Lurker > red13n

Porygon-Z/Goodra
Gastrodon/Oshawott
Torracat/Flapple
Cobalion/Mightyena

Meow1000 posted...

Also, the financial situation in Canada has made Junior hockey crazy expensive. Many families can't afford even one season of it, and it's a major reason why Canadian representation in the league has plummeted from over 70% to around 40% in the last 20 years.

Ahh the baseball problem in the US but on a slightly lower level.

Grovyle/Gardevoir
Fidough/Rhyhorn
Carracosta/Slither Wing
Beartic/Lunatone

Vanille

Freya

Victini/Mewtwo
Flareon/Omanyte
Celebi/Teddiursa
Caterpie/Pikipek

red xiii

check

Nintendo

Toxicroak/Eevee
Lycanroc/Darkrai
Skorupi/Tapu Koko
Parasect/Yanma

Dang that wasn't a hard choice but it was an annoying one.

Super Mario Bros

This movie is anxiety the movie and I don't think kids will get it at all.

But I enjoyed it.

Frosmoth/Lucario
Tatsugiri/Vikavolt
Rillaboom/Alcremie
Leavanny/Hitmonchan

course

They don't care about their "base". They care about keeping the radicals engaged because its been effective at keeping the dumbest of their policies afloat.

Alternative way to put it, their most radical members are the base now.

YoBlazer posted...

While gambling might not be as male-dominated as some other vices, it's still a larger issue for men, who are significantly more likely to develop an addiction and risk huge sums of money. I think it will only become more endemic in the US as the percentage of "forever alone" men with disposable income grows. While I haven't taken the time to think up (or support) any solutions myself, I do think it's a festering societal problem that will eventually blow up.

Dudes love to talk about their gambling in the locker room. Definitely a male dominant problem though this isn't universal.

kevwaffles posted... Equating personal choices, vices or otherwise, to acts of violent crime as equal in psychology is in insanely flawed line of thinking that has lead and continues to lead to a lot of problems.

I think its proven that making it easier to do violent crime means we have more violent crime. Or at least the case of guns, sometimes the same amount of violent crime but with much more deadly results.

But personal choice is tough. Because people make bad choices, are sane one day and then nutso the next. So a fine choice one day(buying a gun) could have unforeseen consequences down the road.

There is a societal balance that often needs to be found.

But honestly, both sports gambling and drug addiction can often end up hurting those around a person even more directly and often than guns. I think its actually a stronger argument. Guns just end up making a bigger bang when they go bad.

Freya

ivysnow posted...

i definitely think it's more than just letting it fly free. i'm a socialist so any solution i'm looking at is going to involve more than libertarian-style "just do whatever." you definitely need programs and support structures and the like to make sure people don't just fall into the gutters.

I have an immense hatred for libertarians too. So I kind of snap at anything that might slightly resemble their viewpoint. Sorry again.

I think I've mentioned this but its a fun story. I had a high school economics teacher, he was hugely popular, actually pretty good at teaching. But he was a libertarian and I fucking hated him. Like, maybe it was a weird age where you start actually being able to have good deep thought but he fucking drove me nuts. Like he was clearly smart, but for all his beliefs he clearly never bothered to think at them beyond surface level. You just ask him about the deeper impacts to society on his beliefs and he had no answer.

I think the common one that came up was him rambling about how people shouldn't have to wear seatbelts because its their choice.

But then I asked him a scenario where someone needed serious medical treatment/costs due to not wearing his seatbelt. And where all that money was supposed to come from, because the guy also didn't believe in health insurance or whatever. But hes unconscious. How are we supposed to just not give him treatment since he chose to die and be a drag on society?

Things like that. It fucking drove me crazy. He had the class eating out of his hand cause he was one of those teachers that made class fun and interesting. But he was a libertarian and it felt fucking evil.

(And of course economics classes very much still taught trickle down at the time for a segment. This was like 20 years ago so i dont know if they still do. I assume textbooks are just 50 years old at this point and they still do)

This is also a fun story to reminisce about to cool down.

ivysnow posted...

it's shitty to imply personal things you can't possibly know about the people you're debating with, full stop. it sucks.

Anyway, sorry for this, really. I definitely meant this in more of a general sense(Because it is likely true for most people), there are absolutely one or two people that are inadvertently going to get caught in the crossfire. This is definitely a subject that is going to get me heated pretty much immediately.

ivysnow posted...

my point isn't "don't make laws." my point wrt to drug decriminalization is that removing criminal penalties for drug use has a demonstrated history of moving numbers in positive directions.do they always remain AS good as they were when first initiated? no. but regarding the prior example of portugal specifcally, while drug use and issues did see a bump after a while, positive effects still remained and the numbers are still better than before the legislation was passed. these are nuance issues that go beyond "x stopped working" or a flat declaration about what should or shouldn't be illegal.

Portugal is complicated though. They still had police dealing with drug use. Just in a different way.

It wasn't just straight up decriminalization which a lot of people DO advocate for. When people say decriminalization it tends to be in a "let people do what they want, its their life" kind of way. Which always has just a bit of ignorance towards it.

