Too much right wing media. The number of people crossing the border hasn't changed much since Reagan. Only by watching right wing media would you be misled into believing it's a "crisis" or "invasion". The numbers fluctuate a bit every few years, but nothing has changed at the southern border in decades.

Wow...it's not possible to be more wrong. Must be convenient to be taught what to think and not how to think. Of course, you're going to say that CNN is a 'right wing' media source next I'm sure:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/31/politics/migrants-us-southern-border/index.html

At this point you shouldn't be trusting any major news source regardless of bias, but I'll go out on a limb and assume you aren't one to think much about bias nor the validity of data regardless of the source. Good luck to you in your pursuit of 'truth'.

RedEye9 wrote on Oct 2, 2020, 23:48:
Superspreader events surround the dotus, including last week's scotus announcement.
The maskless gathering has now claimed Notre Dame’s president and Kelly Anne CONway can now count herself blessed as she too has tested positive for the tRump virus.

The iq test continues.

You're definitely not wrong about a lot of these folks, but don't act like these are the only people who have made really dumb decisions during this pandemic. Have you, yourself managed to wash your hands every single time you've gone out in public and worn a medical grade, air tight mask with proper filtration capabilities the right way every single second without having to adjust it or washing your hands if you do? Have you worn eye protection every single time? These are all things that help to prevent the spread yet I'd be willing to bet not a single person reading this post has done them consistently without fail for the duration of the pandemic. It's not because they're not smart, it's not because they're being political. Sometimes things happen, people make mistakes, they get tired and slip up or are in a situation that they don't think warrants that level of precaution and it only takes one mistake at the wrong time to contract this virus. Obviously a lot of folks have taken an extreme approach on the side of not taking preventative measures, but the fact of the matter is that if you're not doing what I listed above (and other things I missed since this is just a forum post), you have the potential to get infected and are failing an 'iq test'.

This is probably going to sound harsh, but it's not meant to be insulting in any way: You're definitely acting gleeful at hearing this news (note multiple posts within a short duration all aimed at making fun of people who are infected), which is a pretty heartless and terrible way of thinking. I'm concerned for your mental state and pity your lack of empathy for fellow human beings. It screams of one who is consumed by an echo chamber and doesn't know how to turn the media (social or otherwise) off and talk to people who think differently in an attempt to understand why. My favorite and most memorable political and philosophical conversations have been with people who had opposing views and a willingness to listen to what I had to say as I listened to what they had to say. Nothing is more informative in this world than listening to and respectfully challenging those of differing opinions as they do the same to you. I hope you can make the time to do so yourself. You may be surprised by what you learn even if your views do not change.

RedEye9 wrote on Oct 2, 2020, 21:42:

Acleacius wrote on Oct 2, 2020, 21:29:
In case he doesn't come back, I'm just glad he was able to win 2 noble peace prizes before he leaves us.

It has NEVER won a Nobel anything and it NEVER will.

I'm no fan of Trump, but of course he won't win a Nobel peace prize. That requires you kiss the asses of a bunch of partisan hacks who don't give two shits about actual peace contributions (hence Obama award for not doing anything but being alive and becoming President). The award doesn't mean a damn thing anymore. At least Trump actually did something diplomatically that was worthy of nomination despite numerous other moronic things he's done.

RedEye9 wrote on Sep 28, 2020, 20:40:
Proud to be in the 74%.

To be fair, I bet even more only get it from late night TV comedy shows, so you're more like the 15%. Additionally, depending on the specific source you're talking about, some youtube content provides an even more detailed analysis of stories that only get 10-15 seconds of air time on the national networks or a small blurb in the news articles. It's up to the viewer to analyze bias and sources, but it's not like you don't have to do that already for just about any other place you read or see a news story these days.

TheBigVlad wrote on Sep 21, 2020, 10:38:
Hopefully this will bring some much needed quality control to Bethesda's games. Also, Microsoft, please force Bethesda to use a new engine for future Fallout/ES games. It's time to retire Gamebryo. I really don't see a downside to this news.

