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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • NATO’s is not going to be part of Turkey’s geopolitical schemes. Nukes are needed in order to be on an even footing with the other regional powers(which will also have nukes). Even if Saudi Arabia/Iran never intend to nuke Turkey, they will be at an advantage.

    Hard power translates to soft power. And if your regional opponents have nukes and you dont have nukes, you will be at a significant soft power disadvantage.

    Btw Turkey is building its first nuclear power plant, with help from Russia. Saudi Arabia also intends to build nuclear power plants soon. Thats the first step to creating a nuclear weapon.


  • Pretty sure there are NATO nukes sitting in Turkey already

    Those are US controlled nukes. And the US doesnt have the best relation with Turkey atm. They are there now, gone tomorrow. Turkey cant rely on american nukes. If other regional powers have nukes, they need to have nukes. And if Turkey has nukes, then Greece needs to have nukes for selfprotection.

    Turkey gets to wave their dicks around and make demands at the big boy table despite being a complete joke of a country.

    They have the 2nd biggest military in NATO, after the US, an immensely important geographical location and they are a regional power(along with Iran and Saudi Arabia).








  • Turkey under the Kemalists is an example of a primarily Muslim nation at least attempting to build a liberal democracy.

    Yes, building a liberal democracy by using military dictatorships. When you are trying to force something on people that dont want it(at least the majority), thats when you get Erdogan. It might suck for turks living in Western Turkey and in cities like Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara but the other half of turks have a majority.

    And one of the fundamental principles of a democracy is that majority rules. You cant use the military to overthrow democratically elected governments just because you dont like their policy.

    However, i agree with your point, there are plenty of turks who selfidentity as muslim and are ok with lgbtq, etc, just like there are christians. Though i never understood how that works. Like how can the Church of Sweden participate in Pride parades. At what point something stops being christianity and becomes a social club? In the Bible is clearly says that homosexuality is bad.


  • 500GB. I wanted to get more storage but then i realized that with 1gbit internet connection, i dont need it, i can download whatever i want in a few minutes. Fast internet is a game changer, it allows me to try and test games without thinking about it.

    I also have a 2tB hdd for media but i dont use that to store games.



  • Take robot or AI childporn as another example if cannibalism isn’t bringing home the intuition. It’s not harming children (at least directly) but it could reasonably be argued that it’s perpetuating and normalizing a violent and problematic practice.

    It could be argued but i am not so sure about that. You could start arguing about how “i fucked my stepmother” porn normalizes abuse but would you? I think these are philosophical or psychological subjects that ultimately have no real studies behind them.

    I’d like to believe that people are aware of the fundamental differences. These products are trying to appeal to non vegans who dont want to eat meat for health reasons. These people arent vegan in the first place. Is the existence of vegan meat equivalents make it harder or easier to convert these people into veganism? I think it makes it easier.

    It doesnt “normalize” abuse, abuse is already normalized. It is trying to change people and change takes time. In your AI childporn example, childporn isnt normalized and i could see AI childporn normalizing it and increasing real life child abuse.

    In the end, the animals dont care why they arent being killed. Me being vegan and not eating meat is as impactful as someone who isnt vegan and is eating a vegan meat equivalent. And this is the goal of veganism. Veganism isnt a religion, it isnt about purity, it isnt about you or your concepts of righteousness. It’s about reducing death and suffering.


  • Most vegans are against causing death and suffering to animals, not against how things taste. The abhorrent part is the killing, not the taste(for most vegans).

    Also i think your definitions are self limiting without a reason. Seitan tastes like “meat”, yet it is not. You cant just assign exclusivity on specific tastes. Those tastes can exist outside the realm of meat. But it is easier to talk about those things by referencing something that most people are familiar with(meat or sausage or burger).

    Would you be ok if we assigned 16 digit numbers to specific tastes and then used that number to describe products that have that taste? Is the use of the word “meat” that is problematic to you?


  • Armenians are christians, azeris are muslims(and ethnic turks). Turkey(Ottoman Empire) did a thing(genocide) on the armenians back in the day. Anyway eventually both countries were part of the USSR. The USSR collapses and all these new countries are created.

    There is a large region in Azerbaijan, inhabited mostly by armenians(the azeris say the armenians ethnic cleansed the azeris from the region). This armenian controlled enclave in Azerbaijan is separated from Armenia. Wars ensue, things become as they are now, with many issues but relatively peaceful.

    Fast forward to today, Azerbaijan has a lot of natural gas reserves, they are relatively somewhat rich and with the war in Ukraine, Russia(the ally of Armenia) refused to help Armenia and Europe has a huge appetite for non russian gas(ie for azeri gas). So Azerbaijan is in a very powerful political and economic position atm.

    Azerbaijan is using that power to “solve the issue” by military conquering the armenian controlled enclave, knowing that Armenia doesnt have any military allies anymore(Russia refused to answer Armenia’s equivalent to NATO’s article 5 request for help) and Europe/West cant do much politically because they are extremely dependent on azeri gas.

    Are the armenians the victim? Well, kinda. They are atm. But they were also the perpetrators in the past.






  • There was one time, when Turkey had a legitimate chance of joining the EU, back in 2005ish. Back then, one of their biggest supporters of their EU candidacy was Greece. Greece wanted to normalize the relation with Turkey and Turkey wanted to become a normal european country. Greece was even willing to throw Cyprus under the bus, by supporting the Annan Plan, which was objectively terrible for Cyprus. Though the thinking was “if Turkey becomes “normal”, then any negative part of the deal wouldnt be relevant, it could be like Belgium”. Though Cyprus(and pretty much all its political parties) voted against the deal.

    Erdogan was seen as the extrovert, moderate muslim, someone who could merge moderate Islam with european values.

    Nowadays, Erdogan and Turkey are on a completely different place. Erdogan has said “we might come on night” and “our missiles can reach Athens”.

    https://www.politico.eu/article/recep-erdogan-turkey-threat-against-greece-g20/

    https://www.politico.eu/article/erdogan-warns-greece-that-turkish-missiles-can-reach-athens%EF%BF%BC/

    Turkey is constantly pushing their “blue homeland” concept, which basically includes a lot of greek islands in the Aegean. And thats on top of ridiculous Exclusive Economic Zone(EEZ) claims that basically say “(greek) islands have no EEZ rights”. Turkey feels that it has been historically wrong and that they need more “breathing space” in the Aegean sea(where Greece owns all the islands except 3).

    And even the turkish society is different. There is a greater chasm between western/urban Turkey and the rest of Turkey. There was a hope that the rest of Turkey could slowly transition closer to european values, but nowadays it seems the country is getting split in half and each half is moving further away from the other.

    And last but not least, the russian invasion of Ukraine has shown to the world that integration and shared economic interests do not always translate to peace. So do we really want to do the same mistake with Turkey?

    PS I am greek, so i am biased.