It's just my opinion, I could be wrong

To begin with here, I'm hesitant to write anything about this event. That is, in part, because I'm still processing thoughts about it, but also in part because of the uncertain environment around expressing viewpoints around it. There is a lot of crackdown on free speech happening at the national level, as the Trump regime tries to silence any speech which they do not like, and other organizations (such as employers) are firing people for expressing views online as well. There are endemic attacks on political discourse and free expression ongoing in the US, and any speech entails risk (up to and including moral risk, as per the example case here). That's the state of the union. However, I have thoughts, and I think it's important to express them regardless. First, I wholeheartedly agree with Bernie Sanders (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlIvH6ozvv4): political violence is unacceptable in the US. I would go a step further, and say that efforts to suppress free spe...

So, this is a topic I've been dwelling on a bit recently, and I have some mixes and nuanced thoughts, so apologies in advance if this post ends up a bit scattered. Also, this is probably going to be a more controversial take, so if you might be offended by controversial opinions, maybe skip this post. I have kids. My kids do activities. These activities usually cost money (some a little, some a lot). Almost all of these activities involve some sort of fundraising, to subsidize the costs of the activities for people and families with less money. Sometimes this is voluntary, sometimes this is compulsory, with a strong aspect of forced wealth redistribution (eg: the soccer club my son plays for requires parents to raise or directly pay around $500/year extra, to subsidize other families with less money, in addition to the roughly $4000/yr in club fees). All of this fundraising, donations, required donations, etc. is socialized wealth redistribution. Now, I'm torn on if this is ...

(Author's note: I'm feeling inspired to write more fiction, as-if the US had a semi-competent leader at present.) My fellow Americans, I'm here today to address some of the questions and concerns about the recent US military action in Iran, in which we participated in an effort to degrade the ability for the Iranian regime to develop and acquire nuclear weapons. I will try to answer some of the questions about this operation, so that the American people can be more informed. Initially, let me touch on the evaluation of success of the operation. From a military perspective, the operation ran successfully: the systems performed well, the targets were hit as intended, and no US military personnel were harmed. From an efficacy perspective, the global intelligence community is still evaluating, and this will take time. At this point, we believe we have contributed to delaying Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon, but we do not know to what extent. I will also say, for refe...

There's a famous moral dilemma, where the person is forced to choose between inaction, and action which causes lessor evil. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem. There is no "correct" answer for this problem, of course, just philosophical takes on the morality of each choice. This is somewhat related to the more general question of whether or not propagating a smaller evil is justified to prevent a larger evil (eg: killing one to save many, or causing some to suffer in the goal of reducing larger future suffering). I lead with this, because I feel like there's a variant of this problem which is applicable to a number of human populations in the world, where the human population is doing something "bad", and as a result are suffering... and others needs to decide to what extent to help them at that point. By rendering assistance, one would be indirectly supporting the "bad" actions which led to the current state, and perhaps indirectly...

(Note: This is more or less just an fanciful writing exercise, "If I was in charge".) A statement on US actions in Iran: The United States has a strong national interest in preventing the Iranian regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon. In addition to the regional threat this would pose to US forces in the region, the regime has been unequivocal in their desire to affect genocide on the people of various countries, including the United States, and as such there is a clear motivation for us to attempt to limit their access to weapons of mass destruction. On this goal we are aligned with all regional partners, the United Nations, and all other civilized and peace loving nations in the world. At the same time, the Iranian regime has been unequivocally working to acquire a nuclear weapon for at least the last few decades. From impeding inspections, to enriching Uranium far beyond the levels required for fuel, to building concealed and hard to target development facilities, to vari...

This week, Israel unilaterally attacked Iran, under the pretense of having credible intelligence that their genocidal adversary was close to manufacturing a nuclear bomb, and that military action was necessary to prevent that outcome. The two countries have been lobbing munitions at each other since (Israel is precision bombing military facilities, while Iran is firing ballistic missiles seemingly intended to inflict the maximum amount of civilian casualties, as per their stated genocidal national goal). As for the validity of the pretense, there's no reasonable doubt that Iran is building toward a nuclear weapon. They have been enriching Uranium far beyond what would be required for energy production, building hidden enrichment facilities in very secure underground locations, developing and acquiring missile technology, etc. Any claim that Iran was not working intently to produce a nuclear weapon is patently absurd on the face of all the evidence (Iran's transparent lies notwi...