Isn’t China buying 50% of Russia’s Gas and supplying them drone parts and gunpowder which is directly being used to kill Europeans and destabilize Europe?
Oh sorry, right the US just kidnapped a singular leader this year while bombing and killing people.
Glad you pointed that out and everything just peachy with the US foreign policy of just some bombing and kidnapping and threatening to annex Greenland! Go murrica!
It is the US and its recent actions, including its rhetoric, that are driving people towards China.
Also, only reacting to US aggression after Greenland is attacked? Not prepare at all and then write a strongly worded letter after the fact?
If, after everything Trump has done, you still think he isn't serious about annexing Greenland then you and people like you, including the eurocrats, are truly hopeless.
Or to put it another way - is the binary US/China choice as top dog a false one?
I suspect most countries would prefer a multi-polar world where the majority is dominant ( democratic ), not one particular country ( autocratic ).
ie why do we have to choose to be under the heel of the US or under the heel of China?
The US has been playing the benevolent dictator role for the last 70 years, but when faced with losing the dictator role, the benevolent facade is dropping.
The US is mistaken to think that countries not wanting US dominance is the same as wanting Chinese dominance - they, in fact, want neither.
They’re pretty good as far as I know, my country didn’t receive any of those but I’ve visited countries in Africa that have received them and they’re getting really great infrastructure and knowledge sharing from them!
China picked up a 99 year lease on Hambantota Port for one Chinese firm in Sri Lanka after they defaulted to the tune of 51Bn.
Zambia defaulted during the pandemic.
Ethiopia defaulted in 2023.
Ghana suspended payments on most external debt to try and make the Chinese debt payments in 2022/2023.
Pakistan just keeps rolling those loans into other loans so it won't default.
Loas got so bad China now owns their power grid.
Suriname defaulted in 2020.
Kenya stopped paying govt workers for awhile to make their loan payments.
"Recent reports from the Lowy Institute and the World Bank indicate that 75 of the world's poorest countries face a record high of approximately $35 billion in debt repayments to China in 2025 alone."
2026 will see more countries default to be pressed into extreme measures to make the payments.
Ok, and? What does that have to do with the USA invading deposing couping 90% of countries in south america, starting wars in the middle east, and saddling all of africa with debt via the IMF and WB?
I guess it comes down to who you your government wants to be in debt to, and if you're willing to potentially starve to death so your government can pay off the loan.
It will be pretty amusing to watch all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it.
As a westerner, who believes in the rules based order, I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague.
Our leadership are war criminals, and should be treated as such.
Some, specifically, are war criminals who have committed crimes that carry the death penalty, and should be arrested, tried, and (if found guilty) executed.
> I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague
Simpler: send them to prison at home. There is no world in which the Hague can enforce its law in America without the U.S. government's consent. At that point, skip the extra step and make war crimes actually illegal.
>Which is why they have been subverted and subjugated and all their will usurped.
But America's armed populace and the stalwart vigilance of its militias are supposed to make that impossible.
Americans were more up in arms (literal and figurative) over Obamacare and Covid lockdowns than anything Trump has done, domestically or abroad. The only rational conclusion is that they're either complicit or else they simply don't care.
Americans are the most propagandized peoples on the planet. Those bullets can’t stop information, and there is a massive information war going on to keep the American people divided.
Those who could effectively field a real protest or uprising are either too busy trying to keep their credit cards from defaulting, or are living on the streets addicted to drugs. General strikes? Forget it, America doesn’t have the infrastructure in place (local food sources) to sustain such a thing…
Populations of far less affluent countries under far more oppressive regimes without a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms and a billion dollar domestic arms industry that flooded their country with more guns than people and a culture of "give me liberty or give me death" have managed it.
The right got Jan. 6th and the left got Portland, so resistance is possible on both sides. In any country that took things half as seriously as the US claims to, Washington DC would look like a war zone. But what are we doing? Twerking in front of ICE in frog costumes?
> But what are we doing? Twerking in front of ICE in frog costumes?
Once again, the people who are broadly approving of violence as a way to solve problems, and who actually have the guns, are largely supportive of what ICE is doing. Many of them are quite literally itching to pull the trigger on some libs. I've been in the middle of that crowd and seen it all close up. Those people are not the potential solution - they are a part of the problem.
Countries with oppressive regimes see revolutions if the population gets discontent enough that a strong majority wants it, or is at least willing to go along with it. That is certainly not true of US right now.
This man did not say he was going to bomb anything until after he was voted in, so the American people were - once again - completely duped by their own hubris.
A third of the American people voted for him, based on a campaign which promised a completely different economy than he has delivered (remember when people were pretending Biden had an egg-price level in the Oval Office?) and no foreign wars. It is unreasonable to look at that election and say a plurality voted for this.
