2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Tristan_C]

changed in recent history in Arizona

Nice. I haven't seen a wiki edit war that bloody since Epstein was killed. That is some relentless damage control.

 

[Samson]

Nice. I haven't seen a wiki edit war that bloody since Epstein was killed. That is some relentless damage control.

You mean removing:

Ballot Harvesting is the biggest threat we have to our freedom to elect our representatives and president. If California is allowed to continue this unconstitutional effort to change our most important right our country will fall into the hands of dictatorship controlled by the Democrat party.

Yeah that sounds completely appropriate for a wiki page.

 

[Ironsided]

That's part of the CARES act. You are buying into Dingbat Don's claim of credit for something he had nothing to do with. Which is really not surprising. Pretty typical of you actually.

Calling Trump Dingbat Don is fine by me but doesn’t begin to cover the fact you are far more conservative and in line with him than I am, or Bernie, or anyone even remotely left leaning for that matter. Just like the Dem establishment are with anyone asking questions; you are just itching to tar me as a Trump supporter, not on facts or issues but tactically, aren’t you?

Anyway, the Dingbat is signing the bill into action and taking credit and the corporate democrats just look silly and impotent on the issue. Good luck with your deep trust in Pelosi’s strategical acumen going to save the Democratic train wreck. What strategy btw? Hand Trump Medicare for all wins while at the same time acting like no voices in her party ever wanted M4A? “-Hush little children the Corporate Dems are talking, and our Big pharma donors will not abide by risking that kind of easy money.” Or is it Bidens shout at the administration to reopen the Obamacare exchanges so that all the people with no job and money can go buy into a nice $4000 plan? Not at all in dissonance with reality. That’ll win over tons of working-class voters I’m sure. For your Dingbat over there.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Figured. I kept mine.

View attachment 551185

You have different artwork on all of yours than I have (had) on mine. I think they had different UK versions and US versions IIRC. Same for Grey Star (which I read/played through but never owned... Your books, with the exception of the "Magnamund Companion" which is definitely US art, all appear to be the UK art... very nice.

Also... those "Legends" books are all new to me. Are they simply source material/novels or are they gamebooks as well?

Absentee ballots reduce voter fraud and voter suppression.

I haven't seen any evidence that the supposed risk of voter fraud outweighs the amount of vote loss that is created by all the obstacles to voting.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Voting Democrat is the very definition of voter fraud!

 

[Patine]

Pointing out that educated black people are consistently labeled as "arrogant" is not "playing the race card" its just pointing out truth. Pointing out that transpeople are mistreated is not "playing the trans-card" its just pointing out truth. The faulty premise of the "race card" or any "card" FTM, is that by bringing it the issue up, the person gains some "unfair" advantage and get the opposing side to back down and/or give them what they want. As if they were playing some "power/trump card" in a card game.

Its a lie, and your response demonstrates this perfectly. If there really was a "race card" (or "demographics" card) as you claim, then when I brought up my race you would have STFU. But, of course you didn't, because there is no "race card". People don't magically give in to you or give you special benefits when you bring up race. In fact they generally remain firm in their positions and instead complain that you "unfairly" brought up race. "Race card" is just something that people made up to essentially label the raising of truths that they have difficulty refuting/dealing with as an "unfair" tactic. It's very similar to when people label a feature of a videogame that they don't want to deal with as an "exploit".

Whether you call it the "race card" or the "trans card" or the "demographics card".. the point is the same. There is no such thing. You're just labeling truth that you have no response to as an "exploit" to try and avoid dealing with it. And in fact, the insinuation that there is a race card is in-and-of itself discriminatory, because it ascribes some powerful advantage to black people, that in-fact, does not exist.

Assuming I was calling you arrogant in the first place based upon a demographic fact behind your keyboard I wasn't even certain about may not be playing a "race card," I'll concede - but it's certainly a conceited assumption designed to try to set me up to look like I'm saying something I'm not. Disingenuous, to be certain, if not a "race card."

 

[Azem.Ocram]

I haven't seen any evidence that the supposed risk of voter fraud outweighs the amount of vote loss that is created by all the obstacles to voting.

