Surrealistik
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Posts posted by Surrealistik
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Brilliant speech from Bernie at Georgetown University that effectively reclaims the idea of socialism from its unfortunate legacy of defamation in America. Highly recommend watching its entirety:
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Tax law can be and often is structured to exact taxation where profits are earned, such that the location of a company's headquarters is largely irrelevant: they will pay a country's taxes in proportion to the money they've made in that country's markets, which is absolutely fair. Yes, there are loopholes under certain laws and jurisdictions, but loopholes can and should be fixed (these are also a product of aforementioned money in politics by the way).
Further,
; you might be alluding to the interview with John Harwood where he was asked if he thought a 90% tax rate as seen during the Eisenhower administration was too high, to which he responded "No"; not opposing those rates doesn't mean necessarily advocating for them. That said, research has been done which demonstrates, perhaps counter-intuitively, that high top tax rates are actually associated with growth, probably due to the re-distributive effects being positive for aggregate demand in an economy, but that's a separate discussion.Further, the idea of homogeneous populations being the reason countries with higher taxes and more generous social programs succeed has never been proven; it's a theory often circulated, overwhelmingly by the partisan right who is loathe to acknowledge the success of government and socialistic policy, but has never to my knowledge, been verified or supported by research. In fact, there is evidence to refute this claim when one considers the relative proportion of foreign born people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... population
Socialist leaning countries such as Australia, Austria, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Netherland, etc... all have either a comparable or far greater % of their population as foreign born.
That said, there is absolutely nothing illusory about taxes working in those countries I've mentioned; as stated, they outperform the United States in virtually all important metrics with respect to overall quality of life, education, and healthcare for the typical citizen. If you have evidence that these achievements are false, and that they are merely the outcome of an 'impression' and a 'controlled populace' I would very much like to see it.
As for Bernie's being required to tax the middle class, I would doubt it, given the sheer breadth of economic activity, estate liquidations and transfers, closable loopholes, wasteful subsidies (corporate welfare) and military spending that are all large alternative sources of revenue and saved expenditures. Even if he had to though, I very much doubt that people would mind so long as they are receiving value for those tax dollars as several studies seem to verify; in fact, tax morale in America is higher than that of even Europe!
Lastly the Scandinavian model is actually enacted all around the world to various degrees; it is not exclusive to that region by any means, and it is presently working in a diverse cross-section of countries. There is no compelling reason it could not be made to work in the United States, assuming its democracy is able to triumph over self-serving, plutocratic corruption and influence to draft the requisite legislation.
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In stark contrast to your point, the rich have not left developed countries in droves with far higher tax rates and far more generous social programs, including the ones that serve as Bernie's source of inspiration. Further, their corporations haven't gone anywhere in terms of their operations. No company for example, is going to give up billions of dollars of profits wholesale and withdraw from an otherwise lucrative market because they lose several more percentage points of that bottom line; to assert otherwise is absurd. At worst you might cause them to prioritize expansion and investment in other regions, but taxation is only one element which factors in to this decision; demand is the primary consideration, which already aggregates the impact of taxes alongside other elements.
Indeed, supply and demand form the basis of Bernie's economic argument: disproportionate consolidation of wealth and income growth among the rich means a shrinking middle class which in turn eventually means shrinking demand, and therefore shrinking investment and growth. If the economy is growing at 3% and the wealthy enjoy the benefits of 90% of that growth, obviously this will be the trajectory of things, particularly if inflation outstrips or rivals those benefits everyone else receives, thereby bringing down their income and wealth in real terms. It is a simple economic truism for example, that one man with ten billion dollars does not and will not consume and invest anywhere near as much as a hundred thousand people with one hundred thousand apiece; that sort of overt consolidation is blatantly and plainly toxic for any economy, ethical, and political ramifications (such as the corrupting impact of money in politics, and the vastly disproportionate influence of the wealthy as a direct consequence) aside.
The idea of the Laffer Curve has merit; there is clearly an optimal point with respect to tax rates in terms of tax revenue (too high and you dis-incentivize to the point overall revenues decrease; too low and the growth from reinvestment and consumption theoretically stimulated by the reduction doesn't compensate for its extent), but there's no way the US is anywhere close to that in light of the success of alternate tax regimes with substantially higher effective rates.
