There's a pretty close to exact correlation between lower productivity and lower corporate taxes in Germany.

www.ianwelsh.net/germany-want...

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Just War Doctrine All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war. However, "as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed." (CCC, no. no.2308) The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time: 1 The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain; 3 There must be serious prospects of success; 2 All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; 4 The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the weighs very heavily in evaluating "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of this condition. these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good. (CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, NO. 2309) The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. "The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties." (CCC, no. 2312) PRAY FOR PEACE.

Bishops doubling down

I've written a post with twenty-one facts about the Iran war, trying to summarize the entire mess. One important point, Iran CAN render Israel uninhabitable any time it chooses.

www.ianwelsh.net/twenty-one-s...

The thing about shadowrun, especially SR2, was that it was had a lot of specific rules so that physical adepts weren't just using magic that operated like cyberwear, or that each type of magic user wasn't just "the same with some modifiers".

But I haven't kept up since old FASA went down.

No, it's not just about that. Generally a man can always overpower a women, BJJ teaches you how to fight when someone's on the ground with you, on top of you, holding your wrists, etc...

Size/Strength matters, but if you're trained and they aren't you can still win.

Like the last SR campaign I ran was centered around a Paranormal Detective agency. There were a couple SINless Shadowrunner types involved, but most of the characters were citizens, so to speak.

I did like the class system in Cyberpunk, I admit. The specific class abilities include some really neat stuff like credibility, or "how big a crook can you arrest" and so on. Cyberpunk2020 was set up to tell classic Cyberpunk stories.

SR is more... diverse and less channeled.

the magic rules for the fantasy setting are the most math intensive rules I've ever seen, and I used to design ships in OG Traveller.

Or the cyberpunk/espionage setting - any group of at least ten always has at least one traitor, every group of 1000 has at least one group inside it with different aims (may be getting the numbers wrong.)

Stay the hell away from the horror setting, where some characters must die to win.

And mechanically you need the deck, which is a real problem.

But the setting I like a lot, and the world rules--those alone were worth the price of admission. Like the world rules for the 30s setting - everyone is either good or evil, there are no shades of grey here.

Every girl and young woman should take at least a year of Brazilian Ju Jitsu. It's useless in a street or bar fight, but no other martial art teaches you how to avoid rape better.

The last Shadowrun campaign I ran centered around a paranormal detective agency. :) You don't have to play shadowrunners.

The End of the Game By starting this war, Israel risked its existence

The End of the Game

by @thomasneuburger.bsky.social
h/t @ianwelsh.bsky.social

neuburger.substack.com/p/the-end-of...

I think another things that might be contributing for you is that Cyberpunk 2020/2077 and WH40K are both very grim. Shadowrun is still cyberpunk, but the grimness is dialed back some, it's not completely hopeless.

I prefer that, I find Cyberpunk a bit too hopeless, especially 2077.

And I mean, I've read tons of books on economics, so this is not uninformed praise!

Yeah, a matter of taste.

I do think, that the worldbuilding in Shadowrun is superior. The original sourcebooks (original FASA, not the guys who call themselves that now) were really really good.

One of them has an anarchist essay which is the best description of competitive markets I've read.

Robots are going to change martial arts, because they will allow full force training against things like joints, necks and genitals. You'll actually be able to train the most dangerous techniques safely.

Every day I get up, check the Iranian American war news and conclude that American elites are not only stupider than I imagine, but stupider than I can imagine.

If you do not want your writing to be seen as AI, whether it is or not, do not use this format:

"This isn't bluffing; it's doctrine."

Normal people almost never write like this.

(Though I suppose people will start copying AI even when not using it, alas.)

There is no fertility crisis. Humanity is in population overshoot (that's what so many species going extinct tells you, tards.)

Fertility dropping is good, and a smaller population will lead to higher standards of living.

Ignore the natalists. They're morons.

Never thought I'd be rooting for an Islamic theocracy to win, writing that Ansar Allah is the most moral government in the world, and seeing Spain and Ireland being the only ethical nations in the entire Western world.

Prices for a lot of things are going to rise significantly soon, and in many cases there will be shortages or zero supply entirely. If you can, stock up now and check your power situation: is your country going to keep the grid functional?

www.ianwelsh.net/personal-con...

If you do have heroes be sure they've been dead for a LONG time.

I'm very fond of Socrates for example. ;)

Reminder, this is the biggest geopol even of any of our lives. The Iran war is the end of the Global American Empire, it'll still be a regional great power for a while, but the Empire is dying as you watch.

Best thing I ever read about what a good economy is, is that it's when you can start a cat cafe with a bookshop and it's viable.

Ehrlich just underestimate how long a system can stay in overshoot before it crashes out.

The ecological version of "the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."

The hate for him from tech bros is over-wrought. Climate change and ecological collapse exist.

What's the best type of beer to cook a pork stew or pot roast in?

However it is very common for people with doctorates to be well read in their own field and know virtually nothing outside their field.

In which case they're crippled and unlikely to do any real original work.

This is not true of people with Ph.D.s. I have met stupid people with doctorates but I've never met one who was badly read in their own field.

But a BA? Absolutely. Especially since most people forget what they learned, they were just trying to get a credential.

There is zero possibility of competing with me in certain ways if you haven't read like I have.

I regularly talk to people with a B.A. in some humanities or social sciences fields and find out I know more about their discipline than they do.