Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
No bio...
User ID: 297
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
11hr ago
But I cannot spare this man. He fights.
Fights for what? His own ego? I see what appears to me to be a lot of denial from right-wingers. From the evangelical Christians who convince themselves that Trump is sincere talking about how the Bible is his favorite book to the nationalists who think he's actually going to make America great again (remember "We're going to win so much you'll get tired of winning?"), it's all nothing.
The only real reason to vote for Trump seems to be "He makes my enemies really mad." And yes, he does that. I admit it, some of the people I despise having meltdowns over Trump winning is, as I said, not enough reason for me to vote for him but enough reason for me to have a dark place in my heart that chortles a little at the thought.
But to the degree he has any policies that appeal to me, I see no concrete plans or any reason to believe he can actually accomplish those things.
The things he said during the debate with Biden about curing cancer, restarting the space program, making our enemies respect us, and stopping illegal immigration sure sounded nice! Unfortunately, I believe he can do any of those things about as much as I believe that he reads the Bible every night.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
Ah, sorry, I mostly play cardboard. But boardgamearena and Vassal do give you computer options if you want human opponents.
I've been told World of Warships is very good, though I haven't tried it.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
All you young'uns talking about gaming in the 90s like those were Ye Olden Days making me feel so old...
Look, I see your side and @ArjinFerman's a little. I think the anti-woke types do underestimate how shitty things could be in the 80s and 90s. I remember taking a couple of female friends to a con (yes, female gamers existed back then!) and first thing we were treated to was a table of young men loudly talking about using mind control to make the princess give them all blow jobs... They thought this was hilarious. Yes, that's a real incident, not something I made up /r/thathappened-style, and I saw a lot of that sort of thing. The looks on my friends' faces were what you'd expect.
Today, if you pulled that at a con, you'd probably get kicked out, and I think that's a good thing. Keep your juvenile cringe sex fantasies out of public spaces.
That said - you are also overstating how "bad" things were "back then." Most gamers, even straight white male gamers, were liberal and/or accepting, off-color blowjob jokes notwithstanding. Things weren't "fine," maybe, but people were not actively trying to keep girls and POC out of gaming (quite the opposite!). You are also understating how bad things have become for those of us who used to be on the liberal and tolerant side since.
And this whole argument that "straight white guys can talk calmly about politics and tolerate people with different views because it doesn't actually threaten them" just infuriates me. Like yes, politics is serious. But stop catastrophizing every damn political difference as an existential threat. That's how we got to where anything less than 100% validation of trans people is "wanting a trans genocide," and people who have qualms about abortion - any qualms! - "want to take away women's bodily autonomy."
I am unironically reminded of this reddit post I just read today. (tldr a woman who's been in a "mixed political marriage" for years is now contemplating divorcing her very good husband who is a good father to their children because he will probably vote for Trump). Now even granting that the post itself is very likely made-up ragebait, it's not the first time I've seen sentiments like that, and if you read the comments, well, the vast majority are basically affirming her decision to divorce her loving husband and become a struggling single mother with a special needs child because her husband "is literally aiding fascism and doesn't consider her or her daughters human."
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
Eh, I'll give you the boobs+butt torso twist being a very comic book pose, and the other chick is showing a lot of cleavage, but I maintain that standing next to a half-naked roided axeman, you've basically got highly unrealistic power fantasy body types.
I can't find the other one she complained about, but it was a different game where they clearly tried to "do better" with a female archer on the cover in a more realistic archer pose, but Hargrave still found her objectionable because her butt was too round and she was pretty.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
Huge range. What kind of games do you like? Quick 1-2 hour games, or monster campaigns? Napoleonic, World War II, space?
The Command and Colors system is a pretty good entry level system.
My personal preference is World War II, though I also like ancients and sci-fi; not so much Napoleonic or Civil War (which are also hugely popular genres). Some old favorites are the Avalon Hill classics like PanzerBlitz and Starship Troopers. For the truly dedicated there is Starfleet Battles and Advanced Squad Leader, but those are basically lifestyle games.
Axis & Allies has many, many versions from mini-games to long campaigns with online versions.
GMT has a very wide range, and Space Empires 4x is a very approachable alternative to SFB (and you can play it on BoardGameArena).
