Lurker > adjl

It's hard to go wrong with chocolate.

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My butt.

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ReggieTheReckless posted...

doesn't sound so strange to me. It likely has less to do with you and moreso that no one wants to sit next to a stranger they don't know if they can convince their husband to do it instead

TC is brown, if that changes your assessment of the situation.

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GrabASnickers posted...

It's been a while so I don't remember it a ton, but I kinda feel the opposite about it. It's almost too much wow factor, like they were constantly trying to introduce some big new concept or setpiece.

They were, but I never felt that got tiresome. The paradigm for both games (smaller, self-contained levels with their own themes or gimmicks, generally tied together by the overall mechanic of accounting for unusual gravity) allowed a ton of room for creative, interesting level design, which was really showcased in that Galaxy 2 just did more of the same but still didn't run out of new ideas (technically Throwback Galaxy wasn't new, but I felt it was a beautifully executed piece of nostalgia). I actually would have liked to see a Galaxy 3 if they could have kept that up, but I recognize that that's a relatively unusual opinion.

OhhhJa posted...

Yeah without the nostalgia I'm sure its unplayable.

Honestly, camera issues aside, I don't actually find that 64 has aged as badly as people say it has. The level designs and platforming are still very solid by modern standards, the music's good, plenty of content with a solid range of difficulties, the graphics are easy to ignore because I know it's an N64 game (it's going to look bad. That's a given)... It's really mostly just that the camera has aged really poorly. It *works*, in that I never feel like it's impossible to manipulate it in a manner that allows me to do what needs doing, but it's completely unacceptable compared to even the standard set by Banjo Kazooie a year later, let alone modern analog camera controls. I don't think it's nostalgia making it playable so much as it is that people who played it before have had the necessary practice to be able to wrestle the camera into compliance without being turned off by how primitive it is.

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Far-Queue posted...

How do you do that, add a little flour?

In a separate pot, mix equal parts flour and melted butter (you can use oil, but butter tastes the best) over medium heat and stir it together until it starts to look kind of like mashed potatoes and it's turned slightly golden (the degree of browning you want varies by what you're doing, but for a stew broth, lightly golden works well). Once it's there, dump a bit of cold broth or water into the pot to deglaze it (scraping the bottom to get up all the bits), then add a few ladlefuls of the liquid from your stew and stir it all together until it's smooth and simmering, at which point it should have thickened quite a bit. Dump that back into your main pot, and you'll have thickened it.

The basic rule of thumb is to use 1 tbsp each of flour and butter per cup of liquid you want to thicken, but once you're familiar with the process you can adjust that.

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agesboy posted...

that's essentially what my original strategy was, but i'm unable to do that great with it as it did at first. i think i just got super lucky with saffron in the first few runs

been trying it with violette and i'm just not used to the muscle memory of her E yet

For Reva, I switched to a Miseri focus pretty much right away and just took any decent Phalanx cards as they showed up. I managed to get a couple of good poison artifacts (poison ticks faster, everyone starts with some), plus Anubis and doublecast Pandemic (adds an extra 60 poison per cast to already-poisoned targets and everyone adjacent to them, which is insane for larger groups). I don't think I had Detox on the run where I beat the Gate, but that would have made things even better (Anubis-->Doublecast Pandemic-->Detox is a minimum of 320 damage to everything, more if enemies are clumped together for more Pandemic fun), though where I could just facetank everything with my shield, waiting for poison to tick the old-fashioned way wasn't a problem.

I really need to stop relying on that facetanking and learn to dodge, though. I've very much been slacking on the "git gud" part of the game.

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Step 1: Kevlar condom
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!

SunWuKung420 posted...

No. A trillion dollars is a myth.

I really have to admire your commitment to consistently one-upping yourself in terms of Sunniness. It's quite impressive.

