Lurker > darkknight109

minervo posted...

1. A government that craps on the constitution and tries to change it to give more power to itself is the seed of totalitarianism.

Like Lincoln changing the constitution to outlaw slavery? Or Wilson changing the constitution to allow women to vote? Yeah, they definitely sound like totalitarians.

Hell, what about the change that put the second amendment there in the first place? Or is it only totalitarian when a government makes a change that you personally don't like?

minervo posted...

2. Nobody said an armed group would overthrow the government. Guns are a deterrent from gov't agents having a free pass to do whatever they want, arrest people in secrecy, etc. The gov't must be afraid of the people, not the other way around.

It's absolutely hilarious you think that the US government is afraid of Farmer Brown and his 12 gauge (or that democratic governments are unable to function without an armed citizenry, despite the fact that virtually every other democratic government in the world presides over citizenry that have far, far fewer weapons than the American populace).

OK, let's go ahead and burst this adorable little fantasy bubble you have and bring you back to reality. If the US government ever was taken over by totalitarian dictators (which itself is a complete impossibility with no basis in reality, but I'll humour you here), whether or not they will stay in power has absolutely nothing to do with how many citizens are armed and everything to do with whether or not they have the support of the military. Despite the romantic notion of the people leading a rebellion against an unjust government, that has literally never happened to an industrialized country.

Citizens - even armed citizens - do not (successfully) rebel against their governments; militaries do. The only way a popular revolution succeeds is if the military supports it or, at the very least, permits it to continue; if the military stays loyal to the government, the citizenry will be crushed in short order unless they can secure the patronage of a foreign military willing to support their cause. We can see this in the results of the Arab spring - revolutions were successful in places where the army supported the revolution (Tunisia) or permitted it to continue (Egypt) or where foreign militaries intervened (Libya), and failed in places where the military stayed loyal to the dictator (Syria, Bahrain, Iran).

This is doubly true in the US, where the military is given outsize importance compared to most other countries. The US insists on having the world's strongest military, ensuring that they are far better equipped, trained, and coordinated than any civilian militia could ever hope to be. If the US military supported an American dictator, any civilian uprising would be brutally crushed in short order. If they did not, the civilian militia would be utterly superfluous, because the US military could easily depose any dictator without outside support.

Finally, consider this - given the United States' preeminent position in the world, the only way a dictator would arise is from within the political system (a foreign invasion is all but impossible given the US's strength). As such, the dictator's own supporters would have equal access to arms as those opposed to him, and would probably constitute greater numbers given the requirement for democratic election (electoral college nonsense not withstanding), and would presumably not be shy in using them to fend off an armed insurrection.

minervo posted...

3. Trump may have lost popular vote, but was still elected legally by the system put in place in the USA.

I fail to see what relevance this has to the discussion.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Vlado posted...

That makes two who recognised themselves in those NPCs.

Because we didn't find them amusing? That has more to do with the fact that they're all painfully unfunny.

I'm fine with humour that goes against my political leanings. Lewis Black did some fantastic stuff roasting the Democrats back in the 90s (still occasionally does, but much less so these days, because in his own words "The Democrats are dumb, but the Republicans are stupid. Dumb isn't funny; stupid is fucking funny."), and it was fucking hilarious. Of course, Black is the farthest thing from a conservative himself and I have yet to see an actual bonafide conservative telling political jokes that don't come across as the writings of an alien from Neptune who was explained the concept of human humour and is doing his best to imitate it without actually understanding some of its most basic concepts.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

StartTheMachine posted...

dear lord that abysmal topic post is a fascinating look into the world of conservative "humor"

I've always wondered if there's any conservative humour that isn't super cringey and awful.

This topic has made me think that the answer is probably no.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

minervo posted...

Glad you're laughing, cause i'm laughing too. See? Something good came out of this exchange after all.

Giving up already? I'd kind of assumed you'd have more staying power than that.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

minervo posted...

Wrong. Please just stop, you're embarrassing yourself at this point.

Please point out where you believe the discrepancy lies between what you said and what I said so that I may correct you.

minervo posted...

Do you see something wrong with American citizens challenging totalitarian governments?

Yeah, I do, when those governments do not meet any reasonable definition of the word "totalitarian" and when they were the victors of fair and free elections.

There's a word for what happens when armed groups overthrow a democratically-elected government and install themselves as rulers - it is neither democracy nor patriotism.

minervo posted...

Sorry boy, your fascist fantasies will be crushed by patriots like Trump, who WAS duly elected by the American electorate.

I wouldn't be too quick to toss around the "fascist" label while supporting a man who lost the popular vote, but was elected anyways.

Do note that I never said anything about whether or not I would support a Clinton presidency, nor whether I believed it likely she would take away guns like you're suggesting (pardon me if I sound skeptical, but I will point out that conservatives have wailed about this sort of thing for decades and it has literally never once come to pass) or whether I would support such a measure, so it's quite a big leap for you to assume what I "fantasize" about.

Also, calling me "boy" is all kinds of hilarious, given that - judging by GameFAQs demographics - there's an excellent chance I'm older than you.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

minervo posted...

Here's my interpretation of what Trump really meant by that statement, take it or leave it.

