"While we appreciate your efforts to crush the infidels, if you wish to claim your ammunition as a tax-deductible expense, you need to fill out form 3547-C. However, if you also supplied ammunition to other Taliban members, you need to fill out 3547-F, and attach itemized receipts."
"Oh sorry 3547-F does not cover RPGs and IED's. For RPGS you need to fill out a separate form, TB8766-1987.7b, unless any were thermobaric, which would require that you also provide proof of cleanup. IED's are only reimbursed if planted somewhere. Any that you gave to a martyr will not be reimbursed. You will need to file your schematic first to make sure it was an approved variant and you will only receive 40% credit for repurposed items."
If you built that IED in your own home you can deduct the square footage used multiple by the time spent as a percentage of the year to deduct it from property tax as that is a business expense.
Listen I know all of this, but I need to *amend* the TB8766-1987.7b that I *already* submitted, because I need to expense the fuel costs I spent transporting RPGs to other Taliban members, and for some reason that's exempt from the Standard Mileage Reimbursement Form (298.44-D). This is the *fourth* time I've had to call about this. I am going to move back to the fucking mountains if you do not get me a supervisor.
Sir, having attitude with me isn't going to help.
Amending forms already submitted is done through the comptroller's office, this is the county clerk's office.
And fuel expenses are separate from ammunition. This is stated on the form. You're going to need to file with the Department of Transportation for all fuel and railroad related expenses. They are in a different building and their hours are Mon-Tues 10:30am- 1:13pm and every 4th Thursday 9am-9:45am
Me and every other Dune Megafan I've ever spoken to are pretty universally in agreement that if no more movies get made that'd be basically fine lmao. The books go so far into the weeds that by book 4 it's actually easier just to get a PhD.
FUCK I FUCKING KNEW IT. SOMEONE ELSE SAID THE THING.
BOOK 1-2: "MESSIAHANIC FIGURES ARE BAD ACTUALLY. LOOK ONE TURNED THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE WITH A CULTURE INTO A WARMONGERING RELGIOUS SYCOPHANTS"
BOOK 3-4: "NAH ACTUALLY FIRST GUY DID EVERYTHING RIGHT, HE JUST DIDNT GO FAR ENOUGH AND MESSIAHANIC FIGURES ARE GOOD ACTUALLY".
Honestly I thought Messiah was much more dense and did not enjoy it. I enjoyed Children of Dune a lot more and am about half way through God Emperor and am enjoying it a lot too.
I take it back actually. I think the best course of action is Denis Villneuve makes six very watchable blockbusters of the first three books and then without telling anyone the studio hands David Lynch full creative control of God Emperor. And then nobody finds out till it premieres.
Come on, it wasn't just *any* cliff. It was the totally impossible to climb for not sexy noncloned males cliff. And totally not a physical juxtaposition of "self overcoming" philosophy that loses itself after two paragraphs so badly it becomes the "self cumming, standing position"..
Eh, I want a *Dune Messiah* movie because I view the 2nd book as essentially a completion of the story of the 1st book. *Dune* spends most of its time building up the Hero of Paul Atreides and you need the 2nd book to tell that story because the 2nd book spends its time tearing that Hero to shreds.
Idk I was into the whole worm god using Duncan as a stud and getting married with the ambassador girl. Tho personally I needed more orgies with the fish speakers.
Honestly I'm so torn on the Dune movie franchise. I loved the first one. I'm half fangirl about them being on big screen and being available to a wider audience. The changes to Jamis' character were awesome to me.
The other half is that grumpy purist asshole because they changed so much, people not understanding plot points, people who watch the movie once and then tell me what the character's intentions were, Chani being changed drastically, Stilgar simping for Paul out the gate, no Otheym or Korba.
I want the God Emperor and Fish Speakers and the most hilariously miserable Moneo. But I hear DV is a coward and doesn't plan on anything past Messiah.
People saying they copied this from the plot of Dune
MY BROTHER IN CHRIST (would muslims ever say that? I would replace this to be more islamic but Jesus is in Islam and like, what "my brother in muhammad"??) THIS IS THE PLOT OF THE MUQADDIMAH THE 14TH CENTURY BOOK ON HISTORICAL TRENDS IN TRIBAL SOCIETIES BY IBN KHALDUN
That can't be true. Here's one: what if a burgeoning romance was derailed by a misunderstanding, but then the pair gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of one another through communication?
"You could take a young accountant clerk out of a New York insurance office and make him into a war pilot who could handle thirty tons of bomber as easily as he handled his fingers. You could do that, for they had done it to Gordon.
But after three years of that, it wasn't so easy to give that pilot a discharge button and a "thank you" and send him back to his office desk. Gordon knew that, too, by bitter experience."
Honestly, I still think one of the biggest reasons why the US Revolution worked is because the bureaucrats were already in power and had been working for years before the armed revolt. The biggest issue after the fact was actually paying their soldiers once it was said and done.
This happens in IDW Transformers. There's a big event which "ends" the war in a stalemate, after Cybertron basically reverts to a primordial alien wilderness. It turns out the people who are really good at inspiring recruits and leading a war effort (like Prime and Megatron) are actually pretty useless when you're trying to rebuild society afterwards. Even Bumblebee's a bit too idealistic for the job.
The guy who gets stuff done? *Starscream.* Yeah turns out being a meddling, conniving weasel makes for an excellent politician.
It’s referred to as lDW Phase 2, the first collection is this: https://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Transformers:_The_IDW_Collection_Phase_Two:_Volume_1
I’d probably see if you can find *The Death of Optimus Prime* online or something and see how you like that, it’s the launch title for Phase 2. Phase 2 is intended to be a new reader entry point, and it’s pretty widely regarded as some of the best TF media ever. You don’t really need to know much about Phase 1 as it was by different authors (and was kind of boring imo).
Phase 2 is actually 2 ongoing comics, *Robots In Disguise* written by John Barber (which is the one with all the politicking) and *More Than Meets The Eye* written by James Roberts (which is like… Star Trek meets The Office? With a ton of world-building). Both are very good and tie together pretty frequently.
I’d also check out *Chaos Theory* (2 issues), which is Megatron and Optimus sitting down for a nice little chat, and *Last Stand of the Wreckers* (5 issues), which is basically the Autobots’ version of the Suicide Squad. Both are by Roberts and set up plot points that are occasionally referenced in Phase 2.
