Youtube hearted comments of seneca983 (@seneca983).

  1. 1:45 "nor am I an agent of an intelligence organization" That's exactly what an agent would say!
    335
  2. 9:20 On the other hand, there's another reason why exchanging conscripts can make sense. They can be expected to be on average less effective on the battlefield than volunteering contract soldiers. In theory, the Kremlin could take that into account when negotiating the prisoner exchanges but the political pressures you mentioned might also make them willing to even pay a premium for released conscripts.
    188
  3. Btw, have you ever considered doing a collab with William Spaniel?
    10
  4. I don't think that can be agreed on because it doesn't make sense for the name to include "sylvania" while the islands have no forests.
    5
  5. I have an unrelated question. Is a peaceful resolution to the Taiwan issue possible or is a perpetual limbo the only peaceful option?
    3
  6. Some possible caveats: 1) I'd still say that even a fairly low level of proficiency in foreign languages can be quite impressive (if not necessarily very useful) if the number of languages is high enough. If someone is trying to learn 10+ languages, that becomes impressive in my book far before they reach the level of, say, Matt's Japanese. But I agree that it's probably not quite as impressive as it may seem to people who don't know these languages. Also, they shouldn't mislead people about their level of proficiency. 2) I think that part about "skipping half the work" (e.g. not learning to read hanzi/kanji) can be just fine depending on your goal. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with attaining e.g. the basic conversational level you mentioned and not going beyond that. It can still be fun and even useful. For some, the extra effort for a higher level of proficiency might not be worth it. Many things that are worth doing are worth half-assing. I think Matt's comparison to learning to just play the guitar a little bit is apt. Nothing wrong with learning to play badly and then playing occasionally for fun. You don't always need to strive for excellence because realistically you're not going to achieve that for most of your skills.
    3
  7. But he doesn't have a law degree. (Maybe he passed the bar examination for someone else who paid him for it?)
    3
  8. Glad that there are still good news out there.
    2
  9. I have a 0% chance of being audited by the IRS...because I don't live in the US.
    2
  10. Iran sure has made a lot of enemies.
    2
  11.  @JamesKerLindsay  Pretty sad for the Iranian population too. I suspect not all of the population is super enthusiastic about every machination by the government (though there will always be a range of opinions).
    2
  12. "I think Scottish people living in the rest of the Union are not given the choice to vote, which seems nakedly wrong." What should be the criteria for eligibility? It's not enough to say that everyone who's actually Scottish can vote; there needs to be simple and clear criteria on who you count as Scottish for this purpose.
    2