If Clinton wins, and her government comes for your guns, the only people who would be able to resist, are the citizens who have said guns. It's what the forefathers wanted when they made the right to bear arms, precisely so, that such totalitarian governments would be challenged by the American people.

In other words, Trump was advocating violence against a duly elected government that had been chosen by the American electorate.

That's pretty much exactly what I said.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

BlackScythe0 posted...

It is a valid counter because what you're doing is continuing this theme of arguing that everything Trump says needs to be interpreted to mean something other than what he is saying, often the literal opposite of what he is saying.

I fail to see how saying, for instance, "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is," can be construed as anything other than a veiled suggestion that the only remedy to a Clinton presidency was armed insurrection.

Was Trump seriously advocating violent revolt? I doubt it - he probably meant it tongue-in-cheek, but he did say it and it wouldn't take much for it to be interpreted by a crazed supporter to be a call to arms against Clinton and the Democrats.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

DiduXD posted...

The second one is you have to play every game to max completion.

This is physically impossible, even with extremely generous limits on what constitutes max completion.

To pick just a single game, Phantasy Star Online usually takes ~1000 hours to reach max level with a single character. There are 12 different classes, so that's 12,000 hours, and if you also have to earn every single item in the game... well, some of them have drop rates as low as ~1/250,000 and spawn off of enemies that you might see 10 of in an hour's playtime. I honestly think you could put 100,000 hours in that game and still not earn absolutely everything.

Or, to pick another few Gamecube classics, Super Smash Bros. Melee. In order to earn all the secret messages, you have to (among other things) play 1,000,000 Vs. matches. Even assuming a generous 10 seconds per match, that's roughly 3,000 hours. Animal Crossing's most hard-to-get furniture requires you to save 999,999,999 bells, a sum that requires thousands of hours to acquire. By the way, there are four Animal Crossing games, and three of them have these billion-bell rewards (the 3DS was nice and knocked the sum down to a "mere" 100,000,000).

For the record, if you play 16 hours a day, 365 days a year, you're looking at just under 6000 hours a year to work with. Even if we said that you didn't have to worry about new games and only had to play ones that were already out (which you would have to, since games are being released far faster than anyone could complete them, never mind 100%ing them), there's still far too many games out there for one person to play through in a single lifetime.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Foppe posted...

Nobody blames him for making the bombs.
...but he has been pushing for a specific direction, and that one of his crazier supporter decide to take it a step further doesnt seem that impossible, and in that case he got a bit of responsibility...

Exactly. Trump isn't directly responsible for the bombs, but he has gone a long way in contributing to a toxic political atmosphere that clearly inspired one of his supporters to violence.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

minervo posted...

I tried my best to read the article. Couldn't do more than skim through it, it was so boring, biased and disgusting.

Then you should have ample ammunition to rebut its claims.

Again, just shrieking "it's biased!" is not a valid counter-argument. If you have a problem with what's being put forward, start arguing the points like an actual adult, instead of slapping your hands over your ears like a toddler.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

minervo posted...

Why would I read an article from the same source that employs the racist Sarah Jeong?

Ad hominem argument.

Just because you dislike the messenger doesn't make the message incorrect.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

ParanoidObsessive posted...

That's not a thing any more. Mainly because of the potential for misuse you're implying.

Depends entirely on what system and edition you're talking about.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Alien is fucking fantastic, you heathens, and the fact that the tech is super-dated is part of what makes it awesome.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Blorfenburger posted...

I dont know why but I feel lost with nonheroic levels. I need to make 2 force users, cant seem to wrap my brain around doing that

Non-heroic levels are essentially the same as the regular "heroic" levels you use to build PCs, except it doesn't confer as many bonuses. Really low-level mooks will be nothing but non-heroic levels; most other NPCs are a mix of heroic and non-heroic levels. Boss characters can be made with entirely heroic levels, or you can just toss the rules out and stat them how you like (sometimes a necessity, depending on how good your players are at making broken characters of their own). WotC even does this themselves, though they never admitted it - if you reverse-engineer their character blocks, some of the named characters have base stats that are unreal.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

minervo posted...

Red_Frog posted...

WastelandCowboy posted...

Like Mead said, blows that claim that its only liberals that are violent as no sane liberal would mail this shit to to their own party members.

What happens if it's an insane liberal?

It almost certainly is. I'm not kidding. It's a twisted stunt meant to put democrats in a sympathetic position.

Yes, that makes sense - someone on the left pulled off a series of high profile federal crimes that could put them in prison for the rest of their life, that is now being investigated by multiple high-level federal investigative groups, and that, if it had succeeded, could have robbed the Democratic party of some of its highest-profile and most effective standard bearers/donors, all to try and impact public opinion ahead of an election where the results are already heavily slanted in favour of one outcome (Democratic house, Republican senate) and are unlikely to change. That seems very logical.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Vlado posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Corporations like alternative media corporations?

Alex Jones is a "corporation"?

Is Anderson Cooper?
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Vlado posted...

Blind belief in anything is a mistake. But especially in the things corporations push onto people.

Corporations like alternative media corporations?
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Blorfenburger posted...

Oh and the clone could be chaotic neutral but thats another problem

Saga doesn't use alignment, at least not the way you're referring to it here. The closest it has is dark side points - some abilities require you to be fully darksided, some require you to have zero dark side points.

