While We Wait: (Almost) Anything Goes

[gay_Aleks]

The good news is, while you were gone, Arcanum still hasn't updated.

 

[Daftpanzer]

Hi Ninja Dude!!

Terrance & Thlayli's NES looks interesting indeed

Hot diggity Daftpanzer, which expansion of SC2 do you have? I'd love to play a game with you, I'm not sure if they finally got rid of the stupid region locking.

I have only the Legacy of the Void. My understanding is I can play mutliplayer without needing the other expansions. So far I've only played a couple of custom maps to test the water. I forgot about the regional lockout, you mentioned that before :/ seems really silly to me. I don't know if it's still in place, will try to find out!

 

[Thlayli]

Solution: Both connect to VPNs and IP reset until you land in the same region.

Haha, it's not mine, I'm just helping Terrance develop the ruleset and recruit players. All credit for the core concept goes to him!

 

[Lord of Elves]

As I've been saying, life is an NES now, and America is finally being run by @Nuka-sama

If you've ever received diplo, esp. NPC diplo, from Nuke, u kno

Where is the lie?

p.s. I been Putin the whole time

 

[gay_Aleks]

We're all living in an aborted timeline. Currently, on Earth-235, some bastard on the AH.com equivalent is typing out exactly what would happen during a Trump presidency, and everyone will say "Boy, isn't it nice we elected Hillary president-for-life?"

 

[Lord of Elves]

Obviously the Philippines were picked up by christos when Duterte came to power.

I'm working on a dimensional wormhole to the reality where Bernie took apart American White supremacist imperialism and used the extra $$$ to build a giant hammer and sickle on the White House lawn outta weed. Peace.

 

[gay_Aleks]

hi its me bashar assad the lion of babylon

every like means 1 less oppositions and more peace

 

[JohannaK]

Meanwhile I'm the Russian opposition: I don't exist. :^)

 

[Lord of Elves]

Just a reminder that Niall Ferguson is a hack and everyone should read this epic takedown of his simpering, racist warmongering

 

[Jehoshua]

@Jehoshua for being an example of our forgotten better breed of reactionary, who was able to believe horrible things but still engage in actual debate with his political opponents, without throwing out threats he didn't have the balls to cop to

That should be "who is able to believe" its not like I died in some ditch somewhere, I'm just occupied with work and don't have the time to bother debating with hypocritical liberals who resort to the argumentum ad lapidem fallacy and observable self-contradictions when I point out the foolishness of their ways. Meh it can't be helped, the Jehoshua Doctrine is self-consistent with reality and its own precepts after all, so I can see why they get frustrated

Anyways Duterte = Christos certainly. His threatening to kill humanitarian workers definitely takes me back to when he first joined these good forums (more specifically the governments and politics franchise on the civ5 thread). Not only was he wantonly violent, he was the only one to realise my evil plot, which in turn meant no one else believed it .

 

[Lord of Elves]

@Jehoshua, you haven't been posting tho so you're a past tense man

I think that what has been proven by the past two years is that really, NESing has always been pretty on point. The "real world" is just as arbitrary, goofed and vindictive as any NES, and the people with their hands on the levers and the buttons really are no better than the ugly lot of us. To me, this is cause for disappointment and disavowing association with states and institutions that are no better than vehicles for human self-aggrandizement and for petty revenge. To @Thlayli, I guess this is cause for celebration, cuz a sufficiently aloof, Dr. Cox in Scrubs, House in House-esque egotist is gonna be the NES strongman he always wanted to be in charge of America.

Let's be real. We're not gonna be the ones sending the soldiers to their deaths, we're gonna be the ones facing the bullets.

 

[Jehoshua]

No reason to post when the conversation is lacking or the prospective interlocutor is a brick wall lacking the reflective capacity to consider someone else's point of view. Case in point being most of off topic.

At any rate, perhaps our present circumstances will give you a new appreciation as to why I concur with Plato in my assertion that democracy is the most degenerate form of governmental organisation (mob rule, run by appeal to the lowest common denominator, hence why handouts always increase amongst other things, and the whole banality of the enterprise sum total), and not an ideal "good" in a political sense, and even less as a moral good or principle in and of itself, which is what a lot of liberals proclaim (but do not necessarily believe unless it applies to their benefit, that salt flowed freely when Trump actually won) democracy to be.

 

[Thlayli]

I'll bet you 2 Corinthians that you've failed to understand both my political opinions and conservative thought generally, LoE.

It's a shame I don't belong to any victim groups so I can't claim I'm systemically oppressed by Bernie bros like you.