Concerning Sander's not being able to get the funds required, assuming his platform were to be rolled out, what evidence do you have of that? Non-partisan sources please.
If Sanders would be bad for the United States, then the likes of countries such as the whole of Scandinavia, most of northern Europe, much of Southern Europe, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the like shouldn't be handily outperforming America in nearly every measure of public well-being that matters, particularly the HDI (inequality adjusted; we care how the average person lives, not the ultrarich), the Economist's Where-to-be-Born Index, and various other measures of quality of life. A corporatist like Hillary by contrast, is only good for the rich, particularly when she means to do nothing about the encroachment of plutocracy and the already undemocratic levels of power the rich currently have over the American electoral system (just look at CNN's recent blatant censorship of pro-Bernie sentiments and facts, or academic studies on the matter); economic tyranny that begets a creeping but very real political tyranny. In general there is little to nothing supporting your assertion while plenty at a minimum insinuates the opposite.
In balance, Sanders can by no means called a 'mess' or 'ignorant' economically, particularly when many economists support him and his polices: http://www.budget.senate.gov/democratic ... nimum-wage
http://usuncut.com/politics/top-economi ... -trillion/
Predictably, his only opposition amongst economists is from Supply Side/Austrian think tanks notorious for partisan alignment.
You can call Bernie an economic illiterate, and declare him unelectable and an unviable candidate for those reasons all you like, but unless you forward some real arguments rather than superficial partisan talking points, it comes off as nothing but political shit tossing.
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At this point, as far as I can tell (from the perspective of a brit who sometimes pretends he understand politics), the only candidate Democrat with a chance of getting in is Clinton, Saunders is basically just leftist window dressing with a very weak grasp on the basic principles of economics.
I don't think so; check the poll trajectories. You may have been forgiven for thinking that months ago, but the present reality is that Clinton is bleeding support even as Bernie continues to strengthen at a rapid pace. He also has a decisive lead in New Hampshire and Iowa; all this despite having a fraction of the recognition of Clinton (in some cases as low as 60% recognition!), which means his numbers are almost certain to continue improving:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/2 ... ic-Primary
Keep in mind that Clinton was leading by massive margins in these states only months ago!
In short, if the existing trend extrapolates and continues, Bernie will probably win. This is doubly likely if Joe Biden enters the race and splits Clinton's pro-establishment/DINO voter base.
As for having a 'weak grasp on economic principles' what are you referring to specifically?
Is that reflected by a policy of taxation that attacks excess wealth consolidation and inequality which are economically toxic?
Opposition to sovereignty destroying trade agreements like the TPP, which emphasize the interests of corporate entities and the exceptionally rich over those of countries, their laws and their people?
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is this a joke
Of course not.
+1
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Got this shit ready to go.
Don't have write access; what is the exact process of submitting the PR?
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It's about tied for my second most played borg with Engiborg.
Is pepperspray not necessary? Probably, but it's nice to have another non-lethal option every last Sec Officer has.
Integrated lights are not technically necessary but are a great quality of life feature.
Crowbars/microwelders not necessary? Now you're talking bullshit; encountered plenty of instances where they would have been crucial in successfully chasing down assholes during blackouts or through sabotaged doors. Getting away from a Sec Borg should not be as easy as applying a welder or wirecutter you can pick up with casual ease without raising any eyebrows whatsoever.
Again Phasic Scanners are basically a T-Ray with slightly more range; I think it's downright hilarious how some people are stressing about how 'OP' an advanced, expensive upgrade like this would be when it's situational as fuck, and its effects can be almost replicated by any Sec Officer packing said T-Ray.
Sec Borgs are far from fine as they currently are for all the reasons stated earlier in this thread. Bottomline, Sec Officers do the only job they're capable of, takedowns, significantly better than they do.
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I'm just gonna say that I love how a vote that agrees with the admins is upheld as enshrining their policy, but one that doesn't with almost as much participation is repeatedly dismissed as not being representative when it features at least a quarter of all regulars, and half the average server population.
Also I agree with almost everything Icy has said thus far in the thread.
