Sinai will never be a new Burning Man? Altamont Now

[Seducio]

Either Egypt takes all of them or they play hard ball and force all the neighbors as well as Europe and USA to take some of the refugees. It's going to be messy.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Biden: "100 million to the West Bank."

AKA, Hezbollah just got paid. Jordan will get paid. Everyone will get paid to absorb the Gazans. It is peanuts for us to pay for a couple million refugees if all we have to do is send the food and water.

And then Gaza will be fitted with SpaceX rockets at each corner, lifted into orbit, and disintegrated by a fully operational Death Star.

Win/win.

Winning is so boring no one even cares. Biden was slurring his speech in Tel Aviv! Goddamit people don't understand how a unipolar superpower operates. This was Bush's idiotic error. In a unipolar world, you don't have to be unilateral. If you sell it right lots of other people want to join in b/c it's the only big game in town. Duh.

And Republicans want to be our latex salesmen.

[Seducio]

As much as he's bumbling around I'm not sure I want Harris to take his place.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

I've known a few high-functioning people that age. They can still run things fine, if they goddam know how things worked in the first place and can delegate reporting authority, manage time, etc. It's more doable than most people realize.

Now, how many can do it? One in a million is not out-of-bounds. But Biden would not be the first person to maximize their hours, so to speak. The least important job he has during these trips is the public statement. He's there to do a deal. He has to go. But the office, not the dude. Can he still operate? Fucker has been cosplaying a Senator for how many years?

None of this is actually hard. This is history, dealing a huge hand. What US policy is, and how any US president would more or less respond, is the opposite of a mystery. Hamas did everyone a favor by momentarily painting the ME in black and white. And this is kind of proof of the infamous New World Order. All that is meant by that concept, is a globally connected world where stability is the ne plus ultra. Only pariah states will touch Gaza now. It's a goddam unipolar world. Not hard.

I can't believe China is stupid enough to still want Putin around. That's a baffler.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Game theory > Jesus

[Seducio]

The_Evolution_of_Cooperation

Re: Putin and China. More than likely Putin sold the initial invasion of Ukraine as a quick jaunt across town to China. It turned out to be something that is quite different. Russia's oil reserves are still steady so I wouldn't go so far as to call them a client state of China. As in if Xi says Putin should be gone, that might not translate in Moscow. It probably would massively increase pressure on Putin from Russian oligarchs, but there appear to be mechanisms of Putin's reign in Russia that the West doesn't totally understand. Whether China does I don't know.

As far as the incentives to fix Gaza. You are right that we are in a historical moment. If I were Israel or USA I would be creating forced errors on my enemies part rather than seeking compete domination of the battle field. The hospital in Gaza having an explosion that originated from a Hamas rocket is an example.

[Seducio]

From the article:
>>
In summary, success in an evolutionary "game" correlated with the following characteristics:

Be nice: cooperate, never be the first to defect.
Be provocable: return defection for defection, cooperation for cooperation.
Don't be envious: focus on maximizing your own 'score', as opposed to ensuring your score is higher than your 'partner's'.
Don't be too clever: or, don't try to be tricky. Clarity is essential for others to cooperate with you.
>>

[Seducio]

Putin is helping Hamas to hurt the West

Sadre - help me explain something from your world view. I agree the US has unipolar influence in the ME compared with China. That said wouldn't Russia want Hamas to attack Israel like it did. If ME gets hot then Iran and Hezbolah get involved. This involves the US which creates two fronts for us.

Is the US getting drawn into engagements that could devolve past our point of being able to handle them? Janet Yellen recently publicly said USA can afford both Israel's war and Ukraine's war simulateously.