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agesboy posted...

friend gave me one step from eden last night and it's kind of sick, got to eden's door with terra after a few hours

@adjl saw you were playing it too

Yeah, it's a great time. I got it in last month's Humble Choice, where it was one of 14 games in a bundle for $15 CDN. It and Children of Morta were the two main ones I was interested in, but I'll likely dabble in some of the others as well. So far, I've made it to the Gate with Reva and Selicy, but only beaten it with Reva (poison focus + grabbing all the shield cards I can is really strong). I think I've also made it to Terrable (the last boss if you do a pacifist run) with Reva and Saffron, but I haven't beaten her yet.

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It's exceedingly rare for anyone to have actually played every single game on one of these lists to be able to truly pick a proper favourite. Given how relatively small the PS5 install base is at this point compared to the PS4's, it stands to reason that most people that have played the FFVII Remake have not played the Demon's Souls remake. The Demon's Souls remake is also a relatively lazy one, largely amounting to a graphical update and a couple QoL improvements. While there's ample room to criticize FFVII:R for going too far in the other direction and almost becoming a new game instead of just remaking the source material, the general trend is for people to prefer remakes that make meaningful upgrades to the games, which FFVII does a better job of.

Of course, the most significant point to consider is that "best remake" polls usually just result in people voting based on which original game is their favourite, and FFVII pretty reliably wins any poll on GameFAQs that doesn't have OoT in it. Demon's Souls, by comparison, remains a relatively niche game that most people still haven't played (From's Soulsbornes have become relatively mainstream, but they've relied on multiplat releases to do so, whereas Demon's Souls and its remake are still exclusive to the PS3 and PS5, respectively). Anyone who expected it to beat FFVII hasn't been paying much attention to the gaming market or GameFAQs' historical trends.

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Anyone who confuses an orange baseball cap with a pair of antlers shouldn't be anywhere near a gun. Heck, they probably shouldn't be anywhere near anything more dangerous than a plastic spork.

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BUMPED2002 posted...

At the end of the day, your safety and well being is up to you.

Part of it is, but other people's actions can very easily influence my health/well-being. It doesn't matter how often I visit the doctor if somebody sneaks up behind me and injects me with smallpox. This notion of "we shouldn't expect people to inconvenience themselves to protect other people" is obviously nonsense to anyone that pays any attention to how society has operated for as long as social rules have been a thing.

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Judgmenl posted...

Then I need to take that back.
It's better for me, as I don't own a television.

See, that makes sense. It's not a position that's going to be at all universal, but that's a pretty good reason to opt to save money.

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OhhhJa posted...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/software-glitch-in-michigan-sent-6-000-trump-votes-to-biden/ar-BB1aMk7c

So they identified an unusual result, took a closer look at it, and remedied the error that caused it. Sounds to me like the whole system worked as intended.

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OhhhJa posted...

Except skilled hackers can easily hack into networks and destroy evidence that they were ever there in the first place. If you admit these machines are susceptible to hacks then I don't know how you can say thats ok or that you know that there hasn't been any large scale vote switching without any sort of real investigation into their software.

adjl posted...

The point is not - nor has it ever been - that no fraud of any sort occurred during this or any other election.

adjl posted...

The point is that there's no evidence of fraud on a sufficiently large or partisan scale to have influenced this election in Biden's favour.

Could it have happened? Sure. Can't really prove that it didn't (although hand recounts that found nothing unusual do make it quite a bit less likely). We also can't really prove that Biden didn't spend election night giving a blowjob to sentient lizard man. "There's no evidence" doesn't mean "this conclusively didn't happen," it means "we have no reason to believe this happened." If you want to give people reason to believe it's happened, then provide evidence.

