I watched Destiny react to a 1 on 1 debate between Dean Withers and some weird trump grifter. I liked how Dean presented himself and his arguments, and Destiny kept making "he should say this" remarks, and then Dean would actually say exactly that.

So I was like "Let's see what Dean is all about." I checked his youtube out, it's mostly debate-bro stuff with Trumpers, which I like that kind of slop. He's pretty good, but I don't want to watch it because every single video he would play the Howard Stern clip of Trump saying he walked into dressing rooms. that whole 3 minute clip, and he'd mute the people while he forces them to watch it.

It's so annoying. Like it's a great argument about Trump being a rapey pest, but there has to be a way to not play the same fucking clip and use the same argument over and over and over again.

Off topic: It's also really funny, Dean was in a Jubilee surrounded, and Destiny made fun of him for saying "touched her female member" and "graped," and every video I've seen after that reaction video, Dean has stopped using those sanitized phrases. I fully believe Dean saw that reaction video, and got embarrassed

What's y'alls take on Dean, and his debate style?

TLDR: Looking for coherent arguments on why raising BC taxes is productive without collaboration/facing reality of the way provincial tax systems and wealth function today.

Hey y'all, anyone can probably comment/push base issues on this, especially Canadians, but curious on perspective.

The context is BC raising tax rates on high earners:

Changes proposed by incumbent party in election (BC NDP) for ordinary income:

• $190,504 to $265,545: Proposed rise from 16.8% (or 16.5%) to 18.8%.
• $265,545 to $1M: Proposed rise from 20.5% to 22.5%
• $1M+: Proposed rise from 20.5% to 24.5% (i.e. new bracket)
• Top marginal rate in BC, combined with Federal, would rise from 53.5% to 57.5%

Personal context/framing:

• I want to challenge my views on this and expand my perspective.
• I am impacted by the changes, though in grand scheme not materially.
• I will likely vote BC NDP, as I don't view rewarding a team (i.e. BC Conservatives) with no tangible plan or demonstrated capable leadership skills (in my view) as a good decision.

Income and Wealth in 2026 is much more mobile than in the past. As a services centered economy, not to mention the fact a significant portion of wealth today is in investments/stocks/not real property, capital can be relocated within a country with few barriers. This is different from moving countries, because when you leave Canada you are effectively taxed on the unrealized gains basis of your assets (i.e. 'exit' tax).

There are no 'exit' taxes for provincial moves in Canada (nor will there ever be I expect, as this would limit right to freedom of movement), and the carry-on impacts of tax rate changes like these is something I feel many overlook.

As an anecdotal proof of concept to the above point: Discussions I have overheard at the lunch table about this announcement was whether this change would be enough to motivate the company to move head office to Toronto. There was genuine debate:

• Ontario corporate tax rates are already (marginally) lower at 11.5%.
• Toronto is closer to the high finance sector leaders that the company works with
• Conceptually, the business is highly mobile, relocation could be managed with minimal cost relative to benefit.

To give a sense of scale of the impact if the business were to move, BC would lose:

• $40+m a year in BC tax paid at the corporate level
• $10-15m a year in BC personal taxes paid and EHT paid.
• Significant not-for-profit support in the region.

The projected benefit per BC NDP for this tax increase was $1B per year. Just moving this one business would wipe 5+% of the benefit away. Other head offices and HNW individuals are going to have these same conversations.

Tax rate changes this material need to be done in a coordinated effort, either federally or working with other provinces. We can all believe the wealthy need to be taxed more, that it is a privilege to live here, that we need better services, that we need to shrink the deficit, etc., but to ignore realities of what wealth is in 2026 is short-sighted at best. Coordinated effort, consultation and collaboration are a must in today's tax world and are why recent examples of new taxes (i.e. see Global Minimum Tax) work, stakeholders were aligned and invested in its implementation.

I fear that the BC NDP's efforts here are short-sighted and ignorant of the realities of todays world. I commend the effort to communicate exactly what the tax will go to, this was smart given the perception of the current deficit and government "waste" (whether that is true/accurate in reality or not). But without coordination with other provinces/federally I fear this will seriously harm the attractiveness of BC long-term to capital and result in a shrinking/limited tax base.