And c'mon Jeho I call BS on that. I'm pretty sure that by any objective metric, the 16th century Papacy or the 21st century Chinese Communist Party far eclipses whatever corruption our Western democracies can muster. Not to mention the decadence, greed, and ostentation of petty dictators the world around.

Also, people who study corruption professionally say you're wrong. Which is as close to an objective measure of "degeneracy" as we'll get.

 

[Lord of Elves]

I'll bet you 2 Corinthians that you've failed to understand both my political opinions and conservative thought generally, LoE.

It's a shame I don't belong to any victim groups so I can't claim I'm systemically oppressed by Bernie bros like you.

I have to assume you're using this cop-out "White feminist" liberal rhetoric ironically so I guess that's clever of you

"Notion that white dude's issues are 'economic' and everyone else is just trying to discuss their feelings is, well, sorta deplorable." - Ta-Nehisi Coates

And c'mon Jeho I call BS on that. I'm pretty sure that by any objective metric, the 16th century Papacy or the 21st century Chinese Communist Party far eclipses whatever corruption our Western democracies can muster. Not to mention the decadence, greed, and ostentation of petty dictators the world around.

You're working with a facile definition of corruption.

Also, people who study corruption professionally say you're wrong. Which is as close to an objective measure of "degeneracy" as we'll get.

There's your problem.

 

[Thlayli]

Professional intellectuals are the problem? You DO realize that you have to violently overthrow the government before you can purge the nomenklatura, right? A budding young leftist should know that already.

ah yes capitalist corruption is so insidious it does not know thy own name btw there's this film zeitgeist it'll totally blow your mind

The fact that you quote Ta-Nehisi "White Guilt Made Me a Millionaire" Coates unironically is a joke that sorta makes itself.

 

[Dreadnought]

I seem to have missed Terrance's NES start, but I will be watching with interest.

 

[Thlayli]

It's still in application mode, actually! I'm sure he'd love to have you apply.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Professional intellectuals are the problem? You DO realize that you have to violently overthrow the government before you can purge the nomenklatura, right? A budding young leftist should know that already.

ah yes capitalist corruption is so insidious it does not know thy own name btw there's this film zeitgeist it'll totally blow your mind

The fact that you quote Ta-Nehisi "White Guilt Made Me a Millionaire" Coates unironically is a joke that sorta makes itself.

I distinguish between the existence of bureaucrats, technocrats and other ruling class apparatchiks who make up the vast majority of people with professional careers in the United States (and the English-speaking world), and genuine revolutionary intellectuals, many of which do exist within academia but rarely as actual "movers and shakers" whose authority and clout is affirmed by things like doctorates and tenure; the vast majority of these people, however, are unqualified by institutions, academic or otherwise. Also, no one said anything about purges except you. I'm not advocating for purges. I don't think anyone is advocating for purges except the usual reactionary types, and I guess you and other CFCers, who portentously whisper of purges and Stalinism whenever leftists say anything.

There's really no reasoning with people who think terms like "white guilt" serve to signify anything other than an admission that they view the world through the lens of race. It's a question of solidarity - of intersectionalism - between all human beings whose personal freedom is curtailed and exploited by international capitalism much in the same way that medieval peasants' personal freedom was curtailed and exploited by "international" feudalism. I am operating within a framework where the problem is the economic and social exploitation and repression of people - all people - by the social systems and institutions of capitalism, not the usual liberal wankery of race and privilege. It just so happens that in the United States and for the large part, the English-speaking world, these corrupt and intolerable systems and institutions are upheld and made to seem desirable to ordinary people through the twisted logic of White supremacy.

Not that you think beliefs that can't be articulated in terms of "my people good, their people bad" have relevance to your life.

 

[Thlayli]

Hmmm...I don't have anything on my schedule this evening. So let's break it break it down.

I distinguish between the existence of bureaucrats, technocrats and other ruling class apparatchiks who make up the vast majority of people with professional careers in the United States (and the English-speaking world), and genuine revolutionary intellectuals, many of which do exist within academia but rarely as actual "movers and shakers" whose authority and clout is affirmed by things like doctorates and tenure; the vast majority of these people, however, are unqualified by institutions, academic or otherwise.

You sure do, buddy. Okay, let's unpack this statement in my later analysis.

Also, no one said anything about purges except you. I'm not advocating for purges. I don't think anyone is advocating for purges except the usual reactionary types, and I guess you and other CFCers, who portentously whisper of purges and Stalinism whenever leftists say anything.

I was making a vague historical reference as a joke. I guess you didn't get it. Now I have to explain the joke. Sad!

