hockeydork

I hear ya, but looking backwards to me they seem like a not so business savy bunch: Some idiots decide to pull an unprovoked David vs Goliath move and bomb the US because of our supposed atrocities, Taliban doesn't go "here's the guys that did it, feel free to have at them and leave us alone". A costly 20 year war ensues in which while they "got us", im sure dudes on hear "got them" plenty too. So in come the Chineese, which while different than the US, is still up the same alley in terms of "superpower" way of life. IMO at the moment Americans dont hate Chineese people, and Chineese peope dont hate us, we are just sparring/competing which leads to obvious "fears" of each other/distrust and there are some unfortunate tinder box disagreements over Taiwan. We want the status quo to stay, the Chineese understandbly want to at least be our power peers. I pray the competition stays friendly. Like you pointed out with their treatment of Muslims, I dont see how they are going to be any better in the eyes of the Taliban than US or the Soviets. What makes the Chineese NOT infidels? The Taliban are just gunna shake hands for some money and weapons? How long till they decide they've had enough/feel used and want the Chineese out of the homeland? Also, could anyone in China possibly think it's a good idea to further arm the cave people in the region they want access too, who have proven they love being the thorn in the ass of the other two super powers? Sounds like a really dumb idea to me to think it'll go any differently this time around. I can't reconile how these guys are gunna figure out a way to work nicely with China, nor China with them, long term. The cultural differences are still massive. If China is getting trigger happy to stretch it's legs in a confrontation with Taiwan, I can't see them investing in Afghanistan and just trusting a bunch of nut jobs who fundamentally already must hate them to "work nicely with them". If they do I'd bet my but they're drawing up battle plans for how they wanna clean house if the Taliban don't like being under Chineese rule...I mean, "influence." Idk, time will tell, like you said. Either way I hope America looks to the limitless future, I hope we go to Mars, push the bounds of technology and medicine, innovating and inspiring people to want to be us, while carrying one big ass stick we aren't afraid to swing if they dont.

My thoughts on China in Afghanistan, not a veteran, probably not worth jack but please feel free to tell me how wrong I am or to STFU with my armchair quarterbacking: People fight for a few reasons: food/water, territory, and resources/wealth, and ideology. Ideology being the most complex to deal with, because if can often result in an irrational enemy. Strapping suicide bomb vests on and martyring yourself isn’t rational, nor is flying a 767 into a building, no matter how strong your religious belief in an afterlife. I think the outcome in Afghanistan was because we wanted to fight them like they were us. Like they were somehow close to being on our spectrum of being a “rational people”. Rational people don’t lop prisoner’s heads off on camera. Monsters do. We wanted to humanely kill monsters, so that we didn’t become them, which is indeed a noble effort, but at the very least wasn't conducted in the correct fashion. . We thought “if we kill enough of them, they’ll get the hint”. But they are like a tumor, you have to get ALL of it. We tried to be nicer to the civilian population than the extremists, and hoped it would turn the civilian population against them. Nice guys finish last sometimes. Apparently it didn’t work, or at least not enough, because you’d have thought civilians would have fought tooth and nail to repel the Taliban as they started advancing, if they were THAT scared of living under them. Think about if you were being warned that the Mexican drug cartels were going to be coming up and entering Texas, and the police would be leaving in three months. Would not every Texan arm themselves to the teeth and start shooting at the first sight of cartel? I know I would. I’ve seen enough videos of cartel violence to know life under them is not life at all. So to me, apparently the civilian pop is either in cahoots with them more than anybody thought, or don’t think they’re bad enough to warrant serious conflict with them. If China enters and tries their nice guy “economic strategy”, where “people who work 9-5 jobs don’t have time for terrorism”. Good luck, they’ll be just as doomed as we are, because in the end, terrorists aren’t fighting because they’re bored/don’t have a job, they’re fighting because they’re bat shit crazy/dumb/don’t value their own lives/have under developed brainpower. Their stupidity is what makes them so dangerous. Don’t confuse stupidity with bravery. They aren’t brave, they’re dumb as bricks. We may have our qualms in America with China, but in the end they are still the civilized world. They like nice cars, TV, air conditioning, music. Eventually they’ll see the Chinese as invaders, and it won’t be long before they turn on them and start using the same tactics on them as they did us once the Chinese start pillaging their homeland. If China enters and wants to succeed, they can’t be nicer than the extremists, they have to be scarier, a lot scarier. They’ll need to make being an extremist in Afghanistan scarier than being a Jew in Nazi Germany. That means becoming the monsters they aim to defeat, brutalizing loads of innocent people to get one extremist hiding in the gen pop and not thinking twice about it. Making people terrified at just the thought of being accused to be an extremist so that sympathizers cannot get away with hiding among the regular population. If they do this, then they’ll basically end up doing America’s dirty work for us, but at the risk of enraging millions of middle easterners in other countries who will than turn to extremism and start hating the Muslim killing Chinese “invaders”. A pro for us would be it is a major distraction for them from Taiwan. Way I see it, they’re in for a serious fight and screwed either way too. Best case scenario for the world is too get everybody out of that place who helped us and wall the place off. Have a multi-national agreement that if significant terrorism starts flowing out of there again, a massive multi-national, multi-million man army is going to go cave by cave until everyone there has learned why it’s a really bad idea to attack the civilized world. You have to get all of the Tumor. Not 90 percent, not 95 percent. ALL of it. You don't kill cancer humanely, because cancer doesn't kill you humanely.