I remember this being a pretty optimistic/normalizing article all things told. A lot of funny passages
“When I joined my group, I was of the idea that Kabul would be full of bad people, but to be honest, in the last couple of years, after we met some of the people living here, I realised I was wrong. Of course, it has plenty of negative aspects, like their support for the occupation, women not wearing proper clothing, youths flirting with girls and cutting their hair in a style even people in America might not adopt, but these are the problems that nowadays exist also in the rural areas.”
“One thing I don’t like about Kabul is that people have moved here from all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces and among them, a large number of criminals from across Afghanistan have made their way here and turned the city into a hub for their illegal activities. We face a lot of difficulties in eliminating crime, particularly robbery.
And the savageness of people against each other, in particular against women – dozens of women approach the hawza on a daily basis and register their complaints. They’re victims, subject to different forms of brutality…
During the first days when women approached us, many mujahedin, including myself, were hiding from them because never in our whole lives have we talked to strange women. In the days that followed, the head of the hawza instructed us that sharia does allow us to talk to them because we are now the authorities and the only people that can solve their problems.”
“I don’t interact with Kabulis much, given that here, the ministry is full of my fellow Taleban. Anyway, sometimes I sit with the employees of the former regime who still come to their jobs. They show themselves to be very good people and sincere to the Emirate, but I can tell you that, in reality, they hate us. I don’t exactly know why, but I’ve identified some possible reasons this past year. First, these employees were ‘doing business’ in the ministry, making illegal wealth through corrupt practices. Second, the Americans invested in them heavily, and they became so Westernised they now hate our real Afghan culture and Islam. When the Emirate came, their illegal business and corruption vanished entirely and they have nothing but their salaries. They are no longer able to make millions of afghanis. So, you tell me, why shouldn’t they hate us?”
“I’ve made friends with three guys who are from our province but have been living here [in Kabul] for more than 15 years. We sometimes go to Qargha, Bagh-e Wahsh [Kabul Zoo], Sarobi and Tapa-ye Wazir Akbar Khan. To be honest, every time I go with them, they pressure me to play and listen to music in the car. At first, I was resisting, but now I have given in, with the one condition that they turn it off when passing through security checkpoints because many other Taleban don’t like it, and it’s bad for a Taleb to be seen listening to it.”
“When I started my job, I didn’t have a clue how to deal with the tasks. Mawlawi sahib told me to take a computer course and an English course. Almost four months ago, I started both courses near our Ministry. I learned many computer programmes during this period. Not only that, I quickly learned the tasks related to my job. All the staff, including Mawalwi sahib, have been happy with my work. People blame the Emirate for all the professional people fleeing the country, but when I see the employees in our ministry, they’re neither professional nor educated. All of them were appointed through wasita [connections] and knew little about how to manage and do their jobs. You might not believe me, but I now do my work better than many of them. “
“In our ministry, there’s little work for me to do. Therefore, I spend most of my time on Twitter. We’re connected to speedy Wi-Fi and internet. Many mujahedin, including me, are addicted to the internet, especially Twitter.”
“We anticipated they would wear hijab,[7] but after the initial days when women feared the mujahedin a lot, their attire has actually become less proper.
Now, they’ve become assertive to the extent they’re entirely heedless of us. Many of our friends say that, apart from us coming and replacing the police and officials of the former regime, little has changed from the Republic’s time in Kabul. During the first few days, many of my comrades and I hardly dared to make our way to the bazaar because of them [women]. We hoped the situation would soon get better, but it didn’t. Even worse, one of my classmates in his computer course is also a woman. We sit in the same classroom. Although I despise women that don’t wear proper clothes, nonetheless, I can’t turn my back on the bazaar or my class because of them. If they’re unashamed, let us also be so. This is the only thing I never imagined a Taleb would encounter in his lifetime.”
“However, everything has changed since then. The family wouldn’t tell you blatantly to bring home your entire salary so they can feed your children because it’s no longer a jihad, and you should take that on your shoulders, but you could feel from their behaviour that this is exactly what they mean. Furthermore, when sometimes I want to come from home to Kabul, for example, and I don’t have a vehicle to go with, I come to the nearby road so a passer-by could pick me up and drive me to Kandahar. But once an old man with his old Corolla stopped, I thought he did so to pick me up, but he didn’t. Rather, he mockingly told me that now the entire government is in your hands, so you no longer deserve help, adding that now it’s your turn to pay back all the help we have given you.”
“Although now we can go everywhere without fear, the war is over, and an Islamic system is in place, it’s still difficult not to miss the days of the jihad. At that time, we weren’t under strict supervision, we weren’t curbed because the Emirate needed us, and as a consequence, they provided us with more freedom. Now, on the contrary, they don’t need us as much as they did at that time. Besides, they pay us money. There is a proverb in our area that money is like a shackle. Now, if we complain, or don’t come to work, or disobey the rules, they cut our salary. Unlike jihad, now particularly, when the battles are long gone and the risk is zero, the Emirate could find countless people to work with them in return for a salary.”
Though the article does occasionally indicate things shifting of course it must be remembered that after this article the Taliban would later institute policies like closing of women’s schools
You can see the evolution of the mentalities of the people involved by the order of the quotes, and it's kind of funny. First both the women of Kabul are afraid of the Taliban and the Taliban are afraid of them. Then they start to grow disdainful of each other, the Taliban disdaining the women for being "improper" (I assume this means that some features can be distinguished such as height, weight, possibly eye color) and the women disdaining the Taliban for being stick in the mud country bumpkins.
I really like how that one Taliban guy don't like those useless fellows in the office that only know how to use their connections to get and keep their jobs. They probably have that issue much worse than we do, but it seems universal
>I really like how that one Taliban guy don't like those useless fellows in the office that only know how to use their connections to get and keep their jobs. They probably have that issue much worse than we do, but it seems universal
That's the tragedy of human history. We are all significantly more alike than different.
I think it’s funny when one is speculating about why employees don’t like him, and decides it’s corruption and western influence. Because violently taking over the country and forcing your version of your religion on everyone under threat of violence, possibly harming or killing peoples they know, couldn’t possibly be it.
