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U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for 'national security'

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Re: U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for 'national security'

#101

2028: "To be secure as a nation we need to stamp out all dissent against the government and require all citizens to swear unyielding loyalty to the President."

This is 100% coming barring a mass political rising

yep. Tried to overthrow the government once already, with no consequence, so there's no reason not to try it again. This time he's way more entrenched/powerful. He & VP have said multiple times they want to remove all govt workers who aren't "their people", which would make a 1-Party state, aka authoritarian regime. Culmination of Project 2025 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025#Allegations_of_au...).

We're going to lose Iran war, which will put more pressure on "national security" & economy. That'll dovetail into 2028 elections. So he'll start a new war, claim there are extremists at home, start martial law, refuse to leave office. When that happens, same things that happen in every authoritarian regime will start. He's said publicly he wants to jail his enemies and curtail rights like free speech and journalism. It'll be extended into more fearmongering about minority groups to galvanize the base. Those big detention camps will get a lot bigger. Economy will be in the shitter, but that's fine, just blame it on "enemies", talk about "empire", and start a world war. Draft comes back, suddenly you have a huge infantry, lots of factory workers, staffed largely by political enemies.

Re: U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for 'national security'

#102
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI will perhaps take “all the jobs” in a far distant future. Hopefully by then humanity has managed to get educated and learned to cooperate and share.

It doesn't have to take all the jobs. If it can take most of the fake jobs we've invented over the years, it will be massively destructive to our way of life. It seems to already have that level of capability. Funny that you assume education will lead to some sort of egalitarian society. What do you think the point of modern education is? We all take the course in evolution and natural selection, whether we want to o…

I didn’t make the point that education automatically leads to an egalitarian society.

I made the point that humans can be educated to care for one another(indoctrination if you will).

Re: U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for 'national security'

#103
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fascism of Europe in in the 1930s was EXPLICITLY anti-capitalist. You can read tons of statements by various prominent fascists about how capitalism was the tool of the British empire and "globalists"(they often used a different word). They viewed it as separating the people from the land. Capitalists were not in any way fundamental to the rise of Nazism. If you're on about Pinochet, he only embraced market refor…

Trump is also often anti capitalist, between tariffs and government shares in business. There is what fascists say and what they do, and industrialists were often very good Nazis.

Lot's of political movements are/were anti-capitalist.

> industrialists were often very good Nazis

This is sort of banal. Lots of X "were good nazis". Where you could substitute scientists, elementary school teachers, trade unions, priests, bus divers, authors, political scientists, or farmers for X. It was a totalitarian society, everyone who wasn't on board was coerced by threat of violence to at least put on the outward appearance of being in support.

Re: U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for 'national security'

#104

I always thought Trump was such a joke. Completely non-threatening, just a big personality who kept popping up here and there. I even bought a MAGA hat back in the summer before the election explicitly because I thought it was hysterical he was even running, and knew he would lose. I thought the whole thing was a gag, a joke, just like Bloomberg. It didn't even cross my mind that someone so woefully inadequate for th…

Sorry, are you referring to the summer of 2015? Because purchasing a MAGA hat in 2025 for the lols is tasteless and shameful. I share your surprise generally, but at a certain point it’s just irresponsible to treat it all like a joke with no consequences

yes 2015

Re: U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for 'national security'

#105
post #25

The thing says they can now dispose of trash and do loud things in the Gulf of Mexico (America haha). But what does that actually get us? Googling and LLMing around it allows normal sea operations in the Gulf so drilling is possible etc. Interesting. So they’re going to try to get more oil out of there? Can’t say I trust their competence very much here. It’s more likely to be a carve out for a friend than anything el…

This is more preemptive I suspect- 'they' have been reclassifying different species trying to get a bona-fide Gulf endangered one to use against exploration and production. Especially that one whale subspecies. This kills that on multiple fronts.

The snail darter play. Makes sense.

Re: U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for 'national security'

#107
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me rephrase that to provide a different connotation: Liberals want to kill economic progress to save a few animals. Neither side is honest, it's just a matter of framing and perspective.