But, honestly, DSPs are another element of saga that's kind of wonky (especially given that low-wisdom characters can be turned super easily, while high-wisdom characters basically have to be Space Hitler before they are even close to turning), so don't worry about it overly much.

Blorfenburger posted...

Oh okay. I thought I'd have to make an enemy in the way the book has it
https://imgur.com/WEf8nEE
Although to be honest ive never really analyzed any of the npc stats so for all I know they're just slightly edited PCs for the most part.
So does this mean I can kind of do whatever I want with a later force user boss? Within reason I know. I jotted down notes somewhere that had health and reflex and abilities. So if reflex is high-ish I should lower it? And what about health? I got 4 guys and they range from high 30 to almost 50

Best advice for making NPCs and enemies in Saga is to start with the pre-set ones in the books (there are lots of them). Once you get a bit more comfortable with the system, you can start tweaking them a bit. Give them more health if you want some that are tankier, or replace their weapons with better ones if you want them to hit harder. Eventually, yes, you can just conjure up your own stat blocks out of thin air - you're technically not supposed to, but fuck it, you're the GM you can do what you want. Just eyeball some of the other NPCs and make sure that you're not making anything that's too ridiculous (and even then, given how badly Saga characters can be broken by a savvy player, you may have to make some characters that would make Palpatine cry in order to provide a decent challenge).
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

streamofthesky posted...

Lawful is also not a great name for the opposing alignment, and a lawful character doesn't need to follow or respect the laws of a town if it conflicts with their own personal beliefs (classic example: LG or most LN characters would not "respect" local laws allowing slavery and requiring people to inform the guards of any escaped slaves they notice).
It's the "lawful" alignment that's all about having a strict personal code the person adheres to. whether it's due to the law of his home, the law of his god, or just his own inner moral code.

"Chaotic" alignment indicates the absence of such an inner code.

Disagree.

The archetypal example of a Chaotic Good character, for instance, is Robin Hood. Robin Hood absolutely has a moral code he sticks to - it is the fact that he puts greater emphasis on his own internal sense of what is "right" than what others claim is correct is what emphasizes his chaotic nature (that and his willingness to go against the law of the land to do good, rather than trying to act within its bounds).

A lawful good character faced with evil or corruption would still be against it, but would be more likely to work within the system to oppose it (or would join an opposed organization working to instill a more just code of laws and ethics). If Robin Hood is Chaotic Good, his Lawful Good counterpart would be King Richard.

I mean, if you think that a chaotic character lacks any internal moral code, a chaotic good character would be impossible.

Nichtcrawler X posted...

It should just be seen as a guideline and nothing more.

Not this absolute thing that when you "go against" it, the DM punishes you for it.

The annoying part about alignments is that certain classes require you to have certain alignments and if you act against them, you can lose the benefits of that class.

When I'm GMing, I tend to flat-out ignore alignments and all associated requirements, because I find them overly restrictive and dumb.

Blorfenburger posted...

Yeah, I THINK its meant to be a friendly sparing match. So everyone knows: Im using star wars saga edition and set during the clone wars, in case thats important.

Saga is one of those systems I mentioned earlier that's bad for PvP. If you're at low enough levels you probably won't notice, but your comment about "swinging at the air for 20 minutes" could definitely be pertinent. Player character defences in Saga tend to be much higher than NPC equivalents - especially at low levels where your attack bonuses haven't yet scaled to match your defences.

Blorfenburger posted...

And how the heck do i make a custom boss that isnt a high level PC. If high level pc is bad that is. Googled that too and got nothing.

Learn what "non-heroic levels" are - they're in the main rulebook. Using them is important for designing NPCs.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Lokarin posted...

This reminds me of the Chaotic Evil argument... some people hate when there are Chaotic Evil party members 'cuz they think they'll be required to backstab the party.

Where as in my opinion Chaotic Evil would simply be more likely to take pragmatic unfavourable action to get a job done.

In my experience, people completely misunderstand what "Chaotic" means on the alignment chart (and, admittedly, that's a terrible name for what the designers were going for). Chaos doesn't mean lolrandom, it means a willingness to ignore law and order in favour of an in-built moral code. A chaotic evil individual isn't necessarily a bloodthirsty raging berzerker with zero ability to think rationally; they're just a "look out for number one" type who is likely willing to do almost anything to further their own aims. The more chaos-focused ones can be anarchists and iconoclasts, while the more evil-focused ones lean more towards sociopathy and amorality.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Most PnP RPGs are simply not set up well for PvP. Some classes or builds are way, way better at it. Wizards with some variant of mind control can easily trounce any physical fighter (or just drop a fireball on them from the next town over if they're the aggressor), assuming they get to go first (if they don't, most fighter-types can squish them pretty easily). Builds that are designed to maximize damage on a single target will fare far better than builds designed for mass combat. And God help the poor soul who's playing a cleric if PvP breaks out.

Most PnP games are designed to be cooperative and party-based because every character class serves a role. The tank, the nuker, the mezzer, the healer - you're supposed to be working as a team so you can cover each other's weaknesses. PvP doesn't allow you to do that, unless there's teams on both sides, so the whole combat system starts to show some serious holes that are ripe for abuse by the players.

