Jump to content

SL Xpress

Full Members
  • Posts

    4237
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. But that's a new point. "It is about control. It is about running mandates created by few to control masses." That's what civilizations do. We're hierarchal, so there's always going to be a pyramid scheme with fewer and fewer people at the top. Mandates are created to control the masses. That's what corporations do. That's what militaries do. There's nothing unique about Iran or the Taliban. That's what all civilizations do. It's how human beings organize themselves. How the control is achieved, and what the specific mandates might be change, but there's always some group projecting control by running mandates intended to control masses. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. It's how things work. If you want to take exception with the specific mandates, or how they're enforced, I can get completely on board with that. But your general statement doesn't make any sense as unique to either Iran or the Taliban.
  2. You don't believe Carter undermined the Shah on the basis of his violations of human rights from the moment he took office? Carter was absolutely a chief contributor to Khomeni usurping the Shah in Iran. The most that can be done is argue he did the right thing by creating the conditions for the deposing of a cruel and ruthless man. But to insinuate the US supported the Shah over Khomeni is flat out wrong.
  3. All of the matriarchal societies that have ever existed since the dawn of man, as you describe it, are the exceptions that prove the rule. All of them have only existed pretty much exclusively in isolation. Never have the most powerful civilizations on the planet, in contact with other civilizations, propelled women's rights in the way western countries have done over the last 50 years or so. The overwhelming evolutionary evidence of mankind is that it's predisposed towards patriarchal systems. That you're choosing to dismiss that idea because I type a lot of words is silly. The idea that Abrahamic religion achieved anything remotely resembling the gender equality western countries are aspiring to currently is a flat out falsification. You're reaching, and it shows the paucity of evidence in favor of your position. Equal rights for women is without a doubt one of the standard bearer foundations of western values over the last 50 years. It's the first time in human history the concept has achieved this much acceptance. It's a great thing. But it's fragile, and will require a constant emphasis. And societies that emphasize the value of a tradition that goes beyond the last 50 years will have a natural intransigence towards it. But you keep touting the PRC's great work at achieving equal gender status. That one was rich.
  4. Well, the military coup that overthrew their democratically elected leader, Mosaddegh, in 1953 also had the support of the clergy, who feared a communist takeover. But that was 70 years ago, so not in the last half century. Important enough to note, though, IMO.
  5. What makes Iran unique in that regard? That's civilization in a nutshell.
  6. Anyone who is hired is going to be a risk. I just want us to grab the best, most qualified candidate possible, whoever that might be. If it ends up being Royal Ivey I'll be excited for him. I'll be excited to root for him. But the basketball hiring process will be a disappointment for me.
  7. Mark Adams should probably have his own thread. He's accused of spitting on a player, but he claims he had a dogged cough. He says the bible verse he quoted was about Jesus referring to the master-servant role, not the master-slave role. The slave part was an interpretation from the player, allegedly. He had a chance to apologize to the team, but instead explained his side of things, insisting that he didn't apologize. #boldstrategycotton It would be helpful for him if he had some strong advocates on the team willing to vouch for him in powerful ways. Because otherwise it looks like he's lost this team. Whatever his intent was, he's going to be judged by the perception of the people on the other side of the equation. Especially when he has someone who wasn't spit on claiming he said, "I can spit on you whenever I want to," which honestly doesn't even seem like something a reasonable person would say. Which makes me think it's made up to make him look worse.
