Posts by hiddeneagle98

Look, I’m telling you, if the Euro can actually hit those numbers, things are going to look pretty damn good.

And just like that, Russia "hits the bullseye."

Honestly, it doesn’t even sound that catastrophic to me. I'm certainly not blowing any impressed anyone here.

Things will be looking up if the EU manages to pull off numbers like those.

nimbleranger52 said:It's just more proof of how "brilliant" Germany is—or should I say, how incredibly foolish they've been. This whole crisis hitting the German auto industry boils down to one thing: they tried to cut corners to save a few bucks and became totally dependent on everyone else. Now, the bill has finally come due.
Those much-talked-about chips? They could have easily been manufactured right there in Germany, but no, they decided to outsource everything to China just to shave off some costs... and now that the supply has dried up, what do they do? Suddenly, they're scrambling to build factories back in Germany.

Just yet another piece of evidence regarding German intelligence—if you can even call it that...

I mean, look at Porsche and Mercedes over in Stuttgart; they're being forced into Kurzarbeit, basically sitting around on government-subsidized downtime. It happened in 2021, and now here we go again...

They claim they want to slap sanctions on Russia, but they can't actually pull it off because they're too addicted to Russian resources... it doesn't work like that, does it? You can't try to sit on two different chairs at once without falling over.

And here's another thing to chew on. Car manufacturers haven't stopped because of sanctions; they've stopped because the Russian invasion of Ukraine shut down Ukrainian wire harness factories. Those cables account for about 7% of Ukraine's GDP. It's that exact mess that led to the sanctions being slapped on the Russians in the first place. These geniuses essentially caused their own downfall—by having a war disrupt production in Ukraine, they crippled production in Germany too, and now they're acting shocked that the US and others are pushing for sanctions. They spent years obsessively cutting costs, and now they're hemorrhaging money just to distance themselves from Putin, because what other choice do they have? Continue doing business with an idiot like him?

hiddeneagle98 said:more talk about sanctions...

It’s almost (personally) unbelievable / if this actually turns out to be true....

It’s well known—maybe even most famously reported—that Western media outlets have been covering 'how BMW shut several factories in Germany, Austria and Britain because of parts shortages... 🤔

The New York Times - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/b...ina-trade.html

'''Within Days after Russian troops crossed into Ukraine, BMW shut several factories in Germany, Austria and Britain because of parts shortages. General Motors suspended production at multiple locations, including its Detroit plant and a factory in Flint that produces Electric vehicles, including ID.4 S.U.V.s, which are exported to the United States. Tesla, a unit of General Motors, idled a factory in Atlanta that makes Cayenne sport utility vehicles. Ford said that it had adjusted shifts at some locations but that all its factories were running.... '

bolded / 'Within days after Russian troops crossed into Ukraine, BMW shut several factories in Germany, Austria and Britain because of parts shortages.../

Just a few days after the conflict kicked off— several plants in Austria, Germany, and England were shuttered because they couldn't get parts... 🤔

General Motors 'shut down' their main plant / General Motors suspended production at multiple locations, including its Detroit plant and a factory in Flint

They also mention Ford and Tesla, which is part of General Motors

If this is actually legit—

—it looks like that 'legendary' contingency planning wasn't exactly operating at a high level.... 🤔

(Maybe this American journalist is just full of it... 😁 )

The whole thing comes down to wiring harnesses—the main electrical cable assemblies in a car—which are produced in Ukraine; I believe that accounts for about 7% of their GDP or 7% of their exports. All those cables are made there. It clearly wasn't a smart move on their part, but honestly, this isn't really a byproduct of sanctions; it's a direct result of the Russian invasion, something the Americans apparently didn't see coming at all. You can see it right here, from a week ago.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...rs-2022-03-02/

So, the Russians have already played everyone quite nicely. I'm not surprised these guys are losing their minds.