Not to mention, as PO mentioned, rare is the party that can survive a solid bout of PvP. Feelings get hurt, tempers flare, and I've seen more than one campaign simply *end* after the party turned on itself.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

can destroy friendships in ways that landing on your friend's hotel on Boardwalk in Monopoly simply doesn't.

Honestly, I don't even get mad if I get Boardwalked. If someone manages to get a hotel on Boardwalk, they fucking deserve to win that game. The dark blues are the least valuable, least reliable properties in the entire game - if someone can win off them, that doesn't deserve scorn, that deserves respect.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Sounds like a terrible unconstitutional idea.

Nothing unconstitutional about it whatsoever. Moreover, constitutions can be changed and amended - only the US seems to have this weird fixation on a 300-year-old document being some infallible piece of wisdom that never needs updating due to the march of time and the changing of society and techology.

Zeus posted...

Figured you might actually pay attention to what he said.

You might want to go and have a re-read yourself. Here, I'll even give you the expanded quote:

"We've got to keep our country safe. You look at what's happening in Germany. You look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They're having problems like they never thought possible. You look at what's happening in Brussels. You look at what's happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris."

Guess what happened in Germany, Brussels, Nice, and Paris over the last few years? Terrorist attacks. Guess what didn't happen in Sweden on the night referenced? A terrorist attack.

You really shouldn't be surprised at Trump lying about this. After all, this is the same administration that brought us the Bowling Green Massacre and the Atlanta Islamist terrorist attack which - just like Trump's lie here - both never happened.

Zeus posted...

These are things happening on a daily basis. You're just moving the goalposts.

*I'm* moving the goalposts? Excuse me? And your claim on this is a pathetically flimsy "these things happen on a daily basis"?

News flash for you, sparky - Sweden's homicide rate is sitting at 1.14 per 100k, meaning they have just over 100 deaths a year. It is literally impossible for terrorist attacks to be happening on a daily basis, because Sweden has fewer annual homicides than there are days in a year.

You know what? I'm calling your bluff on this. Prove that a terrorist attack happened on the night Trump referenced. If you can't, you're lying just as much as the president whose leg you're humping.

Zeus posted...

Overlooking that Sweden's grenade attacks are in ADDITION to their other crimes (and not touching on the fact that your claim is a pretty massive distortion given that it's been a GROWING trend with the vast majority of incidents happening in the last FOUR years), you're pretending that 10/year is a great acceptable number in a nation that previously averaged ZERO per year.

Guess you need some stats homework too. Man, I should run a course on this board.

OK, Zeus, your reading assignment for this evening is to go lookup "small sample size" and write a report back on how it distorts statistical trends. Return to the discussion after you've figured it out.

Zeus posted...

Not true at all.

Aptly put - it was not true at all. Glad we're in agreement on this.

Zeus posted...

If you mean to imply that Canadian history classes teach nothing of the history of foreign nations -- which is blatantly untrue -- then Canada's education system is vastly worse than the US's considering that the US covers the history of other nations.

I never said Canada taught no history of foreign nations; merely that there's little reason why anyone outside the US would care about Jefferson or Twain specifically or why they would bother to learn about them.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

For a month? Yeah, I could handle that.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

The bottom line is that a decade ago grenade attacks were more or less non existent. Now they are anything but.

Dude, you're talking about something that is *literally* one in a million. It's *still* next to non-existent.

The reason why these attacks hit the papers is that they're basically like terrorism - big and flashy and scary, but ultimately short on results.

Suggesting that 16 attacks in an entire year, across 10,000,000 people represents some big crisis is just sensationalism.

OhhhJa posted...

Oh man, the irony of you claiming that 24 grenade attacks in one year isnt a problem in such a small country of less than 10 million but claiming that 154 mass shootings country of over 300 million is a gigantic issue.

You're lying again. You should stop lying. It makes you sound like Trump.

I've never once said 154 mass shootings in a country of over 300 million is a gigantic issue. America doesn't have a mass shooting problem, it has a shooting problem in general. Mass shootings make up a tiny minority of gun deaths in America and even if you could stop every single one (and there's no reasonable way you could), the death toll would be practically unaltered. See above mentioned point on terrorism, because this is another perfect example of that same trend.

Seriously, dude, strawman arguments aren't going to get you anywhere.

OhhhJa posted...

That's like 5 times, you've tried to make this topic about America's gun problem. And now you're baselessly assuming that I dont think America has a gun problem. I'd say we have a pretty huge problem as well but it's funny to me that you keep trying to divert a discussion about an issue in sweden with a weapons issue in another country. Could you just admit that both countries have an issue? I know America is your favorite boogie man but c'mon man... at least try to appear like you're capable of relatively unbiased critical thinking

Says the guy who baselessly tried to blame this on refugees, a conclusion that has zero evidence and zero basis in reality.

The reason why I keep coming back to America's gun problem is because the whole Sweden argument is such utter horseshit and said gun problem is the easiest way to point out why.

