Forums / Discussion / General

@Spaghetto
Calling it "a riot gone bad" is a rather accurate assessment of what actually happened – some violent imagery here, some property damage there, and some politicians suddenly down one good pair of pants.

I guess you forgotten about the people who died there, unless you believe those are psyops.

Anyways, we already have Proud Boys charged with sedition and fake electors being indicted, the latter being cooperative with the DOJ so we'll be knowing much more about what Trump was scheming despite being warned by his closest allies.

I guess you forgotten about the people who died there, unless you believe those are psyops.

There's Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by police. Three more protestors died of medical emergencies (one of a drug overdose, one of a heart attack, and one of a stroke). A police officer suffered strokes a few hours after and died the next day, with a local examiner suggesting that his condition was exacerbated, but not caused, by the riot. There were also some police suicides in the year following, but as police have rather high suicide rates, only the two within the following week can be honestly said to be related.

This makes:
1 death that absolutely wouldn't have happened if the riot didn't occur.
4 deaths that could've happened under other circumstances, though probably not that exact day.
2 deaths correlated with the event. These probably wouldn't have happened otherwise, but a similarly intense event could've had the same results.

The capitol area suffered between $1.5 million and $30 million in property damage as well.

Speaking of Proud Boys charged with sedition, did you hear about Ray Epps, the guy who actually said that people should enter the capitol building? Yeah, he got probation and community service. For contrast, one of the leaders of the Proud Boys, who wasn't even there, got 22 years behind bars. I can see why people say this shit glows.
(Yes, I know he's an Oath Keeper, but a segue into this was needed)

An addendum: part of the justification given for the January 6 incident were the protests of the preceding year. These don't seem to have killed as many people per day, but caused a lot more property damage. Not sure how much of that was against businesses, exactly, but it was definitely a lot.

Yes, I have heard of Ray Epps, he was subject to a lot of conspiracy theories being a FBI plant, but he turned himself into the authorities two days after Jan 6th, was cooperative, and got a plea deal. While he did tell people to enter the Capitol building on the 5th, prosecutors have said he attempted to deescalate conflict between law enforcement and rioters on the 6th.

It's pretty hilarious there are still people who think there were FBI plants, but there have yet to be any identified, not really helped with Mike Johnson saying he's going to release Jan 6th tapes with people's faces blurred to protect them.

someone has to have downvote alts again

Waaay too many downvotes for a forum that is often kinda dead…I am just saying

Is anyone suprised that Vivek lost?

No not really

GOP too racist to accept someone who even looks Middle Eastern as a presidential candidate?

Yep, esepcially one without a christian name

The rankings were:
1. Donald Trump
2. Ron DeSantis
3. Nikki Haley
4. Vivek Ramaswamy
5. Ryan Binkley
6. Asa Hutchinson
7. Chris Christie

(The last three have less than 1% collectively).

The universe trends towards the perverse, so I wouldn't have been surprised if Vivek got to the top. Is Indian origins considered Middle-Eastern in the US?

Can't say I'm sad about Ramaswamy dropping out, I trusted him the least on foreign policy (which is a feat in itself among all these candidates).

Either that or a lot of lurkers. I once counted someone with 20 votes in total.

Well, in the end it is just internet points.

While usually authoritarianims is evil and libertarianism is good for obvious reasons…

Authortiarianism vs libertarianism when not taken to an extreme is not inherently good vs evil, this is much clearer when comparing authleft vs libright as both authleft and libright are super morally grey.

With libleft vs authright is easy to be like lib is good auth is evil but with cyberpunk being inherently libright and most oldschool dystopias being a flavour of authleft you can see how it aint that simple…it can have more of a flavour of order vs chaos.

Authright is kind of lacking in redeemable qualities and libleft is the seemingly goody two shoes faction (often to a very obnoxious and idealistic degree…I dont like how ) but libright and authleft are very …complicated

Authleft can be way more safe (especially if you count Somalia as extremely libright…which I 100% do. No I dont think its libcenter either, its very lacking in socialism or any community, "woke" elements and stuff(so its right) and it became an anarchy (lib) its libright but that is my opinion it can be debated but still), but libright has way more food…to put an example

I am not arguing for authoritarianism as much as I am arguing that neither democrats or republicans are nearly as libertarian as they think they are….but that is more a neutral fact more than anything.