On average, absentee ballots make it easier to vote. Working voters can vote on a day off and drop off ballots on a day off. The only legitimate voters who have difficulty with absentee ballots are homeless or illiterate in areas without nearby (ADA compliant) accessible voting places. However, their loss is vastly outweighed by the gains to the working poor. I will not discuss the benefits of said loss.

 

[Zardnaar]

You have different artwork on all of yours than I have (had) on mine. I think they had different UK versions and US versions IIRC. Same for Grey Star (which I read/played through but never owned... Your books, with the exception of the "Magnamund Companion" which is definitely US art, all appear to be the UK art... very nice.

Also... those "Legends" books are all new to me. Are they simply source material/novels or are they gamebooks as well? I haven't seen any evidence that the supposed risk of voter fraud outweighs the amount of vote loss that is created by all the obstacles to voting.

The legend books are the novels of the Gamebooks.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Calling Trump Dingbat Don is fine by me but doesn’t begin to cover the fact you are far more conservative and in line with him than I am, or Bernie, or anyone even remotely left leaning for that matter. Just like the Dem establishment are with anyone asking questions; you are just itching to tar me as a Trump supporter, not on facts or issues but tactically, aren’t you?

Anyway, the Dingbat is signing the bill into action and taking credit and the corporate democrats just look silly and impotent on the issue. Good luck with your deep trust in Pelosi’s strategical acumen going to save the Democratic train wreck. What strategy btw? Hand Trump Medicare for all wins while at the same time acting like no voices in her party ever wanted M4A? “-Hush little children the Corporate Dems are talking, and our Big pharma donors will not abide by risking that kind of easy money.” Or is it Bidens shout at the administration to reopen the Obamacare exchanges so that all the people with no job and money can go buy into a nice $4000 plan? Not at all in dissonance with reality. That’ll win over tons of working-class voters I’m sure. For your Dingbat over there.

The Democrats wrote the bill that he signed...the part he is taking credit for anyway...which is why no one but Trumpists, and of course radical non-Trumpists like yourself, are giving him that credit. Makes one wonder about your motives.

 

[Sommerswerd]

The legend books are the novels of the Gamebooks.

So for instance "The Rotting Land" is as if someone played "Jungle of Horrors" "correctly" and then wrote a novel about their play-through in story form? That's not as interesting as I was hoping. I was thinking that they were source material with background information on the different places and artifacts of the game... or even some origin stories... but I guess that's what the Magnamund Companion is for

So why are there 14 of them rather than 12?

BTW, some of those 13-28 books you have are extremely rare and/or valuable. IIRC when I was rebuilding my collection I noticed that the last few in the series are up in the tens-of-thousands of dollars in price, because so few copies still exist. That was another reason that I didn't bother re-collecting them, because I would never be able to complete the set. Looking back at it I realize that I only had 13-20, because that was the complete Grandmaster set. I never had any of the New Order set.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So for instance "The Rotting Land" is as if someone played "Jungle of Horrors" "correctly" and then wrote a novel about their play-through in story form? That's not as interesting as I was hoping. I was thinking that they were source material with background information on the different places and artifacts of the game... or even some origin stories... but I guess that's what the Magnamund Companion is for

So why are there 14 of them rather than 12?

BTW, some of those 13-28 books you have are extremely rare and/or valuable. IIRC when I was rebuilding my collection I noticed that the last few in the series are up in the tens-of-thousands of dollars in price, because so few copies still exist. That was another reason that I didn't bother re-collecting them, because I would never be able to complete the set. Looking back at it I realize that I only had 13-20, because that was the complete Grandmaster set. I never had any of the New Order set.

@Zardnaar strikes me as being like the dead father of one of those people that you see on American Pickers. They have that huge shed full of stuff they cleaned out of pop's house when he died and before they throw it away they call in some junk dealer to look it over and buy all the valuable stuff for pennies on the dollar. They're excited to be on TV until they see themselves being basically robbed on national television. Don't let your kid be that guy Zardnaar!

 

[H4run]

Don't let your kid be that guy Zardnaar!

This is kind of warning only coming from the deepest heart of a true friend. You should listen to him before you going full face-palm in your grave.

 

[Tristan_C]

That is what statistics are.