Amy Diaz222 said:Regarding these sanctions .... 🤔

It is truly fascinating to observe how—perhaps almost every single corporation from the "West"—

—is "withdrawing," "fleeing," "abandoning," ceasing operations, or relocating away from Russia.... 🤔

A massive amount of questions are being forced upon us here ....

For instance: are these corporations—many of them absolute giants—really "suffering" because of those Maidan-style "revolutionaries" in Ukraine, causing them to "capriciously" exit Russia and walk away from their business—

—or is this actually being ordered? 😁

If this is (as is likely) an order, then we have to ask who, how, why, where, and how much, among other things.... 🤔

----

Up until now, "business" hasn't exactly been known for being "sentimental" or "sensitive" enough to "capriciously" abandon massive investments and established markets... 😁

Business is incredibly sensitive to cancel culture. It's about stock prices. This isn't Russia, where everything happens because of some top-down command.

Daniel Barnes53 said:US Says Its Oil Could Replace Imports of Russian Crude; All it would take is approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline

Maybe Canada could step up and cover the Russian oil imports the US currently relies on. I guess we're really only talking about about 3% of the total volume here.

What a complete burn for Biden; he basically shut that door down on his very first day in office.

Now this reporter is out here acting like they won't lower fuel prices. Maybe they won't, and honestly, who knows how the speculators are going to play it, but this move will definitely ensure Americans aren't handing their cash over to buy Russian oil.

Justin James10 said:And isn't that precisely the problem? We are essentially trying to relegate Russia to the same status as those nations, despite them having every single ingredient necessary to be a top-tier global superpower.

See, all those countries share the exact same set of circumstances.

And those specific conditions almost practically guarantee an autocratic regime.

The raw resources in those places are worth vastly more than any actual economy the local population manages to build outside of those natural assets.

Because of that, those populations will always be treated like cattle, since they don't represent anything compared to the sheer value of the resources themselves.

Take a place like Switzerland, for example; their entire GDP is built on the productivity of their people. You can't exactly treat citizens like livestock there because they actually have value—they are the only thing that matters, so you have to keep them happy.

In Russia, though, all you have to do is keep the military and the police satisfied so they can keep the population penned up, and that's it. You rake in the cash by selling off resources on the global market. Everything else is just window dressing, a sort of theatrical performance to make it look like a functional, "normal" country.

When Putin talks about security, what he’s really talking about is extortion. It’s pure mafia rhetoric coming from a state that is essentially nothing more than organized crime loot. It hasn't always been this way, but it certainly has been for a long time.

The people in Switzerland who drive the economy aren't easy targets for a mafia-style takeover because they simply won't play ball; they’ll boycott, they'll underperform, or they'll just flee from anyone trying to devalue or oppress them. But the resources you pull out of the ground don't fight back, and the people extracting them don't need much motivation to get the job done.

That is why in Switzerland, politicians act as servants to the people, whereas in Russia, it’s the exact opposite: the people exist merely to serve the dictator's personal ambitions.

Anthony Hill5 said:Vladimir Putin's United Russia party has announced plans to nationalize the factories of Western corporations that fled Russia, claiming this move is necessary to protect workers left jobless by their departure.

Is it even believable? Very soon, we are supposedly going to see Russians producing more—and better quality—versions of Carlsberg and Heineken than the original brands themselves; they will apparently start manufacturing superior BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes, and Volkswagens compared to the Germans, alongside better footwear and apparel than Adidas, Nike, and Puma, not to mention producing television series that outshine Netflix.

In reality, these sanctions will simply continue to strengthen and enrich Russia, just as they have served to bolster the nation over the last seven years.

https://www.vedomosti.ru/economics/n...t-proizvodstva

Who exactly is running this country? The level of absurdity in these claims is truly laughable. 🤣

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has signed a new law regarding the seizure of illegally obtained assets from government officials.

Under this legislation, anyone found to possess wealth that far exceeds their declared income will have those assets confiscated.

