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@IlDiavolo
Remember that this is a policy that Trump agrees to implement since the beginning ("make America healthy again"). So, whether RFK is designated or not, the policy will be implemented anyway no matter if it affects people's economy. For example, Trump has just applied 25% of tariffs on steel and aluminium even though it affects the American economy. Trump doesn't care.
Not a big fan of this perspective. I understand that Trump is searching for loyal people to lead his various departments, and that regardless of who gets put in the spot, Trump is going to direct a lot of the policy. That doesn't mean any blank slate will do. That also doesn't mean that they will have no power whatsoever. Trump has plenty to concern himself with policy-wise across the government, he'll delegate where he can, and the person put in charge of HHS will have a great deal of power to shape policy nonetheless. Just because that power won't be all-encompassing doesn't mean it's functionally useless.
And from what I know, RFK aims to dismantle the corruption in those departments basically, he said he's not going against the vaccines and other medication as long as they have strong scientific basis.
RFK Jr. says a lot of things, but I'm still unclear on many of the details. What does "dismantl[ing] the corruption in those departments" entail? That can take a lot of forms and, given what we've seen, will almost certainly be accompanied by a mass firing of talent from the various agencies he'll oversee and an overhaul of their regulatory apparatus. How exactly can he do all that while ensuring that these agencies continue to function? And if he's not planning to do all that, what is he going to do?
What is a "strong scientific basis" and by what standard would he establish that? He clearly doesn't believe many existing vaccines and medications meet whatever standard he has in mind, as he has made very clear over the last several years, so it's very plausible that he just removes those vaccines and medications from circulation until they meet that unknown standard, which he will also have to codify and implement broadly within the FDA. That means a lot of work on existing infrastructure while handling everything that's already coming into an overwhelmed and understaffed FDA.
Although he can find problems with regulating the pesticides used in agriculture because most farmers supported Trump's campaign. We will see what Trump decides about it.
Again, not all of this will be Trump's decision. He may have the final word, but RFK Jr. is going to have a lot of leeway to implement policy in the short term if he gets confirmed.
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@IlDiavolo
We can both acknowledge that he is aiming to do something positive and that he also has some very negative and net detrimental views that could have drastic consequences for the country.
To start, while I agree with some of his views vis-à-vis food and its effects on health, his arguments for how to resolve them - to disallow the use of SNAP funds to purchase junk foods - is a) not something he can do in this role (it’s a Department of Agriculture issue) and b) doesn’t resolve or even really address the issue, only restricting how these funds can be spent rather than incentivizing better eating habits. If he wants to spend health care funds to ensure people get access to healthy foods, then thats both in his purview and something that might have a significant positive effect.
The same problem exists with limiting access to ultraprocessed foods. The regulations he is proposing tackle a symptom of the problem - that these foods are cheap and available and therefore easy to get - by removing them, but doesn’t replace them with a viable alternative.
And none of this even addresses his more controversial takes on vaccines and pandemics, both of which would make handling outbreaks significantly more dangerous and difficult. I can dig down into why if you want to discuss it, but he has a long track record of arguing against all manner of preventative measures on the basis that he just doesn’t trust the science behind them, a position that could have dramatic consequences for health care should he be put in the driver’s seat of this agency.
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It's such an unusual situation for me to be this skittish about every lynch for such different reasons. This is usually the point where I'm balancing scumreads, but everyone has something that just makes them less likely to be scum, which is what's making all of this so difficult.
I still don't like WyIted's Vanilla claim, but every time I keep looking back at his early posts, his quick sus on GP, and consider the result from Casey, it just gets harder and harder to scumread him. It's also notable, though, that out of the remaining players, WyIted is the only one whose role and participation in previous DPs makes him an island. Unlike Casey, he doesn't have a result on another living player, and unlike Luna, he didn't hard defend a claimed JK who flipped town. Almost all of the read on WyIted is behavioral with the exception of Casey's result, so it's the weakest townread for me still.
I don't like Luna's claim either, but it's also just a weird choice if he's scum. I just played a full game with him as scum and I don't really buy that this would be Luna's play. Claiming 1X at all was bound to make him stand out for no apparent reason. And yes, then there is his support of Austin. I would have to buy that he was pushing back hard on the lynch while fully under the belief that Austin would be lynched, since I really can't fathom him going to bat this hard for a claimed JK as scum, and the strategy he was pushing was actively to his detriment if Luna was scum. Even if Austin hadn't RB'd him, Luna would have secured himself as a future lynch and Austin's role would still have reduced POE. It's a very risky gambit for someone who was pretty successfully arguing the benefits of leaving Austin alive.
