Yeah, he actually did argue that Russia was a potential threat to Ukraine, at least back in the 1990s. Russia loves to cite his work in regards to NATO expansion but quite conveniently forgets to mention that right after the end of the Cold War, he also argued in favor of a Ukrainian nuclear deterrent. If only someone would remind Russia of this. Seriously. A deal where Ukraine gets eventual EU membership, Austria-style neutrality, and its own nuclear deterrent seems like a great deal for both Ukraine and the West and would be a viable alternative to Ukrainian NATO membership!

I wish that Light didn't make himself so exposed to L by killing Raye Pember.

Well, it's probably not the whole story since there is the occasional non-homicidal black or Hispanic country such as Chile or Ghana.

And Portugal, which can be labelled Hispanic since it was also a part of the Roman province of Hispania.

Frankly, I like L's cleverness and seductive voice most of all.

https://archive.ph/Dk1Wc

Quite interesting that the most violent countries are primarily black and Hispanic.

Certainly, government power is weaker in Latin America--or in 1990s Russia--relative to the West. For that matter, Western government power was likely weaker several centuries ago relative to right now. This opened the door for non-state actors to engage in more violence.

WWI was very useful for redrawing the map of Europe in a more ethnic manner. The problem, of course, is that this involved a very high cost, for everyone but especially for Russia, which descended into Bolshevism and was thus unable to help maintain this new European order, thus subsequently helping lead to WWII twenty years later.

There's suffering but there's also a lot of joy. A lot of people consider the suffering to be worth it due to the joy.

And are a lot of anti-natalists from financially well-off backgrounds? If so, then that means that their kids are likely to suffer less than normal children. Unless I suppose the anti-natalists just beat them up to a bloody pulp or something, but that would be against anti-natalists' ethical code since anti-natalists want to *prevent* suffering.

The allegation is that surrogacy, while consensual, is exploitative. I don't fully subscribe to that logic because, like organ donation, it can significantly improve people's lives, including those who do the giving. But the risk of exploitation can still be there if women are poor.

I'm not talking about unsuspecting brain-dead women since we'd have an opt-out system in place for this similar to for organ donation. So, they could withdraw their consent to this while they were still alive.

But anyway, a brain-dead person, due to not being sentient any longer, no longer has any interests. Meanwhile, a sentient surrogate still does have interests, including the interest not to be exploited. So, the "injury" to the brain-dead person is less severe, so to speak.

Had Serbia accepted Austria-Hungary's ultimatum towards them, it's possible that Austria-Hungary would not have invaded Serbia in 1914.

Sure, when our ancestors were cavemen, things were much more violent, presumably. AFAIK, even Europe in the Middle Ages was much, much more homicidal than present-day Europe is. Possibly comparable to present-day Latin America or 1990s Russia.

I'm not saying that, but some people are. Richard Hanania, for instance, IIRC, was previously making an argument along these lines. Specifically that Ukrainians should quickly fold because resistance is futile anyway.

Philippe Lemoine on Twitter also argues that we should give in to Russia's nuclear threats over Ukraine, etc. since the alternative to this would be risking nuclear war. I wonder if he would apply the same logic back in 1914 and 1939.

I actually do think that WBGD is likely to be ethical. After all, surrogacy is extremely expensive. If this can significantly reduce the costs of surrogacy, then why not aim for this? Right now, Americans who want a discount on surrogacy need to rely on, say, Mexican surrogates. Would WBGD really be worse than this?

Yep. :(

Question about Jesus: They say that he was lifted up to Heaven after his Resurrection, right? Yet we've already been above the clouds (with airplanes) and even in space and there's no Heaven anywhere there. So, where exactly was Jesus allegedly lifted up to?

It's based in terms of probabilities, IIRC. So, the simplest hypothesis is not guaranteed to be true, but it is more likely to be true. In other words, if you were a betting man, then that is the way that you should be betting. At least as a general rule.

I mean Jerry Seinfeld. The man himself.

Wouldn't the 90s and 00s have consisted of your early adulthood, then? Seinfeld is around your age, if not even a little bit older, I think.

I don't think that heavily white or East Asian countries would be very homicidal even with very relaxed gun laws. Those demographics, on average, just aren't very homicidal to begin with.

Does northern New England have very strict gun laws? Because AFAIK it's not that homicidal. But what works in its favor is that it's much whiter than the rest of the US is.

If getting the lamp isn't guaranteed, then I certainly wouldn't be willing to kill anyone.

Really, the answer to the question as to whether the ends justify the means is "It depends".

Frankly, anti-natalism for high-IQ people has struck me as being rather stupid since this would only contribute to dysgenics for future generations. If future generations will, on average, become duller, than this would be worse for humanity as a whole. Even the people who want to curb their fertility for the sake of the planet are being stupid IMHO because this would simply mean that there would be fewer people in future generations who will intensely care about this topic because such people will simply be weeding themselves and their own political views out of the future gene pool.