Now this I would like to see, but I have serious doubts it will ever happen. I don’t think the American people have the courage to do something about their heinous, out of control government, personally. Happy to be proven wrong, because it would be a legitimate step to world peace on behalf of the American people, but I seriously doubt they are, as a population, capable of it.
I largely agree with you. Democratic leadership responded to an attempted coup by slow rolling prosecution with the hope that Trump would simply recede from public life and they'd never have to do the hard thing of trying and convicting a former president.
The Democrats have just as much blood on their hands as their Republican counterparts, and that is the problem - the only force capable of dealing with this conundrum is the American people, and they are too busy playing sides to actually confront the reality of their nations heinous war crimes record.
The entire media apparatus is owned by oligarchs: from Fox News to Twitter to Meta, now CNN... All are relaying non-stop right-wing propaganda. There can be no real democracy while information is this captive.
To be clear, war crimes are illegal here. They can carry the death penalty.
I think there's a strong case to be made for Pete Hegseth to be executed for his crimes, according to US Law.
But you're right. There's no expectation that the Hague enforce international law without the consent of the US Government. Our government should either try our leaders in our courts, or hand them in manacles and chains to the ICC and The Hague.
But I agree, I don't expect the international community to be able to do this over our objections. It's something we must do.
There are also provisions in the UCMJ that are applicable to members of the military
---
(I also had a consequential typo in my earlier post, which I've now edited. I originally wrote they "carry the death penalty", but I meant to write "they can carry the death penalty", and it depends on the specific circumstances of the war crimes committed.)
"Murder.—
The act of a person who intentionally kills, or conspires or attempts to kill, or kills whether intentionally or unintentionally in the course of committing any other offense under this subsection, one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause" [1].
Yes, if you’re curious the DoD’s own Laws of War manual uses shipwrecked survivors of an attack as “hors de combat” or out of combat.
This is very relevant to the second strike on the Venezuelan boat. I think the original strikes are also war crimes, but the second strike on the shipwrecked survivors is like… beyond all doubt a murder
>one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities
Remember when we bombed Yemen and in the Signal chat they laughed about killing a High-Value Target while he was visiting his girlfriend? Sounds like this section would apply for her.
I don’t think the US is going to be allowed to act outside the ICC for too much longer. All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again.
The US previously never faced real pressure on this, a new administration would see it as an easy win.
> don’t think the US is going to be allowed to act outside the ICC for too much longer
The U.S. is not a signatory. (Most of the world's population isn't subject to ICC jurisdiction [1].)
> All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again
Nobody is treating the ICC seriously [2].
To be clear, this sucks. But it's America joining China and Russia (and Iran and Israel and India and every other regional power who have selectively rejected the rules-based international order).
Being a signatory is not required for being subject to ICC jurisdiction, though it is one route to being subject to it, and, in any case, not being a signatory is not an immutable condition. So the upthread suggestion that “All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again” is not rebutted by observing that the US is not currently a signatory of the Rome Statute.
> But it's America joining China and Russia (and Iran and Israel and India and every other regional power who have selectively rejected the rules-based international order).
No, the US despite rhetorically appealing to it when other countries are involved, has led, not followed, in rejecting the rules-based order when it comes to its own conduct.
The "allies" would have mass riots and six-digit death tolls (shortly after an initial 3-6 month period of adjustment) without the supplies of LNG, fertiliser and payment clearing services the U.S. exports. America has the rest of the west by the balls, with maybe the exception of Australia and Japan. Nobody will even give the C-levels responsible for Grok arrest warrants for the many serious crimes their product carries out.
I hope to god the next administration actually holds the criminals in the current administration accountable. Gerry Ford set a disgusting precedent when he loudly said that those who hold the office of the President should never be be held accountable for their actions.
He believed that within the limits of the political culture of America introducing accountability would lead to a tit-for-tat cycle of imprisonments and executions by each party against the other under the cover story of accountability, with the possibility of gradual escalation towards an end state of states mobilising armored brigades against each other to siege cities and cleanse target populations. Like the Congo, or Rhodesia. His memoirs are wacky stuff.
unlikely. trump didnt held obama accountable for all sorts of crazy things that happened during his administration (bombing libya, drone striking a us citizen minor, using USAID to mount a fake vaccination campaign for DNA surveillance in pakistan e.g.). why would the next administration hold trump accountable?
The Biden administration was prosecuting Trump though. They didn’t complete the prosecutions because Trump’s strategy to avoid accountability was to be reelected and then shut down the investigations, and that worked. But the fact he was indicted by Jack Smith who very likely could have convicted him goes to show lack of accountability is not for lack of trying.
Its very much for lack of trying. They had 4 years, we got no epstein files and they slow walked prosecutions to happen during the election, thinking it would help them. It didn't work, here we are.