My point here was that there are logical problems with the statistics that you, and anyone relying on a statistic to substantiate a predetermined viewpoint, simply overlook. Your racially-linked study and your wiki edit war invite a couple of safer conclusions:

1. Production of identity politics viewpoints is amply-financed by the university network.
   
2. Wikipedia is not.

But on the general subject of whether we can gather good data about voter fraud, not even the higher-quality source has anything to say. In fact if you follow the link you posted, you will see other studies in the roster commenting on the hurdles I mentioned: the extreme difficulty of gathering voter ID info and actual data about fraud in the US. I think some of these difficulties have been created on purpose. You make these stupid pretenses of empiricism. One need look no further than the census questionnaire, and the spirit in which, "are you a US citizen," was struck. There's the real level of empiricism.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

My point here was that there are logical problems with the statistics that you, and anyone relying on a statistic to substantiate a predetermined viewpoint, simply overlook. Your racially-linked study and your wiki edit war invite a couple of safer conclusions:

1. Production of identity politics viewpoints is amply-financed by the university network.
   
2. Wikipedia is not.

But on the general subject of whether we can gather good data about voter fraud, not even the higher-quality source has anything to say. In fact if you follow the link you posted, you will see other studies in the roster commenting on the hurdles I mentioned: the extreme difficulty of gathering voter ID info and actual data about fraud in the US. I think some of these difficulties have been created on purpose. You make these stupid pretenses of empiricism. One need look no further than the census questionnaire, and the spirit in which, "are you a US citizen," was struck. There's the real level of empiricism.

LOL...as long as we are talking about "empiricism" how about you make ANY sort of connection between the census question that obviously has your panties in a twist and your daft fantasies about voter fraud.

Nevermind, we all know that THERE ISN'T ANY, other than the panties in a twist part. Your panties are in a twist because D'ump and his propaganda wing have you convinced without proof that the only thing that can keep your bigoted favorite out of office is voter fraud, not the reality that he has been a complete embarrassment and demonstrated buffoon throughout his term. And your panties are even MORE in a twist about <shudder> brown people being accounted for by the census bureau.

GREAT, I say! Twist 'em up nice and tight!

 

[Zardnaar]

So for instance "The Rotting Land" is as if someone played "Jungle of Horrors" "correctly" and then wrote a novel about their play-through in story form? That's not as interesting as I was hoping. I was thinking that they were source material with background information on the different places and artifacts of the game... or even some origin stories... but I guess that's what the Magnamund Companion is for

So why are there 14 of them rather than 12?

BTW, some of those 13-28 books you have are extremely rare and/or valuable. IIRC when I was rebuilding my collection I noticed that the last few in the series are up in the tens-of-thousands of dollars in price, because so few copies still exist. That was another reason that I didn't bother re-collecting them, because I would never be able to complete the set. Looking back at it I realize that I only had 13-20, because that was the complete Grandmaster set. I never had any of the New Order set.

There's some doubles in there, and they don't map perfectly to the Gamebooks.

Sacrifice at Ruanon is the novel of Book 4 for example.

I don't hoard that much but I kept my video games and RPG books.

When people started dumping stuff I was buying it for cheap. Late 90's way 2000s bought Megadrive stuff, early 2000s AD&D and Star Wars D6.

I noticed patterns in early eBay and bought stuff I knew would be really expensive later.

 

[Gori the Grey]

and the spirit in which, "are you a US citizen," was struck

You mean the spirit of . . . the law?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Assuming I was calling you arrogant in the first place based upon a demographic fact behind your keyboard I wasn't even certain about may not be playing a "race card," I'll concede - but it's certainly a conceited assumption designed to try to set me up to look like I'm saying something I'm not. Disingenuous, to be certain, if not a "race card."

What was "disingenuous" was when you tried to deny (in this post) that you were talking about Sanders, in response to my analysis and rebuttal of your argument (in this post).

In fact "disingenuous" is too charitable. It was dishonest. You lied. Its even more obvious how phoney your outrage was when I see you accusing me of "putting words in your mouth" when my post clearly begins with "assuming, for the sake of discussion". So you had no justification whatsoever to accuse me of putting words in your mouth... but that's what you wanted to do so you could change the subject, precisely because your argument had been debunked.