My view is it is a systemic problem in American culture that won't be corrected by government intervention. Ban flat earthers = more flat earthers, same thing with the leprechauns. Do I want to even start with the moon landing idiots? At the basic level, we only know "truth" as "truth" by verifying through the masses. Line 100 people up and ask them to pick out the color of the sky in a crayon box. 98 will grab the same color crayon, we call it blue. 2 color blind people will grab the brown crayon. To them the sky is brown. The sky is "blue" only because the majority believe it is blue. The colorblind people have to acknowledge that, by logical deduction, they must be the anomaly. Even if you believed for a hot minute that the earth was flat, or that we didn't go to the moon, if 98 people tell you you are wrong and you continue thumping your drum, you're just being an arrogant asshole.

You guys aren't on the same page. The INTERNET is the new public square, I can make a forum and propagate my ideas with out restriction=screaming from public square. That is an American right. Facebook, Twitter, etc ARE private property. They have the right to decide who uses their forum and how, just like MSNBC has a right to decide who they want to have on a talk show/who they don't. Adding this: I don't think the government should be telling them what acceptable content is tho. That is overreach, that is at the discretion of the owners. Just like the moderators have the discretion to ban people on this forum.

Reread my post, it isn't about using Hitler to limit free speech, quite the opposite. I said it's the German people who bear the responsibility for believing the lie, not that the lie itself was produced. I disagreed with your idea that false messages stop themselves. If they did we wouldn't have flat earthers. We have an ISS and pictures to prove it and such an idea that the planet is flat is abundantly ludicrous, yet it persists. Viperman, if you go follow the next rainbow you see in the sky there will be a pot of gold at the end of it. It's your job to deduce that such a statement is idiotic, not the government.

Agree with your stance except this. Hitler convinced the German people that the Jews were causing all their problems, and than convinced them to slaughter them. They do not always stop themselves and often times get out of control and can result in serious consequences. But it's the German people who bear the responsibility for succumbing to such a lie, they could have stopped it the second the roundups started happening. From my understanding from friends who have been there they are still ashamed of it to this day. And they will forever be remembered as the country that let it happen. Unrecoverable. Just like how slavery will always be a thorn in this countries back. People will be talking about it 1000 years from now when all of us are dead. The mere fact that people of differing opinions are willing to talk in this forum (somewhat) respectfully tho is a good sign.

The government is a reflection of the people tho, not the other way around. If the people in America are caring less and less about their government, getting dumber, not valuing education and science, and becoming so lazy as to get there news off some social media stream, than trying to stop it via government is a lost cause. The crazies can also band together now and find other crazies who will affirm whatever unfounded belief they have. The government is chosen by those same people, so you can't expect the government to be any more capable than they are. This is a problem that needs to be solved at the local level. If you have a buddy who tells you the earth is flat, it cannot be let go. It needs to be shunned in the immediate vicinity. That person needs to be told by the 9 out of 10 people who know it isn't flat, why it isn't flat, and than be shunned until they figure it out.

Jury is still out tho, 1776 was like yesterday in terms of history's sake. Powerful empires have come and gone, we cannot take this one for granted and assume that if we leave it on autopilot we'll stay on top just because of our love for freedom and moral compass. At my school in college, which lets just call an MIT for dummies, you know who the top performers were a lot of the time? The kids from China. We watch football and grill our burgers and play beer pong, they're trying to figure out how to build a jet that can maul an F-35. They want the podium, how close they are getting is above my pay grade, but I don't see them letting up any time soon.