One of my favorites is Empire of the Sun. The full campaign game is a long slog (12+ hours if you are playing face to face), but there are several minigames that are much easier to play.
Most heavy wargames have Vassal modules so they're easy to play online and/or asynchronously.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
I personally think Wingspan is an over-complicated and half-baked game that is highly overrated precisely because it's designed by a woman who's a loud feminist in the game designer space.
However, Elizabeth Hargrave also has gone on repeated crusades against Gamelyn Games (publishers of the Tiny Epic series) because of their "objectification of women." I.e., women are too pretty. Now normally when I see these sorts of complaints, I expect to see chainmail bikinis or women in obvious sexual poses - you know, stuff that is clearly for the "male gaze" and whether or not you think that's a bad thing, you can't deny that that's what it is. But all the examples Hargrave has ever complained about were pictures where the men were also beefcakey, and the women were not obviously "sexualized," just... you know, a little too pretty, a little too hot.
I struggle to suppress uncharitable thoughts about women who resent the existence of more attractive women and reminders that men indeed find such women attractive.
Hargrave has of course also gone on rants about "underrepresentation of women" in game design (i.e., not winning enough awards), which almost got Ryan Dancy, the CEO of Alderac cooked when he made the mistake of trying to respond with the "pipeline" argument and dared to say something about women not taking criticism very well. (Hargrave did not take the criticism very well. Dancy duly groveled and apologized.)
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
An Elizabeth Hargrave rant wells within me.
That said, Cards Against Humanity is a terrible game that's funny once and then just becomes endless dick jokes.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
I don't think boardgames are really very different from RPGs or video games or comic books other nerd spaces. Basically, was a (primarily white and male) nerdy niche interest that slowly attracted attention from a more diverse audience (not bad in itself), but this more diverse audience perceived "white and male" as a problem that needed to be fixed. And because white male nerds tended to be liberal and more often than not were actually happy to see more girls, minorities, etc., in their hobby, they did not see the shape of things to come, in which they would be demonized and ideological conformity would be enforced.
In the 80s and 90s, gamers were mostly liberal, but everyone knew the guy who was an Alex Keaton Reaganite (granted that Alex Keaton was a liberal's cuddly and palatable version of a Republican) or a libertarian who liked to complain about age of consent laws (o..O) or the weird reT^rn Catholic or occasionally, someone with more hardcore rightist views. And they were tolerated, for better or for worse, because nerds always considered themselves inclusive, before that was a buzzword. This had some obvious failure modes (e.g., Walter Breen), but mostly people could accept the guy with "out there" views as long as he wasn't ranting every game night.
I personally remember the time one of our buddies brought a cousin from Georgia who straightforwardly told us she "didn't believe people should marry someone of another color." All of us liberals kind of looked at her with aghast expressions, but afterwards just shrugged to ourselves and agreed "Well, that's how she was raised."
To think that someone could say that in a gaming space today and not immediately be ejected (and probably dragged online) is to laugh.
Tangentially, I have seen the same phenomenon in the Unitarian Universalist Church (in which I was briefly interested). It's primary a nerdy white liberal social group that (when I was around) was constantly engaged in hand-wringing about how white it was. Blocked and Reported did an episode covering the results.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
We had already fought a war with Iraq in the 90s. When we invaded the second time, it was mostly about Iraq invading Kuwait, and claims about chemical weapons. Yeah, there was some talk also that Saddam sponsored terrorism, but the administration never tried to link him directly to 9/11 (though you probably did hear a lot of uninformed people making the connection at the time).
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
Ugh. /r/boardgames (and boardgamegeek, the largest dedicated hobby site for boardgaming), and the boardgaming hobby in general, are emblematic of my growing disgust with leftist politics. boardgamegeek hasn't quite gone as far as RPGnet (which famously explicitly banned any support for Trump on its discussion forums), but they have moderators who openly declare that their "political" forum is a leftist space. Anything right of AOC has to be expressed in the most tepid terms, and expect to get dogpiled with impunity, while any degree of heat in response will get you banned. Boardgamers are the fucking worst. (I can say this, I'm a boardgamer. Although I'm a dirty hex-and-counter wargamer, and only old white supremacist men play those.)