I mean, let's take a good, solid look at this. Zeus claimed that Sweden is suffering from "widespread grenade attacks". You claimed there was a "huge spike" in grenade attacks and tied it to refugees. This is all pure, undiluted, bullshit alarmism and I feel like both of you should be smart enough to know that. And a simple look at the numbers reveals the truth - you are more likely to be shot in America than be a victim of a grenade attack in Sweden. Not just a little bit more likely either - multiple orders of magnitude more likely. The odds of you surviving a year in Sweden without being blown up are roughly the same as you surviving *three days* in the US without getting shot.

Conservatives badly want Sweden to be in some huge crisis so they can use it to shriek about socialism and foreigners and Islam and refugees, but it's simply not true. This is not the big, scary boogeyman you desperately want it to be. Sweden was one of the safest places on the planet before 2016 and it's still one of the safest places on the planet in 2018. Unless you are terrified to leave your home every morning for fear of getting shot, you have absolutely zero basis to point fingers at Sweden and say "Look at all the horrible things happening!"

The grenade attacks are awful, the same as any other terrorist-style attack, but - when you actually take a dispassionate look at the numbers - they're all flash and zero substance.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

SunWuKung420 posted...

darkknight109 posted...

We're talking boiling water, not steam distillation.

You need to boil water to get steam.

darkknight109 posted...

And, as mentioned, even that won't work for everything. If you try it with water contaminated with, say, benzene, your re-condensed water will be just as contaminated as it was before you made the attempt.

Since benzene has a lower boiling point (80c compared 100c for water) using distillation to remove benzene is more than practical. Even a simple boil will remove most solvent contaminants.

....you can't seriously be this obtuse.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

You said grenade attacks plummeted to historic lows in 2017. That is factually incorrect my man no matter how you try to spin it

Of course it's not factually incorrect, because the way I phrased it is entirely subjective. I didn't say they were at historic lows like you're claiming, I said they were "near" historic lows, and "near" can mean pretty much anything. If the lowest number of shootings on record is 35000 a year and one year they dropped to 35016, that's pretty near historic lows - just 16 off the record.

Which, coincidentally, is exactly how far off of the historic lows 2017 was for grenade attacks in Sweden.

As you're hopefully starting to learn, when you put your own interpretive words around statistics - like, say, "a pretty huge increase" - you can basically spin the narrative to be whatever you want, no matter if it's completely detached from reality.

Speaking of which...

OhhhJa posted...

No but I would consider going from almost none to 24 to be a pretty huge increase

See, I'd consider that a pretty huge mischaractierization. Subjectivity is wonderful, isn't it.

Moreover, I see you haven't yet bothered to read up on sample size. As I've been harping on for a while, playing this up like it's this enormous, horrifying trend is ignoring the fact that while the statistical increase might be huge (an 800% jump, holy shit!!!1!1) that means relatively little when you're dealing with tiny numbers. And talking about low-double digit attacks out of a population of 10 millions is a laughably small sample size.

To put it another way, I'm a business owner and I'm also the company's only employee. My business is a side-gig and it pulls in roughly $10k a year for me - it won't pay my mortgage, but it does give me some extra spending cash. If, next year, I hired 25 more staff and pushed my business income up to $1.01mil a year, I'd have a 2500% increase in personnel, and an eye-popping 10,000% increase in revenue. Pretty amazing numbers, and certainly way better than any blue-chip stock you're ever likely to see. Of course, that sort of growth is distorted by the fact that my starting point was miniscule, thus making the growth completely unsustainable, so if I tried to claim that I was a business genius on par with Bill Gates, I'd get laughed out of whatever investment meeting I was trying my pitch at.

OhhhJa posted...

But yeah I guess it depends on whether or not you believe grenade attacks are a big deal

Lemme flip this back on you - why do you think they're a big deal? Bigger than, say, America's issue with guns, which is causing more deaths in a day than Sweden is dealing with in a year?

Grenades are a violent, shitty way to die, no arguments there... but so are guns, and I don't see you shrieking in terror about those, despite the fact that they're a much larger threat.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

IronicFool posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Depends on the nature of the contamination. Boiling water in a pot is much easier than setting up a steam distillation unit.

Well...yes. But you can capture steam relatively easily. All you need is a lid, you'll lose most water but it's...better? You don't need to make it complex unless you want to capture as much water as possible.

Sure, but then you're wasting both time and energy. If you're boiling water at home, that amounts to an increased bill; in the wild, that's more time spent gathering fuel for a fire. Either way, boiling water is substantially easier and, in most cases, sufficient to deal with the hazards of whatever you're drinking.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

Except I never made anything up. You did

What do you think I made up?

That attacks "plummeted"? No less wormy, misleading language than saying they "highly increased". Saying that they dropped by nearly 50%? They did and your own numbers show that - half of 24 is 12, meaning 2017 missed the mark by just four.

Subjective? Absolutely. Misleading? Sure. But so was your statement about how these attacks had "highly increased", which was exactly my point.

And no, it wasn't making things up, unlike the last statement of your last post.

OhhhJa posted...

Would you not call an increase from 3 mass shootings to 24 in one year a big increase?

Depends - would you call a drop from 24 mass shootings to 16 a "plummet"?

Again, this is why most statisticians avoid subjective qualifiers in the first place. I work with this sort of data in my job all the time and I'm constantly having to impress this upon the junior engineers working under me. Things like we don't "highly recommend" something - we either recommend it or we don't; or that risk isn't a "conservative estimate" - just "an estimate".
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

IronicFool posted...