You must not be running Windows 10? I've lost track of the number of severe bugs they've included with every single major Windows 10 update. From what I read, it mostly comes from the fact that they got rid of their physical hardware lab test harnesses and rely on virtual environments, which don't behave like physical systems in some scenarios. It would be nice if the gaming department did something different, but I certainly won't hold my breath.

Beamer wrote on Sep 20, 2020, 10:58:
Anyone that thinks millennials have the same opportunities boomers do either doesn't know history, or simply hasn't looked at any kind of chart of wealth or income.

It's a ludicrous claim.

Furthermore, the 30s and 40s aren't boomers. Think 70s and 80s. I generally find the best way to describe it is that six figure salaries are as big a deal today as in the 80s, when every 80s business movie was about getting to 6 figures. A six figure salary in the 80s is roughly $300k today. How many people do you know making $300k? At my company, which is a major publicly traded company, it's less than 1%.

Far more Boomers made six figures than GenX and Millennials make $300k.

70s and 80s are boomers? Umm...no. Look it up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers
"The generation is generally defined as people born from 1946 to 1964"

Regardless of the window, my general point was about opportunity. It's ironic that people who claim to know history are easy to make general statements without any real facts to back it up. There were no programs for advancing STEM curriculum, there were minimal or no industrial or corporate sponsorships of scholarships, internships, and co-ops for young adults. There were no specific programs for career development and guidance offered to new employees to help them pick a wise path. That generation was about 'pay your dues and your time will come', generally in the form of pensions, which again, do not even exist today. Since you aren't listing any sources yourself, here is an individual income calculator to determine the average percentile for any salary amount, adjusted for inflation, from 1968 to 2019:
https://dqydj.com/individual-income-by-year/

And below is an average of real income, adjusted for inflation for the last 45 years.
https://www.multpl.com/us-average-real-income

Now that you've read the real data, how about doing real math on it? There were less than 40 billionaires in the late 80s, as seen here:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/220093/number-of-billionaires-in-the-united-states/
There were already up past 400 after 2012, and we're up to 614 now shown here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_billionaires

Going back to your specific comments, adjusted for inflation, 14% of the population makes 100k or more per year today, compared to 7% in 1980, compared to 11% in 2000. Not sure where you came up with the arbitrary numbers, but these ones are real, measurable, and comparable. More and more people, by percentage are earning 100k every single year. That is a good thing. The upward mobility in this country is unlike any other in the history of the world.

NKD wrote on Sep 20, 2020, 09:44:
White people, using violence and slavery to get ahead, and then once they've got a comfortable lead, wanting to make sure everyone is now "equal" and the world is "colour-blind" (so that they can never lose their lead.)

In other words, cheating at the game, apologizing and promising to play fair, but then wanting to keep the points you stole instead of giving a few up to the people you robbed.

It's the same as the baby boomers using up all the advantages their predecessors left them and then pulling the ladder up behind them so the Gen Xers and Millennials can spend their lives in debt and never owning anything. Strong correlation between boomers and white fragility.

Wow, not sure what books you are reading or who you are 'learning' from, but I'm going to take a wild guess that they are both telling you what to think and not how to think. Anyone who believes that Gen Xers and Millennials have had the ladder removed from their paths to success is insane. Opportunities available to everyone today (and minorities in particular) far exceed what was around in the 30s and 40s. It's not even close. The number of successful people of diverse backgrounds has never been higher and a good number of them have taken advantage of those opportunities.

No one in today's world has any obligation to go to college nor to focus on majors that don't offer salaries which will make up for the high tuition costs at top tier schools. That is a decision made entirely by the individual student. If there is a concern about student debt with a particular job outlook, they should go to a more affordable academic institution or pursue a different career field that will be worth the cost long term. The idea that 18 year olds are hamstrung going to top tier schools is an utter fabrication. Each and every one of those students can do the math to see if it will be worth it, and if not go a different route for their careers. Most good, talented blue collar workers I've known throughout my career (electricians and welders in particular) make a good bit more than college graduates in the first 10 or so years of their own careers. There is nothing wrong with blue collar work and high schools need to recognize that college isn't right or necessary for everyone. If you really think debt is insurmountable, then I suggest you make a cost/benefit analysis of your current career path and find alternate options if the numbers don't make sense.