And yes, there's Casey. We'd need to believe in a very early bus and Casey actively using their fake role to make WyIted look better. The latter I could kind of understand on the basis that Casey wouldn't want to be sussed by WyIted's flip, but why bother targeting WyIted at all then? Why not target Luna and claim he didn't move? The sus was always clearly going to be on WyIted and Vader this DP, so WyIted probably would have been the default lynch without Casey's result.
So, yes, I'm still leaning WyIted after Vader the longer I think about this and I still don't like it. I don't like this lynch, but I'm doing it anyway because I still think it's our best choice. Hopefully some combination of the reads everyone's given and some DP4 discussion will puzzle this out, but for now, this is all I can do:
VTL Vader
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I think we're agreed that the decision in the end is between Vader and WyIted, at least for this DP, and much as I have problems with both of these choices, I'm leaning towards Vader as the lynch. It's a decision I'm making because I can't shrug off my concerns that I'm giving Vader too much credit for his early claim and I remain somewhat skeptical of his behavior, whereas it's just easier to buy WyIted's, particularly with Casey's result. So that's likely where my vote will go before I head to bed tonight.
This is going to get hairier next DP, and I probably won't be a part of it, so I want to give my current thoughts on who I suspect will be the remaining 3 and hope that they do some good.
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@Casey_Risk
Honestly, I can't completely write out Luna as a suspect. Literally everyone left has given me some reason to townread them, which makes PoE very difficult. After seeing Luna's behavior over the last DP, though, it's hard for me to see him as scum. The way he responded to Austin's claim and ended up defending him just seemed very towny and genuine to me. You'd expect him to join Austin's wagon if he were scum. On the other hand, scum Luna would know that and could potentially defend Austin just for towncred, so there is a bit of WIFOM there I suppose.As for Wylted, I've already explained my thought process on him. I guess on further reanalysis, I'd put Vader as being the most likely to be scum, and if it's not him, it's a tossup between Wylted and Luna.
Alright, appreciate the reasoning.
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@WyIted
@Casey_Risk
Glad I'm not the only one who is feeling very uncomfortable with the available choices. We have 4 players left in this game who are not scum, so I'd like to get everyone's thoughts on this. I'm roping WyIted into this to get more detailed thoughts from him.
Casey in particular, since you haven't been involved much in the discussion, I'd like to get your perspective assuming we lynch either WyIted or Vader and they flip town. Is it clearly an either/or situation for you? Where does Luna fit into your perspective at that point? I know it's a lot of "what if," but since one of us is pretty likely to die this DP (claimed investigator vs. basically town confirmed), I'd like to get as complete a set of thoughts as possible before proceeding. I'll give mine as well when I've fully worked them out.
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@Lunatic
If Casey is scum then is screwed, because I don’t think anyone wants to face the reality of Casey bussing dp1 and playing the long con. But I will say Casey’s interest and activity seemed to have dropped off hard after his participation in GPs lynching.
Yeah, I keep revisiting my reads and wondering if I'm missing something with Casey, though given how thoroughly they've been townread, Casey could easily have gotten away with directing a mislynch on whoever they wanted with that role claim. Claiming no movement from WyIted is just such an odd way to play this if the Motion Detector is a fake claim, and couple that with what would have to be the ballsiest hard early bus on their scum partner... it's just so hard to believe. If Casey is scum, they've taken all the risks and it's paid off beautifully.
Honestly, I'm at the coin flip stage between WyIted and Vader. They both work and don't work as scum for different reasons and that bothers me, but there's not a lot I can do about it.
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@sadolite
I stated earlier that tariffs were used to compel countries that refused to repatriate.
Shila covered my response. Yes, he can bully countries like Colombia into accepting repatriation, so there is some benefit (in terms of getting them to go somewhere else) for using tariffs as a cudgel. That doesn’t mean that the focus of this post, the tariffs threatened against Mexico, Canada and China, did anything functionally positive.
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So the long and short of it is that there are 3 people in my POE (frankly, I just do not buy Casey being so quick to hop on their scum partner, nor do I buy them claiming to use their role on WyIted only to come up with no result - there’s just too much here that doesn’t add up), but everyone on that list has at least one substantial reason for me to doubt their being scum.
