I very much think the Iranian people have a say. And they said "No." to US Intervention in case you didn't notice. Strait of Hormuz looking awfully based lately.

"China bad" essentially. lol. Such a nuanced and factual argument. I can't compete!

Well if you mean in the 1950s during the civil war sure. The US is the reason that the Taiwan Island was not rejoined with China then. But to suggest that the CPCs preferred method of reunification is by military force TODAY is to show a complete lack of awareness as to how the CPC operates. They will always choose the diplomatic option whne it is available to them. Yet allowing Taiwan to be turned into an unsinkable US aircraft carrier off their coast is untenable. They would have no choice but to attack. Also, this has nothing to do with Donald Trump. You are falling for this trap of assuming US policy is led by the President. Harris would have done the same thing because the reason this is occuring is that the US has realized after its war with Iran that the war it had been planning with China is not winnable. So it is backing down.

A completely ridiculous article that is as divorced from reality as current paper oil markets. They speak of this as if it is a bump in the road. Look at their graphs. First they assume the strait will reopen by the end of May. Ridiculous. Then they say how bad it will be if it "takes a few more weeks" to reopen. It will never reopen the way it was before. It is Iran's now. They are not giving it back to the west and its puppets.

Then let's assume for a moment they were right. Why do their graphs show a mere months until production levels reach the previous level again? When the gulf states themselves admit it will take years. Their infrastucture is damaged. They have had to shut down production. Even if the strait reopened today the production would not reach normal levels again for years. And it won't reopen today. It will stay as it is, and they will have to pay Iran's tolls.

Are you serious? Do you think 3rd party voters are "centrist"? What third parties are you looking at? 3rd parties are on the ends of the overton window in the US not the middle. If the Democrats ran a centrist to court 3rd party voters then it makes sense they lost. Because apparently they're morons.

Ironically American Revolutionary Thomas Paine in his Common Sense said something that explains this quite well, "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right,[...] Time makes more converts than reason."

Well it is actually true that an integral part of Christianity itself is the imperative to spread or proselytizing. It is baked into the religion itself. Originally this was an idea to convert all Jews to the new religion, but it was Saul of Tarsus, or the Apostle Paul, who introduced the idea that this should apply to all peoples, not just Jews.

In the words of the Bible itself: Matthew 28:19–20: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." Mark 16:15: "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation."

So while you may be correct that there is a psychologal aspect to it as well, it is also true that it is simply a part of their religion. They are taught that they should do this. It is generally seen as a holy duty to convert others and save their souls.

All you needed to know was "Ex-CIA". No such thing.

The lady went to school to learn how to use the tube fucker wrench. The wrench you shove up inside some random tube for no reason apparently. No one else is allowed to use the term tube fucker wrench. I am copyrighting it.

I would honestly just create a tiny dual boot of another linux distro with LUKS KVM encryption on the entire thing. It has its own sudo, and is locked behind your encryption password. You just boot into a small 30GB or so private session that only you have access to while leaving the main distro untouched.

I would push back on the idea that humans inherently want to push their religions on people. In actuality that behavior is an effect of the memetic construction of more modern religions. Memetics being the concept "viral ideas" or contagious ideas. Where an idea becomes a thing of its own and spreads without outside interference. (yes like memes). The polytheistic religions were generally not so inclined to spread their religion to others. They'd show up in a forgein land and see other peoples worshipping gods and either think those were the names for their own gods here or think that these are just the gods of this land. The Greeks for example would make offerings to Isis while in Egypt.

The more recent idea of "An imperative to spread" is an invention of christianity that was picked up by Islam as well. Over time much like our societies evolve the ideas we have evolve too. It's natural selection. Given enough time any idea that has baked into it the imperative to spread will overtake ideas that do not. Hence the death of paganism in Europe and the dominance of Islam, and Christianity in that region by comparison over the last few centuries.

Eventually (As is already happening to some extent with political ideologies imo) a new memetic construct will come along that outcompetes christianity. Just as the christians before it absorbed paganism (Arch Angels and Demons are literally just pagan gods given new names) this new one will absorb christianity and outcompete it and the other religions into near extinction. This may be a new religion of its own, it may be a political movement, it may be something else. Whatever it is it will better fit the material conditions of the current world than the now quite outdated christianity which was more suited to a medeival time period. Giving it an advantage and leading to inevitable spread.