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Generally, only physical Nintendo games, since both physical games and Nintendo games are slower/less reliable to decrease in price. I did buy digital copies of MHGU, Smash, and Animal Crossing at full price, the latter two because Nintendo games, and all three because I wanted them at or near launch (I was like a week late getting AC). Otherwise, I think the only game I've bought at full price in recent memory is Factorio, which isn't likely to ever get a sale (the developers have explicitly said that they want to sell the game on its own merits, rather than relying on marketing tricks like sales or $X.99 prices), and that was a combination of me really wanting the game (it quickly became one of my favourite games ever) and also respecting the fact that they respect their customers enough to not try to manipulate them with marketing. There are a few others that I've been excited enough for that I've bought them with only 10-20% sales (Untitled Goose Game, Hades), but that's still not full price.

TheWitchMorgana posted...

i'm pretty stubborn about not paying full price. i really want to play 13 sentinels: aegis rim, but i don't want to pay $80 for it

The whole $80 thing really doesn't help, especially since tax often pushes it past $90 (15% here). I really miss when the Canadian dollar was at par (or close to it) and we paid $60.

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OhhhJa posted...

Distrust in dominion has historically been bipartisan. Plenty of democrats including Stacy Abrams expressed distrust in their software. It's only now that it involves trump that the software has suddenly become 100% infallible. By the way, trump's legal team's tech department hacked into it in minutes during a live hearing lol.

By the way, I'm not here saying trump won the election or anything, but I am saying that these voting machines are and have always been susceptible to hacks. I am 100% against electronic voting. The only way to truly ensure a 100% fair election is with paper ballots among other safeguards

Obviously they aren't infallible. The point is not - nor has it ever been - that no fraud of any sort occurred during this or any other election. I don't know why you insist on beating that dead strawman. The point is that there's no evidence of fraud on a sufficiently large or partisan scale to have influenced this election in Biden's favour. Trump's key witness lying about having been employed in a position that allowed her to observe large amounts of pro-Biden fraud is just another nail in the coffin of that particular fantasy.

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Judgmenl posted...

I hate it when people judge me for things that they don't understand.

To be fair, you routinely insist that it's the better version without ever actually saying why you feel that way. It's pretty natural that people would think less of you for that.

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OhhhJa posted...

The hospitals being at capacity is media fear porn. A lot of hospitals operate at 110 to 120% capacity this time of year. If hospitals were never near capacity I wouldn't have to wait 3 hours whenever I've been to the emergency room

There's a world of difference between being at outpatient capacity and being at ICU capacity. Being at outpatient capacity means a 3-hour wait for minor emergencies. We're all used to that. Being at ICU capacity means anyone who can't breathe without a ventilator suffocates to death in the back of an ambulance while a paramedic desperately performs CPR in a hopeless effort to keep them alive for a couple more minutes just in case an ICU bed opens up in that window. That's not a normal problem, and it's very bad.

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MartianManchild posted...

Maybe instead of angrily smashing the keyboard, take some time to write out your thoughts so they actually make sense. Im sure youre trying to make a good point, although somewhat foolish and shortsighted, but what you wrote out isnt very coherent. Please feel free to try again though.

Current flu cases/deaths=(Typical flu cases/deaths without masks/distancing)*(Mask/distancing protective factor)
Current Covid cases/deaths=(Hypothetical Covid cases/deaths without masks/distancing)*(Mask/distancing protective factor)

A little algebra will let you combine that system of equations into the following:
(Typical flu)*(Current Covid)/(Current flu) = How bad Covid would be without measures

The factor by which masks and distancing have reduced the severity of the flu season can reasonably be presumed to be roughly equal to the factor by which they have reduced the severity of the Covid pandemic. In practice, it's not going to be so neatly linear, but that's a close enough approximation for communicating the point that Covid would be far worse if not for the measures that have been taken.

Furthermore, as witty as I'm sure you think that facebook post is, it grossly misrepresents both the situation and the CDC's position on the matter. The CDC has not said that nobody is wearing masks/distancing (at least, not outside of describing small-scale situations in which everyone present is observably not complying, which is obviously not what is being suggested in that post). What they have said is that compliance with recommendations isn't good enough to get Covid under control, which is true. The measures that are being taken are having an effect (both on Covid and on influenza, as an added bonus), but Covid continues to rampage out of control because those measures haven't been accepted to enough of an extent to stop it.

