The oversimplified explanation is he had to appear tough on communism to avoid be criticized domestically amd abroad. He was a staunch anti-communist, worried that the US failing to shore up the South against the North would cause other “developing democracies” (Western friendly war lords and despots) to question American guarantees and look the the Soviet Union as a sponsor instead. The goal was to help South Vietnam reach a point where they could deal with the Viet Cong without much US assistance. But that was essentially an impossible task as every action to eliminate opposition further delegitamized the government in Saigon.

Morally it was absolutely the wrong play, and politically i would say it hindered his domestic ambitions as Vietnam quickly spiraled out of control under his administration. He was put between a rock and a hard place and had to answer for Truman and Eisenhower’s failed choice to support the French reoccupation of Indochina after WW2. The US had committed to the path in 1954 and LBJ’s memoirs indicate that, while he resented having to escalate in Vietnam, his ideology offered him no other choice. I don’t think that absolves him of the ocean of blood on his hands, but I am sympathetic to the impossible choice.

He didn’t start the war in Vietnam, he just ramped it up way more than Kennedy did. The US would have been a much better country if Johnson had focused on his great society platform instead of Vietnam.

Pretty harsh to the compact disc don’t you think?

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We are looking at the mistake of allowing capital to offshore everything in the 70’s and 80’s. China didn’t force those companies to stop maintaining their existing infrastructure and outsource all their manufacturing overseas, they chose it in the interest of lower costs.

See, my first thought would be to crack down on the tech parasites that are ruining out society instead of changing the law to accommodate them. But I’m just a dumb American who lives in a place where corporations are allowed to do whatever they want including killing whistleblowers, but I’m sure that the fascist parties taking power in Europe won’t do that.

There is nothing stopping the EU from going the DeepSeek route and just stealing the finished LLM’s from American companies. But the truth is that the EU shouldn’t want to have all these data centers training generative models. The us is already dedicating 4% of our electricity production to them, with people in states along the Great Lakes and Eastern seaboard seeing massive increases in their electric bills to pay for them (~30% for me in Ohio, ~75% for my brother in Virginia). I can understand if you are a technocratic neoliberal in the EU parliament that is taking bribes from tech firms why you would want this, but for anyone paying attention, rhe promises tech companies are making to burn hundreds billions of euros while gutting privacy, 🔏IP, and consumer protections at the top of the bubble makes no sense.

You can hold someone accountable when a person runs over a child or a pet. Who is the responsible party when a waymo kills someone?

Literally more journalists died in Gaza after October 7 than in 4 years of war in Ukraine. Israel has been intentionally targeting any journalists they can find in Palestine.

Probably because Israel kills more journalists than any other country

She’s really such a sweet girl. Tabbies tend to look angrier than they actually are since they have their permanent angry eyebrows. She’s back to her normal self, climbing on my shoulders and cuddling up whenever i sit down to read or watch tv

I think so. She landed on the oven handle so i think it was only her side that was exposed to the flame. I have only found singed fur on her face and shoulder.

She DEFINITELY will not be jumping on the stove ever again. The other cat os probably a different story

They thought like would go up forever, and now that the line is starting to slow down, they gotta do a sacrifice to make the line look like it is still going up

I disagree as part of being a history 4X means that peopl will expect historical events to occur. And PI have repeatedly made it clear that they want their games to have an expansion/contraction element to make each playthrough feel unique beyond just the pop-up stories that occur. Civilizations trnd to collapse/struggle at the conclusion of theor Golden Age. Just look at The UK and US for a modern example.

The whole point is to shake up the game. That’s why CK2 and the mongols and Aztec invasions and Stellaris has mid game and end game crisis.

What’s the actual difference? You end up at the same place with either one.

They just do nothing to stop the fascists when they have power and do everything they can to compromise with them.

Reminds me of a tweet from a few years ago that said something along the lines of "Middle managers think AI is intelligent because it speaks just like they do instead of realizing it means that they aren’t intelligent "

I live in Northern Ohio 40 minutes from Lake Erie. We have COLD winters here with wet air. Plus, my shitty soft top VW Bug with a busted window lets in more than enough cold air

It’s typically best not to use things dependent on wealth to assess age groups. A kid growing up in Hamtramck had very different experiences from a kid growing up in Birmingham Michigan, even though those two areas are only 10 miles apart.