It’s clear you didn’t follow these cases if your opinion is the SC slow walked them to enhance Democrats’ electoral out look. They secured multiple indictments and were heading to trial, which they were likely to win. Delays were caused by Trump appointed Judge Cannon and Trump appointed SCOTUS justices.
Securing indictments and going to trial is an instance of actually trying. So you really can’t say they didn’t try, because that is factually false. It’s true they could have done more, but they didn’t do nothing as others are saying.
I'm not a lawyer, and I didn't follow every motion, you're right. Still, in my book, fast walking would have meant moving faster. Venue shop if you have to. Release/declassify documents to make the bad guys look bad. There's lots of "improper" stuff they could have done and are currently getting owned by.
I'm not a lawyer either but I did follow the cases closely. My opinion is that Merrick Garland did a disservice to the country by not appointing a SC immediately, but beyond that Jack Smith moved with lightning speed in prosecuting the cases. Moreover, Congress did make the bad guys look bad -- they held a whole summer's worth of hearings where they prosecuted the case in public, offering plenty evidence. And I encourage you also to look at how it was the Supreme Court who slow walked their decisions, which ultimately benefitted Trump in obscene ways. You can't venue shop SCOTUS.
One thing about prosecuting a former POTUS for the first time is it has to survive the test of time. You can't behave like them if you want the prosecution to be legitimate, because they are lawless. But it was the failure of voters to do their due diligence to not elect a felon who bear the ultimate blame, as they are the final check. Now we bear the consequences. But again, not for lack of trying.
It's late where I am so I don't have a well-reasoned response, just wanted to say I understand what you're saying. It sucks, given what the current admin is getting away with, but I understand it.
i would feel better about that if the biden administration also prosecuted obama. they didn't. besides trump I (nor biden) didnt do any new foreign adventures AFAICT. we had a blissful 8 years of waning US imperialism
It's unclear if most if not all of those things you were actually crimes legally (regardless of how morally and ethically reprehensive they might have been). Regardless there was an established precedent for what Obama was doing. Not so much for the crimes Trump was being accused..
Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was a 16-year-old United States citizen who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, a country with which the United States was not at war with.
Please let me know what was the established precedent for allowing extrajudicial assassination of American citizens is.
Edit add:
He was a boy who was still searching for his father when his father was killed, and who, on the night he himself was killed, was saying goodbye to the second cousin with whom he'd lived while on his search, and the friends he'd made. He was a boy among boys, then; a boy among boys eating dinner by an open fire along the side of a road when an American drone came out of the sky and fired the missiles that killed them all.
A 16-year-old American boy accused of no crimes was killed in American drone attack
pretty sure when obama murdered Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (nb: not talking about the more famous Anwar) that was unprecedented. Trump later murdered Abdulrahman's sister, but at that point, it was "precedented" by obama.
All this fuckery date from at least bush 2nd. Election mess, with heavy involvement of his brother the governor despite promises to revise, crowds attacking poll workers, war crimes, putting incompetent friends at the head of agencies (remember FEMA response to Katrina? Or the initial response to the subprime crisis?), attacks on science programs and schools, and the use of executive orders to bypass congress. Obama was so tame compared to Bush2.
Europe is not the military power that once was at the beginning of the 20th century... aging populations, economic decline, trade deficits, their former colonies are now independent, they haven't waged war in a while.
Negatively. That has always been the problem of the US, it's the reason why they cannot act like the most of the rest of the world. The military has way too much influence on decision making.
Just watch one of the sessions of the UN general assembly. There are many speeches about fixing all kinds of situations. If the best ideas were implemented we would be in a utopia with flying cars, free ponies for everyone and open bar. But we don't live in such world because if one motion somehow makes one of the countries with veto power uncomfortable, they will just veto the resolution and that's the end of it. And countries with veto power are backed by military power. That's the world we live in and it has always been like that.
And things work like this at every level in every organization. For example people in your line of reporting at work can veto any decision you make unless you are protected by law, which is an entity that can shut down your company by force.
That’s just the reality of it. The GDP of Russia and Canada is about the same but nobody cares about Canada from a geopolitical context because it has an irrelevant military.
ICC is a joke though. It can only accomplish anything if the home country of the perpetrator is cooperating. Those allies also have much politically important economic and geopolitical concerns than prosecuting war criminals (unfortunately only small minorities in western countries care about things like that at all)
No, they wouldn't. Not if they're the Democrats as we know them. They fight tooth and claw against the new normal, until it's the new normal, and then they fight tooth and claw to defend the new normal.
There's very little principled opposition to Trump in the corridors of power. There's plenty of opposition, but it's more about which horses have been bet on.
It sadly never happened for the perpetrators of the Iraq/Ukraine/Libya/Afghan/Syria/Yugoslav/... wars. Remember Collateral Murder? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Also, no one really cared about all the veterans back home, many of whom suffered and still suffer from PTSD. The U.S. truly is the biggest sh*thole on earth.
