My favorite was death panels.

“The government is going to decide who lives and dies by gatekeeping access to healthcare!” Motherfucker, that’s what insurance does now. The potential failures of a collectivized system are treated with more scrutiny than capitalism working as intended.

I’ve made a habit of saying “Look, [city] was a powderkeg ready to go off before we even got there.” It’s come up in multiple campaigns.

Personally, I also like genericizing D&D.

It’s a shorthand for folks outside or new to the hobby, it skips a hurdle to talk to people about other RPGs with those people, and it weakens the brand identity. Considering how much D&D has coasted on brand identity as the game suffered, I’m all for that.

I’m less likely to do it places like here, because it causes more confusion, but still. It’s fun to say, “Pathfinder is a great way to play D&D.” :P

I didn’t see it until later, but yeah, it’s been around for years. It crops up every now and then from right-wingers trying to test the waters for being overtly anti-democracy. What I found scary was how much more common it got, and at higher levels. I remember a fucking senator repeating that line.

I also use the square vs. rectangle analogy. Granted, we’re not going to convince fascists acting in bad faith, but it plays to an audience.

I really liked that Ed Helms asked a lot of very straightforward questions about Yarvin’s ideology, which just went to show that it completely falls apart if you think about it critically for even a moment. It’s not something you come to believe after listening to the best arguments from a bunch of different positions. It’s something you come to believe because it justifies your own elitism.

Oh, another one: anti-vaccination was pushed by health insurance companies to dampen public perception of government-run healthcare.

Vaccine development and implementation fucking worked. If people were happy with the results, they might end up swayed towards publicly-funded healthcare. So… put a lid on that by whipping up a bunch of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Some folks will no longer see the vaccination programs as successful efforts to protect public health, but as a conspiracy to… do something. And instead of pointing to it as an example of a public healthcare program, you’ve first got to spend time defending evidence-based medicine, which takes up so much fucking time and energy, and ultimately won’t convince people who bored too deeply into that alternate-reality tunnel.

It turned a public health initiative into a fucking tar pit, and now the once-free vaccinations cost over a hundred bucks if you don’t have insurance.

Paper straws were pushed by big corporate polluters to build a negative association with environmentalism.

Plastic straws are single-use plastics, but seem unexceptional by those standards. It’s almost a meme that they’re being singled out like they’re the single greatest source of plastic waste, or uniquely damaging to ocean life.

On top of that, there are way better ways of reducing straw usage. I’ve used bioplastics that seemed way better. You could redesign the lids. You can do the plastic bag thing and charge people a nickel for a straw or whatever. Hell, you could just not give straws with every drink, and plenty of people will just drink from their cups and glasses. Instead, we get paper straws, something that is so obviously a bad idea it sounds like a joke, or a metaphor for a useless invention. Often served with cups and lids made entirely out of plastic.

So you get a bunch of people who have their drinks kind of ruined by a frustrating straw. It’s a small thing, but it’s just a little nudge away from environmentalism. You build an association with disappointment and inconvenience. Maybe it doesn’t cause a big sway, but it makes people maybe a little more anti-environmentalist than they already were, or just less passionate about environmentalism.

Oatmeal Raisin > Chocolate Chip.

This is a bit off topic, but it made me nostalgic. My first argument on reddit over a decade ago was with someone, either a scalper or a contrarian, trying to argue that scalpers provided a useful service that made things more fair, rather than assholes creating scarcity so they could profit selling a solution to a problem they themselves create.

So yeah, I hope they all get fucked on this one, too.

It was the response from a lot of people to COVID precautions that made me realize that a disturbing number of people are completely lacking in empathy, and don’t even understand it as a concept. They’re the people who truly did not understand why a person who isn’t at personal risk of complications would still do thinks like distance, wear a mask, or get vaccinated, because most of the benefits involve stopping the spread to others.

This is exactly the same thing. Not only do they not care about other people, they genuinely do not understand the others do.

/u/[email protected] is right on the money. Mana paces the game, so anything that can break that is super good. In an otherwise even matchup, if one player has a Lotus while the other doesn’t, that can easily make the game. It’s not going to win the game in and of itself, but it’s a huge enabler to play the thing that will win you the game, before your opponent can reasonably do anything about it.

On top of that, it’s literally good in all decks. It’s been banned in every format besides Vintage, where it’s restricted to one (and not including casual/fan formats). It had to be banned partly for power reasons, but also because it makes deck-building less diverse. There’s no deck that wouldn’t want a Lotus if it could have one, much less four.

It’s also part of the Reserved List. After WotC overprinted cards, they essentially promised not to reprint certain ones. I think it’s a dumb decision, but they’ve annoyingly stuck to it (and players are worse off for it). Black Lotus is on that list. And it was alreadly limited in printings, because it was a rare card, and a bit of a design mistake.

