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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • Star Rail isnt an mmo. And while it has many “progression mechanics”, they are slowly introduced to the player. And once you understand them, you dont really need to think that much about them. It is basically an anime+idle game.

    You watch your anime episode every now and then and you afk farm daily for a couple mins(so that your characters slowly become stronger). You dont need to think loads of time to understand them but i guess it depends on what you mean by loads of times. Maybe i have played many games(mobile and conventional), so i dont have any issues with the systems.

    If you want to build a character, you can choose them and the game will highlight their ideal “gear” and “stats”, though those recommendations arent always perfect. If you want to tryhard, you can use this site

    https://www.prydwen.gg/star-rail/tier-list/

    And see what gear and stats are ideal for your character. Or just use your brain. Most dps like crit damage/rate, attack and speed. Most supports really love speed. Or watch a guoba video about the character you want to gear. Ultimately, if you afk grind gear, it doesnt take a giant brain to understand that the dps set, wants dps stats, or that the break set wants break damage stats.




  • With almost a million people migrating out of Greece and tourism bouncing back hard after covid, of course unemployment will be lower in Greece. But outside of tourism, Greece is a zombie country.

    Most of the people migrating out of Greece are young and educated. This will significantly affect the future of the country, both from a demographic point of view and policy.

    For the first time ever, right wing parties got over 50% of the votes. Greece is a historically leftist country. The governing conservative party has like 3 right parties, further on its right in the parliament. Neonazis, christian talibans, you name it.

    And while the governing party is trying to appeal to centists(in order to keep the left busy with in fighting), they also pander to the far right. And the worst part? The government has demolished freedom of press, increased spying on citizens and opposition, etc.

    The stage is set for a greek Orban, but the current prime minister lacks the charisma and appeal. The infrastructure is there. Hopefully this will also reignite the leftist reaction instincts. Which is why the current prime minister is keeping a relatively low profile in regards to social issues(antiwokeness).

    In fact, he made gay marriage legal in Greece and all the European leaders rejoiced. Except the only reason it wasnt already legal was because of his party. All other parties(except the neonazis and the communists) supported gay marriage. Many members of his party voted against it, but the law passed because the opposition supported it.









  • It is easy to say this when you are just a rando on the internet. But these politicians are responsible for the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Keeping the tariffs because a manchild is in charge of the most powerful country, would have had significant negative effects on those lives.

    The only thing we can do is pivot the EU away from the US, slowly, while building its military/IT capabilities. Trump(and the US) will suffer eventually. Treating the global economy like a shitcoin has severe long term consequences, consequences that will not be reversible for decades, if not centuries.

    But in order to do this while causing as little damage as possible to Europe, it will take time(at least a decade or two).



  • I dont think Turkey will do anything bad with Cyprus(ie third invasion), any time soon. The kurds in Syria seem to be close to a deal with the Syrian government.

    Turkey had a non 0% chance* of getting ready to cause an incident by invading or disputing greek islands(basically what Russia did in Ukraine) but after the Russian invasion, the strong and meaningful reaction by the West(instead of the usual stern letters of disapproval) and the whole F-35 fiasco, Turkey atm seems to have cooled off atm. The Russian invasion was one of the best things to have happened to Greece.

    • Check Erdogan’s comments about how Turkey might come one night(to Greece) and how their new missiles could reach Athens. Yup, thats the big ally of Europe, protector of liberal values and democracy, the wall that will stop foreign Imperial ambitions.

  • You dont need the F-35 just for the russian planes, you need it for the russian ground to air missiles and radars(and targets that those things might protect). While you can suppress enemy air defences with non stealthy aircraft, that is much riskier and much more limited in scope. Which is why Russia isnt using its massive airforce in a way that is expected(by western standards). Even Ukraine’s very limited anti-air capability has shut down the ukranian airspace to russian aircraft.

    A stealth aircraft allows you to penetrate much deeper into enemy airspace and/or in a safer manner. It unlocks a completely different mission capability.

    This is also useful against airplanes. Imagine if european planes have a radar with 120km range and a missile with 60km range. The equivalent russian planes have a 100km range radar and a 50km range missile. So while the european planes have the advantage, this advantage is anything mindblowing.

    Now imagine a european stealth aircraft, with the same missile and radar but because it is stealth, it can only be detected within 20km of a russian aircraft. That means that the stealth plane can go in, shoot a missile and get out before the russian plane even detects it. The advantage is immense and allows the stealth aircraft to be orders of magnitude more effective.

    There is a reason why everyone, including China, is spending billions to make stealth airplanes. The only reason people think stealth is irrelevant is because of russian propaganda, because Russia is too poor to produce stealth airplanes. The thing is, designing AND producing a stealth airplane is very expensive. There are a few european designs but those things wont be coming out for another 10+ years at the earliest(or in 20 years if we want to be realistic). In the meantime, Europe decided to use the f-35, which is a very capable and cheap aircraft(actually cheaper than rafale, etc).

    It doesnt help that we have 2 different 6th generation airplane designs in Europe. It’s a clusterfuck. Maybe Trump will help Europe get its shit together.


  • Partially but the big advantage of being in a big alliance, is sharing stuff. That is the most effective way of progressing.

    Take microchips for example. Taiwan is making them, with european machines and the european machines use american technology. Taiwan is able to create cutting edge microchips because they are allied and dependent on their allies. Similarly, a lot of russian technology has its roots in the soviet era, when russians had access to scientists/technology from all over eastern Europe.

    Apes together strong. Thats the strength of alliances. But if you have a bad faith ape, that ape can destroy the effort of all other apes. Thats the weakness of alliances. For strategically important things(jet planes), you might be willing to take an efficiency hit, by creating things independently for security reasons. Which is why the french have rafale.

    But keep making cutting edge things in order to maintain and improve your defence industry capabilities is very expensive. Thats why Canada doesnt have a jet plane industry, even though they used to have a very capable fighter jet industry. Or you could be like Russia, where you can design new planes but dont have the money to produce them, so you are basically spending a lot of money, creating one off planes.



  • Ukraine can survive without american support. Russia has the GDP of Spain. The EU has the resources to help Ukraine, we just need

    1. Political will
    2. Ability to produce(or procure) stuff for Ukraine

    For the last 100 years, everyone was dependent on each other, since we were all allied, it made less sense for every country to reinvent the wheel. Now the EU will need to create new production capabilities and that takes time and money. This will have a noticeable negative effect to the quality of life of europeans so the europeans will need to be willing to deal with that.

    South Korea has a strong defence industry that can help cover the gap, especially if things are chill in SouthEast Asia.

    If the EU can guarantee the safety of Greece(maybe with the creation of an EU army or through stronger defence treaties), Greece has a lot of military equipment that could potentially be sent to Ukraine, especially if Turkey is cool. Greece for example has more Leopard 2 tanks than any other country(including Germany).

    I think if the EU sends troops to Ukraine, the EU will need to completely commit to that. The war in Ukraine is rough and very different than any other war, especially the wars western forces have fought in the last 50 years. So you cant half ass it and send a couple thousand soldiers to die there, you need to commit with proper air support, etc. This escalation needs to be managed carefully.

    The EU needs to start pumping nukes and developing its missile program. Without the american nuclear shield, the EU needs its own. There is a reason that China is pumping nukes like crazy, because they are way behind the americans and russians. MAD is the only way to de-escalate and prevent a nuclear war.

    Most of the aforementioned cost is these nukes/missile and building capabilities(stealth planes) programs. Helping Ukraine is cheap.