I'm with Icy on this. Not only is making Rule 9 less stringent a bad idea, truthfully, it should be more strict. The names right now are ridiculous. What's wrong with picking a real name? If you want a made-up name, play as an alien. As long as you're playing an original character and not something like "Falco Lombardi," I'm good.Or play as a clown, but yes, as I've said previously it should be more stringent.
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Neglect of Duty.
For the love of dear god, please.
That'll teach those fucking delinquent miners and engineers.
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The spice of life my friend.
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We didn't need the Reddit drama, God dammit.
The people must know!
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Shortly afterwords, bombs followed.
This is cute.
http://www.reddit.com/r/SS13/comments/3 ... ng_ensues/
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You said 'This idea is for all electronics (computers, PDAs, even doors) to be programmable and interfaceable in a similar way to Goon' but these features would be nothing like what Goon currently has.
It's an interesting idea, but yes, this would be a definite PITA to code.
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Wow nice, way to cherry pick the thread to make me look like the bad guy without providing any context or responses; very classy and exactly what I've come to expect from staff that hold a view contrary to my own. Fuck it, I've said my bit on this dumb as shit grief grail, and I don't think there's one replacement I'd propose that would be accepted; I've got better things to do, like polish my Medborg PR so it can be rejected from merging regardless because it makes them 'too good' or some other equally stupid excuse/rationalization.
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That's not a slippery slope. Reducto Ad Absudrum - by using the same logic (anything that prevents recovering of a patient becomes a medical emergency), I demonstrated that such logic is absurd when applied to other cases. Rather extreme ones, but the point stands. Classifying anything that interferes with recovery as a medical problem the borg should be equipped against is absurd.
A slippery slope would be "If we start giving them crowbars, next we'll give them toolboxes to store them, then they'll grief people by bashing them."
It also assumes a medborg should have the tools to deal with anything that is remotely a medical problem, or is related to a medical problem, which I disagree with.
Alternately your logic could be that if we give Medborgs Crowbars because they help Medborgs do their job, clearly we should give them welders and then hand teleporters in turn and ultimately guns, etc, in an ongoing illogical progression of false continuity/inevitability for the same reasons. Overlap of fallacious modes of argument: Medborgs get saddled with ridiculous modules.
Regardless of how you class this sort of rhetoric however, it's ultimately an argument from fallacy. Reducto Ad Absurdum and Slippery Slope both are ineffective as counterarguments because there's the obvious nuance, as I later stated, that the overall impact of the crowbar and expansion of capabilities outside of those directly applicable to the Medborg's job are minimal; a progression of increasingly ridiculous modules is not inevitable, and there are other elements that qualify the crowbar (or alternately, disqualify other modules) besides the fact that it assists in the commission of the Medborg's job; as an argument what you forwarded is disingenuous sophistry at best so the point does not stand.
Is the medborg meant to do the paramedics job? The surgeons? A chemists? Virologist? Geneticists?I'd support a lot of that for a specific paramedic borg. But allowing it to do all of those things I'm against. Very few people in med have access to eva suits which are in limited supply.
Let's expand on that: what fail medical staff loses their gear period? This is not at all common. Further, the only thing limiting Medbay humanoids in terms of their capacities is access levels, period (and let's be honest, it's a very soft limitation orientated around doors as opposed to the hard limitations of being module restricted).
From the look of its current modules and present capabilities, yes, the Medborg is indeed meant to do pretty much everything in Medbay except Chemistry (which it still can't do per my proposals) and Virology though it is admittedly very inefficient at Genetics.
Concerning the server statistics, please, let's not disregard all the things I said that were completely accurate per those statistics, which were all of my estimates excepting solely the consistency of substantial breaches above 60 players. Cherrypicking my posts and ignoring the remainder of their content as you dismiss me on the basis of the former is intellectually dishonest.
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Which is a very bad idea and hugbox.
Agreed, that definitely seems a little much; lockboxes strike a pretty good balance.
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Let me give you a piece of advice; picking fights and arguing for the sake of argument, especially with administrative staff, isn't going to get you far and is going to end up making enemies REALLY quickly.
You would be the authority on making enemies to be sure.
That said, check out the stats page; it confirms most of what I've been saying.
@ Dumbdumn:
The stats confirm my arguments more than they attack them.
