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Alhazred posted:It felt like Cormac McCarthy after him having a lobothomy. It was like if Palahniuk ate alphabet soup and puked and Penn read what's on the floor while smoking every cigarette in the world.
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Sep 29, 2020 17:02
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SlothfulCobra posted:I don't think you can really say who has whatever factor people find appealing about Trump because it's hard to tell if you're outside of the cult, and even if you're inside the cult, it's impossible to know whether what you like is what all the other broken brains like. Not American but have some relatives living in America and I have to say that people underestimate the damage Fox News does. Someone that was reasonable a few years back got Alzheimers. This is a white woman that dated several non whites and married another non white. She's Jewish and while I wouldn't say liberal she was far left to the typical American. Now talking to her is painful. Granted she has early onset Alzheimers but the change that came over her these past few years is bloody depressing. She went from being able to debate certain things she disagreed with to converting to Christianity and freaks out anytime you say anything against Fox news. You try to bring up literal facts and footage and she will literally plug her fingers in her ears and calls you a filthy Commie heathen. We are talking multiple people just having semi light conversations about medicine, health and education. She goes from nodding about the sun to screaming about Jesus says gently caress the poor. She spends all day watching Fox News and now says things like "those types of people" and "if they would just obey the law" and much much more. I wish I could just say that this isn't my fight and I should just leave it be but I feel guilty. They are programming an already unstable woman who will vote for a literal fascist tyrant who I am worried is dangerous for the rest of us sharing this planet. I see news on what is going on and I hear it's even worse if you walk around inside the country and see what is really going on. Trump is not even that exceptional of a tyrant... at least Benito had some panache and liked to wear tiny hats. Those statues with his giant face were kinda awesome. Hell, give me Genghis Khan over this Trump douchenozzle. But the people that love him will follow him no matter what he does. I'm not sure Hitler had this much total sway over his countrymen. You can't reason with or rationalise with them, they are already lost. I know it's far worse for you guys trapped inside the country but I remember hearing that joke about splitting up America to become various colonies to other countries and sometimes I wonder if it really would be THAT bad. Course I am sure the US would salt the earth before allowing that to happen but man.... I worry about the next few decades or so. It's like that crazy dude you knew as a teenager. You did some drugs together and got into trouble. People comment he's a bad kid but you are like "he's alright- just a bit daffy but fun." Then years pass and when you bump into him again and now he's wearing the skin of children and brandishing explosives. Not so much fun at this point. You think maybe he should be taken off the street. Sorry Americans.... you may have no choice but bloody revolution. Makes you feel any better, being quiet and staying in your homes won't save you much longer than revolt. Bloody depressing DogsInSpace! fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Sep 29, 2020 |
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Sep 29, 2020 22:30
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I appreciate how Jon has accepted that the situation we are in is part of a generational battle that we've lost rather than something that just happened in 2016 due to Jill Stein voters.
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Sep 29, 2020 22:55
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From a lot of things I heard, apparently a lot of the battle was lost back in the 90s with the death of the New Deal democrats. I went into the episode having heard people say how dire it was, but what's surprising is how this doesn't seem to really change anything to me. The courts were already massively broken. It was already evident that the administration had riddled the government with scum who basically need to be purged in order to get rid of the kleptocrats or the people who are working in direct opposition to the entire purpose of their department. I already knew that there's a lot of work to do in the government, to restore rights, to restore functionality, restore taxes, restore anti-monopolization laws, restore labor, in addition to improving things to be better than they've ever been before like finally addressing healthcare, student debt, police brutality, and climate change. There's a lot of work to be done, Biden's already said that he doesn't want to do a lot of it, but there's preparations to be made for 2024, there's preparations for midterms in 2022, and there's progressives running for congress right now this year that can shift the balance. And I've also already said that if Trump wins this year, that's the death of democracy in this country. If he wins, there's no America. There's nothing left of the country I was raised to believe exists. And that's not just if he gets more votes or more electoral votes, that's if he is allowed to pull off whatever scheme that's already been drawn up to deny the result of the election, that's if he's allowed to commit high treason again by interfering with the election. And just as he has tools outside of the democratic electoral system to deny whatever happens, there are tools that the people have outside of the official channels to respond. There will be protests to dwarf the current BLM protests, and it's impossible to say what will happen at that scale. It will be like nothing seen before. The Republicans can also summon protests if they tactically think it will help them, and they're more heavily armed, and if that happens, it's definitely going to be a civil war. I don't know how to prepare for any of that. But while there's all these worst cases, there's also best cases, and it's worth remembering that the Republicans are made of goop, not iron, and they can just as easily fall apart under extreme pressure as make a play to destroy democracy. Who knows.
