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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
OK, what is Beau of the Fifth Column
(linked to in this post
by Oruka) like? The self-description of "a southern journalist who is tired of a lack of common sense" can go either way, and I don't want to waste my time listening to the ravings of a fundamentalist right-winger who tries to masquerade as a "centrist"/"moderate" or something like that if I can help it.
Edited by MarqFJA on Feb 25th 2019 at 4:21:37 PM
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.Generally, when a treaty is made, there's going to more than complete unconditional surrender. The trick is to negotiate a way to make sure that as many people can be protected as possible and end the violence.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Apparently the GND doesn’t actually plan to phase out air travel
, which is one of the main reasons I was hesitant about it. I apologize to anyone whose views I misrepresented or dismissed.
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I meant to say "Why is the Taliban even in a position to gain that much favorable terms into the treaty?" Like, how did they go from being forced into hiding in caves within the inhospitable mountains to resurging as an actual force that you should seriously take as a legitimate power-player within the country that the US had already put a (nominally) democratic (but unfortunately corruption-ridden) republican government in place of the Taliban's horribly opressive and backwards authoritarian theocracy?
Edited by MarqFJA on Feb 25th 2019 at 4:38:08 PM
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.![]()
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Trains are good!
I still have reservations about the nuclear part, although this piece
alleviates them somewhat.
Edited by Spinosegnosaurus77 on Feb 25th 2019 at 8:42:26 AM
Peace is the only battle worth waging.![]()
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Even hiding in caves the Taliban are a permanent destabilizing force in Afghanistan. They know that it takes them minimal resources to throw the entire project off balance and that’s why they’re able to negotiate from a position of power.
Any negotiation with them is obvisouly going to be somewhat limited, but at least bringing them to the table is a good step.
Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 25th 2019 at 5:48:06 AM
They should have sent a poet.The short version for the Afghanistan War issues are:
- The Taliban rule a country. It's Northern Pakistan. It's smaller than Afghanistan but they can recruit, train, and arm there.
- Northern Pakistan is part of Pakistan so it can't be attacked without becoming Cambodia.
- The Taliban control about 10% of Afghanistan and the government controls about 30% with everything inbetween controlled by local tribes and warlords.
- The Taliban is disunited and has no central leadership but they all agree on attack USA.
- The US has trained the Pakistan military as entirely commandos because they don't have any air support or infrastructure for larger vehicles. They work sometimes but it's not capable of actually fighting like a modern war.
- The US presence in Afghanistan is tiny.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Feb 25th 2019 at 5:54:42 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
x4 Some more ideas:
- There also needs to be more overhead (aka federal, not local) investment in public transportation and infrastructure, since a lot of places outside of cities, driving is necessary to get around, and there's not a lot of alternatives.
- Another thing that would be good is creating a Federal program that's dedicated to creating sidewalks and crosswalks in low income neighborhoods, to make it easier and safer for people to walk to jobs or stores, and really improve quality of life
- Public transportation infrastructure grant programs, that is meant to help cities invest in new public transit systems or improve current ones. This would also offer support to cities in negotiating right of ways, technical support. (This one would need a lot of oversight.)
Anyone else have any other ideas for what type of programs they would like to see?
Edited by megaeliz on Feb 25th 2019 at 8:56:15 AM
CNN's highest cost estimate for part of the GND is $1 trillion, with caveats that they don't actually know the cost since the GND is more about goals than concrete policy. There's additional numbers thrown around, but I'm pretty sure all of them added up don't equal the AAF's $50 trillion projection. So somebody is fudging numbers it seems.
The AAF's projection also states some really weird things. It says there are costly and pointless redundancies, highlighting the GND's proposal for both clean energy grids and clean energy retrofitting for buildings. This seems to be missing the point that we want to transition to clean energy as fast as possible, so pursuing both at the same time is ideal. Not to mention they ignore the fact that building producing their own clean energy would be less reliant on the grid, avoiding issues such as surges when everyone is using power at the same time, which is an issue concerning energy transition experts as people transition to electric cars, heaters, etc.
It also says it doesn't see the point of promising a guaranteed job and fair pay while also promising fair housing and affordable healthcare. The people who wrote this don't seem to realize that there are people out there who because of health, or disabilities, or family issues, can't participate in the regular work force. Or that even people who make $15 an hour can be ruined by high medical costs.
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Well, sort of.
The Taliban don’t really properly “control” any territory. It would be more accurate to say they loosely occupy territory. Territory that’s under their control is simply denied to US and Afghan forces, it’s not ruled by anyone.
Pakistan doesn’t really want it either, in fact they spend a significant amount of money and effort keeping the region lawless as a play against the Afghan government. It’s basically a continuous uphill battle because of their influence there.
The Afghan insurgents trained by the US are more or less gone at this point. The groups we’re fighting now are the descendants of those insurgents, while the US could be considered broadly responsible for the rise of these militia-type groups in Afghanistan it doesn’t run training camps or anything silly like that.
Edited by archonspeaks on Feb 25th 2019 at 6:03:03 AM
They should have sent a poet.![]()
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- Lab-grown meat.
- More nuclear (the current plan keeps the existing plants but adds no new ones).
-
A ban on hunting any bird or mammal species not listed as Least Concern by the IUCN.Revenue-neutral carbon tax. - More seaweed farming.
Edited by Spinosegnosaurus77 on Feb 25th 2019 at 9:21:37 AM
Peace is the only battle worth waging.Nvm
Edited by Spinosegnosaurus77 on Feb 25th 2019 at 9:19:38 AM
Peace is the only battle worth waging.As far as I know you cant hunt any species that is at risk in the US legally, I do know that the hunting licensees do fund the conservation programs....
And that the restrictions on at risk species are causing a tone of them to die because people will just kill them in the night rather then reporting them because there existence stalls developments and costs companies millions.... so its easier to just pay some one to deniabley shoot them and carry on like nothing happened. :/
Which is kind of something that needs to be addressed itself because just making it illegal to bother them isn't working.
Actually I do wonder how you could fix that? Offer compensation for the property if an endangered animals is on it? That way it is less "Turtle lives there so your out millions in property" and more "Turtle lives there, take compensation and build somewhere else"
Allowing relocation may be cheaper, but I don't know if you can reliably relocate most critters.
Edited by Imca on Feb 25th 2019 at 6:23:23 AM
I’ve seen people argue that hunting really doesn’t support conservation efforts
, but I don’t know if these arguments have been scrutinized.
Actual Positive Thing About Kentucky:
One of the things that city folk don't tend to comprehend is hunters really really like nature. It's the reason their hobby exists and they are strongly for the protection of wilderness.
They're not captain planet villains.
Generally, many hunters consider their actions as becoming part of nature.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Yeah, hunting's something you only do if you really like the outdoors and 'living off the land. It's also a pretty natural thing to do.
A good (if perhaps very literal) metaphor would be The Lion King, actually. The Lions protect and maintain the pridelands, and look out for the welfare even of the animals they hunt, because that's where they eat.
Leviticus 19:34Most hunters are pretty enviromently minded, with rules on never killing pregnant females or infants and such.
Most problems with hunting comes from places where it is not regulated and endengered animals aren't protected like, well, more African countries than you can shake a stick at.

Losing cities and industries and jobs and homes and lives to climate change is gonna be more expensive.