  8. That is a completely dangerous and irresponsible take, in my opinion. There is no irreversible flow of history. Our hardware - our brain, nervous system, overall biological composition - is not changed easily. It has taken almost 4 billion years to get to this point, 300,000 years since the first appearance of homo sapiens, and probably only 30,000 to 40,000 years or so since homo sapiens became the sole dominant bipedal species on the planet. About 5000 years until the first written language. About 3000 years since the first history book. We will constantly look to form tribes, and then people will naturally form countervailing tribes. And then they will compete for hegemony. The only way to stop this is through severe repression and autocratic control of the population worldwide, and even then the same dynamic would occur in the ruling class. The good news is that on top of this hardware we have a unique and powerful "software" called socialization which allows us to consciously shape what kind of civilization we want to collectively live in. But it starts as a blank slate with each birth, and is incredibly fragile, since natural impulses will always exist which can contravene what we're trying to achieve consciously as a species. The war that goes on between those who would separate us based on race, language, sexual orientation, gender, religion, what have you, and battle for political supremacy will never end. Trump didn't exploit existing undercurrents in American society. He exploited natural divisions and impulses that exist within us on a genetic level formed over 4 billion years. And certainly since homo sapiens emerged as a species. That's not going away. The best we can do is to try to program our brains consciously to choose what divisions we prioritize and which ones we choose to be unimportant, but someone is always going to come along at some point to try to exploit the divisions they feel will give them power. That's our existence. The war in Ukraine is a simple battle between good and evil. On the good side you have a people who have fought for centuries to be out from under the Russian hegemony. Who have sacrificed a tremendous amount for the right to be run by a representative government. Who continue to bravely fight every day against a numerically far superior foe, who SHOULD have a distinct advantage in modern weaponry, but thankfully is systemically geared towards stupidity. On the evil side you have a ruler who considers himself some kind of divine king, who views himself as not only the savior of Russia, but the savior of the west and all of mankind. He sees the existence of Ukraine as a historical mistake. He's said as much. He wants to eradicate the memory of the Ukrainian language and history from the face of the planet. He feels like the West is degenerate to the point of unsustainability. He sees the US and Europe as bringing about the downfall of humanity in many ways, with the only thing to save it himself and his fellow Russians. And he's convinced himself of this sheer bullshit, and surrounded himself with people who have drank the koolaid and/or are in the kitchen mixing up new even stronger batches. But there's no irreversible flow of history going on here. At some point another Putin type could rise up. Could be in Russia. Could be in China, or Japan. Could be in the US, or Germany. Could be in the Middle East, or India. We're hardwired this way as a species. This proclivity is what allowed homo sapiens to take over the planet in the first place, and it can't be erased. Maybe we're going to eventually Crispr ourselves into some kind of passive state, but any kind of significant genetic engineering in the future will produce unintended consequences which can't even begin to be speculated on. So that path has even more fear for me than the idea we're doomed to constantly produce megalomaniacs as a matter of course. The main point is, this never stops. Never. There's no ultimate kumbaya when Russia and Putin are ultimately defeated, and/or he's finally 6 feet under. We're Sisyphus pushing that rock up the mountain only to have it tumble to the bottom right before we reach the top. Democracy is fragile. Tolerance is fragile. Military strength is ephemeral. On a long enough time line it all turns to dust. But that's part of what makes this particular struggle so important. We have to get this right, so we can have a chance to get the next one right. If we get Ukraine wrong - which we're not going to, btw - then it empowers the nefarious forces to feel like this is when the socialization process leading to representative governments and greater tolerance for our fellow human beings gives in to entropy and the natural dialectics of our species to value homogeneity, might equals right, and autocratic, repressive rule with uncertain and risky transfers of power. Because honestly, that's the natural state of our species. In any case, I strongly disagree with Azamat Junisbai here.
  9. That second pic features a promotional poster from the video game War Thunder hung on the wall. I'm not making that up.
