Kieselguhr [none/use name]

In particular, no aspect of taoism or Buddhism recognizes these things as being even slightly conscious.

I can agree with this statement of course, I’m saying that “Eastern philosophy” is just as varied as Western philosophy and vice versa.

The previous comment almost sounded like a Romantic Orientalist myth about the wise East versus the lowly pragmatic Western philosophers who bent the knee to Capital

I hate how full of shit the western philosophical world is. The eastern philosophical world already solved this. They are are not sentient. They are not sapient. They, in their current form, cannot be sapient or sentient.

What even is “western philosophy” vs. “eastern philosophy”?

Neither Hegelians, nor phenomenologists, nor late-Wittgenstein influenced pragmatists would say LLMs are sentient…

also it’s not like “eastern philosophy” (whatever that is) is inherently incapable of being subservient to capital

Iran has repeatedly warned that countries allowing their territory to be used for U.S. military operations against it could “face consequences.”

On Thursday, Iranian state media reported that Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi urged Bulgaria to reconsider its approval of U.S. military aircraft at Bezmer air base.

During a phone call with his Bulgarian counterpart, Velislava Petrova-Chamova, Araqchi said Sofia’s approval of a U.S. request to station military aircraft amounted to facilitating aggression ​against Iran. He said the move was contrary ⁠to the traditionally friendly relations between the two countries.

Bulgaria’s parliament ​last week approved the temporary deployment of up to eight U.S. KC-135 tanker aircraft and up to 250 personnel at Bezmer air base despite Iranian objections. Sofia has said no offensive weapons would be deployed and that the move did not make Bulgaria a party to military operations.

Araqchi also held a separate phone call with Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos, during which he stressed the need to prevent foreign military bases in Cyprus from being used against Iran.

Cyprus hosts two British sovereign military bases, including RAF Akrotiri.

The base was struck by an Iranian drone in early March, a few days after Israel and the U.S. initiated strikes on Iran.

I hate war and so on, but NATO countries should really see consequences, like [redacted]

Again I hate war, I wish no violence, only peace all over the world

I’ve heard that in the first week of bombing they have bombed a place called basically “Police Park”, simply because police was in the name of the place, but it was just a regular park.

U.S. officials say the White House believes it has more room to escalate because hundreds of oil tankers have managed to leave the Gulf through the strait in recent weeks.

Many people called this the day they’ve signed the MOU. I’m sure Iran also prepared.

China had enormous amounts of oil reserves, and they simply stopped buying oil for 3 months, removing demand from the market. If they kept bidding for barrels like it was normal times crude easily would have been 200+, causing global economic collapse. Now they are slowly very slowly starting to buy again.

Crude may spike yet again, or simply being 20% above the 5y average would still make stagflation the base case especially in EU and Japan, but because of Chinese reserves the global economic cliff may have been averted. Simply the absolute worst case scenario seems less probable.* (Which makes sense, since it’s not in China’s interest to have the whole global economy crash)

*Edit: Assuming the MOU status quo holds, but now US is bombing Iran again…

There’s a theory that China’s SPR saved the world from the cliff (but maybe not from smaller scale stagflation)

The whole thing is baffling

“Ukraine is winning” but “we will attack you for 40 days so you sign a peace deal! [where we lose 30% of our territory]”

Or Zelensky expects Russia to surrender?!

I truly don’t understand what is happening

Aside from the macro view that Ukraine is fucked, and EU populace is getting tired

(I have checked out a bit from the Ukraine war for 6-7 months apart from the headline news)

So what is happening this year? Talking heads I trust said last year after the Kursk incursion collapsing (Russian forces moving in the pipes!!) Ukraine will truly implode shortly as they are having manpower issues, corruption scandals, and Western fatigue? So what gives? Putin pulling punches?

fair enough, it’s still a weird thing to say that “we will not collect tolls until day 61”

Has this payment been confirmed? I wouldn’t trust either the Emirates or the US over the toll (or “enviromental fee”) I collect myself

Granted, the US could just as well see this be used as a chance to refill on fuel and then go back to where we were before the MOU after the discount period ends.

which is my guess for the most likely scenario, that’s why I don’t understand why this wasn’t an Iranian redline for the 60 day period, and then negotiating in the 60 days about the toll how much and how long etc.

if they don’t collect tolls for 60 days, then on day 61 US and allies will just say “what toll?!” and then what? Iran starts shooting at tankers again on day 62? that’s the plan?

doesn’t sound smart to me

This principle is repeated elsewhere in the text; in such a way that Iran will only accept 60 days of free passage for ships. This means the US has accepted the principle of fee collection and has only obtained a 60-day discount from Iran.

But after these 60 days, the Islamic Republic of Iran intends to benefit from the financial revenues resulting from the passage of commercial ships through this strait for the country’s economic development by providing safety, navigation, environmental, and insurance services.

why is this a good idea?

why not collect fees immediately?

I don’t even understand, will they sign a pdf in Adobe Acrobat? lol

yes it’s very simple at the end of the day, if there was an export ban in the US, then they wouldn’t deplete the SPR

Might be technically true, but it’s kind of like saying you have a savings jar with 5 dollar bills and your wallet with 1 dollar bills and they are both in a deficit after your income was slashed.

Yes technically the exported crude might be a different grade, but they wouldn’t export this much normally while also depleting reserves.

For all practical volume counting purposes it’s basically the same as exporting the reserves even though the actual SPR molecule might not leave US borders.

if US had enough oil, they simply wouldn’t touch the SPR

clearly the volume exported is being offset by the SPR release

saying it’s not literal Bryan Mound molecule arriving in Rotterdam is like arguing about angels on pinheads

because we have a lot of it a

it’s worth noting the oil getting exported is from the strategic reserves

well, there’s two ways to read this

1. Iran is making a compromise
2. They are killing time with all these 30 days here 60 there, until the more severe effects appear in the West and the Epstein regime will be more amenable to concessions

As a mainstream journo would say “The second day of heavy bombing seems to strain the fragile ceasefire”

It doesn’t matter anyway, there’s no inbound traffic.