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[scourge728]

trump team was apparently attempting to overthrown the Venezuelan government, but they predictably picked the worst people they could find to do it 

[wierd]

The US Govt secretly trying to topple smaller nations and install crony puppet dictators is such old news, that I dont even know where to begin.  The only new thing is that the Trump Admin is incompetent.

With any luck, the incompetence will be SO pronounced, that there will be no plausible deniability, and the US public will *FINALLY* react with outrage, disdain, and furor over the shit, and force changes in our nation's foreign policies. But no.  I dont see that happening. I just see the US public going "Meh, I dont care. Those people in other countries can eat a bag of dicks-- give me my cheap oil, cheap beer, cheep food, and give me free healthcare for my STDs (from all my hedonistic sex), and nothing else matters." 

[Descan]

I don't think the same American people saying that last one wouldn't care about their government destabilizing other nations.

[smjjames]

No one in the congress seems to have a beard, let alone the White House or the Supreme Court.

Paul Ryan did go through a beard phase for a bit.

[dragdeler]

-snip-

[wierd]

...  TRUMP, as an .... "Anti War" ... pundit?

...

...

What are these germans smoking? 

[smjjames]

The US Govt secretly trying to topple smaller nations and install crony puppet dictators is such old news, that I dont even know where to begin.  The only new thing is that the Trump Admin is incompetent.

With any luck, the incompetence will be SO pronounced, that there will be no plausible deniability, and the US public will *FINALLY* react with outrage, disdain, and furor over the shit, and force changes in our nation's foreign policies. But no.  I dont see that happening. I just see the US public going "Meh, I dont care. Those people in other countries can eat a bag of dicks-- give me my cheap oil, cheap beer, cheep food, and give me free healthcare for my STDs (from all my hedonistic sex), and nothing else matters." 

It never even got to the 'supplying material support' phase. It also seems to have been in part, an intel gathering thing.

The US Govt secretly trying to topple smaller nations and install crony puppet dictators is such old news, that I dont even know where to begin.  The only new thing is that the Trump Admin is incompetent.

With any luck, the incompetence will be SO pronounced, that there will be no plausible deniability, and the US public will *FINALLY* react with outrage, disdain, and furor over the shit, and force changes in our nation's foreign policies. But no.  I dont see that happening. I just see the US public going "Meh, I dont care. Those people in other countries can eat a bag of dicks-- give me my cheap oil, cheap beer, cheep food, and give me free healthcare for my STDs (from all my hedonistic sex), and nothing else matters."

I don't know, over in germany we got a part of the anti-war movement (among those that we allways edgy) who only grabs up newstickers and who interprete everything as: Trump is good because he isnt part of the deep state... up to a surreal and totally biased point (anti mainstream news) it's pathetic... people are dumb

...  TRUMP, as an .... "Anti War" ... pundit?

...

...

What are these germans smoking? 

Sounds like the German version of the Fox News crowd.

And yeah, anti-war? I have no idea where they're getting the anti-war notion from. Trump did try to position himself as antiwar in 2016, but turns out he's just as much of a hawk as the next Republican.

[EnigmaticHat]

I'm non-interventionist most of the time but from what I've heard the current government of Venezuela could use overthrowing, even by us.  Near anything could be better than the current situation.  That being said if we were going to do this we should have just done it.  Not overthrowing the government and then getting caught anyway is a diplomatic mistake.  To South and Central Americans this will make us look worse and the Venezuelan government less bad.

For those who don't know, the Venezuelan government passed laws that fixed prices for many goods at mandatory low values.  So if you were selling food (or any number of other things) you had to sell it at below what the previous market price would have been.  It didn't work, the economy tanked and people got upset.  They protested and wanted a new president immediately; instead of conceding President Maduro doubled down.  He never left power, he never reversed any of his policies, he never admitted there was a problem.  Instead he violently cracked down on any opposition and has insisted that the country is under threat by terrorists and/or us (hence why Trump getting caught here is bad).  It can't be overstated how bad the economy is.  Almost nothing is being produced, inflation is ludicrous and from what I've heard there's a famine.