Anyway, a watermelon has been a Palestinian symbol for a while now, and I'm actually a little surprised that Matteo got this much heat for a relatively innocuous pin, especially given that Israel/Palestine remains a kind of third rail in boardgaming, as in most other liberal spaces, because of the intersection of leftist Palestine supporters and Jewish gamers. It suppose it is because the award is German and Germans are extra-sensitive to anti-semitism complaints.
I am willing to extend someone enough charity to accept that "Pro-Palestine" does not necessarily mean "Anti-Israel" (in the sense of "wants Israel destroyed'), let alone "anti-Semitic." Pro-Palestine right now is basically the BLM movement of 23-24. A lot of leftists' support really doesn't go any deeper than "Israelis are bombing children, this is very sad." That said, you often don't have to peel back a pro-Palestine activist's views very deeply to find a seething hatred of Israel, and possibly of Jews.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
I find "How far could she have thrown the pot?" questions kind of irrelevant. This is exactly the sort of thing we see after incidents like this where everyone suddenly becomes an expert on guns, knives, sprinting speeds, or the ability of old ladies to throw pots of hot water and how much damage hot water can do. It's all useless because there are too many variables and no one is actually making those calculations in the moment.
Like, let's stipulate that in theory she was physically capable of throwing the pot far enough to splash the cops. Still not buying that this was justification for them to react the way she did.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
We invaded Afghanistan because they were sheltering Osama Bin Laden. We invaded Iraq as a result of a whole chain of events that didn't even start with 9/11. You can call the reasons bad and I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but it's not true that we just arbitrarily decided to attack a country because of one "unrelated" terrorist attack. That's like saying we went to war with Japan because a couple of ships got sunk. (And in fact Pearl Harbor was really only the proximate cause of a war that had been inevitable for a number of years.)
World War I might have been triggered by a single assassination, but it was basically a couple of countries who'd been waiting for an excuse to go to war, and then a bunch of other countries dragged in by a complicated web of treaties.
It really isn't comparable to claiming that North Korea up and decided to invade South Korea because a North Korean expat attempted an assassination.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
Also, FWIW, I used to work for the NSA red team running these types of operations. I have a pretty good sense of what types of training contribute to hacking capabilities and can ensure that the academic exchanges stay far away from that material.
I'm fascinated (not being sarcastic) by your journey from NSA employee to working for North Korea. I would really like to know what motivated such a journey.
I also must admit I have a lot of skepticism about the value of helping North Korea. The DPRK is one of the few countries left in the world I would unambiguously call "bad" and while I understand the argument that "We should try to entice them into joining the international community and normalizing," I just... really don't think that will work with the existing regime.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1d ago
Yeah, dude, I know how voting works. It's not just my personal disdain for Trump (though there is plenty of that), it's that I saw no evidence that he's actually good at much and a lot of stuff he'll do is bad. I'm not primarily a culture war voter, so while I guess it might be amusing to see him fire Rachel Levine (I don't think he will, actually), I don't think he's going to retUrn us to some pre-trans, pre-DEI golden age.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
2d ago
In my bubble, all my Democrat friends went from fear and loathing and despair to a sudden surge of optimism. Now they think they can win again and they are all-in on Kamala, as if they've always loved her.
Me? I despise Trump. I think he was a bad president before and will be a bad president again. I cannot bring myself to vote for him.
I also cannot bring myself to vote for Kamala, and I might just not vote for the first time. Democrats actually think it's cute for the Harras campaign to be embracing the "Kamala is brat" meme? No, it is not cute. It's infantilizing and embarrassing. Harris is an unaccomplished nobody, but I don't really hold that against her, nor her alleged trading of sexual favors during her climb to power. Historically, most vice presidents have been also-rans picked for whatever advantage they are believed to offer during the campaign and for being relatively unobjectionable compromise options in the event that they become an "accidental president." Harris was picked for her demographic attributes and because people didn't really have strong feelings about her otherwise. What I hold against her is being an intellectual lightweight with a cringey demeanor. But more than that, what I hold against her.... is her followers.
I fucking despise the hivemind that has taken over almost all the social media spaces and groups I am in. "Trump is Hitler, if he becomes president it will be The End of All Things" (even though he was, and it wasn't), and there is just... no discussion. No debate. No disagreement. Just such smug self-righteousness.