The fact that it didn't happen for the those previous administrations is why it's happening again now.
If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes, and the guilty parties were cooling their heels in a jail cell, then we probably wouldn't be seeing this action tonight.
"If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes"
and yeah who is gonna charge them ???? US have (arguably) strongest military on earth, who can put justice to them if not themselves ???? and themselves I mean US Gov. which is would never happen since every administration have "blood" in some form and another
The problem is that nearly everyone in the US national security establishment believes that the US should be involved in lots of wars. You may recall how little sympathy Biden got for pulling out of Afghanistan. I genuinely don’t think you could assemble Washington staff with the foreign policy expertise a president requires without ending up with a majority who support bombing Maduro.
Withdrawing from Afghanistan may have occurred under Biden, but it was Trump who made the decision to pull out. The only change Biden made was delaying our withdraw by a couple of months.
The only 'leaders' that end up in the Hague and convicted are those forcibly captured via military action. And those 'orders' declared by the UN can, and be vetoed by China, Russia, USA, UK, and France. Guess which two use their veto all the time?
And there are not that many indications that we are moving towards that direction or we can even ever have. I guess that sort of idealism might have existed in the late 40s immediately after the UN was established but it never had a chance.
External or internal (which seems rarely feasible unless the government is highly incompetent) regime change realistically is the only thing that worked.
Presumably also the ones who invaded Iraq and occupied Afghanistan, carried out extrajudicial executions, droned weddings, deposed Libya's leader and laid ruin to the country, trafficked arms and money to cartels in South America and ISIS / "JV team" terrorist groups to destroy the Levant Or was that "rules based order"?
I think you've been had with the whole "rules based order thing". You can keep winding the clock back and it's the same thing. Iraq 1, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia. When exactly would you say this alleged "rules based order" was great?
I don't think you followed the part where they said they believed in the rules based order and I questioned that in a bit of a sarcastic way. It was the entire point of my comment really. There is no "rules based order", the rules based order has always been whatever the wealthy and powerful can do to further enrich themselves and cement their power is the rules, and the order is that they remain on top.
It's not a hoax, it's an empty platitude designed to fool people into thinking their side is in the right. Unfortunately many people are incapable of ever admitting they have been fooled.
Every war criminal should be arrested, and tried. I think they should also be hanged, but they generally don't do executions at the Hague is my understanding.
I think the notion of the comment about westerners is to highlight that as a common person you can believe in rules based order, or you are made to believe in that and live your life by that, however the leaders don't really care about it all that much. They are happy the masses are "ruled" and controlled, but as for their decisions - rules don't always apply.
And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of "let the dictators dictate", while "westerners" not.
But I think this current case (and Trump's presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed "democracy".
I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information/missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement.
And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don't happen anymore. People can't anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them.
Well... We as people lost and losing the means to "control" our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn't matter.
In general international law is much more lenient than people are willing to believe. e.g. it's legal to kill civilians if you are attacking a military target which is important enough
Once they declared it a terrorist organization (which is the problematic side of everything), they can claim these are unlawful combatants and do not have any of the protections of the Geneva convention, like any other war on terror assassination.
So I don't think double tapping is a war crime, any more than bombing a car with terrorists in the first place and that doesn't seem to be regarded internationally as a war crime. However, they could have done better to highlight Venezuela actual involvement with terrorism (which is real but not enough for this) rather than magically declare them terrorists just to not go through Congress
That "unlawful combatant" designation was invented by the US as an excuse and has always stood on shaky legal grounds even in the US. Other Western countries don't support this legal construction. That being said, the double-tapping was ordinary murder, not a war crime. Every bombing of those ships could have been avoided by boarding them and presenting those drugs as evidence, as the Coast Guard normally does. But that would only have worked if there had been any evidence to start with...
Western countries that had recently used that clause to assasinate terrorists are the US, UK and France. There is no reason to believe other european countries attacked by ISIS would not do the same if needed or if capable.
Regarding double tapping, that's exactly the modus operandi of assassinations, as the UAVs goal is not the car/ship but the people inside.
That said, the Venezuelan case is a huge overreach
Not a shred of evidence was ever provided that the crewmen of these boats were "terrorists." That alone makes these murders very different from other illegal extrajudicial killings, where this evidence is usually provided or readily available.
That's not to say that I would in any way support extrajudicial killings, in many cases the high civilian/bystander casualties have been completely unsupportable. I just wanted to point out the stark difference between "normal" extrajudicial killings and these murders.
There are some credible war crimes accusations (in fact, some pretty flagrant war crimes), but the most critical crime is actually not a war crime, but one precedent to their being a war at all, the crime of aggression.
Starting a war is generally what is known in modern international law as the crime of aggression (in the language of the Nuremberg Charter, this was, “crimes against peace”, the first listed category of crimes subject to the tribunal, above war crimes and crimes against humanity.)
