781–790 of 1001 posts
What are the chances that HN is getting astroturfed these days? Are mods strict about it? I lots of relatively new accounts coming with what seems to me extreme, but altogether pop-culture acceptable opinions
I am just befuddled by how much of this violence is directly motivated by religious concerns, both on the side of Iran and on the side of Israel and USA. I have been reading on the topic of shunyata or emptiness in Mahayana Buddhism, and have been uncomfortably observing just how much of the artifacts we take to be real and substantial in the world are just "made up". They don't have an inherent reality of their own…
Religion poisons everything.
There's the old salt from DFW, "one can't choose whether to worship, only what to worship". Less apologetics, perhaps, than a realmythos (akin to realpolitik).
Nature abhors a vacuum, and something inevitably fills the void: the "god-shaped hole" in individuals, and the game-theoretic basin of attraction, the actual realpolitik of loyalty-signaling, load-bearing fictions which bind an "imagined community". (The first might be manageable, but the second is a doozy: a faith which could not be more explicitly anarcho-pacifist mutated into justification for brutally violent hierarchies of domination and exploitation. So it goes.)
> Iranian media now report 40 killed and 48 students injured following the strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, as rescue and recovery efforts continue. Congrats America!
UPDATE: Reports now say that over 80 school children between the age of 7 and 12 were killed in Minab. How is the Epstein Regime going to survive this politically? How is the Senate (Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, etc.) going to survive this politically?
Ever since the ICE stuff I've been desperate to find a way to not pay my taxes - even if it means donating 2, 3x, hell 4x my tax bill to somewhere else. Obviously it's basically impossible to do this (especially if your income is all self employment income) outside of just spending every penny you earn on something that could be viably considered a business expense. So I'm wondering if I should just straight up stop…
If you're willing to go through all this trouble, why not just become politically active? Don't underestimate what a motivated individual can do. All these public figures (or institutions) swaying the country back and forth are only people too.
People are posting these choice quotes: "In order to get elected Barack Obama will start a war with Iran" —Donald Trump, Nov 29, 2011 "Barack Obama will attack Iran to get re-elected." —Trump, Jan 17, 2012 "Now that Obama's poll numbers are in tailspin watch for him to launch a strike on Libya or Iran. He is desperate." —Trump, Oct 9, 2012