That's a good counter. But at the end of the day we still let people buy cigarettes, do we not? We just force the company to say "this can cause cancer". What happens when the product isn't cigarettes, but the information itself? The US population would probably be better off with smoking abolished, but you have to draw the line at "people are allowed to hurt themselves so long as that action does not hurt others". Second hand smoking laws are a good line. Same deal with speed limits. Nobody has the right to give me lung cancer just because they want to give it to themselves. But I still cannot restrict them from making that choice for themselves, anymore than I want people restricting me from getting a Bigmac every Saturday. If I want to know if Bigmacs are bad for me, I'll go find an independent study and make my decision. Me dying from clogged arteries only impacts me. I wear my seatbelt everyday because I'm not an idiot, but would argue mandated seatbelt laws are an overreach, especially since you can legally ride motorcycles which certainly don't have them. Let's just use global warming as an example. And whether you believe in it or not does not matter for this arguments sake. Coal Company Suchnsuch sells a product. They FUND and publish a study that says global warming is insignificant with the use of their product. If the American citizen chooses to trust that report instead of an independent one, just like some chose to trust Tobaccos doctors, isn't that on them? It gets messier when the issue is something that affects everyone, but at the end of the day we go by "majority rules". If we send Florida under water in 100 years because we melted the ice caps, well, that's what the majority wanted. It's up to the American consumer to say "yea if I start a fire in a room in my house, gee the temperature seems to go up. I don't want to buy your product anymore, I'm going to have solar panels installed". Now it may be inefficient when the government doesn't mandate certain things. We are inherently inefficient compared to a country where the state makes swift decisions, for better or worse. But that is the cost of freedom. It makes us vulnerable to being outpaced by a country where the state has considerable power and makes good decisions quickly and decisively, but said country will be vulnerable to eventually ending up with a government that makes poor decisions.

The underlying issue is while the internet has allowed man-kind unprecedented access to information with a few clicks, it has also allowed the rapid manufacture of information. To “make something up” 60 years ago, you’d have to what, spend money printing a book and then try to convince people to buy it? Or convince someone to risk their reputation and publish you in a newspaper or magazine? Those are pretty good deterrents to going out of your way to fabricate some BS. Now anybody can just click and write whatever. We’ve given ignorant people the same megaphone as our most highly informed/experienced professionals. Anybody who can critically think isn’t going to be affected, they will filter out the BS, deduce their own logical insights with whatever credible facts they source (i.e let me ask a scientist about the vaccine, not Bob down at the Donut shop). Then there’s the half that doesn’t have that capability. Just like how some of the population just ends up being really short, some people don’t get the horsepower in the dome up top, and it’s not their fault. They’ll believe anything. The half that thinks the earth is flat, that thinks they’ve been chipped by the feds, the half that is willing to shove a couple Tide pods down the hatch for dinner. Does the government have an obligation to protect these people? I say no. Humans have interrupted evolution to much as it is, you used to have to be either smart or strong or both to survive, now you can be bottom of the barrel and procreate as much as you want. Lysol injections? Inject away….

I know the thread has moved on but yes. If you are all for Capitalism and the free market, well than the free market has decided that they were better off tapping the person in China who will assemble your iphone for half the wage (right or wrong) as an any American would be willing to, and you need to stop complaining about how China "stole our jobs" (both sides do this and use it as a political "rile up the masses" and get some votes talking point). They didn't steal it, we served it up on a silver platter the day we walked into harbor freight and started buying socket sets for half what the USA made craftsman set cost. Self-inflicted wound, the American consumer is responsible and needs to own it, both left and right. We torpedoed our fellow manufacturing Americans because a lot of us are assholes and saw "more for less!", nobody put a gun to anyone's head and said "you must buy this discounted Chinese wrench". As to giving a damn, yes you are correct, most Americans probably don't care at all. I don't think there should be people working 60 hour weeks and barely scraping by and have to buy the "cheapest". But there are loads of people who just want the biggest TV they can get for the ball game, their new phone every other year with whatever current gimmick, and don't care how it happens just so long as it does. Oppression in Hong Kong? What's Hong Kong? Let me google it on my iphone.... But American consumption and forced obsolescence is a whole nother tangent..