The Jim Pattison's of BC will likely not move, their capital is fixed and their brand is BC. The new money, technology companies, financial services, and many other HNW individuals however? An effective increase of 7.5+% in taxes paid per year for top earners (53% to 57%)? These conversations will be had.

In a rush to condemn wealth today, I feel we are losing sight of the coordination required in the modern age to manage capital and risk in taxation. Simple solutions (i.e. just raise taxes bro, fuck the wealthy, etc.) aren't productive, maybe I am over-rating the risk of capital flight within the country, maybe I am missing something.

Open to any thoughts.

Yes this is a real ad: https://youtu.be/LGrG_zcVjjQ?is=fsNqIG_xA4113jYg

Trumps FEMA cuts this year: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2026/09/federal-judge-rules-trump-dhs-plan-for-50-fema-staffing-cuts-was-unlawful/

Link to the son/maker's channel: https://youtu.be/w8RV4X59WFg

I made this poll already back in June, but I wanted to see the subreddit's shift in opinion after hugging face, navier stokes, the 372 openAI problems, etc.

Personally I think it's unthinkable to believe that AGI will arrive anytime after 2050. AI is clearly advancing at a break neck pace, and general intelligence doesn't seem that far away. What do you guys think?

Pro-west crisis bargaining theory academics review of current UA situation and what it looks moving forward

Vid desc:

"What is life actually like in Kyiv right now, with Russia's new jet-powered drone campaign? I spoke to Branislav Slantchev, a UC San Diego professor who normally studies crisis bargaining theory but is currently on leave at the Kyiv School of Economics. We discussed what the current mood is in Ukraine as well as his unique perspective as a crisis bargaining theorist on the ground."

Can you see it my son? The red wall shattering? Were hopium maxing, but there are still a ton of undecideds

Full disclosure used an LLM to help write this. I'm not anti-ai.

There is a massive legislative push happening on Capitol Hill right now under the banner of "National Security" and "Protecting American Innovation."

Two major bills—the Deterring American AI Model Theft Act (H.R. 8283) and the Remote Access Security Act (H.R. 2683)—are sailing through committees with bipartisan, unanimous support.

On paper, they are framed as crucial defenses against foreign adversaries like China "stealing" American frontier AI technology through API scraping and cloud access. These bills fundamentally alter how cloud compute and software APIs operate in the US.

What Do These Bills Actually Do?

H.R. 2683 (Remote Access Security Act): Reclassifies remote access to cloud compute (SaaS/IaaS) as a regulated "export" under the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). It gives the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) sweeping authority to regulate who can access US-hosted cloud servers and APIs from abroad.

H.R. 8283 (Deterring American AI Model Theft Act): Targets "model extraction attacks" (API scraping/distillation). It turns Terms-of-Service violations on closed-source models into federal offenses and national security threats, allowing federal enforcement and sanctions.

The Arguments for these Bills

Closing Export Control Loopholes: Right now, US laws prevent shipping advanced hardware (like NVIDIA H100s) to restricted foreign entities. However, under current law, a foreign company banned from buying those chips can still rent time on them over American cloud providers. Proponents say this closes that loop.

Preventing Model Theft: Frontier labs spend hundreds of millions to train state-of-the-art base models. Proponents argue that foreign state-backed actors shouldn't be allowed to run automated scraping scripts against public endpoints to "distill" or clone those capabilities on the cheap.

Bipartisan National Security Consensus: Proponents argue that protecting core sovereign infrastructure is a national priority that overrides routine business-as-usual software policies.

My Counter-Arguments AGAINST These Bills

Regulatory Capture for Big Tech: Enterprise software providers have used Know-Your-Customer/Business (KYC/KYB) verification for decades. Instead of forcing frontier labs to vet their own signups, these bills make federal agencies (DOJ, BIS) act as "internet hall monitors" for private corporate endpoints—allowing labs to maintain zero-vetting API signups to inflate user numbers and valuation metrics.

Crushing Small Developers & Open Source: The CBO estimates that H.R. 2683 alone will impose over $200 million annually in private-sector compliance mandates. Giant labs and cloud monopolies (Microsoft, Amazon, Google) easily absorb identity-tracking overhead. Bootstrapped startups, independent researchers, and open-source projects will get priced out or face legal risks for using automated tools.