But what does this actually signify? It looks like nothing more than a calculated attempt to pressure everyone into keeping their mouths shut, lest they lose everything they’ve stolen—especially since almost everyone within Putin's inner circle has lined their pockets over the past twenty years.

https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/ne...podpisal-zakon

Maybe they should start by actually investigating their own people's assets first.

bluemason3 said:It might be impossible today, but nobody wants to pour money into a regulatory system this unreliable. Hopefully, they want to normalize relations sooner rather than later.

Or maybe Putin has already accepted becoming the next South Korea in the near future.🤔

While China and Turkey are out there picking up everything at clearance prices.

While we’re busy trying to choke Russia with sanctions, the Chinese are basically waiting in the wings to swoop in, turn a massive profit, invest heavily, and eventually pick up the pieces of a collapsing Russia for pennies on the dollar.

We need to move fast on building up our own strategic reserves and put a hard ban on exporting wheat immediately...

silverotter72 said:It seems they’ve lost that initial momentum they had during those first couple of days; they just can't seem to manage a decent downward pull anymore:

Hmm, let me think about that...

The Euro only dropped about 1.5% against the Dollar or the Yankee today.

Meanwhile, the Ruble tanked by 3% against the Dollar.

Honestly, things aren't looking too great for the EU either..

Stereotypical movements and behaviors are actually pretty fascinating when you really dig into them. It’s pretty obvious they get passed down through genetics, but it makes you wonder about the mechanics—how exactly are these patterns encoded into our DNA, and what does the evolutionary trajectory even look like? If I recall correctly, the entire behavioral repertoire of reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects is almost exclusively stereotypical. Mammals, however, seem to have this extra layer of complexity, a sort of neurological override that allows them to modify and train those primal centers that would otherwise just be stuck on autopilot with repetitive, instinctual actions.

ruggedraven36 said:That’s not how this works. If genes are physical objects—which they are—you can only transfer stuff that's actually physical and contained within them. In other words, whatever you're moving has to be smaller than the gene itself.

And why on earth should we assume that intense drives have to be physically massive? That’s just conflating two completely different categories, which brings us right back to the same old issue—mixing up apples and oranges. To get us past this specific hurdle so we can actually discuss the bigger picture, let's look at a concrete example. It’s pretty simple: if you're missing a single gene that’s supposed to regulate another one, you end up with an uncontrolled, overpowering drive. It’s a matter of regulation, not physical scale.

Look, I figured I should probably start opening up some threads about the stuff that’s been rattling around in my head lately... maybe it'll actually be useful for someone.

Look, I’ll keep this brief, but we really need to wrap our heads around how life, biological organisms, and intelligence actually function at a fundamental level. It all boils down to the creation of specific frameworks—systems designed so that a tiny, low-energy trigger can act as a switch, either releasing or channeling massive amounts of energy, or sometimes doing nothing at all. Think about it: a microscopic shift in electrical potential within just a few neurons is enough to be the deciding factor in whether a person decides to go out and dig a hole in their backyard or just sits on the couch and does absolutely nothing. You're looking at a massive divergence in physical reality triggered by a miniscule "tipping point." People love to talk about the butterfly effect like it's some chaotic accident, but that’s not quite right here. In the context of biology, this isn't some random cosmic fluke; evolution has meticulously engineered this into a sophisticated, high-level intelligence mechanism within the brain. It's an intentional, highly structured process.

It’s the exact same principle you see when you look at computer hardware, where these tiny, microscopic voltage fluctuations within a single chip can trigger massive, sweeping changes across the entire system. That is precisely the direction modern engineering is heading—we are constantly shrinking those thresholds, driving voltages lower and lower until it becomes incredibly easy to trip the proverbial wire.

You have to look at the bigger picture here. It’s like how a massive, complex neural network isn't just some random collection of wires; it's actually built upon this intricate, underlying web of low-energy, intermediary triggers that act as the fundamental bedrock for any kind of true intelligence. Think about it like a massive power grid in a place like Chicago—you can't talk about the lights flickering in a skyscraper without acknowledging the subtle, constant shifts in voltage happening deep within the substations that keep everything stabilized. Without that foundational layer of subtle interactions constantly feeding into the system, you wouldn't have the structural integrity required for high-level processing. It's all about those quiet, low-level inputs forming the base level for everything else to emerge from.