Rudolph Hess, notably, was convicted and imprisoned for life solely for this crime.
This is a bit confused-if you send them to the Hague, they can’t be executed-because neither the ICC nor any ad hoc tribunals located in that city have the death penalty. As an abolitionist state, I doubt the Dutch government would ever consent to a capital trial taking place on their territory.
On the other hand, in an alternate reality, this could be preventing a North Korea style dictatorship. Or to flip it, had the USA stayed in South Korea and carried on fighting, it might have prevented North Korea and the Kims and saved literally millions of deaths of North Koreans at the hands of their own government.
What do the Venezuelans actually think about this, given that Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?
> Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?
Thats probably true, but trump also tried to rig an election, so its not really up to him to unilaterally decide is it? Especially as hes bumchums with putin who shocker, rigs election, killed hundreds of thousands of his own people invading other countries.
> had the USA stayed in South Korea
Korea was a UN action, not US unilateral. but alos hugely costly in everyone's lives
The number of deaths due to the Kim dynasty is in the millions, including their kwanliso murder camps and man-made famine, and vastly outnumbers war casualties unfortunately.
Considering your post history it's clear exactly what you're doing, but I don't think it's as much of an ideological gotcha as you might think because the answer is yes. We can throw Trump and what remains of the Obama administration in jail; I don't really give a fuck. We can work our way down the list as far as you want and I'd give it the thumbs up if it means we can ensure future presidents and politicians think at least four times before doing something.
>Obviously I was not asking someone to link to my profile.
That's true. I misread your comment. My apologies.
Unfortunately, I can't delete my comment any more, but it should be (and deservedly so) pretty well grayed out by now.
Although I'm a bit confused since your profile as well as every other users' profile is linked by HN in each and every comment you (or I, or any other user) make.
If it's poor etiquette to "link to my profile," why does HN do that on every single comment?
Well, 'western' 'rules based order' involves democratic elections and being in 166th place for government transparency isn't a good sign. Appointing your successor isn't exactly democratic, in fact it's very much the sign of most countries that end in dictatorship:
"Chavez was elected to a third term in October 2012. However, he was never sworn in due to medical complications; he died in March 2013.[95] Nicolás Maduro was picked by Chavez as his successor, appointing him vice president in 2013."
Some certainly will, but not many I think. There are very few westerners outside of the US, who want to have anything to do with what the US are doing now.
> all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it
MAGA is a rejection of the international rules-based order. Trump joins Putin and Xi in explicitly rejecting it. To the extent anyone in America is calling for a return to that order, they're doing it while criticising Trump.
If the last 2 years of Gaza genocide didn't do that, I'm n not sure why this would. They'll spend the first 20 minutes talking about how bad Maduro is and the next 5 minutes saying this is "misguided" and didn't go through the proper channels.
When Trump talks about rules, laws, and order it’s in the “L'État, c'est moi” (the state is me) sense. I.e. following the law means following his whims.
Never. Trump wants to be a dictator, he loves Putin, he wants power and any "rules" that control him are antithetical to his entire political program and to his political party.
Anybody who wants a rules based order is extremely anti-Trump, just as they are anti-Putin.
No idea what you're going on about. Those in the West who stand for a rules-based international order certainly didn't ask for this war, and Trump, who did start this war, never gave a shit about rules or norms, international or otherwise.
Trump hardly is a representative for "westerners", actually the majority of them think he's a lawless looney. No one outside of his administration or party is justifying his actions.
Rapist presidents have no authority to defend 'rules based order'. Were you also ok with him defending 'rules based order' by arming Israel as they committed genocide? Or when he committed war crimes by blowing up the boats over the last few months?
I live in Australia. Electricity here costs around USD$0.20/kWh, unless you are prepared to charge when the wind is blowing, or the sun is shining, in which case it costs USD$0.05/kWh. $0.05/kWh equates to around USD$1.20 per 100 miles for a car that gets 50 miles to the gallon.
That's assuming you have to pay for it. I charge my car from my roof top solar, so it costs nothing.
The resale value for EV's isn't good, but the reason is battery prices are dropping, and batteries are the primary cost of an EV. They dropped 30% in the last year. If that continues, it's all over for US car makers once the tariffs go away.
Where I live in the us I save $200 per month with ev vs gas. This is replacing a minivan with essentially the same but 10 years newer. Of course my power all tmes fron wind which is cheap
We’re saving way more than that. Probably the equivalent of $70-90 per “gas tank”. Old car was a late model truck of the same form factor.
The resale values on used EVs are poor because things are improving so fast. The new ones are better and cheaper, which isn’t really the case for ICE models.
The only exceptions are the first few years of Leaf’s, since they ate batteries, and teslas because of the non-removable MAGA bumper stickers.