We have to wonder what will happen to that "vast majority of ruling class apparatchiks" who constitute the majority (!) of professionals in America, in your brave new world. Revolutionary re-education, maybe? This is why I dislike you so much, LoE, you talk about revolution but then fail to actually engage with what a revolution is. You want to sweep away huge classes of demonized people but fail to say explicitly what will happen to them. At the risk of Godwinning this conversation, well...could you please just be a little more self-aware of the implications of your rhetoric? And when this rhetoric has been used before? No? Okay, fine, let's keep going.

There's really no reasoning with people who think terms like "white guilt" serve to signify anything other than an admission that they view the world through the lens of race.

Debating tip number 1: When you say "there's no reasoning with you" you automatically lose. Boom. Done. If you can't convert me or someone like me, your ideas will only be of interest to the small minority which currently believes in them.

I was referring to the fact that Mr. Coates' celebrity, his position as a writer in the (QUITE neoconservative, and solidly centrist by the way) publication The Atlantic, numerous awards and wealth (all provided to him by the capitalist system which affords him, as a popular left-wing intellectual, a comfortable lifestyle) was in large part provided for by people who believe that the historical crimes perpetrated by some white people against some black people is something that we modern white people, who did not participate in these crimes but may have tangentially benefited from the aftereffects of, need to feel continually bad about. Wow, holy run-on sentences, Batman.

I mean, you're a walking, talking, dripping ironic popsicle, amigo, but one of the many ironies here is that you quote a guy who is, by his associations alone, a MASSIVE sellout, a Hillary supporter who firmly aligned himself with Democratic centrism despite professing a dramatic antipathy to the way in which systemic white oppression has defined his life, and in which, according to any sensible narrative, the Democratic Party represented by Clinton was an integral part! According to your own logic, Ta-Nehisi Coates and people like him are the enemy, the intellectual sellouts who criticize capitalism and then profit from it on the sly.

But god, you don't CARE! You don't even read Ta-Nehisi's essays. You don't even read The Atlantic. (I do, by the way. And I read Salon, and Slate, and The Huffington Post, and The New Republic...hell, I even read Jezebel and The Mary Sue from time to time, although mostly for the Steven Universe reviews. Debating tip number 2: Read your enemy.) You don't know any of this! This is why you bother me in a way that a real left-wing intellectual who I actually respect, like azale, never will. In a way, you're a perfect fit for Trump's America, because you are firmly post-truth and post-fact, and post-thoughtfully thinking about anything beyond your silly little talking points.

But I want to help you. So let's keep going.

It's a question of solidarity - of intersectionalism - between all human beings whose personal freedom is curtailed and exploited by international capitalism much in the same way that medieval peasants' personal freedom was curtailed and exploited by "international" feudalism.

Oh, so you have read the Communist Manifesto. Good, okay! There are a few factual problems with this narrative of exploitation, like how much more rapidly literacy rates in Africa have improved since the end of the Cold War, or how the personal freedom and prosperity of the Chinese working class has exploded since Deng Xiaopeng, or how Eastern Europeans can like, not get thrown in prison anymore for questioning the government (Belarus/Russia excluded, obvs) and seem to be HUGE fans of that, but at least you have a general idea, a thesis that you'd like to expand upon.

So let's work on that! Maybe you could throw in some stuff about the IMF exploiting Caribbean and African economies by keeping them focused on tourism and resource extraction, respectively, and not allowing them to launch an export-driven industrialization model like East Asian states did from the 50's to the 80's. You could make a good case about geopolitical bullying, and how China has an interest in preventing cheaper industrial competitors from arising and might be using the IMF and other global financial institutions as useful idiots to accomplish this. Although that's a bit more complex than the typical demagoguery you do. It might force you to accept a certain amount of nuance and ambiguity in the way that the global economy works. That's much, much harder than saying "capitalism is oppressive!" over and over again, though.

For starters, it would require you to understand how the global economy works, which you just, really, super don't.

I am operating within a framework where the problem is the economic and social exploitation and repression of people - all people - by the social systems and institutions of capitalism, not the usual liberal wankery of race and privilege.

All people? Setting aside the fact that the vast bulk of the global middle class has incredibly comfortable lives from a historical standpoint, all people? Like, all seven billion? Jesus, that sucks. I've been repressed and exploited this whole time and I didn't even know it!

