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Also, the UK home office has shown that they are willing to falsify reports and not record crimes that have happened in order to make the crime situation in UK look better than it really is.
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Mar 4, 2014 10:06
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OG17 posted:It really wasn't. Part one's a braindead "less guns less gun crime and gun suicide" without a peep about overall crime and suicide. Part two's a tangential daydream where diving on a political grenade is a right thing to do, while surviving to work towards defusing said grenade while doing good on a hundred other issues is a crazy selfish thing to do. Three didn't really have any point outside of instantly dismissing the idea that the US and Australia have any significant differences and then being wowed by how quickly legislature moved for twenty million people in a handful of cities. It's a bad-faith bit that's maybe entertaining if you already agree with it but otherwise it's a waste of eighteen minutes. (And if wikipedia's to be believed ( It's a comedy show. I said it was worth watching, not that it was a comprehensive solution to the problem of gun violence in America.
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Mar 4, 2014 10:34
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), this didn't work anyway.)
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Also, I suspect part of the problem in the US is not just the gun control laws (or perhaps lack of?) but the utterly terrible mental health system which lets people get into the state of mind where they'd happily shoot up a school.
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Mar 4, 2014 11:40
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Gygaxian posted:There had always been an anti-federal government trend in LDS culture due to the persecutions being ignored or sanctioned (in the case of the Illinois persecutions) by government authorities. ... As a person who lives in a country where no one has a "right" to bear arms (so, pretty much anywhere outside the US), the correlation between a culture where "owning a gun should probably be regulated at least as well as a driving license" seems like obvious truism and a major understatement and a reality where fewer people gets access to guns which they use to murder friends, family, co-workers, school kids and people walking through the wrong neighborhood while wearing hoodies seems rather obvious. Of course, to a lot of Americans the rest of the world may as well not exist, and any comparisons made outside the US are invalid precisely because they are made outside the US.
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Mar 4, 2014 13:15
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All I was attempting to do was to provide some of the reasons for the US's gun freedom that weren't related to extremist cults. I didn't research them in the same sort of detail Bobbin works on; my goal was just to articulate the ideas- and what little of the arguments I know behind them. I freely admit to not being an expert on the subject... but if you had to be an expert to make a post, how many of us would have posting privileges? That said, I'd like to thank everybody who responded to me for being intelligent and polite about it. This is a good thread; I'd hate to have polluted it with angry political arguments. It really says something about the quality of this audience that that didn't happen. That said, why would the sort of beliefs and attitudes I was talking about be allowed to survive in an Illuminati-controlled US? You'd think the Secret Masters of the world could've, over generations, stamped that out well before it gave rise to the NSF... and I don't think the NSF was part of anybody else's plans. It just seems odd. Almost 40 years in the future, in a high-tech world controlled by a conspiracy for centuries, and there are still enough militant freedomist gun owners in the US to form a major rebellion.
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Mar 4, 2014 15:59
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Firearms are fairly easy to manufacture and i would expect that any insurgency worth a drat would have some gunsmiths to make whatever is needed.
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Mar 4, 2014 16:03
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Bluemage142 posted:It just seems odd. Almost 40 years in the future, in a high-tech world controlled by a conspiracy for centuries, and there are still enough militant freedomist gun owners in the US to form a major rebellion. Well... NSF is connected to Silhouette which is connected to the Illuminati (note that NSF informer Filben works for them directly). I imagine if they were left to their own devices for long enough it'd turn out they're just another way to keep pressure on the "real" elected government and the Illuminati control them somehow. Which would be why Tong's solution to the endgame would be to screw over everyone - it's the only way to make sure you get rid of all the Illuminati influence.
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Mar 4, 2014 16:07
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According to the (doubtlessly carefully constructed by experts on political dissolution and media manipulation) Deus Ex bible, the Illuminati basically left the US alone to fall apart in an orgy of debt, epidemic, civil rebellion and conquest by Russo-Mexican drug cartels. Except it hasn't yet, so MJ12 is trying to reassert control.