Unfortunately the older EVs don't really have enough range for some of the things I want an older car for (going to camp - I expect to scratch the car so rentals are out)
We had an ICE truck for this purpose for a while. The used long range replacement had a lower MSRP (and we paid less for it), and it’s a better pickup / more capable pickup truck).
I pay roughly €1 for every 100km I drive here in Ireland. My annual car road tax is €120 in stead of 200+. My annual service involves kicking the tires and having a peek under the car.
I bought my ev used for 16k, with a basically brand new battery (mandatory recall) still under warranty. I'm not gonna resell it, I'm probably gonna keep it till the wheels fall off.
People and the internet have changed since those times. It' not the 90s anymore grandpa.
The majority of players do not want to search for a server to play a game they've paid for, especially without knowing whether the server they join is any good or if they even a a low lag server near them. They just want to start the game, hit play, and have fun with the game.
Also as "fun" as having dick sucking servers for streamer would be (your so called communities), you are forgetting the other side of your so called solution : a server admin would have to manually ban a cheating streamer, essentially calling them out publicly as a cheater to all their rabid fans who believe the streamer simply has godlike aim and knowledge of player positions.
Feminists and the far left have been complaining about attractive women in games and not enough inclusivity for the past 10 years and you think is some grand rightwing conspiracy?
Also if you think "real" feminists would be for adult games targeted at men you might be straight up delusional.
No-one has complained about “attractive women in games”, that is a mischaracterisation. “Attractive” is a subjective judgement anyway. People have complained about the predominance of women in video games adhering to a particular set of beauty standards, to the near exclusion of anyone else. It should be very uncontroversial to want a representative selection of people in games. And for the production companies, it makes obvious business sense.
Really? No one for example complained about the attractive main character in Stellar Blade? And no complaints about how the characters look in Marvel Rivals?
That aside you can word it however you want "attractive", "unrealistic beauty standards", "sexualized", or even call it "not having enough representation" but everyone knows what you are actually talking about is getting rid of good looking women in video games and not giving players a choice of having a "representative selection".
As for it being purely a business decision by companies, how is Concord doing? The point being both men and women like having beautiful characters so say that it’s a business decision to have ugly characters is just not true.
I remember feminists complaining about Stellar Blade’s main character looking unrealistic. Then it turned out her body was scanned from a real actress. :-)
So real people without beauty surgery are unrealistic to you, although they exist in reality.
That obviously can’t be it. So I take it what you actually are trying to say is “this shouldn’t be considered the standard”? But it’s not the standard, it’s the top. And people (both men and women) like to play as characters that aren’t standard but at the top.
> No one for example complained about the attractive main character in Stellar Blade?
Actually no, not really. The whole outrage around Stellar Blade was largely manufactured, spurred from an right wing influencer's mischaracterization of a (retracted) line from IGN France. IGN France and its milquetoast quote represents all the 'insane leftists' that people loved to portray in that discourse as having started the attack on the game. All the drama that stemmed from there were simply the result of people digging their heels in - right-wing people taking up SB to be their perceived savior, the unapologetic disruptor that cuts through 'ugly Western designs', while left-wing people naturally put themselves on the other side, claiming that it's a mediocre game that right-wingers only like for the sex appeal, thereby feeding the cycle. But this wasn't started by the left, there was no initial outrage, all of this was just bait. But many people still see it from the perspective of the people who incited it.
And I mean, look around. Lots of games have attractive protagonists. How much outrage was there when NieR: Automata came out from 'the left'? Lots of games have extremely appealing designs, and the fact that no one seems to go against them and that they keep selling should tip you off that the perceived unanimity you're talking about is a niche and extreme opinion.
If all the characters in games were people that you couldn't relate to and that you don't feel represented by, you wouldn't like that, no? You would complain. Rightfully so.
So why are other people not allowed to also complain if they are not represented in games? Why is that bad?
This does not mean they want to ban certain games. It is often not even about pushing devs to create more diverse characters though that would be great but just to create awareness how certain beauty standards and ideas of normality are recreated and enforced in media.
Embracing that people are different is something that is good for everyone. There will always be a Stellar Blade but there could be also so much more.
>If all the characters in games were people that you couldn't relate to and that you don't feel represented by, you wouldn't like that, no?
Games are a visual medium, like movies, which is why games with attractive characters are generally more popular, and just to be clear simple graphics like in Schedule I are not unattractive or ugly.
More importantly how a character looks has nothing to do with how relatable a character actually is - it an absurd premise. What you are basically saying is that people won't enjoy playing Stray because they are not cats, which obviously isn't true and doesn't make sense. It's the same in movies, when watching Wall-E people don't go "well I'm not a trash compactor so I can't relate at all".
>Embracing that people are different is something that is good for everyone.
And I would agree except that in reality it isn't include non-attractive looking characters along side attractive ones, it's always to exclude what you call "standard beauty standard".