Sure, I'll grant that you're hitting 80s pretty consistently on the spikes; my bad, but my estimates concerning the total regular playerbase being around 100 is pretty accurate, as are server averages being around 60 players, and my assertion that 28 is reasonably representative as just over a quarter of the total of regulars and about half the average.
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That's disingenuous; are you seriously going to base an argument on ~70 players noted post 5 pm EST on a Monday?
Well over 60 players is not normal for the server; sure it breaches 70 every now and then but that's fairly uncommon. 110 players is _really_ rare; I've personally never seen it if it's ever happened.
28 constitutes roughly just over half the server's typical population at any given time and probably over a fourth of its regulars total, so yes, chances are it's representative.
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Alright, fair enough, but if you didn't articulate that it was required to finish research specifically (because I doubt most HoS/Captains/Wardens would know), still justified, even if you're able to get other deadly shit.
Overall lockboxes are worth the trouble; Science already has more than enough ways to totally fuck the station over.
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I thought only chemistry and telecoms had scripting on Goon.
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Properly equipped being part of the key here - borgs always have their equipment and can't lose it.
They are also able to do their work when the halls are full of N2O or vacuum, a radiation storm has hit, viruses are everywhere, etc.
As I've said - I agree some extra things like the antibody scanner would be really helpful, but I'm against them being able to do everything in their department, let alone other things.
This is also because of malf rounds, traitor AI/borg, and emagged borgs.
One medical soft/hardsuit + internals = enjoy all borg immunities applicable to your job excepting radiation immunity which is extremely niche.
What fail Paramedic loses their gear? Honestly, when is this a thing? That's more of a concern for security who has to deal with people actively trying to disarm them.
As for Malf/rogueborgs, even if I were to give the Medborg every last thing stated in the OP and afterwords, Engi borgs are still by far the best borg for traitorous purposes overall; it would mean no material change in terms of balance, and the station still has an absolute abundance of ways to deal with them.
It's an engineering problem that is making a medical one worse - part of the problems of being specialized.By that logic, they should have a million guns to deal with nuke ops/carps/wizards, because they can get in the way of patients. And a flashbang launcher to help with blobs stopping patients. And an RCD to stop vacuum that is hurting patients, etc.
Most med personel have a lot of problems getting anywhere due to ID requirements. Borgs don't have that problem, so not being able to open a door without power makes a lot of sense.
Multitool + Screwdriver and AI. You're basically a fail at your job as a Paramedic if you don't have a way of forcing entry.
As for your other point, balance of reason; a crowbar has very minimal impact on the Medborg's capabilities outside of allowing it to access patients in depowered areas; it's nowhere near comparable to a gun; let's not needlessly drag in slippery slope fallacies here.
Between 30-110, actually. Average is 55 atm. And there are 1898 forum accounts.We have more admins than the people who filled in the poll. 6 more people thinking it should happen is not a huge indicator either way.
Anything well above 60 in terms of server pop is so rare it's a freak outlier not worth counting. Forum account numbers are clearly distorted vis a vis the number of actual players and aren't worth anything.
110 is probably about the total number of regulars.
The bottom line is that 28 players is a pretty good chunk of said regulars, and is indeed likely to be representative of overall views.
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When you give the Captain, Head of Security or Warden a weapon lockbox to unlock and they confiscate the item. (I'm going to hug you now. And it's going to feel like a punch to the mouch)
C'mon, you don't really think you get to keep that shit? There's plenty of cool toys you get to use already as a reward for being a successful Scientist. Totally justified.
Playing as a MediBorg and having people drag a freshly dead corpse away from you when you are trying to Defibrilate them (please give me harm stun back. It made life so easy)Agreed. Harmstun please.
Bernie Sanders Running for President
in Public Archives
Posted
Finally, the fact that Bernie is a safer, more electable candidate in the general than Hillary, contrary to baseless memes and insistence parroted constantly by countless pundits, her campaign and the mainstream media that he could not beat the Republicans, or that she would be more likely to win against them, is seeing some circulation: http://observer.com/2015/12/shock-poll- ... her-party/
Here we see that not only does Bernie defeat the Republicans, but he also does so with better margins than Hillary.
Beyond that, he also doesn't have an FBI investigation hanging over his head like a Sword of Damocles.