I’m commenting on the headline, not the article. I’m allowed to do that.

It’s not alarmist: A second Trump term really is an extinction-level threat to democracy

No, it is not an extinction-level threat to democracy. We have plenty of democracy in the rest of the western world, thank you very much. A second Trump term would be a huge threat to US democracy though. But that’s not what this headline implies. Extinct means gone forever, from everywhere. That’s simply not the case. I’m tired of Americans forgetting that there’s a world outside their borders.

Good points, thank you!

Thank you, I’ll check out that PDF!

This is excellent advice, thank you very much. Luckily, I have Call of Cthulhu behind me in my bookshelf which I haven’t even read (6e though, but I’m sure it too contains good advice).

What’s so strange about that? It’s not like the government - any government - is just one person. Of course some people in government can mess with other people in government. Even people in the same office mess with each other. Intra-office politics, and so on.

“We”? Who are “we”? Star fleet?

People have to remember that this is the Internet, this thing is global.

So if we can’t completely 100% deal with a problem, we shouldn’t even try? I mean, you’re correct, but we can’t solve all problems at once. If we deal with at least one, then we’ve made progress. Then we can try to deal with the next one.

The US is fucked.

Yes, I agree, and it makes me very sad. The US has been very good for me personally, I get movies, music, technology, relative stability in the world, and so on from the US. I just feel sad for the poor saps who have to live there.

But now, we can’t count on the US being the top political power in the world anymore. So now the EU really has to step up, because we don’t want China or Russia to become the new #1.

Never forbid Player vs Player, tho.

I would consider banning this as a GM, because it makes me uncomfortable. I’ve had bad experiences in the past, and I want to enjoy the game too.

Lol, of course not.

… my cutting hammers are in the bathroom.

Yes. I’ve experimented with this too. This is the perfect use case for LLMs - there are no wrong answers, the LLM should just make something up, which is what it does.

Agreed. As far as I know, there is no actual artificial intelligence yet, only simulated intelligence.

spreading a conspiracy

I know this is off-topic, but can we please go back to saying “conspiracy theory”? Conspiracy and conspiracy theories are not the same. There are actual conspiracies (a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful) , and there are theories of conspiracies. They should not be confused.

Not misleading, no one misunderstands

Speak for yourself, I misunderstood. I thought that income above a certain point was taxed at 28%.

Oh and their CEO is a rich frat boy and also probably the one with the crayons.

I’m not so sure, I’m pretty sure that guy ate all his crayons before he could do any kind of drawing.

Who the fuck do these Vatican people think they are, to lecture others on morality? The previous pope instructed all of Catholosism that they were not to report pedophile priests to the police on pain of excommunication. And this is apparently fine by the current pope.

They are a bunch of idiots with no coherent concept of morality. All morality is based on personal responsibility, but most Christians seem to think they can ask their imaginary friend - rather than the one they have wronged - for forgiveness, and be granted it! It is absolutely absurd. I’m not saying that Christians in general are bad people, I’m just saying we shouldn’t be looking towards Christianity or any of its leaders for moral guidance.

Incidentally - do you know which World War 2 nazis were excommunicated for their crimes by the Catholic church? You’d probably be surprised to know that it was only one. One! And who was it? It was Joseph Goebbels. Among all the heinous crimes commited by the nazis, what was it that Goebbels specifically did that caused the Catholic church to say “enough is enough”? I’ll tell you what he did: He married a divorced protestant. “That’s it,” the Catholic church said, “you no longer get to go to heaven with your fellow nazi war criminals. Killing 13 million people in the Holocaust alone we can live with, but marrying a divorced protestant? No, we can’t have that, that would be, like, totally immoral dude.”

But surely, I hear you say, the Catholic church was against the nazis? No. No, they were not. Hitler’s birthday was celebrated in German Catholic churces all throughout the war. Only in 1960’s did the Catholic church apologize for its silence during the Holocaust, and revert the hitherto established doctrine that all currently living Jews - including children - are personally responsible for killing Jesus. That’s why they didn’t oppose the Holocaust - because the Jews (never mind that they weren’t the only victims) had it coming, since they were all (some-fucking-how) personally responsible for “killing Jesus”.

So, yeah. I’m not going to let these morons lecture me or anyone else on morality.

Welcome! So far, in my experience, this is a much friendlier community that… many of the alternatives.

So, basically, Putin is telling Russian women to “get fucked for Putin”?