As an example of this if would really is about just giving options to player then why is the breast slider in Dragonage Veilguard limited so that players can create only characters with small breasts? Where did the "representation", "inclusivity", "player choice" go to with regards to large breasts?
> why is the breast slider in Dragonage Veilguard limited so that players can create only characters with small breasts
You have a game where you can wear different armor and clothing and you think the body shapes are restricted because of some grad woke conspiracy?
Ever thought about how you would make the armor look good with huge breasts? It would either clip, look silly stretched or you you have to make an extra big_boob version that would be an huge overhead. It is super normal that character creation in RPGs has some limits so that all equipment still fits you.
Also THAT is your problem? Are you for real? We are not even talking about the conventional western beauty standard anymore, that is just your very specific preference for huge boobs.
You might want to listen less to right-wing grifters that make up stories where there is nothing.
No, are YOU for real? You thinks it's technical limitations that limit breast sizes and it's that assets would look stretcher? Or that the game engine couldn't handle big boobs assets?
An incase you haven't noticed character creation in games usually allows you create all kinds of weird looking characters without it somehow hitting those magical limits that somehow apply to breast sizes apparently.
The breasts slider was just an example of "representation" not being actual representation and you need take time out and reflect on why big breasts in video games make you upset.
> Or that the game engine couldn't handle big boobs assets?
Given the choice between creating new "big boob" asset models for most of the many outfits in the game and simply capping breast size, it's hardly surprising that the developers chose the cheap, easy option.
Anyway, what alternative explanation are you proposing? Prudishness? The game has plenty of sex scenes, so it's not that.
> The breasts slider was just an example
Well it was a bad example. Dunno what to tell you.
That so? And the activist that usually complain about beauty standards and not having enough representation were angry how "unrepresentative" that was and were complaining about it to Bioware?
I mean you can lie and say how no one has asked for it but the activist have complained about big breasted women in games for a long time usually under the guise of how it's sexualizing the women in games. And yes there have been straight up complaints about characters breasts being too large over the years usually when it's a non-western game.
People have complained about the predominance of women characters in games with unrepresentatively large breasts. You keep conflating things (including your own sexual preferences) and being imprecise to make arguments seem unreasonable when they’re not at all.
So women with large breasts don't exist? Or should they not be represented in video games?
I'm also curious what is the appropriate size of breasts for women to have in video games and how you and others like you determined it. And of course, you also have such standards for male characters and complain about unrepresentatively good looking or buff male characters, right?
And this being about sexual preferences is just you blatantly projecting. What I'm doing is pointing out how all this talk "representation" and "inclusivity" has nothing to do with actual representation and is just a thinly veiled cover for censorship.
You need to read more carefully what I’ve written, I’ve never suggested that large-breasted women don’t exist or shouldn’t be represented, I talked about the trends and tendencies. I’ve been quite precise in what I’ve written. I’m also quite happy for men and all other genders and body types to see broader representation. I’m not for censorship, in general. There is a vein of conservative (self-described) feminists who are extremely anti-porn and so on; I’m not on their side. I am on the side of feminists who want to see a lot more balance in media, including video games - broadening options and horizons, not shutting anything down unless it’s truly hateful. I really can’t see anything wrong with that. It’s not “censorship” if it’s just you not getting exactly your preference all the time.
I read your deflections of how it’s totally not the same political groups advocating for all these things and your thinly veiled personal attacks.
You speak of not wanting censorship and wanting there to be balance, but balance of what and how? Without actual measurements and quotas on game content there can be no balance and it’s just censorship to please the side which has the most political influence, for video games this is obviously the far-left right now.
If it’s not about censorship and about having choice, why are there complaints when existing games that have attractive character come to western market ?
I have never read any of the great Western novels of the past and thought to myself "That was amazing but it would have been so much more relatable if characters of my own ethnicity and my own attractiveness (or rather lack thereof) and my other identity characteristics were there." Not even once. It would be incredibly self-centered and immature to ask an author to cram in a self-insert of me into their world instead of letting them create their world as they envisioned it.
What!? I literally don't relate to any or feel represented by any character I have ever played as in a video game, and I have played hundreds. Nobody does. If anyone actually told me they "feel represented" by a fictional videogame character I will seriously worry about their mental health.
And if the end result of this legislation is that videogames in EU aren't licensed or sold but are instead all streamed and you are instead just buying access to stream a game, then what?
TO me it's just amazing how the advocates for SKG ignore any possibility that it could make things much worse that they already.
If that business model worked so well, they'd all be doing it already. It'd cause piracy to cease, and (mostly) render the need for anti-cheat redundant, barring external image recognition cheats that are already tough to stop anyway.
> And if the end result of this legislation is that videogames in EU aren't licensed or sold but are instead all streamed and you are instead just buying access to stream a game, then what?
Then the industry is honest, and I can spend my money on an indie developer that doesn't do that.
Companies that do that will likely be completely outcompeted by studios that give a shit.
