Your response highlights how some are unable to live with the nuance of reality, and require black and white, binary viewpoints of the world.

I have said that Iran is a murderous, evil regime, while simultaneously saying war is not right here. I have said that my issue is with people trying to claim that Iran is a poor, innocent actor, instead of simply saying they do not agree with this war.

From this you infer weird things, simply because I presume you need Iran to be good, innocent, for the war to be wrong, bad.

It's not binary.

"There are dozens of murderers out there. Who cares if Bob murdered"

The point is that invading them and/or killing a ton of their people is not the solution.

I literally said this, so thanks for agreeing with me.

Iran is obviously not innocent (nobody is)

No one is innocent! John has speeding tickets! Therefore, Bob killing people isn't a big deal!

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The entire point of my comment was that supporting Iran by saying it is "good" or "innocent" is insane, whilst conversely, "war isn't good".

Are you arguing against this premise?

Indeed. I see things like this:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/27/i...

Where the current Iranian government is slaughtering its own citizens. It is also fairly well known, and generally not disputed, that women, and non-binary people are slaughtered at whim, abused, even beaten to death in the street by the murderous Morality Police in Iran.

They literally fund recognized terrorist groups as well, and no one not even Iran disputes this. And yes, many Islamic and Middle Eastern states state so as well.

Yet there's a weird collection of people running around, screaming about how Iran is apparently immensely innocent of... well, everything and anything ever. I can only presume that any actuon the Trumo cabal take, is just immediately presumed bad.

Which is of course absurd. Even a broken clock is correct, twice a day.

And if you're non-binary, or support non-binary people, or if you are a feminist, you'd be insane to behave as of the current Iranian regine is "good" or "innocent" in any way. There isn't even the tiniest comparison to how you are treated in the West, or the US compared to Iran. In Iran, basically, you're dead, or rotting in jail until you die.

That doesn't make this war correct. But there is a vast difference between speaking out against military aggression, and supporting Iran. These are two different things.

Iran, the state is terrible. The world will be a far better place if it is replaced with a new regime. And no, that doesn't make the war right.

See how easy that is?

It's called nuance. Not black and white, binary thinking.

Ah well. It only takes one person to appear as 1000s today, so grain of salt.

Better to document risk, than lie to brave volunteers. And they knew the risk, and wanted to go. So I see zero issues here.

If your TV is under 50", I don't think you'd notice quite so much.

It's unclear how large their retail business is, which is why I mentioned that, and that's where you see most CC payments. Companies with any serious usage are going to pay via wire or bill payment via banks directly. McDonalds, for example, likely has a larger daily spend on cards.

Where I live, in small claims:

* Lawyers are not allowed

* There is no forced discovery. Sue John Deere, and they cannot ask for endless documents

* There is no way to assign costs on loss. If you lose, you never pay costs for the person you sued (which makes sense -- no lawyers)

* If you don't understand something, typically the judge will act as a mediator and explain it to you.

Yet meanwhile, suing in small claims will typically result in a big company using lawyers, who will try to pretend the above is not true. They will also rack up large costs for the company. In the end, sometimes a lawyer will appear in small claims court beside a company employee. However the company employee will do the talking.

My cost to file is $100. My cost to serve (via courier with tracking + sig) was $10. The company I went after, a fortune 500 company, I suspect spent >$50k on lawyers. While small to the company, it is truly a way to level the playing field.

What I find amusing here is, you could sue for a replacement unit. Explain what you found. Where I am, the max resolution is $30k, so you could easily get a refund for the tractor. Citing this issue while describing all of this, could result in two outcomes.

1) Deere employee claims (in their defense) that a batch of units were defective. They then deliver a fixed unit to you. While not perfect, it would be amusing, because they'll have just spent $50k in paying lawyers, along with making a proper unit.

2) You just claim that the tractor is defective, you can't sell it as it is, except maybe for parts. And you're not sure most of them are usable (weird electronics), and even cite that Deere stuff apparently is designed to break without authorized repairs. So how can you in good faith, even try to sell it to anyone??