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Mar 4, 2014 16:07
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Bluemage142 posted:That said, why would the sort of beliefs and attitudes I was talking about be allowed to survive in an Illuminati-controlled US? You'd think the Secret Masters of the world could've, over generations, stamped that out well before it gave rise to the NSF... and I don't think the NSF was part of anybody else's plans. The N-for-National NSF was formed thanks to a weapons law so restrictive it disbanded the National Guards, which for those of you unaware are the wing of the armed forces which answer first to the state that sponsors them (although they do answer to the federal government, too, because the states answer to the federal government). The NSF are pawns of the secret society faction that got kicked out of power, but they were nobody's plan A, no.
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Mar 4, 2014 16:12
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It is also worth noting that the Illuminati is more about influencing then outright control. They generally do not have full control of every government, they just do there best to dictate the path. It makes them more realistic that way anyway. For outright control there would have to be alot more people in the know and that just make things easier to out.
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Mar 4, 2014 16:30
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I sold my firearms collection when I moved to Berkeley, because of the vast quantity of hoops that I would have had to jump through to make most of them acceptable in California.
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Mar 4, 2014 17:59
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If I were an illuminati power-broker, having a bunch of crazy, isolationist, doomsday cults with tons of firearms sounds like an ideal situation. Plenty of useful idiots ready to shoot at shadows, but none of the groups like or support each other. Sounds like a cushy position.
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Mar 4, 2014 18:57
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In the video you wondered how Manderley knew about you talking to the journalist. Wouldn't the infolink account for that? JC is constantly streaming telemetry back to hq.
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Mar 4, 2014 19:56
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Xander77 posted:One day history will be written by Scientologists who will focus on the persecution their cult suffered (and/or hopefully will suffer) in the 21st century. Except whatever you think about Mormonism, it suffered more actual persecution than Scientology ever has. Mormons were tarred and feathered, had their houses burned down, their livestock and crops destroyed, and were beaten and murdered in several situations. And the Governor of Illinois at the time literally issued an order of extermination against the Mormons. Yes, they did horrible things after that persecution, and the anti-gay and hasty abandonment of racism stuff in LDS culture is terrible today, but the old Mormons did face persecution, which does explain part of the LDS distrust of government (though again, they take it way too far, as I explained). And of course non-American Mormons have no idea why these American Mormons hate "socialism" so much. Most Mormons from the Scandinavian nations love socialism, and unlike the survivalist American Mormons, they don't see socialism as Satanic. Despite being a Utah Mormon in terms of geography, I consider myself theologically and culturally a Scandinavian Mormon. Though in terms of this game, I can imagine that the doomsday cult polygamists (who are in real life marginalized and secretive) might have grown in influence in Utah and in the LDS Church due to a perceived terror of the feds, and might have played a role in Utah's participation in the NSF rebellion. I could easily see the idea of a rogue LDS apostle communicating with the survivalists and polygamist cults and encouraging rebellion/support of the NSF before being brought down.
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Mar 4, 2014 20:01
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Crigit posted:In the video you wondered how Manderley knew about you talking to the journalist. Wouldn't the infolink account for that? JC is constantly streaming telemetry back to hq. In that case it makes you wonder how nobody rushed down to dogpile you for trespassing into the interrogation room and subsequently murdering prisoners, and it also makes you wonder if the people who didn't stop him got shitcanned  edit: Then again, the way Manderley seems to operate, those dudes probably just got half their bonus and a stern warning.
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Mar 4, 2014 20:23
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drat Bobbin, picking a controversial subject there. I think you hit the nail on the head though, its not a situation with an easy solution. Its easy for someone like me, living outside the USA in a country with reasonably tight gun control, to sit here and call American's crazy. I don't live in a place where guns and people are almost at a 1:1 ratio (although not the same as "everyone is armed") and guns are not a big part of my culture. Personally my biggest worry about guns isn't being shot and killed (or just shot) as I don't see that as a realistic probability, more likely is I'll be mugged by someone with a gun (although still low). Which while scary, is a situation I'd rather be in without a gun myself as I'd probably be tempted to try and use it and someone would end up shot rather than me just having to put in a call to my insurance. Still, commendable restraint in the discussion for what is a high-emotion subject.