Yes and Bill Gates is such a good guy that he even remained friends with Jeffrey Epstein after Epstein's conviction. To help children of course.
Truly a Bill Gates is a true hero looking out for all the children.
You mean aside his wife divorcing him over his relationship with Epstein and it being widely reported in the news? I guess we will never know if Epstein and Gates even knew each other.
For anyone actually curious and unaware there are plenty of new articles that talk about Gates and Epstein, it's not some hidden secret. However it's a topic those who like Gates philanthropy like to ignore and pretend it doesn't exist as can be seen in this thread.
>>You mean aside his wife divorcing him over his relationship with Epstein
She divorced him over Gates cheating, not over the relationship with Epstein - if I'm wrong please correct me.
>>like to ignore and pretend it doesn't exist
I honestly don't want to, like the other commented said "just google" - so I "just googled" and none of the articles I found suggest they had anything beyond a very superficial relationship where they met a few times. Again, if I'm wrong please correct me.
>In a 2022 interview, Melinda said, “I did not like that he had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, no. I made that clear to him,” per Page Six, adding that she only met the child sex offender once because she “wanted to see who” he was. “I regretted it the second I walked in the door,” she went on, adding, “He was abhorrent. He was evil personified. My heart breaks for these women.”
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/melinda-ga...
Well but that's exactly what I was asking for - thank you for posting this. I asked to be corrected and I was.
But let me quote what the article you linked says:
"claimed that Bill had met the disgraced financier on “numerous occasions.” One of those meetings allegedly lasted for hours."
Does that sound to you like they had a deep relationship of any kind? I'm just trying to form my own view on it - and that just doesn't read to me like the kind of relationship that people try to portray it as. If I met with someone "numerous times, sometimes for hours" you wouldn't immediately think we are friends or that we even share any values together, would you?
By blue pilled I mean mainstream basic bitch beliefs. The type of shit that indoctrinated slaves believe. That may be harsh language to you, but it is what it is. If you're human, I have sympathy for your plight.
You are welcome for the archive link. I already knew what XKCD comic you were going to post before I opened it. The irony is that you don't know the basics of hacking and news, yet want to pontificate on the highest levels of reality. That is evidence of a skill issue, which permeates everything about your life, and resultingly, all your beliefs and writings.
The irony of thinking you are edgy and enlightened, while all your beliefs and idioms are exactly the new mainstream norms is pretty funny. The basic-bitchness sneaks on you faster than you can see it coming I guess.
Nothing (as far as I can see, and tbh I'm not going to read past the first page of google results) suggesting that they were close friends in any meaning of the word.
Like, I don't know what kind of conclusion OP wants people to draw out of this. A lot of people were "friends" with Epstein, since he knew pretty much everyone, there are pictures of him smiling and shaking hands with lots of well known VIPs.
Which is why I asked OP for a source so we can just read about this - the whole "do your whole research" thing is just such an easy cop out because like you said "just google" doesn't really confirm anything, it's just a bunch of news articles from more or less reputable sources.
And Chase just transferred the money without any knowledge or indication of him actually having a wife?
I mean it's possible, but if it really was as easy as just getting some information and posing as a wife, then this kind of fraud would be very widespread.
> And Chase just transferred the money without any knowledge or indication of him actually having a wife?
Sounds like the wife excuse was only needed because the scammers were female. If the scammers were male they could have easily impersonated him directly. It's not like the bank keeps voiceprints of their customers for identification.
More end to end encryption use only means more laws banning encryption faster.
Or do you really think that when for example DoH gains wider adoption all the countries using DNS based blocking will go "Oh well guess the techies got us".
This works best if the individuals or companies doing this have a meaningful presence in your country and/or consider it a sufficiently relevant market.
If they don't, your critical infrastructure (Internet) just stops working until you conform to the standards set by those who write the software.
Sure, and then the governments are forced to tell the intelligence agencies they can no longer afford all the we-told-you-so consequential successful hacks that happened because of the back doors they demanded.
And the competent criminals will still be able to roll their own encrypted communications from existing open source libraries.
The only distinction there is Client/Server vs Peer/Peer, peer discovery is a thing, but other than that it's fundamentally the same problem with the same solution(s).
> People just have a 'compliance' phone when authorities ask to rummage through it.
Does this ever work? Depending on the jurisdiction, law enforcement authorities can easily get a warrant to enter your home and search through everything to ensure that they find all of your devices.
VPNs are not illegal in China and are part of doing business/daily life. China is authoritarian, but at least smart. They understand that the great firewall can reduce the free flow of information to a respectable degree and thus they implemented it. They also understand that going after VPNs is futile with the current technology.
Which is ironically self defeating after major multiple security product breaches. Laws banning encryption or requiring backdoors as well as the practice of secret court warrants discourage fundamental investment in strong encryption products and standards.
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