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Sep 30, 2020 03:32
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This article did the rounds a couple of days ago which kind of goes in a similar vein: https://gen.medium.com/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-there-ba1e4b54c5fc Basically a guy saying that people waiting for a Handmaid's Tale dystopia before agreeing that society is broken are way offbase - that societal collapse and civil war are just way more mundane and everyday than people expect. His lived experience of 1990s Colombo was everyday life like shopping and going to school, punctuated with the occasional shooting and nearby suicide bombing or airstrike. As an outsider, I also think it's kind of astonishing that there seems so little interest in fixing the enormous flaws in the whole system. Not just stuff like the filibuster or the electoral college, but even going further to things like winner-takes-all elections. Having elections for an insane number of positions (like local judges and sherriffs). Leaving so many important functions in partisan hands (eg redistricting). Even the whole concept of Cabinet posts being totally unelected and largely unaccountable.
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Sep 30, 2020 05:48
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We'd also have to abolish the Senate (or render it so powerless it'd end up a ceremonial body) which is all but impossible.
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Sep 30, 2020 20:06
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webmeister posted:As an outsider, I also think it's kind of astonishing that there seems so little interest in fixing the enormous flaws in the whole system. Not just stuff like the filibuster or the electoral college, but even going further to things like winner-takes-all elections. Having elections for an insane number of positions (like local judges and sherriffs). Leaving so many important functions in partisan hands (eg redistricting). Even the whole concept of Cabinet posts being totally unelected and largely unaccountable. the people capable of making these changes are directly and uniquely benefiting from the status quo
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Sep 30, 2020 20:16
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webmeister posted:This article did the rounds a couple of days ago which kind of goes in a similar vein: https://gen.medium.com/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-there-ba1e4b54c5fc As good as that article is I was gut punched by another one just posted https://medium.com/@KeithDB/so-who-are-the-proud-boys-9571af869c62 Guy mentions Trump should speak against right wing militia and white supremacist groups not mentioning any by name. Trump comes back telling the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by. He knew them by name. Then talks about the rabid left America has to fight. Same article also has another Herr Trump video with some guy asking about a peaceful transfer of power. Trump says we will see since there is corruption of ballots. It is mind boggling how people refuse to see this. How are more people not upset? Why isn't this on every news channel with fellow politicians just forcing the guy out? I mean talking like this has got to be criminal right? I mean if I went over, invaded the country and claimed Emperor for Life then there would be people taking my head off like within a day even if I conned the secret service into sticking around. This chaos can't be that beneficial to the economy.
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Sep 30, 2020 20:21
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Technically the flipside to a lot of this doom and gloom is that just like how it's possible right now for democracy to die, it should theoretically be possible to harness the unprecedented amount of unrest to build the groundwork for new massive reform. The constitution does have weird workarounds for that, but it takes a longer while to use those. If everything breaks down though, then some ad-hoc reform could be implemented much faster by whatever opposition coalesces.