  10. I mean, you're not wrong. But more accurately it's a war against the west and its values. Particularly as they apply to Islam. The whole of human existence, both historical and pre historical, could be classified as a war against women. It is a very recent - and almost wholly western - movement to give women way more power and freedom (which amount to the same thing, essentially) in society in general than has ever existed before. And even there plenty of pockets exist that think this has gone too far in some ways. But look throughout muslim countries run according to Sharia law and tell me where there is a single one looking to expand the rights of women on anything approaching a reasonable pace. One of the biggest blunders in US history was supporting Khomeni over the Shah. The Shah was not a good person. He inflicted human rights abuses on his people as a matter of course. But he had been secularizing Iran in palpable ways. Which was partly possible because Iran/Persia has a deep and rich culture that extends not only through their history as an Islamic country, but well before that as one of the most ancient cultures in the world. And the people identify with that history in ways the historically nomadic Arabs do not. The central problem for me is that the Quran embodies the chief religious leader, political leader, and military leader in one person. So for any kind of liberalization to occur on any level - including and most specifically increasing the rights of women - the person at the top of the muslim country has to prioritize secularization. And that's always going to be difficult - I would use the word impossible - without some egregious form of repression. Which the west doesn't want to support, understandably. But without toppling governments in one way or another and supporting strong men being put in place we'll never see any progress in the muslim world. The system will not allow for it. The current movement in Iran is doomed to fail. The leaders will go full Assad and kill anyone and everyone they have to. They will put whole cities to the torch to remain in power, because they feel like they are employing Allah's will by definition. The west will not intervene militarily because there's no stomach for it. Especially after Syria, and especially while Ukraine is going on. And even if the West did intervene they'd try to put a democracy in place, which would simply transform into a sharia law state after a short period of time anyway. So while you say this is a war against women, I'd say it's more accurately a war against the west, and it's more permissive values. And Iran is hardly alone there, frankly. They're just the most brazen is terms of opposition and the lengths they'll go to repress it.
  11. Everything surrounding this saga regarding Beard’s departure, to Mark Adams being hired and his amazing first season, to now both of them being canned before the end of their 2nd season for absurd behavior- is completely crazy. Texas Tech’s list of coaches, hoe they got the job and how they departed, is whackier than any program out there over the last 30 years or so. From rampant cheating to hiring a disgraced legend to leaving in the middle of the season for nepotism to another former national championship coach who ends up being a short timer to a rampant player abuser to hiring a guy who held his previous job for 19 days to losing him to the big instate school after becoming one of the most popular coaches on campus ever to watching that coach get fired for felony domestic violence to watching the assistant do amazing his first year, and then implode his second and then get fired for spitting on a player and quoting the Bible about master slave relationships (not exact, but he’s getting fired for sure). What a fucking whirlwind.
  12. Speaking of crazy, this post makes me want to spit on you and reference the master-slave relationship as written in the Bible.
  13. Might be a big shipment of entrenching tools.
  14. The thing that is great about this thread is I can associate myself with abject stupidity regardless of the position I take. I appreciate the diversity of dumbness.
  15. Ummm, just to be clear....
  16. I feel a little like Mrs. Lincoln right now, instead of "how was the play?" it's: "Other than that Mr. SL Xpress, how was the regular season?" That's a great end for a great group of players who never let circumstances dictate their response. I love that they got that win and did it in such dominating fashion on senior night in front of a truly energized crowd. Good stuff.
  17. I know we've shit on the Germans for being so reluctant to support Ukraine, but they're really stepping up in major ways across the board. And not just with their own stuff. They've been pressuring others to step up their game, too. It doesn't erase the fact there's a large contingent of them who would love to go back to doing business in Russia, but as an American, before I get worked up about their speck, I should pay more attention to my log. 100 Marders is significantly more than 40. 50 Leopard 2 tanks is significantly more than 18 (and those 18 are supposed to be A46s). They've been putting all kinds of pressure on the Swiss to find work arounds for their commitment to neutrality. They've even put pressure on the Poles to send more Leopard 2s. You have the UK doubling their Challenger II contingent. The Strykers are on their way. Hopefully the 50 CV90s get there from the Swedes. Haven't heard much about their status, and they're supposed to be awesome. Ukraine doesn't get a whole lot of chances to do this counter attack right. But if they can make a big push it could dramatically change the narrative of the war, just like it did when they made their Kharkiv push, and then later took Kherson. It can't be imminent anyway, with all the mud. I'm hopeful. I want to hear about more armor heading in that direction, and more ammunition/shells.