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Mar 4, 2014 20:24
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Crigit posted:In the video you wondered how Manderley knew about you talking to the journalist. Wouldn't the infolink account for that? JC is constantly streaming telemetry back to hq. The journalist is an informant. So is the bartender. Flip a coin as to which one ratted him out first. (Nothing Counts As A Spoiler Rule!)
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Mar 4, 2014 21:25
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The bartender? First time I hear that one - how do you find out?
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Mar 4, 2014 21:26
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Tell her you're looking for Stanton Dowd later in the game. An assassin will come after him when you find him as a result.
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Mar 4, 2014 21:33
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The Casualty posted:In that case it makes you wonder how nobody rushed down to dogpile you for trespassing into the interrogation room and subsequently murdering prisoners, and it also makes you wonder if the people who didn't stop him got shitcanned Him calling you out on poo poo but tolerating it makes sense from a game design perspective, but it also works with the character. He's a consummate career politician, and you and Paul are his pet projects. Given how interested the Powers That Be are in your performance, Manderley has a drat good reason to turn a blind eye to all your indiscretions.
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Mar 4, 2014 21:33
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I'm... fairly sure the assassination attempt happens even if you don't talk to her? I triggered it before and I don't think I ever bothered with her.
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Mar 4, 2014 21:34
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Hello I started watching this video then realised I wasn't on the first one so I skipped a head a bit then a crazy person started talking about gun control IRL not ingame. I'm way too not an internet savvy person to know if this is """"""ironic""""" humour but ask me if I listened to 15 minutes of a crazy person sperg?
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Mar 4, 2014 21:37
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If you took that as "crazy person sperg" then you're probably the one with screws loose.
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Mar 4, 2014 21:39
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BurnBlackJay posted:Hello I started watching this video then realised I wasn't on the first one so I skipped a head a bit then a crazy person started talking about gun control IRL not ingame. I'm way too not an internet savvy person to know if this is """"""ironic""""" humour but ask me if I listened to 15 minutes of a crazy person sperg? This probably isn't the LP for you.
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Mar 4, 2014 21:42
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The exchange in Reyes' office with the wounded trooper is (could be?) a reference to one rumored to have taken place between Charles, Prince of Wales, and one Simon Weston, a British soldier wounded in the Falklands War: "Get well soon, soldier." / "Yes sir, I will." This exchange was used a conceptual basis for the album "Yes, Sir, I Will," the final studio album from British anarcho-syndicalist punk group, Crass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzklpejC-SY Well, a Google search only turns up references to the album, not the exchange itself, so if it's a reference at all, it's certainly to album.
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Mar 4, 2014 21:57
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I would generally agree that the problem with gun control is that what needs to be reined in are American attitudes toward guns, especially since so many people's political beliefs have become wrapped up with their religious ones. We're at a point where gun ownership is effectively an American sacrament, which I guess makes the mass shooting something like communion. Guns are seen as a good influence in and of themselves because they represent a threatened American freedom.
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Mar 4, 2014 22:05
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Gygaxian posted:Except whatever you think about Mormonism, it suffered more actual persecution than Scientology ever has.
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Mar 4, 2014 22:45
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Xander77 posted:Yeah... when you declare yourself in rebellion against your government, brazenly violate its laws and proceed to massacre its citizens and kidnap their children, some retribution may come your way (before you are essentially given control of your own private state/fief once the government grows tired of the conflict). So very very sad. Again, that happened after the persecution and I don't condone it. Why aren't you grasping the simple fact that yes, early Mormons were violently persecuted, and that even if they aren't persecuted today and they themselves committed a massacre, there is a reason for modern-day political distrust of government, based on that cultural memory? I don't condone ignoring the historical massacre and I despise the idea that modern-day Mormons try to compare their experiences of having to be nice to LGBT people to the trials that the pioneers suffered, but come on, comparing it to Scientology is just lazy. And technically they never declared themselves in rebellion (in fact Abraham Lincoln essentially said a year after the Utah War "I will not interfere with the Mormons if they do not interfere with me"), it was the whiny territorial judges and officials who claimed that the Mormons were openly rebelling. And apart from the one massacre (which again, I don't condone) they didn't fight the Feds, they just burned their own crops and fled until there was a truce. The massacre wasn't even known by the Feds until the whole "war" was over and done with. I'm not trying to be an apologist, I'm just trying to provide context and my thoughts on Bobbin's explanation of Mormon survivalist compounds and the John Birch Society.
