hotspur [he/him]

Yeah was gonna say, since you could deal with this in a normal way and they didn’t, they obviously like this whole dead-sperm retrieval thing, there is definitely some psycho-sexual thing going on. Whole thing is creepy/necrophilia coded.

Hmm does suggest an interesting format for a roguelike though…

I literally thought that’s what the article was describing—the guys mother wanting to get his semen and carry her own grandchild. I guess she intends to find a surrogate, but when the story starts by covering the topic of post-death semen extraction for making new children, anything seems “reasonable”

Side note: if they’re all so concerned about continuing lineages and such, why not make semen donation a required part of the entry physical or something. Surely that would be less weird and dangerous than having dedicated post-death semen extraction services?

The struggle is real. I’ve tried lots of stuff, with variable rates of success. No clear method to solve this issue reliably, but a couple things you can try:

-make a quick list of 4 or 5 items you think you might want to do, rank them by time estimated to do them or get into them. Starting with a quick one often gets some juices going, and may make doing a more involved task easier to tackle. -pick something random, set a timer for 25 mins, and agree to yourself that regardless of progress or outcome, you’re going to mess with random task only for 25 mins. The short time limit allows your brain to counter the idea that you’ll be wasting time if the task isn’t the right one and missing out on the opportunity to do a more fun engaging activity. Limiting distraction devices, depending on what you’re trying to get into here, can be helpful to avoid distraction -if other things aren’t working, and the paralysis is there, I often decide that I need to move somewhere else, or lie down for a shorting, etc. basically you tell yourself “you don’t have to do anything, but you can’t just sit here spinning or thinking about it—take a Nap or a lie down and do breathing exercises for 10 mins. Sometimes after doing this, changing location/and mental spiral process, I’ll find I have the juice to actually start something. -along the same lines, have a couple of neutral but basically “always beneficial” activities in your head that you can use as a way to shake things up. Going for a quick walk will almost never be a useless act (you get exercise, maybe daylight or some greenery, your eyes get to focus on stuff farther away than 3’) or playing with a pet. I often find no matter what I’m spinning about a walk or something physical activity can help change things up and reset my mental state a bit, and if not, well I still did something beneficial for myself; I got some movement in. -the pet one reminds me; often having an activity that involves another creature, whether human or animal, can be motivating. I might not be able to motivate to go for a walk on my own, but when I combine it with the fact that my dog will enjoy and needs to go outside, that can throw it over the threshold. -standard advice about breaking things into smaller parts—if you really want to set up that new gadget, but you constantly do like me and imaging that the task can only be satisfyingly complete if you fully install, on figure and get it working precisely as want, you may avoid the activity because you intuitively understand that it’s unrealistic in the time you have. Instead, try telling yourself: just get it unboxed, and maybe plugged in. I can configure it other time.
-Alternatively if I have task I’m procrastinating on a lot, sometimes I try and grease the wheels so to speak—I agree that I’m not going to replace that faucet in the bathroom, but what I am agoing to do is go collect the tools I’ll need into a bucket, and place it congenitally so that when I do feel like tackling the faucet, I won’t wave off after getting overwhelmed thinking about the prep I have to do. -try visualizing why you want to do activity x. Sometimes these things can devolve to the level of chores, so that what was intended as a hobby/fun activity can begin to read as an obligation with shame attached “I never built that stupid model that I spent all that money on…” try to think of how doing the activiy might make you feel in a good way, or what skills you wanted to explore by doing it. That kind of reframing seems simple, but can sometimes be powerful in changing your approach. Also, sometimes you realize that you don’t really like the activity or want to do it, but feel obligated to continue sine you’re feeling shame about how you “never properly follow through”. I don’t advocate for just quitting things when they get challenging, but you simply can’t do everything., and some things just ain’t going to be your cup of tea. I joined a virtual flight sim squadron once, and while it was initially very neat and educational, I found myself starting to dread the scheduled get togethers. I stuck weeks longer than I should have out of a fear of “Being a quitter” until I finally realized that I was only showing up to not quit, not because I was enjoying my time. Once I realized that and ended my involvement in the activity, I felt such a huge relief… -when in doubt; cull. A lot of times my task-paralysis will spring from having too many things on my plate to choose from, or an unrealistic idea of what could be possible. I’ve been working on forcing myself to pare down, maybe. I started with 5 options, but since I know I can’t do all 5 things, I need to make the decision space smaller. You can try randomly moving stuff into the future, or do A/B testing: “if I had to chose between the first and second task, do I have a strong feeling between the two?” -if you feel discouraged and stagnant, take a moment and think back and see if you notice areas that youe improved with over time—maybe you astarted a hobby 3 years ago, and dipped in and out, and maybe you’re actually better at it you used to be. -and of course, the most important and sometimes hardest thing: let yourself off the hook. Remind yourself that you don’t have to do anything, and even if you stare at a wall for 30 minutes, that’s not a “waste” or useless. Work on reducing self-shame. Accept that you may have to rotate in and out of hobbies and activities to progress, and that that’s fine. Accept that this acceptance will always be a work in progress and you will likely never become the worlds number one swordsman or able to manipulate objects with telekinesis after mastering your mind by studying Buddhist meditation techniques. Whenever you can summon the awareness to do it, be kind to yourself.