So you ask for your time, costs, and full replacement costs with another brand.

Adding your wage/hr is somewhat typical here, for calls, research, sawing it open, all of it.

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Anyhow.

If #1 is chosen and it breaks again, then you can repeat the whole fun process.

And I do mean it is fun.

$100 + I filled out a 2 page form, and then fedexed it to them. Their lawyers kept pestering me, to which I simply said "No" and "I don't need to give you anything, there's no forced discovery". This too was very satisfying, when I kept in mind how each call to me cost the company probably about $1k.

I mean, literally I'm sure each 5 minute call was around that ballpark. It was sheer joy. (Just don't discuss any aspect of the case in these calls.)

Then there was a pre-trail meeting where I, the company rep, and a retired judge sat. I was told that "nothing said here can ever be used in court", which made it more fun. The system's attempt to resolve before trial. That too was fun, for I got to finally tell the company, over and over, how wrong they were.

Anyhow.

It's a fun process.

The "Unless you're big cheese" is the company you're doing the charge back against.

If a company, such as Anthropic has too many chargebacks? Visa/MC can ban them from their network. It happens to smaller companies all the time, mostly because it costs Visa/MC + the banks involved to deal with each chargeback, and also, it's typically a sign of fraudulent behaviour.

Visa/MC are not a charity, or are payment processors. They need profit. Take it away by creating all this extra work, chargeback work, and they're not making money any more.

The "big cheese" part is, if you're amazon or google, things can be negotiated at that scale. Maybe they pay a larger settlement fee, whatever. And of course Google Play, or Amazon utterly dwarfs Anthropic CC activity at this point, even though they have a large valuation and potential future ahead.

Still, I have no idea what the background metrics and profit points are for Visa/MC, only that I've seen even medium sized companies have issues with too many chargebacks. And, we've all seen Visa/MC decide they don't like gambling, or porn sites and just drop them. Some of those companies were quite large and had a lot of flow for them.

So I don't think many companies will just use chargebacks as a support mechanism. That is, unless they're just completely incompetent.

Visa/MC can block a company, happens for lots of reasons.

You wave your hands about, and cite far flung examples of how it could be, then there is not here, but then is not now, the future is not now, and we are speaking of the current.

If your concern is that it "could be" at some point, well I hate to break it to you, but that also covers every type of job you might imagine. "Could be" covers a lot of change and time. "Could be" is a wide brush to paint with, especially considering the object isn't even before us, but a misty, intangible, not yet formed thing.

None of that is relevant. Why? My statements have been quite clear; the government is not the party in power. And further, that there may be portions of the government that may offend, that saying "all parts" is obscene and inane.

Recall the original conversation. It's not the mess you've made of it now. Recall my objection was to someone saying that any government job was bad.

I cited a government department with a specific outcome. Feeding children. The counter with the Nazis, therefore, is inline with that statement of mine. Yes, in Nazi Germany, I would work for the government to feed children.

The sensible inference is that my statement is akin to the same for the current US government feeding children. You've now changed that condition to, instead, being some sort of actor for films about feeding children.

This is not what we were discussing. For the record, no, I would not star in a propaganda film willingly.

In as this entire conversation has revolved around how the US government has a myriad of programs which are ethical and moral, and how it therefore would not be untoward to seek clearance and work in those jobs, yes I stand my ground.

I have also indicated that if one found the job questionable, then don't take it! And naturally one can quit if the job changes.

It's such an enormous stretch to try to claim that every single possible job the US government has is reprehensible. The notion is absurd, see my other post about how some of these departments have been unchanged for decades. Lived through both parties.

So yes, there is an easy absolute here. That currently (because, no one can claim to know the future), there are government jobs which are moral and ethical. Period. Hands down. Absolute certainty.