WyIted has claimed Vanilla, so he has the least intrusive claim. I don’t really buy that he’d claim Vanilla as a fake claim if he was scum (sincerely can’t remember a game where he did and there weren’t many claims left after him, so he didn’t have to play it that safe), and it requires a pretty early bus on GP, but not so early that it’s unbelievable. The Motion Detector result also makes this harder to believe unless we just assume he’s the Ninja. Still, it’s hard not to notice that he hammered Austin when I’d said I would be back on to discuss it that evening and claims to have done it to prevent a no lynch… with 24 hours left in the DP. I get the impression it had more to do with his continually expressed frustration that we weren’t just pulling the trigger, but I still don’t like it.
Vader is a tricky one because that very early Gravedigger claim still stands as pretty townie, even moreso now that we’ve seen GP’s flip and know that there are two players with some form of tracking investigative roles. If I dispense with the theory that there’s a Ninja in the game, though, it’s not altogether ridiculous that he’d fake this claim, it’s just surprising to me that there would be two tracking players and nothing in the game to fool their results. I didn’t love how Vader responded to Luna and Austin last DP either, but it’s also hard to say if that’s just tunnel vision or actively scummy.
Then there’s Luna. I’d still say he’s the least likely to be scum out of these three, but I can’t dismiss him entirely. The 1X Bookie claim is a bit weird (seriously, you get only one chance to pick the lynch and if you fail you’re just Vanilla for the rest of the game? Also a bit weird that most everyone else has a 2X role or a JOAT), but I also just don’t buy that his extended defense of Austin comes from someone who is playing scum. Maybe he is just playing against expectations exceptionally well, but it’s a weird move to actively push back on lynching a claimed JK as scum - hell, last game we pounced on Savant at the first opportunity. Of these three, this is the behavior that sticks out to me as most actively opposed to scum, since it could have resulted in the prevention of the NK, town/scum confirmation, and would have put Austin and Luna in the crosshairs for future DPs if they didn’t follow through.
So, yes, I think this largely comes down to WyIted and Vader. I haven’t decided which I favor, but I wanted to write out my thoughts completely.
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@WyIted
I think we should all full claim.now and lay out our actions and results to this point. Especially since it seems like most roles are 2x anyway and useless by now.
I agree, but there's literally no value to town for me to claim what I did with my role. I either used it or I didn't, I either have shots of my Commuter or I don't. If you think there's value for town to know those things, I'd like to know what that would be.
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@Casey_Risk
Well, something like that did happen in Pie's Recycled Roles. That is a fair point, though, more likely than not that didn't happen in this game. Though, it's also possible that there's just no Ninja. The town factional perk implies that scum have some sort of roleblocking ability, after all. It's not necessarily imbalanced for there to be no Ninja depending on what the partner has and what the scum factional perk is.
Yeah, that's all possible, it's just hard to believe given that there are two tracking roles that there wouldn't be some capability by scum to scuttle it. I guess you could argue that the Car Thief can kind of do that, but that seems to be here to balance my role, not the Watcher or the Motion Detector. I wouldn't be surprised if scum had something to redirect or otherwise mess with a role instead, though that doesn't help narrow things down.
Regardless, I recognize that your result at least places WyIted in uncertain territory.
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@Casey_Risk
Wylted being a Ninja is a possibility that I can't ignore, but so is Vader being the Ninja. The problem with either of these theories is that both of them had behavior early in DP1 that points toward them being town, Vader with his very quick Gravedigger claim, and Wylted with being quick to jump on the GP wagon. That being said, on balance, I think scum claiming something like Gravedigger given that they have a Ninja is somewhat more likely than hardbussing their partner DP1, which is why I lean Vader. (Also my gutread on Wylted as I've stated before. Ever since LOLOLOL Mafia, I've always trusted my gut on him.)
I'm not dismissing Vader as potential scum - he's in my POE right now - but I think it's important to recognize that Vader doing so would be incredibly strange as a means to cover for himself.
I gave the full logic here for why I don't think he'd claim Gravedigger as Ninja, but the short version is that I just don't buy that someone who would not be trackable at all would go out of their way to fake claim a role that tracks to the NK. We'd have to assume that Vader made a big mistake claiming a negative utility role that could not be mechanically proven. It's not impossible that he fumbled this that badly in an attempt to give an early SOP claim to make himself look townie, but I just don't buy that he'd choose this specific role instead of the usual suspects (e.g. Miller). Really, the only way I'd believe this is if he and GP made a mistake and believed they had each others' roles.
So while I agree that WyIted jumping on his own scum partner that early is surprising, it's also the easiest to explain.