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Ever notice how people complaining about being modded unfairly never share any of the actual details of what got them modded? I wonder why that is...

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The only way those would qualify as "massive" would be if they were on a 10-year-old. As she is no longer 10, that's not an accurate statement.

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blu posted...

In the US we say 6 feet. You guys say 1.5 meters?

In Canada, the official recommendation is 2 metres (~6.5'), though because it's Canada, everyone also says 6 feet.

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Compared to being 2 feet away from a person (pretty normal for walking past somebody), being 6 feet away reduces the aerosol density (which is very closely linked to infection rate) you're exposed to by a factor of 27 (increasing radius by a factor of 3 means increasing volume by a factor of 3^3=27), or a 96.3% reduction. Compared to being 1 foot away (which is uncomfortably close, but not uncommon in theatres, planes, or public transit), it's a 216-fold reduction (99.5%). Specific data on how much masks reduce transmission rates are kind of hard to find, but the numbers generally don't look that good.

There's a reason mask mandates generally amount to "wear a mask wherever it's difficult to reliably maintain distancing." Between the two, distancing is substantially more effective. Distancing is, however, substantially harder to maintain, especially indoors (both because there's less room to spread out and because recycling air diminishes the effectiveness of distancing), so masks are recommended to ensure continued protection when distancing fails. Fortunately, they're not at all mutually exclusive, so you can often do both at the same time and enjoy even greater protection.

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BlackScythe0 posted...

If everything is as stated sounds like clear cut fraud so I'm unsure why they didn't receive the full amount + legal fees.

Presumably because it does work, just in a limited capacity. Odds are, the judge has no idea just how limited it is, nor was the mother able to explain it in sufficient detail to convince them to order a full refund (if she even realized it herself).

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I watch them. I'm at a point now where I can reasonably predict how quickly my blood donation (#49 is in a week and a half) will go based on how well the tech gets the needle in there.

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Krow_Incarnate posted...

How are vaccines made again?

In this case, by taking a sample of viral DNA, replicating the target sequence (most likely via PCR) to create a sufficiently concentrated sample, isolating it, then transcribing it into mRNA that is then added to the cocktail of other chemicals that comprise the vaccine and immediately frozen (presumably using LN2) to preserve it.

I know you're trying to get at the "vaccines are made from viruses so he was just injected with the virus and that's why he's sick!" angle, but there's absolutely no reason to believe that's what happened here.

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Probably mental, given how pervasively it can affect all aspects of your life and how difficult it is to fix (to say nothing of the fact that society is still generally less sympathetic to mental health issues than physical ones). Mental health problems are generally less likely to kill you can physical ones, but they can have a greater impact on your life.

That said, this is very much a false dichotomy, and one that people have been far too willing to trot out as the pandemic drags on. It is very possible to follow Covid safety protocols without neglecting one's mental health. Going for walks is a good example: It's good for mental (and physical) health to get out of the house, but it's also not at all difficult to go for a walk without incurring a significant risk of contracting Covid (wear a mask when people are around, avoid crowded areas, maintain distance wherever possible...). You'll have to give up some things you like doing for safety's sake, such as going to bars, but it's not remotely impossible to take care of your mental health in spite of that by taking up new pastimes or modifying existing ones so you can do them safely (such as drinking with a small circle of friends instead of having large parties).

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Revelation34 posted...

The only people that should be exempt are people who have allergic reactions to vaccines in general.

And even then, my mother (a family doctor who does obstetrics on the side and has a buttload of life-threatening allergies, including many vaccines) has an appointment with an allergist in the near future to see if it's possible to work out a way for her to safely take the vaccine. That's a bit of a special case, given how important it is for health care workers to be vaccinated (both a very high exposure risk and they work with a lot of vulnerable people), and I don't think going to such an extent is reasonable for most people, but there are still options beyond throwing up your hands and saying "I'm allergic, better give up."