The whole process of thinking—of actually calculating and processing reality—is supposed to happen at these incredibly low energy levels. Ideally, you’d be doing it without using any energy at all. Now, I know that sounds impossible, but it remains the ultimate ideal we should be aiming for. Think about it: if you could achieve a state of pure thought, completely detached from energetic friction, the result would be so potent it could mobilize the entire energy of the universe to do whatever it wants. That’s what we’re talking about when we discuss that omnipotent, all-powerful God.

I honestly don't even know if I can put this into words effectively. For me, everything starts out as these abstract mental concepts—just raw, swirling ideas floating around in my head—long before they ever actually settle into actual language.

Just imagine for a second—and we’ve touched on this concept more than a few times before—that we actually managed to build some kind of "universal simulator." I'm talking about a machine designed to predict every single thing that's going to happen within, say, a contained space of maybe a hundred cubic meters. Inside this little bubble, you've got everything: people, AI, whatever else you throw in there. Now, let's assume this simulator is as high-end as it gets, operating at its absolute peak by using the fundamental laws of physics to map out and simulate things like wave-particle duality and all that complex behavior.
Look, if a high-level space simulator like that messes up—even by just a tiny fraction—when calculating those minute energy spikes that trigger the switches in intelligent neural networks, the whole thing falls apart. It’s like trying to predict a massive storm based on a faulty barometer; if you get those micro-calculations wrong, your entire forecast for the immediate future is going to be completely useless. One small error in the foundation and the whole prediction model becomes total fiction.
Instead of just assuming we’re digging a two-by-two hole in the backyard, you’d think someone could actually predict whether the atom in a person's gut stays put or decides to collapse onto the floor out of nowhere, leaving us wondering where the damn hole even came from. It sounds absurd, I know, but that’s the reality of it—a tiny little flicker of electricity in a single neuron is enough to flip the script entirely, making those hundred cubic meters look like a clear blue sky one second and solid ground the next.

If you strip away the human element—if you pull out the individual consciousness or that spark of raw intelligence from those hundred cubic meters of data—you’re basically left with a closed system. At that point, a simulator wouldn't just be guessing; it would be able to map out the immediate future with terrifying precision. It’s like taking the driver out of a high-performance car; once the unpredictable variable of human intuition is gone, the physics of the machine take over, and the trajectory becomes an absolute certainty.

That whole concept could actually serve as a foundation for digging into the nature of consciousness and free will itself. Think about it: just like a high-end computer simulation, the entire universe has to somehow derive the future from the present—or even better, collapse all those infinite potential futures down into one single, unfolding moment of "now." We don't have a clue how the cosmos manages that calculation, but it feels entirely plausible to me that there’s some underlying principle at play here. It’s like there are these tiny, low-energy triggers—think of them like the small spark needed to start a massive demolition charge—that possess a sort of structural priority when it comes to "rendering" the next moment. This mechanism might be exactly what gives rise to that qualitative experience of consciousness that every single one of us feels firsthand every second of our lives.

In any case, if you really step back and look at how life functions, the absolute fundamental truth is that tiny, microscopic material fluctuations are what trigger massive, downstream physical shifts. It’s like when you trace human action all the way back to its raw biological source; you eventually end up staring at a competition between maybe two neurons, where one has a current strength just 0.01 volts higher than the other, and that minuscule difference dictates everything that follows. Think about it: an entire life-altering decision, this whole complex process of weighing options and deliberating, is essentially boiled down in the brain to a mere 0.01V margin. That tiny spark then cascades outward, mobilizing something like 1,000 kWh of energy to dig a trench, build a skyscraper, or whatever else we do in this world.

