Zoe @ekg@librem.one

@mrsbeanbag the Atheist community on YouTube is thankfully dead now, but it was an misinformation engine. I spent way to much time consuming that uncritically.

What is NIV referring to, might be worth reading about.

@mrsbeanbag I imagine it doesn't help most English speaker accept The King James version uncritically. In Sweden the most recent translation is from this millennium, not that I know if that helps. I have actually never read the Bible, not in hole at least. My most recent experience is YouTube Atheist reading select passages with their unique interpretation, if you remember thats era of YouTube you know what I mean.

@mrsbeanbag I like the description of the Bible as an tabloid, I think that is an fair assessment of the amount of trust to place in its words.

@mrsbeanbag I want to point out that NATO have expanded faster then the newly dubbed The Big Zipper, forcing newer members, including Sweden, to send their delegation to nearby buildings instead. Housing military command is a true challenge, requiring some of the most impressive infrastructure we humans build.

@mrsbeanbag I may have described NATO HQ as an office building in Belgium, but after recent expansion it's the third largest office building in the world. After the Octogon, where the Egyptian dod is housed, and the Pentagon where the us dod is taking up space.

@mrsbeanbag Yes, and keeping them calm about the Israel. Every time the USA give something to Isreal, the Saudis typically demands, and get, something equivalent.

@mrsbeanbag I think you are referring to when turkey tried to buy s400 from Russia and got kicked out of the F-35 program, an program Sweden haven't joined. And that was mostly down to the Americans being scared that the Turks would share identification signatures with the Russians, that could be used to target the F-35 in future conflicts with Russian equipment.

@mrsbeanbag sure it is both military equipment, but their exist an differences between transport aircraft, and fighter jets. And yes it was a weird deal, but counter purchases is common in equipment deals often not fully honoured.

@mrsbeanbag NATO HQ is an office building in Belgium, technically the people that works their. This is going to be true anyway, it would be a long way to ship office supplies from outside the alliance.

@mrsbeanbag to expand. When Sweden sold Gripen to Brazil, including Israeli missiles, and American engines. A part of the deal was 100% counter purchases, meaning Sweden would be paid in Brazilian made or funded equipment. This is how equipment contracts typically works, because most countries are aware that importing equipment is unsuitable. I have a hard time believing that NATO would make it harder to export equipment by effectively baning these kinds of deals.

@mrsbeanbag okay, that explains that.

@mrsbeanbag I don't think that's true, but their certainly exists a lot of pressure on members to buy from the alliance.

Both Sweden and Israel, with others, made the call that an independent defence required an domestic arms industry, that is not without reason.

@mrsbeanbag stargate?, I haven't had the opportunity to learn of that name.

@mrsbeanbag more importantly net exporters of equipment, count isreal, usa, and a few more, have a positive impact on growth.

Growth is calculated as: private spending + public spending + net foreign investment + net exports.