Even if one doesn't want to personally raise children, one can still have them and then give them up for adoption in the form of an open adoption. But of course this is easier to do for women than for men. A man would need to hire a surrogate and use an egg donor for this (in order to be the child's sole legal parent so that he could subsequently unilaterally give the resulting child(ren) up for adoption), and even Mexican surrogates cost a lot of money for Americans. One would be expected to spend tens of thousands of one's own money in order to improve the future human gene pool, and that's too altruistic to expect from most anti-natalist/childfree people. I myself might not mind doing this if I actually had the money for this, though. I'm a huge fan of *voluntary* eugenics.

Focus on things that you enjoy in life. Good food, good movies/TV shows, good books, et cetera. Try deriving as much joy from these things as possible.

Also, go on anti-depressants if necessary because a lot of times people unfortunately can't will themselves to stop being depressed due to it apparently involving biological factors in their brain or something like that.

Ever watched King of Queens? And/or Seinfeld?

What do you think of the anime Death Note?

I hope so as well. If it's not from Hunter Biden's laptop, though, then I wonder where exactly that photo came from. Is there something that the authorities need to be alerted about? I sure as Hell hope not!

Strange that Twitter won't remove this Tweet even after I complained at least twice about it to them. :(

Do you think that this photo really did come from Hunter Biden's laptop?

:)

Do you believe that this photo really did come from Hunter Biden's laptop, though? I mean the child bikini photo.

Yeah, posting it might not have been the smartest move on my own part.

I do wonder if that child bikini photo really did come from Hunter Biden's laptop, though. And if not, I wonder where exactly it did come from./

Thanks; will learn from my mistake in the future!

He's wrong if one believes that what distinguishes revolutions from coups is massive popular participation.

Well, why exactly can't Ukraine tell them: "We think that this is the best deal that we are capable of getting at the moment?"

You do need to keep in mind that the West did not want this war in the first place; Russia did.

Referring to the events of 2014 in Ukraine as a coup is rather misguided since it was a popular movement. "Revolution" seems much more fitting.

And Yes, the US did engage in military cooperation with Ukraine pre-2022 invasion because doing so was the only realistic way that the US/West could satisfy Ukraine's security concerns for the time being, specifically by increasing the costs of a Ukrainian invasion for Russia.

Mearsheimer also said that Ukraine should have its own nuclear deterrent:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/1993-06-01/case-ukrainian-nuclear-deterrent

(This article can be found for free on LibGen in its entirety.)

Would Russia have actually approved of this?

As for the US blocking a truce, whether or not to continue the war is Ukraine's (and Russia's) decision. The US (and the rest of the West) can offer Ukraine advice, but ultimately, it's still Ukraine's decision to make. The West didn't force Ukraine to continue the fight. Since Ukraine did so, it's presumably because it felt that it would get a better deal by doing so.

Boston isn't that poor by global standards, but in a relative sense, in comparison to Cleveland, Yes, though the case would be much more compelling if you fled from a place that was poor by global standards.

Yep, very possibly. Denying child sex dolls and child sex robots to minor-attracted people, for instance. Some or even many people appear to be cool with doing this, but this might become an unpopular position in the future if future people will come to believe that *everyone* who is capable of doing this should be able to express their sexuality in an exclusively harm-free manner.

And of course, polyamorous relationships could get more acceptance and recognition in the future. And maybe the public will become more tolerant of an atheist President in the future. Who knows, right?

Well, Yeah, that's fleeing poverty and misery in their home countries.

There is an easy way to get more black mathematicians. Specifically provide huge incentives for black mathematicians and other extremely smart black people to have extremely massive families. In other words, race-specific voluntary eugenics. And/or you could import black mathematicians from abroad. Though there probably aren't that many of them throughout the entire world either.

This is why I personally believe that people should be judged by the standards of their times and not by the standards of other times. This is why, for instance, someone such as Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin is so repulsive; specifically, such people's behavior was extremely vile and atrocious even by the standards of their own times. But this is different from, say, criticizing JFK for opposing same-sex marriage, when very likely 90+% of the US population felt the same way that he himself did.

In addition to future generations possibly viewing us as savages for eating meat, future generations could possibly view us as savages for aborting fetuses (if public opinion will eventually take a sharply anti-abortion turn) or, alternatively, for refusing to give unwilling male parents a unilateral opt-out from paying child support. Right now, the only two guaranteed choices that males have in regards to this are abstaining from penis-in-vagina sex with all fertile and potentially fertile cisgender females or literally getting surgically castrated, since even a bilateral epididymectomy combined with a radical scrotal vasectomy can theoretically fail even after three successful/negative semen analyses. Future generations could view the lack of genuine male options in regards to this as being completely barbaric! Seriously.

"You say "A state is choosing new residents and eventually citizens on the basis of desirable traits, with those who fail to qualify often being condemned to lifetimes of poverty, misery, and/or oppression." Do you have any evidence to show this is true?"

Do you deny that developing countries are, on average, poorer, more miserable, and more oppressive than developed countries are, with the difference between them being quite stark in some cases?