I think you'd fit right in on r/incels.

At the risk of drawing attention to my own insufferabe babble, that's pretty ****ing rude.

I gotta confess, though, who the **** cares about a subreddit like enoughsandersspam

The layers of irrelevence boggle the mind

T R I G G E R E D

R

I

G

E

R

E

D

D

D

Yes, daily user here, PM me at /u/daterapeisntreal and let's discuss how women are all awful whores. Shoutout to my buds /u/miscegenationismisandry and /u/bush911staywoke.

Did you type that with your keyboard upside down?

I actually can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or not.

I wasn't. Sanders was the first to promote a 1 trillion infrastructure deal in 2015 from what I can tell. Then with Clinton losing, Democrat rhetoric turning against the Clinton campaign, Nate Silver claiming Sanders looks strong as a 2020 contender, and Ossoff's defeat, I was thinking it might be that liberals were bending the knee towards Sanders' positions. Which would involve more social democratic policy.

I didn't know Trump's figure was 1 trillion and in retrospect this looks more like a pissing match than the Democrats aligning behind anything meaningful.

Check this **** out

https://news.vice.com/story/trump-tells-room-full-of-kids-obamacare-is-death

did we talk about that yet?

also those eyebrows

So at least one kid who is covered because of Obamacare can ask their pediatrician if they are gonna kill them.

Alright, cool.

Also, I'm a huge Sanders fan, but 2020 and the guy is 78, which is what Trump would be at the end of a second term. I know some people live to be over a hundred, but Sanders 2020 sounds like a pipe dream to me. If he actually were to run, though, I guess you'd have to take an especially close look at the potential VP on that ticket.

If you turn this on its head and see it as an opportunity, this would be the perfect chance to sneak in Al Franken as a VP payload in a Sanders ticket. The GOP's worst nightmare, muahahahaha!

It's going to be Warren. Come on.

.
.
.

(...please, please, please...)

So while I am not going to commit to reading 80 pages, my quick thoughts as a Russian / European on the subject:

1) I believe American democracy has failed. Hillary and Trump as the only choices indicate the start of the collapse.
2) I am very concerned Mr. Trump is going to start a war just to stay in power. And there might be no recovering from it.
3) I am also concerned with the whole animosity towards Russia. We will probably be on very different sides of the debate (I support the repatriation of Crimea after what happened in Ukraine, and I blame U.S. foreign policy on the 10,000 people who died fighting a civil war there at least as much as I blame Putin, if not more), but what the U.S. media does (CNN especially) in making Russia "the enemy" is very dangerous I think because what you'll have is a deterioration in bilateral relations potentially to the point of no return simply because of internal power struggles in the US.
4) That said, I'm no fan of Trump's healthcare reform (or DEform more like), mainly because it will leave tons of self-employed people (artists, writers) without a health care plan, apparently.
5) I am not going to argue about point 3 as nobody's going to come out the winner.

I'd also like to add that while I've never been to the States, I've nothing against the people or the culture, just the politics, mostly. Like Elon Musk said, U.S. is the country where the sense of adventure and exploration were distilled, and I really hope your country is going to get out of this crisis that you apparently seem to be in because you have some of the hardest-working and talented folks on the planet.

So in the spirit of being constructive, I think we need to design a system that works better than the current version of democracy that we've got (mainly: if you've money and power, you can rule the world). I'm not saying I think dictatorships or totalitarian pseudo-democracies are better, but surely there must be a solution that we as humans can come up with before it's too late.

For example: no automatic citizenship, everyone has to earn it for the right to vote (like Starship Troopers), or maybe politicians would not be allowed to own private property of any kind or be involved with any kind of corporate interests, or something. There must be a way!

Not everyone here will disagree with you on point 3, I imagine. I disagree with it very strongly, but I was prepared for a civilized exchange on the topic. I make it a point not to attack the person I disagree with.

Krokodile XVI would be proud.

By all means, do voice your opinion. It's just likely I am not going to react to it. Not because I think you will never change my mind, I detest blind conviction, but I ask you this: since the armed coup-de-tat a few years ago, do you think Ukraine is better or worse off, and who was the real winner of this situation?