Well partially neutral I am kind of worried how we keep going up the authoritarian axis at record speeds, mainly rightwingers though.

I would place democrats as right in the center or between center and auth (they are usually in the center but during covid they got pretty fucking authoritarian in retrospective…but that is old news now) and republicans kind of fairly up the authoritarian axis (they were also right in the center but then Trump came along and now they are fairly up…no that will NOT change any time soon)

To make things more complicated (or simple), there's some more dimensions you can add to judge factions & people:

1) Morality / Ethics

2) Foreign Politics / "Realpolitik"

Ignoring the first leads to atrocities, while ignoring the second is suicidal.

Personally, I think the EU's MEPs are finally voting to strip Orban's Hungary of voting rights not because of his extremists politics, but because he messed a few too many times with (2) foreign policies on Ukraine (that and Poland's PiS is now out of power).

this forum needs a sociological study on why people feel the need to do this lmao

I hate that the nuances of warhammer when right over fans heads leadingbto it being turned into rightwing propaganda….when warhammer really isnt….

Slaanesh is a partially a criticism of capitalism or at least materialism. I dont even need to explain why its pretty obvious what I mean. She represents greed and excessive material pleasure

Meanwhile Nurgle is a criticism of tradition and conserving the status quo. I dont even need to justify it too much its pretty obvious what I mean when I mention that Nurgle represents stagnancy and gets powerful whenever things dont change

But people were WAAY to thick to get it so warhammer comes across as super-rightwing to people…even though those two are clearly criticizing tradition and capitalism…well maybe not capitalism but it is criticizing the desire to want more and more money and more and more stuff but people look at Slaanesh and only focus on the sex stuff and for some reason look at them and think "oh yeah…its a criticism of gay people obviously"

Its so dumb

Dont even get me started in how people look at the Imperium of Man and are like "man THIS! this is what the world should be like" the whole point of warhammer 40k is that its dark as shit

I still love warhammer 40k but yeah….not a fan of how everyone forgets the chaos gods arent meant to bea representation of leftwingers…like at all

Tzeentch is meant to represent how wanting to change the status quo can do more harm than good so he is more of a rightwing message…but still…

Khorne is super masculine and meant to be a villian but Khorne is just a neutral representation of rage not much else…he is pretty damn shallow compared to the other three overall

Two represent not super rightwing messages and one does represent a more rightwing message and one is a neutral force. I hate how they got corrupted into representing the left when they….arent

I'm not that familiar with 40K, so I'll preface this with things from a setting I am familiar with: Fallout. A lot of the "what-if" of the setting is a veiled criticism of various problems with American society, contemporary and historical. This generally leans towards criticisms of the right-wing, but not exclusively (for instance, Tandi can be read as a criticism of FDR, due to her policies and comically excessive re-elections). Some remnants of the old government are the main antagonists in Fallout 2 and Fallout 3, and that gay anarchist from New Vegas calls them a "fascist paramilitary".

However, this gets easily muddled and lost, in part due to Bethesda and in part because, let's face it, things like power armor and nuclear artillery are cool as hell. It's easy to overlook potentially-contradictory messages when you're fistfighting killer robots while wearing an old tuxedo with your radiation zombie best friend.

Now, back to Warhammer. As stated, my familiarity is pretty low, but your connections seem… tenuous at best from what I've gathered. Collectively, the chaos gods seem to represent things that plague every society and can bring down even the most sane and stable empire. Violence and crime, disease and fear, discord and desire, hedonism and decadence. Taken at their core, they can be read as a criticism of anything, as all systems have to handle these issues, and no system can effectively handle all of them.

As for the Imperium, my understanding is that it's objectively horrible, but the galaxy is, in turn, such a disastrous clusterfuck that it's somehow been able to stumble forward for ten thousand years, even if being a militaristic corpse cult is objectively very insane.

Pretty much the only way to prevent "incorrect" interpretations of a game (or of anything else, really) is to make it obnoxiously preachy… because the only people willing to put up with that shit already agree with what you're trying to say.