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@Casey_Risk
Alright, so investigative JOAT. Considering that we've had a Watcher rather than a Tracker, the Motion Detector isn't out of the realm of possibility, especially a 1X. I've also just been townreading you for pushing GP so early, and I still do. I think if you weren't, you wouldn't have said that the Motion Detector showed nothing on WyIted.
All that being said, given that we have a Watcher and a Motion Detector, wouldn't be surprised if scum have a Ninja.
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@Vader
That's the conclusion I'm coming to on this. I'd still like to get everyone's full claims at this point to make sure I'm not missing anything glaring.
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@Vader
My POE is WF and Wylted with a lean on Wylted. If I am not mistaken, he claimed a vanilla mid DP2, which just seems like a safe claim. Plus not to mention if he was scum and knew about there only being just a tracker, he would've likely wanted to kill Savant and force a mislynch on Austin so his theories don't come true
Honestly, pretty baffled to be in your POE after I claimed Commuter. Considering that one of GP's JOAT roles was Car Thief, either a Commuter exists in this game, or Mharman just included the role for no reason.
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@Lunatic
@Casey_Risk
So... wait. Why did Austin claim JK instead of just claiming Compulsive RB? Did he think that would be more believable?
Also, sadly, not surprised that Savant's dead. Killing the claimed Watcher makes a good deal of sense for scum.
Don't really like that WyIted went ahead and lynched without waiting for me to get online that night, though he seemed pretty fed up with waiting on the lynch. Not a great look for him even if he weren't common to nearly everyone's POE by the end of the last DP.
As far as I'm aware (I might have missed it, so correct me if I'm wrong), we still don't have claims from Casey and Luna, and at this point, I'm not taking chances. I want claims from both of you.
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@sadolite
"Trump is responsible for the reduction and I'm granting that, " Then what the fuck else is there to talk about? All the actions had the end result.
Because the title of this post, and the subject of my argument thus far, has been and remains that this specific action - the use of tariffs to get concessions out of other countries - has not contributed to that reduction in any meaningful way. Some of his actions had that result, not all of them. And yes, it matters that we know what policies lead to what result. Simply saying "Trump did it so it must have worked" tells us nothing about what was effective or why.
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@Shila
Too bad, I was starting to enjoy reading your posts
Sorry to disappoint, but I’m happy to engage with anyone who is willing to do this right. I’ve already made my opinion on this clear, might jump around to some other related topics.
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@WyIted
I’ll note that that is also the reason you and I have had so many conversations on a wide variety of topics despite often disagreeing, but yeah, sadly that’s the rare experience.
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@Greyparrot
GP, when we started this conversation and up to the point that you posted that response, my impression was that we at least had a degree of mutual respect for each other’s positions. That kind of respect, even if it lacks much in the way of agreement, is a prerequisite for me to engage in long form discussions like this in a forum. There’s a reason I haven’t done it in a while.
If you want to troll me and be pedantic instead of engaging with my points, then yeah, it might be better for this to end. It’s not the way I wanted it to go, but if we’re going to hit this roadblock again instead of continuing to discuss the policy we’ve both been focused on before that, then it’s probably not worth either of our time.
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@Greyparrot
Sorry, but when you post something ridiculous like "USA has never done tariffs since Hitler" I have to get clarification
Let’s not pretend that you didn’t know what I was talking about or why the difference matters. This is you getting pedantic for the sake of it, so the idea that you had to get clarification on an issue you clearly understand well enough to know the difference is just silly.
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@Greyparrot
Ignoring everything we have done in South America and the Middle east and the Cold War, sure.
Seriously? Are you equivocating between trade alliances and instances where we were either actively in conflict with another nation or were actively trying to push for full on regime change and/or punish current leadership? If that’s the comparison, then what you really want is to reshape trade policy into something that doesn’t recognize trade partnerships at all the moment our partners engender frustration, not to mention one that treats every instance where a country does something that frustrates us as worthy of an only slightly muted version of the same response we’ve levied on nations that are recognized as our enemies.
You realize Biden had Tariffs on Canada in place as recent as August of 2024....I thought you were well informed and more nuanced...my bad.
Silly me, I thought it was obvious, but I guess I’ll specify: when I talk about tariff policy, I mean on a broad level, i.e. applying to a wide range of imports. That’s what sparks trade wars, not limits on the import of single goods like lumber. That’s why I’ve been talking about tariffs as they relate to trade wars because they tend to spark only when both sides see it as a persistent and expansive threat on their trade.
This is just a bad faith response, dude. You know the difference, but you’re nitpicking anyway.