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Mar 4, 2014 23:15
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Xander77 posted:Yeah... when you declare yourself in rebellion against your government, brazenly violate its laws and proceed to massacre its citizens and kidnap their children, some retribution may come your way (before you are essentially given control of your own private state/fief once the government grows tired of the conflict). So very very sad. Hey, here's an idea; how about you stop being an rear end in a top hat? This isn't really even the right subforum for you to start soapboxing anyway.
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Mar 4, 2014 23:34
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I'd honestly just like to enjoy the conspiracy corner stuff and the videos, I was just trying to provide some interesting cultural context for the videos, and why Utah probably would've gone along with the NSF rebellion. Apologies to Bobbin Threadbare if I went out of line.
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Mar 5, 2014 00:22
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Keeshhound posted:Hey, here's an idea; how about you stop being an rear end in a top hat? This isn't really even the right subforum for you to start soapboxing anyway. Don't feed the trolls, dude. They're just looking for knee-jerk reactions.  I was actually really flabbergasted when I found out that the Mormon church is officially racist and homophobic until more recently, I grew up Mormon but fell out of the religion around age 15 when I began to view it was 'cliquey' and not really my thing. Years later I was doing research and found out they're really hateful and not the kind, loving people I grew up around. I guess that explains why everyone at church was white as the driven snow. 
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Mar 5, 2014 00:26
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Crigit posted:In the video you wondered how Manderley knew about you talking to the journalist. Wouldn't the infolink account for that? JC is constantly streaming telemetry back to hq. Beyond what's been said already, it'll be proven later that Alex is pretty cool about covering JC's rear end by wiping the records of his indiscretions. Xander77 posted:Yeah... when you declare yourself in rebellion against your government, brazenly violate its laws and proceed to massacre its citizens and kidnap their children, some retribution may come your way (before you are essentially given control of your own private state/fief once the government grows tired of the conflict). So very very sad. I think the trouble here is that you aren't quite grasping the timeline of events. It all started out when Joseph Smith claimed he was divinely inspired to write an additional book for the bible which was essentially Jesus Christ 3: Adventures in the New World. At the time when he wrote it, he was living in upstate New York with his family. As he reached out to convert followers, the communities that hosted him responded by ostracizing the Mormons, exiling them, chasing them out at gunpoint, and yes, even attempting to wipe out the lot of them. Smith himself was killed by a lynch mob when he didn't clear out of Illinois fast enough. Now let me be quite clear here and say that the most disputed practice, polygyny, was not openly practiced until after the Mormons settled in Utah (which was not United States territory at the time of their settlement). The men who began this open practice backdated it to the very beginnings of the sect, but if that's the case it was kept so carefully secret that only the church leaders themselves practiced it and anyone who was caught in a polygamous relationship was punished, same as any other community in America. Up until they left the United States entirely, the only reason for Mormon persecution--the only reason they were kicked out and hunted down--was the fact that they maintained and converted others to a Christian belief system so out there that even the Protestant sects considered them heretical. Admittedly, Smith was heavy-handed when it came to his own followers, but there was never any sustained anti-government beliefs or actions until after the Mormons were chased out of the United States entirely. So all that stuff you said did happen, but it all came after they moved to Utah, after plenty of terrible things happened to Mormons first. Also, control over their own private state was relinquished as part of the settlement after the Utah War, and the church was basically forced to conform to the laws of the United States once Utah became settled enough that the non-Mormons were agitating for statehood.
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Mar 5, 2014 00:39
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Did you know that Switzerland has the 4th highest gun ownership rate in the world (up to 2nd, if you look at min/max estimates)? Somalia, which Bobbin mentioned in video, ranks in at 66. Source Bobbin, you have a nice speaking voice and could definitely do voiceover for a documentary or something. Thank you for putting so much effort into your projects. It's interesting to hear about the quirks of Deus Ex both in the videos and the thread, so I hope we get to see more of that in the future!