The lesson here either way is to mostly avoid fanbases cause they will always turn to shit

This of course makes it sound like I am pissed off people missed the "over leftist message of warhammer" nah its not leftist either

I am more pissed off it got coopted for political bullshit, its very politically neutral (chaos is insulting all political axis) but it got taken over by….you know and I dislike it I prefer my warhammer without political bullshit thank you very much.

Edit: Nothing, no piece of media ever concieved, is allowed to just exist and bring joy anymore EVERYTHING has to be a fucking weapon nowadays, wether the left…or the right.

i mean, people call fallout and metal gear solid political, among other game franchises, but do they have a clear bias towards a specific side of the political warzone? i suppose whether or not metal gear solid is biased or not would be incredibly obvious to anyone who played more games then revengeance though lol

My point is that you are still stuck on this culture war wether you want or not and dont know how to feel about it. You cant play almost any game without spmeone dragging politics into it.

yea, i was mainly talking about the points of your original comment and disregarding the edit because i kinda agree with that point, there's never enough fuel on the fire for the politi-schizos

It's official. The Govenor of the State of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination of President of the United States. This comes just a little over a year after his landslide reelection in 2022.

He now joins Vivek Ramaswamy in endorsing Donald Trump for President after dropping out of the race.

well looks like its round 2 of old man and old man running for president

can we atleast grease them up beforehand this time?

Get fucked, torture lawyer.

If Ramaswamy had some of the worst stated foreign policy, De Santis had some of the worst acted domestic policies.

It's more concerning when it's elected officials who get ham-fisted about the culture war , and his position was one of the most retrograde.

Now, to see who gets nomination between Haley & Trump.

Fuck yeah! I hated that guy

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/1/26/live-icj-to-issue-preliminary-ruling-in-south-africa-genocide-case-against-i

"ICJ orders Israel take measures to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza"

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/middleeast/israel-genocide-case-icj-hague-ruling-south-africa-intl/index.html

"Top UN court says Israel must take ‘all measures’ to prevent genocide in Gaza but stops short of calling for ceasefire "

ICJ has essentially told Israel to stop committing genocide. I wish everyone who's been denying Israel's genocide a very "BURN IN HELL, PIG."

They wont stop until Palestine no longer exist, I feel like that has been well established

@Steve

… "Pig"? Excuse me?

Friday’s decision related only to South Africa’s request for emergency measures, which act like a restraining order while the court considers the full merits of the genocide case, which could take years.

Going to have to wait longer for the court. According to the article it's a moratorium, not a judgement,

Which is completely reasonable, both the EU and US also want operations (almost everyone, including some Israelis) to end as soon as possible, and Netanyahu out of power.

My bias is, I don't particularly give any credibility to South Africa's ANC stance on this. That they brought in the UN is good (doubt any country who wants to keep relations with either Israel or the US would try that, it's the sad pragmatism)

However, they're the "anti-imperialists" who sent the leader of their Youth League as an "observer" to Russia's imperialist annexation of Ukrainian land. They tried to help Russia evade sanctions, and they have their own shady shit with the attacks on Boehrs.

With the GOP's current bullshit in the US, the ends of the far-right and far-left are playing right into Russia's hands.

The little business with Boeing's plane having another safety issue reminds me of the time Airbus vs Boeing was used as a motif for one of Trump's American trade wars against the EU. Airbus still has most major operations in Toulouse, but the Spanish, Germans and Italians now have major stakes in it, France alone would not have won, which makes the American blitz for the breakup of the EU for "sovereignty" to be such an obvious self-serving move of their part.

Anyway, instead of working on their products, Boeing decided to crush competition, and while they failed with Airbus & the EU, they unfortunately had more success with Canada's Bombardier. At least Bombardier in reaction to that sold Airbus their models, which Airbus dearly needed after their issues with the Concorde, so in a roundabout way, Boeing helped their competitor Airbus in the end.

A little lesson, that throwing around their country's weight doesn't mean their companies will be better because of it. The US even increased their trade deficit at the end of it !

With the American Right being what it is, the risk of another trade war doesn't sound good. Especially with the Ukrainian-Russian War & the Red Sea attacks, Europe has recovered far more slowly from Covid than the US. I'm not sure if the EU will "win" this time around.

I find the return of some many things from 2016-2020 tiring, but it'll be dangerous to ignore the return of this potential threat.

