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ArbitraryValue

@ ArbitraryValue @sh.itjust.works

Posts
8
Comments
1791
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • "On three, we run really fast at the enemy! Ready? One, two..."

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  • Well, look at what is happening in Ukraine now. Even if we don't count the drones, my impression is that a combination of both long-range and man-portable anti-air missiles has made it impossible for either side to use manned aircraft for more than launching cruise missiles at standoff range or shooting down those missiles, also at standoff range from enemy air defenses. The missiles that do get through are usually terror weapons against civilians, with no direct effect on the front lines. Tanks are still being used but they are also so vulnerable to both man-portable anti-tank missiles and accurate artillery that they have generally not been able to achieve WWII-style breakthroughs for either side.

    I know a lot less about the Iran-Iraq War than I do about the current war in Ukraine, but it's the other major post-WWII conflict between industrial powers and it was a bloody stalemate as well. I can't think of other relevant examples (as opposed to wars against insurgents or between the USA and far-weaker Iraq) but maybe I'm forgetting something? Should I be counting the Korean War? I don't think so - the technology hadn't advanced that much since WWII.

    (The absence of direct wars between great powers has been attributed to the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons, but maybe an awareness of the inability to actually achieve anything like blitzkrieg in the modern day played a role too.)

  • "On three, we run really fast at the enemy! Ready? One, two..."

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  • I don't mean that it was a fluke in the sense that it was a random accident, but rather in the sense that it happened in the relatively brief time between the development of tanks and air power and the development of countermeasures effective enough to restore a large advantage for the defender.

  • "On three, we run really fast at the enemy! Ready? One, two..."

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  • One might argue that that's just how industrial warfare works (in situations where one side is not heavily outmatched) and World War II was the exception rather than the rule.

  • Cuddly gerbils

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  • You're right!

  • dad vs watermelon

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  • It's to keep the exposed surface from drying out.

  • Cuddly gerbils

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  • Then why is there an odd number of gerbils?

  • Deleted

    I'm tired of existing

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  • I've been reading about that. I'm also in the position of having tried many different medications, and one of them helps but it just takes me from "very depressed" to "depressed". How expensive is TMS? How often do you need to go have it done? (I know the answers in the general case but I'm curious about your specific experience.)

  • I'm calling the police.

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  • That... doesn't seem bad? No one would mind if he also put some vegetables in there and called it a pasta salad.

  • How it feels

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  • I think my experience proves that succeeding without student loan forgiveness is possible, even in difficult circumstances, and that's why I think the problem isn't student loans.

    Which family you're born into is luck, and so is innate talent, but how hard you work in high school and which major you choose in college are deliberate decisions.

  • How it feels

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  • It's not just luck. Most people I know who started out poor are immigrants whose families worked extremely hard for their sake, and who worked extremely hard in school themselves so that they could get accepted into colleges that offered them favorable terms. There they majored in well-paid fields like finance, law, medicine, or engineering, and afterwards they were able to pay off their debts without issue and live upper-middle-class lifestyles.

    It's a lot harder for people whose well-to-do parents refuse to help, but eventually those people do become eligible for financial aid without counting their parents' income (easiest to do by either waiting until age 24 or getting married) and that financial aid will be quite large if they're poor. As I've said, my family wasn't poor by the time I went to college and my financial aid still covered 2/3 of the cost.

  • How it feels

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  • In the state I am most familiar with, a four-year degree costs about that much only if you live on-campus. The degree itself (without room and board) is $56,160, and that's if you get no financial aid whatsoever (and need all four years to finish - I finished mine in three by taking no classes except the ones mandatory for my diploma, but that's not possible in some universities). Most people are eligible for a lot of financial aid.

  • How it feels

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  • Doctors borrow that much for medical school. Their undergrad degree doesn't cost more than anyone else's.

    The government does step in and run state schools where it sets the prices, and its prices are reasonable. In this context, private universities are a luxury.

  • How it feels

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  • Cause it not like the loans are predatory or anything.

    I've met people who foolishly took out six-digit loans to go to college and I agree that those loans ought to have been denied to them, but most people I know went to relatively low-cost public universities or to the private universities that gave them generous need-based scholarships. My own family wasn't poor by the time I went to college and my education at a prestigious private university cost a total of about $45,000 (in 2006) after the need-based scholarships that I got. Some of that was paid for by loans and I don't feel that those loans were predatory.

    Cause its not like the prices keep going up cause the loans keep giving more and more.

    That's an argument for the government to help college students less, not to help them more.

  • How it feels

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  • The Supreme Court put a stop to it in 2023. Biden v. Nebraska, one of the many recent 6-3 decisions.

    After first establishing that at least Missouri had Article III standing to challenge the debt forgiveness program, Roberts held that the statutory grant of authority to the Secretary of Education to "waive or modify" loan terms could not be extended to the student loan forgiveness program, and that debt cancellation of this scale required clear congressional authorization and fell under the major questions doctrine.

    If only those same six judges were as willing to (properly, IMO) limit Presidential authority now that their guy is in office...

  • How it feels

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  • If you find a cure for your student loans that doesn't involve spending from the common pool of tax money, that's great. I want it to be easy for you to pay off your loans. I just don't want to contribute my money towards that end.

  • Gov. Gavin Newsom targets antisemitism in California schools with new law In signing the law, Newsom rebuffed objections from the state's main teachers union and others.

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  • What's a readability

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  • One day we might be able to create operators with three or maybe even four question marks. Imagine the possibilities!

  • Addictions can start real young

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  • I was at a picnic where a two-year-old girl holding a slice of pizza took a bite and then offered the slice to my dog so that he could have his turn taking a bite. (He had been giving her the hungry-puppy stare.) It's a shame that there was no one ready to photograph the look on her face when my dog grabbed the whole slice out of her hands and ran off with it. That experience is going to be her supervillain origin story.

  • Federal Occupation, coming soon to every American city near you

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  • I don't think "authority" necessarily means "legal authority" here, rather than just "we can't make them". Local EMS personnel can't actually force (in the literal sense) federal agents to do anything and, at least to me, the tone of this memo implies that the person writing it is not happy about the state of affairs. The option to record that a federal agent refused patient transport seems like it is designed with the intent of recording whom to blame on the assumption that someone will get blamed eventually once the political situation changes. (I assume the name being obtained is the name of the agent.)