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U.S. Politics: The Biggest Trade in WNBA History

bobjr

You ask too many questions
Staff member
Moderator
A middle class person now is just a working class person who the upper class have somehow convinced to look down on working class people.
 

Auraninja

Eh, ragazzo!
A middle class person now is just a working class person who the upper class have somehow convinced to look down on working class people.
Reminds me of this thing I saw on Facebook.

Fox News: When the higher class tell the middle class to blame it on poor people.

That might have been a little bit paraphrased, but you get the notion.
 

bobjr

You ask too many questions
Staff member
Moderator
The problem there is the middle class is less and less of a thing, due to rising housing costs and medical costs and things like that. Your average person has basically nothing in savings because they can't afford to save anything. It's more they try to convince them they're the "good ones, and it's the bad ones who are lazy and just taking the money" so policies can be passed that hurt everyone except the wealthy.
 

Poke Trainer J

Well-Known Member
I think you guys are taking what I said earlier on this thread out of context. When I was comparing the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to what Google was doing with The Pentagon by automating drone strikes with artificial intelligence, I was referring to the scope of how deadly one incident was to another. It had nothing to do with disregarding one incident to another because at the end of the day, a war crime is a war crime. Of course these incidents matter to me, it pains me whenever tragedies like this occur as my thoughts, prayers, and condolences always go out to the families, friends, and victims.

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki incident should never have happened, but to the Truman Administration they felt that it was the best course of action to prevent having to prolong World War II with Japan at the time. Nevertheless it was a painful reminder of just how dangerous nuclear warfare can be and If we weren't able to learn from it then we'd be doomed to repeat it. In regards to The Pentagon and Google's "Project Maven", people often take for granted that science fiction is meant to warn us about the dangers of artificial intelligence in order to help save us from ourselves.
 

Swordsman4

Well-Known Member
Swordsman4 notwithstanding, but Trump stereotyping all immigrants as members of MS:13(most are victims or slaves being ferried by such) rings of and echoes Nazi hate rhetoric about Jews during WWII.

How much will the Republicans and Centricrats allow before this is blatant enough hatred to do something about?!

Listen to the speech, he’s not talking about all immigrants.

And funny how you ignored the fact that your own defends terrorists...just like how John Kerry is colluding with Iran and Palestine who are both known terror states.

Maybe that’s where Mueller should be looking...
 

bobjr

You ask too many questions
Staff member
Moderator
Well I was going to talk about how conservatives make a conclusion first and then top-down find reasons to support it, but thankfully someone jumped in as an example.
 

Scammel

Well-Known Member
I think you guys are taking what I said earlier on this thread out of context. When I was comparing the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to what Google was doing with The Pentagon by automating drone strikes with artificial intelligence, I was referring to the scope of how deadly one incident was to another. It had nothing to do with disregarding one incident to another because at the end of the day, a war crime is a war crime. Of course these incidents matter to me, it pains me whenever tragedies like this occur as my thoughts, prayers, and condolences always go out to the families, friends, and victims.

Ok, I'll confess to having been too obnoxious, but I really do question why you picked such an atrocious historical event for your analogy. It's like when people compare Trump to Hitler - the comparison is so obviously hyperbolic that it delegitimises reams and reams of rightful criticism of the turd. It comes across as hysterical.

Can we move out of the habit of minimizing atrocities simply because we have the capacity to point somewhere else in the world, or somewhere else in history where something worse is taking/took place? This kind of reasoning is endemic and really hurtful to progress. Take for example, low wage workers who want higher wages. We often hear them derided as spoiled brats because people in Western nations don't know what real poverty is. Having trouble paying your rent? Worried about health care? Can't afford heat and electric for the winter months? Well, that's just too damn bad and you should shut the **** up, because somewhere, someone, in a third world country is starving to death and plum full of parasites!

I come from a slightly different place - I think we are fortunate to live in a fundamentally boring part of Western history and that all the exciting stuff is happening elsewhere in the world, and the exciting stuff is overwhelmingly positive. Younger people have grown up on a fantastically varied media diet and are familiar with history like never before, and I strongly suspect the largely comfortable reality of Western life fails to live up to the strife-ridden ideal of modern TV, film and literature.