And honestly, what I’m saying about those electrical differences applies perfectly to our genetics too. A single gene can work wonders. You don't need thousands of them by count or by mass to change the game. Genes act like biological switches; they usually have their own regulatory toggle sitting right next to them, and their whole existence is basically just flipping the switches of other genes on and off.

ruggedraven36 said:I’m not sure, but if what Amanda Jackson5 is saying is right—that genes only carry the blueprints for protein synthesis and nothing else—then it makes sense. If we were passing down deep-seated drives, fears, and all those other traits people talk about through DNA, they’d have to be microscopic to fit inside a gene. Some of these impulses are massive, so it’s hard to believe they're tucked away in something that small.

Honestly, this whole argument is on the same level as that old joke about the guy whose computer runs out of disk space, so he just opens every single Word document he owns and shrinks the font size, wondering why it didn't solve his storage problem.

Not really, I don't have any particular vision in mind, nor do I have a specific image for any of the folks on this forum. Honestly, the only thing that even remotely comes to mind are your avatars.

I suppose I could try to be a bit of a smartass and post some picture of a 1960s radical activist holding a sign that says 'Eat the Rich,' and tell mravac8 that's him, but even then, it just wouldn't hit the mark.

brightheron64 said:unknown

Just a small correction here, the guns are actually flowing from the USA into Mexico (and they still are), rather than coming the other way around...

Slow The Iron River of Guns to Mexico The Biden administration Has an opportunity to stem Illegal gun trafficking to Mexico and Beyond
The Biden administration has an opportunity to stem illegal gun trafficking to Mexico and beyond.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/o...ns-mexico.html

Yeah, obviously, since America manufactures them, there's zero doubt that most of what we're seeing is American made.

Basically, maybe that’s where we should start—tackling the illegal arms trade directly.

And if they actually want to mess with the cartels' bottom line, they ought to try a completely different approach to dealing with addiction instead of just feeding the cycle.

Sent from my unknown

If Americans actually stepped up and implemented a needle exchange or a supervised drug program similar to what they do in Switzerland, it would absolutely gut the black market overnight.

Across most of Europe, you see standard substitution therapies available, things like methadone or Subutex. But Switzerland is really in a league of its own because they actually allow people to access heroin in a clinical setting. I’ve watched women walk into these clinics in the morning and be back at their jobs by the afternoon. They aren't just drifting through life; they’re integrated into society rather than being total parasites.

But where is the US leadership on this? Instead of actual solutions, they just keep shoving people into prison cells and perpetuating this endless "war on drugs." If you walk into a clinic without top-tier insurance, they won't even give you the time of day.

unknown

unknown

William Clark86 unknown: Americans are just fundamentally schizophrenic and emotionally unstable as a nation. It’s wild how differently we process reality compared to everyone else. If something happens that we’d just shrug off, say "cool," and move on with our day, they’ll spend twenty minutes jumping around like fanatics in a state of pure euphoria. On the flip side, if we encounter something that’s clearly just a total load of crap and we barely blink, they’ll spiral into these massive, rage-filled meltdowns where people start breaking things. It’s that pattern across the board—it’s constant.

Americans tend to be pretty reactive—they’re loud, they get worked up over everything, and they constantly overreact. I wouldn't go so far as to say they've lost their grip on reality, but they definitely lean into the drama.

It’s honestly wild how some cultures just normalize that fake, over-the-top politeness from servers. You go out to eat and suddenly you're being smothered in this manufactured, sugary sweetness that feels completely hollow. It’s like they’ve all collectively agreed to put on a mask of extreme friendliness that doesn't actually mean anything, and we're just expected to play along with the charade.

unknown

Back home, if you decide to cut in line, all you're going to get is some dirty looks or maybe a little snarky comment thrown your way by someone passing by. It’s subtle, almost quiet. But over here? If you even think about stepping out of turn, people lose their minds. You'll have folks screaming in your face, making a massive scene, and if things escalate enough, it’s not uncommon to see someone actually swing at you or pull a handgun. It's a completely different level of volatility.