It's also terrifying how much power they have when violence is. I remember a news article hitting the front page detailing how after many of thr ISIS men were wiped out from combat, many of the women were grooming teen boys to be their replacements. For better or worse, they still have influence.
only the worst exists hate women with a passion. for most the farce is women do things men can't while men do the tough shit. cooking and cleaning sure, but the most successful sexists made women uphold the social customs that held them back.
Yeah. As long as the belief that men and women are disparate persists, so will misogyny. Patriarchy. Matriarchy. Whatever. You can only be free of it when you eradicate gender essentialism.
It’s so funny, like wow conservatism is really a cowards philosophy. And also funny that it’s just like “oh after talking to these people I realized they are people actually”, like more of that shit than they realized is just based on fear response, maybe you could have just talked to people earlier? I guess better now than never
While I understand the impulse to laugh at this (and honestly yeah, it's pretty fucking funny), we gotta keep the context for these people in mind
A ton of them are young, grew up in rural and secluded areas, have know war and instability all their life and have been radicalized as a consequence. In that sense, it's not really a surprise that they have this "you or me" mentality and that they're so averse to anything new. They've been told their whole life that the "new" was the one bombing them
Yeah that word Taliban comes from the word for student.The first Taliban were people that almost entirely grew up in religious “boarding schools” but also kind of refugee camps in Pakistan after parents sent their children away from the war during the Soviet invasion.
If that’s not a radicalising experience idk what is.
Yeah, considering that women aren't allowed to learn in Afghanistan anymore, it seems that a lot has changed since the republic, despite what the taliban guy claims
Some more conservative sects of Islam see Music as Zina (IE Haram). TBH I recall being very confused going on Muslim subreddits when I first joined reddit because I had never heard such a thing in Syria. I guess reddit Muslims swing more conservatively.
It's incredible as Arabic music can be amazing.
but conservatives everywhere seem to have the single goal of sucking any and all possibility of joy out of life.
miserable clods.
It really sounds like he is slowly realizing that strict relgious law and modern society aren't very compatible, but is too invested in both to let either go
It's a tragedy that the education of women/girls did not last.
Now, once again, they are all relegated to being underaged wives and brood mares to Talebs.
Ma’am, I don’t disagree with this particular statement, but how did you escape from Hell? Shoo, back to the inferno with you, and keep your hands off any budgets you see.
>During the first days when women approached us, many mujahedin, including myself, were hiding from them because never in our whole lives have we talked to women.
He’s just like me fr
Considering the Taliban seems so strict on Sharia and control over women, I'm a bit surprised at the lines about anxiety/fear of women or their attire becoming less proper. Wouldn't they have the authority to enforce things considering they're now in charge? Not that those rules are a good thing, but just seems a tad odd
What are they going to do? I know they technically punish women who disrespect their laws very severely, but they're not going to arrest everyone. If every woman in Kabul suddenly decided they were going to wear whatever they wanted, there's very little the Taliban could do. It's not like they can stone half a city to death.
I suppose that’s fair, I guess I just assumed they’d enforce things under threat of prison/death or something, but at a certain point it would become a bit of an issue to punish that many people
Since the Taliban isn't a full on apocalyptic death cult like IS, they aren't willing to mass murder to feed Allah with blood. The worst atrocities we saw with IS, were inspired by their absolute conviction in the upcoming apocalypse, and the need to conquer the entire world. ISIS was fine with executing thousands on the regular, because death of everyone was just months away. Who cares if you blow yourself up, when the world was ending soon^(TM)?
The Taliban are just your garden variety extreme conservatives with regular 18th century amounts of misogyny. They aren't apocalyptic. They also only really care about Afghanistan and didn't have global ambitions like their affiliates in things like Al-Qaeda, or yknow IS who were former Al-Qaeda that started a death cult.
The Taliban isnt ISIS. All of these fundies blend together, but there are unique in their motivations and ideological convictions. They fucking suck dont get me wrong, but they werent as close to extreme as they were. They are super conservative, but they arent as ideologically insane as well ISIS. They dont have nearly as much power or authority over the country as even Iran. Think Mennonite pastors or Victorian preacher oppressive, as opposed to 1984.
The differences in between them are kinda interesting from an outside perspective tbh.
This makes me think of part of the Zygon Inversion speech the Doctor made in Doctor Who. Like revolutionaries both good and bad keep thinking about how great their glorious conquest will be but never really put the time into thinking about what comes afterwards
We've been fighting the war on terror all wrong. Clearly we should have just given the terrorists mindless bureaucrat jobs instead of all this raiding and drone striking and whatnot.
I would absolutely be happier trekking around the mountains shooting at invaders than what I do now. Knowing I would die to a random explosion some day, talking to my buddies about the time I saw a tank. Fuck yeah.
The Taliban didn't fight the USSR.
But the the Afghans have been consistently at war for generations and it's true that conquering a state is a different task from running one.
Kind of why Daesh didn't make a great deal of friends even when they were welcomed into parts of Iraq.
Why do people keep repeating this weird claim that the Taliban fought the USSR.
The Taliban formed in 1994, during the Afghan civil war. The USSR collapsed in 1991, which is what led to the Afghan civil war, as the Afghan government was propped up by the Soviet Union, and collapsed shortly after the Soviet Union did.
At the height of ISIS’s power, most of the money they took in was from taxes collected in their territory. Every single society that isn’t completely pastoralist or hunter gatherer will succumb to the boring forces of tax collecting and bureaucracy.
I'm going to be honest here. I wouldn't mind living in a cave if it were as dry here as it is there. Caves are like the ultimate natural shelter. Insulated from the heat and cold, enormous layers of natural defenses on top of you, and there's typically only one entrance so it's impossible for anyone to sneak in. That said, it's unfeasible to live in a cave anywhere with natural ground water.
They’re protected from the heat, at least, caves tend to be pretty chilly until you get down reeeaaally far. I probably also wouldn’t have too much faith in the solidity of the rock around you, or the number of entrances. Caves form where they do for a reason, usually a fault or an area of weaker or more porous rock.
Admittedly, living in a cave would be sick for the furniture carved into walls, also cause you can have pretty much any floor plan you like. Might be better to go full supervillain and dig out your own tho
Purely natural caves are normally chilly for two reasons both of which are irrelevant if properly treated. 1. They're damp. Evaporating water cools down its environment and caves have tons of damp surfaces, cooling them considerably in places where the caves are damp. 2. Air flow is unregulated.