You wonder about the "crimes of the parent". Well, if you refuse to feed children because their parents are in Nazi Germany, then presumably part of that has to do with their parents. For example, would you feed the children of dissenters? If the answer is "yes", yet when asked "would you feed the hungry children of Nazi zealots" you say "no", then you are indeed punishing babies for the crimes of their parents.

A child is a child is a child, and to feed that child is noble. To feed the children of your enemy is noble. To feed the children of someone who murdered your children is noble. To feed the children of those who wish you harm is noble.

There is no ground where not feeding children is reasonable. None. Nada. Ziltch.

Children are not a political game. Children are not something you use to do battle. Children are not something cease helping, because you worry about it helping the enemy.

You. Feed. Children.

Period.

Sometimes you don't know the exact nature of the task until after you've gone through the rigmarole of applying, getting clearance, etc.

I literally said "every job". You're saying "sometimes" they might be. What is your point? It certainly doesn't counter or answer the point I raise.

> You should literally be ashamed of yourself.

Many people state-side are ashamed of their government, and don't want to feel their reputation is tarnished by working directly for it, and quite frankly I don't blame them

Well I do blame them. And I specifically excluded the military. As I mentioned, the government is a vast and immense entity. Further, my response was to someone saying that to get a clearance would be morally bankrupt. I provided examples as to why that may not be the case. What you are doing, is painting all government as bad, because a specific team is in play right now.

This is literally what is wrong with the US currently. 90% of the issues are due to team politics on both sides. Politics before people. Politics before sensibility. Politics, instead of examining the moral and ethical considerations of each action one takes.

> If you make working for the government a badge of shame, it will become true in time?

As much as “join and fight the corruption from within” is a laudable goal,

You do not have to fight corruption to take a job feeding babies. Or the large amount of good that the government does. You can simply take and do that job. That's my point here. You're doing what the poster upstream did, painting the entire body of the US government as a single entity.

It's OK to say "I don't think this part of government is ethical, I won't work for that part of government", but to say that any government job is morally repugnant is disgusting.

> such as helping to feed poor children

The “but think of the children” argument

It's not a "think of the children" argument in any traditionally way. That argument is typically defined by taking rights away from someone, to "protect kids". This is simply feeding the poor, and babies. No comparison.

Not everyone has the fortunate needed to fight a bad system from within, or the desire to, no matter how many heartstrings you pull to try shame them into reconsidering the good within the bad.

The government is not bad. A tiny part (the current administration) is the problem.

To give context, you'd need a string of "one team" government for decades to turn the course of the entire government. Programs enacted by both US teams are currently in play. Some programs are decades old, and supported by both parties.

Anyone who thinks that a certain team gets into power, and then "all government bad" is not thinking clearly. What you need to do, is look at what each department and each program does. Determine if they are good. It absolutely does not matter which administration passed it, or when. All that matters is "is this thing good?".

The government should be viewed as series of literally tens of thousands of companies. Each has its own task, provides specific services, and so on. To paint them all bad is nutty.

Regardless, absolutely, yes, I would take a job in Nazi Germany which required clearance, if that job was to feed poor children. What the hell? I literally used feeding babies as an example, please provide some context in where innocent babies should be left to starve. Children are literally the absolute concept of innocence, and a baby is beyond culpability!

That is... unless you're advocating some form of weird let babies starve, because of the crimes of their parents?! Which is effectively along the lines of suggesting ethnic cleansing???

Any form of ideological stance which is this extreme, is realistically actually inline with fascism, for it puts politics before people.

For example, if you have $20 and a leaking roof, a $20 bucket of tar may be the pragmatic fix. Temporary but doable.

Some might say it is not the correct way to fix that roof. At least, I can see some making that argument. The pragmatism comes from "what can be done" vs "should be".

From my perspective, it seems viable usage. And I guess on wonders what the LLM means when using it that way. What makes it determine a compromise is required?

(To be pragmatic, shouldn't one consider that synonyms aren't identical, but instead close to the definition?)