Also: Extra large swanker.

Elon Musk: Sunk Mole.

Mark Zuckerberg: Kerb Muck Grazer.

Sergey Brin: Beery Grins.

the abrupt “time to leave” even if you’re not done

Seems like you went to the more touristy places. Or Munich. Or a touristy place in Munich. They tend to be a little brusque and unfriendly there… It really pays off to look for places on Maps which are highly rated and a little off the beaten path. Some real gems there. I could name a few restaurants in Berlin which serve awesome German (!= Bavarian!) food that isn’t repetitive.

If this comment saves only one person from wasting their money, it is worth it:

Do not buy Focal Bathys.

The build quality is super cheap, mine broke not even two years after purchase. The plastic surrounding the metal bits that connect the central part to the ear pads will break sooner or later.

I hate how accurate this is.

This is also how they end.

I never specifically said “joining US military is bad”, I said joining the military in general is a bad thing. And neither did I talk about nukes, which are the ultimate evil.

I also never demanded to remove the military capabilities of one country, leaving it open for other countries to attack. I never talked about these things, about balance of power, about mutually assured destruction and all these geostrategic aspects of military logic.

All I said was - if you are a person who joins your country’s military, I despise you. Period. This is a statement I made completely disregarding all these other aspects you mention, and it is completely logically valid on its own.

You failed to get the point I was making. Just because the military is a driving factor to technological progress, doesn’t mean it’s a good thing all of a sudden. And all that progress could also have been made by science. Wernher von Braun didn’t care who funded his research into rockets.

Would we have the Autobahn if Hitler hadn’t built it?

Thank you very much for saying that, but in hindsight it was actually a great life experience. I met a man who was 103 at the time, in 1997. So he was 21 years old when WWI broke out. He later joined the German socialist party SPD, he resisted the Nazis and was forced to emigrate, he had such amazing stories to tell.

I think he played a big part in why I became interested in politics, German history and also why I became an antifascist and anti-militarist. Him and the fact that the Nazis executed one of my two grandfathers for “defaitism”.

Feeling you have no other option (despite a lot of other jobs being on offer) and totally not having any other option (because they’ll put you in jail for not paying taxes) are two completely different things.

With all due respect, but there is no reason to join the army unless they force you to. Even when Germany still had mandatory military service and they wanted to draft me in 1997, I opted to wipe old peoples’ butts in an old people’s home instead because that was the only way out. Don’t you dare tell me there is no other option.

If you read my first comment, I explicitly said “of their own free will”. I do not pay taxes out of my own free will, so your comparison is invalid.

We wouldn’t see images like the Iranian girl’s rucksack smeared with blood.

Yeah. Why not just lead a normal life.

I wish society would frown upon people choosing to become soldiers like they do upon prostitutes. But instead, all this glorification and militarism makes them think being a soldier is a commendable thing.

In my view, prostitutes should get the medals. They literally make love, not war.

Absolutely agree.

I happen to be German, by the way. My grandfather was forced into the Wehrmacht, he tried fleeing the battlefield, he got executed.

Anyone who works for the military enables politicians to wage war. And no soldier will ever be able to 100% prove their actions never led to anyone getting hurt.

Soldiers know and accept that and that’s why I despise them.

Working for the military makes you a war enabler. Best case. You help making it possible for some government asshole to wage war. Worst case, you become a murderer.

So whether you’re in battle or not only decides if you’re a murderer or helping murderers.

None of these possibilities are acceptable. Period.

You join the USN, you help with the logistics, someone you’ve helped in some way or another presses a button somewhere, a cruise missile is fired, obliterates a target and a few bad guys, some civilians die as collateral damage - to me, you’ve helped kill these civilians even though, admittedly, you’ve only played a very minor role. I very much doubt there are any contracts at the USN that 100% exclude that possibility and I’m not giving anyone a benefit of the doubt.

I despise anyone who becomes a soldier of their own free will. The moment you enlist, you accept that you could be obliged to kill, and that you will have no control over whether that killing will be justified.

In other words, you accept the possibility that you could become a murderer.

"You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress of humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world.”

— Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

And since the Republicans have been taken over by conservative Christians, this quote basically explains everything they’re trying to do as well.

Well, to be quite honest, it also shows how rotten our so-called Western civilization has become. This man not only got elected, but millions upon millions of people thought it would be a great idea to reelect him - after Jan 6th and everything.

And that’s not even an exclusively American problem. Look at Europe. Even with better education and safer social security, way too many people vote for far-right populists.

Before Corona, I still had hopes for us as a species. Despite all the religious nonsense, the racism, the bigotry, the hate, the wars, everything. I thought sensible people were a safe majority. I thought it takes extraordinary circumstances, the proverbial perfect storm, to plunge a society into chaos.

Well, I know better now. I’m 49 and with any luck, I’ll have 30 more years on this planet, maybe I get lucky and there will be no wars on my doorstep. I’m utterly, utterly disappointed in mankind, I would almost go as far as to say I root for its demise. I have no kids, I don’t feel like I have a horse in this race anymore anyway.

And Trump is the epitome of everything wrong with us.