merc
@merc@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on Reporting an absence 3 days ago:
I hope whoever this was recorded these snipers for as long as possible.
- Comment on What the fuck is going on with Iran and what will happen next? 3 days ago:
We don’t really know. Maybe they stopped completely and honoured the deal. Maybe they didn’t even slow down and just hid what they were doing.
We know that they allowed international inspectors in while the deal was active though, so at the very least they had to work harder to hide things if they were continuing to work.
- Comment on What the fuck is going on with Iran and what will happen next? 3 days ago:
That would be nice. But, one common theme with religious people is that they always believe that they are going to heaven, but everyone else isn’t.
- Comment on What the fuck is going on with Iran and what will happen next? 3 days ago:
Interesting, I didn’t realize that. I thought all of the groups Iran supported were Shia.
- Comment on What the fuck is going on with Iran and what will happen next? 3 days ago:
It would be funny if they weren’t actually trying to bring about the biblical end-times. Also, they don’t care at all about the future because they don’t believe that the future will exist, since we’re in endtimes.
- Comment on What the fuck is going on with Iran and what will happen next? 4 days ago:
What’s going on:
Israel and Iran:
- Israel has terrible relations with virtually every country in the world, and even worse relations with the countries nearby, one of those countries is Iran
- Iran is the only Shia Muslim country in the world (one where the majority of the population is Shia and the people in power are Shia)
- There are Shia minorities in many countries, and in some countries the Shia are a majority of the population, but don’t have power (Iraq used to be like this, not sure how it is now)
- Iran supports armed Shia groups outside Iran (Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, etc.)
- Sometimes these Iran-backed Shia groups act a bit like governments, sometimes like terrorist groups, often a combination of both.
- Israel shares borders with many countries with Iran-backed militias, so is constantly dealing with low-level conflict with groups linked to (financed by) Iran
- Iran (quite reasonably) thinks that the only way it will be safe from attack is if it has nuclear weapons, so it has been trying to develop them for years
- Israel (quite reasonably) doesn’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons, so has been trying to stop them for years, using spying, sabotage, and more recently, direct airstrikes
- Under Obama, a deal was reached where Iran agreed to stop work on nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief
- Obama violated the terms of this treaty (as he has violated many other treaties) mainly because Obama signed it, and Trump has personal hatred for anything having to do with Obama
- With no deal in place, Iran went back to working (at least more openly) on nuclear weapons
Trump, Racists, and Evangelicals:
- The war against so-called “DEI” has meant any non-white person in an elevated position in the US government and military has been demoted or fired, and incompetent white person have replaced them
- DOGE meant eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse”, but mostly they eliminated anything they didn’t understand, which included soft power, Iran analysts, etc.
- Successfully kidnapping Maduro from Venezuela gave the Trump admin a false sense of confidence
- Israel has a powerful lobby in the US,
- Many evangelicals believe that we’re in the biblical endtimes, and that the rapture will happen soon. They want the jews to go back to Israel so Jesus can come back and kill them, then they get to go to heaven. Jews being in control of biblical places is a key element of their theory, so they support Israel because they want the world to end.
Israel’s latest attacks:
- Israel attacked Iran last year, and the US joined in, and they claimed this “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program
- Despite this, the message is always that Iran is days or weeks away from a nuclear weapon, so both things are true: the Israeli/US strikes against Iran were a massive success and Iran’s program was obliterated, but Iran is still days or weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon
- The Trump admin was trying to negotiate a new treaty with Iran, but wasn’t making much progress because the negotiators were unqualified idiots: a real estate developer (Steve Witkoff) and Trump’s son in law (Jared Kushner)
- Israel saw another opportunity to take out targets in Iran recently, so they attacked, and the US felt the need to join in, despite being in the middle of negotiations
Hormuz
- Many countries in the middle east only have major ports inside the Persian Gulf
- Getting into the gulf means getting past the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran can easily control, it’s only 50km coast-to-coast in some places
- Iran, at best, has non-hostile relationships with the rest of the Persian Gulf countries, so it doesn’t risk much by sinking any ship passing by in the Gulf
What’s Next:
- Who knows
- The US went into the conflict without a goal
- Israel went into it with goals (destroy the ability for Iran to finance militias on Israel’s border, force them to focus on issues back home), but achieving its goals might make things even worse for the US
- Iran is facing an existential threat, so it’s unlikely to back down, and it’s not really like the US can escalate without actually invading
- In any invasion, the US would be badly hurt, Iran has a population of almost 100 million, 660 thousand active military, and 350 thousand reserves
- Any invasion would also serve to have Iranians rally around their country
- Many Iranians (especially urban ones) hate the theocratic regime, but they’ve seen how after US “interventions” nearby countries have collapsed into chaos. Stability under a hated theocratic leader is much preferable to chaos, so they’re unlikely to rise up
- There are groups inside Iran who might fight (the Kurds for example), but they’ve been repeatedly burned by the US, over and over, going back decades, so they’re not going to take promises from the US seriously
- Comment on funny number 5 days ago:
Putting young-person slang in a movie has been a bad idea since before Gen Z existed.
- Comment on funny number 5 days ago:
Nature is healing.
- Comment on funny number 6 days ago:
To adults? Or teens? Or 6-year-olds?
- Comment on funny number 6 days ago:
The number 69 has staying power. It was hardly new when it was used in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and that was in 1989, 37 years ago.
How long will 6-7 last? I’m guessing not more than a year. I bet even now it’s being included as part of a script for a kids’ movie, and by the time the movie comes out the kids will all think it’s “cringe” (or whatever term replaces cringe).