  18. The losses started piling up when you stopped the post Beard count.
  19. I don't understand what you mean by private prison scams of the 80s and 90s. They're still very active as far as I know. To the tune of about 8% of the total prison population. My big problem with private prisons is that the justice system is one of those places you should never introduce a profit motive. It will inherently corrupt the justice system. By its nature. In about a dozen ways. It's a horrible idea. Might as well have private police forces and private firefighting. Which, of course, we do in places. There's no justice system that's going to be anywhere close to perfect. But it's a good idea to start by not purposefully destroying it from the inside. Which is what private prisons do. Public roads going to tollways is more a case of government bureaucracy at work and how we measure things. The federal government long ago, in a good intent way, began emphasizing various methods of getting the biggest bang for their federal buck. A part of that was to emphasize road projects that came up with more than the 10% from local entities that put them on the list. It was found that local entities could form a quasi government organization, the equivalent of a municipal utility district, sell bonds to finance the construction, use those bonds to up the ante from 10% to 20% or 30%, and then suddenly that project got bumped to the top of the federal list. And then the maintenance of those bonds are sold to a contractor who was able to profit off the difference collected versus what had to be applied to pay off the bond. Like many activities of government, there are all kinds of consequences. But the core value - stretch the impact of federal highway transportation dollars by encouraging local entities to put more skin in the game - wasn't evil, per se. But once a government program is funded, you're automatically going to create a group that benefits from that funding, and they're going to do their best to expand its use, as well as try to discover ways to exploit it. But that's true no matter who the beneficiary is. Then it becomes a matter of which beneficiaries do you identify with the most politically. I'll also say I'm not against the idea of paying for road use in high traffic areas at premium times - but only if the resulting revenue is used to support and subsidize a robust public transportation system. But I don't know of a case where that has happened specifically. Which makes no sense to me. Public transportation will never be revenue neutral, and it shouldn't be expected to. What better place to generate revenue to support it than high traffic areas at peak hours? On the Charter School discussion, one of my best friends taught at Austin Discovery School for years. This idea that all charter schools are profit centers is an extremely broad generalization. Doesn't mean it has no merit, but that's certainly not the case 100% of the time. That school for sure was no profit center. They barely kept the doors open. I'll also say our schools have fundamental issues that go far beyond the implementation of charter schools. If charter schools ceased to exist tomorrow we'd still be in serious trouble. The biggest problem with public schools in my opinion is that parents naturally want to give their child every advantage they can, and one of the biggest ways to do that is to make sure they're enrolled in the place that can provide the best education. Which is invariably a lot more expensive to attend than a public school available to other students. Then there's also the issue of how do you provide a better equality of opportunity when so much of a child's education is determined by their home environment. We're not taking children away from their parents en masse at birth to place them in government housing. But regardless, what we are doing right now cements and perpetuates those issues rather than addressing them. I also have a fundamental problem with how the school system incentivizes ambition. The most ambitious school teachers are always going to seek out administration jobs rather than stay in the classroom, because it's the only method to maximize their pay. If there was some kind of equitable way of rewarding the best teachers financially for staying in the classroom, I'd be all for it. But any measuring stick I come up with is fraught with its own issues. That doesn't mean something shouldn't be sought out, though. Trying to keep the best educators in the classroom would be a seismic shift in certain ways in terms of how we view public education in this country.