For reference

[misko27]

"Don't talk to me ... before I've had my coffee" along with the nuclear blast.

'Because it can always be worse'
'Because the first two didn't teach us the lesson'
'Third times a charm'
'Just remember what a bad day really means'

HUMAN STUPIDITY

The ONLY infinite resource.

Hmm... All good ideas... I'm leaning towards something like weird's, but I'm undecided. I'll sleep on it.

[Yoink]

Also, this timeline's journey to being as absurd as possible will be complete when the baby boomers become the first generation to become immortal. I can imagine that 250 years from now, the world is just plunged into constant war between boomers and millennials, both rendered immortal by technology.

We'd have a bit of an advantage, though - I'm pretty sure most, if not all, baby boomers are past childbearing age, whereas we could pump out an endless stream of babies in-house, full of delicious claret with which to power our blood magicks.
Although I mean, who knows what effects this kind of science might have on human reproduction.

[MrRoboto75]

Also, this timeline's journey to being as absurd as possible will be complete when the baby boomers become the first generation to become immortal. I can imagine that 250 years from now, the world is just plunged into constant war between boomers and millennials, both rendered immortal by technology.

We'd have a bit of an advantage, though - I'm pretty sure most, if not all, baby boomers are past childbearing age, whereas we could pump out an endless stream of babies in-house, full of delicious claret with which to power our blood magicks.
Although I mean, who knows what effects this kind of science might have on human reproduction.

The amount of lonely/depressed people makes me question that reproductive capability.

[wierd]

People are sufficiently vain, that if a "Clone-o-mat 9000 Personal Cloning Machine!" ever hit the market, people would damned sure be producing Mini-Me versions of themselves, just for the selfie opportunities.

[Yoink]

When the very survival of your entire generation is at stake you will bloody well suck it up and breed, goddamnit.
Else we will just harvest your blood and give it to someone who is willing to serve the cause.

Glory to the motherland! Err... millennium-land?
I don't know, screw it, praise grisha5 I guess.

[Egan_BW]

Future generations would not be millennials, and thus have no reason to hold a grudge against the boomers. And if we're living forever and coming back from death, there's no reason why there would be a difference in fertility anyways.

I'm assuming an eternal war that just keeps going on forever because the combatants get put back together by nanites.

[Reelya]

For those who don't know, the Venezuelan government passed laws that fixed prices for many goods at mandatory low values.  So if you were selling food (or any number of other things) you had to sell it at below what the previous market price would have been.  It didn't work, the economy tanked and people got upset.

That's a gross over-simplification. I'm mentioning that because a ton of unrelated things get blamed on "socialism".

Several things happened. First, Venezuela's electricity grid is mostly based on hydro-electricity. Then they were hit with a 4-year drought from 2013-2017, the reservoirs ran empty and they couldn't supply electricity for that reason. Electricity was rationed, and the international media blamed it on socialism while omitting any relevant details like the drought and hydroelectricity problem. Then, if the hydro comes up they blame Chavez for the nation being dependent on hydro-electricity, despite such dependence predating the Chavez era by decades. Somehow he's culpable for not completely redesigning the existing electricity grid.

Similarly, the drought reduced agricultural output, thus food imports increased. The increased food imports were also blamed on "production dropping due to socialism" by the media while omitting the "there's a drought on" detail. I should really stop there because just that one thing, which is very easy to fact check that I'm telling the truth, should already signal that you're not being told the whole truth.

Second, was the concurrent collapse of the international oil price, and oil makes up 95% of Venezuela's export income. Now, that's blamed on Maduro's socialism as well - he supposedly should have diversified the economy. But ... why didn't the non-Chavez/Maduro people diversify the economy when they were in power.

And third, was opportunistic US sanctions back in 2014, further cutting off international hard-currency when it was most needed to import more food, because of the drought, remember. So you had a drought dropping food production at the same time as international economic pressures and sanctions cutting off money needed to import food.

The price controls were just one element of all that, and not necessarily the biggest one. Price controls don't cause starvation. The price controls existed for 10 years before Maduro was elected, despite inflation from 2003-2013 being a historically low period by Venezuelan standards.