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@Lemming
The Magna Carta though
The document that the king was forced to sign because the nobles said "sign this or we overthrow you"?
Not reassuring.
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@SirAnonymous
WWJD - "Love thy neighbor" (like, don't invade your neighbor. Pretty fucking simple).
WWBSD - "That invasion that is a direct result of authoritarian interests is so bad, yeah it's so bad daddy. Give me more authoritarianism in the form of a hereditary head of state because that's so bad. Come on, I can take it. Give it to me. Yeah, yeah, I can be bad too daddy. yeaaaaaaah."
This honestly explains a lot about Frankie boy's other stances as well.
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@SirAnonymous
Again I am not favor in the invasion or even explicitly pro-putin. He has cracked down on monarchists and other groups but is infinitely times better than Biden.Cracking down on monarchists while ruling as a dictator is a rather ridiculous thing to praise Putin for.
Read again, Frankie says Putin is better despite being anti-monarchy. Frankie is actually saying that monarchy is good. Not a typo or misunderstanding, see post 219 for confirmation.
I am convinced that Frankie's political stances are all decided using the motto "WWBSD?" (What Would a BDSM Submissive Do?)
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Just looked into it and the "challenge to a debate" button can't be found on the main page of a persons profile, you will need to go to the debate tab of their profile.
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Do you mean private so that only certain people can see or so that only certain people can accept the debate?
If the first I do not think that is possible. If the second go to the profile pf the person you want to debate and click the "challenge to a debate" button.
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@Dr.Franklin
The title of this thread is "Russia and Ukraine" so when you say you support Russia in post 1 you are saying that you specifically support them against Ukraine. In other words that you support the invasion.
If you changed your mind on that after being called out on it that's fine. People are allowed to change their minds.
If that is the case though and you hold to supporting Russia then what specifically do you support Russia/Putin on? (Yes, the Russian government and Putin are one and the same. That's how autocracy/authoritarianism works. Obviously).
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@Dr.Franklin
I am supporting Russia. (post 1)
I don't really like Putin (post 219)
It is a strawman to say that I support Russia but not Putin (post 224)
Hilarious. Tell me another one.
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@Dr.Franklin
You support Russia's actions but not Putin, even though all of Russia's recent actions are Putin's actions.
Hilarious. Tell me another one.
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@Dr.Franklin
You sit there and say that it is impossible for Russia to be bad because the U.S. is bad. Like it's impossible for two things to both be bad. but I am simple.
Hilarious. Tell me another one.
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@Double_R
When Putin invaded Crimea Trump blamed Obama, not Putin. When Putin launched a cyber attack against the US, Trump took Putin’s denials over the unanimous conclusions of US intelligence. But Trump is the one Putin is afraid of. Ok bro.
Terrified, I am sure. Who wouldn't be afraid of someone that says they would handle a confrontation with you like this?
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@Dr.Franklin
So what? USA commits war crimes too
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Because if you say it's bad, I agree but let me just point out that Putin thinks you're full of shit.
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@oromagi
10/10 just found Ukraine's new national anthem.
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There are, of course, millions of Russians that aren't staying silent out of fear but instead are doing so because they are okay with Putin's fascist bullshit. Those Russians are, in fact, dickheads.
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@oromagi
Not sure I agree entirely with your take. I can and will talk shit about Putin and other autocrats all day long, but that's because I am safe here living in the U.S. Am I going to do anything real about it? I mean, I signed an online petition last night saying "murder is bad, please tell Putin to stop murdering" but... I mean come on. Am I going to actually do anything about it? Am I going to go to Ukraine and enlist in their military or join some resistance group there? No. Am I going to go to Russia and take part in the anti-war demonstrations there? No. All that said I have no right or intention of criticizing anyone else that answers no to those same questions just because they happen to live closer to the situation than myself.
Those Russians (and others) that agree with this authoritarianism bullshit are assholes.
Those Russians that disagree and choose to protest are heroically brave.
Those Russians that disagree and stay silent out of fear aren't cowardly, they are protecting themselves.
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@RationalMadman
I'm assuming the amendments are the American Constitution (you didn't specify).
Yeah, I was aware of the issue of possibly unclear message as I wrote it but that's the best I could come up with that fit the melody I was going for, let me know if you can think of anything that could improve it.