Do they tho? How many middle classers chose to be cheapos? Example, and this is a true story and if I am lying may the fighter gods banish me from having any shot at a pointy. During the 2016 run-up, I had two coworkers, adamant Trump supporters, Bernie and Hillary are socialists, going to destroy the country blah blah. That's FINE. BOTH of them needed tires for their cars, I was like "buy these Coopers they're made in the USA I got them for my car at a fair price". What do they BOTH do? "Give me the cheapest Shengzin whatever tire from Sears". Where were they made? China. Some people do it to themselves. Some people really don't have a choice and are barely scraping by, and yes those people I empathize for and the system needs to do better for them, but a lot of people do it to themselves. I don't care who you are, Walmart greeter, submarine engineer or a baseops F-35 super hero. If you complain we don't make anything here and manufacturing is in the gutter but than actively select to purchase the cheapest foreign stuff when there exists a domestically produced alternative? F*ck you. Rant off.

Very true. If 5 percent of "the pie" today is twice as much as it was 20 years ago because the pie has doubled in size, than I would agree the system is working. Also, the quality of life of a middle class person today is arguably better than the ultra wealthy of 150 years ago. They didn't have TV, AC, the automobile etc.

Agreed dude, capitalism is the best we've got, no system is ever going to work perfectly, and not everybody gets to come in first, that's life. But look at you're argument "people would just move and find a new job". How many rust belt cities/coal towns keep voting people into office who "promise" to "bring our manufacturing and coal mining jobs back". Why don't they just move to CA and work for Tesla, or NY and build wind turbines in Albany, or service solar panels in Nevada? Is it people don't want to leave, home is home? Not a jab btw, but it seems a lot of times people don't want to move.

Basically. I mean if you're so far left or right that anything the "other side" says is trash...you're probably part of the problem.

I was commenting on Negatorys inheritance post, and it's more just a food for thought post, not a decree that I have the answer. I personally will benefit from conservative fiscal policy and lax inheritance laws, and pure socialism does not work, nor will it ever work. It just makes people lazy. And it was just an analogy, not really talking about the actual steel mills from 100 years ago (what a throw back to 7th grade social studies tho). You cannot tax people to death and strip them of inheritance, that stifles innovation and motivation which hurts everybody. Why keep working if the government is just going to take it away? But you also cannot allow wealth to be increasingly consolidated among fewer and fewer people/corporations with NO limit, there has to be some sort of percentage cap or limiting instrument to encourage people to spend what they have after a certain point (exactly where that point is I have no idea). Because wealth is more than just a pile of money used to buy your kid a bicycle, it is influence and any smart person will almost always chose to use that influence.... to make more wealth…for the good of the whole or not...and the cycle goes on. All 4 people start the game of monopoly with the same 500 or whatever, but the principle of the game is as you own more crap, it gets easier and easier to TAKE everyone else’s crap. 1 person ends up on top, the other three homeless with nothing. Is that right? Idk. Sucks if you're not the one on top. I mean the game was fair, was it not? What if one person starts the game with 10,000, and the others 500? Will that 10,000 dollar player be content with their 10,000, or will they try and take the other 500 from everybody else?

Devils Advocate: There is a town with 4 competing steel mills. Most all of the town is employed by one of the steel mills with wages that are competitive and fair due to competition. Steel mill A innovates, finds a way to manufacture steel at 25% cheaper rate. The three other mills can't compete, and steel mill A eventually buys them out. Yay, innovation, steel is now made at a cheaper price. The world is better off, right? But now everybody works for steel mill A. Steel mill A has much more influence over the labor rate than it did when it had 3 competing mills. Why not cut the wages by 25%? There are no other jobs, so the people have to take it, or starve. Bezos made his fortune fair and square, I agree with you, and if you over regulate you take away the incentive for innovation. But the idea that people with large fortunes don't end up with large influence over the economy and labor rates doesn't hold water. If Bezos and Walmart put every mom and pop shop out of business, how can you say they don't have influence setting the labor rate? Now, Americans CHOSE to buy from them and therefore gave them that power, so in the end its our own damn fault.

