“A different damned drink.”

I agree with the term enshitification for this thing normally, but this is just a “bait and switch” at this point.

Any chance you’d be willing to provide answers to any of my questions based on what you saw?

Good points. It’s difficult to find a clear answer to how important lend-lease was to the Soviet war effort. During the war, the USSR and US obviously had good things to say about the program, but the start of the Cold War soured this discussion, leading to the US overstating and the USSR understating the impact. Here’s an excerpt from a paper by a British scholar exploring the topic. Emphasis is the author’s:

It is neither possible nor fruitful to try and put a precise measure on the material value of allied aid to the Soviet war economy, if only because of the unavailability of many Soviet production data. Whatever the value of western aid, the Soviet war effort was measured in human life and suffering incomparable with material aid from outside. Further, the Soviet economy became much more of a war economy than other combatant nations. Nonetheless, it seems that the contribution made by deliveries from the USA and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Canada, played an important part at crucial times and in crucial areas. First, and above all, was a vital margin of food supplies, second was the provision of specialist or deficit products such as aluminium and copper, specialized tools, high quality steels. In this respect lend-lease supplies overcame bottlenecks. However, it must be stressed that the major impact came after the Soviet counterattack and the beginning of German retreat. Such aid directly and indirectly helped defeat the German forces, and was in such a way a substitute for a second front, but it did little to defend the USSR from the initial onslaught. Third, some of the raw materials and more especially machinery and transport equipment was of positive value to the Soviet economy after the war. For this, the tyre plant is the best but not the only example.

It is nonsense to repeat the figure of four per cent of Soviet wartime production and disingenuous to disparage western aid - a feature evident in Soviet literature and one criticized even by Khrushchev. It is nonetheless true (and this is a point repeated in some Soviet works) that Britain and the Empire received far more than the USSR from the United States. Lend-lease, in this respect, may be seen as a temporary substitute for foreign trade. Britain was a major trading nation, highly dependent on imports, especially for food and raw materials. The USSR, on the other hand, was an economy with little trade dependence whose foreign trade turnover had fallen steadily during the 1930s…

The part left off at the end compares repayment of aid sent to the British vs the Soviets. A fairly short read that will give some more context to the conclusions I shared above.

One of the main points the author makes is that lend-lease was used by the US as a stand-in for entering the war and opening a new front in 1942 as the allies (and Stalin in particular) were requesting. In this context, lend-lease was a replacement for reopening the Western front in 1942, an action that could have been far more impactful. The US provided material aid in lieu of entering the war, shifting the human burden of the war onto the other Allied forces and particularly the USSR from 1942 to least at 1944 (note that lend-lease aid extended wider and was provided from 1941-1945).

Overall, the impression I’ve gotten from sifting through academic writings on the subject is that while lend-lease certainly helped take some of the pressure off of the USSR (mainly in the form of producing food, trucks, and raw materials), it’s most likely that the result would have been the same. That said, wondering over historical what-ifs, while fun, should really be constrained to recreational musing and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

I will, but this is an 8 hour series.

For real, the US committed a coup in Australia with Whitlam. They don’t constrain the CIA to just poor countries.

If the US was to take an isolationist policy 100 years ago, then there is a good chance that WW2 would have been won by the Axis. The Allied forces likely would have put up a good fight, but I’m not sure they would have emerged victorious against the combined Axis forces. The war in the Pacific would have raged on much longer, and without nuclear weapons, there would have been an extreme loss of life invading Japan. At the very least, WW2 would have lasted much much longer than it did. Depending on the outcome, plenty of countries might currently be speaking German and debating if they should tear down 80-year-old statues of Hitler.

The only people who believe this drivel are those who have only learned about WWII via Hollywood and YT videos. Go listen to an actual historian and you will not hear this fantasy. They will tell you that Germany had one foot in the grave by the time the US joined the Western front. The only ounce of truth in this statement is that the Pacific theatre would have gone on longer.

Edit: I didn’t touch on this but should have…the whole idea that a nuclear attack on Japan was necessary or even justified in any way is not only incorrect but is a racist, genocidal excuse for not one, but TWO of the most horrific acts in our entire history. You should be ashamed for propagating this tired lie.

Lol, only if you learned history from Hollywood.

Did they also go into mass atrocities committed and initiated by the US? If you go around lighting fires and then come back around to put them out after donning an official uniform, should others consider you a fire fighter or an arsonist?

Is there a single instance covered that wasn’t a situation the US directly and purposely had a hand in creating?

It’s just the worst one.

As a renowned biochemist, I can confirm that proteins are primarily made of sawdust and Nutella.

LOL, the only people who would say this to yogthos are those speaking from ignorance. The dude is like a machine when it comes to reading and sharing articles from all over the place. I’ve never seen anyone else read the news so widely.

If it makes you feel any better about it, I’ve had the LR4 for almost 2 years without issues. Easily the best quality of life improvement for both my cats and me. Even unpowered (extended power outage), I found it more convenient because I could scoop and put it directly into the waste drawer.

It felt ridiculous when I bought it, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat if needed because of the benefits.

Agreed.

For instance, G Suite is now so thoroughly integrated into school workflows that, even if they collect nothing from students while under 13 (ha!), they are setting kids up to harvest their data in the future by forcing them to learn how to perform basic tasks only on their apps. It’s like advertising fruity cigarettes or vapes, but for data.

It’s not just that all of these companies harvest everyone’s data, but so many of them are specifically targeting kids from as young of an age as they can.

Yes, breaking larger goals into smaller goals makes it much easier to move bigger changes or projects forward.

Don’t forget the methane and other gases that are even worse than CO2!

Went to a wedding and the pastor’s pre-ceremony sermon was fire and brimstone followed by a rant about how it was God who gave him the right to marry, not the state. Lots of stuff about the wife being subservient to the husband and acting as his servant. The deep state government was being controlled by a satanists who call themselves secular humanists. Marriage can only happen between a man and a woman and the state was defiling marriage by allowing gays to marry, but it wasn’t real marriage according to God. Some really wacky stuff to talk about at a celebration. Killed the mood.

Turns out my friends had joined one of those extreme, right-wing cults and this was their normal pastor. This group was worse than any of the usual bad actors and interacting with any of their congregation was weird. We fell out of touch for some reason.

Cake is not bread.

According to Urban Dictionary, cake is: Another word meaning ass or butt.

Bread is: The shit you throw at ducks to get them to fuck off.

Plastic also has a limit to the number of times it can be recycled.

They said reduce first. Get yourself sterilized and you can reduce your use of contraceptives.

Did you mean a slave who has recently graduated to indentured servant status?