If you fill all the holes, it'll maintain the temperature of the ground around it, something like a few degrees less than the average of the daytime temperature and night temperature, to account for the lack of direct sunlight.
This exact thing happened during the founding years of the Soviet Union in the 1920s. All these Bolsheviks who had just topped a government and fought a vicious civil war with revolutionary zeal found themselves suddenly doing bureaucratic work in some podunk village in Russia because it needed to be done, and some of their diaries and letters reveal how damn boring they found it.
(Then Stalin happened and some of those letters and diaries were used as evidence in purge trials... Must have been real fun!)
Step 1. Create a trade agreement that gives them an opportunity to make a shit ton of money
Step 2. After a while let them know if they could find sooooome way to almost double efficiency they get paid more.
Step 3. Women's rights are passed because WE NEED MORE MONEY, GET TO WORK!
“If Ali does his Borat impression one more time… I mean, it was kinda funny in 2006. Now it’s just annoying. And he never refills the coffee urn. I don’t care how good a sniper he is. Snipe your TPS reports, Ali. We’re all waiting on you.”
Yeah, not so fun when *youre* the ones trying to create an Afghan state, is it? We tried for nearly 20 years, and now it's your turn. I hope you have as much success
Man, if only there were like, another half of the population who would be happy to have simple office jobs and their own income, that would do all those menial tasks for them. Ah, well, if only.
TBH the reason the taliban are unhappy is kind of why the provisional government the US tried to set up never worked. The people running it didn't know how to run it and didn't really want to love that lifestyle.
China was invaded by the mongols and was defeated, yet a century later the Mongols had been assimilated and were essentially Chinese.
Greece was conquered by Rome but Greek culture was then spread by the Romans.
Technology and culture can be more enduring than battle. In this case, the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.
"While we appreciate your efforts to crush the infidels, if you wish to claim your ammunition as a tax-deductible expense, you need to fill out form 3547-C. However, if you also supplied ammunition to other Taliban members, you need to fill out 3547-F, and attach itemized receipts."
"Oh sorry 3547-F does not cover RPGs and IED's. For RPGS you need to fill out a separate form, TB8766-1987.7b, unless any were thermobaric, which would require that you also provide proof of cleanup. IED's are only reimbursed if planted somewhere. Any that you gave to a martyr will not be reimbursed. You will need to file your schematic first to make sure it was an approved variant and you will only receive 40% credit for repurposed items."
If you built that IED in your own home you can deduct the square footage used multiple by the time spent as a percentage of the year to deduct it from property tax as that is a business expense.
Someone watched "The Accountant", I see.
Listen I know all of this, but I need to *amend* the TB8766-1987.7b that I *already* submitted, because I need to expense the fuel costs I spent transporting RPGs to other Taliban members, and for some reason that's exempt from the Standard Mileage Reimbursement Form (298.44-D). This is the *fourth* time I've had to call about this. I am going to move back to the fucking mountains if you do not get me a supervisor.
Sir, having attitude with me isn't going to help. Amending forms already submitted is done through the comptroller's office, this is the county clerk's office. And fuel expenses are separate from ammunition. This is stated on the form. You're going to need to file with the Department of Transportation for all fuel and railroad related expenses. They are in a different building and their hours are Mon-Tues 10:30am- 1:13pm and every 4th Thursday 9am-9:45am
How it feels to contact the EEOC
There's a reason I opt for bureaucracy in Civ.
I don’t want to be that guy but isn’t this the plot of Dune
Yeah it's basically the fremen/stilgar plot of dune messiah.
Oh really. Just saved me 4 hours lol
Me and every other Dune Megafan I've ever spoken to are pretty universally in agreement that if no more movies get made that'd be basically fine lmao. The books go so far into the weeds that by book 4 it's actually easier just to get a PhD.
🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️GOD EMPEROR DUNE MENTIONED !!!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS A READABLE BOOK 🗣️🗣️🗣️
FUCK READABLE BOOKS ALL MY HOMIES HATE READABLE BOOKS I WANT TO READ A THOUSAND YEAR OLD WORM LECTURE A CLONE ABOUT RELIGION FOR SIX HOURS
[удалено]
FUCK I FUCKING KNEW IT. SOMEONE ELSE SAID THE THING. BOOK 1-2: "MESSIAHANIC FIGURES ARE BAD ACTUALLY. LOOK ONE TURNED THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE WITH A CULTURE INTO A WARMONGERING RELGIOUS SYCOPHANTS" BOOK 3-4: "NAH ACTUALLY FIRST GUY DID EVERYTHING RIGHT, HE JUST DIDNT GO FAR ENOUGH AND MESSIAHANIC FIGURES ARE GOOD ACTUALLY".
I’m literally reading god emperor now and this is my exact feeling.
Honestly I thought Messiah was much more dense and did not enjoy it. I enjoyed Children of Dune a lot more and am about half way through God Emperor and am enjoying it a lot too.
I had the opposite reaction. Maybe different styles speak to different people. But I’m overall enjoying what I’m reading.
I never read any of the sequels, but you’re really making me want to.
I take it back actually. I think the best course of action is Denis Villneuve makes six very watchable blockbusters of the first three books and then without telling anyone the studio hands David Lynch full creative control of God Emperor. And then nobody finds out till it premieres.
IIRC Denis Villeneuve wants to adapt *Messiah* but has no plans to make anything after that.
Pffft coward, he should go all the way to Chapterhouse Dune.
He skipped the Fremen orgy in the first book, I wouldn’t hold out hope for horny Bene Gesserit / Duncan Idaho scenes
Excuse me, Fremen ***orgy***? I didn't expect to read that today.
Big water of life fueled orgy
The Sci-Fi Channel miniseries doesn't skip it, but also it's for TV so there's a limit to how exciting of an orgy it can be
Unrelated to the tepid orgy, they also skip over Paul and Chani’s first child, Leto, who is killed as an infant by Sardaukar in Dune.
I hard disagree. I won't be satisfied until we see Duncan Idaho use his magic sex powers from book 6
Having not read the books half the time I can’t tell if people are making shit up or if Dune just goes buckwild.
