Nah, you pretty much always aim for center mass. With modern rounds you’re just as likely to get a clean kill shot with center mass as you are with a head shot. Unless someone is obviously wearing a heavy plate carrier anything faster/heavier than a .223 is going to do the trick.

It’s not like shooting at the range, even at 200 yards hunting deer, your nerves wreck accuracy. I can consistently group 2.5" at 200-300 yards at the range, but that doesn’t transfer over even to hunting deer on family property. Most people haven’t ever shot at a living animal, it makes a difference.

There’s a huge difference between range and reality. The vast majority of combat casualties for infantry happen within 80 yards, which is why virtually all “assault” or battle rifles are zeroed at a hundred yards.

The vast majority of “skilled” shooters lack access to ranges that have anything over 50 yards available, let alone 100 yards. If you can reliably group 3 inches at 200 yards your probably in the top percentile of marksman in the country. Not many people hunt anymore, and most people going to shooting ranges are going for handguns or rifles zeroed at 100 yards or less.

It probably sounds strange for people who live in communities that hunt or have an avid rifle culture, but not much of the population can even safely handle a rifle anymore, let alone be accurate with one at 200 yards.

200 yards is a pretty decent shot for most people. I mean his range was a little high considering he was probably aiming for center mass, but the windage was dead center.

At 200 yards most decent shooters have a grouping of 3-4" at a long range if you have one in your area. Under pressure and with a single shot… Not bad at all.

Leftism is about more than economics, that’s a particular Marxist obsession. Leftism is broader than that.

How so? I mean there’re a lot of ways to generalize the political spectrum, but an easy and common way is to separate left and right into socialized economies and privatized economies, and then from there those respective government can run from authoritarian to libertarian.

But even if you want to focus on economics alone (which is ridiculously myopic since other political topics obviously have a direct impact on economics)

Yeah, but economic have an even greater direct impact on shaping politics.

workers in the USSR lost control of the means of production almost immediately.

In some ways I would agree with that, but I doubt the majority of workers in the USSR would have made the same claim. We have a the perspective of hindsight and didn’t have to live through the brutality of serfdom in the Russian empire.

State control is not liberation, particularly when that state is repressive and undemocratic

Again, it depends on your definition of leftism, and what you are interpreting. Was the USSR liberating compared to the average lifestyles of most modern western government? No probably not. Was is liberating compared to being serfdom under the Romanov? Yeah, it was a pretty huge upgrade.

And being left of the Tsar doesn’t make you a leftist in the modern context. If that’s the case then Donald Trump is a leftist.

Right, but is the value of evaluating history outside of its historical context?

who transformed the liberatory movement into a repressive police state. Police states cannot be leftist, full stop.

I mean, leftism typically centers around who controls the means of production and is largely defined in economic terms.

I think the Soviets would argue against being called a repressive police state, especially in Russia where they made huge strides in liberty compared to serfdom under the empire. They would argue you have to maintain a dictatorship of the proletariat to ensure the means of production remains in the hands of the people.

Where I differ in this belief is the expansive nature of the Soviet government, and the difference in treatment of Russians under the system compared to especially non Slavic groups within the USSR.

That’s pretty fucking stupid since people worked on stuff outside of subsistence farming well before money existed.

Economics existed before capitalism… Macroeconomics does not solely consist of the evaluation of currency. You can do a modern economic evaluation of subsistence farming communities, or a historical macroeconomic evaluation of previous societies.

Macroeconomics studies large scale forces of the economy, like a population’s effect on productivity, labor policy, government type, taxation, or even how weather will affect food growth.

In your bleak worldview humanity must enslave itself.

Lol, even in economies where people equally own the means of production, individual people still have to be productive…

You are just a lazy ass who wants to receive the benefits of a socially and economically equitable society without labouring for it.

figure out a way for people to have their needs met and have a functioning society, but your motivations are clearly set in a different direction.

I started this conversation by arguing we should have a system that already insured our needs were met… You just want your needs met and then extra money so you can be a lazy ass and not contribute anything to society.

UBI is a scam that billionaires put forward because they know cutting a check for 500 bucks every month is a hell of a lot cheaper alternative than providing food, education, housing, and healthcare.

Maybe learn a iota about the economy before you start gargling Andrew Yang’s ballsack…

imagine that’s what we’re thinking of in the RPG party we’re assembling.

Think that’s more of a failure of imagination than anything. Nothing is saying that rpg characters are standardized strictly by western interpretation. That would be a bit chauvinistic.

Golden age of piracy for the western world ended in the 18th century, but piracy in the China and Indian sea was booming in the 19th century.

There was a us military action in Korea in 1875. During that expedition you could reasonably have had a western gunslinger have a run in with Japanese samurai and Chinese pirates? Not sure how Dracula gets worked into the scene though.

Whatever man if you care more about macroeconomics than actually helping people that’s a pretty sociopathic take.