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Mar 5, 2014 01:06
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Gygaxian posted:Again, that happened after the persecution and I don't condone it. Why aren't you grasping the simple fact that yes, early Mormons were violently persecuted, and that even if they aren't persecuted today and they themselves committed a massacre, there is a reason for modern-day political distrust of government, based on that cultural memory? To be fair that's true of most religions. Hell the entire foundation of the US is people fleeing persecution (religious or otherwise) and then proceeding to persecute others themselves. None of the US religions have any leg to stand on when it comes to persecution and past transgressions. They've all suffered it and handed it out to others. It's pure hypocrisy to single out any particular event to justify present day persecution-complexes.
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Mar 5, 2014 01:45
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DatonKallandor posted:To be fair that's true of most religions. Hell the entire foundation of the US is people fleeing persecution (religious or otherwise) and then proceeding to persecute others themselves. None of the US religions have any leg to stand on when it comes to persecution and past transgressions. They've all suffered it and handed it out to others. It's pure hypocrisy to single out any particular event to justify present day persecution-complexes. Well, that's my point; I'm not justifying the modern-day Mormon persecution complex (which is strong enough to make me feel emotionally defensive when I feel my religion is criticized, despite the fact that I intellectually know we aren't persecuted nowadays), I'm just giving it context. Yes, Mormons persecute now, but part of their persecutions towards others are because they have a complex from their spiritual ancestors being persecuted almost two centuries ago. Doesn't justify it, but explains it. Bobbin explained it better than I did, but basically my original post was explaining the connection and context between the John Birch Society and modern Mormonism (and it's conservative nature) since Bobbin mentioned both in his Conspiracy Corner, and explaining why Utah would go along with the NSF in this universe.
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Mar 5, 2014 02:50
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DatonKallandor posted:To be fair that's true of most religions. Hell the entire foundation of the US is people fleeing persecution (religious or otherwise) and then proceeding to persecute others themselves. None of the US religions have any leg to stand on when it comes to persecution and past transgressions. They've all suffered it and handed it out to others. It's pure hypocrisy to single out any particular event to justify present day persecution-complexes. No one has a leg to stand on. People from all religions, races, and creeds have been pretty loving awful to their fellow man at one time or another. Can we get somebody to start a movement based on the guiding principle of My Ancestors Were Assholes, But That Doesn't Mean I Have To Be One? On the topic of guns, violence, and gun-violence; the problem isn't the tool, the problem is the Tool using it. Which goes back to my earlier point. The guy who is okay with walking into a school and shooting up four year-olds is also going to be perfectly fine with blowing them up, stabbing them, or beating them to death with a baseball bat. A gun is just better at it. TL,DR: Humans are terrible, we're going to keep doing horrific poo poo to each other until we learn to knock it off, and trying to force people to be "better" is just going to make it worse. All solutions are equally terrible.
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Mar 5, 2014 02:58
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:Beyond what's been said already, it'll be proven later that Alex is pretty cool about covering JC's rear end by wiping the records of his indiscretions. His reaction to JC murdering Anna Navarre early on is one of my favourite things in any game. As is everything in this anti-walkthrough, but that would make for a very different LP.
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Mar 5, 2014 03:39
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Just piping in to say this is a fantastic LP, and I love your style of doing a short related feature at the end (it works well, although not as well as with Brutal Legend).
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Mar 5, 2014 04:00
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Has anyone ever figured out who SweetCharity is or what that email is supposed to mean? Is it a reference to Maggie Chow? (Provided she was telling the truth about "knowing Paul intimately.") Or just a loose plot thread/easter egg of sorts? Anyway, have a fun set of screenshots from The Fall. Looks like Gunther's always been a bad typist!
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Mar 5, 2014 05:38
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CatsPajamas posted:Did you know that Switzerland has the 4th highest gun ownership rate in the world (up to 2nd, if you look at min/max estimates)? Somalia, which Bobbin mentioned in video, ranks in at 66. Source It is worth noting that Switzerland has mandatory military service. And I'm pretty sure they have a law that requires all citizens to keep a gun in the house in case of invasion. Livewire42 fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Mar 5, 2014 |
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Mar 5, 2014 05:56
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