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@Greyparrot
We have been doing that for hundreds of years. It's only recently that we tried to pretend we were not.
Yes, and that stopped in 1942. It’s been roughly 80 years since the US imposed tariffs, and quite a while since many of the nations we trade with has used tariffs. It’s not “pretending” to say that that’s been the standard for trade for quite a while, that many presidents since then have focused on free trade policy, and that the now long-standing precedent of global trade is very different from what it was for those hundreds of years. “Pretending” that backsliding into trade policy from a century ago will have no lasting consequences for a now globalized world with its own distinct trade networks does not make sense to me.
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@sadolite
Bottom line is this. Every action Trump has taken has reduced illegal immigration. So one could say nothing had any effect except Trump himself. No policy , no tariff no nothing. Trump is 100% wholly responsible for the reduction. You can argue till you are blue in the face what actions had what effect but in the end it is Trumps leadership and "all" the actions he has taken that is responsible.
I don't understand this argument. You can say that Trump is responsible for the reduction and I'm granting that, but you cannot argue that every action he has taken has contributed positively to that reduction because, obviously, some have had no effect on that reduction whatsoever. Many of his policies aren't even aimed at reducing the number of illegal immigrants who cross the border. The notion that everything he has done has contributed specifically to the reduction in people crossing the border and that all of them necessarily had a positive effect simply because the numbers have gone down (which can be the result of some policies and not others) just don't hold up to any amount of scrutiny. That's not how cause and effect works.
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@Greyparrot
It means our trade alliance is fragile, yes.Well on this point, I definitely disagree.
Well, I guess that's where this conversation ends, then. The US is a very powerful force in the world economy. Our taking sudden and unilateral action against other countries to bully them into doing what we want, doing it in such a way that it will cause both immediate and lasting harm to their countries, while simultaneously defying a trade agreement that we helped broker (Trump literally signed this agreement with Mexico and Canada during his first administration) should have consequences for any trade alliance, fragile or strong. If it doesn't, then that speaks more to how little the countries involved trust each other to begin with that they can just accept an upending of all trade agreements at the drop of a hat. That's not an indicator of strength.
And that kumbaya narrative needs to change if America is going to claw back the concessions given up to both allies and rivals.
I'm never going to understand the argument that a trade war is better than allowing these concessions. You'll have to explain that one to me.
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@Greyparrot
Let's assume this premise is true, wouldn't that mean our alliance is and has been extremely shaky if it were to be so easily unraveled?
It means our trade alliance is fragile, yes, but this is like arguing that a window is fragile because I can throw a bowling ball through it. When you exert enough negative pressure on something, it's going to take damage that isn't easily repaired. The ability to inflict that damage is not evidence that the relationship was fragile to begin with. I would argue that, when a trade relationship that has been open and largely agreeable for decades is severely disrupted by the unilateral decision of one side to implement a far-reaching and extremely damaging tariff, that's a substantial disruption that would only inflict more harm on what was previously perceived as a stable and largely cordial economic relationship.
I didn't mean to frame that as a dichotomy, I meant to say the idea (narrative) that alliances could be shattered over mean tweets misses the true basis for the formation of alliances between distinct nations. It's definitely deeper than the price of eggs, cheese, or maple syrup. It's not the first time foreign nations exaggerated to gain an advantage. USA can play the same game without shame.
They weren't "shattered over mean tweets" - they have been upended by the decision to threaten and then an apparent willingness to act on the threat of tariffs and ignite the resulting trade war. If all Trump did was write tweets and threaten without any indication of action, I don't think we'd be discussing this right now. As for exaggerating, I'm not clear what you're getting at. Where's the exaggeration in the threat that tariffs pose? Where's the exaggeration in the threat of a trade war?
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@Greyparrot
I think a lot of people have a gross conceptualization concept when it comes to "allies"Nations don't form alliances because they "like" each other. It's all about strategic benefit. So when those benefits change over time (as they always do) so will the state of alliances, and no amount of pleasantries will change that. Canada, England, and much of the EU have done in the past exactly what Trump is doing now, with little substantive response from us other than an apology tour. I don't think that policy is sustainable for any country, to apologize by default instead of demanding concessions. To frame national alliances as a feel-good kumbaya union is ignorant at best and deceitful at worst.
To an extent, I agree. My problem, then, is with a sudden and dramatic change of tone that could, as we've already seen, spark a trade war overnight with those allies. Maybe the state of those alliances should be somewhat fluid, but you're talking about turning on a dime from trade partners with some problems to active hostility that can and would negatively affect global trade. Recognizing that these trade relationships should change to reflect how those benefits have shifted over time is very different from threatening to upend the entire relationship, and I don't think framing this as a dichotomy of "feel-good kumbaya union" vs. trade war is an accurate portrayal of our options when it comes to managing these trade relationships.