  20. I've never believed that a loss in Ukraine automatically means Putin is divested of power. What I do believe is that Putin will die someday, in some way. I do not believe we'll ever know for sure if Stalin died from some kind of poison, or it was natural causes which caused the hemorrhage of his brain. I do know that no one called for medical help until long after it could do some good. However Putin dies, I'm not going to care if it's from natural causes or not. I also don't know how much changes in Russia after Putin is gone. Probably not much, really. Maybe the next leader is even more ruthless. Stalin was certainly more ruthless than Lenin, and Lenin wasn't exactly a shrinking violet. Plenty of authoritarian regimes have pursued dictatorial rule over several transitions of power. I don't see Russia changing its character much outside of being conquered and a long occupation, and I don't foresee that happening in my lifetime. Or my children's lifetime. But this war is flat out dumb. If you're a leader who wants to restore the Soviet borders, invading Ukraine has set that dream back decades, if not longer. Russia needs to step back, regroup, try to emulate China under Deng, or Japan under the Meiji Restoration, or Germany under Hitler. Modernize their industrial base. Modernize their military. Somehow value competence over kleptocracy. But their fatalism runs really really deep in that society. There's such a collective "Fuck it. That's Russia. We'll always suffer," rather than a roll up your sleeves and make it better mentality there. I don't believe that gets changed. It's not that Russians aren't smart. Or hard working. But there's a cultural flaw there. The same cultural flaw that makes them bullies. Whatever this flaw is, it also makes them resilient, whether you're talking about Mongol hordes, Swedes invading, French invading, Germans invading, fighting Muslims from the Ottoman Empire, you name it. The big problem Russia has right now is that it doesn't actually value doing your job well. It values bullies. People who are gifted at taking advantage of others. People who are gifted at eliminating rivals. People who are gifted at surviving brutal daily get voted off the island type games over the course of their lifetime. Maybe the next leader changes that. But I don't actually believe that. But I do believe the next leader could withdraw from Ukraine, if only to lick their wounds and get ready for their next phase, whatever that looks like. I'm all for that.
  21. I'm just curious what an acceptable percentage is? "Let's kill 40% of them!" doesn't have the same ring to it, but for practical purposes, if that's what we're looking to adhere to, I think we could work with it.
  22. These fucktards couldn't get a revolution going on Gilligan's Island, much less Russia. These are exactly the kind of opponents Putin has done a great job of empowering over the course of his career, meanwhile poisoning, shooting, imprisoning, and exiling anyone who is a legitimate threat. They're buffoons. I hate it they're getting any oxygen whatsoever.
  23. There is not a society on this planet, either now, or at any point in human history or pre history, that welcomed all comers into its midst. We do not have the capacity to do this as a species. There will always be those who use actions such as what you're referencing to decry it and seek power based upon it. And history shows they eventually succeed in acquiring it. As a practical matter I'd shoot for incremental gains rather than wholesale changes that will simply result in a massive reaction that will have the opposite effect you're hoping to create. But who knows? Let's see someone get into power and enforce a massive increase in immigration, and see how it plays out. I'll also point out that Tunisia represents the most successful of all the Arab Spring states, and by most successful, I mean it's been a complete disaster. Kais Saied runs a democracy in name only. That said, at least they managed to field a functional democracy for a short period of time. They certainly did better than Syria, Egypt, or Libya, the other major western backed Arab Spring movements.
  24. Talking to him. Talking to other people who worked with him. I was always a bigger fan of Frank Haith and Rob Lanier. And Russell Springmann for that matter. As future head coaches. Just felt they provided a better presence as bench coaches. I thought Beard’s initial staff was a terrible bench coaching staff, for example. I was very pleased when Donewald was promoted for that reason. The position titles do make a difference. Anyway, neither Haith nor Lanier have gone on to be superstars or anything, but they’ve had successes. Terry has always been pretty much what I thought he’d be, including this year. He’s not precise enough. He’s not detailed oriented. He doesn’t understand how to be truly compelling. Nice guy. I’ve always been glad whenever we’ve had him on staff. Just not a great head coach.
  25. I only clicked on it because I like you. I have to google bariatric surgery, because I don't know what it is, but from the context of your first post I assume it has something to do with being fat. I don't know everything involved, but I do know I wish you all the success you deserve in your journey, and I hope all the struggles end up being fulfilling ones in whatever way they're meant to be. It sounds like a serious decision and commitment. A sincere good luck with everything from me.
×
×
  • Create New...