Nucas wrote on Sep 18, 2020, 21:38:

there's the arms race argument about the supreme court and subsequent presidencies but its not like there's anything to lose at this point. if significant action on climate change isn't taken in the next few years we're probably not even getting full lives, who gives a fuck about the supreme court.

it's a pipe dream regardless.

There's nothing to say to that besides: Speak for yourself. I'll be on Mars drinking potato shakes thinking about how long it will take for humanity to fuck up there too. Maybe if they start with term limits and fixed, government provided (e.g. taxpayer) campaign financing there's a chance

Orogogus wrote on Sep 18, 2020, 12:12:

I mean, why is English taught in so many countries, including China? It's not because they were all conquered. The argument for everyone speaking Chinese would be that China would take up the mantle of the world's leading economy, making Chinese the lingua franca of commerce.

I think there are serious barriers to learning pictogram-based languages like Chinese or Japanese that don't exist for Western languages, though.

Where do you see a history of the Chinese culture reaching out to control as much as possible? A lot of their history is isolationist and xenophobic, and being beaten up and exploited by the Mongols, the Western powers and the Japanese. The situations in Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan and the "South China Sea" might not be great, but there's a huge gulf between that and say, Britain taking India, or the Mongol Empire.

That's absolutely a very valid point. I think the difficulty China has on that front is their tendency to use fear and intimidation rather than friendship and co-operation to drive economic partnerships. It's definitely true that they have a lot of leverage over many economies, but changing economic models entirely generally is due to some true level of partnership and trust, not pure extortion. As their power grows, I could be proved a fool but as of today I stand by my assessment that countries would rather promote economic freedom and co-operation than allow themselves to be bullied indefinitely.

There are a number of examples, and though this is not everything, it's a reasonable summary:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_imperialism

The differences between the Chinese imperialism and Britain and the Mongol Empire are most definitely drastic, but that's due mostly to the fact that they were not militarily, economically, or technologically capable of doing more than they did at that point in history. Again, they hit some kind of external barrier which forced them to alter or modify plans of expansionism. This is the history that I have read and been taught, but obviously there are multiple sources for these types of things. I'd be interested in reading the sources you've read regarding these periods in history.

RedEye9 wrote on Sep 17, 2020, 22:10:
The instant the United States defaults on one cent of debt it legally owes will be the beginning of the end of America as we know it.

Any person even thinking it would be "cool" should immediately start taking chinese language lessons.

I'm not understanding your logic. Even if economic collapse happened in the United States for any reason, our culture would not suddenly swing to speak Mandarin. Despite numerous evil acts, and as much influence as they have on politics, academic institutions, and media, they will never attack the United States in a World War scenario, which is the only thing I can picture that would lead to us speaking their language. It's the exact same as it was during the Cold War, mutually assured destruction. They try anything major against the United States and they are wiped out. They don't have an ability to stop the nuclear triad and neither does the United States. The Chinese culture has a history of reaching out to control as much as possible until something stops it, so the real question is how much global influence will people allow them to have before that advance is halted. The United States will still be around speaking english until we are completely wiped out with a nuclear or biological attack, in which case, whoever attacked is also wiped out. The Chinese are aggressive and addressing what they believe is a mandate to control more of the globe, but they aren't stupid.

Beamer wrote on Jul 9, 2020, 10:01:

Julian Delphiki wrote on Jul 9, 2020, 09:52:

"You're being radicalized" is hysterical.

Listen, we're talking about the Redskins in this thread. Is there a single reason why anyone would want the name to remain what is objectively a slur other than "that's the way it's always been done?"
And can you find many non-conservatives that don't think the name should be changed?

What if we extend this out to taking down statues of Confederate leaders? What if we go back far enough to wanting to allow interracial marriage?

I can take it back to "socially conservative," which is what I meant, and is generally what "conservative" means in this country, as you don't find too many political platforms aimed around fiscal conservatism, nor do you find anyone frequently discussing it. And you don't find too many leaders of large organizations that are socially conservative.

