They get fantastically accurate results about what they study, which is large-scale voluntary exchange. Much more so than the other social sciences. The trick is just that war isn’t voluntary exchange (although it does include it), so other disciplines become really important when it breaks out.

That said, there are many odious regimes in the world and we do not go to war with all of them.

I feel like so much of the debate misses this forest for the trees. Sure, X regime is awful. How does valued ally Saudi compare? It’s at best an often-decisive factor in whether to be nice to someone or not.

Edit: Another good one:

There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad.

Even if you only care about economics, continuing the war just has to be personally cheaper for an official than ending the war. And then there’s tons of coercion, ego and ideology in the mix as well, and sometimes raw irrationality.

Early on in this, there were oil traders talking about how nothing will even disrupt oil because it’s too important. That’s replacing history with a fanfic you wrote, basically. Same vibe as the 90’s when the world decided free markets always become a democracy.

Are they sure, or is that just their opinion? /s

TBF there’s a logic to this one. It’s basically a science fact, and is unlikely to ever be important to someone’s personal goals.

That’s maybe not a person most of us would have common ground with, though.

Interesting. What’s the strategy here? Just “weaken Iran”? Is there some hopium that an escalation wouldn’t see them obliterated?

I’m sure they know as well as anyone else that actually bombing them out of existence isn’t realistic.

Edit: Maybe they’re just noticing that they’ve indefinitely lost free passage through the Strait of Hormuz, if it ends now.

Goes to show, there’s such a thing as government intervention making housing get too cheap. At least, relative to other things like cemetery plots.

You have to be careful with the Big Mac index. That’s a foreign delicacy in a lot of places, and there might be a guy selling a nice meal for a fraction of the price on a street nearby.

In Europe it might work.

Yup. They actually have little interest in if the Middle East is functional in any way, shape or form. If anything they’d prefer it be ruined in every way possible.

Just bombing it and then walking away serves them very well.

Yep. They had two catastrophic failures within months of each other, with the second one flooding out a bunch of people in their cars, and everybody’s just kind of praying there’s not another before they can be fixed. They’re steel wire reinforced concrete pipes, which don’t love salty ground water, and Calgary is more often than not experiencing winter and frequently icy.

It seems like “your feelings usually/always come from your thoughts” would count as a tip. You’ve done CBT so it’s apparently not a new one, though.

Maybe someone else has had luck with something less direct, I don’t know. Best of luck.

I mean, if you’re going to claim the French or Russian revolutions, they might as well claim the American one.

Generally the goal is to start rewriting patterns of thought once you identify them, by sorting out the ones you don’t fully believe. Maybe you just quit too soon?

The thing is, there’s only so much we can do over the internet with the information you’ve given. I have no idea why you think you’re an unworthy romantic partner, or how reasonable those ideas are.

If you have thin bird skin, I wonder if it could actually cause a nasty burn.

Not really, they’re lightly built. A sparrow might be 25.

Not really relevant to OP, but if you’re just talking to activists, you’re probably going to end up out of touch. It’s an extremely small minority.

You first.

Well, bad news about 95% of Lemmy posters…

IIRC Don’t Look Up had poor people in it, too.

Americans have a bit of a reputation abroad for ignoring the fact non-Americans exist and are people. This sounds like an example.

If you never need anything from the outside world and the outside world makes you feel unsure or bad about yourself, it makes emotional sense. I hear China tends to be the same way.

On Lemmy you’re going to get a lot of “he wouldn’t” answers.