What would Trump have to do for you to not give him the benefit of the doubt from that point forward?

Okay, since you asked (unpopular, but I have karma to burn, c'est la vie):

This myopic focus on Trump ignores the real issue: Environmentalism is a secular religion, a theocracy, a dogma. Like any religion it employs circular reasoning to justify its existence, namely stemming from this assumption that nature is sacred, vulnerable and deserving of our protection. This faulty assumption is treated as a self-evident tautology and questioning it is shunned, the hallmark of any run-of-the-mill religion.

Environmentalism says it's not worth discovering fire because we would have to burn trees to use it. Think about this carefully: That's not a rational position but an emotional appeal. The thought process is "I would rather go hungry than hurt this poor tree," whereas that poor tree may have ruthlessly strangled the roots of nearby plants in its quest to thrive and grow. If you understand why this argument is irrational, you understand the basic flaw with environmental thought.

Extending that principle to the planet, we come to a foundational truth: Nature is a relentless competition between all organisms on the planet. This is a testable, provable hypothesis. Every modern day human can trace their ancestry to a person who out-competed other organisms. We are here today because successive descendants of our ancestors continued to pass a fitness test, surviving and procreating sufficiently to make us possible. Our continued existence depends on continuing that trend.

Aiming for sustainability hamstrings our ability to make progress and leaves us uncompetitive relative to our peers. Those who used fire out-competed those who didn't. Those who cut down trees to build farms, cities, countries out-lasted those who didn't. Those banded together to combine their ingenuity to get better, faster, stronger, heavily exploited their environment in the name of progress, are the ones ahead of everyone else. We did not start this trend, nature did. The rules of the game were established billions of years ago. It is sheer hubris to think we are somehow above or outside this meta-loop, a grand delusion that we are somehow masters of nature.

There is only one truth: Either we out-compete or we lose ground. Should we do the other things? Take care of the weak? The poor? The infirm? Sure, but if it comes at the expense of losing our competitive edge, then it won't matter what we do for them, because we won't continue to exist to keep doing it for them.

Re: U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for 'national security'

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would Trump have to do for you to not give him the benefit of the doubt from that point forward?

Okay, since you asked (unpopular, but I have karma to burn, c'est la vie): This myopic focus on Trump ignores the real issue: Environmentalism is a secular religion, a theocracy, a dogma. Like any religion it employs circular reasoning to justify its existence, namely stemming from this assumption that nature is sacred, vulnerable and deserving of our protection. This faulty assumption is treated as a self-evident ta…

.... so you made up a definition of environmentalism so you could be against it?

environmentalism isnt circular. humans evolved to live and survive in a certain environment, and so we will be healthiest and happiest the better we ensure that that environment exists for us to live in.

some sample environmental works:

- making the river stop catching on fire so you can sail on it and fish in it - removing smog so you can go back to breathing - taking the acid out of the rain so it stops eating your car

environmentalism is a competitive edge in and of itself, but also is the foundation that the competition is built on.

Re: U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for 'national security'

#109

Don’t say US. They don’t speak for us all. Only 49.8% of voters. Of which I hope a significant portion have seen the error of their ways come midterms and the next election. Every day is a new embarrassment law or action like this for America until then. I’ve never felt lower about America in my lifetime. The hope I had, the pride I felt in America, is gone, chunk by chunk, piece by piece, every day.

theyre literally your head of state, heads both legislative houses, and the court.

They're all of the positions for speaking for you, elected by the population of the US

Re: U.S. exempts oil industry from protecting Gulf animals, for 'national security'

#110
post #59

Oppositional defiant disorder on a cultural scale. Liberals want to protect animals and shift to use of green energy; therefore the fossil fuel industry must be promoted at all cost (even when they don't want to be, as with Trump forcing obsolete coal plants to remain open) and endangered animals must be killed off.

Let me rephrase that to provide a different connotation: Liberals want to kill economic progress to save a few animals. Neither side is honest, it's just a matter of framing and perspective.

Do you realize that humans are currently triggering a mass extinction event that may very well threaten the very existence of our species within a couple generations?
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