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EvilMegas posted...

How the hell did he contract covid now of all times?

Was he being more lax with his PPE because he had the vaccine?

Presumably because ER nurses are among the highest-risk group for infection, regardless of what protective protocols are being taken. PPE can only do so much. A false sense of security may have been a factor, but it doesn't have to be to explain this outcome.

wwinterj25 posted...

As the vaccine isn't 100% effective this will happen. 95% still leave 5%.

While true, that's not actually relevant here. The vaccine takes about two weeks to kick in, and doesn't really hit its full protective potential without the second dose a few weeks later (which then also takes two weeks to kick in). It usually takes a few days after infection for symptoms to show up, and at least a day or two after infection for the test to be able to detect it (regardless of symptoms), so odds are he was actually infected 4-5 days after being vaccinated, which is well within that two week gap. This was just rotten timing.

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Benefits: Pretty trivial, particularly considering that there's no sex/gender option as-is and we've been just fine that way for decades.

Drawbacks: A handful of people might get pissy and whine about SJW's for a week or two before they moved on to whatever new grievous "attack" on their safe space they can overreact to.

So... I guess? The benefits are trivial, but the drawbacks are even more so (that might even be entertaining), and this would be easy enough to code that the effort is too negligible to tip the balance.

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Full Throttle posted...

Curtis Houck, a prominent conservative said "TTHIS is what we're supposed to believe is the future of the republican party? Don't talk about Jesus and faith and family then pull this crap"

I mean, they talked about Jesus and faith and family and then voted in a philandering con artist who's on his third trophy wife for president. I don't know why so many people are surprised every time the "Christian family values" party blatantly flies in the face of Christianity.

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Zeus posted...

Not unless it was already in their employment terms when they took the job, I guess.

Pretty much every job carries the requirement that employees take reasonable measures to ensure the health and safety of their coworkers and customers. That takes no effort at all to be interpreted as requiring vaccination to an ongoing public health crisis, much like it can be interpreted as requiring employees to wear masks while working. Not everything needs to be explicitly in there.

BUMPED2002 posted...

I say no it isn't because some people are skeptical about a vaccine they know very little about.

By the time most people even have the option to be vaccinated, millions of doses will already have been administered over several months. Being skeptical of the first doses is reasonable, given how quickly the trial process has gone (though the data from those trials isn't hard to come by, if one actually wishes to change the "know very little about" part instead of just using it as something to fall back on because they don't want to make a legitimate argument). Being skeptical of the 20 millionth dose, much less so.

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Refunding her half of the price and paying the necessary court fees seems fair. It's hard to tell for certain without Nintendo explicitly stating what caused the ban, but it sounds like he knowingly sold a defective product under false pretenses. He's lucky he wasn't required to pay the whole cost, but given that the console still mostly functions (though given how much of the current game market is digital-only, even that's a dubious claim), half seems reasonable enough.

SunWuKung420 posted...

She bought a used switch for $20 less than a new one?

Sales tax in BC is 12%, so she actually saved $68 (400*1.12=448). Still not a huge amount, but when new units are hard to come by and used prices have generally been inflated as a result, it's not unreasonable.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Isn't the intent in pirating something to get it for free?

Protip: Don't read that much into Duckbear's specific wording. He words things really weirdly sometimes, usually because he's trying to paraphrase a Dailymail article without actually having the writing ability to rewrite it. The ban would be enacted regardless of whether or not the person paid for the pirated games.

That said, people do definitely sell bootleg games, movies, and music, generally at a substantial discount from MSRP (since they have none of the production costs to cover), and many people knowingly buy them to save money. Many more buy them without realizing that they're pirated, which means punishing them for it isn't altogether fair, but that's largely a separate discussion.