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Sep 30, 2020 20:43
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SlothfulCobra posted:Technically the flipside to a lot of this doom and gloom is that just like how it's possible right now for democracy to die, it should theoretically be possible to harness the unprecedented amount of unrest to build the groundwork for new massive reform. Heh.... I think if a new society is founded the first law should be no white people over 35-40 allowed to vote for the duration of their lifetimes. They had their shot and FAILED. Didn't they do this to the former confederates after they surrendered? Oh wait they all became Washington politicians and pretty much ran America from then on. I don't know how John Oliver even attempts to be funny as this stuff makes me emo. I know somewhere some American was like "take us back England" and some British person said "NO!" Can't remember who it was but it feels like a thousand years ago. Stupid hell world.
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Sep 30, 2020 22:40
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Groovelord Neato posted:We'd also have to abolish the Senate (or render it so powerless it'd end up a ceremonial body) which is all but impossible. And implement ranked choice voting. And a more participatory democracy model. And abolish the Supreme Court as we know it.
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Sep 30, 2020 23:07
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DogsInSpace! posted:As good as that article is I was gut punched by another one just posted Oh man...wait until you hear about the Romans and what entirely self-interested politicians can really do!
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Oct 1, 2020 02:06
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DogsInSpace! posted:He knew them by name. He didn't. Joe Biden said the name.
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Oct 1, 2020 15:08
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Groovelord Neato posted:He didn't. Joe Biden said the name. I apologize. I swear I didn't catch that in the clip. Was it in another? Sorry if I misrepresented. Darn editors. Not the first time I've seen that.
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Oct 1, 2020 22:46
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DogsInSpace! posted:I apologize. I swear I didn't catch that in the clip. Was it in another? Sorry if I misrepresented. Darn editors. Not the first time I've seen that. He wanted them to name a white supremacist group and Biden said Proud Boys twice.
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Oct 2, 2020 00:43
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Because he likes the proud boys?
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Oct 2, 2020 00:52
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He denied knowing who they were the next day and then told them to stand back and stand by again LOL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEdD98QGCJU
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Oct 2, 2020 05:35
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Groovelord Neato posted:He wanted them to name a white supremacist group and Biden said Proud Boys twice. He should've said the GOP.
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Oct 2, 2020 07:09
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Alhazred posted:He should've said the GOP. Joe wouldn't speak ill of his buddies.
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Oct 2, 2020 15:21
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So, the thing about matching signatures; is there some way to see what your signature is supposed to look like or do you just have to guess and hope?
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Oct 5, 2020 14:01
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Tiggum posted:So, the thing about matching signatures; is there some way to see what your signature is supposed to look like or do you just have to guess and hope? I know why you're bringing this up, and I totally get it. But, take a step back, and just think about how suspicious it would be to any reasonable election official if a would-be mail-in voter came up and said, "Hey, I forgot what my signature looks like. Can I see an example of it so my ballot gets counted?"
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Oct 5, 2020 16:53
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tarlibone posted:I know why you're bringing this up, and I totally get it. But, take a step back, and just think about how suspicious it would be to any reasonable election official if a would-be mail-in voter came up and said, "Hey, I forgot what my signature looks like. Can I see an example of it so my ballot gets counted?" Well, yeah, but expecting people to remember how they signed their name some random time however long ago is also utterly insane, so... 
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Oct 5, 2020 17:01
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Like, checking whether people's signatures match is transparently an excuse to deny literally any ballot you want to. If they can do that then the whole thing is a farce and Trump is correct; voting by mail in America is subject to massive fraud and shouldn't be trusted.
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Oct 5, 2020 17:06
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Voting in America seems absolutely horrible.
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Oct 5, 2020 17:52
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Alhazred posted:
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Oct 5, 2020 20:34
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I mean, yeah.
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Oct 5, 2020 20:35
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Tiggum posted:Well, yeah, but expecting people to remember how they signed their name some random time however long ago is also utterly insane, so... Does... does your signature change? It's not really supposed to.
