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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • This deterrent effect doesn’t come just from the NATO treaty … Deterrence comes from the Kremlin’s conviction that Americans really believe in collective defense, that the U.S. military really is prepared for collective defense, and that the U.S. president really is committed to act if collective security is challenged. Trump could end that conviction with a single speech, a single comment, even a single Truth Social post, and it won’t matter if Congress, the media, and the Republican Party are still arguing about the legality of withdrawing from NATO. Once the commander in chief says “I will not come to an ally’s aid if attacked,” why would anyone fear NATO, regardless of what obligations still exist on paper? … When I asked several people with deep links to NATO to imagine what would happen to Europe, to Ukraine, and even to Taiwan and South Korea if Trump declared his refusal to observe Article 5, all of them agreed that faith in collective defense could evaporate quickly. Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and a former deputy secretary-general of NATO, pointed out that Trump could pull the American ambassador from his post, prevent diplomats from attending meetings, or stop contributing to the cost of the Brussels headquarters, all before Congress was able to block him: “He wouldn’t be in any way legally constrained from doing that.” Closing American bases in Europe and transferring thousands of soldiers would take longer, of course, but all of the political bodies in the alliance would nevertheless have to change the way they operate overnight. James Goldgeier, an international-relations professor at American University and the author of several books on NATO, thinks the result would be chaotic. “It’s not like you can say, ‘Okay, now we have another plan for how to deal with this,’ ” he told me. There is no alternative leadership available, no alternative source of command-and-control systems, no alternative space weapons, not even an alternative supply of ammunition. Europe would immediately be exposed to a possible Russian attack for which it is not prepared, and for which it would not be prepared for many years.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/01/trump-2024-reelection-pull-out-of-nato-membership/676120/




  • It is already legal to have a sexual relationship with multiple partners at the same time. Bigamy should be legalised. That it isn’t, is a result of entrenched bigotry and religious prudery.

    If you’re using God as a proper noun, capitalise it. Not capitalising it is potentially confusing. Eg. There are numerous gods. Zeus is a god and God is a god.

    It is likely too late to avert climate apocalypse. Don’t have kids and you’ve done far more than most to prevent climate change. (This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to prevent it.)

    A lot of society’s ills are attributable to arseholes not getting punched in the face enough. This includes the fact that we can’t make it legal to punch arseholes in the face, because arseholes would abuse that right to punch people who don’t deserve it in the face.

    America has become so fat, that most Americans have a skewed perception of what it means to be obese.

    Most sports are stupid. Michael Phelps can swim 6 mph. Fish can swim 10x faster than that. Fuck that. I want to watch a tiger chase Trump through a maze.

    The already high male suicide rate is severely underestimated. A lot of male risk taking behaviour, including car/bike related accidents, is suicidal in nature.

    In practice identity based politics is often used to divide and conquer and distract people from their true interests. Class consciousness is more important. You have more in common with your colleagues, than you do with Beyonce or Joe Rogan, just because they happen to have the same skin colour and/or genitals as you.