MSC

101 and advanced concepts in high pressure situations. Hostage situations where the perp/perps has a high level of narcissism, negotiators in those circumstances will throw out more ladders than if the perps weren't highly narcissistic. Face saving is important for de-escalation. With the $100b pledged, they could theoretically start slowly spending that to show intent to follow through, and float the possibility of more investment down the line, then just wait 3+ years saying the next check "will be here in two weeks and it'll be the most beautiful check you've ever seen!" And keep your fingers crossed that Trump's attempt at establishing his dictatorship fails in 2028. Sometimes as well this is the best strategy for encouraging behavioural change. Reflect the narcissists behavior right back at them, commit the same wrongs, but against them. I literally do the same thing with my 4 year old daughter. If she's having a particularly bad day I just start acting like a toddler "that's my toy! You can't have it! I'm tired and hungry! Feed me! Blablabla" until she says "hey stop acting like a kid". She finds it funny but it gives her some perspective too. I'm thinking about having her run for president in 2028, the bar is so low now that a toddler is probably considered qualified now right? Oh wait she won't even be a toddler then, even better!

Yeah. I mean I didn't really have a point to make by it, other than to say I don't care what most men think because the truly egoic ones have a laughable tendency to forget their own mortality and that for all their attempts to avoid it, we all go back to the dirt. I'm under no illusion that the framers were no saints, and if it would piss them off to have black folk, women, the disabled etc walking around with the same rights as white men, then I guess I'm the sort who would just want to piss them off and I'll gladly use the "all men" line as definitionally "human" if it pisses off those sorts of people.

Quite Jon Snow like, knows nothing 😂

It means "all men must die" I mean we can disagree on the details but we both agree people like Trump are a problem. I get what you're laying down, Trump is morally stupid. I'd not like to hazard a guess at how smart or dumb he may be, because all I see is a huge ego behind a camera who has the power to make all of our lives miserable. Shamelessness is probably the real reason. Enablement of people who ought to know better but... Don't. I don't know, call him what you want. He's a problem.

While I agree, when we look at the sort of results Trump has in terms of being a self serving gross weasel, to say he is unintelligent would be underestimating him and while he is definitely not a genius, he is criminally sophisticated and surrounds himself with people who are more intelligent in the ways that he needs them to be, because they are all flocking to manipulate him too. Oh I dunno, Valar Morghulles? 😂

The framers themselves weren't even really fighting against English common law specifically, they were fighting to have rights within English common law. Would they have done away with monarchy and nobility if they had fair and equal representation in parliament? Would independence have been declared at all? One little tidbit about the "all men created equal" line; the word Man and men, has in fact spent more time definitionally meaning "human" than it has meaning "male specifically. The old English word for male, is "wer". While it is important to note that "man" did also mean "Male" by 1776, "man" was still also used as a catchall term for "human" or "mankind" I'd also note that the "Man" as "human" definition has been used as recently as the 20th century. Especially in literature. Tolkien uses the term "world of men" in LOTR to define humans as a race.

Agreed, I think he's smart enough to know what reasonable people think, in the same way you can be smart enough to know what your enemy is thinking. But he doesn't recognize equality as some truth he internally recognizes as such and just lies about to manipulate people, he manipulates people because he disagrees with that being true, because he does believe he is superior. He obviously also believes white rich people are superior to because he is one himself.

I think the issue lies in assuming a modern parlance in the use of the term "all men". Etymologically speaking, the word Man has spent more time, in English, as meaning "people, man woman or child" as it comes from the old English"Mann" whereas the old English term for male specifically was "Wer". As such at the time of 1776 the usage of "all men" was more commonly taken to mean "mankind". You can still find the old term for "Male" in some words. Werewolf means man-wolf as an example. It's naturally open to debate though as "man" had spent at least 200 years also meaning specifically male. Getting off topic though, ultimately I do understand the sentiment behind the criticism of the intentions of the framers of both the declaration and the Constitution as they were... Men of their times I guess.

Unamended, yes, as it stands, the constitution is a living document and the definition of a citizen has been amended towards greater inclusivity. I think what @TheVat is saying, is that the framework for equality was always there, and now that initial framework has been amended to be much more than that, it has made diversity, equity and inclusion, constitutional.

Pretty new to this topic but if someone could fill me in on a few questions; Is the conservative candidate likely to capitulate to Trump? How volatile is the polling in response to American threats to Canada?