Also.. the title of this thread is "2020 US Election" so if you weren't talking about Sanders then who are you talking about? Yang? Obviously you were referencing Sanders, but seeing a rebuttal you couldn't really address, you lied about it to try and weasel out of your flawed argument, attempting to muddle who and what you were talking about... then you deflected and went off on this tangent complaining about the race-card, which you've now conceded was wrong... all in avoidance of the actual topic of the discussion. Your post which I linked above is where the discussion went into this tangent, and its obvious why. You couldn't respond to the actual argument, so you did what people often do in that position... you name-call, and change the subject to some unrelated matter. My comment about my race had nothing to do with the actual point. I was simply essentially saying "Dude your name-calling doesn't hurt my feelings, i'm quite used to it" ... but since your argument had been debunked and you had no real response, you predictably changed tactics to arguing about the comment, rather than actually defending your faulty argument.

And here we are.

So again to bring us back to the argument that you couldn't address:

Bernie's problem wasn't that he was "marginalized" or that he "got no meaningful coverage" or that the voters were robbed of their agency somehow. Bernie was a fully mainstream candidate and the universally recognized standard bearer for the progressive wing. He just failed to attract enough voters. In other words, he lost. He wasn't an attractive/compelling enough candidate.... twice in a row. As many virtues as he had and things about his candidacy which were attractive... it wasn't enough to beat Hillary and it wasn't enough to beat Biden. That's all there is to it.

So in that sense sure... we shouldn't blame the voters... we should blame him.

But as for the larger point, as I've already explained... I reject wholesale the notion that the voters have no agency... Bernie's campaign, by virtue of its existence squarely conceded the existence of that agency... indeed it depended on it. Trying to now claim that no such agency existed just because Bernie lost is little more than sour grapes.

 

[Patine]

What was "disingenuous" was when you tried to deny (in this post) that you were talking about Sanders, in response to my analysis and rebuttal of your argument (in this post).

In fact "disingenuous" is too charitable. It was dishonest. You lied. Its even more obvious how phoney your outrage was when I see you accusing me of "putting words in your mouth" when my post clearly begins with "assuming, for the sake of discussion". So you had no justification whatsoever to accuse me of putting words in your mouth... but that's what you wanted to do so you could change the subject.

Also.. the title of this thread is "2020 US Election" so if you weren't talking about Sanders then who are you talking about? Yang? Obviously you were referencing Sanders, but seeing a rebuttal you couldn't really address, you lied about it to try and weasel out of your flawed argument, attempting to muddle who and what you were talking about... then you deflected and went off on this tangent complaining about the race-card, which you've now conceded was wrong... all in avoidance of the actual topic of the discussion. Your post which I linked above is where the discussion went into this tangent, and its obvious why. You couldn't respond to the actual argument, so you did what people often do in that position... you name-call, and change the subject to some unrelated matter. My comment about my race had nothing to do with the actual point. I was simply essentially saying "Dude your name-calling doesn't hurt my feelings, i'm quite used to it" ... but since your argument had been debunked and you had no real response, you predictably changed tactics to arguing about the comment, rather than actually defending your faulty argument.

And here we are.

So again to bring us back to the argument that you couldn't address:

So, now we're back to you having put words in my mouth, and now calling a liar for telling you you had been incorrect in your assumption. You must think you're very skilled at rooting out other people's motives by what they say or type. But you are incorrect here. I WAS talking about a broad, problematic, systemic phenomenon, not one single issue or person. And if you follow my posts on complaints on these kind of things more carefully, I often do tend to speak of such matters in a more systemic or large-scale way - unlike the typical strictly contextual, circumstantial, and even anecdotal way most posters approach such matters much of the time. But you, SOMEHOW, claim to know better about what I was actually saying. But you really don't, and you obviously don't know much about me or my way of approaching things at all - anymore than I was aware of your level of education, or even certain of your demographic - and wasn't really concerned about it as wasn't REMOTELY relevant to anything I was saying to you until you INEXCPLICABLY brought it up in that way. So, you are arrogant, you are completely incorrect about what I was actually saying, and now you're trying to tell, to my face, I was the one lying about the whole affair. There's no word in the English language to sum up this attitude. In fact, though it's not a language I am fluent in - I only the same few words that circulate around old Hollywood circles from it that most people - the only word I can think of here for this gobsmacking attitude is an old Yiddish classic - chutzpah!