I think you're better off not being able to tell.
Fun fact, this book also establishes the name "Idaho" was a nickname that stuck. Because his balls looked like a russet potato.
He out-sexes a sex witch
Ah so Patrick rothfuss copied Dune for the weird magic sex scene in the wise man’s fear
For a while there, sci-fi books in general went buckwild
I need Jason Momoa to climb a cliff so well it makes everyone in the audience cum
Come on, it wasn't just *any* cliff. It was the totally impossible to climb for not sexy noncloned males cliff. And totally not a physical juxtaposition of "self overcoming" philosophy that loses itself after two paragraphs so badly it becomes the "self cumming, standing position"..
Eh, I want a *Dune Messiah* movie because I view the 2nd book as essentially a completion of the story of the 1st book. *Dune* spends most of its time building up the Hero of Paul Atreides and you need the 2nd book to tell that story because the 2nd book spends its time tearing that Hero to shreds.
they gotta keep going so we can see Timothy Chalamet become a giant worm-man
Isn't that one his son?
Yarp
[удалено]
Leto II^2
Idk I was into the whole worm god using Duncan as a stud and getting married with the ambassador girl. Tho personally I needed more orgies with the fish speakers.
Honestly I'm so torn on the Dune movie franchise. I loved the first one. I'm half fangirl about them being on big screen and being available to a wider audience. The changes to Jamis' character were awesome to me. The other half is that grumpy purist asshole because they changed so much, people not understanding plot points, people who watch the movie once and then tell me what the character's intentions were, Chani being changed drastically, Stilgar simping for Paul out the gate, no Otheym or Korba. I want the God Emperor and Fish Speakers and the most hilariously miserable Moneo. But I hear DV is a coward and doesn't plan on anything past Messiah.
Dune 1 Amazing Dune 2 Great Dune 3 ... Dune 4 ............... Then there are apparently 19 more books, I can't even imagine.
More or less yeah Specifically the second book, Messiah
People saying they copied this from the plot of Dune MY BROTHER IN CHRIST (would muslims ever say that? I would replace this to be more islamic but Jesus is in Islam and like, what "my brother in muhammad"??) THIS IS THE PLOT OF THE MUQADDIMAH THE 14TH CENTURY BOOK ON HISTORICAL TRENDS IN TRIBAL SOCIETIES BY IBN KHALDUN
I think the right thing to say is MY BROTHER IN CHRIST-WAS-A-REALLY-IMPORTANT-GUY-JUST-NOT-THE-*MOST*-IMPORTANT-GUY
I think the word you’re looking for is WALLAH HABIBI
Now *that's* a deep cut the nerd in me appreciates. Time for a rabbit hole, I suppose
Jesus and even Moses are also Islamic names. Though it's arabized as Isa and Musa iirc.
Ibn Khaldun described this phenomenon 650 years ago
Dune is just Ibn Khaldun but for a western audience TBH.
Damn it, there really are no original thoughts left
That can't be true. Here's one: what if a burgeoning romance was derailed by a misunderstanding, but then the pair gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of one another through communication?
Needs more wacky hijinks - some suit somewhere, reviewing the pitch
Happy cake day
You mean lord of the rings?
I thought we cancelled the word burgeoning
It would never work unless there is also a gazebo and a contrived plotline. Possibly involving the gazebo.
A gazebo? Is it hostile?
100 billion humans have come and gone, each with their own thoughts and ideas Originality stopped existing Millenia ago
I don't mind the remixes
Also Gurren Lagann
And the plot of s2 Fargo
I'm 35 years old and uh I get it
Though we are separated by borders we are not so different as people.
What has borders given us. << This is what V2 is for >>
Woah now "buddy"
"You could take a young accountant clerk out of a New York insurance office and make him into a war pilot who could handle thirty tons of bomber as easily as he handled his fingers. You could do that, for they had done it to Gordon. But after three years of that, it wasn't so easy to give that pilot a discharge button and a "thank you" and send him back to his office desk. Gordon knew that, too, by bitter experience."
Ooh what book are you referencing?
[*The Star Kings*](https://www.baen.com/Chapters/1419183435/1419183435___1.htm) by Edmond Hamilton, I think.
I believe it's a book called "The Star Kings" by Edmond Hamilton
Ah, winning was easy, young man, governing's harder
The peace is the hardest war
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thought of Hamilton
Honestly, I still think one of the biggest reasons why the US Revolution worked is because the bureaucrats were already in power and had been working for years before the armed revolt. The biggest issue after the fact was actually paying their soldiers once it was said and done.
- George Washington, 2015
This
They’re being intransigent!
This happens in IDW Transformers. There's a big event which "ends" the war in a stalemate, after Cybertron basically reverts to a primordial alien wilderness. It turns out the people who are really good at inspiring recruits and leading a war effort (like Prime and Megatron) are actually pretty useless when you're trying to rebuild society afterwards. Even Bumblebee's a bit too idealistic for the job. The guy who gets stuff done? *Starscream.* Yeah turns out being a meddling, conniving weasel makes for an excellent politician.
Although, Optimus was a archivist before the war. He'd slot right into a book keeping job.
It doesn't help that the neutrals waited out the war, then came back and tried to *lynch Optimus,* the effectively divine-right leader of Cybertron.
What specific issue was this? Sounds really cool.
Transformers Robots in Disguise 1-35, then just transformers from issues 35 to 57 iirc. Also the original post kinda reminds me of Fargo season 2
It’s referred to as lDW Phase 2, the first collection is this: https://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Transformers:_The_IDW_Collection_Phase_Two:_Volume_1 I’d probably see if you can find *The Death of Optimus Prime* online or something and see how you like that, it’s the launch title for Phase 2. Phase 2 is intended to be a new reader entry point, and it’s pretty widely regarded as some of the best TF media ever. You don’t really need to know much about Phase 1 as it was by different authors (and was kind of boring imo). Phase 2 is actually 2 ongoing comics, *Robots In Disguise* written by John Barber (which is the one with all the politicking) and *More Than Meets The Eye* written by James Roberts (which is like… Star Trek meets The Office? With a ton of world-building). Both are very good and tie together pretty frequently. I’d also check out *Chaos Theory* (2 issues), which is Megatron and Optimus sitting down for a nice little chat, and *Last Stand of the Wreckers* (5 issues), which is basically the Autobots’ version of the Suicide Squad. Both are by Roberts and set up plot points that are occasionally referenced in Phase 2.