Who ever is the group who keeps downvoting every comment here needs to touch some goddamn grass, they never seem to go outside.

In the end, the loser in the Boeing vs Airbus trade war was the Canadian taxpayer. Sigh.

It wasn't great for the average American and European taxpayer either, but yeah, the Canadians with Bombardier were the ones who really got screwed over.

I'm curious, did it affect Canadian politics? Any plans to avoid having that happen again (as much as you can plan against much larger economies)?

Between Bombardier and Nortel, I'm afraid the lesson Canada has learned is to accept it's place as a branch plant economy.

This isn't exactly a new problem, to be fair – our economic strategy has long been "be somewhere in the same time zone as Uncle Sam with a similar culture and slightly cheaper labour costs" but that really only worked fantastically well in the second half of the 20th century when automobile manufacturing was the heart of the North American economy and the major automakers were headquartered in a city right on the border.

I think the only way the war between Palestine and Israel can end is if people in Palestine realize Hamas has only made things worse…which they have, this is worse than what Palestine had before.

Israel is an Apartheid state but that doesnt change the fact Hamas is to a great extent the reason things never improve. Like Israel has done the things it has done BECAUSE terrorist factions in the past like Hamas keep attacking their people. Not that Israel's goverment isnt evil but like Palestine isnt better.

It is a never ending vicious cycle that gets worse each time but if Hamas falls that cycle might finally be broken….maybe….its a pretty hopeless place overall

Am I victim blaming? Yes I partially am but I dont at all think that is a bad thing counting how the "victim" here Hamas goes around BEHEADING RANDOM CHILDREN FOR THE SAKE OF IT.

Why do people just ignore that? Hamas BEHEADED INNOCENT CHILDREN, they arent the heroes if anything they are the more evil faction here!

@No!!

There is no such thing as an Apartheid State, there is a crime of Apartheid which is not universally defined. HRW in it's 2021 report acknowledge it as such, and all three; HRW, Amnesty, and B'Tselem used extremely flawed definition of Apartheid to levy against Israel. Specifically, the crux of the issue is that Israeli Jewish settlers in West Bank are treated differently than West Bank Palestinians. This is a fact. What these organizations seem to miss is that this is a fact as a result of the occupation, since one is under military rule, the other under civilian…But that is the result of how occupational law functions. Even HRW and B'tselem admit that it is not exactly like what happened in South Africa, and it's something "like" Apartheid.

Regardless. This goes into a bigger point I want to make.
I have greatly changed my opinion on Jan 6. Before I would dismiss it being called a coup, or an insurrection, and instead opted to call it a riot.
I have realized that there is currently no exact language to describe what Jan 6 was. I still hold onto the view that it was not an insurrection or coup per say, largely because our institutions are actually have a lot of safe guards to prevent the worst of what Trump and the Jan 6 crowd hoped.
However, it is far more elevated than a simple riot. It's far worse. Somewhere, in the spectrum of riot to a full blown coup or insurrection, is where January 6th lies. It's a unique event, and we do not have the language to describe it. But we should.

Similarly, I am not convinced that Israelis are guilty of committing the crime of Apartheid as described by NGOs. Not only are their definitions lacking, but the NGO's themselves are not particularly objective or credible sources when it comes to the I/P conflict itself. What is happening is a substantially long occupation that has increasingly become more oppressive to the occupied as a result of multiple, and very legitimate, security threats to the occupier.

What I think is happening is that we are using language for short-term political expediency, rather than accurately describing and defining the events that have transpired. I think we do this because we want to invoke the emotional connotation to these words, while ignoring the application of those terms.

I think we need to create new language to describe, accurately, and uniquely, these events and conditions, even if it means they lack the historic emotional baggage.

What is happening in the West Bank, and it's complexity is an extremely unique situation; the status of Palestinians, vis-a-vie refugees, a national group, it's existence as a nation, is extremely unique. This is why some Israeli scholars do not call it an occupation, but a territorial dispute. Also why the definition of an occupation falls absolutely flat on the situation of Gaza.

I just think we need better language to describe the unique phenomenon of the 21st century using language that is rooted in the 21st century, not the 19th or early 20th.

Just my opinion on the matter.