 

[Sommerswerd]

So, now we're back to you having put words in my mouth, and now calling a liar for telling you you had been incorrect in your assumption. You must think you're very skilled at rooting out other people's motives by what they say or type. But you are incorrect here. I WAS talking about a broad, problematic, systemic phenomenon, not one single issue or person. And if you follow my posts on complaints on these kind of things more carefully, I often do tend to speak of such matters in a more systemic or large-scale way - unlike the typical strictly contextual, circumstantial, and even anecdotal way most posters approach such matters much of the time. But you, SOMEHOW, claim to know better about what I was actually saying. But you really don't, and you obviously don't know much about me or my way of approaching things at all - anymore than I was aware of your level of education, or even certain of your demographic - and wasn't really concerned about it as wasn't REMOTELY relevant to anything I was saying to you until you INEXCPLICABLY brought it up in that way. So, you are arrogant, you are completely incorrect about what I was actually saying, and now you're trying to tell, to my face, I was the one lying about the whole affair. There's no word in the English language to sum up this attitude. In fact, though it's not a language I am fluent in - I only the same few words that circulate around old Hollywood circles from it that most people - the only word I can think of here for this gobsmacking attitude is an old Yiddish classic - chutzpah!

So... very predictably... you are again returning to the deflection of false outrage over me "putting words in your mouth" rather than addressing the thread topic. Again, I specifically said "Assuming for sake of discussion that you're talking about Sanders" to precisely to avoid "putting words in your mouth" and the predictable fake outrage you're using as a distraction here. But you ignored that, and claimed outrage anyway... because you had no choice, since your argument was debunked, and you had no idea how to deal with it.

But I'm not letting you off the hook this time. Because even putting aside your obvious lie about not referencing Sanders, your argument fails, because Sanders is the real-life example that disproves your premise. You can deflect and dissemble all you want about talking about the "broad, problematic, systemic phenomenon" and avoid giving an actual concrete example of this so-called phenomenon as I asked you directly to do... You can name-call and accuse me of "arrogance" or "chutzpah" or "arrogance" in whatever language you choose... Its all irrelevant. Sanders candidacy is the proof that your argument is wrong, so it does not matter whether you admit that you were referencing Sanders. Your argument is wrong and Sanders proves it.

"Videogames are impossible to win"
"I won my last game of Civ"
"I'm not talking about Civ... I'm talking about the broad, problematic, systemic phenomenon"

Yeah, whatever... nice try... Your're still wrong.

 

[Ironsided]

The Democrats wrote the bill that he signed...the part he is taking credit for anyway...which is why no one but Trumpists, and of course radical non-Trumpists like yourself, are giving him that credit. Makes one wonder about your motives.

Yeah, my motives. What are they? What could they be? It’s so mysterious? It must be ulterior motives. It’s a conspiracy. Maybe Russians? Sweden is close to Russia isn’t it?

Maybe, just maybe, people outside the US have a different perspective from afar? Maybe when compared from a distance Trump in all his demagogical terribleness doesn’t seem all that much worse than a corporate right-wing liberal puppet who can barely make sense, much less win the election, and most likely giggle like a fool in international affairs with dictators and demagogues if he did. The only thing progressive about Biden is his dementia. All this so the top of the corporation that is the Democratic party can continue just like the Republican party and make more easy money off legalised bribery. But with Dems; under the guise of helping minorities of course - while the country burns it’s working class. And when working class America suffers America lashes out and innocent people all over the world die or are displaced by force. Sorry for not wanting more of that right now.

But the alternative is TRUMP! No, the almost non-alternative to Trump is now most likely Biden. Same general policy – different colour flag. Because you and other conservative centrists here, and at the party establishment level and everywhere in US mainstream media drive that anti-argument-candidate to presumptive nominee fruition. Oh, I forgot you “don’t really have a candidate”, because you’re too afraid to take a stand for anyone after being burned on Hillary. You only pitch in here to ruin for Bernie. Well done so far. If not completely undermined at every corner; the alternative to Trump would be Bernie Sanders – a million times better and more electable than any of Trump or Biden. Bernie would also help form a better global post capitalist vision with more focus on climate and international cooperation (rather than competition) to raise people out of poverty to stop disease and overpopulation.

Those are my main general motives to support Bernie over crap. If you think I support Trump somwhere in there, that's on you.