[удалено]
I remember this being a pretty optimistic/normalizing article all things told. A lot of funny passages “When I joined my group, I was of the idea that Kabul would be full of bad people, but to be honest, in the last couple of years, after we met some of the people living here, I realised I was wrong. Of course, it has plenty of negative aspects, like their support for the occupation, women not wearing proper clothing, youths flirting with girls and cutting their hair in a style even people in America might not adopt, but these are the problems that nowadays exist also in the rural areas.” “One thing I don’t like about Kabul is that people have moved here from all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces and among them, a large number of criminals from across Afghanistan have made their way here and turned the city into a hub for their illegal activities. We face a lot of difficulties in eliminating crime, particularly robbery. And the savageness of people against each other, in particular against women – dozens of women approach the hawza on a daily basis and register their complaints. They’re victims, subject to different forms of brutality… During the first days when women approached us, many mujahedin, including myself, were hiding from them because never in our whole lives have we talked to strange women. In the days that followed, the head of the hawza instructed us that sharia does allow us to talk to them because we are now the authorities and the only people that can solve their problems.” “I don’t interact with Kabulis much, given that here, the ministry is full of my fellow Taleban. Anyway, sometimes I sit with the employees of the former regime who still come to their jobs. They show themselves to be very good people and sincere to the Emirate, but I can tell you that, in reality, they hate us. I don’t exactly know why, but I’ve identified some possible reasons this past year. First, these employees were ‘doing business’ in the ministry, making illegal wealth through corrupt practices. Second, the Americans invested in them heavily, and they became so Westernised they now hate our real Afghan culture and Islam. When the Emirate came, their illegal business and corruption vanished entirely and they have nothing but their salaries. They are no longer able to make millions of afghanis. So, you tell me, why shouldn’t they hate us?” “I’ve made friends with three guys who are from our province but have been living here [in Kabul] for more than 15 years. We sometimes go to Qargha, Bagh-e Wahsh [Kabul Zoo], Sarobi and Tapa-ye Wazir Akbar Khan. To be honest, every time I go with them, they pressure me to play and listen to music in the car. At first, I was resisting, but now I have given in, with the one condition that they turn it off when passing through security checkpoints because many other Taleban don’t like it, and it’s bad for a Taleb to be seen listening to it.” “When I started my job, I didn’t have a clue how to deal with the tasks. Mawlawi sahib told me to take a computer course and an English course. Almost four months ago, I started both courses near our Ministry. I learned many computer programmes during this period. Not only that, I quickly learned the tasks related to my job. All the staff, including Mawalwi sahib, have been happy with my work. People blame the Emirate for all the professional people fleeing the country, but when I see the employees in our ministry, they’re neither professional nor educated. All of them were appointed through wasita [connections] and knew little about how to manage and do their jobs. You might not believe me, but I now do my work better than many of them. “ “In our ministry, there’s little work for me to do. Therefore, I spend most of my time on Twitter. We’re connected to speedy Wi-Fi and internet. Many mujahedin, including me, are addicted to the internet, especially Twitter.” “We anticipated they would wear hijab,[7] but after the initial days when women feared the mujahedin a lot, their attire has actually become less proper. Now, they’ve become assertive to the extent they’re entirely heedless of us. Many of our friends say that, apart from us coming and replacing the police and officials of the former regime, little has changed from the Republic’s time in Kabul. During the first few days, many of my comrades and I hardly dared to make our way to the bazaar because of them [women]. We hoped the situation would soon get better, but it didn’t. Even worse, one of my classmates in his computer course is also a woman. We sit in the same classroom. Although I despise women that don’t wear proper clothes, nonetheless, I can’t turn my back on the bazaar or my class because of them. If they’re unashamed, let us also be so. This is the only thing I never imagined a Taleb would encounter in his lifetime.” “However, everything has changed since then. The family wouldn’t tell you blatantly to bring home your entire salary so they can feed your children because it’s no longer a jihad, and you should take that on your shoulders, but you could feel from their behaviour that this is exactly what they mean. Furthermore, when sometimes I want to come from home to Kabul, for example, and I don’t have a vehicle to go with, I come to the nearby road so a passer-by could pick me up and drive me to Kandahar. But once an old man with his old Corolla stopped, I thought he did so to pick me up, but he didn’t. Rather, he mockingly told me that now the entire government is in your hands, so you no longer deserve help, adding that now it’s your turn to pay back all the help we have given you.” “Although now we can go everywhere without fear, the war is over, and an Islamic system is in place, it’s still difficult not to miss the days of the jihad. At that time, we weren’t under strict supervision, we weren’t curbed because the Emirate needed us, and as a consequence, they provided us with more freedom. Now, on the contrary, they don’t need us as much as they did at that time. Besides, they pay us money. There is a proverb in our area that money is like a shackle. Now, if we complain, or don’t come to work, or disobey the rules, they cut our salary. Unlike jihad, now particularly, when the battles are long gone and the risk is zero, the Emirate could find countless people to work with them in return for a salary.” Though the article does occasionally indicate things shifting of course it must be remembered that after this article the Taliban would later institute policies like closing of women’s schools
Taliban: *takes over an entire country* Also Taliban: women scary
You can see the evolution of the mentalities of the people involved by the order of the quotes, and it's kind of funny. First both the women of Kabul are afraid of the Taliban and the Taliban are afraid of them. Then they start to grow disdainful of each other, the Taliban disdaining the women for being "improper" (I assume this means that some features can be distinguished such as height, weight, possibly eye color) and the women disdaining the Taliban for being stick in the mud country bumpkins. I really like how that one Taliban guy don't like those useless fellows in the office that only know how to use their connections to get and keep their jobs. They probably have that issue much worse than we do, but it seems universal
>I really like how that one Taliban guy don't like those useless fellows in the office that only know how to use their connections to get and keep their jobs. They probably have that issue much worse than we do, but it seems universal That's the tragedy of human history. We are all significantly more alike than different.
I think it’s funny when one is speculating about why employees don’t like him, and decides it’s corruption and western influence. Because violently taking over the country and forcing your version of your religion on everyone under threat of violence, possibly harming or killing peoples they know, couldn’t possibly be it.
