I don't understand Huffman's use of the English language (I learned it when I was 4 and I use it for work and media consumption).
Idealism? What idealism? I've worked in several American startups and corps, I have friends who've work in multiple US tech corps and smaller startups. I have no clue how he brought idealism into the picture. And how is idealism related to working hard or not working hard? It's an unrelated concept. If anything, idealism implies you work too hard, instead of going with the flow and putting in effort only when it benefits you. And what's entitlement got to do with any of this?
It honestly sounds like Huffman bringing up random keywords in a borderline word salad "Entitlement! Entitlement is bad, right (it's neither good or bad)? Idealism is impractical! We must work hard!"
"In the Bay Area, broadly, is this — it's almost an entitlement of, 'I work at these companies, but I don't have to work very hard and I'm here for myself,'" he said.
I always found it amusing how the term "entitlement" has been butchered by Americans. It's the only language they know and they keep butchering it with low level polemical theatrics.
How is "I'm here for myself" an entitlement? This is not your family. The goal in any job is to maximize returns, i.e. least amount of work for high financial return (like ... wait for it ... running a business). Sure there are other factors at play too (career growth, not wanting others to have to work more because of you, being genuinely interested in what you are doing and not seeing it as work, not wanting to treat customers like shit), but that's an individual thing. A business isn't automatically entitled to any of that.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich implies he believes that blocking humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip is “justified and moral” even if it causes 2 million civilians to die of hunger, adding however that the international community won’t allow this to happen.
“We are bringing in aid because there is no choice,” Smotrich says at a conference in Yad Binyamin hosted by the Israel Hayom outlet. “We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned. Humanitarian in exchange for humanitarian is morally justified, but what can we do? We live today in a certain reality, we need international legitimacy for this war.”
I honestly don't understand how Israeli society expects people to interpret this sort of rhetoric and not come to the conclusion that Israel is a genocidal state.
Is there anyone pro-Israel reading this post that can provide an explanation? Is the argument that Smotrich and Netanyahu aren't representative of Israeli society?
I almost feel like I am missing something. I am genuinely curious. I don't understand what's going on. Is this just bad faith arguments or do the Israeli supremacists not considering this to be genocide because of reasons?
What Trump is saying is irrelevant. Best to not pay for American media. Subscribe to your local streaming companies that offer content in your local language, watch movies and series from other countries. A dollar to America is a dollar to supporting fascism.
And not all of it works on a tax incentive basis. Here in Ukraine the cost differential alone was enough to attract film productions (pre-full scale russian invasion of course).
If sane Americans get their house in order (not Biden or Harris style bullshit, but real anti-corruption programs that decapitate the US oligarchy), then that's another discussion. But that is a big if.
I would argue a more accurate description for the US far right would be proto-fascists. Primarily because they haven't fully rejected open elections and they are still somewhat constrained by US judicial institutions.
Although I expect this will change in the next 24 months.
On some level this is a good thing. Many American movies are low level oligarch propaganda (e.g. The "Tony Stark" character in Iron Man).
We shouldn't be funding what is essentially a proto-fascist state. While there are many sane Americans, they have yet to prove that they have the risk tolerance to fight back effectively. From my experience living in the US, American culture isn't really suited for that kind of thing.
I am talking about blaming everything on sanctions.
I am not that knowledgeable about Cuba, but I have met people from Cuba who moved to the Eastern Block and I know a little bit about events Cuba in context of global history (missile crisis, overthrow of Batista).
Your approach doesn't sound nuanced enough based on my experience talking to Cubans (and they are not your descendants of Cuban exiles in Florida types).
Comparison is fine. But you are engaging in whataboutism. We are discussing Cuba's brutal authoritarianism, this topic can evaluated with references to the US.
This is a pretty simplistic, almost child-like take.
You can recognize the self-interested nature of the US, while also pointing out how they are not being efficient for their own goals (that also benefit us).
If the US had true gumption, they would be testing their hypersonic missiles via launches out of Ukraine aimed at high value russian military targets, with a pretend excuse that it was actually Ukraine launching the missile.
I can guarantee you most of Ukraine would support this (I live in Ukraine) and the "red line" bla bla is just westerners falling prey to russian foreign propaganda initiatives.
Corrupt American oligarch thinks he can deal with incredibly complex issues just because he's been able to run scams in the US for a few decade (a country which is arguably one of the most friendly places for oligarchs in the world, some smaller exceptions notwithstanding).
Let's leave the role of the US alone for now. I was just sharing my perspective in context or recent developments.
I can see how the term degeneracy could be seen as loaded in the US context.
But then my question would be, how would you describe Rogan's behaviour and the fact that this particular act had zero impact on Rogan's popularity? One could say that at the very least his following (and he is one of the largest media personalities in his home country) is tolerant of such acts.
I would even go as far as saying that in other cultures even conservatives would share my views about the regressive nature of Rogan's behaviour and the tolerance of his following for such antics.
I started reading the article and I was curious what the context was and who was involved.
I was shocked to hear that it was Douglas Murray who got into a conflict with Rogan. Murray out of all people (I am aware of his chauvinism due to some other stuff).
What really struck me about this article was this:
Nine days and five shows later, Rogan hosted Tim Dillon, another anti-woke comic, and together they impersonated Murray’s voice like middle schoolers at a sleepover. (“You haven’t beeeeen?”)
I am not American, but I have lived there and travelled extensively. I have close friends who live there (both locals and immigrants from a very young age).
I would always defend the US as a force for good in the democratic world (albeit a very flawed one) and highlight that compared to other major powers (russia, china), the US has been involved in a very good outcomes (post WW2 Germany/Japan, Poland and the Baltic nations after the breakup of the USSR).
With the reelection of Trump, I am starting to wonder if this well ever be possible again (from my perspective Trump is a symptom, not a cause).
But Rogan's behaviour is an example of degeneracy. True degeneracy. Not degenerate as a random insult or say the term "degenerate gambler", but the actual term like in the dictionary. A regressive, undesirable behaviour that is an affront to the development of human society. And this is perhaps the largest media personality in the US.
It's going to be very difficult for sane Americans to root out such degeneracy. And there are unfortunately (in my opinion) certain negative elements of American culture that are going to reinforce such behaviour. It will require novel approaches that I don't believe Americans have the capability to explore (I hope I am wrong).
Agreed. Although I am not even going this far.
I don't understand Huffman's use of the English language (I learned it when I was 4 and I use it for work and media consumption).
Idealism? What idealism? I've worked in several American startups and corps, I have friends who've work in multiple US tech corps and smaller startups. I have no clue how he brought idealism into the picture. And how is idealism related to working hard or not working hard? It's an unrelated concept. If anything, idealism implies you work too hard, instead of going with the flow and putting in effort only when it benefits you. And what's entitlement got to do with any of this?
It honestly sounds like Huffman bringing up random keywords in a borderline word salad "Entitlement! Entitlement is bad, right (it's neither good or bad)? Idealism is impractical! We must work hard!"