Adding to this point; systemic racism has also birthed some very dangerous myths about black people, within medicine. Thicker skin, higher tolerance to pain being a few of those myths. This is one of the reasons why DEI in medicine is clearly needed. These myths also contribute towards health outcomes for black women in labour. Their pain is minimized and ignored a lot of the times. When a white women is in labour, her pain is viewed as information that reflects the difficulty of her condition, if she feels something is wrong, they'll listen. A black woman in labour is far more likely to be dismissed when self reporting their own symptoms. The worst thing about it, is that even when faced with these statistics, racists and eugenics espousers will deny these health outcomes have anything to do with different treatment and everything to do with genes and genetics. What I would also add is that even when they aren't successful or helpful, its less to do with DEI as a concept and more to do with the competency of the individuals implementing the policies. To me, it's like listening to people say boxing is a terrible form of self defense, when really the only thing making them say that, is they happened to see someone try to box who happened to suck at boxing. As far as I'm concerned, the road to proving that DEI is a bad thing, requires actively proving that each portion of that acronym DEI; Diversity, equity and inclusion, are a net negative towards the thriving of the species, individually and collectively in the long-term. As far as I can make out, we owe our current state of humanities progress, to the strength we have in our species diversity, and when we value that diversity we recognize the value of keeping things fair and inclusive, not just from the physiological perspective where psychologically we are pro-social animals, but sociologically too; as the person who cures cancer, eliminates chronic illness, achieves FTL etc could come from any demographic. Do we physiologically need there to be a first man/woman/other, Black/White etc person on the moon or Mars? No, sociologically though, you want that inspiration to be impactful for as many as possible because the more people encouraged to do great things for the sake of the species, the better the species. I think those against DEI also really have to do a better job of not only explaining why diversity, equity (fairness) and inclusion are bad, but also explaining how they aren't being included in this? Can't be that it excludes white males, because I'm a white male and I do not feel excluded and my social circle has many friendships which transcend national, cultural, racial, class and religious divides and my life feels all the richer for it. Not only that, courts have upheld lawsuits on discrimination grounds where the pursuant was a white male. So clearly DEI laws and policies enabled that lawsuit as yes, advocates of DEI will all tell you the same thing, it's not okay to discriminate against a white male because they are a white male. Agreed. +1 Anyone that doubts the truth of this, a quick Google search of "FLDS" or "Catholic sex scandal" should suffice. Anecdotally I also read a story of a girl who was about to be date raped by a white guy, and was saved by a drag queen, or as she called "her fairy dragmother." I also walked away from a group of neds (Non-educated delinquent) kicking the shit out of me because of a gay guy I went to school with, getting me TF out of there and putting himself between me and four guys all twice his size. I'd say the majority of the violence I've experienced in life, has come from my own demography, white guys.

It almost sounds like your problem isn't really with DEI, but that one of the things that isn't often enough explicitly included in those policies, is socioeconomic class. This to me suggests that the better use of your time that would be in line with your values, isn't arguing for getting rid of DEI, but for expanding it. There is pragmatic sense in this, as when it comes to actively pursuing a credible case of discrimination on the basis of race or gender or some other protected characteristic, outcome is decided by how much money you can afford to throw at a lawyer, not whether or not a violation of employment law was actually committed. However there are some clear misunderstandings about class and a strange focus on billionaires vs the middle class specifically in your comment. Not sure I understand this rather specific portion, as I'm part of the working class and honestly feel that there is a level of privilege the middle class has, that causes them to behave in ways that benefit the billionaires in the long-run anyway, and it usually involves taking advantage of the lower socioeconomic classes or depriving them of access to the necessities of life that enable survival, nevermind the ability to thrive and prosper. In the end though, class is just another thing that divides us, but it's the division with the clearest impact and so it's unspoken in comparison with the more cosmetic aspects of difference that people use to drive wedges between humans.

Firstly; as individuals not around during the reign of Nero, how can we say if people then were dumber or smarter about it? Not exactly the same anyway. The important aspect of this for me is the technology differences. Only thing worse than Hitler, is Hitler in the present, with modern technology and the knowledge of what went wrong last time. Lo and behold, this time Trump wants Russia on side.

It's oh so much worse this time around. We can go all day comparing them to mental Roman emperor's/consuls/dictator, we can go all day comparing them to Hitler or whoever else but what this all fails to capture this time, is that it is all so much worse this time around. The people we are dealing with now, have the potential to make past tyrants look like absolute primitive amateurs. Musk wants to put neurochips in people, he wants big powerful spaceships, he has many many satellites in the sky that are one good payload away from being a superweapon and is fiending for as much control of governments around the world as he can get. He's far younger than Trump and while Trump is a problem that may go away from a coronary tomorrow, Musk is much younger and he isn't the only billionaire or wannabe billionaire out there having fever dreams of being the dictator that figures out a lasting formula.

Welcome to the resistance. Never forget.