Like, Portugal is definitely on something possibly adjacent to the right track, but we need to be mindful that they are still on the path to discovering what impacts with this will have long term.

And again, not simple "decriminalization". There is definitely room for society to regulate. Free for all is unlikely to be the answer.

kevwaffles posted...

Piss off

Are we really resorting to piss off for the most obvious counterexample? Hell that is where the argument is most commonly used.

ivysnow posted...

frankly i don't know why you interject into the conversations when most of your posts amount to being a flippant prick.

Because if there is one argument I don't stand for, it is "dont make laws people will break them".

People bring this up all the time and it is fucking stupid. It will never not be.

But beyond that, I didn't inject myself in here to be a flippant prick.

But sports betting is bad, people cant handle it. As someone around a lot of sports, I see it first hand on a daily basis. Its a societal bad, it needs to be course corrected.

Drug abuse is mostly not good. I think people have different takes on criminilization, I think this causes some confusion. They tend to associate this purely with cops and prison and the like. It is a place we need serious reform. But raw "just legalize it and go from there" is not the answer either.

ivysnow posted...

you are not as smart as you think you are.

No one is as smart as they think they are. Take your own lesson.

You are basically saying that every country should have gun violence comparable to the United States and they very much fucking don't.

But that is just one easy example.

"dont make laws people will just break them" is fucking stupid.

Don't try to tread that path. Please. Just stop.

kevwaffles posted...

Red, are you like completely unfamiliar with just how many people broke very specific laws from 1920 to 1933?

Are we really going to compare this to taking away something that had been fully ingrained into society on a whim?

Because that is what we are doing and its a bad argument.

This is also where I get annoyed because most people don't have experience with someone close to them having a serious drug problem. It isn't a particularly pleasant experience.

Also the "drug addicts dont seek help because x" thing is very often just ignorance. A lot of drug addicts don't want help, don't think they need help, or refuse to actually believe they have a problem in the first place(They think they are totally functional).

Ifrit posted...

With gambling, there's pretty big rewards, and not that huge of a risk of getting caught.

Okay this is not true on either front.

ivysnow posted...

drug decrim worked out quite well for portugal as i recall

It did and then it didn't.

It isn't really decrim either, they still are supposed to deal with drug use with referrals and sometimes fines and the like. But those programs are hard to keep up.

Ifrit posted...

People are law abiding citizens when it is convenient for them, the risks outweigh the rewards, and when there's no alternative.

Literally gave you the situation where there is 0 risk, 0 societal gain, and an easy alternative.

red xiii

Also people do in fact get to the point where forcing them into confinement is the solution to their drug problem.

Ifrit posted...

Yes?

We already put too many people in jail. Disproportionately minorities at that. We spend so much money fighting the war on drugs that we lost a long time ago. If we took some of that money and put into treatment for people facing addiction problems instead of jailing them because that's the easy answer, society would be far better off. Then took the rest of the money and put it into healthcare and education... Drug addiction should be considered a public health problem, not a criminal problem.

This is a problem with how we deal with something illegal. Not a matter of whether that should be illegal or not.

Ifrit posted...

Illegal sports betting was a billion dollar industry before they legalized it. And it was pretty easy to access too. Probably easier than most people realize. And in those cases, the government doesn't get their cut. Sports gambling is a huge problem, but it's not one I think we can solve by banning it. If you have evidence otherwise, I'd love to see it.

And now that its legal it is even bigger.

But people are mostly law-biding citizens. When you inform people something is illegal, especially with the smallest of enforcement, they typically abide. People stop at the most pointless of stop signs at the most pointless of times.

Ifrit posted...

Illegal sports betting was a billion dollar industry before they legalized it. And it was pretty easy to access too. Probably easier than most people realize. And in those cases, the government doesn't get their cut. Sports gambling is a huge problem, but it's not one I think we can solve by banning it. If you have evidence otherwise, I'd love to see it.

Enforcement is the issue here, not the legalization. We have difficulty adopting to new technology on that front.

NFUN posted...

prolly

No.

Drilbur/Dubwool
Honedge/Zorua
Fletchinder/Espathra
Arbok/Floatzel

Freya

Waluigi1 posted...

Magic Kingdom is absolutely the least adult oriented and it's not really up for debate?

Least adult oriented doesn't mean "not fine for adults".

Cinderace/Machop
Doublade/Rattata
Talonflame/Manectric
Meloetta/Riolu

AriaOfBolo posted...

Buizel/Poochyena v. Helioptile/Croagunk

dang this 4 pack is too strong.

Breloom/Sandshrew
Salamence/Archeops
Buizel/Poochyena
Lunala/Girafarig

People were really bad during COVID. Lots of people taking for granted that few people were on the road and speeding/turning without looking.

But things have pretty much returned to normal on that front.

Freya

red xiii

Ceruledge/Pangoro
Espurr/Terapagos
Ninjask/Lurantis
Buneary/Wartortle

Disney

Hasnt aired here yet.

But its on a day where the showcase showdown was missed by $1.