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@RationalMadman
@Vader
@oromagi
I need someone more skilled with lyrics than myself to recommend additional lines.
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"Used. You have used me truly, Loo-Macklin. My whole life has been toyed with in your service."
"Consider the end results, though. Your part in all this will be made known some day. Your family will be proud of your accomplishments, of the important events of history you played a part in. Even if you were something less than an active participant in planning those accomplishments.
"I used the Nuel. I used my own race. Why shouldn't I use a single brilliant psychologist?"
"Confirmation," Chaheel was muttering. "You needed someone to give confirmation." He switched both eyes to the human. "This Tremovan-thing is false. What of the Tremovan armada?"
"Oh, that," Loo-Macklin said easily. His fingers touched other controls.
The alien resumed its feet and backed up into its cubbyhole. The panel slid down, concealing it once again. Nearby, a screen lowered from the ceiling, came to life. It was vibrant with stars against which distant flecks of bright light moved slowly, traveling from right to left. The outlines of tiny ships slowly became discernible.
"With a little imagination it's not hard to build an alien," he explained. "If you can do that, why not an entire fleet of aliens? When you're talking about detection over distances that are in parsec multiples, it's possible to fool a lot of people in a lot of ways.
"Put a small but hot engine in a multiplier envelope of opaque mylarmer and to long-range detection equipment it will give the appearance of a ship. Expensive, but workable. Four thousand and several odd are much more expensive, equally workable.
"The components were manufactured in separate plants on different worlds. Final assembly took place out in space, by a small crew of very loyal engineers."
"I didn't think you trusted anyone."
"I had holds of one sort or another on every one of them.
It's not necessary to voice threats when the subject is already aware of them. That sort of thing's for illegals fond of dramatics."
Chaheel let one eye favor the panel, which concealed the Tremovan simulacrum. "So the whole business was truly faked. Fleet and threat as well as the original transmission. There never was a Tremovan attack. There was no reason for human and Nuel fleets to mobilize together."
"Indeed there was," Loo-Macklin shot back. "Unless you can get the military personnel of two groups working together, it doesn't matter how many treaties and professions of friendship two governments concoct." At a touch, the "fleet" of lights vanished from the screen, which promptly slid back up into the ceiling.
"All this sprang from your imagination, then?"
"Every bit of it." The industrialist did not seem particularly proud of having created and carried off the greatest fraud in human history. "Every bit, except for one thing."
"What's that?" Chaheel Riens did not care much anymore.
"There is a race called the Tremovan. My ship made the discovery of Tremovan frequencies. Their worlds do lie generally toward Shapely Center. They are completely and utterly dedicated to warring upon their neighbors.
"The difference is that they're not nearly as powerful, yet, as my simulated fleet made them out to be. They're not a danger to either human or Nuel, yet. But they can and likely will become powerful enough to pose such a danger. That's why it was important to establish a UTW-Family alliance now. Now both races will be ready to deal with the Tremovan when they break out of the Center. There will be no war with the Tremovan for some time. When there is, the alliance will be capable of dealing with it."
Chaheel was desperately trying to keep up, to keep truth and falsehood separated. "But when contact is finally made, the Tremovan will be treated as enemies because of this supposed earlier attack, when in fact they've made no such attack."
"The computer analysis is clear, Chaheel. The Tremovan are incurably warlike. It was necessary to prepare human and Nuel for a war that's inevitable. There could be no peace. But they are not suicidal. If defeated, they can be absorbed into the community of civilized worlds. Commerce will break down their love of combat. But they will have to be defeated first.
"In order to assure success, it may be necessary for the alliance to attack them first. The Board of Operators and the Council of Eight would never have ordered a preemptive attack. The new Council of Ten will be less hesitant, since they have already been 'attacked.'"
"Of course, they can always turn to you if their consciences trouble them."
Loo-Macklin did not bother to try to deny that. "It will be better for the Tremovan, just as the alliance I created by duplicity benefits both mankind and Nuel."
"It will also truly be better for Kees vaan Loo-Macklin's personal interests. So you will place the Tremovan, who are not even aware of what you've already done to them, under your domination as well. They'll never know how it happened to them, nor why."
Loo-Macklin said nothing.