I wouldn't exactly identify a guy who builds and buys glamorous buildings/casinos/pimped out 757s as "connecting with hard working rural Americans". He was just good at telling people what they wanted to hear to get what he wanted (like most politicians). A master salesman, and I say that honestly as a compliment. It is indeed a skill like anything else. I totally empathize with what you're saying. The problem is the world cahnged. It's like saying I just want to be left alone to run my steam train business....steam trains are obsolete/not coming back. America isn't going to be able to return to its former manufacturing glory, it's a pipe dream no matter who you stick on the ballot. Technological progress is the new hot commodity, and you'll notice that is heavily located on the coasts right now. As human technology progresses and increases in complexity, the standard level of education required is going to keep increasing in order to service/design/implement said technology. Being boring isn't in high demand, and never will be again. Boring people aren't going to figure out how to regrow an eyeball you lost on the 4th of July, or how to extend the range of electric vehicles. That's what people need and want now. Why do people cling to Trump? Sometimes the past was better than the future. To have been a 707 steam gauge pilot during the jet age for TWA... pretty sweet. But TWA and its 707s ain't coming back. Best thing any president could do is get everyone (coasts and middle states) on the same page. Left can stop the hypocrisy of "We should buy everything from China and shrink the military while they grow theirs but wine every time they violate some other democratic country or ethnic groups civil rights". Right needs to get on board with the "Yea maybe we should overhaul our energy infrastructure to create jobs, and maybe people do need higher levels of education now that everyone carries a damn computer in their pockets..."

I think anybody with a marketing degree would tell you it would be devastating to have some new kid win in Hammies car so easy. If he can do it, does that mean ANYONE can, so long as they are driving the #1 Merc? No bueno. We'll never know for sure tho unfortunately. I can't wait for cost caps, and I hope alphatauri end up being nasty good. I also think to fix F1 the right way you need to make it so that if a team ends up with its two cars next to each other, they can race each other at the end without worrying about stupid team points/crashing out. What if you cumulatively scored each cars position for each lap of the race, and that's how points were awarded? Or award like 80 percent of team points based on car position at the 5 laps to go mark, than let them duke it out for the last 20 percent? Basically make the actual finishing position of each car less relevant to "team points" so that these guys can mix it up properly. If Hamilton and Bottas are P1/P2, as a fan come end of race I absolutely want to see them in a fight to the death to win without worrying about the stupid team points. If it means two wrecked cars, so be it. As for the Canadiens...rough day lol.

She's grade A but its within her rights at this point to say "I want some sort of stability eventually/not going with you just "anywhere/not giving up my career" if I present AD to her as an option. If she says no, after that what'd do you think would happen? I mean.... that doesn't mean I wouldn't start doing damage somewhere else 😃 Derail over: Takeaway is just make sure your SO is onboard if you do pull AD trigger IMO.

Similar boat, question 1 is an interesting question, don't know. Something that plays heavily in my decision...are you squeaky clean medically? If so AD could work, just bust your ass, and you have maturity on your side. If not, really think about how that may play into everything. If you go AD and get some restriction placed on you, are you gunna be grumpy flying heavies with an AD commitment? I think AD is much more forgiving if you do it out of college at the age of 22,23. That is one of the opportunity costs of trying to make the guard route work unfortunately. And I have heard as long as you're "good" and perform well (you seem motivated to me), worst case they FAIP your ass for a little bit till they can get you close to what you want, but don't quote me on how things are lately, this is all through the grapevine from a couple years ago, I have zero first hand credibility. With regards to "how bad is AD". Are you single, just dating/working at the 10 minute oil change shop, or have you found your life mate? Can the SO follow you around the country/world? For me AD isn't about me...its about dragging the SO all over. Being in the guard and deploying is fine, but she's gotta career too, and in the end self destructing a solid long term relationship to have a low chance to fly my choice hunk of metal is questionable. Flying an F whatever wherever is a total dream...her getting piped by some other ass clown because shes had enough of my lifestyle...not so much. Edit Add: I do plan on looking into the Navy and updating my other thread when I get the chance, especially if the odds of getting a hornet are a lot higher...

thanks for the scoop dude

What I think seems weird....ok I get Lewis/Max are probably the best, but are they really that much better than Perez/Bottas to be opening such large gaps? Initially is was a "WOW Lewis is THAT good, he's just THAT much better than Bottas". But now with Max and Perez, it looks like the same rodeo again. Lets not forget Perez only won because the Pirellis went kaboom on Max. I really do wonder if the whole things rigged sometimes... Remember Russells "tire mix up"? How convenient....wouldn't want to throw some schmuck in the car and have them coast to a win... In a sport with the amount of money that gets thrown around in F1....nothing would surprise me.

Safe to assume no invite to visit New Orleans means no dice? Just wondering if anyone's heard anything.

Hes getting that F1 test tho I think... would hate to lose him, be nice if he stayed, super stars like him can help thrust a series back into the spotlight.