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@Greyparrot
There's an additional benefit of signaling to the world that Trump can't be treated the same way they ignored Biden.
I'd hesitate to call it a "benefit." Assuming Biden was being ignored by these world leaders (I'll just grant that for the sake of argument) and Trump wanted to send a message that he would not be ignored, I'd say ramping up to "I will initiate a trade war with you if you don't do what I say" is a significant escalation, particularly when we're talking about allied nations. It's also notable that he backed off from that escalation at the 11th hour, so it's currently questionable whether he'd actually pull the trigger on this with Canada or Mexico. If his goal was to establish that he might be willing to do a trade war over frustrations with fentanyl and illegal immigration, then I agree, he certainly put it on the table. I just don't agree that starting from that position is a benefit.
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@sadolite
The point is this. The day Trump took office the illegal crossings started to plumet and tariffs were used to make bordering countries and other countries repatriate their US immigration law breaking assholes and criminals.
I'd like to note that I haven't argued this and have, in fact, granted Trump full solvency on this front. I have problems with the means by which he's accomplished it, but that's a distinct issue and I'm not going to argue it here.
Its almost as if you want to argue for unchecked lawless immigration and there is nothing that can be done to stop it so we all should just throw our hands in the air and say oh well it is what it is.
I haven't made a single argument here that Trump shouldn't have taken action against illegal immigration or even argued that the actions he has taken have been ineffective. If this is your take-away from my responses, then either I've done a bad job expressing my point or you are just dramatically misinterpreting my words. My argument is and remains that the tariffs specifically have no demonstrated solvency. There is no evidence whatsoever that the threat of them was effective at reducing border crossings or that they were necessary to achieve what Trump claims he got as concessions from the Canadian and Mexican governments. The fact that the threat of them existed while the number of migrants crossing the border went down doesn't serve as evidence that they caused that decline, whether in full or in part.
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@Greyparrot
At best, you could say he was enforcing a bad faith promise.
On that, we agree.
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@Greyparrot
That's possible considering the slow panic of knowing Trump could win in November, but clearly by the election results, it was too little, and too late.
Sure it's possible. Does that mean that it's proof positive that Trump's tariff threats worked? I'd say not, especially considering that basically everything he got out of Mexico was already being done by them years before (so well before any election results would have been in the mix), and Biden had already worked with Trudeau on the $1.3 billion policy well before it was announced in December last year. At that point, it comes off more as trying to shoehorn it in as the "cause" behind these actions to justify the threat of the tariffs, rather than an actual cause and effect relationship.
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@sadolite
"Are you saying that those reductions in border crossings were solely the result of the threat of tariffs " Yes that is what I am saying directly. But I will concede that actually enforcing the rule of law at the boarder also had an impact to a lesser extent.
If you do believe that, I'd like to know why. There should be evidence that Canada and Mexico have taken actions in response to the threat of tariffs that have dramatically reduced the number of illegal border crossings. All you've given me so far is evidence that the number of border crossings have gone down, which doesn't attribute those reductions to the efforts of these two countries. Even if you did, I doubt you could provide evidence that the threat of tariffs, specifically, led them to take those actions. And that was my point from the outset: that these countries were already taking action on their borders to address these border crossings before Trump got into office. You can argue that they did so solely because they anticipated the tariffs and they felt a need to respond, but I doubt there's any evidence for that.
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@Savant
Are we lynching Vader, WyIted, or Austin? I can't lynch any of them without your cooperation.
Yep, seems like the vote has split quite a bit.
Honestly, I just don't buy Vader as scum. You'd have to believe that scum have a Ninja as a response to Savant's Watcher, which is the only reason Vader would risk claiming his role... except that makes absolutely no sense because he, as the Ninja, would have claimed a role that Savant, as the Watcher, could verify does not work as the Gravedigger is supposed to work. This plan, where scum have a Ninja and claim Gravedigger, only makes sense if the person who is not the Ninja claims it. We know GP didn't claim Gravedigger and was not the Ninja. So, no, I won't be voting Vader.
It's heads up between WyIted and Austin. My preference atm is Austin, but I haven't decided yet and likely won't until tonight.
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@Casey_Risk
I think I know what you're hinting at, and it would definitely remove you from my PoE. I'd be down with getting your claim.