Yeah, we’re just a bunch of softies, aren't we? Just sitting here, completely pacified and taking it all on the chin.

It’s funny how you see those folks over in London, just standing there in perfectly straight lines at the bus stop like they actually give a damn about order.

And honestly, no matter how much they carry themselves like true gentlemen, those same guys can turn into absolute animals when it comes to how they actually behave.

unknown

I know I'm generalizing here, but look, if you took a hundred Americans and a hundred Europeans and dropped them into the exact same situation, I’d bet my life that way more of those Americans would react exactly the way I just described. It wouldn't be even close. It’s become part of the actual culture now—it’s seeped into the subcultures, the media, and even the political machine. What we're seeing is this constant, forced conditioning that trains people to react in a certain way, essentially teaching folks to adopt these specific stances when they wouldn't have even thought to act like that otherwise.

Timothy Nelson5 hit the nail on the head earlier. If you actually sat down and mapped out where most violent crime in the States happens, you’d see it’s concentrated in just a handful of urban pockets. Honestly, if you were to isolate those specific areas and look at the data, the numbers would be comparable to the entire European Union.

Americans aren't even close to fixing the mess with the ghettos and the gang violence, and honestly, trying to blame that on some rednecks in the Rust Belt and their Second Amendment rights is a complete non sequitur.

When you look at those high-crime urban centers, the reality is that your Second Amendment rights are basically non-existent anyway; the local regulations are so restrictive they feel more like European law than anything you'd expect in America. Trying to get a concealed carry permit in a place like New York City is a total nightmare, and don't even get me started on open carry—it’s practically a fantasy for a law-abiding citizen there. It’s funny how people complain about gun control when the vast majority of homicides in those cities are actually committed with illegal weapons smuggled across the border from Mexico.

casualtiger2 said:I wouldn’t trade the sense of security I feel walking around Europe—especially in Switzerland—completely unarmed, for a hundred pistols.
I don't have the official stats on hand, but I'm certain that here, maybe less than 0.01% of people are walking the streets armed (aside from the police, who are practically invisible), and honestly, that's incredibly reassuring.
But it seems like Americans are a uniquely dangerous and twisted bunch—given they have the highest incarceration rates in the world and suffer so much from gun violence.
Even with their massive faith in God.

The thing is, even though most Swiss folks own guns and love hitting up the shooting ranges, they still have their own specific gun culture; when you look at the number of firearms per capita, they're right up there at the top. They even host shooting competitions for kids between 13 and 17, like the local youth festivals.

Here is some insight into how the gun culture works over in Switzerland:

https://www.businessinsider.com/swit...to-use-a-gun-3

From the perspective of other European Union nations, the Swiss appreciate firearms at a level pretty similar to Americans. It’s just that Americans might be a bit more primitive in their obsession.

At the end of the day, the violence we see in the USA isn't a result of gun laws or the right to bear arms; if anything, it’s probably the other way around. Switzerland is the perfect proof of that point.

unknown

boldraven3 said:unknown

Alright, here’s what comes next... 😁

unknown

You’ve made the exact same "mistake" I did—my two little ones are almost that same age gap apart, with him being about 15 months older... It's high energy when they're playing separately, but once they get together? Absolute chaos. Which, of course, is pretty much the permanent state of affairs at our house... They've still got plenty of madness ahead of them. 🤣

Yeah, well, damn. It took me forever just to get the first thing right, and honestly, I never imagined I’d be sitting here having to go back and fix a second one, but life happens and everything just hits the fan at once.

unknown

boldraven3 said:Honestly, I can't focus on anything in God's name until my toddlers are finally tucked in... plus, I really need to squeeze in a run before I collapse in front of the TV (because once I sit down, I am officially glued there). Gotta keep the fitness levels up, even through Thanksgiving—I don't live in some laid-back corner of Europe, after all. ☕

And man, I feel that deep in my soul.

A little one at 1.5 and another at 2.6 years old.