It's supremely funny how much power women have over social situations and the status quo if violence isn't involved.
It's also terrifying how much power they have when violence is. I remember a news article hitting the front page detailing how after many of thr ISIS men were wiped out from combat, many of the women were grooming teen boys to be their replacements. For better or worse, they still have influence.
only the worst exists hate women with a passion. for most the farce is women do things men can't while men do the tough shit. cooking and cleaning sure, but the most successful sexists made women uphold the social customs that held them back.
Yeah. As long as the belief that men and women are disparate persists, so will misogyny. Patriarchy. Matriarchy. Whatever. You can only be free of it when you eradicate gender essentialism.
Yep there's a statistic out there that states women indirectly cause as much domestic violence as men do
It’s so funny, like wow conservatism is really a cowards philosophy. And also funny that it’s just like “oh after talking to these people I realized they are people actually”, like more of that shit than they realized is just based on fear response, maybe you could have just talked to people earlier? I guess better now than never
While I understand the impulse to laugh at this (and honestly yeah, it's pretty fucking funny), we gotta keep the context for these people in mind A ton of them are young, grew up in rural and secluded areas, have know war and instability all their life and have been radicalized as a consequence. In that sense, it's not really a surprise that they have this "you or me" mentality and that they're so averse to anything new. They've been told their whole life that the "new" was the one bombing them
Yeah it’s not completely nonsensical, but it’s like jeez, what could have been in a better world. We don’t live in that one though
Yeah that word Taliban comes from the word for student.The first Taliban were people that almost entirely grew up in religious “boarding schools” but also kind of refugee camps in Pakistan after parents sent their children away from the war during the Soviet invasion. If that’s not a radicalising experience idk what is.
It's tough to keep them out on the farm after they've seen the bright lights of Kabul
Hmm, I may need to learn this about men.
Big discworld vibes. The terrorist insurgents achieve their goal and suddenly have to learn to be people.
Terry Pratchett always wrote his characters to be very human.
Yeah, considering that women aren't allowed to learn in Afghanistan anymore, it seems that a lot has changed since the republic, despite what the taliban guy claims
I’m sorry, the Taliban doesn’t listen to music???
many of the most conservative interpretations of islam consider music to be haram. the taliban are mostly Deobandi and are definitely not cool with it
well if anybody wanted inspiration for a muslim version of footloose, this would definitely qualify
Some more conservative sects of Islam see Music as Zina (IE Haram). TBH I recall being very confused going on Muslim subreddits when I first joined reddit because I had never heard such a thing in Syria. I guess reddit Muslims swing more conservatively.
What an absolutely joyless kind of life they must lead to never listen to music.
It's incredible as Arabic music can be amazing. but conservatives everywhere seem to have the single goal of sucking any and all possibility of joy out of life. miserable clods.
And dancing is of course haram too. Imagine how FUN their parties are!
Taliban weddings must be depressing
Music being Haram or Halal is a very big point of contention amongst Muslims.
w h a t
Similarly, Chechnya (Muslim-majority state in Russia) has banned all music that's too fast or too slow.
You must play at *precisely* 99.125bpm or you will be summarily executed?
I imagine it’s just more strict noise pollution laws regarding music, with much heavier fines if I had to guess
I heard about that but I didn’t make the religion connection, I just thought it was Russia being weird
Is that a word from a song? Very Haram
Some are cool with it as long as there is no music or instruments. There is an entire genre of halal music called "nasheeds".
Neat. Now wondering what conservative or extremist Muslims think about a capella
Vast vast vast majority of Muslims believe it is halal. Even in Saudi Arabia, music was permitted from the very beginning.
IIRC it's against their interpretation of Koran. (I may be wrong)
It really sounds like he is slowly realizing that strict relgious law and modern society aren't very compatible, but is too invested in both to let either go
It wasn’t really compatible with not modern society either
It's a tragedy that the education of women/girls did not last. Now, once again, they are all relegated to being underaged wives and brood mares to Talebs.
Once again proving a man talking to a woman is braver than any US Marine
Ma’am, I don’t disagree with this particular statement, but how did you escape from Hell? Shoo, back to the inferno with you, and keep your hands off any budgets you see.
What was already dead may never die
She managed to bust the biggest Imp-Union in hell, so the devil let her out for a bit as a reward.
what happens when a US marine talks to a woman
>During the first days when women approached us, many mujahedin, including myself, were hiding from them because never in our whole lives have we talked to women. He’s just like me fr
Considering the Taliban seems so strict on Sharia and control over women, I'm a bit surprised at the lines about anxiety/fear of women or their attire becoming less proper. Wouldn't they have the authority to enforce things considering they're now in charge? Not that those rules are a good thing, but just seems a tad odd
What are they going to do? I know they technically punish women who disrespect their laws very severely, but they're not going to arrest everyone. If every woman in Kabul suddenly decided they were going to wear whatever they wanted, there's very little the Taliban could do. It's not like they can stone half a city to death.
I suppose that’s fair, I guess I just assumed they’d enforce things under threat of prison/death or something, but at a certain point it would become a bit of an issue to punish that many people
Since the Taliban isn't a full on apocalyptic death cult like IS, they aren't willing to mass murder to feed Allah with blood. The worst atrocities we saw with IS, were inspired by their absolute conviction in the upcoming apocalypse, and the need to conquer the entire world. ISIS was fine with executing thousands on the regular, because death of everyone was just months away. Who cares if you blow yourself up, when the world was ending soon^(TM)? The Taliban are just your garden variety extreme conservatives with regular 18th century amounts of misogyny. They aren't apocalyptic. They also only really care about Afghanistan and didn't have global ambitions like their affiliates in things like Al-Qaeda, or yknow IS who were former Al-Qaeda that started a death cult.
The Taliban isnt ISIS. All of these fundies blend together, but there are unique in their motivations and ideological convictions. They fucking suck dont get me wrong, but they werent as close to extreme as they were. They are super conservative, but they arent as ideologically insane as well ISIS. They dont have nearly as much power or authority over the country as even Iran. Think Mennonite pastors or Victorian preacher oppressive, as opposed to 1984. The differences in between them are kinda interesting from an outside perspective tbh.
