General American Politics Thread

[Delete this account]

Everything can be a hobby, movies, games, books. Only one have to make it his hobby first. I can enjoy movies and books and yet not be part of the hobby lobby of it. If i get called names for taking an hobby as a consumer of a product, so be it, call me all the names you want.

 

I will still enjoy my hobby and call myself a gamer.

Edited July 28, 2019 by Schitaku (see edit history)

[rairii]

33 minutes ago, Schitaku said:

Everything can be a hobby, movies, games, books. Only one have to make it his hobby first. I can enjoy movies and books and yet not be part of the hobby lobby of it. If i get called names for taking an hobby as a consumer of a product, so be it, call me all the names you want.

 

I will still enjoy my hobby and call myself a gamer.

Nobody's faulting anybody for being a gamer, I'm faulting the miserable misogynist gatekeeping assholes. If you just want to play games and enjoy yourself, you do that, it's just important to recognize when you're not the intended audience for something.

[Delete this account]

yeah ok, have fun with your Board. bye.

[rairii]

Seems like a bit of an overreaction, but if that means one less misogynist on the forum then I see that as a net positive.

[Enviro-man]

3 hours ago, Annie said:

Well that's an awfully quick way to out yourself as a misogynist. Women are more capable of yada yada yada

Jeez, all that whiteknighting spiel just made my cooch mighty dry. Will a real man just come and grab it already!?

 

2 hours ago, Delete this account said:

yeah ok, have fun with your Board. bye.

Lesson learned; I hope. You’ll always be a nazi in their eyes and as long as you keep running away, the less it’ll remain for you in the future. I encourage you to rethink your decision and give this place another chance even if just to continue (i.e. revive) your fantastic thread on emulation.

[Blightmare]

Okay, I'm gonna have to ask you to actually participate in some form or another instead of... whatever you wanna call what you're doing is. And let's have everyone tone down the sheer hostility. Rule number 1 of the forum is "Try not to be a jerk" it would seem the link to the rules page is gone since the forum rework. Guess I gotta raise that with the admin)

 

And just in case you're wondering. Annie is female. And so am I. And I am in agreement that women are responsible for their own bodies, as much so as men are for their own. There's nothing white knight about that it's just how it is, and if you actually read through everything except stopping where you THOUGHT the point was made then there wouldn't be such a silly misunderstanding.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Blightmare (see edit history)

[Enviro-man]

5 hours ago, Blightmare said:

Rule number 1 of the forum is "Try not to be a jerk" it would seem the link to the rules page is gone since the forum rework. Guess I gotta raise that with the admin.

Gotta admire how you won’t even call out Annie by name for completely barraging another forum member with ad homs until he got sick of it and left. As I’ve said before, that kind of blatant hypocrisy used support your peers is exactly what’s needed to win the culture war, not running away from it. Right on, sister!

 

5 hours ago, Blightmare said:

And just in case you're wondering. Annie is female. And so am I. And I am in agreement that women are responsible for their own bodies, as much so as men are for their own. There's nothing white knight about that it's just how it is, and if you actually read through everything except stopping where you THOUGHT the point was made then there wouldn't be such a silly misunderstanding.

Watchu talkin bout Willis!? Half of the World’s hemisphere doesn’t live by that pussywhipped late-capitalist decadence of a mindset and it would be mighty bigoted of you to enforce them on others, migthy mighty imperialistic indeed! There’s no notion of responsibility whatsoever in Modern Women™ and I pointed that out, so please go finger-wag elsewhere.

[Blightmare]

I only called you out specifically because despite the collective hostility here, yours reached downright vulgarity we do not welcome in the forums at all. That being said, I'm tired of seeing hostility from anyone here. That includes Annie. Everyone here is getting the verbal warning. Reel it in.

[rairii]

9 hours ago, Enviro-man said:

Lesson learned; I hope. You’ll always be a nazi in their eyes and as long as you keep running away, the less it’ll remain for you in the future. I encourage you to rethink your decision and give this place another chance even if just to continue (i.e. revive) your fantastic thread on emulation.