But either way my main point is more Palestine than Israel and the moment Hamas falls things in Palestine will instantly improve….slightly, not by a lot but still slightly better and will probably keep improving over time.

I unironically believe that Palestine's situation would improve if they ironically just…gave up, I mean it, they can win by seriously giving up…they probably wont sadly, this war is probably eternal

I think the only way the war between Palestine and Israel can end is if people in Palestine realize Hamas has only made things worse…which they have, this is worse than what Palestine had before.

So what you're trying to say is, "Free Palestine, from Hamas"? I can get behind that; much better than just the first half. You never know what people actually mean by it, assuming they mean anything beyond simple virtue signaling in the first place. Are we talking "stop the invasion", "reverse the borders to some previous point in time", or "Judea delenda est"? Hamas obviously believes in the third, but I assume most people who just say it to declare that they are a Good Person with Good Opinions would fall somewhere between the first two.

Well this is certainly a relief

I'll take it a step further.
Free Palestine from UNRWA. Hamas could disappear tomorrow and it isn't evident to me anymore that anything on the ground would tangibly change.

The more I delve into it the more I am convinced that UNRWA is one of the biggest reason why the Palestinian issue continues to exist. By it's very nature UNRWA has cultivated the insane fantasy that one day the Palestinians would return to what is today Israel. And by continuing being the biggest employers of Palestinians, and also greatly failing at de-radicalizing them (which at this point is a feature and not a bug), they have created now multiple generations of would be martyrs.

That mentality has incentivized, deeply, for the Arab governments to never settle the Palestinians who live, and are born, in their countries. To never have to take care of them, to not even give them a chance to live normal lives (like in Lebanon). Even Palestinian citizens in Jordan, with Jordanian passports, citizenship, etc, are still considered refugees. DJ Kaled, born in the US, is a multi-millionaire, large celebrity, is considered a refugee by UNRWA.

If UNRWA is dissolved and the refugees are then taken over by UNHRC, within a decade much of the Palestinian issue would be resolved.

I'll take it a step further.
Free Palestine from UNRWA. Hamas could disappear tomorrow and it isn't evident to me anymore that anything on the ground would tangibly change.

The more I delve into it the more I am convinced that UNRWA is one of the biggest reason why the Palestinian issue continues to exist. By it's very nature UNRWA has cultivated the insane fantasy that one day the Palestinians would return to what is today Israel. And by continuing being the biggest employers of Palestinians, and also greatly failing at de-radicalizing them (which at this point is a feature and not a bug), they have created now multiple generations of would be martyrs.

That mentality has incentivized, deeply, for the Arab governments to never settle the Palestinians who live, and are born, in their countries. To never have to take care of them, to not even give them a chance to live normal lives (like in Lebanon). Even Palestinian citizens in Jordan, with Jordanian passports, citizenship, etc, are still considered refugees. DJ Kaled, born in the US, is a multi-millionaire, large celebrity, is considered a refugee by UNRWA.

If UNRWA is dissolved and the refugees are then taken over by UNHRC, within a decade much of the Palestinian issue would be resolved.

UNRWA isn't helping things but I doubt Arab neighbor states want to invite another Black September.

Australia needs guillotines, stat.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/you-win-you-run-this-city-death-threats-force-friendlyjordies-to-remove-video-20240201-p5f1pm.html

Trains are in a weird position where they are the best most objectively efficient mode of transportation we have ever created but nobody likes trains so we dont use them

Its weird cause everyone thinks trains are cool and good and everyone knows cars are the main reason the world's climate is so fucked up and that they are bad….but nobody seems to actually wants to have to use a train or at least vastly prefers cars, buses, airplanes and what not.

And I cant blame them AT ALL, trains arent convenient at all.

Its a problem, the best mode of transportation ecology and efficiency wise that could lead to the solution to climate change or at least help a lot…. is the mode of transportation everyone keeps rejecting since ancient times cause people dont like trains that much.

Global Warming aint being solved any time soon this is a far less solvable problem than people think….at least we can create subterranian cities and shit in the worst case coming to pass.

People don't like trains? I didn't know that, I've pretty much switched to trains for inter-city transportation (no more traffic jams). Probably depends on train coverage & quality.

Ryanair might be cheaper, but than there's the hassle of going through an airport.