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No formal PTO, but I do get 4% vacation pay, which amounts to being able to take off two weeks per year without dipping below my salary. Also paid holidays.

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Fair enough.

Once again, this topic has saved me from forgetting about Epic's free game >.>

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Sahuagin posted...

I sort of have the opposite attitude. I want something that's worth paying for. If it's free it's probably not worth my time. I may even enjoy a game more the more I pay for it.

Eh, I wouldn't say this is altogether reasonable (at least, not any more so than the other extreme). There have been some truly excellent games given away for free or included in bundles that make them very cheap, and most of the time, the games that you can actually spend a lot on only offer that option because they've been carved up into so much different DLC that getting anything resembling a complete experience means spending triple the normal cost of a game. There's also been a lot of crap given away that's barely worth the effort of clicking the giveaway button, but games really are not a case where price can be reliably conflated with worth.

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wwinterj25 posted...

I wouldn't be mad about this at all. I'd actually be proud that my son isn't selfish. After a gift is bought and given to someone it's their call what they do with it after that. Although if it was one of my kids a heads up would be nice and by the sound of it his dad was all for with this gesture.

Shadowbird_RH posted...

Maybe initially, but I would self-resolve and accept and appreciate that my actions in getting the gift were not a waste and enabled my son to perform his act of generosity.

Pretty much these. It'd be a little frustrating to put that much effort in and not have the gift be used the way I expected it to be, but the kid's being kind and generous enough in doing this that it's not hard to accept that this is the better outcome and be proud of him.

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I feel personally attacked.

This topic also reminded me to grab today's free Epic game, making me feel even more personally attacked.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

The first post clearly says their church "revolvs around Norse gods". Not the Abrahamic one.

Oh hey, look at that. My bad. Granted, that's a rather odd way for an alleged polytheist to communicate that point, so I feel like my error is justifiable.

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Naps, not usually. The occasional time when I've been truly exhausted and I sleep for like 14-15 hours in one night? Very yes.

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Lokarin posted...

So here's a novel concept - why not make the bosses based around mobbing? World of Warcraft does this quite often

Conceptually, the idea of having bosses be a different experience from mowing down the rank and file enemies is an attractive one. It makes thematic sense, it mixes up the gameplay, it offers an opportunity for a more cinematic, exciting fight... It's just that the whole "Attack phase-->Vulnerable phase :||" thing gets a little tedious as soon as the attack phase stops being a genuine challenge, especially where the bosses that are meant to be difficult often have particularly long attack phases. When players are farming said bosses repeatedly and trying to do so as quickly as possible (because clear speed meta), that becomes even more pronounced, and if bosses don't drop enough unique loot to be worth that extra time investment, it becomes more efficient to just skip them entirely. That doesn't necessarily mean the bosses suck, just that they aren't worth spending time on if you're maximizing efficiency.

At the same time, though, if bosses are just more mobs, they have a harder time feeling special. That's not a problem if you only care about optimizing the gameplay loop, but it's a fairly small subset of players that only care about that. Most people (including the developers, in many cases) do place enough value in having an interesting world, story, and theme to warrant trying to design bosses that stand out.

In the case of WoW, you don't actually run into the build specificity problem to the same degree. Unless the game has changed a lot since my days of playing it, mobbing either consists of using crowd control to fight one enemy at a time (in which case you're still just doing single-target damage) or spamming your class' best AoE ability (which rarely even has the option to invest talent points in, let alone being a significant investment). It's pretty rare to see separate specs for mobbing and bossing outside of extreme min-maxing.

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mrduckbear posted...

He said in the meeting "A hundred thousand years from now, i want there to be only blonde hair and blue eyes in this country. That's what God would have wanted. The Dominant species"

Never mind that the people God explicitly chose as his people were Middle Eastern. These folks aren't too bright, are they?

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Clicker Heroes was always a good time, and I enjoyed working my way through Realm Grinder quite a bit. I'm not playing any at the moment, though.