Are you saying you would ever drink boiled water without steam distillation? Depending on the circumstance you might be fine, but why risk it?

Depends on the nature of the contamination. Boiling water in a pot is much easier than setting up a steam distillation unit.

For instance, around here if there's flooding the water supply sometimes gets mud and dirt swept into it. That soil isn't contaminated with any forms of chemicals or heavy metals, so the only risk is from biological agents getting into the water. In that case, simply boiling the water removes the risk.

If I was out in the wild somewhere and uncertain of the water source I was drinking from, then yes, I would prefer to steam distill it if at all possible. But usually that precaution is unnecessary unless you know you're near chemically-contaminated water.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

So now you're just making stuff up huh?

Just doing the same thing you were with your slanty statistics. Turnabout is fair play and all.

OhhhJa posted...

They "plummeted" from 24 attacks in 2016 to 16 attacks in 2017.

Congratulations! You got my point. Using loaded language like "highly increased" is a really good way to distort statistics, which is why any credible statistician will immediately call you out when you attempt it.

Also, just gonna let you take a quick gander at the number you posted. 16 attacks. 16. In a country of 10 million people.

You really think this is the great crisis you're desperately trying to paint it as with numbers that low? Again, for comparison, if that was a community in America over 1000 of those people would have been shot and killed in the same timeframe as those 16 attacks took place.

OhhhJa posted...

That's more than all the attacks from 2002 to 2012 combined

Alright, here's your next lesson in statistics. I want you to go look up what the phrase "small sample size" means and try and understand its impact when discussing statistical trending. Come back after you've done that and we'll continue our discussion.

OhhhJa posted...

Also in reference to you pointing out which ethnic groups are responsible... i made no mention of any specific ethnic groups.

Oh, give the dog whistle a rest, we all know exactly what you mean. Don't be fucking dense.

And, if we want to be really pedantic, you *did* specify an ethnic group, albeit indirectly. See, you didn't claim that the attacks were the results of immigrants, you labelled "refugees" specifically. And where are the refugees coming from that Sweden has taken in over the years that we're talking about? You guessed it - Syria.

You could hide behind wormy language if you'd said "immigrants" and left it at that, but that's not what you said. By labelling it as "refugees", you've specified it as one very specific group of people (and, incidentally, not the ones actually responsible for the attacks).

OhhhJa posted...

But I know how you like to make excuses for certain groups of people while using any excuse to attack other groups you perceive as oppressive

Apparently not, because seldom do I discuss people in broad groups - I find it distasteful. Even trying to sort through your dissembling via one of the most mealy-mouthed, non-specific accusations I think I've ever seen, I can say right now that you're lying.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

IronicFool posted...

You capture the steam as is condenses and drink that.

No, you don't. That's called steam distillation and it's what I explained above. That's different from what people refer to when their water systems are under a boil water advisory.

And, as mentioned, even that won't work for everything. If you try it with water contaminated with, say, benzene, your re-condensed water will be just as contaminated as it was before you made the attempt.

IronicFool posted...

Boiling water will only work if you take the steamed water

Water that has merely been boiled works just fine if the contaminant is biological in nature. The number of harmful germs and bacteria that can survive boiling temperatures are exceedingly small and none of the ones that can are particularly common.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

SunWuKung420 posted...

Steam distillation will remove the heavy metal contaminates.

We're talking boiling water, not steam distillation.

IronicFool posted...

Are...what? You can't be serious.

.....you don't seriously think that you can fix lead contamination by boiling water, do you?

Boiling water kills most bacteria and germs. If your water source is contaminated by potential biological contaminates (as frequently happens during natural disasters), the risk can largely be mitigated by boiling it. If, on the other hand, your water source is chemically contaminated (particularly if the contaminates are heavy metals like lead or mercury), boiling water frequently does not help and can potentially make the situation worse (by boiling off some of the water and ensuring that the contaminates are more concentrated in what remains).

If you want to get rid of chemical contamination, you need to filter and purify the water; boiling won't cut it. Even the steam distillation Sun was talking about up there won't solve the issue for some chemicals.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

So you think that the increase in grenade attacks in the last three years has nothing to do with an influx of refugees?

Correct, because the grenades have been linked largely to gang warfare and are coming from Bosnia and Serbia as a result of military surplus being sold per the Dayton peace agreement, not from the Middle East.

Sweden's own analysis has more or less confirmed this. While there are plenty of immigrant gangs (not necessarily Middle Eastern, and not necessarily new), just shy of half of all gang members are Swedish-born non-immigrants. Analysis indicates that most of the gangs are actually from longstanding immigrant communities that have experienced economic stagnation, not recently arrived refugees.

Hell, Snopes even has an article debunking this.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/crime-sweden-part-ii-refugee-men-overrepresented-swedish-crime/

OhhhJa posted...

Three consecutive years of highly increased number of attacks is hardly an outlier my man

Nice use of loaded language while ignoring sample size.

Since that's what we're running with, let me take a stab at it - did you know grenade attacks in 2017 plummeted by nearly 50% to near-historic lows? It's true! 2017's numbers were just 11 off the baseline average.