Amongst the alt-right, you'll see neckbeards cling to historical periods they feel give them agency, namely the crusades. They love the idea of going in to physically battle for a culture under existential threat against a nebulous heathen outgroup, because their own lives are comfortable, unfulfilling and unchallenging (well, it's challenging in ways they don't like).

I feel it's more complex with elements of the left, but there are similar trends. I might be unduly nonplussed because I live in a relatively sane part of the Anglosphere, but it seems there's a strain of leftist who wishes they were alive under Jim Crow, because then there is a real battle to fight against monstrous oppression. It would be easier if Trump were Hitler, because they're a fulfilling simplicity in picking up a stick and going to war. Civilian casualties caused by drone strikes aren't just terrible, they're as bad as nuclear weapons.

I think I may have been partly defined by Kony 2012. I remember watching that video, I remember how powerful it was, and I remember how my niggling doubt was completely justified when I did some background checks. Nothing makes me suspicious like righteous outrage.
 
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Gamzee Makara

Flirtin' With Disaster
Listen to the speech, he’s not talking about all immigrants.

And funny how you ignored the fact that your own defends terrorists...just like how John Kerry is colluding with Iran and Palestine who are both known terror states.

Maybe that’s where Mueller should be looking...

You bloody knew what and why I focused on.

Listening does not mean I have to believe Trump based on his patterns. I didn't believe Obama all the time, so why should I believe Trump all the time? Blind faith is the death of reason, after all.

John Kerry isn't doing jack s**t, seeing as how he's not in a real position of power anymore.

Paranoia, thy name is any conspiracy theorist/Alex Jones fandrone/Trump himself who believes in a "deep state"(Next you'll tell me that Lizard People, the New World Order, Freemasons and the Illuminati created the deep state by replacing the originals with alien clones to run pizza place-based child slavery rings), and, even if there was one, it wouldn't be single-party or single mentality based, based on who takes money from who and who actually has the money and power to undermine the President. If anything, it'd be run by The Koch Brothers and that guy who tried to start an impeachment petition against Trump.

Next!
 

Trainer Yusuf

VolcaniNO
Regarding the Syrian Civil War, it seems Daraa will be just handed over to Syrian regime. If this is the case, all of the mass media pretensions about Israeli buffer region, competency of the Southern Front and mass of refugees to Jordan are just overblown. I'm obviously saddened with the fact that the most liberal group in the war will just give up, but it is expected.

This will leave three more border regions for the regime to check in, but we will see how they will go.

Edit: Oh and Trump will recognize Israeli annexation of Golan Heights. Fun times.
 
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Kung Fu Ferret

The Usurper
Also, Trump's blocking spree on Twitter is apparently unconstitutional (just like everything else he's trying to do). Maybe his social media accounts will be suspended? One can only hope.....

And right as I made a new Twitter account after a friend dared me to try and get him to block me.... Oh, well!
 

Scammel

Well-Known Member
Also, Trump's blocking spree on Twitter is apparently unconstitutional (just like everything else he's trying to do). Maybe his social media accounts will be suspended? One can only hope.....

This ruling is the most bizarre thing to ever emerge from a courtroom. Twitter is a private platform, not a public forum - this suggests all Twitter bans are in contravention of the 1st Amendment, which is clearly nonsense.
 

keepitsimple

site of lies
If the right to be heard by the president when I troll him is a thing now, I guess I know how I'm spending my afternoon.

Guess I'll finally use my twitter account :D

Maybe his social media accounts will be suspended? One can only hope.....
Aw, you want to get rid of him the boring way? That just gives the right wing more ammunition to stereotype us as angry, fun hating authoritarians or whatever.

I say everyone should make the most of this ruling and get rid of him on twitter the fun way, by trolling him until he closes his account willingly. It's our constitutional right now (Hey does this apply to me if I'm Canadian, or can he still block me?).

Can't we all just make sock accounts if Twitter terminates us? ;p
 
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Gamzee Makara

Flirtin' With Disaster
This ruling is the most bizarre thing to ever emerge from a courtroom. Twitter is a private platform, not a public forum - this suggests all Twitter bans are in contravention of the 1st Amendment, which is clearly nonsense.
The ruling explicitly mentioned that public government officials are unable to block on the grounds of political opposition.

Doesn't mean that they can't claim harassment or any other social media policy(this applies to any social media site) no-no as a defense for blocking people.

This changes nothing.

Calm down.
 