Your logic is all over the place in this discussion. First you made general comments about conservatives as a group and use a straw man argument blanketing all conservatives as never wanting to seek improvement. Then you postulate that they are all afraid and hiding in their mediocrity. You finally conclude that in an office environment, they must be always getting passed up for promotions, inferring there is a level of ineptness applying only to the conservative. Your statements have absolutely nothing to do with the Washington Redskins and everything to do with attacking your 'conservative' class of people which you did not elaborate on at all. It was simply a judgmental rant based on false assumptions and incorrect facts. In this very reply you argue you're talking about the Washington Redskins, yet in the very next paragraph shift to statues and interracial marriage. Which is it?

The fact you find my statement about radicalization hysterical only reinforces my argument. If your mind is already filtering out discussions to the point where you don't take other possibilities seriously how can you claim to be open to diverse thoughts and opinions? That is more typical of people who have been told what to think and not how to think.

Complex discussions like this are not meant for forums and social media or media in general. You need to talk to people face-to-face to really empathize and understand the other true arguments (not the straw man arguments always referenced in media) so you can make an intelligent decision for yourself and learn something new about the other party.

My only other recommendation for you is to be cautious using a modern lens to judge history lest you be judged yourself by your children and their children in the same fashion. It's easy for us to do that, but take the time to put yourself in their shoes at that point in history with the upbringing they themselves had and imagine what was going through their head with regard to a very specific decision that was made. Don't use generalities, focus on specific decision points. I believe you will learn a lot if you take that approach and use it throughout your life.

Beamer wrote on Jul 9, 2020, 09:37:
"Conservative" really is the right term. It's amazing how against change they are. They think the way things have always been done is fine and good, and there's no reason to ever improve.

Or, perhaps, they believe that the way things are currently done hides their mediocrity, and are afraid that changing to a more level playing field will reveal how mediocre they are.

In any case, whenever there's discussion of change, they hate it. Everything is best the way they know it to be, and updating anything based upon improved understanding is wrong and immoral. I just imagine them in office jobs, constantly getting passed up for promotion, wondering why, but any time someone wants to improve something they chirp up with "but that's not how we do it!"

That's a very blatantly incorrect generalization and points out your hypocrisy when it comes to supporting diverse and differing opinions. There are many conservatives who are very successful in nearly every business environment. Being conservative doesn't mean you're never open to any change and that you don't listen to feedback from the team members you're leading. You are using a straw man argument to pin a label of shame on a group of people you don't happen to agree with on a few particular issues. I'd suggest you unplug for a bit and talk to real people who are outside your general circle of friends. You're being radicalized by the echo chambers you're communicating in and it's closing your mind off to the possibility that different opinions are not wrong, they are different.

This comment was edited on Jul 9, 2020, 10:13.

DukeFNukem wrote on Jun 2, 2020, 21:23:
This just seems weird to me. ALL LIVES MATTER!
Stop dividing people through race. Give that 1 million dollars to POOR people, not black, not white, not asian, not chinese, not the green martians. Give it to underpriviledged POOR people.

That is why identity politics are ultimately untenable and self-defeating. A society dominated by a victim mentality cannot be sustained. While its citizens may feel comforted by laws that protect their feelings and by the belief that they bear no responsibility for any of their circumstances, all core motivations necessary for achieving actual success are significantly eroded. Competition to become successful is mutated into a battle of determining who was victimized the most and eventually, the remaining hard working individuals contributing to society give up and do the same.

VaranDragon wrote on Dec 10, 2019, 03:17:

bigspender wrote on Dec 9, 2019, 16:47:

VaranDragon wrote on Dec 9, 2019, 15:08:
An SSD is required as a minimum? Is that a first? Does not bode well for loading times.

Most likely this is for textures and models being loaded in on the fly. Otherwise you might get blurry textures on the terrain if they can't load in fast enough or micro stutter as models load in dynamically

Bullshit. Thats just lazy programming. Many older games have had problems with microstuttering. If the solution is to get faster hardware instead of properly coding your memory management then thats all that is.

It could be quite the opposite, actually. This is not a first in gaming and as environments and entities are getting more and more complicated and people are still keeping minimal and even moderate amounts of memory in their systems. It's a very reasonable requirement and has nothing to do with lazy programming, it's all about how much raw data you have to store and track and what resources are available to do so. Honestly, this is not intended as an insult, if you don't have at LEAST a SATA SSD drive for your OS at this point, I'm not sure you can call yourself a true gamer. SSDs are very competitively priced now and cost much less than the GPU and CPU offerings, so there is no reason not to have one.