Metalsonic66 posted...

I've seen a lot of ads for them but I've never figured out where the fun part comes in

Mostly, they just scratch the "sense of progression" itch that RPG's cater to in the most direct way possible. There's virtually no sense of genuine accomplishment because you really aren't doing anything yourself, but the steady feeling of progressing is enough to keep them engaging for some people.

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Lokarin posted...

ok, i'll offer y'alls a question:

Why do main bosses in ARPGs (diablo-likes) suck?

I don't mean monster champions... those are usually good, I mean the main bosses.

I don't usually find that they typically suck, but they do often require different skill sets and emphasize different builds than you use for mobbing, which is what a lot of people like to build for because that makes up the majority of the game. They also often fall into the same trap as platformer bosses in that they spend most of the fight being invulnerable (whether mechanically or because the player's too busy dodging the ouch to realistically damage them), which means that once the player becomes skilled enough that dodging the ouch is easy, they effectively spend most of the fight waiting for openings while they go through the motions.

Back when Mario Odyssey first came out, I saw a couple people praising the fact that it managed to subvert that trap, which is commonly a real annoyance for speedrunners. Nearly every boss in that game has something you can do to interrupt their attack phases almost immediately if you're skilled enough, meaning the skill ceiling for speedrunning those bosses is vastly higher than it would otherwise be (which also gives non-speedrun players something to do during the attack phases).

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Imagine thinking you need to be a master baker to make a decent sugar cookie.

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If deck-building roguelikes appeal to you, you might want to consider One Step From Eden as well. If you've ever played any of the Megaman Battle Network games, it's basically those turned into a roguelike. It's excellent, though also quite hard.

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Zero_Maniac posted...

Is anyone else citing empirical data in this thread? Didn't think so.

In the context of "Americans are often bankrupted by medical costs"? That's common knowledge. You don't really need a specific citation for that, much like you don't need to cite a source for saying that water is a liquid at room temperature. Meanwhile, you're trying to convince everyone of something they don't already know to be true. That works a whole lot better when you provide evidence for the claim, especially when it's a claim that very obviously will have evidence supporting it if it's true.

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mrduckbear posted...

the free market capitalistic policies that are responsible for making the United States the wealthiest nation in world history

The US is only the wealthiest nation if you look at raw GDP. Look at GDP per capita or national debt/surplus, and it falls well behind many others.

Furthermore, the US mostly became as wealthy as it is not because of free market capitalistic policies, but because it didn't spend half of the 20th century having its manufacturing infrastructure blown up like much of the rest of the world did. The fact that the US was able to expand its infrastructure and economy during the World Wars and didn't have to rebuild much of anything afterwards pretty much single-handedly propelled it to economic superpower status. If anything, there was less of an emphasis on free market policies during some of the country's greatest periods of economic growth than there is now, with higher corporate and personal tax rates, livable minimum wages, and a more robust social security system. The push toward a freer market is relatively recent and more a product of corporate lobbying and Cold War propaganda than any actual, demonstrated benefits of deregulating commerce, and it certainly can't be thanked for the economic prosperity the US has enjoyed for most of the last century.

Zero_Maniac posted...

You're right. Instead, other "First-World Countries" have taxes in general as a serious case of bankruptcy.

I feel like you should be able to find a citation for a claim like "countries with socialized health care see comparable numbers of people bankrupted by taxes as the US sees people bankrupted by medical bills." That's a very empirical claim, after all, and data that is generally pretty readily available. So... why haven't you?

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LinkPizza posted...

Haha. Thats what they always say. I wonder how that started, anyway...

Presumably because they have the option to emulate what they like to see in potential romantic partners. Straight people can do so in vague terms ("I like a partner that's in good shape, therefore I want to be in good shape myself"), but specific preferences tend to be harder to compare to oneself because of sexual dimorphism (both physically and in terms of beauty norms).

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