I think one fact that people forget that Ukrainians and Russians are the same ethnic people; the language is a bit different, but that's about it. It's really tragic what happened but I think eventually things are going to turn back around precisely because we've so much common history no candy mogul is going to destroy it. Just a tragic, senseless loss of life because of what is essentially a Game of Thrones called international diplomacy.

Again, I am not sure how engaged I want to become in a discussion about this, but this 2014 Guardian article more or less sums up my feelings on the matter: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia-ukraine-war-kiev-conflict

My grandad's brother and his family live in Donetsk, they refused to leave. They get shelled. Things are dire. To be honest, things aren't all that better in Kiev now, with the contract murders and whatnot. I'd be genuinely scared for my life / freedom should I enter Ukraine on the account of my passport alone. They actually cancelled the trains from Hungary to Russia through Ukraine these days. Yes, mercs fight on both sides, and there were real-war-style prisoner exchanges (Russia exchanged the captured helicopter pilot for 2 of our service men who were evidently tortured in custody -- just the opinion of seeing a serviceman in a medical bed slowly saying that he was following orders etc., next cut he's a cast on his arm). War is hell.

And Syria. Do you know that Syria was one of the most progressive states in the middle East, with a relatively secular government, prosperous, and quite safe, before a civil war that has now cost the lives of 300,000 people?

What shocks me is that even after the tragedy of 9/11 the apparent support for "moderate" terrorists continues.

Yes, I support the Syrian government as well, because, as ****ty as some of their tactics have apparently been, bringing it down will turn it into another Libya / Iraq, except much worse. Invasion of Iraq, too ... and the worst of it all is that regular Americans and Iraqis died because of what exactly? Weapons of mass destruction? Did it make the world a better place? Quite the opposite, I think.

I mean, where are we now? If not for all this middle Eastern destabilization, would we have ISIS by now? Saddam was no saint, but neither were the people who hanged him. I actually saw that video. It's a disgrace. Look at Vietnam. U.S. waged a war for 19 years because "communists are bad, let's kill them" apparently. Traumatizing people from both sides for generations.

What will stop U.S. from one day going, you know what, we think Finland has too much snow, let's invade?

So, yes. While I respect the people and the national achievements & spirit of the country, I do not view U.S. as peaceful at all, and now with Donald Trump at the helm, who to me seems to lack any sort of empathy or compassion, as well as long-term planning re: what's better for the planet on the whole, I fear the worst.

I'm not subbed to it, but it's more specifically about mocking people are socially awkward due to their own overbearing arrogance and sense of entitlement, especially to the affections of women. A lot of the people there are actual neck-beards themselves, which isn't a huge surprise. Some are "SJW" types too, which are pretty similar.

lol maybe you could say that the UN giving loans to Ukraine was engineered to anger Putin, but giving it 50/50 responsibility is just unacceptable. Putin's the primary aggressor here. And Putin also ****ed with our election.

Yeah, I don't expect him to become president, I think my primary hope is that his popularity and rhetoric can force a shift in the Democrat's priorities over the next few years. It's a long shot but eh, who knows.

If I were an American I'd have voted for Sanders too, but only because Elon Musk is not eligible.

We can agree to disagree. That Guardian article I'd linked to sums up my views on the matter more or less.

Yeah, but REID what about the fact that WE INTERVENED in the Russian elections in 1996 and 2012? WE DESERVED IT and Americans have NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN. *WE* are the AGGRESSORS.

j/k

But did your views actually change here, or what? I'm confused.

I've never really held that position. Nor have I tried to apologize for Putin. That's partly why we disagree so much, because I think you read that into what I'm saying. I think Americans, especially in media love to point the finger but don't do enough work to understand (or is complicit/silent about) how our own government doesn't often help these situations.

OK well I'm not going to find what you said by searching through our conversations from several months ago (because, why?). But I think you're not accurately relating some of our earlier conversations. IRCC, what you were saying was, at some point, pretty close to what I just said.

I mean, I remember some flat out denial of Russian interference in the elections from you, so I'd expect your view to have changed at least a little. (And, whatever, I'm not asking how your views have changed in order to hold it against you.)