Alright. My character is Vehicles. I am the 2X Commuter. Justification is pretty obvious.
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@Casey_Risk
Actually, that's a good point. Looking back at DP1, you were one of the first to get on board with the GP lynch. Not sure how I overlooked that. That leaves just Austin for me. Maybe Whiteflame as well, actually. Not that he's done anything scummy, but he gives me the least reason to townread him.
I'd be surprised if my claim doesn't virtually confirm me, so if it helps with POE, I'll do it.
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There is something I'd like to understand and maybe people can inform me on why they feel this is unnecessary:
Why aren't we seeking more claims at this point?
So far, the only person I've seen inquire about another claim (and it was less inquiring and more assuming that they had a role that gave info and asking for it) is Casey, and despite the sus that Luna has been throwing at WyIted, I haven't seen an attempt to get a claim out of him. Maybe he just doesn't care about the claim because it doesn't affect his view of WyIted, but I don't know why we'd limit our info this DP other than the hope that the NP could yield more beneficial night actions if we mislynch. I get that a lot of the reads have been behavioral and people might just not want to distract from them by throwing mechanics into it, I'm just having a hard time understanding why we're limiting ourselves if we have a limited POE that is commonly shared and contains people who haven't claimed.
I'm still going through the DPs, but this stuck out to me.
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Anyway, I'm heading off for the night. I'm sure I'll get some more responses, so I'll address those tomorrow and go back through both DPs to see if it changes my thoughts.
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@AustinL0926
The town faction perk guarantees my role can't be interfered with.
Assuming you stay off a mislynch, sure. I guess the alternative - that we just lynch scum - would render that moot anyway.
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At this point, I am going to have to rethink my reads. It's still plausible that Austin is scum, but I really don't like that logic that's being used to push that lynch, at least on two fronts. His role claim is sus because we know an RB must exist and his is the only one we've known to have any effect. He's in a lot of peoples' POE and that's valid.
Where I'm struggling is in the added details people keep throwing in there.
WyIted has said some variation of this a couple of times:
Austin is scum because he is quite literally just claiming a variation of doctor and pie flipped doctor plus POE.
This implies that the two would never be in the same game together, though I've seen plenty of games designed with town having both these roles. If you want to call those imbalanced, be my guest, but this is not an unusual town composition, particularly with a scum JOAT in the mix to balance a mix of protective roles. Beyond that, while I recognize that both roles function protectively, they're clearly different and are often used entirely differently, with the JK often being used chiefly for its RB rather than its protection. So, no, I don't see an implied CC in this.
As for the scum faction perk, I'm not a big fan of this line of argument, either. There's too much wild speculation going on with this, particularly in terms of a recruitment role. I could see a world in which there is some pretty powerful perk available to them, but given that we already know they had a decently strong JOAT, I don't buy that scum also have someone with an RB (which we know they have) plus a recruitment role, or that their perk is so dramatically game-breaking that leaving them alive for one more night utterly fucks over town.
By contrast, I see the point both he and Luna are making about the potential gains town could get from having another person JK'd. It's not a given that he'd get to use it, particularly if he is town since we know scum have an RB of their own, but there's a possibility of getting relevant information that could narrow POE. I'm still not sure if it's reason enough to let Austin live out the DP, especially considering that we don't have a clear alternative lynch, but I'm also not just going to dismiss it out of hand.
I'm going to revisit all this tomorrow. A number of you seem to really just want this to end, but we're only a little over 24 hours into this DP, so I'm going to take my time.
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I haven’t had the time to look back through and reconsider my reads. We have plenty of time left in the DP, so that’s what I’m going to do before I commit to any lynch.
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@Lunatic
Largely the reason for my town read is based on WIFOM just as your reasoning for scum reading him is. I think from the get go of DP1 it was pretty clear the greyparrot was a likely lynch. There was a couple naysayers but from my perspective it seemed kind of obvious it was going that way all along. Maybe I am placing Austin on too high of a pedestal sure, I’ve done it before. But I genuinely think Austin is a good player and I think he would know to abandon ship, and he had plenty of opportunities to do so. He didn’t just not buy the GP scum read, he hard scum read me for pursuing it. And I never even blamed him for that because even though I thought GP was the best lynch and likely scum, I admit that even I was entirely unsure that he would flip scum. Austin’s reasons for thinking GP deserved a pass were valid, I just disagreed with the likelihood of GP being town over scum.