It can still be US calling the shots, without Trump being in the loop. Trump/America First on the one hand, and American empire/deep natsec structure on the other.

Grayzone had the article about how Radcliffe and Paudilla were presenting dubious Israel intel directly to Trump without mentioning where it came from, and it’s a well known fact that there has been deep planning and salivation over destroying Iran in the US natsec/defense world for decades. Trump doesn’t do strategy—he’s image based. He’s fine with perceived wins and perception shaping for personal aggrandizement.

It’s plausible then to think that there is a larger tension at the top of gov—America first reality tv vs neocon bloodthirst /great game bullshit perhaps that could result in Trump genuinely thinking he’d brokered a ceasefire here, while other elements simply proceed with their original plan to get into a hot war with Iran.

Because Trump only cares about image, if this proceeds he will probably come up with some bullshit to own it like he did last time.

So you have elements in US directing Israel, but not necessarily originating from the president, or Israel being the puppet master that has some hold over America so strong that the entire govt bends over backwards for it as options. The first option feels more likely overall based on simplicity, but I really don’t know.

Third option is that they’re going really deep on the kayfabe to limit liability to just Israel, but that would require a sustained and cogent effort on Trumps part to keep the charade up, and he just doesn’t seem consistent enough for that to be the case… again though who knows.

It’s a bush-era neocon from SAIS named Eliot Cohen. I don’t quite think he’s stupid enough to actually believe his argument, so he’s lying to support his real agenda, which is most likely some variety of crushing any resistance to US/Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.

I looked up the guy that wrote the “Trump was right” one and he worked with Wolfowitz and Condi Rice, so he’s got plenty of experience lying publicly to justify killing people.

This paper seems to strongly point to +3C by 2050, so yeah, we’re almost certainly going to miss 1.5.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378025000469

The Atlantic, surprise surprise, is in full consent manufacture mode. It’s so on the nose you can practically see the talking points emails…

It’s this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

Basically a US war gaming exercise against Iran. The US did horribly, to the point that they hobbled the opfor so that the bluefor could win. The marine general who commanded the opfor did a bunch of asymmetrical warfare stuff that the Iranians might do and just clobbered the conventional forces.

I think the constant messaging about China being the next regional hegemon and regional alliances being developed to counter US hegemony leads to a false sense of equivalency. The relationship that US has with Israel, or even NATO, is not really mirrored in a real way yet among BRICS or China/Russia/Iran, etc. they have mutual interests (or grievances I guess) and incentive to cooperate to counter western trespass on their sovereignty, but they’re not at the level where they have mutual defence agreements where they will step in and get involved directly militarily if something like this happens.