"Tell me something, man," wondered Chaheel aloud. "When your Tarsis was found drifting and helpless after having been pursued by the nonexistent Tremovan fleet, half your crew was found dead or badly wounded." He gestured with a tentacle. "You yourself had lost an arm."
"My crew thought the attack, the fleet, was all quite real. I couldn't trust the secret to them as well as to the engineers who assembled the false Tremovan ships. They had to act as if the attack was in earnest. I made provisions for a private warship, suitably disguised, to attack us. The explosions everyone saw while I was delivering my warning were real."
"And how many of your own, trusting people did die?"
"No more than was necessary."
"And your arm?"
"I was in a heavily shielded part of the Tarsis. The attacking warship had a schematic and did their best to avoid damaging that section. Verisimilitude was vital. I had one of my own people shoot me several times, carefully, while I was sufficiently narcotized to drown most of the pain. My wounds were as real as those received by the rest of the crew." He looked thoughtful. "An old man did that, on my orders. He died soon afterwards. Of natural causes. His name was Nairn Basright and he was the closest thing to a friend I ever had. Funny. I once offered him the friendship I denied everyone else, and he declined it." His thoughts returned from the place where they'd been lingering. He flexed his left hand.
"The artificial one works well enough. I don't really miss the original."
"Monster. I truly should have slain you when I had the chance. I could do so now."
"I think not, Chaheel Riens. We are both older and slower and you could not get to me in time now as you might have those many years ago. It's true I've been responsible for the deaths of many people. I killed my first man when I was twenty-two. I neither enjoyed nor disliked it. It was simply something, which had to be done. There have been many deaths since, none of which I enjoyed, nor disliked. All were necessary."
"One such death to serve personal interests is too many," Chaheel said, rejecting the argument. He moved close, not to kill but to try and learn. "Why, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin? Not to save humankind and Nuel from each other, surely."
For the first time, for the last, Chaheel Riens saw something no one else had seen before or ever would again. He saw Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, effective emperor of the worlds of the Families, of the eighty-three worlds of the UTW and perhaps soon of the Tremovan as well, confused and uncertain.
"I think I know why, but even I'm really not positive. What motivates a man, truly? Greed? I care little for money, only for the convenience it bestows. Power? I told the truth when I said I never sought it. Ego? You will not believe me, but I have less ego than most men. Or Nuel.
"I've acted and reacted as I have all my life because something has driven me to do so. I remember when I was very young most of all. I did not have what you would call a . . ." he hesitated, ". . . a pleasant childhood. I was abandoned by a parent who was not ignorant. That I could have accepted. But she was intelligent, and wealthy. I was simply . . . an encumbrance on her life style. An object in the way, to be disposed of.
"Subsequent to that I
was shunted from place to place. My physical appearance was abhorrent to most people. You should sympathize with that." Chaheel said nothing, merely listened intently.
"What remains with me, what drove me from my earliest conscious years, was no quest for power, nor for revenge. Those are strong feelings, Chaheel Riens. I lost the ability to feel true emotions before I was seven. It was an emptiness inside me, a feeling of utter helplessness, of having nothing to say about my own destiny. I was treated like an object. So I turned myself into an object. My reactions were purely instinctive, physical.
"I resolved to do two things: to survive, and to ensure that no one, no one, could ever control my life again except myself."
He went silent. It was quiet in the vast chamber for a long time. When Chaheel Riens spoke again it was without the anger he'd felt on entering. This man, this emperor, this unbelievably powerful individual, deserved his pity, not his hate. He'd lived without family. To a Nuel, no greater crime can be perpetrated on the young.
No wonder Kees vaan Loo-Macklin had evolved as he had. But the psychologist was wrong about one thing. The man was not warped inside. He was simply numb.
- Alan Dean Foster, Man Who Used the Universe
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Not sure if there is anything in particular this is 'to the tune of' but the melody is probably obvious enough if you just know there is one.
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So you like order over chaos?
Well Putin thinks you're full of shit.
You're an empath not a nihilist?
Putin thinks you're full of shit.
You're an anti-interventionist?
Putin thinks you're full of shit.
And if you think election fraud
is really really bad...
Well Putin disagrees with you
And I think that's quite sad.
The first U.S. amendment?
Putin thinks it's full of shit.
The second, fourth, and eighth?
Putin thinks they're full of shit.
Worst of all ol' twenty-two
You guessed it, full of shit.
