• 3 Posts
  • 26 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • On the contrary, I addressed the central point. Your argument is that it’s cheaper to supply allies than fight a ground war yourself, guess that’s true and does apply to Ukraine because the adversary there is a credible threat to the West.

    In the case of Israel, I contend that the savings are there only in the sense that you “save” $200 if you go and buy a $1000 TV you don’t need that’s $200 off, but if you never bought the TV in the first place you’d be $800 better off.


  • defense versus more globally-threatening adversaries like Iran?

    If US/Europe withdraw entirely from Middle East, there would be no reason to be afraid of Iran. Iran never carried out hostile actions against Western nationals, companies or forces outside the territory/coastal waters of Iran or its allies. Conversely, Westerners shot down Iranian airliners full of innocent people (Iran Air Flight 655). I dislike theocratic regimes of all kinds, but the West has been constantly belligerent vis-a-vis Iran (most recently by imposing sanctions on Iran after US explicitly said they’d lift them if Iran stopped their nuclear programme, which IAEA said they were compliant with) They are an evil dictatorship, but they are harmful to themselves.

    Or maybe that Israel is a worthless ally to the US in the region so we shouldn’t care if they get wiped off the map?

    The premise that the strongest military in the Middle East will be wiped off if they don’t receive US money is absurd.

    Or is the claim that Israel doesn’t need the US’s aid, it will be just fine without it and breaking off that defense relationship will have no negative impacts on the US?

    US has gained NOTHING from allying with Israel. Israel does not fight any entity or state that threatens the US homeland. Israelis bombed US ships (USS Liberty). Israelis were caught spying on the US government and selling US secrets countless times. Meanwhile US got involved in countless wars in the Middle East for Israel and received zilch back. A worse relationship with Israel would be a huge win for the US.






  • People getting stuck in queues and kids being put in concentration camps have nothing to do with the H1B system. You could give a H1B visa to every sponsored individual and the concentration camps would still exist because the people put in them exist entirely outisde the immigration system. You could give a US passport to every kid in a concentration camp but the Indians and Chinese would be stuck in queues even though they do everything by the book.

    This guy is right that the H1B system is unfair. The fact that H1B is a lottery creates a huge amount of problem for e.g. graduates of top US universities who want to transition to work in the US. Other countries (Canada, Australia, UK) have point based systems that prioritize highly skilled immigrants over less skilled ones, which work much better than the US system. Lotteries are inherently unable to prioritize top candidates.