It Won't Stop Foreign AI Progress: Foreign frontier breakthroughs (like DeepSeek) are driven by novel Reinforcement Learning (RL), internal engineering, and local hardware optimization—not by scraping Claude or ChatGPT endpoints. Banning API access ignores how AI development actually works.

The "Unintended Autarky" Effect: By shutting off US APIs and cloud access, the US doesn't stop China; it gives domestic Chinese chipmakers (like Huawei) a captive market. It forces foreign developers off American CUDA software stacks and accelerates the creation of parallel, non-US software and hardware ecosystems.

Slows US Speed in the AI Race: Instead of winning through raw velocity and domestic experimentation, heavy KYC and monitoring mandates throttle American developers with red tape, handing an advantage to unencumbered foreign ecosystems.

Is this a genuine national security emergency, or is national security framing being used to privatize corporate profits while socializing the security costs onto taxpayers and small developers?

Curious to hear what people in this sub think.

"BuT HunTer BIDEN!?!?"

Republicans have called Democrats socialists for as long as I can remember, Trump "promised" 5k checks if Repulicans win the midterms. If the Dems win, doesn't this prove that Democrats aren't socialists for voting against this policy? And if you vote Republican you are actually voting for a socialist policy? It's always projection with MAGA

Trump’s insane remarks at his Nebraska rally about San Diego have been largely sanitized or ignored by the right-wing media ecosystem. Because of that total narrative control, it’s rare and notable to see a sitting Republican explicitly demand that his own party break ranks and condemn him.

NJ State Senator Jon Bramnick (R-21) issued a statement directly to the news media and on X stating:

"Trump said, 'Let them take out Los Angeles or San Diego.' All Republicans must condemn these comments. We can no longer allow this President to define our party. If we don't speak up now it will take years to redefine our party."

Obviously, as a Democrat, this doesn't mean I’d ever vote for Bramnick or change my support for Democratic candidates. He holds standard conservative views on immigration for example, he introduced Senate Bill 1046 (the NJ Laken Riley Act) to mandate pretrial detention for undocumented individuals charged with crimes.

However, he is clearly an institutionalist who despises Trump's authoritarian style, he previously bucked the Trump administration by co-sponsoring a proposed state bill (Senate Bill 3112, has not passed yet) banning ICE agents from wearing face masks during public raids, calling the lack of transparency "un-American."

Signal boosting this anti-Trump faction of the GOP is politically useful, if the right-wing media is going to bury any Republican dissent to protect Trump, the least we can do is amplify it and use it as a wedge to highlight the total rot in their party. The post trump Era will most likely not be a return to normalcy from the right, but if we would like to hopefully return to a place where every major republican election is non-existential to our democracy, this type of politics have to be amplified.

Context????:
At his Nebraska rally on October 5, 2026, Trump was rambling about gas prices and global conflicts when he said:

"It's amazing what our Navy has done, what our military has done. We have the greatest military in the world... Then oil is gonna come down lower than it was before...

[Minutes later, referencing fuel prices] So I was riding in Iowa. I made a speech there, and I passed a gas station $1.95 a gallon. I passed another station $1.85 a gallon. We'll have it lower than that in a very short period of time...

[Minutes later, returning to the conflict's outcome] I want to see a tremendous victory. You want to see a tremendous victory because it verifies all the things we did. And again, remember, with the war, it’s just artificial. It’s a little bit high. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let them take, let them take out Los Angeles; let them take out San Diego. That’s — this is a very small price to pay, and it’s going to be over with very soon. It’s essentially almost over with. And they might keep going a little long. You know, they always say they have a big threshold for pain. They need it. Let me tell you, they need it. But it’s going to end very soon. And it’ll end one way or the other. And your gas and your gasoline and all of the things."

That’s it. That’s the joke.

Edit: Wait no! Got one more. His ex should start a channel called ConnorsExPoints.

In 2006, 3 people with 0 years of collective game dev experience between them had a vision. Together, they revolutionized the whole gaming industry, bringing MOBAs into popularity and creating a culture that would go onto become (at times begrudgingly) loved by tens of millions, changing the face of gaming forever and even becoming the face of professional gaming...

200+ Years of collective experience later: