TL:DR Horse shit. He’s not worried, and missile defense is a pipe dream.
Missile defense is an insane concept. Like in movies where they are like shoot down the nuclear missiles, Ha, no. An icbm goes into orbit and the splits into several smaller missiles. (MIRV) When they return to the atmosphere they are travelling at like Mach 22. Hitting a dumb bullet at that speed would be nuts but if the missile is smart, has radar, has counter measures, and can evade even a little bit it would be pretty much impossible for stuff to catch it. You can’t even do it with a laser because of diffraction. The beam spreads too much over these distances. And if you wait for it to be close, then you’re just showing the intended target with nuclear fuel. At that point it’s not so much defense as mitigation.
So it seems to me that the whole point of these “defense” systems is to provoke. Of course Russia knows all that but they are playing along acting provoked because excuses for more weapons spending because now it’s about the 1% vs everyone else. Putin even mentioned rebuilding the military industrial complex like it’s a good thing XD
That’s the real goal for both sides. Drama and money. Putin is gonna be ready to exploit whichever president he gets. The good news is there won’t be global nuclear war. Ever. At worst some rogue state will nuke a city or two. By the time you get more than two nukes you’re so invested in the system you not longer want to blow it up and you know by then that there is no blowing up just half of it.
It’s again obvious when he brings the cruise missiles into the discussion. Those can be intercepted possibly with a radar guided gun. (Phalanx etc.) He said it himself “sub sonic” that means under mach 1. Fearing a nuclear strike by tomahawk is completely absurd Especially if he’s not lying when he says they’ve caught up.
He rolled his own eyes when he said grave danger. And listen to his tone and look at his body language. Does it convey anything like apprehension? Pshhh. A kid in a school play being threatened with a cardboard sword is more worried. Literally. He’s talking to the press. He doesn’t expect anyone to watch the piece directly. He wants *them* to sell the fear and drama. Because unlike during the cold war this time that same 65 people own both sides.
1984. We’ve always been at war with (insert country name here.) >.>
If I respect democracy, do I agree to throw it out when that’s what we all vote for? Even if that vote is heavily manipulated, despite the fact that every individual voter would personally swear they are making a free choice?
Because what we have here is an overwhelming, if uninformed, vote against democracy. Hillary Clinton supporters clearly have no problem with #ElectionFraud so long as it installs their preferred candidate. Trump supporters I doubt would have any more integrity given the authoritarian leanings of their politics generally, and their tolerance for corporate cheating and corruption on capitalist or social Darwinist grounds.
And then you have the bulk of American citizens who overwhelmingly don’t vote, which is a clear vote against having a say in politics at all.
Perhaps what this election is really about is voting down democracy. Bernie being the last remaining actual democrat, the majority of Americans when presented with the option of him, chose one of the others.
His entire platform is/was populist. And still the vast majority of people either voted in the other party entirely or didn’t vote at all, whether or not you subtract HRC’s votes entirely because #ElectionFraud, that remains true.
It would seem the suspension of democracy is the will of the people. But if the will of the people is manipulated, should I still respect it? But if I respect it, must I then instantly disrespect it as their will is that I ignore their will?
This mess is like the idea of the ultimate meaning of tolerance for intolerance. It’s almost like the trolley problem.
In the end I’m voting for #JillNotHill on the grounds that the choice was not informed or clear. The choice was manipulated. And that so long as we are still officially a democracy for the moment, it is my function to attempt to persuade my peers of my vision of what is best for us all.
And here is my core argument. The democratic primary was a national coup d’état. Most people weren’t even aware of what was at stake, thus the vote against democracy at that time is invalid. Does that matter to people? Time will tell. In any case it left us in a position of choosing between two non-democratic candidates. An overt authoritarian demagogue and an election rigging usurper.
We all know that third parties are usually a symbolic and wasted vote, if not a spoiler vote, but in this case I don’t believe that to be true. Now, I know Jill won’t win. That would be nice, but it’s not going to happen. However, I think getting her 5% or more of the vote is perfectly achievable given the anger independents should feel at being shut out of the process for decades, combined with the recent theft of the democratic primary.
If even half of Bernie’s supporters vote Jill, that would get her the 5% alone. And that 5% means federal funding for the greens and recognition as a legitimate major American political party. This party would allow the 2020 election to be a much more informed vote as the green candidate would be included in televised debates and the media would be forced to recognize them, even more than they recognized Bernie. Which of course wasn’t much given DNC/MSM collusion and corruption, but still it was an appreciable fraction of his due as a major candidate, and orders of magnitude more than Jill Stein or any other third party candidate got.
So here’s my thinking: If you are afraid of Trump and or Hillary, and you live in a deep red or blue state, then you can vote Jill safely because your state’s vote will not be changed by your vote. If you live in a swing state, vote as you feel you must, but realize that either way, Trump or Clinton, our next president will be the most obstructed in American history. Their experience will make Obama’s two terms look like a unanimous mandate by comparison. Whoever wins the next election would have a hard time passing a law affirming that the sky is blue much of the time let alone anything approaching substantive change so really not a lot is on the table comparatively speaking. And certainly it’s nothing we can’t work to fix in 2020.
Even if you completely disagree with Jill’s politics, you should still vote Jill if you want to see democracy itself on the ticket at all in 2020, because Jill isn’t going to win this time and the greens aren’t going to win next time. The objective here is not immediate victory. That option closed when Bernie was forced out. The objective is getting a voice for democracy and independents on stage in 2020. Plus, if you favor a different third party you’ll have helped to show that third parties can reach 5% or better. The reason I choose Jill is not because I agree with the majority of her politics, but because the disenfranchised Bernie Sanders vote does, and they essentially have nowhere to go with their vote. Jill’s actual threshold thus is far less than 5% because she’ll get a good chunk of Bernie’s old vote by default.
Yes, some will be swayed by fear or blind partisan loyalty and vote HRC, but I think many of his voters were non-voters to begin with and when given a choice between staying home or voting for Jill for the long game, will vote for Jill.
So if you want to see some truth in the debates in 2020, if you want democracy to still have a seat at the table, and cliché as this may be, if you believe in the true American way, then you really should vote Jill.
Update 2017-01-31 1147 AM: Sadly Jill didn’t even get 1% of the vote. That proves that there is ZERO chance for any third party in the United States thanks to first past the post voting and the spoiler effect.
Original post:
TLDR: My official advice is vote #JillNotHill. It won’t threaten HRC/Trump in Blue/Red states. But with just 5% of the vote, we get a third federally funded party. Unique opportunity because of the Dem’s rigging and the RNC’s failure to destroy Trump.
Clever how the government has made applying for disability require the very skills a person needs to find and sustain investigative or clerical work.
Setting aside that it completely dismisses job unavailability as “not our problem” which in and of itself is complete garbage since job rarity should absolutely be a legitimate factor in determining disability. If there are only four examples of a job a person can do in the entire economy then that person is clearly disabled.
Think about how broken the logic is. Any lucky fool can live off stock dividends. Is that not a common “job?” Wallstreet thinks it is. By that logic literally no one is disabled.
Again: Tidy.
So here are my remarks at the end of my most recent disability application. I’ll explain what I mean by some of them after the remarks themselves.
I applied before and was wrongly denied because my disabilities interfered with the application process and because my representation was frankly incompetent. They were all I could find via email only.
They did literally nothing but act as a form relay, and they never returned my medical records. As such the vast majority of this data is from memory and google, and I have memory problems. I cannot drive or use the phone to confirm this data or acquire more. If I had the skills to complete this process to your complete satisfaction I’d have the skills to work. (Clerical or investigations.)
I was not prepared for my hearing at all by my representation. I have never truly worked in my life because I have always been disabled. I couldn’t even qualify for my grade school basketball team because of my CP. I wore a brace on my leg before I could walk, and I learned to walk very late.
I do not understand why you are even asking me these things since the process assumes I’m lying for money anyway and demands documentation of everything. I feel like this application exists merely to provide the opportunity to fail.
I feel extremely lucky I’m intelligent and articulate enough to see and type this. Otherwise I’d likely give up and die homeless, as no doubt thousands and thousands already have because of this arbitrary and irrational red tape. It’s hard to imagine that isn’t the point, and as such it’s hard not to feel extreme rage at the entire process. I guess then you could add anger issues to my disabilities.
I have qualified for SNAP for probably over a decade. I’ve been disabled my entire life. I need this now more than ever not least because my parents are aging and I will not be able to help them physically.
I have more remarks, why the tiny character limit?
Why am I getting letters before I’ve even submitted this application?
Why is there no paper application I can download?
Ok, so no one in my life barring heated internet arguments has ever accused me of being anything below average intelligence. Indeed many have even grudgingly admitted to my high intelligence in the middle of ranting at me. I say that because it’s citation for when I say I am living proof that being intelligent and willing to work is not enough to have a career or even a job in this country or, it is proof that I am disabled. Or both. Take your pick.
This application process is a scam. It exists to trick the mentally or physically ill into disqualifying themselves from the aid they urgently need.
My country is an ethical disgrace and even if I am somehow able to navigate this process to approval my opinion on the process itself will not change until the process changes.
The remarks above are 89 characters short of the limit. I’ve already gotten two letters from the SS office, and I haven’t even submitted my application. I’ve been filling it out and saving and exiting. I MUST do this because no where can I simply download a PDF version for mailing.
I have been a drain on my economy for as long as I’ve been alive. Had they simply providing me with a baseline income this entire time I could have changed that. But they have made it literally illegal for me to save money and totally impossible for me to start a business.
Ironic in a nation that calls itself capitalist and is run by people who claim to be the party of small business.
Instigative, protective, and preventative. In that order.
Reforms required:
Abolition of plea bargains. Because an investigation is an experiment and you don’t haggle over findings. At best you debate to arrive at consensus.
No parole or probation. Because either a person is sufficiently rehabilitated to reenter society or they are not. If a citizen’s rehabilitation is in question then examine them till it isn’t and act accordingly.
Abolition of prison in it’s current form. The entire prison budget and deployment should be converted into a layered system of job training, education, mental and physical healthcare, and research of every relevant type. A place where prisoners don’t serve a fixed sentence but rather are inducted into a program from which only healthy prepared citizens can “graduate.”
Prisons today serve as torture chambers to terrorize the public into obedience and to satisfy their collective sadistic whims using primarily the poor, the foreign, and the mentally ill as their victims.
Prison should resemble primarily a very comfortable example of a school combined with a mental hospital. Among the thousands of advantages to this approach is respect for the cliche “innocent until proven guilty.”
Indeed to test the veracity of the system innocent volunteers should be paid to enter as criminals to in a double blind fashion measure how accurate rehabilitation procedures are.
All employees of this system should be required to complete the program and the program should be available to any on request. The objective isn’t to separate and punish criminals but you understand and prevent crime, to rehabilitate and improve the lives of everyone involved to whatever degree is possible and to research and understand when and why it is not possible.
People beyond repair should be kept in comfortable humane isolation until they die of natural causes serving society as subjects of study to the end of preventing the formation or perpetuation of people like themselves in future.
Everything about modern prison and criminal justice is wrong or fraudulent. I’d say 90% of the people in charge of it are corrupt in some fashion either fiscally, politically, or ideologically. The CEO of the private prison, the senator that gerrymanders prisoners in his district and like to play “tough on crime”, the sadistic corrections or police officer that just wants people to hurt or control for pleasure… These are the real and common truths of our “justice” system.
For the past month or so I was giving path of exile another chance. And it may have been fun longer term if I wasn’t essentially playing by myself. But I am, because real community is discouraged with two exceptions. Broken trade patching, and paying guilds.
The reason I don’t post this directly in a community controlled area is because the very fact that I’m saying something unflattering would no doubt call forth the “git gud” devknights. I know I’m not alone but all the people that agree with me already left or are wisely silent.
The only reason I stayed this long and write like this is because I’m a reformer and I hate running away from a fight.
Exploitation in any context makes me sick. And sooner or later I write about it.
Maybe in the distant future being honest about this stuff now will have a hand in some changes down the road. But I highly doubt it because the entire gaming industry is dogmatic and exploitative.
Two things have driven me off this time around.
1. There is only hardcore mode.
Hardcore across the gaming universe is a name for a mode where you are punished for dying. Since “merciless” (named thus because being mean means being cool) is the default difficulty by any rational measure, and since you are punished for dying in merciless, the entire game is hardcore by default.
This has all sorts of rigid control freak consequences. It renders all choice an illusion.
You play in an approved way or your character doesn’t progress, end of discussion.
I’d like a normal mode of play. Why have two hardcore modes? For the same reason we have two rethuglican parties. To serve the 1%. Because money, that’s why. They only want hardcore players because only hardcore players care enough about a game to constantly spend money on a game.
Every other kind of player is to be driven off because they are filthy poor people. They exist in devminds to be exploited. “Free” just means bait.
2. Pawnshop of Exile
In an effort to sell stash tabs and further please the overpaying, tryhard, gambling addicted, OCD, twitch streamer, base, they’ve intentionally broken the trade system, and kept it broken to keep the established (legacy?), cash paying, game rich… game rich, and cash paying.
If it was easy for normal players to efficiently engage in item/currency (and therefore account) progression, then there wouldn’t be the army of broken character serfs and plebs everywhere to make the game rich and paying feel special enough to keep paying.
This is obviously the intent given the trivial fees paid by vendors for even unique items.
The very absence of a money changer vendor is conclusive proof that they want the economy in exactly its current state, which is to serve the cash paying grifter class and fleece everyone else.
Had I posted this in the community one of two things would happen: The mods would delete it, or they’d simply encourage the devknights to dog pile hate me as an example to silence future dessent.
Here’s what would never happen:
Majority agreement or anything approaching even a hint of reform in favor of players generally. Because at the end of the day this isn’t a democracy. This is an autocracy. Players have no say, and anyone who tells you different is either deluded or selling something.
Game universes are all rethuglican pipe dreams. This is because devs are autocratic fops by nature that want to patent the vowels when they grow up and be IPL aristocracy. That’s what happens when you genuinely believe you deserve to be paid to infinity for a single act of work.
The trade system is intentionally broken to increase profitability for GGG, and “git gud scrub” is the encouraged response type to any systemic complaint, legitimate or not.
As a non cash paying player you have one purpose. To lick paying player boot. You exist to provide contrast and somehow improve their experience either as a gatherer or as a victim.
You are the serf that is perpetually stuck some distance from endgame viability until made a charity case by a cash or promotion (twitch streamer) paying player.
The point of the entire industry is to pay the publishers/devs and fleece the players. This is true of every closed source game. And POE is no different in that regard.
Everything that happens in the POE universe is about that one goal. If you think there are ANY other considerations, you are a fool.
The most successful games are the one that lie about that most effectively.
“I’m your friend! I’m here for YOU! I’m doing YOU a favor!” Said every merchant in history prior to behaviorally proving the exact opposite.
Update: 2016-08-12 0607 PM Atlas of Worlds
Oh boy more stuff I’ll never see because I don’t play one of the OCD created dev’s pet builds.
More items I’ll never own because I hate running a pawn shop and refuse to exploit players less informed than myself.
More trade chat price checks and 4chan in EVERY window because no moderators and no trade system.
More hilariously impossible to acquire items unless I’m already obscenely wealthy or a huge exploitative dick to scores of players I’ll never even speak to.
More items to walk past because unless I’ve bought 90 stash tabs I can’t make anything like efficient use of anything.
More solo grind in a handful of maps because experience scaling forces me into a hyper narrow zone for myself while making it punishment to help others or be helped.
More reasons for in game and real life rich to have an infinitely better time at the expense of everyone else because right wing fantasy and totally needless social darwinist economy.
Wake me when there’s an auction system so normal players don’t get ripped off by not knowing how to price rares.
Wake me when there aren’t a thousand arbitrary nerf exceptions to gem combinations making it impossible to free form a build into the endgame.
Wake me when /b/tards don’t utterly rule global chat 24/7.
Wake me when a player can actually fully play the game without a dozen third party tools and pages.
Wake me when the community will do anything other than literally pay in either time or cash to defend the people exploiting them.
And now?
More comments from boot licking game rich, dev knights, and even paid streamers and their minions ever so quick to leap to their lord’s defense and blame ANYTHING wrong on the player.
Tell me about how the poor street urchin devs have to feed their doe eyed pack of children.
Tell me how patent monopolies on the gaming equivalent of literary tropes through feats of doublethink and mental gymnastics somehow equals more culture despite literally illegal modification and participation.
Tell me how technically I could get rich enough to have an actual END game character saving up 40 billion scroll fragments and how that makes everything about the game economy just peachy.
If it weren’t for my guild this game would be utterly unplayable. But gee thanks for making that pay to win as well.
Tryhard dev knight dog pile and proof that the community is a mass of dev worshipping bootlickers, eager to rubber stamp anything that squashes casual players and preserves the obscene wealth of the OCD/pawnshop/cash burning class, in 3… 2… 1…
I won’t be seeing your replies. Yay for mute thread.
Pants of exile.
Pawnshop of exile.
And yet this hateful exploitative piece of shit is the best there is on earth.
