Woot

2 hours ago, emperorpenguin said:

2. Popular vote would mean that democrats win all the time.

Both parties would just move slightly farther to the left. The parties constantly change their platforms to appeal to as many voters as possible, they don't just flounder and die forever when their platforms become unpopular.

If you want CO2 emissions reduced, it's the least costly way of doing it, so there's no reason not to support it.

Some practical things could become more efficient with a one-world government. No trade barriers, less military conflict, no more environmental tragedy of the commons.

There's two reasons not to like it. The first is self interest. For obvious reasons, most people in rich countries don't want to be in one common pot with people in poor countries and have everyone's prosperity and problems even out. The global average would improve but it's not in the interest of the average first world voter.

The second is representation. This is the real problem and the reason why the League of Nations failed and the UN has little power. Say that everyone put aside their differences and joined a magic global democracy with fair elections everywhere, would that be a good thing? Well, I'd love to see a global opinion poll on this question: "Should a wife be obedient to her husband"?. I think 80-90% "Yes" is the likely result of that poll. Is global democracy still a good idea? The world is filled with people with radically different cultures and values and interests, and throwing them all together would not lead to a happy result. Unions only succeed when people have almost identical values and a single identity. To have a global democratic government, you'd need a global monoculture.

The betting market has her at 24%. I'm a big believer in betting markets. I'll go with yes if there's a fresh terror attack before the election and no otherwise.

I think it's just one degree higher of punishment than a life sentence and there's plenty of people who have earned it. The only drawback is that there's no takebacks if you find out later they were innocent. But that can be solved by requiring a higher standard of evidence, restricting it to people who were basically caught red handed or confessed, rather than abolishing the death penalty.

No, but that's with hindsight and emotional distance, which make it easy to give that answer.

Think about how you felt on 9/11, imagine it was the start of a total war that would last years and have as many casualties every week, and imagine that one of the hijackers escaped and was immediately sheltered by Arab-Americans who joined his cause and helped him destroy intelligence and shoot people. Imagine that and maybe it takes you 5% of the way there to understanding the feelings of the time and the intensity of them.

Even the Supreme Court wasn't willing to stand in the way of the internment, and essentially ruled that the constitution could be ignored when it conflicted with war necessity. Principles go down the toilet in a big enough crisis, that's human nature, modern Americans are no superior to Americans of the 1940s in that respect.

On 2/17/2017 at 7:41 AM, Rin said:

Might & Fealty - Similar to this game in a number of ways, but their payment system was absolute shit. Basically their subscription players get to make multis, and so much of the game and lands is run and conquered by multis, instead of being reliant on teamwork.

I actually found that the free-to-play account limit allowed more land than I'd ever care to manage anyway unless I was a massive autist or something. With TKR's sheer numbers we could easily build a powerful empire in Might&Fealty and beat the shit out of paying multi-users. But the game is a weird combination of requiring a lot of time but also being extremely slow, and the fact that it relies so much on serious RP is a major problem. Serious RP can sometimes be great but usually it just means weird conflicts of opinion and drama with people who don't give a fuck about RP.

I think the fact that it's still impossible to loot anybody who doesn't want to be looted is a sad sign of the state of things. We're a very long way from unplayability yet though. Mensa would probably be one of the first and best communities who would jump ship - their exit plan is Travian, I think.

13 hours ago, Micchan said:

No love for Howl?

I thought it was pretty weak for a Ghibli movie. A few things were different and interesting, but altogether it wasn't the most memorable or entertaining.

The left was laughing that he wouldn't follow any of his campaign promises, now they're crying that he is.

1) Killed the TPP. I think Hillary reluctantly claimed to oppose it but work continued on it until the moment Trump won. That's kind of why that lying bitch lost the election. Almost everybody who cared about the TPP one way or the other seemed to have opposed it, even the left gives Trump a little credit for this one.

2) Made the pipelines go through. The alternative is shipping with trucks and trains, environmentalists invariably seem to pick the dumbest causes and methods.  Popular with the majority of Americans and almost anybody who works for a living, especially in the energy sector, which is an important base of support for Trump.

3) Started construction on a border wall. Republicans have wanted this for decades. People on the left kept talking about how completely impossible this would be to build. They'll happily tell you that we should convert the entire economy to renewables and colonize mars and shit like that like it's nothing, but a long concrete wall? Harder to build than the fucking death star, apparently. Now we have an official estimate of $15 billion, even if it's twice that it's still peanuts to the federal budget.

4) Restricted Muslim immigration to some degree. The left wants this to be like the new holocaust or something, but half the country supports it. The left acts like Islam is just a meaningless little flavor, like skin color or sex. Personally, I grew up with fundamentalist religion, and though I no longer believe in it, I do remain a strong believer that religious ideology has serious power. Islam can fuck the fucking fuck off as far as I'm concerned. Trump can do whatever he needs to do to make that happen.

For all the supporters of these moves there are just as many who hate them. But in the sage words of Donald Trump when asked if he was worried about his latest act causing more anger: "Anger? There's plenty of anger right now. How can you have more?"

@Robert E Lee and @Kosonome are now part of the exclusive club. Just remember that all glory is fleeting.

13 minutes ago, Bernard Sandcastle said:

Doctor Strange is great, can't believe so many people haven't seen it

I'll watch it as soon as it's out on DVD. A marvel movie where Badminton Tennismatch plays a wizard superhero or some shit is something I have to watch regardless of what the reviews are (I haven't checked).

Capeshit

Name your price, Micchan. Name any price.

My opinion:

-Independence Day is overrated. It's the kind of movie you watch just because it's on TV, and even then you're kind of disappointed. The horrendous new movie makes it look pretty good in comparison though.

-I watched Scream before I did this poll and it was a completely awful waste of time. It seemed to think it was so clever by making a few meta references to the horror genre, but it was boring as hell, and all of its meta humor was simple, shallow, and not entertaining. 

-Muppet treasure island did not deserve those negative votes. It has Tim Curry as Long John Silver, show some respect.

@Micchan do more polls, aren't you supposed to be the forum god?

14 minutes ago, japan77 said:

no N/A option for question 2?

The limit is 3 questions with 20 options each. Just vote for 101 Dalmations.

If anyone wants it and has no morals or money I can PM you a download link.

11 hours ago, Micchan said:

More movies missed

If you had to choose between joining slack and watching all of those movies you listed, which would you pick?

Movies

31 minutes ago, Micchan said:

I hope to join slack, but they don't want me

ONE HUNDRED MILLION

I'm so goddamn sick of going to message you about shit and finding that you're already doing it a step ahead of me.

SEVENTY MILLION

Star Wars™ 

Believe it or not the whole point of this is to have a "Who has the worst taste" poll at the end

2 minutes ago, Micchan said:

There are elf and Ong-Bak in his list...

You would not believe how much normies like Elf. I can't stand that movie but people put it on constantly like it's a christmas and comedy classic.

I think I put Ong-Bak up there because I confused it with some other movie like The Protector that had some great scenes.