If you think you can help people at a national scale without macroeconomics then you are a moron.

We could easily pay for a ubi with tax reform

Again, under the original premise tax reform would already be occurring to pay for people’s basic needs…you know, the thing that UBI is supposed to partially cover.

it is one of those things that generates more money than we put into i

In our current economy…not in one where people’s basic needs are already being met.

The theory of UBI generating more money than it cost relies on the fact that covering some people’s basic needs increases their productivity. In the economic theory we were talking about their needs would already be fully covered. Meaning there wouldn’t be an increase in productivity, meaning UBI would not generate more money than it cost.

but what do I know, I’m someone you assume is an idiot.

In all fairness, what you are claiming is pretty idiotic.

Even in communist countries where people’s most basic needs are fully covered by the government, they don’t the receiver free checks from the government, in fact in most of them it’s illegal to be unemployed for long periods. Arguably productivity is even more important in planned and centralized economies, and a UBI with a socialized system would just motivate people not to work.

It’s amazing to me how some people fight so hard against something that would benefit them. Like, if I offered to send you $500 a month no strings attached, would you really be against it?

Because there are always strings attached… Just because you don’t know enough about macroeconomics to foresee any potential negative outcomes doesn’t mean there won’t be any.

They have done a lot of studies and test runs with UBIs, they seem to work pretty well and most people use them to pay off debts, save up some, educate themselves and still work.

And these studies are operating in our current economy, not one where basic needs have already been met. In the theoretical scenario where the government is insuring basic needs like housing, food, medical, and education are already being paid for, adding an additional UBI would just be an additional revenue burden.

If we’re already raising taxes enough to guarantee the populations basic needs are taken care of, UBI would be that much harder to secure funding for.

Iirc employment actually went up and people were more productive because they didn’t have to worry as much. (Not that productivity should like, be a goal that magically makes something valid to exist and if it isn’t should be scrapped)

Again, this would already be a problem addressed by the just securing people’s basic needs.

As for inflation, looks like people can price gouge their way to hyper inflation just fine without a ubi, so yeah, not sure why you’d be against a check every month.

Yeah…you want to extrapolate that thought just a little more? Price gouging is only possible if people have the money to still pay for the items.

One of the reasons why prices shot up during/after the pandemic is because of the covid checks. Don’t get me wrong, for the amount of people who were temporarily out of work we needed to increase the money supply. However, a natural response to an increase of money supply without an increase of production is inflation/price gouging. The demand isn’t being met by supply, this increases the price of the current supply to what the market is willing to pay. When you increase theoney supply, it increases what the market is willing to pay.

You can’t just increase the money supply from thin air for nothing in return. Macroeconomics is a careful balance between spending, revenue, and productivity.

And that would go back to my response… What would be the point?

A basic income is supposed to cover basic necessities, if those are already covered what is the point other than driving inflation and driving down productivity?

…so they could capture the Philippines unimpeded. That is not “hoping for peace”. That is hoping for an easier war.

Lol, they invaded the Philippines the same day they bombed pearl harbor… Like I said, they wanted to take the US out in one fatal blow and make it to where the US didn’t have the ability or the motivation for a pacific campaign.

This isn’t even up for debate, it’s well documented history. "Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto recognized Japan’s industrial inferiority to the U.S. and knew that a prolonged conflict would lead to defeat. The surprise attack was intended to deliver such a heavy blow that the U.S. would sue for peace, avoiding a war they couldn’t win. "

You could say that. It would be more accurate to say the venn diagram of the overlap is a circle. It’s weird that you oppose fighting one and not the other. What is the difference you’re concerned with? Do you just not like the word “fascism”, and are ok with governments that are fascist in all but name?

Idk…maybe it’s the fact that the modern political history of the Middle East and 1930s Europe are different? Maybe it’s that I disagree with how the second gulf war was conducted and justified. Maybe our history of supporting and arming both Iraq and Iran may add some nuance to the scenarios?

Do you just not like the word “fascism”, and are ok with governments that are fascist in all but name?

Fascism does not just mean authoritarianism.

More like pan Sunni supremacy. Are you forgetting he gassed an entire region trying to genocide an ethnic minority in his own country?

The majority of Iraq is Shia… He is Sunni and elevated the Sunni minority, however his attacks against Kurds were because Kurds, like Persians are not Arabic. Again, the history of the middle East is complicated and conflict can be raised from anything from tribalism, nationalism, ethnic conflict, economics, or secretarial violence.

Hussein was about as socialist as the National Socialists I guess.

It’s like you are allergic to nuance…

The Nazi party was not socialist, the only reason it has socialism in the name is because socialism was so popular in Germany in the 20s and 30s that you couldn’t get on the ballot without giving it the nod. The Nazi government only nationalized resources and existing businesses so they could then privatize it to someone with in the party as a favour.

