DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:

is there a way to hellban people irl, I’m going nuts with people (who aren’t otherwise involved) asking facially legitimate questions in bad faith in public to try to harass them and score bullshit points. it’s turning people off

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Ban everyone over the age of 30.

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Ban everyone under the age of 30.

lollontee posted:

kill everyone over the of 30

Wheeee posted:

i find myself torn on the hating of olds

on the one hand, everyone under the age of 25 is literally a child whose brain isn't fully developed and the cognitive decline that everyone thinks comes with age largely doesn't actually exist outside of people with a medical problem while some aspects of intelligence actually continue developing through adulthood

on the other hand, motherfuckin boomers

Getright downlo posted:

Dreddout posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9x-b8V-PSE

Baloogan posted:

“This is too modest for one serving as imperial prime minister. I’m not suggesting extravagance, but don’t you think something that would display your authority a little more is in order?”

Such comments were naturally heard in Reinhard’s circles, but a faint, indifferent smile was the only answer he ever gave.

Poverty of desire when it came to material goods was one point where Reinhard and Yang Wen-li’s natures intersected. Though his soul hungered after glory and earthly power, these things didn’t take tangible form. Power, of course, promised material fulfillment. If he had wanted to, Reinhard could have lived in a marble palace, had beautiful women in every room, and owned gold and precious jewels piled as high as his waist, but doing so would have only made him an unseemly caricature of Rudolf the Great. Rudolf had been a man with an irresistible compulsion for manifesting his vast, incomparable power as material riches. In addition to Neue Sans Souci Palace, the pinnacle of his magnificence, he had kept wide manor houses and hunting grounds, countless chamberlains and ladies-in-waiting, paintings, sculptures, precious metals, gemstones, a private orchestra, personal guards, extravagant passenger ships for touring the empire, portrait artists, wineries …; Rudolf had monopolized the best of everything. Aristocrats had crowded in around him, holding up before their delighted faces whatever baubles his large hands threw their way. In a sense, they had known their place quite well, living in subjection to a giant— the first to make himself despot of all humanity— in a manner more like slaves than like cattle. The only reason they hadn’t wagged their tails for Rudolf had been that they’d lacked them. From time to time, Rudolf would bestow beautiful women from his harem on his courtiers. Because these women usually came with manor houses, titles, jewels, and more, the courtiers would accept them gladly and go to boast to the other nobles of the favor they had found in the sight of His Imperial Highness.

Reinhard, at present, lived completely divorced from such spiritual rot. There was not a soul alive who could show Reinhard to be anything other than a creative and enterprising statesman, no matter how deeply they might despise him.

“Two things are essential for getting people to trust in the system: fair courts and equally fair taxation. Just these two.” In these words, Reinhard demonstrated that he had a gift for ruling the nation as well as for waging war. Even if both of his essentials had sprung from the same well of personal ambition, he was nonetheless giving voice to exactly what the multitudes were longing for.

While Reinhard was pushing forward tax reforms and working to establish fair criminal and civil codes, he gave sprawling manors that had once belonged to the old aristocracy away to farmers free of charge and freed the serfs on those manors. The mansions of many of the nobles who had been wiped out after aligning with Duke von Braunschweig’s camp were opened to the public and became hospitals and public-welfare facilities. The aristocrats had kept their paintings, sculptures, chinaware, and precious metal craftworks all under lock and key, but now these things were appropriated by the state and placed in public museums.

“… Lovely gardens are trampled underfoot by mean fellows of low birth, thick carpets bear the stains of muddy shoes, and canopy beds where only the noble were once permitted to lie are now sullied with the drool of filthy children. Now this once-great nation has fallen into the hands of half beasts, incapable of comprehending either beauty or nobility. Ah, that this disgraceful and wretched spectacle were but a single night’s ill dream …;”

With anger and hatred dripping from the tip of his pen, one of the aristocrats had written thus in his journal after being stripped of his wealth and privilege. The nobles had refused to so much as consider the fact that the bountiful lifestyle they had enjoyed up till now had been thanks to an unjust societal system, supported by the labor and sacrifices of “mean fellows of low birth.” Nor did it occur to them that their failure to reflect on that system had undermined the ground beneath their feet and brought about their fall.

As long as his enemies were those longing only for glories past, Reinhard would have no need to fear them. The most they could possibly do was launch plots against society or terrorist attacks, and outside of the proaristocracy extremists, such tactics would find no support or backing among the people.

At present, the people were on Reinhard’s side, and they were watching the former aristocrats like hawks, eyes burning with hostility and thirst for revenge. Their former rulers had been shut up inside an invisible cage.

Reinhard’s hands of ruthless reform extended not only into the financial and legal systems, but into administrative organizations as well. At the Ministry of Domestic Affairs, the Bureau for the Maintenance of Public Order— that infamous executor of imperial policy that had long dominated the public and suppressed independent thought— was shuttered after nearly five hundred years. Bureau chief Heidrich Lang was placed under surveillance by von Oberstein, and all thought and political criminals— with the exception of terrorists and radical proponents of republican government— were released. A number of newspapers and magazines that had previously been banned were also given permission to resume publishing.

Special financial institutions that had been exclusive to the nobility were abolished and replaced with Farmer’s Safes, which provided low-interest farming loans to freed serfs. “Reinhard the Liberator!” “Reinhard the Reformer!” The praises of the citizenry swelled ever louder.

Tanaka, Yoshiki. Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Vol. 3: Endurance

rudatron posted:

logh deserves credit for its nuanced treatment of warfare and statecraft, but reinhard is the basically the biggest mary sue ever written, and it's thesis, that the issue with dictatorship is that lack of a good individual, is completely false. a bad system is always bad, no matter the virtue of the peole leading it, because power structures have a logic and agency all to themselves, and will move and react according to their internal incentive structure. persoanlity characteristics don't come into it.

Baloogan posted:

is this the tankey thread? (posting to get my ? so i can see my posts about anime)

Baloogan posted:

laissez faire of galactic heroes

Jeb! Repetition posted:

There's some merit in what you're saying but if a system of governance puts near-absolute de facto power in the hands of a single person then their personality does matter. The issue in that case is how they won't live forever and, assuming succession is hereditary because it almost always is with absolute rulers, their offspring are exponentially less likely to be as good

WhiskeyJuvenile posted:

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Top City Homo posted:

death of Stalin was not funny and bad

Plutonis posted:

Everyone: go watch the new Lupin the Third where he steals bitcoins from Silk road and has to contend with deep web assassins instead

rudatron posted:

oh btw there's a new remake of logh on crunchyroll rn and it's pretty good

but it's the #2 anime of this season

the best one so far, and there haven't been that many episodes, is megalobox

it has the feel of an old 'classic' anime like bebop - zero fanservice, good fundamentals

Baloogan posted:

id like more anime recs thanks

Baloogan posted:

id like more anime recs thanks

paul_soccer10 posted:

Planetes

Baloogan posted:

id like more anime recs thanks

Dreddout posted:

Bible Black