Although looking back for a quick sec I also see how we were talking past each other.

Maybe that's true, maybe I was being too one-sided at that point. As for election interference, yeah at first I was skeptical but with time and with enough investigation I changed my mind. Partly at the time I was concerned because Hillary came forward and spoke very boldly about it, and because there was enough mis/disinformation I didn't buy it.

I think we did "interfere" as you call it, yes. It's what countries do. Nothing to do with revenge. According to LA times, US interfered in 81 elections across the globe between 1946 and 2000.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-us-intervention-foreign-elections-20161213-story.html

"That number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile."

Yah ...

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

Check out the united states entry. not even a secret.

Never heard of this guy or this book, but the fact that there's no Russian Wiki page entry tells me that he's not that famous (and, em, no, the Russian internet is not censored).

And this is apparently his website: http://arctogaia.com/public/osnovygeo/

Yes, looks like it belongs to someone whose policies have been adopted by our government through and through (it doesn't). I've never seen this guy in the Russian media.

Looks like some crazy fascist scumbag at a quick glance, but reading the Russian Wiki entry on him (there's one on him, if not on his supposedly policy-shaping book), it appears he was in fact in charge of a sociology faculty in Moscow's most prestigious international relations university, which is sad. Thankfully, he was ignominiously fired on 27.06.2014 by the deacon of the university with the explanation that "the university is a place for science, not politics." (ref: https://lenta.ru/news/2014/06/27/dugin/ -- sorry, Russian only).

vs.

[quote=that wikipedia article]The book has had a large influence within the Russian military, police, and foreign policy elites[/quote]

emphasis by spook

Also your post reads like the Russian version of someone trying to downplay how much influence Lee Greenwood's God Bless the U.S.A. has had on American military, police, and foreign policy elites, which is extremely significant and it may be the defining document of American policy.

Oh my God how I loathe that song. I had no idea how deeply rooted it was in our culture, but it makes sense.

ANDI GLADLY STAND UP

The current version of democracy is called Democratic Capitalism. The problem with Democratic Capitalism is the "capitalism" part, not the "democratic" part. As long as you have extreme wealth inequality (or, equivalently, unequal say in how the basic economic questions are answered) you will have the same problems, regardless of how you pick your leaders.

That said, in my country the political opposition doesn't get disappeared, and as far as I know my head of state isn't a former gestapo officer with deep ties to organized crime. So I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

Who would you trust to decide whether you should vote or not?

The US has two big problems here: there are no campaign spending limits, and congressmen / aides are paid quite poorly compared to industry executives. These factors mean congress is especially beholden to current lobby money to run campaigns, and future promises of employment.

Congressmen make about $175k. At least three people on this forum are paid more than congressmen, that I know of. I would never say it's easy to get that kind of job, but it's a lot easier to get hired at e.g. Google than it is to get elected to congress, I'd bet.

Basically that means congressmen have no actual incentive to stay where they are unless they are corrupt. And it shows, plainly, in their policies.

But, well, it's better than an autocratic regime run by the secret police.

Why am I reading so much about ICO's in the last few weeks? Is this the beginning of a new bubble? Are we gonna see massive amounts of fraud?

Didn't have a chance to read it, but the SEC made a move to regulate:

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-131

My understanding is that they were an unregulated IPO without underwriting, one of the many Bay Area "X but without laws" business models. If the SEC has ruled them securities the ICOs will probably stop immediately.

That sounds like good news for Coinlist:





http://avc.com/2017/05/funding-friday-coinlist/

You're hearing so much about ICOs because we are already well into the ICO bubble, and probably past the peak if anyone learned their lesson with Coindash. Of course, nobody learned their lesson after The DAO, it seems, so that probably means nothing. Hopefully this SEC report will slow down all of the college students trying to collect tens of millions based on a white paper and nothing else, but I'm not too hopeful since there's a whole world of people who think the SEC can't come after them if they aren't American.

Either way, the only projects I am interested in watching (and the one ICO I participated in, plus tokens bought after the fact) will be able to comply in any way necessary because they are run by (relative) growed ups. None of this will work after the collapse of western civilization later this year anyway so it's no big deal.

What's going to happen?