I can't say I will be happy if Trump wins, and it's remotely possible Harris could convince me to vote for her in the next few months. (For Trump to convince me to vote for him, he'd pretty much have to stop being Trump.) But if Trump does win, I'm gonna buy me a big bowl of popcorn and enjoy me some schadenfreude.
I know these are not noble sentiments or sober political thinking. But damned if I won't enjoy watching some epic meltdowns.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
3d ago
Initially I only watched the first bodycam, and was trying to figure out how this could be anything other than an unambiguously bad shoot.
After seeing the second body cam, with the angle showing her tossing the pot, I still think it's a bad shoot, but maybe not quite so unambiguously.
My timeline:
She takes the pot off the stove and starts pouring the hot water into the sink. She and the cop are talking and sound like they are still laughing and joking. He says something about not wanting to be near hot water (but it appears that he backed away just as a default precaution, not because he really thought at this point that she was going to make a threatening move), and she says (twice) "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus."
This is clearly the moment when it starts to go south. I am not sure what she meant by that - her tone remains casual, and it sounds to me like she's joking. But it's a strange joke. I am familiar with evangelicals (and black evangelicals) and that's not usually the sort of thing they say "jokingly." The cop was clearly freaked out by it. Still not justification for drawing a gun on her, but I can see how his evaluation of this woman might have gone in a split second from "Old, dotty, and annoying" to "Possibly a dangerous nut who might throw hot water."
His words, though, were "You better fucking not," and then "I'll shoot you in the fucking face." She hasn't actually threatened him yet (other than talking about "rebuking him in the name of Jesus"). I don't think anyone would disagree that that's not how police should be trying to deescalate a situation even with an old dotty woman who might be crazy enough to throw hot water.
She continues to stand there. She seems confused. He draws his gun and points it at her. She immediately cringes and says "Okay, I'm sorry." She's obviously terrified at this point. She's still holding the hot water. He says "Drop the fucking pot!" She goes down on the floor.
She looks terrified and confused to me. She probably doesn't drop the water because, you know, she'd be dropping hot scalding water on her feet. Looks to me like she's holding the pot because she was afraid to set it down (while a gun is pointed at her) and she's afraid to drop it (because she'll burn herself).
They start going around the counter, and here is where the second body cam shows her throwing the pot. At this point the first cop shoots her.
There is one version here, where she crouched and prepared to launch the pot at the cops because she's deranged and thinks they're demons or something.
There is another where she crouched, terrified, as a cop pointed a gun at her and cursed her out, and when they came after her with their guns still pointed, she decided tossing the pot away from her was her best option.
Personally, I think the second version is more likely. She's clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed, and now she's probably terrified and panicked. "I can't drop the pot because I will burn myself, but if I don't drop the pot he will shoot me, therefore I will throw the pot away" seems like a reasonable thing to be going through her mind (if, tragically, a very bad choice, especially since she threw it in the direction of the cops).
But to be honest, even if it turns out (from more footage or some other evidence) that she was deliberately throwing the pot at the cops, it was still a bad shoot. From the moment she's standing there holding a pot of water, they had a bunch of other options that didn't end in shooting her or getting hot water thrown at them.
It would be very hard to convince me that cop shouldn't be charged with murder.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
3d ago
I'll take the upvotes as a sign that I made that point in a rhetorically effective way that induced the intended response in most readers.
Upvotes for wall-of-text polemics about how much you hate your enemies are usually just a sign that you got a lot of seals to clap for you. There are quite a few people who regularly nominate the most toxic rants for AAQCs, and people who write very calm and well-reasoned arguments for a very unpopular (usually leftist) viewpoint often get heavily downvoted.
This place isn't as bad as reddit, and sometimes upvotes and downvotes do reflect the quality of a post. But no one should delude themselves that the average Motter isn't prone to using upvotes/downvotes as "Fuck yeah!"" or "Fuck you!" buttons.
Cocksucking whore becomes nominee
This whole post is an example of unfiltered culture warring where you just see how much shit you can throw at the wall. You've been told (and told and told and told) to stop posting like this. Last time you were told you were cruising for a permaban.