When did I ever call anyone nazi? I feel like you're putting words in my mouth.

1 hour ago, Enviro-man said:

Watchu talkin bout Willis!? Half of the World’s hemisphere doesn’t live by that pussywhipped late-capitalist decadence of a mindset and it would be mighty bigoted of you to enforce them on others, migthy mighty imperialistic indeed! There’s no notion of responsibility whatsoever in Modern Women™ and I pointed that out, so please go finger-wag elsewhere.

Didn't know that wanting to be treated like an actual person was "pussywhipped late-capitalist decadence" and asking for it is "imperialistic", also I doubt you care about that other half of the hemisphere to begin with so I'm calling bs.

[Enviro-man]

43 minutes ago, Blightmare said:

yours reached downright vulgarity

13 hours ago, Annie said:

that includes people who aren't part of some weird culture of overweight men who don't know what deodorant is.

43 minutes ago, Blightmare said:

Reel it in.

----

27 minutes ago, Annie said:

also I doubt you care about that other half of the hemisphere to begin with so I'm calling bs.

Yes, massa. I’ll fit your tunnel vision, please don’t send the female-dominated defense contractors again, massa!

[Kraken]

Is not being an asshat really a foreign concept now? And I'm not even sure of how to respond to Enviro-man saying "massa" like he's a slave because really, it's just someone telling him to calm down with the passive-aggressive hyperbolic "satire". (In quotes because satire is supposed to be funny.) And while that's an awful long phrase to describe it, it's pretty much how I'm viewing this. 

 

And I'm going to be honest I'm not entirely sure why the other guy left because I thought it was fairly obvious that Annie was saying that when companies try to appeal to other groups than 'gamers' they were referring to the company's perception of them, not necessarily of people who call themselves gamers as a hobbyist. The only point where it gets beyond a hobby is if it's literally the major source of income. Or takes up more than half the time someone is awake. Maybe both. 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Kraken (see edit history)

[rairii]

25 minutes ago, Enviro-man said:

There's a difference between describing a stereotype and explaining why it exists and calling people pussy-whipped white knights for saying something that doesn't fit your sexist worldview.

27 minutes ago, Enviro-man said:

Yes, massa. I’ll fit your tunnel vision, please don’t send the female-dominated defense contractors again, massa!

And also casual racism, so there's that.

[pachiderm]

On 6/25/2019 at 12:54 AM, Annie said:

on the topic of abortion. very interesting video.

I was with him until his use of Judith Jarvis Thomson's thought experiment to justify stating that the personhood of a fetus is irrelevant in the abortion debate. That thought experiment is only useful in justifying abortion in specific circumstances, such as cases of rape or some other situation where the woman is somehow impregnated without her knowledge or consent. It completely removes the woman's agency from the moral calculus and assumes all women who become pregnant somehow play no active role in the reproductive processes that result in pregnancy, and therefore aren't at least partially responsible for the fetus being in the position of needing to use the woman's body to survive. In order for this thought experiment to justify abortions in all cases you would have to believe consent to sex is not tacit consent to the potential ramifications of sex, which would seem to be a very naive view to have considering how well known, and frequently occurring, the potential ramifications are. This kind of logic could potentially allow you to selectively consent to only the good outcomes of potentially risky behavior, and none of the bad outcomes. For example, you could say that you consent to speeding on the road, but only if it gets you where you want to go faster and not if it gets you a ticket, and definitely not if you accidentally kill someone while speeding. Most people will not find that form of selective consent a compelling argument when it comes to determining whether or not you were at fault. 

