In that scenario I’m not sure if Ukraine allies are as significant as Russians allies. I very much doubt China has any tolerance for nuclear eacalation, that sets a precedent that will change how the West behaves in Taiwan. I imagine Xi’s fury at being undermined this way would manifest in ways that meaningfully hurt Russia without any actual violence.

I am shocked that a market based healthcare system that prioritizes profits manages to lock people into lucrative consumer cycles where they’re conditioned to rely on medications or treatments that don’t cure them. I am shocked.

Completely unrelated, it’s very noticeable how everyone is medicated and has mental health problems since I’ve moved to the US, weirdly back in Australia where the health system is different it’s less common. What are the odds of that…

Which… gets back to cable. A decade or so ago? Pretty much everything WAS in one spot for about a hundred bucks a month. Get premium cable to get most channels and then spend extra for HBO or sports or whatever. And comcast and verizon both had a lot of VODs available too. Many of which didn’t even have ads. And the rest? you DVR it and then fast forward through the ads when they show up (… which is better than hulu). REALLY like movies? Get cinemax too.

You’re projecting an American perspective, but I suspect you’re talking to an Australian.

Cable in Australia has always been considerably more expensive than in the USA, and includes considerably less content. Except for movies, it was also never available adfree. It was changing in the last 5 years when I left the country, but it wasn’t even close to competing with the likes of Netflix on price or service and I don’t think there was any ad free option (despite the dramatically higher cost to consumer) - there was a whole media oligarch conspiracy to sink the national broadband upgrade because they knew they had the market cornered with their monopoly and streaming would disrupt that.

Money has value insofar as governments use it to collect tax - so long as there’s a tax obligation, there’s a mandated demand for that currency and it has some value. Between different currencies, the value is determined based upon the demand for that currency, which is essentially tied to how much business is done in that currency (eg if a country sells goods in its own currency, demand for that currency goes up and so does it’s value).

This is not the same for crypto, there are no governments collecting tax with it so it does not have induced demand. The value of crypto is 100% speculative, which is fine for something that is used as currency, but imo a terrible vehicle for investment.

The reason I asked was because I think there’s a fundamental disagreement between what it actually is that people disagree about.

Your earlier post suggests that your stance on abortion is different than that of the mainstream conservative narrative. This seems normal, based on how every vote on that issue seems to be playing out, there is a disconnect between the ideology that conservative leaders are pushing and what their supporters actually think. The exact same situation is true with affirmation action on the left - voters consistently reject it regardless of party affiliation or self identified political leaning.

I’d hear people identify CRT as being closely related to affirmative action, in that it’s an actual policy that gives out some advantage (or seeks to remove some other existing advantage, if you have a different perspective) vs being some purely academic case study more like what a other response to your response described.

Where I’m going with this is that depending on what you’re describing when you say CRT, it’s very easily possible that your position of opposing it is consistent with a clear majority of people who identify as “left”. The disagreement isn’t about ideology, but about semantics that is being exploited by a political class to drive support.

Ultimately if people want to debate you, you’re not obligated to indulge them. It’s good for discourse to put out your opinion in the way that you have (eg respectfully and without throwing barbs at everyone).

That said, some of your points are hard for me to follow.

I don’t have a perfect knowledge of exactly what’s on the left and right so please forgive me if I put something in the wrong category.

If you can’t articulate the difference, how is it that you came to identify as one? IMO “left vs right” is an intentionally vague and poorly defined concept to keep people angry and identifying with a brand, more than a coherent description of ideology.

I understand that left vs right ideally shouldn’t exist. The same goes for political parties. They do exist so here’s some of my views from both sides.

I don’t agree with critical race theory…

I hear so much about this. What does it mean? Can you give a real world example where someone is trying to implement what you oppose?