- Comment on I was on social media before web browsers existed. I am Legion. 1 week ago:
I still don’t think that would be enough for me to remember it. It would mean I’d have to give it out to people. But, I didn’t do that so often that I’d have memorized the number and remembered it for 30 years.
- Comment on I was on social media before web browsers existed. I am Legion. 1 week ago:
My steam account dates from the release of the Orange Box. That was a few years after launch, because back at the beginning Steam was only for Valve games and those weren’t really my jam. But, the Orange Box was a great deal. So, I bought it (retail version) and then I had to register a Steam account.
- Comment on I was on social media before web browsers existed. I am Legion. 1 week ago:
I can remember mine too, 4170129. I just can’t remember why I remember it. The numbers I tend to remember are the ones that I actually had to use often. For example, I remember some phone numbers because to call someone I actually had to punch in (or dial) their phone number. But, did we have to type in our IDs from memory when logging in or something? That seems like it would be a terrible UI, and surely by the mid 90s nobody was still doing that.
- Comment on I was on social media before web browsers existed. I am Legion. 1 week ago:
I remember my ICQ number, 4170129, but I don’t remember why I know it.
Surely I didn’t have to type it in every time I logged in, did I? That would be a really stupid UI.
- Comment on simpler times 1 week ago:
They’re still the stupidest thing I’ve heard of.
- Comment on simpler times 1 week ago:
No, they’re stupid.
- Comment on Highguard will permanently shut down on March 12th. 1 week ago:
Whenever a game like this flops it gives me hope. Why? Because this kind of game isn’t something that interests me at all. I keep hoping that these companies are going to learn from getting burned, and switch to a style of game that I like more.
- Comment on Highguard will permanently shut down on March 12th. 1 week ago:
No, it’s a flop.
It’s hard to believe that a company would spend hundreds of millions to develop a game, only for it to flop. But, that’s how it works with live-service PVP only games. They depend on network effects. People want to play what their friends are playing. If a company gets this right they can be like Minecraft or Fortnite and it’s the game everyone plays, bringing in billions of dollars. If they miss, it can be a complete flop that nobody plays.
- Comment on Dear Faith I 1 week ago:
The other thing to know about this is that it’s normally a good partnership. The driver has to trust the copilot to know what’s coming up and to tell them in time. The co-driver has to trust the driver to drive fast without crashing. It takes a while to develop a partnership like that, and when it’s working well it’s amazing. The driver is basically driving what he can see plus what he’s told is ahead. If the co-driver says the road opens ahead, the driver will accelerate into a turn even if he can’t yet see that it’s straightening out trusting that by the time he runs out of road the curve will be ending.
The Samir commentary sounds like two drivers paired for the first time, with the co-driver being the one who owns the car. Compare that to a team that knows what it’s doing.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
I’m not sure what the right way to link to these other ones is so that they show up on someone’s own instance.
- Comment on Just one more square bro 1 week ago:
- Comment on Yay, milkshakes! 1 week ago:
People who know: Blueberries create purple juice.
- Comment on according to sugar daddy’s net worth actually 2 weeks ago:
Which influencer’s fleeing Dubai?
- Comment on A modest proposal 2 weeks ago:
Can you imagine how horrific it would be for the sergeants to wrangle a squad or platoon of boomers and actually get anything accomplished?
- Comment on The script is mysterious and important. 2 weeks ago:
It has been a while since I saw it, but you’re right. I mostly remember it as drama, not comedy.
- Comment on The script is mysterious and important. 2 weeks ago:
Point Break? I think Keanu was a heart throb who could do action, but who had started in comedy. Will Smith was more a comedic actor who could do action, but was mostly doing action-comedy.
- Comment on The script is mysterious and important. 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, he was huge. Stallone and Schwarzenegger were bigger names for purely action movies. But, Keanu and Tom Cruise were the action stars who the teenage girls wanted to watch.
I think it’s all the years of Fresh Prince of Bel Air that makes me think of Will Smith as primarily a comedic actor at that point. Because, he and Keanu really had a similar path. They started with comedy and then proved they could do action. I guess Will Smith’s action movies were a bit more action comedy. Men in Black is definitely a sci fi action comedy. Bad Boys was an action comedy. Independence Day wasn’t really a sci fi action comedy, but he did punch out an alien. But, Will Smith did do Enemy of the State, and I don’t remember much comedy in that. For Keanu, Speed isn’t an action comedy, but there’s some light-hearted stuff in it. But, Point Break (from what I remember) was a more serious tone.
But, I think by 1999 if you were hiring Keanu Reeves for a purely serious action role, that wouldn’t be seen as strange. And, if you were hiring Will Smith for a purely serious role, it would probably be seen as wasting his talent.
- Comment on The script is mysterious and important. 2 weeks ago:
It would have been a very different movie. So, maybe people couldn’t picture Keanu in that forgettable action comedy called The Matrix. But, Keanu did show he could do comedy. His first big movie was Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. He’d also done Parenthood. In addition, he’d shown he could do action movies / thrillers with a bit of comedy when he did Speed, and fairly serious action movies with Point Break.
Will Smith has done plenty of action movies, but all of them are at least somewhat comedic. He’s shown he can do serious roles too, like Happyness, 7 Pounds, etc. But, I don’t think you’d hire him for a science fiction action movie without having him do some comedy. I’m sure Will Smith could do a straight dramatic science fiction action movie with no comedy, but AFAIK he’s never done it.
IMO Keanu is a much more limited actor than Will Smith. But, The Matrix played to his strengths.
- Comment on The size of Portugal compared to Spain 2 weeks ago:
This Azores erasure will not stand.
- Comment on too many creators not enough destroyers 2 weeks ago:
In the absence of content destroyers, I’m happy to settle for content selectors, like OP.