It's hard not to read this with an eye towards last game where the argument that I would never do something as scum became a reason for Austin to rally to my defense... despite my being scum. Like, I get it. I get that this is what you'd expect from Austin. I just find it a little odd that you're writing him off as, in your words, "like confirmed town" simply because he didn't end up cutting his losses. And I'll point out as well that I'm not the only one who has made this argument in response to you, as Casey has said virtually the same thing well after I posted my response.
It seems more just like you disagree with my reasoning… which is fine I guess but considering I kind of scum read you, it’s also to be expected.
I mean... we've done this dance on more than one occasion where both of us were town, dude, and on few of those occasions has my reasoning been that you've scumread me for something minor, which this still appears to be.
I came into this day phase with the theory that mafia bussed GP though, the kill on pie demonstrates the second mafia is a bit smarter than the average pineapple in my Opinion.
Really? Killing Pie NP1 isn't exactly uncommon practice for a scum team. Hell, we did it when he claimed (and actually was, to our shock) PGO. I think a lot of people come to a similar conclusion, and given that he was the hammer and had the faction perk, he was kind of the obvious target. Bussing GP, assuming that took place (not dismissing it, just don't believe it's the most obvious conclusion) isn't necessarily indicative of much, either. GP made himself very obvious by the end of the DP with that scumslip about the scum faction perk, and I say that as someone who still wasn't sure for much of it. The RC claim alone didn't make him obvious scum, but he definitely didn't help his case as the DP went on.
Anyone coming in here and acting like GP was obviously scum and everyone should have known that is just going to ping my radar even more. Unfortunately your take here kind of worsens my read on you.
Kind of wondering why you don't think he was obvious by the end of the DP. If that's pinging your radar, then there's something I'm not understanding. As for whether that worsens your read of me, honestly, I don't care all that much. If people want my claim, I'll give it. So far, you're the only one to put me in their PoE.
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@AustinL0926
@Savant
I don't love this claim. The town faction perk seemed to imply a scum role blocker, and no one else has said their action was blocked.
I agree that a scum RB is a given, though that doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't a town RB as well. We had it confirmed that scum also get a faction perk, so it's possible that they have a counter to a town RB resulting from that. That being said, it's hard not to notice that GP's JOAT lacked the RB, so we know the other scum has an RB, and it conveniently provides mechanical confirmation of his claim.
If I was scum roleblocker, I wouldn't claim town jailkeeper, there are far better fakeclaims than that. Consider that scum could have roleblocked someone with a passive role, a role that didn't give feedback, or even have a redirector or deflector.
Not that I'm saying your confirmed scum or anything based on your claim, but I'm not a big fan of this response. I'd say it depends on your perspective whether it is suboptimal to claim a town version of a role that you have mechanically confirmed instead of hiding behind another role and hoping not to be taken out by PoE. It's WIFOM. I take your latter point, though - it's entirely possible that there is another RB in the game besides you and that we just don't know what they did. Doesn't take attention away from you, but it's a fair argument.
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@AustinL0926
I have mechanical info, going to wait a moment to out it.
Is there a reason for this delay?
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@AustinL0926
@Savant
@Casey_Risk
Savant already said his action failed.
Somehow, I completely blanked on this. He also did state that his target was Vader, don't know why I forgot about that entirely.
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@Savant
I'm Minimap Dots, and I tell players where the gunfire is. Justification is left implied.
It’s similar enough to GP’s fake claim that it makes more sense of your early sus on him last DP, and I buy the Watcher claim as well. Can’t help but note, though, that you didn’t state what you did NP1.
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@WyIted
Yeah he is I town read lunatic and you town read Austin so it's probably the best compromise anyway.
Just to be clear, I'm not townreading Austin. We actually agree (amazing, I know) that Austin and Savant are both concerning.
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@WyIted
I'll need to go back through DP1 as well.
Vader and Casey are my strongest townreads. You're not far behind them, so I'd put you in outer PoE. Central PoE for me is down to Savant, Luna and Austin, so they're the chief players I'm interested in getting claims from. I'm fine with Savant being first if he's your priority.
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@WyIted
I know it's a small detail but reread lunatics reasoning for who he has in his scum pile and then look at how savant claims he buys that reasoning and then tell me if that looks like stuff savant would normally buy into
Yeah, I've already said I don't really like Luna's reasoning on Austin. In general, Luna seems to be approaching his PoE by arguing that uncertainty or hesitance indicates town unless he's talking about Casey for some reason. I'm not the biggest fan of Savant's argument either, but I'm hesitant to jump on him for that, since odd reads just seem to be his meta and often get him lynched.
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