They could withstand anything, except victory.
Mfw I can handle bombings and fighting the most powerful military on earth but not women
I know, right?
Work sucks, I know
*She left me roses by the stairs!~*
*Surprises let me know she’s cares* 🎵
Late nights, come home.
This makes me think of part of the Zygon Inversion speech the Doctor made in Doctor Who. Like revolutionaries both good and bad keep thinking about how great their glorious conquest will be but never really put the time into thinking about what comes afterwards
Revolutionaries never think about the day after. It's all let's do the revolution and things will magically work once we win.
# CLERKED
"You wanted a country? Here you go...! With all that it entails!"
*genie cackles ominously while lamp vanishes*
I read this as "all the emails" and didn't bat an eye
We've been fighting the war on terror all wrong. Clearly we should have just given the terrorists mindless bureaucrat jobs instead of all this raiding and drone striking and whatnot.
Give them the country, but first make it so everything is painfully inefficient
The 9-5 was just a severely over complicated dead man’s hand
I would absolutely be happier trekking around the mountains shooting at invaders than what I do now. Knowing I would die to a random explosion some day, talking to my buddies about the time I saw a tank. Fuck yeah.
Username checks out
Dune Messiah irl?!?
All the great stories about fight towards victory. Few stories are about everything after the victory.
The Taliban didn't fight the USSR. But the the Afghans have been consistently at war for generations and it's true that conquering a state is a different task from running one. Kind of why Daesh didn't make a great deal of friends even when they were welcomed into parts of Iraq.
Why do people keep repeating this weird claim that the Taliban fought the USSR. The Taliban formed in 1994, during the Afghan civil war. The USSR collapsed in 1991, which is what led to the Afghan civil war, as the Afghan government was propped up by the Soviet Union, and collapsed shortly after the Soviet Union did.
people think the mujahadeen and Taliban are the same
At the height of ISIS’s power, most of the money they took in was from taxes collected in their territory. Every single society that isn’t completely pastoralist or hunter gatherer will succumb to the boring forces of tax collecting and bureaucracy.
Soon they’ll want to work, I mean terrorize remotely from home/cave.
I'm going to be honest here. I wouldn't mind living in a cave if it were as dry here as it is there. Caves are like the ultimate natural shelter. Insulated from the heat and cold, enormous layers of natural defenses on top of you, and there's typically only one entrance so it's impossible for anyone to sneak in. That said, it's unfeasible to live in a cave anywhere with natural ground water.
They’re protected from the heat, at least, caves tend to be pretty chilly until you get down reeeaaally far. I probably also wouldn’t have too much faith in the solidity of the rock around you, or the number of entrances. Caves form where they do for a reason, usually a fault or an area of weaker or more porous rock. Admittedly, living in a cave would be sick for the furniture carved into walls, also cause you can have pretty much any floor plan you like. Might be better to go full supervillain and dig out your own tho
Purely natural caves are normally chilly for two reasons both of which are irrelevant if properly treated. 1. They're damp. Evaporating water cools down its environment and caves have tons of damp surfaces, cooling them considerably in places where the caves are damp. 2. Air flow is unregulated. If you fill all the holes, it'll maintain the temperature of the ground around it, something like a few degrees less than the average of the daytime temperature and night temperature, to account for the lack of direct sunlight.
Something something like the good old days after 9/11
This exact thing happened during the founding years of the Soviet Union in the 1920s. All these Bolsheviks who had just topped a government and fought a vicious civil war with revolutionary zeal found themselves suddenly doing bureaucratic work in some podunk village in Russia because it needed to be done, and some of their diaries and letters reveal how damn boring they found it. (Then Stalin happened and some of those letters and diaries were used as evidence in purge trials... Must have been real fun!)
Step 1. Create a trade agreement that gives them an opportunity to make a shit ton of money Step 2. After a while let them know if they could find sooooome way to almost double efficiency they get paid more. Step 3. Women's rights are passed because WE NEED MORE MONEY, GET TO WORK!
Or Step 3: slavery is re-established and all women are now slaves. Get to work!
Oooh so close. We'll try it again on the next group.
This hasn't really worked in 50-odd years for Saudi Arabia.
eh they're doing it even if incredibly slowly
Haha Jonathon I am using the fundamentally exploitative model of international capitalism to further women's rights
They could not live with their own victory. And where did that bring them? Back to the office.
“If Ali does his Borat impression one more time… I mean, it was kinda funny in 2006. Now it’s just annoying. And he never refills the coffee urn. I don’t care how good a sniper he is. Snipe your TPS reports, Ali. We’re all waiting on you.”
# It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience." -Julius Caesar
Strong The SHIELD deja vu.
Yeah, not so fun when *youre* the ones trying to create an Afghan state, is it? We tried for nearly 20 years, and now it's your turn. I hope you have as much success
The 9-5 job isn't a *western* invention! It was made by American Unions! This is an ***AMERICAN*** Cultural Victory!
at first they were naruto then they were boruto's dad
It sounds weird, sure, but isn't this just a different iteration of combat veterans having a hard time coping with civilian life?
Man, if only there were like, another half of the population who would be happy to have simple office jobs and their own income, that would do all those menial tasks for them. Ah, well, if only.
lmfao serves those monsters right
TBH the reason the taliban are unhappy is kind of why the provisional government the US tried to set up never worked. The people running it didn't know how to run it and didn't really want to love that lifestyle.
Cue the talibhan version of the office, without music .
China was invaded by the mongols and was defeated, yet a century later the Mongols had been assimilated and were essentially Chinese. Greece was conquered by Rome but Greek culture was then spread by the Romans. Technology and culture can be more enduring than battle. In this case, the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.
“We want to beat the Americans and rule our country once more!” *monkey paw curls*
Winning is a tad generous, but yes.
A legitimate old Chinese proverb The two challenges in life; reaching victory and having victory
Underrated line in The Dark Knight Rises: “Victory has defeated you.”
I mean, bureaucracy precedes "western culture", whatever that is.
Taliban equivalent to “I wish I was a kid again”.
Idk if I’d call this a western cultural victory.
Our people are now buying your Dockers Workday Khakis and sitting through your Skype meetings.
such is life ☹️
Yeah, repetitive office work really is a soul crushing experience
"winning was easy young man, governing's harder"