Now maybe I am secretly being exploited and repressed. Maybe the value of my labor as a medical technician in pediatric surgery is worth more than the approximately $30,000 a year in wages and benefits it provides to me. Even though that's quite enough as an individual for me to have very comfortable housing, eat well, see the doctor regularly, go to whatever entertainment I want, buy books, video games, read frequently, travel frequently, and save money for future investment. PERHAPS under a more equitable system, my labor would be worth more. It very well might be!

But all people. ALL PEOPLE? What about a CEO who's making 30 million a year? Is he being exploited and repressed too? I mean, if I was a leftist, I would say that the global, jet-setting elite are the most liberated people in the world, more liberated than anyone in history has ever been, and that their liberation is guaranteed through the virtual enslavement of the working poor, and it is terrible. Isn't that the typical line? I'm sure you default to it at times. But this extended diatribe just serves to reinforce the central theme of my criticism: You are fundamentally unserious about what you say. All people are not "repressed by the social systems and institutions of capitalism". Some people (a small minority, some might argue) are liberated by it and benefit greatly from it. If you're going to counter-argue that the 1% are also secretly oppressed in an effort to win the point, then you really are lost, Anakin.

It just so happens that in the United States and for the large part, the English-speaking world, these corrupt and intolerable systems and institutions are upheld and made to seem desirable to ordinary people through the twisted logic of White supremacy.

Ughhhh. Setting aside the fact that this is so unmoored from reality that it beggars contention, can't we at least agree that it's White and Asian supremacy, since their incomes and education levels are, on average higher than those of white people? It's a shame the white supremacy movement let that slip through the cracks. I can promise you we'll get right on it, though. I have a plan to chain the Chinese to railroad spikes after Trump gets inaugurated. You're first, Terrance, unless that NES gets going.

Not that you think beliefs that can't be articulated in terms of "my people good, their people bad" have relevance to your life.

Not that you've ever shown the slightest interest in what my beliefs actually are, rather than your insane fever-dream of what conservatives believe, but allow me to actually enlighten you: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. (Luke 10:27).

The capitalist system has proven to be the most effective at bringing the majority of humans forward in technology and living standards, although obviously many have fallen by the wayside in the course of that advancement. My view is that it is up to virtuous individuals and institutions with good principles to work within that system to bring works of charity and advancement to those that it does leave behind. The global educated consensus generally agrees that the free market with some level of government oversight and regulation (the proper amount of which, the left and the right disagree on) is the only realistic way to run an economy. I know you believe that consensus is corrupt and that everyone who espouses it is a phony, and that there's a global institutional conspiracy to keep the revolutionary thinkers down, but I'm just mentioning it because it's important to mention.

Most people who disagree with that operating principle (free markets, balanced with responsible regulation) are either very academic, are futurists, or are fundamentally unserious. (That consideration includes hard libertarians too.) I suspect you're a member of the unserious group given your willingness to demonize large segments of society to achieve the perfect world you think we will arrive at, but unwillingness to admit that mass violence is a necessary requirement for overthrowing these groups, and capitalism as a whole. As you know, Marx argued that with so much institutional power behind capitalism, revolution cannot arise without overthrowing these institutions, and they will not go peacefully. So much for intersectional solidarity.

Eventually your student loans will catch up with you, and I hope you learn a marketable skill before that day comes. More likely, you'll continue to be a faux-revolutionary as you grow increasingly old, grey, and irrelevant, and wash up in various bars in urban areas talking about how capitalism has spurned you. Or, if you plan on continuing the revolucion, I hope you do a little more reading and learn a few more facts to bolster your rhetoric. There are intelligent Marxists out there who are deserving of my respect. You are not nearly intellectually serious enough to be one of them.

If you're interested in breaking out of that, I advise you to distinguish yourself with hard work. Once the working man has seized hold of the means of production, only the sweat of his arm and his brow will determine his capacity for advancement. And I suspect you will come up lacking, comrade.

tldr, let's all look at a picture of Cuban soldiers pushing Castro's jeep which broke down in the middle of his funeral procession:

Ha.

Spoiler :

 

[Lord of Elves]

I really have nothing to say about what Thlayli just posted. It's strawman after strawman. I guess he feels entitled to make all these ridiculous assumptions, like I have ever supported or do support Hillary Clinton, or that I voted for her - I voted for Jill Stein - because I had the audacity to cite someone who I do not always agree with, or ... I don't know. It's unnecessarily spiteful, not really at all in the spirit of the discussion I was trying to have, goes on the usual red-baiting rant about how nothing I have to say can possibly matter because I don't acknowledge the obvious and self-evident benevolence of capitalism, and ends up wishing me ill in my personal and professional life.

Alright. I think you've made your point

EDIT: You equate financial independence to freedom lol