You have, by my count, 8 warnings and 6 tempbans, with notes saying "Escalate if he doesn't improve." You have zero AAQCs, and to my recollection, you have never posted anything interesting or of value. You collected nine reports on this post. I have no confidence you are willing or capable of improving.
I'm just going to make this a permaban, unless the other mods are feeling merciful and want to give you another chance.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
4d ago
The way you phrase your non-question "Are there any theories why-?" looks an awful lot like certain previous alts who like to Just Ask Questions about Jews, Chinese, Blacks, etc. Haven't seen Indians become a particular focus for this "line of inquiry" before, but if you genuinely want to start a thread discussing the role and success of Indians in the West, you chose about the shadiest way to do it.
You are allowed to trot out your racial theories, your conspiracy theories, your grievances with Group X, here. But we strongly discourage Dark Hinting and shady speculation. If you have a cultural or HBD argument to make, make it. If you just want to say "How weird that there are so many Indians in top positions, what could it mean?" well, it is not believable that you have just happened to Notice this phenomenon and are innocently asking if anyone else has any theories.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
4d ago
There's a way to make this argument as a legitimate (if debatable) talking point, and then there's culture warring as you gleefully sneer at a hated political enemy. This is way too much of the latter.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
5d ago
My mistake - I misread your above post and thought you wrote "illegal" and not "illegitimate."
That said, "legitimacy" is perhaps a concern for Democrats, but legitimacy in the eyes of people who want them lose anyway is probably not.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
5d ago
We had this discussion a few weeks back. Legally, political parties can use whatever process they like (that isn't illegal in itself) to select candidates. Including picking names out of a hat. Literal bribery and certain forms of influence are probably illegal , and in practice they try to do what makes them look "democratic" (and avoid pissing off the party faithful), but I fail to see what law you think the Democrats are breaking. Are they "hypocrites" for not being more "democratic"? I guess, maybe - see if that sticks. But it probably won't, because Democrats will see it as the concern-trolling it is.
And you aren't even clearly articulating how you think this "anti-democratic" decision came about. The actual problem for the Democrats was that there is no mechanism under the party's own rules for them to replace a candidate after he's been selected, even if the entire party leadership wanted to. That, you are correct, they couldn't have done without probably breaking some laws (or at least triggering lawsuits that would have sunk the party).
But the candidate can choose to withdraw. There could even be a good reason. Maybe Biden really does know his health won't last and he can't handle another election campaign - supposing for a moment he really believes this and is mentally competent to make that decision, would you claim he doesn't have a right to make it and that it's "undemocratic" for him to step down?
Now supposing it wasn't entirely his own choice - putting political pressure on Biden to "voluntarily" withdraw is also not against the rules. Does it strike you as sleazy and anti-democratic, reminiscent of smoke-filled back rooms? Maybe it is! Some Democrats might feel that way too. Still not illegal, and I suspect Democrats will generally prefer a chance at winning over your notion of what they aught.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
5d ago
changing horses mid stream simply because you think you’ll lose is unprecedented and therefore presumptively illegitimate unless there is a good argument
That's not how laws work.
What law do you think is being broken here?
Given that you seem to think highly of your own writing ability, I am really tempted to give you some writing advice, but that's not my role here and I doubt you'd appreciate it. That said:
@OliveTapenade seemed quite willing to wade into this petty back and forth with you, but you still have been warned before about being unnecessarily belligerent and engaging in namecalling, and you picked up a few reports, and this post in particular, while trying to hide some of the insults in a wall of text, is definitely full of them.
So let me be perfectly directly: stop doing this or you're going to get banned. If you think this warning is unfair, don't complain to me, I don't care. Ping any of the other mods (or send a modmail) and explain to them why you think my modding is capricious and unreasonable, and if they agree, they will remove the warning and "Ban next time" note I have attached to your log.
And in anticipation to your first objection, no, I am not going to mod @OliveTapenade. I do not judge his comments to be in violation of any rules. If you disagree, ping any of the other mods (or send a modmail) and explain to them why you think my modding is capricious and unreasonable, and if they agree, they will issue a warning to @OliveTapenade.
If you choose to take this opportunity to lash out at me, as you have in the past, be aware that while we usually cut slack to people angry at being modded, you are very low on slack right now.
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