap consumerist bullshit for Taiwan. China knows this too, it’s just whether they want to act on it and make themselves a pariah state.


  • As long as they aren’t using there platform to promote dumb reactionary views like Kanye or j.k. Rowling just let people enjoy themselves. To the extent that people view snoop as political it’s usually in regards to him representing weed / black stoner lifestyle and it’s broader acceptance and legalization, which I’m all for. Even the article you pointed to where he praised trump was for getting his friend off for a non - violent drug offense which is good, even if trump did it. It would be better if he was letting off the average lower class black person in jail for that but something’s better then nothing.











  • … But no one is being thrown into the woods with a random stranger or a bear. Like the original question this is a hypothetical meant to prove a point. The original point seems to be “the average man is dangerous” , this is meant to show that point can be prejudiced/sexist. It’s meant to show that the argument that some people are saying they’re afraid of a group therefore we must validate that fear can lead to some bad places and shouldn’t be used. This argument is at the core of what the comment I replied to.



  • Car prices haven’t gone up, the average purchase prices of cars has gone up but that’s because people are buying more expensive cars, Large trucks, SUVs, luxury sedans, higher trims etc.

    If you look at lower end sedans there price hasn’t changed much and has even gone down. For example if you look at the Chevy Malibu the current base price is $25,100 , in 2014 the base price was $22,340 or $29,400 adjusted for inflation, in 2004 it was $18,700 or $31,067

    Auto workers wages have gone down but they’ve steadied in recent years in 2004 hourly wage was $21.71 or $36.07 adjusted for inflation, in 2014 it was $21.38 or $28.17 adjusted for inflation now they are around $30.

    So since 2004 the price for a car has gone down 24% and auto wages have also gone down 20%. The recent UAW contract wage increases with little to no increase in price shows there is some room for workers to get more out of that $25,000 cost pie, but there would be no room if that pie is shrunk to $10,000 to compete with Chinese manufacturers.


  • The average purchase price has gone up because people are buying more expensive cars, eg. Large trucks, SUVs, luxury sedans, high end trims etc. not because cars are getting more expensive.

    If you look at lower end sedans there price hasn’t changed much. For example if you look at the Chevy Malibu the current base price is $25,100 , in 2014 the base price was $22,340 or $29,400 adjusted for inflation, in 2004 it was $18,700 or $31,067

    None of those are close to the $10,000 cars coming out of China because you just can’t make a car for that cheap in a country with high labor costs like the u.s., or even Japan or Germany.




  • The north did invade but this wasn’t some evil communist dictator attacking an innocent southern democracy. Both sides at the time the war broke out were repressive dictatorships who understood that unification was going to take violence, the north made the first big move but there had been skirmishes prompted by both sides leading up to it. If the south had their military ready Rhee would not have hesitated to invade first if he thought he could win.

    After the initial success of the north the U.S. rescued the south and even after recapturing the south continued on to invade the north and carry out a brutal, near genocidal, bombing campaign of the north destroying up to 85% of buildings. Like Israel and Hamas the north did strike “first” but the south and the u.s. hit back disproportionately harder. It is with the memory of that atrocity that the north despises the u.s. and seeks any means of protection against it happening again. They aren’t dumb, they know they stand no chance of winning an offensive war while the u.s. is on the peninsula and have given up on doing so, now they’re just trying to survive.

    None of this is to excuse the kim government for there many domestic atrocities, while the South has opened up since the war the north has remained one of, if not the most , repressive and abusive states out there. Just saying there foreign policy isn’t as crazy and aggressive as the west likes to make them out to be.


  • They talk a big game but they aren’t actually that unfriendly in practice. They haven’t funded terrorist organizations or tried to engineer coups in other countries, mostly because they don’t have the money or power to but still there are way worse actors on the world stage that the world happily deals with. Just look at Israel which has almost no international sanctions, and Russia with only about a quarter of the world doing some half assed sanctions for a blatant war of aggression.

    They’re the hermit kingdom and the leadership is mostly concerned with the brutal subjugation of there own citizens and not international affairs.

    They have been making nukes but that’s more of a defensive response to the loaded gun the u.s. has been pointing at them since there inception rather than some crazy plot to carry out a suicidal offensive nuclear assault on the u.s. or the south.