I think United Healthcare is a glaring omission from this design.

Should replace cardinal healthcare (market cap $30b) with UHC (market cap $450b) imo

Yes the British film Battle for Haditha received funding from the DoD’s Entertainment Media Office. It is difficult to find any military film that has not been funded in part by this propagada office.

I do have one fact incorrect though, they did not receive millions. It appears they received much less, although I couldnt find an exact number.

But here you are ignoring the thrust of my argument, that the insidious free market propaganda by the US is much more effective than the heavy handed authoritarian propaganda by China. Yes, you can go get an advanced degree and learn about Haditha freely, but that knowledge is effectively prevented from reaching the broader public.

Both US and China actively deny and suppress information. The Chinese method is more authoritarian, the US method is more effective.

I argue this point on another comment in this thread.

Well I thought we were discussing education, but as far as information supression is concerned, I think both countries are heavily supresssing information, but the US method is simply much more effective.

Take for example an event similar in scale to the Tiananmen massacre, the Haditha massacre. The US military actively suppressed all info after it happened, classifying everything related to the killings. The only information from the state dept about this incident were leaks to the press downplaying the severity of the incident. Later, the DoD spends millions funding a Hollywood film to whitewash the incident, focusing on the perspective of the poor sad soldiers who did the massacre.

The result, I would argue, is that the Haditha massacre has been whitewashed, justified, and erased from history much more effectively than the Tiananmen massacre.

So you were left ignorant of the other half of the atrocities I mentioned, just like we suspect Chinese citizens are ignorant of Tiananmen?

I went to high school in North Dakota btw.

I think there are many events in American history that could be analogous to Tiananmen.

Were you ever educated on the 1985 MOVE bombing? The destruction of black wall street? The house un-american activities committee? The battle of Blair Mountain?

Were you ever taught about any of the coups we did to overthrow democratic governments in latin america? The death squads we trained? The authoritarians and fascists we put into power, and the oppression and death they caused?

Or, in general, the 70-or-so countries we invaded since WWII? I think most Americans can only name Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam.

And that’s just the stuff I can name off the top of my head, I’m sure there are countless American atrocities that I am unaware of.

Personally, the American education system taught me none of that. Many of these subjects are not discussed in broad American culture.

I appreciate your skepticism, but if that’s your burden of proof, then I’m unsure how you would ever form a political opinion. Its conjecture and propaganda all the way down, mate.

The most scientific approach one can take is look at all the evidence, form hypothesis and alternate hypothesis, and determine the likelihood of each.

I do not trust Trump, and I certainly do not believe he cares about Palestinians. But the only hypothesis that seems to fit the facts is “Trump envoy applied pressure, Bibi capitulated”. But if anyone has an alternate theory I would be interested to hear it.

He claimed credit for sending an envoy to Israel to actually use American leverage to procure a ceasefire. The actual terms of the Trump/Netanyahu deal are yet unknown.

If you don’t believe Trumps narrative, then you have to come up with an alternate explanation as to why Netanyahu suddenly accepted the terms of the ceasefire deal that has been on the table since at least May 2023. Personally, I have not heard of a plausible alternate theory.

It’s funny how smart people can recognize that Trump lies all the time, and Trump will tell a room whatever they want to hear, etc.

But if you have a single Trump quote that you think will win an argument, well Trump surely meant it this time, no lie detected.

If there was an “Ugliest Human Alive” competition, Daniella Weiss would have my vote.

She would also be in the running for “most refugees spit on” lifetime award.

My friend, you are still confused.

I was giving the framing that comes from the billionaire owned western media oligopoly position.

that isnt my position

What gave you the idea that I’m dismissing them? I think you’re confused.

Good quote tho

I think the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” idea is overstated, most people I interact with have a somewhat negative outlook on the economy and their future wealth.

I think the real issue is that no viable alternative is presented to most people.

The alternatives presented are Russian-style authoritarian oligarchy, Islamofascism, or a Venezuela-style “socialism” in which the narrative only focuses on poverty.

I never said anything at all about Afghanistan.

You posted a meme about the current leadership of Afghanistan.

I think it’s terrible the state if affairs.

Then why would you post a meme smugly extolling the virtues of the current state of affairs? You can’t have it both ways.

I find this meme to be absolutely vile.

The good people of Afghanistan have been under violent US occupation for decades, and as their final move, the US looted the central banking reserves.

This effectively drained the savings of everyday Afghanis. They no longer have access to their bank accounts. The US stole all the money.

I often wonder, would the good people of Afghanistan be able to overthrow the evil leadership of the Taliban? I wish they could, but overthrowing the Taliban is much less likely when the US has left you in a state of devastation, poverty, and famine.

Then those same western chauvinists can post memes like this, delighting in the Afghan people’s suffering after causing so much of it. Disgusting.

Saying “maybe people are the problem” is reductive and unhelpful. But I agree with you broadly, religion is just a system or a tool, it can be used for good or evil.

To judge if religion is a good system or a bad one, we can use a cost benefit analysis. This is what we have been attempting to do in this thread.

But when it comes to sensitive subjects like religion, many people have a tendency to avoid, overlook, and deny the associated costs.

Anti-science, misogyny, etc may be bad independently of religion, but they aren’t independent of religion. Religion is a source of these problems.

You can imagine a hypothetical religion that is simply a “social club” or whatever, but here in the real world religion comes with baggage.

Religion is why my cousin’s children have never seen a doctor in their life. Religion is why my gay friend in high school tried to kill himself. Religious indoctrination has led to lifelong shame and trauma in many of my friends.

And this was just from a “moderate” sect of Christianity- the millions living under fundamentalist religion have it even worse.

What you said is all true, but you are ignoring the negative aspects of religion.

Religious influence, both on their followers and on government, is anti-science, misogynistic, and anti-LGBT.

Religions are funded like pyramid schemes, with the most desperate and vulnerable as their victims.

Religious indoctrination is child abuse.

If we “all agree” and do a moonshot construction plan we could have electricity in 8 years. This is a fantasy, tho.

Best case scenario in the real world is operational in 12 years.

In the capitalist hellscape here in the US, a reasonable expectation would be 18-20 years.

20 years also happens to be the lifespan of our wind turbines. In 20 years, all of the currently running wind turbine blades will be in a landfill and new ones will need to be manufactured to replace them.

No reasonable person is suggesting nuclear as a short-term option. It’s a long term investment.

Are solar and wind really “clean” energy? Everyone in this thread seems to ignore the costs of these methods.

Every modern wind turbine requires 60 gallons of highly synthetic oil to function, and it needs to be changed every 6 months. That’s a lot of fossil fuel use.

Lithium mining for batteries is extremely destructive to the environment.

Production of solar panels burns lots of fuel and produces many heavy metals. Just like with nuclear waste, improper disposal of these toxic elements can be devastating to the environment.

Of course, solar and wind are a big improvement over coal and natural gas. I dont want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, I just want to be realistic about the downfalls of these methods.

I believe, with our current technology, that nuclear is our cleanest and greenest option.