I’m pretty sure the military cares, at least to the extent that it will cause instability. I’m 99% sure there’s something from the Pentagon to support that. I wanna say Pentagon wants us to address it before it starts making them do their job a whole lot more.
The problem is they lose their email address, which is tied to just about every digital account they have. Losing your email can royally fuck you. Many sites send an email to the old email of you try to change it, so you’ll have to get in touch with support to get it changed, and then support will want proof it’s your account somehow, and the whole process is gonna take days or weeks to fix all your accounts. God help you if you forgot any passwords because now you can’t login or even reset the password since that goes through email.
I don’t see that as a viable path forward. If lack of voters decide the election in favor of the opposition (from your perspective), the party most aligned with you will move away from you to stay competitive. If sufficient votes for third party decide in favor of the opposition, you might get some decent movement towards the third party. If there are so many third party votes that your favored main party loses and the third party rises, the dying party may want to enact change, but they’re out of power, and the newly entrenched party won’t want to do it because it’s now helping them.
Note that none of these result in voting reform. We know because it’s happened. It wasn’t always the Democrats and the Republicans, but it has pretty much always been a two party system once we got through a few elections.
If you want voting reform, unfortunately, the only way to make that a serious possibility is by making it a serious campaign issue and by fighting to enact it locally and work our way up to the federal level. It’ll be hard to go straight for the top, but some areas are starting to experiment and prove it’s viable. Next step is to go a little bigger or expand into new areas.
Unfortunately, a first past the post voting system always eventually results in a two party system. Rarely, a third party can rise, but always ushering the demise of one of the previous two. The only way we can escape a two party system is by reforming our voting systems to something like ranked choice or approval voting.
Ah, it came across as thinking they were actually right, that conversion was the reason for the increase. I think that misunderstanding is why you’re attracting down votes.
They’re not right because they numbers didn’t go up from conversion. They went up because people could admit who they are without fear of violence. The true number didn’t change, we just became capable of getting a more accurate count.
Yeah, it’s bullshit, but unfortunately, homes in an HOA are contractually obligated to obey the rules. In at least some cases, failure to comply results in fines that, if left unpaid, can result in the loss of the home as the HOA effectively gets to sell it to recoup what they’re owed.
And cities are encouraging them all over the US, so it’s getting increasingly difficult to find a newly built home that isn’t in an HOA. Cities love them because they raise and spend their own funds to maintain things, which means the city doesn’t have to spend tax money to do those things.
That shit drives me nuts. Wanna be trusted with my life savings, but they can’t be bothered to implement modern security features until they’re already being phased out. I don’t know what will replace modern 2FA schemes, but I guarantee banks will adopt the current ones about three years after the replacements become standard.
Also, they’re charging you a poor tax for not having enough money, whether that’s a minimum balance or just accidentally spending a nickel more than you had on hand.
Classic Doom 1 and 2. There’s gotta be over 100 levels if you count TNT and Plutonia, which I think were sold as Final Doom? Anyway, if you just get the base games for 1 and 2, there are thousands upon thousands of community made maps, including some total conversions, so you can play new Doom content until it physically pains you to continue.
Of course, I feel obligated to mention that even though it would be super easy to pirate the WAD files and play with a free modern source port like GZDoom, like absolutely trivial to find copies of DOOM.WAD and DOOM2.WAD floating around the net, probably showing up easily on Archive.org, but… Um… Where was I going with this? Oh, right, don’t pirate. Cheap on GOG last I knew.
Riiiiight. You just completely coincidentally claim that instances of resistance to your aggression are bad. The only time you find resistance to you acceptable is when it’s impotent.
The topic at hand was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the context of attempting to avoid war. I made no direct comments about other topics, nor did I intend to imply anything beyond that. To quote the comment that sparked all of this:
it’s pretty clear that Russia tried very hard to prevent the situation in Ukraine from devolving into a war.
Russia is responsible for their own actions. Regardless of the facts that form the basis for the decision, if their true goal is to avoid war in a region, the best solution is to not militarily invade that region. That’s it. That’s my full claim. You can try to argue about whether or not Russia was justified to invade, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Russia wanting to not fight in a region they attacked after making a deal to not invade that region.
Saying that an armed invasion is an act of war and that acts of war are generally not good ways to avoid war is not claiming that resistance to aggression is bad. It is literally pointing out an act of aggression. According to the Budapest Memorandum, the deal for Ukraine giving up nukes was that Russia agrees to respect their sovereignty. And then Russia invaded Ukraine to annex territory. Twice now. I don’t believe you’re so stupid you can’t grasp that, I think you’re just that disingenuous.
I am not advocating that resistance to aggression is bad, and I think you know that.
It’s always been a class war. It takes a lot of effort and violence to maintain a ruling class.
Look, I’m not sure who you’re upset with, but it’s not me. You’re spending a lot of effort to assume what I do and don’t believe and support, and you’re frankly doing a piss poor job of it. No aspect of what you’ve said since you first engaged with me has constituted a good faith argument, and I’m done engaging with it. Even if your complaints about western countries are accurate, all I said to start this was that invading a country, an act of war, is not an example of trying to avoid war, and all the rest of your assumptions about me are equal parts incorrect and insulting.
Which suggests you’re not arguing in good faith and just wanted a smug put down
Oh? Were you arguing in good faith when you refused to elaborate on how you think Russia should have reacted to your aggression, then?