Scammel

Well-Known Member
The ruling explicitly mentioned that public government officials are unable to block on the grounds of political opposition.

Doesn't mean that they can't claim harassment or any other social media policy(this applies to any social media site) no-no as a defense for blocking people.

The reasoning for blocking is irrelevant - this logic dictates that Trump cannot refuse to speak to someone at a garden party, for example. The relationship between Trump's account and is followers is owned by Twitter, not the state, so it shouldn't be a free speech issue.

It follows from this ruling that Twitter bans are unconstitutional, right? Users are being unfairly denied access to a 'public forum', right?
 

Gamzee Makara

Flirtin' With Disaster
The reasoning for blocking is irrelevant - this logic dictates that Trump cannot refuse to speak to someone at a garden party, for example. The relationship between Trump's account and is followers is owned by Twitter, not the state, so it shouldn't be a free speech issue.

It follows from this ruling that Twitter bans are unconstitutional, right? Users are being unfairly denied access to a 'public forum', right?

When a ProgLib is telling you that you're broadening the scope of this too far, something is wrong.

As President, he and any other public official has an ethical obligation to hear the concerns of their citizens, regardless if they intend to act on them. This ruling just cements that from ethics into law.

It isn't just a Twitter or Trump thing, but it ONLY refers to public officials, not JoeSchmo52-types. And non-public official users of any social media or traditional media platform can still block/be banned by each other and can block public officials the way this was worded.

A garden party is defined legally as a private event anyway(unless it explicitly names itself as public). So Trump can ignore little Johnny when he runs up to Mr. President and asks where his Mexican neighbor went when the men with guns took him if little Johnny was invited to or is the relative of someone at said private garden party. If Trump was talking at a public rally, then Little Johnny has to be heard(The legal definition of that is nebulous) but not necessarily answered or his input acted upon.

Social Media is a public forum legally if there is no membership fee or other form gatekeeping involved to talk on it and said forum is viewable to the public with discussion(s) going on. These forums are technically a "public forum", but closed DMs of Twitter or Facebook are not. So public officials don't have to open their DMs by this ruling, but they cannot private their accounts until they are out of office.

This is about accessibility of public officials to their constituents. And the President of the ENTIRETY of US citizens(not just those of their party or bubble/circle) has been ruled as unable to block(Not ban, as the President can't kick people off of a website) users for STRICTLY political reasons. Officials will find a way to weasel out of this ruling, don't you worry.

When I'm saying don't panic, something is wrong here.
 

bobjr

You ask too many questions
Staff member
Moderator
So ICE has lost over 1000 kids in Arizona alone, some of which ended up in human trafficking hands.

I guess when you have to be a sadistic racist to work for an organization it shouldn't be a surprise that Nazi-level evil starts happening but... Damn.
 

Poke Trainer J

Well-Known Member
Ok, I'll confess to having been too obnoxious, but I really do question why you picked such an atrocious historical event for your analogy. It's like when people compare Trump to Hitler - the comparison is so obviously hyperbolic that it delegitimises reams and reams of rightful criticism of the turd. It comes across as hysterical.
As Baba Yaga already mentioned earlier on this thread, I assumed that the level of 'collateral damage' in regards to automating drone strikes with artificial intelligence would eventually catch up to the atrocity of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. While it may have been a poor analogy to make at the time, I was trying to prove just how dangerous the situation was.
 

Skiks

MUCH RESPECT
The reasoning for blocking is irrelevant - this logic dictates that Trump cannot refuse to speak to someone at a garden party, for example. The relationship between Trump's account and is followers is owned by Twitter, not the state, so it shouldn't be a free speech issue.

It follows from this ruling that Twitter bans are unconstitutional, right? Users are being unfairly denied access to a 'public forum', right?
If Trump wishes to make another account just for Whitehouse stuff he is welcome to do so. It's his fault for using Twitter like a public forum. Since he is the president the rules are different compared to a private citizen.
A big boy like him should be able to handle this.
 

The Admiral

the star of the masquerade
So ICE has lost over 1000 kids in Arizona alone, some of which ended up in human trafficking hands.

I guess when you have to be a sadistic racist to work for an organization it shouldn't be a surprise that Nazi-level evil starts happening but... Damn.
Current numbers are something like 1,475?

God, that is so unbelievably messed up.
 
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