The baathis party had a state planned economy. According to Phebe Marr, Saddam “provided widespread health, education, and social benefits that went well beyond those of any previous regime”.[4] Saddam implemented land reform, made hospitals and education free, doubled the number of students in schools and developed infrastructure such as roads, access to electricity and water, in addition to increasing life expectancy and decreasing child mortality.[4]

While he was literally crazy, and an authoritarian, he was still a socialist.

Chamberlain gave the UK time to arm so they didn’t get blitzkrieged into extinction.

Lol, this is the most ahistorical take on Chamberlain ever… It ignores his attitude towards appeasement that he held since the beginning of his tenure. “Chamberlain sought to conciliate Germany and make the Nazi state a partner in a stable Europe.[85] He believed Germany could be satisfied by the restoration of some of its colonies, and during the Rhineland crisis of March 1936 he had stated that “if we were in sight of an all-round settlement the British government ought to consider the question” of restoration of colonies.[86]”

Also, how exactly would Germany be “blitzkrieg” Britain while invading the rest of Europe?

All of your takes are historically inaccurate and based solely on generalizing to the point of indistinction.

Oh, ok. That must be why the Japanese attacked the US, right? Because they were hoping for peace.

Literally yes. The Japanese were trying to wipe the entire Pacific fleet out with one punch, making it too costly for the Americans to enter the war. They were hoping that America would cut their losses and settle for a negotiated peace that allowed the Japanese to keep their Pacific holdings.

Saddam Hussein was just as racist, nationalist, authoritarian, expansionist, and cruel as Benito Mussolini. So what exactly is the difference?

Saddam Hussein was just as racist, nationalist, authoritarian, expansionist, and cruel as Benito Mussolini. So what exactly is the difference?

The devil is in the details… Fascism may have some overlaps with the Baathis party, mostly with their authoritarianism. But it’s pretty distinct from it considering Baathism revolves around pan Arabic unity and socialism.

You sound like a republican, circa 2003

Lol, and you sound like Neville Chamberlain circa 1930’s.

Oh for sure, it’s definitely better for the cats and the environment to keep them inside. I just don’t think perfect should be the enemy of good.

I’ve just met some people who are militant to the point where they want to euthanize all outdoor cats. When in reality we could make a ton of progress by just feeding strays and getting them spayed and neutered.

I have about half a dozen of the neighborhood ferals that I’ve gotten spayed and neutered. They won’t ever be lovey dovy indoor cats, but they are fed, lazy, and completely uninterested in our bird feeders anymore.

I meant if housing, healthcare, and food were guaranteed, what would be the point of UBI?

Politicians currently advocating for UBI are doing so as a replacement for things like universal healthcare, not in conjunction with it.

Eh, it’s honestly not as bad as what most people make it out to be. The idea that non-feral cats are blood thirsty extinction machines is largely the product of people not being very good at interpreting scientific studies.

The majority of studies about cats being killing tens of billions of birds a year is based on data extrapolated from a few studies of feral cats or the introduction of cats to islands. Introducing any new species of plant or animal can be devastating to island habitats, so that data shouldn’t be utilized when applied to the norm. And the studies of birds being killed on the mainland confirm that the majority of birds are being killed by feral cats, who have a much much greater predatory drive than the normal house cat.

If we take away any understanding from these studies it should be that if we want to save more birds, people should try and domesticate feral cats, or at least feed them to minimize their predation of birds.

Nah, it’s not really a useful study. There’s no real control, and the types of artificial sweeteners they are tracking aren’t even chemically similar to each other.

What we absolutely know is that artificial sweeteners help people consume much less sugar, and that diabetes absolutely does have a causal relation to a decline in overall mental health.

Which doesn’t say that it’s directly related. Health care and entertainment jobs reducing is probably more indicative of Americans spending less on discretionary spending

Healthcare networks are the largest employer in just about every state. The reason we’ve seen shrinking in the job field isn’t because of discretionary spending, but because there’s been instability introduced because of cuts to Medicaid.

This is just the beginning, Medicaid cuts just went into effect, and they are planning on cuts to Medicare reimbursement as well. So I imagine jobs reports are going to be fucked for the foreseeable future.

Lend lease was in full swing, and they were sanctioning the imperial Japanese.

Not really… Sanctions against Japan and Lend and lease were approved the same year we entered the war.

there was a glimmer of hope at the time that the problem could be resolved with political pressure.

I mean, that’s what both the Japanese and the Nazi were hoping for. That the rest of the world would settle for peace and allow them to keep their spoils.

Putting boots on the ground without trying anything else first is Bush doctrine level bullshit.

And when has appeasing fascist with political discourse ever worked? There’s a difference between standing up to literal fascist invading allies, and Bush’s “war on terror”, trying to conflate the two is pathetic.

The hyper imperialism kinda kicked off before ww2, it was kinda the reason we got involved in the first place.