Seriously, learn to statistics before you start a conversation like this.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Far-Queue posted...

Muffinz0rz posted...

no because i live in a first world place where the water is fine

Flint, MI says "Hi"

And how, exactly, do you figure that boiling water will fix lead contamination?
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OhhhJa posted...

darkknight109 posted...

There have been 78 of them since 2010, or an average of about 10 a year nationwide (and this includes 2016, which was a significant outlier with 35 detonations - take that away and the numbers drop to just over five a year).

Well, now you're deliberately distorting facts. 2015-2017 all saw a huge spike in grenade attacks in sweden. Not just 2016. So basically the most recent three years... but hey if you were to use the last 30 years in your data that would bring down the average per year even more

I, too, like to use statistical outliers to push a political point, but the statistician in me understands that's bullshit statistics.

For what it's worth, even if every grenade attack since 2010 all happened in one year, it still wouldn't even be one tenth of America's gun death rate, and that's *after* adjusting for population.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

mooreandrew58 posted...

but I'm assuming if they where treated like utter shit and being abused they would have taken their chances

Why would you assume this when there's entire books written on exactly how the slaves were treated?

Spoiler alert: they were treated like shit.

To pick one example out of millions, Robert E. Lee, when he caught two slaves that had attempted to escape, had them scourged until the flesh on their back was literally hanging off in tatters. Not content with that, he then had the wounds washed in brine to make them extra agonizing.

Just in case you didn't have enough reason to consider him a piece of shit in human form.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Oh no! In 50-60 years, your property might have lost a little land.... or not.

Given that I already get water under my house (which is raised on pilings) in the winter and climate change is already measurably affecting the weather around here, no, this isn't something that is having an impact years down the road - I get to live it here and now.

I also find people grossly underestimate exactly what "a few inches" means in terms of tide levels. "A few inches" of sea height doesn't mean seaside properties lose a few inches of land; the grade of most oceanside properties is extremely shallow, so that few inches of height can translate to several hundred square feet of real estate now being underwater at high tide.

Zeus posted...

What?! They're getting rid of the electoral system?!

They are indeed. More specifically, they want to get rid of it and replace it with a proportional one.

Which is a pretty solid idea that I am completely behind.

Zeus posted...

His exact quote:

That I already posted just seven posts ago, so I have no idea why you feel the need to restate it.

Zeus posted...

In recent years they've had repeated grenade deaths, stabbings in the middle of an Ikea by immigrants, young women murdered by refugees, etc.

Literally none of which happened on the night Trump referenced in his lie.

Zeus posted...

Because widespread attacks with grenades aren't something I'd put in the realm of possibility.

LOL!

There have been 78 of them since 2010, or an average of about 10 a year nationwide (and this includes 2016, which was a significant outlier with 35 detonations - take that away and the numbers drop to just over five a year). For comparison, about 100 people are shot and killed every single day in the US. Adjusted for population levels, Sweden has one grenade detonation per million people per year, while the US has 121 shooting deaths per million people per year.

Personally, I think I'd rather live in Sweden. It seems much safer.

Zeus posted...

The sky might not have fallen down in Sweden the night before he made his remarks

In other words, he was lying.

Thank you for proving my point.

Zeus posted...

I learned about both of them in Canadian schools.

You went to a weird school, then, because neither of them are in any Canadian curriculum that I'm familiar with.

Which makes sense, because there's no particular reason why either one would be considered figures of any great importance to anyone outside the American borders.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Nope. Been living out of the games cabinet for decades and it never bothered me.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

The taxpayers are compelled to devote their money to people who put in no labor.

Not necessarily. You could spend all your money on charitable donations until the deductions zeroed out your tax bill.

Zeus posted...

And that "safety net" isn't available to everybody in equal measure.

In the same sense that actual safety nets are only available to those who fall of the tightrope, this is true.

Zeus posted...

Most of us would be ineligible to receive the kinds of benefits that others have been getting all their lives.

Unless you are an illegal immigrant or, depending on your location, a convicted felon, this is not true. If your income fell sufficiently, or you suffered disability or debilitation, you would qualify for the benefits you are talking about.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Kyuubi4269 posted...

What was the last thing in the news that impacted you?

Climate change is a pretty significant concern, since my property is oceanfront. Our government is also changing the way elections work, so that's a big deal.

Two examples off the top of my head.

Zeus posted...

You should have been more specific considering all of the stuff that IS happening in Sweden right now.

You mean Trump should have been more specific. Although, given that he was lying through his teeth, that really wouldn't have made any difference.

Zeus posted...

And denying that there are problems is both unarguably wrong and idiotic.

Good thing no one's done that then, right?

I mean, the only thing that's been discussed about Sweden was when lying Donald Trump told a lie, lying about Sweden. Which was definitely a lie. And that's terrible.

Zeus posted...

Which is itself an admission of ignorance, considering that many famous historical figures have been openly critical of the media, ranging from Thomas Jefferson to Mark Twain, who you *should* have learned about in school.

No, I shouldn't have (and didn't), since I'm not American and neither of those individuals are widely known or taught about outside of American schools.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Kyuubi4269 posted...

As is necessary to live outside control.