MeanJim wrote on Oct 31, 2019, 19:48:

saluk wrote on Oct 31, 2019, 16:22:

phinn wrote on Oct 31, 2019, 16:13:
Really don't understand why everyone throws a fit anytime something new comes out. Steam was and still is in need of a modern UI. This is a nice step forward, no complaints.

Modern UI design is terrible. It intentionally sacrifices usability, efficiency, and discoverability to optimize for engagement. A decade of making computing technology worse so that consumers look at the screen longer and click on more ads.

Pretty much what he said. I use Steam to launch games. That's it. The new UI has made it worse to do that one thing, all just to throw crap in my face that I don't want or need to see. Any other Steam related things like browsing/buying games, I do in my web browser anyway. The new UI presents less information and yet somehow takes up more room. I'm not against a new UI if it's better than what it's replacing. This new UI, while it has a few long request features, overall it is not better and has taken options away from those of us that prefer a minimal UI (small mode) and being able switch the library view to a list in full mode instead of giant boxes/icons.

The GOG Galaxy beta 2.0 client is an improvement over the old client. It kept the features of the old client that people like, big box icons like a shelf, but added the ability to use a minimal list view. Steam has done the opposite, removed the minimal list modes and replaced it with only the large boxy icon views.

Did they already change that? My library list has the classic minimalist game list on the left that can now be categorized into more groups and filtered easier...seems like an improvement to me for that part. I never read the 'game info' page when clicking on a game on that list anyway, so they can make a library listing of my stuff that I can shuffle around. It seems very similar to GoG to me.

Creston wrote on Oct 29, 2019, 21:10:

Simon Says wrote on Oct 29, 2019, 18:06:
Mind you, if the rumors about another 5 years before getting into beta are true

Here's the thing, they somehow keep getting 2+ million dollars each month for essentially doing very little to no work. I mean, supposedly they have 500 people working there, what they've got to show for 7 years of that many people working has to be the biggest laughing stock in the industry.

But they keep getting paid for doing nothing, because there is no publisher to fire their asses.

So why would they ever release a full product? Once they do that, they get a bit more money from sales from people who refused to back, but after that the gravy train will start to wind down. So why would they ever do that?

Star Citizen is the biggest privatized social welfare fund ever seen. The subtitle of the 'game' should be "How people around the world kept giving 500 guys money to just fuck around, year after year after year."

You're definitely correct that things are taking long for what we know is going on, the question is really what is going on that we don't know about. It's obvious at this point that there has been waste and spinning wheels for critical tech and other pieces that required re-work, but to say they haven't released anything is definitely not accurate at all. Even as a tech demo at this point, they've achieved technically what no other company has ever done. Believe me, I get what you're saying and I understand, but read about the actual technical accomplishments of the team and tell me you honestly think they've done no work. Look at the latest article on Server-Side Object Container Streaming. It's actually pretty crazy what they've been doing for the engine on the backend.

This has a helluva lot more to do with politicians than it does corporations. Companies are around to make money and generally provide jobs, many good ones, along the way. If you knew some way to avoid paying more taxes, wouldn't you take it? Because I don't know a single person who would willingly give up more money just so the government could waste it on some useless program or to help pay for a stadium that some billionaire says is good for the city. At the end of the day, stop supporting people who spend money on stupid pet projects and call out people for supporting unethical practices. Companies are a great thing for America; they drive innovation, provide quality of life improvements, and can provide a good meaning to people's lives. Stop the BS campaign finance influences and the unnecessary tax breaks and the environment will improve dramatically. Ironically, tax breaks are really just something states use to compete against each other and it has definitely gotten out of control, just like sports salaries

Cutter, this isn't a barb, just a curiosity, your posts are generally quite liberal, doesn't your talk of bloody revolution conflict with gun control strategy? Who would lead that revolution and how would it be possible?

1badmf wrote on Aug 22, 2018, 00:20:

Creston wrote on Aug 21, 2018, 23:13:

Cutter wrote on Aug 21, 2018, 20:59:
no jobs. No money. No way or need to buy goods from the robots that took the jobs is there? Massive numbers of unemployed, homeless, and hungry people? Gee, what's the worst that could happen?