China has military build up, but has not been a bellicose power yet—they mostly operate via economic power and diplomacy up to now, and so I don’t think most of their partner countries would assume they would show up with an army to support them if they were invaded.

They might send aid or military supplies or something, that would be in the realm of possibility, but feels like that might even be too direct of a military involvement for their tastes?

Man, I hope tac nukes are not in the cards. If this really isn’t about Iranian nuke program, but more about Bibi’s continued political health and the US trying to isolate China, etc, then really taking out the facilities wouldn’t matter much. Drop MOABs on Fordow and then resume the bullshit propaganda they’ve been doing the whole time…

Then again, after this, Iran has almost no choice but to get nukes, which then makes killing its program a real objective for Israel and US… we had to blow up the nuke program that doesn’t exist, but once we do it they will have to pursue it, so hence it was a good idea to blow up their program!

At least from that tweet, not much—it lists a littoral combat ship, 3-4 mine countermeasures ships and a spec ops ship or something. So utility, but not anything amazing in its own right. The announcement the tweet is replying to suggests that all of the ships are leaving port (not just the US ships) to spread out and not be sitting there at docks stationary inside range of potential attacks. Also the 5th fleet, which I assume these are a subset of, sounds like it is stationed in the Middle East anyway, so not as remarkable compared to news that, like a major element of the pacific or European fleet have redeployed into the Middle East.

Vaguely, but can’t remember the content exactly. But yeah that was my recollection was that this ‘bogeyman’ from my teenage years (I learned how to pronounce his name properly after hearing it so much during the bush years) suddenly being an online poster and all that.

Yeah I totally agree, doubt they have any current plans to invade and occupy—but where I start to worry is what happens when Iran pops a carrier that got a little too close or something. The Yemenis seemed to give a pretty rough ride to the various carrier groups that were sent there under Biden and Trump, and I assume that IRGC has planned for decades about what to do if American naval assets get too close during a conflict (millennium challenge and all that).

Basically just: Trump wades into Iran for some long distance bombing that he can brag about, while Israel bombs the shot out of civilians, media and hospitals, but then something unplanned happens and now we’re looking at something longer and nastier. Or like some other semi-challenging power weighs in to help Iran, like Pakistan (doubtful I know) and now you have mini-world war battle lines being drawn.

o7

Dude has had such a weird arc over the years.

So if (when) US gets officially and directly involved in attacking, my first assumption is it will look like the recent Yemen activity; lots of air strikes, stuff launched from boats.

But if the conflict deepens, I am curious to see what people think: would Trump admin do a draft for a ground invasion of Iran?

Ground invasion seems like a very poor idea generally, but since when has reality guided decision-making at the White House lately? This is total pie in the sky speculation, but the war regardless would be unpopular at home, and any move to deploy actual infantry even more so.

They’ve already spent the last few months getting the country used to crackdowns on protests, as well as using fed law enforcement and military assets to terrorize people unaccountably. They also have shown they give mostly zero fucks about courts and will shoot first and ask questions later at all times.

Given Trump’s scheme to use ICE to harass democrat/blue cities, if they did do a draft, why not use it to disproportionately grab liberal/left voters and box em up/sacrifice them to the mill? You could take all of the data they’ve stolen from agencies and had palatir compile to target it, just like they’ve been practicing with the immigration crackdown. Would be a good way to liquidate some opposition and chill what will otherwise be a potentially hot and spicy summer, etc. you could make draft dodging a method of removing citizenship of your enemies, or use the heightened tensions at the border to interdict people trying to flee. Trump could even couch it all in WW2 glorious war effort bullshit to try and give it some sort of shine.

Anyway, I suspect this is pretty far fetched, but would appreciate your counter points and corrections to help me discard this concept so I can move on to being anxious about one of the thousands of other grim things that loom on the horizon.

Ah man, been wondering if he’s been posting out there about this.