I just want to springboard off your point a bit, to add that if we really really wanted to look at merit honestly and we cross referenced with actual metrics from academic institutions and the workplace, what we'd find is that more often than not, women perform better than men in the workplace (on average they are harder workers) and girls perform better than boys in academic settings and are far more likely to go to college and less likely to drop out than their male counterparts. This is in effect why DEI policies are valuable, because without them, we are free and clear to steer away from merit whenever we want. Like the term "corruption", merit is differently defined and conceived in MAGA world (because what is a cult without it's own vocabulary?). For example for people like us; merit is competency, intellect, ability to apply knowledge effectively etc. In MAGA world; Merit is tribal loyalty, submission to authority and a commitment to uphold a social norm that favours rich white men over others, as they are the authority. You don't have to be a rich white man to have this kind of merit, you just have to be working in their favour or specifically in favour of the rich part of that, in order to have the kind of "merit" they want. This relates to their conceptualisation of "corruption" as corruption is anything that subverts the authority of the rich, usually under the guise of claims of moral corruption, tied to white Christian nationalism. If I had to pinpoint one failure of DEIA, is that it doesn't address socioeconomic class and doesn't protect it. If it had been doing so more effectively from the get go, poor white families would have been less likely to buy into the propaganda against it. While some places include socioeconomic class in their holistic review process, they are not legally compelled to do so. There are even legal loopholes here in the United States, taken advantage of by upper caste Indians, who carry on caste based discrimination here in the USA, even though such a thing is now illegal in India, because few states or the federal government define caste as a protected characteristic. The cold hard truth of the matter is that without law telling people what not to do, people will do it. Also there is a distinct flaw in the reasoning against DEI in that it discriminates against white people. So the argument; anti discrimination laws make it easier to discriminate against white people, inherently relies on the existence of what it is arguing against, in order to argue against it. "We shouldn't have laws against discrimination, because discrimination is bad, because those laws say it is bad."

Or it's to encourage more cyber attacks in the United States, on the understanding they will be done for pro-Trump and pro-Putin reasons and objectives. At the very least expect more Russian propaganda and misinformation to fill the social media space unchallenged. I've also heard rumors that a lot of Republican politicians are being threatened with death now if they don't toe the party line. Considering that any threat reported would go straight to Trump's FBI, I actually don't doubt it.

This may actually be a point of contention between Trump and Musk in the future. Trump essentially trying to bully his way to a sweetheart deal for that silicone shield, remove it from Taiwan, sell them out anyway, VS Musk who may not want to lose access to those chips for his businesses. I don't think it's as simple as removing the chip manufacturing to America though. Isn't it the minerals Taiwan has access to that really provides that shield?

Right. It's also very hard to tell exactly what someone is like when all you see of them is through a camera and they are playing to an audience. I think it is fair to say that Trump has a decent array of acting skills and is quite comfortable behind a camera. When it comes to technical or scientific speak, he is able to use that moment to reach the uneducated and work on them with what usually amounts to "shut up nerds, we don't need these nerds right guys?". I've only ever met one person who was able to tell me what he was like in person, coincidentally this person was also able to tell me what Obama was like in person, having served food to both, he is the executive chef for the 49ers, he's a Scottish expat like me and we stayed at the same Airbnb for a bit which is where I met him. Anyway, according to him, one common thing Trump and Obama share in common is that they are super likeable and funny 1-1. Trump loves a good ego stroking but he's also very adept at stroking the egos of others. Not only that he is good at attacking the egos of others. It's the cycling between encouraging love and appreciation toward himself and fear of vengeance. What he does is very common in the behaviors of people with BPD. Splitting people into two very black and white personalities so that you treat them like they are evil when doing something you disapprove of and like a saint when doing something you approve of. When I think about the childhood experience of Donald Trump, it makes me think of two cultures. When looking at the dynamic between Trump's father, brother and himself, it brings to mind Sith (from Star wars) and Roman culture. Domination, backstabbing, stepping on one another for fathers love etc. Holy shit, I wonder if Daddy issues are a common theme among Trump supporters 😂 😂 When it comes to Trump, as within, so without. He'll encourage this kind of backstabbing fight within his people in the USA and encourage it in foreign policy too. Trump I think does want to carve up the world between dictators like him and they are all going to think they are playing each other, locking out democratic competition in order to absorb and have enough to outright crush each other in a land and power grab race that spans the globe. Just like the axis powers were going to do. Make no mistake though, if WW2 had ended with the Axis powers being victorious, the next WW was going to be between them. Now it's between the allies of WW2 to some extent. If WW3 is going to be the US, Russia and China carving up the rest of the world, one day their borders will all that will be left to touch each other, and WW4 goes boom.