 

Now don't get me wrong Ben Shapiro's an idiot, and there are good justifications for abortion, but not ones in which the personhood of a fetus isn't a factor. The debate is definitely about when human life begins, but there's not a definitive answer for that and there likely never will be. The good news is that the people saying that life begins at conception have a really bad argument. If a zygote is a person then a grain of sand is a beach. The problem is determining where between zygote and birth personhood begins. This is where having good arguments and being able to compromise is helpful. Personally, I think the point of higher brain birth (22-24 weeks) is a reasonable point to identify as the likely beginning of personhood, but I've heard all kinds of things argued competently. Regardless, this philosophy tube video makes a bad argument. Having listened to more of it while typing this he has subsequently made the argument that even responsibility for the position the violinist is in should have no bearing on whether or not it is morally permissible to disconnect him from the host and allow him to die. Philosophy tube has now pivoted from arguing that personhood is not a factor, to arguing that even if it were it wouldn't trump the host/woman's right to bodily autonomy. That's an argument, but not one that the aforementioned thought experiment supports. 

Edited July 29, 2019 by pachiderm (see edit history)

[Wwen]

On 7/27/2019 at 12:33 AM, Annie said:

I feel like it should be noted that the "drama bits" are pretty integral to PT's style. One of the main criticisms "breadtubers" like him had with the right wing branch of political youtube was how boring and mundane it was. It's difficult to watch or listen to an hour of meandering speech when that time could be used in a more concise and e........ then criminalizing abortion is not the way to go.

I can only speak for myself, but my opinion is clearly subjective and I'm not really interested in forcing it on people through the law. Either way, part of the value of the unborn is that we know it will be a conscious person if left alone. Premature babies have been kept made more and more viable earlier on. And if sources are correct, may feel pain. I'm just wish they'd stop shouting their abortions or whatever, do what you gotta do, but I don't think there's a need to celebrate.

 

Never gotten the impression that Shapiro is for a complete ban, but I'm not writing his biography or anything.

 

Drama just injects emotional pleading into it imo, but whatever floats your boat. I think we agree more than we disagree. I'm just more uncomfortable with it. Still need to watch the last 10 minutes, but I usually stay away from politics over the weekend so I need to come back to it.

[Ross Scott]

Guys, I'm getting reports about this thread and I don't have time to read through this and see who said what.  Just try to remain civil.  My kneejerk response is I'm seeing a lot of borderline-sort-of breaking the rules of conduct, but not super overt, I think Blightmare summed it up well.  I'm going back to the videos!

[Wwen]

I've modded a long time ago and have sympathy for anyone that tries to moderate civility in politics discussions. Even within the rules, some people find ways to skirt the line in a way that makes you want to punch a puppy. 

[rokken]

Oh. The thread's kinda terrible.

Personally, I think that if you leave well enough alone, it'll go fine. Legislating everything only really works for the largest entities like Wal-Mart, most small businesses can't even afford to comply. To hopefully illustrate what I mean, let's go with the Title 2 ISP regulations. My old ISP back when I was living in the boonies was absolutely crushed by it due to the fact it was probably run out of the owner's spare bedroom and had as a very optimistic estimate maybe like 8 or 9 server computers, but someone like Comcast or Cox would be perfectly fine with it, they wouldn't feel it. A lot of legislation is made with just the biggest corporations in mind, with no consideration to how it would affect startups. I wouldn't say that's necessarily a bad thing, after all, it would be unreasonable to consider every single company in a given industry, but at the same time if your actions attempting to legislate away anti-competitive things just make competition even harder to accomplish by forcing them to do something that would work out for a larger corporation specifically due to the fact they are larger and have more resources, then something is wrong with your bill. That happens far more often than you might think.

Edited July 31, 2019 by rokken (see edit history)

[BTGBullseye]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10769041/The-US-is-an-oligarchy-study-concludes.html

 

The USA is for all intents and purposes officially an oligarchy.

[kerdios]

did you notice the dates? article is from 2014, data analyzed is from 1981-2002, so it's been an oligarchy all the way since reagan?

[BTGBullseye]

On 6/13/2020 at 2:48 AM, kerdios said:

did you notice the dates? article is from 2014, data analyzed is from 1981-2002, so it's been an oligarchy all the way since reagan?

Yes, does it really matter? It's news to some people.