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Oct 5, 2020 23:29
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Remora posted:Does... does your signature change? It's not really supposed to. Did you watch last night's episode? This question stems from the part where people were talking about how they have an "pretty signature" and a "quick signature" and the two are often different. They additionally showed how people's signatures changed over time, citing famous examples.
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Oct 5, 2020 23:39
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Remora posted:Does... does your signature change? It's not really supposed to. No*. But... well, using me as an example: my signature has evolved, but the way I wrap up my last name is distinctive, and it's been mostly the same for almost 30 years. However, there is one thing (and I cant remember what it is off the top of my head) where I have to sign my full first name and middle initial. So, instead of the Terry Bohn that I've signed a billion times, I sign Terrantula S. Bohn for that one thing. And, because I am writing my full name, which is unusual, I suddenly am thinking about the mechanics of my writing, and my signature looks pretty different.
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Oct 5, 2020 23:40
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I'm behind on the show because *gestures wildly* - literally never heard of that before, but I stand corrected.
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Oct 5, 2020 23:49
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Remora posted:Does... does your signature change? It's not really supposed to. I could sign my name on a piece of paper 50 times right now and no two would probably match
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Oct 6, 2020 00:01
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I don't really like the practice of calling the election at midnight anyways. I don't like waiting in suspense for the moment to know if hope lives or dies. In 2016 on election night, I did everything I could to avoid the news until it already happened because I didn't want to stress myself out sooner than I needed to. Also I feel like people should be a lot more explicit when talking about the Trump campaign threatening a coup or treason, and much like how it's an obvious crime for a man claiming to be fabulously wealthy to barely pay a dime in taxes, it's definitely a crime to openly attempt to reject the US electoral process. Call it what it is, even though the US's shambling institutions are incapable of actually responding to the obvious crime. Use the freedom of speech while it's still there.
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Oct 6, 2020 01:28
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Remora posted:Does... does your signature change? It's not really supposed to.
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Oct 6, 2020 03:12
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Well, poo poo, okay.
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Oct 6, 2020 03:50
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Azhais posted:I could sign my name on a piece of paper 50 times right now and no two would probably match Yes this is functionally the problem with signatures as identification, it's mostly a symbolic gesture rather than rigorous security. In fact one of the ways you can identify forgeries is when the signature matches too perfectly (because the forger traced over the original rather than doing it freehand). It's the kind of thing where the intent is really that it gives you the ability to dispute documents you didn't sign (by saying "that's not my signature"), it is absolutely not meant to give other people the power to deny your identity.
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Oct 6, 2020 05:47
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So does this all mean that the dude on Pawn Stars they bring in to "authenticate" celebrity signatures and the like is basically a fraud then?
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Oct 6, 2020 06:54
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Raxivace posted:So does this all mean that the dude on Pawn Stars they bring in to "authenticate" celebrity signatures and the like is basically a fraud then? I would not trust a single person on the Discovery, History, or Learning Channel right now.
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Oct 6, 2020 07:02
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Raxivace posted:So does this all mean that the dude on Pawn Stars they bring in to "authenticate" celebrity signatures and the like is basically a fraud then? Probably, but also bear in mind that the value of these items relies entirely on the belief that the celebrity signature is authentic; whether it actually is or not doesn't really matter, it's not like the real signature has some sort of special mystical power that makes the item better. So in that sense, those authorities are doing exactly what they need to be doing, which is provide a sufficient level of trust in the authenticity of the item that it retains value.
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Oct 6, 2020 07:03
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Raxivace posted:So does this all mean that the dude on Pawn Stars they bring in to "authenticate" celebrity signatures and the like is basically a fraud then?
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Oct 6, 2020 07:37
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Remora posted:Does... does your signature change? It's not really supposed to. My mother's signature never changed and that was unusual enough that the election poll workers would point it out when she would vote. It would also make it difficult to forge for late notes to school.
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Oct 6, 2020 10:48
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