Given that it isn’t the discussion I was initially involved in and attempted to stay out of it because I won’t claim to have simplistic solutions to complex problems, yeah, I’d say I was. There’s the right thing to do, and there’s the thing you can actually convince all involved parties to do. Unfortunately, telling everyone to leave each other the fuck alone and play nicely won’t do anything meaningful, and I don’t pretend to be a foreign policy expert capable of discerning what all parties will begrudgingly agree to. I just was able to recognize an armed invasion as an act of war when the discussion was on whether or not Russia was trying to avoid war.
The rest of this is mostly just you attempting to shove words in my mouth. Nobody should be invading anyone. Nobody should be genociding anyone. Yes, I am capable of understanding when when western countries do fucked up things. Yes, I think they should knock it off. Yes, that applies to Russia, too.
I’m sorry, I thought you understood we were talking about Ukraine
We were, but you decided to talk about your embarrassment and atrocities in Afghanistan, for some reason.
Cute. Downright adorable. You knew full well what I was talking about, you just elected to change the subject. Which suggests you’re not arguing in good faith and just wanted a smug put down.
I’ve heard claims that the 2014 was western-backed, though I’ve never seen anyone attempt to substantiate that claim
The Nuland-Pyatt correspondence where they discussed whom to put on the throne in Ukraine instead of the then-current leader were leaked in early February of 2014, before the coup. She also bragged about how much the US spent on influencing the Ukrainian government. And, of course, the leaders of the coup were politicians - it was not a grassroots movement.
I haven’t heard of this before, so I’ll check it out.
Go ahead and quote the part where I said anything about how they should or shouldn’t resist
You keep talking about how Russia is bad for resisting you, for example.
I can’t believe your reading comprehension is genuinely that poor. You know what I actually meant, and this is just a poor attempt to change the subject to one you find more favorable.
I never did, nor was that the topic at hand
It’s literally the topic at hand. You started it by talking about how Russia shouldn’t have resisted your aggression the way Russia did.
Look, there’s the discussion you want to have, and there’s the discussion the rest of us who are paying attention are trying to have. Try to stay on topic. No, I did not mention Afghanistan, even if the description is relevant to more than what we’re talking about. No, it wasn’t a genuine mistake to misinterpret it that way. Don’t try to play smug and stupid at the same time.
The discussion at hand, since you seem to be struggling to grasp that, was whether or not Russia was trying to prevent war in Ukraine
War with NATO more generally.
And yeah, Russia did try to resolve it otherwise. Russia did not just do an overt full-scale invasion in 2014.
Full-scale? No. Invasion? Yes. Russia tried to deny troop presence, but I recall several instances of soldiers accidentally revealing their presence.
Notably, you are fine with voluntarily invading Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Vietnam, Korea, committing genocides, including the one in the occupied Palestine, known torture sites, coups, etc.
You know, I don’t recall ever mentioning those things. Don’t see them in this thread anywhere. Do you assume the worst of everyone who disagrees with you, or am I just special?
I’m sorry, I thought that you weren’t this delusional about Afghanistan somehow fitting the description I provided. No, kid, Afghanistan didn’t expand to any US border, and is not the word’s most prolific aggressor that killed millions of people during its second invasion of Iraq alone.
I’m sorry, I thought you understood we were talking about Ukraine, so I interpreted your comment through that lens. I’ve heard claims that the 2014 was western-backed, though I’ve never seen anyone attempt to substantiate that claim, so I assumed that was what you meant. You know, because it’s relevant to the discussion at hand, unlike Afghanistan.
Well, we are still waiting for you to tell us what you would do. After all, you seem to think that you are qualified to tell the rest of the world how it should resist you and how it should react to your aggression.
Go ahead and quote the part where I said anything about how they should or shouldn’t resist. I never did, nor was that the topic at hand. Attempting to force me to answer it is nothing but an attempt at grandstanding.
The discussion at hand, since you seem to be struggling to grasp that, was whether or not Russia was trying to prevent war in Ukraine. Ukraine being the country they invaded. Voluntarily. Arguably for imperialist reasons. Unless, of course, you think it’s pure coincidence that Russia would stand to gain ports, natural gas (or is it oil? I think natural gas), and a ton of food production.
Apparently, you invade with ineptitude that would be hilarious if not for the bloodshed, embarrass yourself on the world stage, commit a whole bunch of war crimes, and drive several of your neighbors into the arms of this enemy. It’s not what I’d do, but Putin seemed to think it was the move to make.
I mean… That’s true in that Russia tried to win before Ukraine could mount a significant resistance. Attacking in the first place was pretty clearly an act of war, though, so it feels a bit disingenuous to claim Russia wanted to avoid a war when they… Started… A war…
All it really says is that Russia thought they were strong enough to steamroll Ukraine. Actually wanting to avoid a war would look a lot more like never attacking in the first place or retreating when faced with actual resistance.
Personally, I’d say anything with RetroAchievements support. Why buy new when the classic is still just as good as it was back then? I don’t care much about graphics, though, so remakes don’t typically offer much I care about. I don’t want changes to game mechanics or content, I just want to be able to play it without needing specialized hardware I have to attach to my TV.
I’m not disputing that they want to use AI. I’m disputing the idea that the military doesn’t care about climate change. Climate change will cause instability and greatly increase the odds of them having to actually fight. As much as the military enjoys a good flex now and then, they generally prefer to win without fighting.