And if you think that mass murder
Is really really cool?
I'm worried 'bout your mental health
But Putin might like you.
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@SirAnonymous
Murder is wrong. Unprovoked invasion is murder on a grand scale.
Also like... not very orderly, even if that was your goal. Just throwing that out there. Just on the off chance that anyone in this thread happens to be pretending they give a shit about order or something...
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@Dr.Franklin
Order>Liberty
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Invasion is Order
-Frankie 2022
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@Dr.Franklin
You said:
I am supporting Russia.
You also said that you prefer an orderly society, Putin thinks you are full of shit on that as well by the way.
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The US bullies countries on the regular.Is bullying countries a good thing or a bad thing?unequivocally negative
I agree with you, but Putin thinks you're full of shit.
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@oromagi
Pretty sure he linked the wrong video by mistake... has nothing to do with central planning. You should watch it, never thought I would see GP talk up a video that endorses giving everyone $1800 dollar welfare handouts.
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@Dr.Franklin
The US bullies countries on the regular.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
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First ever video game - 1973
First ever crime - 1973
COINCIDENCE?!?!?!
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@Yassine
One, Russia was given assurance that NATO may not expand eastwards upon dismantling of the USSR
Citation needed.
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@Double_R
We should keep a running tally of how many people were jailed for their political opinions. The video GP linked had zero, factually speaking (though there are some people like GP whose feelings don't care about our facts and we should take this into account).
So that's all the examples from before, plus the zero in the above video... What does that bring the grand total to?
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That member took personal offense and asked her to leave
Isn't that, like... not jailing anyone? Sounds more analogous to blocking someone that you don't agree with on the internet to protect your special snowflake safe space.
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@Dr.Franklin
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the Ashley Babbitt snuff video?
Post 4 was a reference to a different event entirely. Your confusion is understandable given their multiple similarities, I don't think less of you for it.
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offer better strategies to crush political opposition?
Could always try a march to overthrow the government in the capitol. The specific example I am thinking of didn't necessarily work out right away but you know, second time's the charm?
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@Intelligence_06
I am not wrong.
But feelings are facts and everyone here feels like you are wrong.
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@Intelligence_06
Broski, everyone here feels like you are wrong.
So, are you wrong because everyone here feels like you are wrong or have you always been wrong?
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@Mharman
This confused me for a second considering the game very much ended, then I remembered GP shooting supa and the world made sense again.
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i'll be a replacement if you need one.
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@oromagi
Makes a lot more sense when you put it that way. My impression after reading your first post was that they would tear down an apartment building then build cheap houses in its place, which seems... inefficient, to put it nicely. Seems like that was a misunderstanding, renovating hotels actually seems like a smart idea (save money and probably a lot of time too) and including built-in business places to generate jobs seems like a really smart idea, I probably never would have thought of that one on my own.
The real question though... have you tried the pizza and how good is it?
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If there was only one mafia left and a townie said "I am scum and I concede" the game would continue, but wouldn't that town confirm the person pretending to concede? Should we ban public concessions? Food for thought.
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Next time someone says "I can't do any reads because it isn't roll madness and it is impossible to read vanillas" I am just going to link this game.
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@Intelligence_06
Could you translate what this guy is saying into english for me, please? I see something about me being a vampire which seems pretty cool so I am interested but it's too much gibberish for me to get into it.
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@oromagi
Colorado Coalition for the Homeless has been converting apartment buildings into ultra-cheap housing for the homeless for 30 years with a lot of success.
How does this work, exactly? Apartments have people that live in them too, generally less wealthy people I would think. Right?
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@oromagi
There's a megachurch in Denver that was founded by a group of Real Estate agents and is essentially a church built around a private school system built around a football program.
Seems quite profitable
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@badger
I don't really understand what happened but gg lol.
I found the scum and blocked them, confirming that they are scum by preventing the kill.
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@Greyparrot
@whiteflame
@ILikePie5
@oromagi
@badger
Lynch supa.
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@oromagi
You can't honestly claim to be a Christian without acknowledging a responsibility to care for orphans and homeless people.
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Badger is acting towny, I don't see why anyone would want to lynch him.
If supa is the one everyone is looking at... I guess I can reread later to see why. Too busy now. Not going to be able to post for a few hours.
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