Honestly, with that many huge egos in one group, they probably all think they are playing each other. Each thinking they are the mastermind behind their rise. For now it's back scratching, but there may be a subtle backstabbing shootout building. That said, I do agree that because of age and ailing mental faculties, it is going to be easier for Musk and Vance to manipulate Trump. However it still isn't beyond Trump to out play and throw away the others like a used up toy, same way he did to Mike Pence. What really matters is whether or not Trump and his Cabal can keep their ragtag group of backstabbing weasels together long enough to completely lockout democratic competition in the inevitable power struggle.

I should have been more clear earlier, in all that waffle of mine, what I meant to say is that actions speak louder than words. Say by doing. Sometimes in diplomacy, the only way forward is to create the conditions for peace, on the battlefield. Russia needs to hurt far more than it is hurting because of this war. I'm saying war isn't off the table in diplomacy. Nuclear war is the option that needs to be eliminated really. Putin is on the verge of playing the finale of a strategy, America should be familiar with. Politically and economically destabilize a target, incite a civil war/revolution/rebellion in that target, swoop in to side with the camp that's more friendly to you or easier to take advantage of. That is what needs to happen in Russia, hell or high water. When it's Russians leading the charge, the nuclear option the Russian government has, is defanged. At this point I think Putin is treading water and is just trying to scratch out something he can call a win for Russia. This war did not go the way he had planned and may have shown his cards directly to the rest of NATO, who have been watching, studying and preparing. Unless he can get overt American aid from Trump, against NATO... I just don't see it. That said, if I was China right now, looking at Trump, I'd be planning to invade Taiwan by the end of the year. War is a part of diplomacy. If a Klingon threatens you, Threaten right back. If you're dealing with a bully, out bully them back. Giving Russia concessions now, amounts to giving positive reinforcement to a dog after it bites someone.

Something Putin has violated and then some. There is already a war. A war started by Putin, it may be that future historians will mark the start of a third world war, as being a time that has already passed by us, if we recognize a cold start. Maybe when Russia annexed Crimea, maybe later, maybe sooner. There are no easy answers when we consider what lies in front of us now, I am hesitant to say that a third world war is inevitable, but considering who is in the Whitehouse and how things are going, and considering how little impact we ourselves or people like us, can have on the outcome except to watch... Maybe it is inevitable. I'm really not sure. Yup, typically VPs just end up as the administrations attack dog. That's what Vance is, just be careful he doesn't stop to try and hump your leg.

Those, are excellent questions. The answers lie in how you practice diplomacy. If all diplomacy is to you, is speaking and words on a page, then no, diplomacy does not work with sociopaths, simply because you're not willing to speak their language. If action is also part of the diplomats arsenal, which I believe it is, then yes. Diplomacy can work with a sociopath, it does however require clearly dominating them in some fashion or having unique circumstances within which to find common ground. An example is that the West was able to work together with Stalin, because of a shared enemy in Hitler and clear US nuclear dominations in full display at the wars conclusion. Zelenskys approach, of pressuring Russia, invading back, fighting tooth and nail and being man enough to ask the world for help, that is the correct approach. If I had one criticism of how Biden handled Putin, he wasn't aggressive enough. Nato should have done far more than it did. Trump's approach... Well if your goal is to Marry Putin and be his new wife, he's on the right track.

Did I seriously just watch Vance trying to make claims about being more diplomatic, to then watch a master class on how not to do diplomacy? I don't know exactly the process by which Trump and Vance receive their paycheck from Putin, but pretty sure Putin will feel like they earned it 100%. This was like watching a pair of mangy scrawny dogs trying to pick a fight with a wounded bear. I've honestly never felt such sympathy for a politician but Zelensky shows such self restraint here, I'd have smacked the eyeliner right off JDs face. "Propaganda tour" seriously? Those are real buildings destroyed by Russia, real dead bodies, real stories. Where is the propaganda? This war has been so extensively documented and watched for so long and he has the gall to suggest it's just propaganda? This is a new low, are Americans really going to keep standing for this? Is there going to be no public pushback against this administration?

Right. The fact that a word and phrase that comes from ebonics is the one being demonized, shouldn't be lost on anyone. Definitionally it is no different to being aware, but people still use the term "awareness campaign" and the term "raise awareness" without batting an eye. Even heard the phrase "raise awareness of the dangers of wokism" like what? raise awareness of the dangers of being aware? Are you broken? As far as I'm concerned, anyone telling you awareness itself is the enemy, is someone trying to benefit from your lack of awareness. It's easier to steal from and abuse the blind and the sleeping than those who are awake.