The rich don't care. They really would much rather all the poor (ie, everyone with less than a million dollars) just die off, so the planet doesn't go to shit so quickly.

you know i don't doubt for a second that trump and his ilk see everyone below the upper class as a necessary evil to toil in their factories but can otherwise fuck off and die.

Class warfare and stereotyping isn't going to do much for you in life except build up a list of enemies that you could have easily been friends with. Trump does not speak for all rich people anymore than one poor person speaks for all poor people. There are many billionaires who are doing tremendous things to help people with the wealth they've accumulated, why would you judge them as having wronged someone when you don't know anything about them or how they earned that wealth (yes, a majority of people in the top 1% of earned income are self-made go ahead and look it up)? Don't let people use you as a pawn in class warfare to push a political system that will by definition of human nature never be successful.

NKD wrote on Aug 18, 2018, 17:35:

Julian Delphiki wrote on Aug 18, 2018, 17:27:
How many times have you heard someone label a conservative as a Nazi since Trump was elected? How many times did you hear it when Bush was in office? It's a safe bet that the first number is much larger than the last.

Oh absolutely. But Bush didn't run on a populist anti-immigration platform, pander to ethnonationalists, or say any of the things Trump says. While there are definitely people who overreact to things, let's not normalize everything Trump does by just pretending every Republican is going to get the same treatment.

I'm a very outspoken Trump critic, but only a small amount of what I say would apply to a Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney or even a Ted "Zodiac Killer" Cruz.

You're definitely not the type of person I'm worried about However, I've read dozens of news articles (editorials and non-editorials), comments, forum posts, etc. that have talked about what would happen to Pence if Trump were no longer President. As I'm sure you can guess, there was similar talk about combating his decisions and policies and demonizing them to the point well beyond what Bush dealt with. Obviously, this is anecdotal and I would never claim this represents a majority of individuals, but it is a troubling trend that I believe is a direct result of the creation of echo chambers that stifle conversations by individuals with opposing views rather than embracing our differences like we have in the past and encouraging such conversation to happen in the hope that a better idea may result. Thank you for the conversation, it's great to finally read something from a person who isn't part of the problem I've described!

NKD wrote on Aug 18, 2018, 17:25:

Julian Delphiki wrote on Aug 18, 2018, 17:20:

Rilcon wrote on Aug 18, 2018, 16:42:
Berated "conservatives" could do what their precious ethos demands, start a new social media platform and compete on the free and open market without all the evil regulations.

Sarcasm aside, competition only works in an environment where there is not a monopoly on the service being challenged. Since there is no regulation on this form of communication at this point in time, there is no way for any new company to actually gain meaningful ground. I'm quite surprised that the government that shut down AT&T and forced it to split up decades ago has allowed a new form of communication that is even more influential to grow unchecked to where it is today. Imagine, for example, that in the 1980s/90s AT&T told some group of people that they were not going to allow them to make calls anymore because the company didn't agree with what they were saying on those calls. It's an equivalent analogy to what is happening now and without any kind of regulation on that form of communication it stifles opposing views and fosters indoctrination.

I'm not seeing much of a push to break up monopolies coming from the conservatives. Conservatives were pushing for the Tribune/Sinclair merger, because that monopoly would have worked in their favor.

I'm sorry, but I'm not clear on your point. I didn't talk about any political affiliation being responsible for the lack of legislation because I think modern politicians are using those labels as leverage to 'reinforce' their arguments when it really does nothing of the sort. Most republicans today are not truly republican in their behavior or views just like Democrats today are not truly exercising traditional Democratic views. The party doesn't matter so much as the lack of action in general. My point being that the government that we have put in office is not behaving in ways that match how they behaved in the 1980s and 1990s. My suggestion is that we do something about it and recognize representatives as actual individuals rather than labeling them by the party they may or may not be a member of. That's the only way to get people in office who won't just 'fall in line' with a party for the sake of leverage and power. The best option would be to eliminate term limits, drop party labels altogether and have all campaigns 100% publicly financed, but we both know that will never happen