Not really. If the guy had been independently wealthy - like, say, the child of a billionaire - he could have lived out on a private acreage and no one would have been the wiser.

He stole because he was destitute, not because it's necessary to live outside government control.

Kyuubi4269 posted...

Which is the point, you can't legally live outside some form of forced servitude.

Sure you can - declare your own nation, and have it be free of laws.

Now, like every other nation in the history of the planet, you'll have to defend your new borders from those who don't recognize your sovereignty, but if you can successfully do that you can live however you please.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Kyuubi4269 posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

darkknight109 posted...

You don't have to work if you don't mind living in the wild and hunting/scavenging for food.

You mean "the wild" which is under government jusidiction? The same one which requires hunting licenses? The ones that make sleeping rough illegal?

Yes, those ones.

I mean, this guy managed it for 27 years:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/11/american-hermit-caught-27-years

If you're tracked down and arrested for not serving a higher power, how is that not slavery?

He wasn't arrested for not serving the government, he was arrested for burglary.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

DPsx7 posted...

Like anything they report has any effect on my day here.

You must live a pretty boring life if you're impacted by literally nothing in the news.

DPsx7 posted...

And yes a lot of lower class people are pissed that Trump is pres so they're going out of their way to cause problems.

Kind of like the even lower class people that got pissed off when Obama won twice?

That's kind of a fixture of American politics now.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Kyuubi4269 posted...

darkknight109 posted...

You don't have to work if you don't mind living in the wild and hunting/scavenging for food.

You mean "the wild" which is under government jusidiction? The same one which requires hunting licenses? The ones that make sleeping rough illegal?

Yes, those ones.

I mean, this guy managed it for 27 years:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/11/american-hermit-caught-27-years
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Lokarin posted...

Yes, life is forcing them to work, and the threat of death is keeping them there

You don't have to work if you don't mind living in the wild and hunting/scavenging for food.

As others have said, no one is forcing them to hold those jobs - they are free to leave and find employment elsewhere.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Zeus posted...

Which thing? The 22 y/o woman who was killed by a Somali asylum seeker? The elderly biker who was killed by a grenade? The 8 y/o boy who was killed by a grenade? Any other of the dozens of cases involving grenades? (Seriously, that country needs grenade control!)

None of the above.

Trump, discussing terrorism at a rally, made the comment "You look at what's happening in Germany. You look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this? They took in large numbers. They're having problems like they never thought possible.

There were no terrorist attacks - no particularly notable crimes of any sort - on the night he referenced. Sweden's official Twitter account even had to clarify that there was nothing going on.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39020962

Seriously, the man's an idiot, I don't understand why you still try and defend his moronic comments, especially when - like this one - they are unarguably wrong.

DPsx7 posted...

I'd love to see the news removed from TV. It's useless.

First time I've seen someone argue in favour of keeping themselves (and everyone else) ignorant.

Mind you, I guess if you don't like staying informed the news probably seems like a pretty awful thing...
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

Or about that "thing" that happened in Sweden.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

I can speak Japanese on a conversational level, but I'm a ways from fluency still.
---

Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

_AdjI_ posted...

Start that right now. Cooking's easy, dude. Cooking well is another story, and relies on intuition that is built up over years of experience and that not everyone will ever actually develop, but a recipe is simply a sequence of instructions, functionally no different from those programs you're writing.

Take this exact advice and apply it to every area of your life that you are upset about.

Seriously. If you don't like your life, start fixing it. Worried you'll be homeless in 20 years? That means you have 20 years to avoid that very thing. So start building your skills - professional, interpersonal, whatever. Go out, experiment, do stuff and, most importantly, learn from it all.

Much like adjl posted, no one ever starts out able to cook the five course meal fit for a visiting head of state. In fact, your first dish will probably taste pretty blah - BUT, you will gain valuable experience and learn what to do differently next time ("Hmm, that meat tastes burnt, guess I left it on the burner too long. And that soup stock was pretty bland, maybe I need to add more spices or something next time? I should look up how to fix that."). Even if you make a complete and total fuck up of things (first time I tried to cook an interesting looking pasta dish I didn't know the difference between a clove of garlic and a bulb of garlic - you can imagine the effect that had on the sauce), you learn for next time.

Take that exact approach and apply it to the rest of your life. Want to meet women? Go sign up for a dating site or three. Or if you don't like that approach, try a speed-dating night or a matchmaker or SOMETHING. Don't like the fact that you're balding? Shave your head or go get a toupee or some of that "sprinkle-on hair-powder" stuff. I know plenty of bald guys who are in happy relationships, so it is not the end of the world. Need more money? Go get a job. ANY job. Start somewhere. Even if you get fed up and leave in a few months, that's experience that you can talk about at the next place (and you'll learn what to look for so you don't similarly wind up in a job you hate).

It is entirely within your means to get your life to the state you want it to be in. It may not be easy, but I can tell you right now that you'll be in a much happier place than if you sit around waiting for your family to die, convinced that your life will be over when they do.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!

OreonX1 posted...

Im shocked no one hasnt mentioned a DS title yet.

The 3DS came out in early 2011, so you basically have 2.5 years of DS to work with, and I can't think of too many outstanding games that came out at the end of the DS's life.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!