It’s also simply an iconic card. Despite being a design mistake, it’s a major part of Magic history, and gets referenced all the time. To some extent, it’s famous for being famous. That makes it the biggest prize for collectors.

So, all this together, it has an incredibly high demand, a very limited supply, and no indication of a reprint anytime soon.

So I printed off a proxy at a professional card printer for 30¢. :)

I hate how relevant this question is in so many situations.

“If you’d rather play D&D, are you willing to DM while I recharge?”

In my group, yes. :| We actually have plenty of players willing to run games.

That said, they’re also willing to try out new games, so it all works out just fine. :)

I do think the problem is rooted in Joss Whedon, or rather, movie studios looking at Avengers and thinking, “This, all the time.” People got tired of Joss Whedon himself (among other problems with him), much less more corporate, soulless imitations.

I just found it by chance a couple years ago, and its entered regular Halloween rotation. It’s also a very silly movie at times, but it has something to say. If it weren’t played straight, it would undercut the whole thing.

I can’t help but imagine that, if they tried to make it today, it’d just be noted to death by the studio. “Say less, quip more.” Then you’d get a ho-hum vampire action-comedy with a whiff that it was something better in a previous draft… like Renfield.

Daybreakers.

First, it’s a mid-budget movie, and Hollywood doesn’t make much of those nowadays.

Secondly, it commits to a wild premise: vampires become the dominant life form in the world. It’s fun, but the actors play it straight. If the tried to do that now, it’d be full of quips and winking at the audience rather than committing to the bit.

This is especially true with generic medicines.

The cheapest I can get Claritin in my nearest supermarket is 50¢—$1.12/pill.

The store brand can be as low as 7¢—37¢/pill.)

The CostCo version is 2 or 3¢/pill.

All of them are the same. 10mg of loratadine, highly regulated by the FDA.

They can differ with inactive ingredients, so maybe you’d like a syrup or something from a name brand. But it legally has to be the same active ingredients, in the same amounts, in the same forms.

One near me got into trouble for their “In Trump We Trust” sign, because it violated town codes. It was a BIG ass sign. I never need ice cream so badly I’d put money in a fascist’s pocket.

Also… how does anyone look at that sign and not immediately see that it’s a cult?

Of course, I think it’s undeniable that there’s anti-Chinese racism, and it can play into attacks on China, especially from the right. The thing is, my criticisms of China are things that I hate about the US and its allies. It’s not that China is some strange, unique evil. On the contrary, they’re similar.

In another comment, you talked about how genocide requires mass killings, but I wouldn’t limit it to that (nor would the UN). And yes, that makes the US complicit. The genocide of Native Americans didn’t stop with murder, but included stealing children to “reeducate” them. The eugenecist movement sterilized women without so much as their knowledge, much less their consent—and they were predominantly Black, Asian, and Native American. The Tuskeegee experiments also left people sterilized, and that’s just part of how it ruined and ended lives. Obviously we’ve seen “Islamic extremism” used as an excuse to demonize Muslims in general, ignore material conditions that lead to violent resistance, and justify brutal repression.

We’ve already talked about evidence, and I don’t know what to tell you. You also said that you don’t trust any citation in the Wikipedia article, so that’s cutting out sources I would absolutely lend weight: the UN, the Asspociated Press, Reuters, academic journals… and if your response to the UN report isn’t “technically this would mean it’s ethnocide,” then I don’t think we’re going to have a productive conversation.

A while back, I read an article by Dara Horn about the failures of Holocaust education, and the rise of antisemitism. One point that really struck a chord with me was that Holocaust education focuses too much on the “They were just like us” angle. Jews weren’t oppressed for their similarities, but their differences. To focus on the similarities to conemn their oppression carries with it the implication that, if people are different, it’s okay, and the more different they are, the more you can justify hate and oppression.

So imagine my disappointment when I read an article of hers condemning student protests. She repeated the lie about “From the river to the sea (Palestine will be free)” being a genocidal slogan. She juxtaposed it with antisemitic attacks, implying a connection. She denied that it was a genocide, which would of course justify demonstrations. She praised cracking down on student protests in general. She mournfully talked about overlooking Harvard, disappointed that the school she went to was awash in antisemitism, and all I could think was… Harvard is still standing, Gaza is in ruins.

Is the treatment of Uyghurs the same as the treatment of Palestinians? No, not as far as I can tell. It’s just that that isn’t the threshold. The genocide of Palestinians doesn’t only slightly cross the line. And while both antisemitism and sinophobia are undeniably real, have lead to attacks and oppression, and color some of the criticisms of Israel and China, that doesn’t represent real criticisms of states, not people. And those criticisms aren’t new, they are familiar. It’s the banality of evil. It’s capitalist empires doing what capitalist empires do.

The point about common ground was to give you a clear opportunity to present your position and intentions. I had my assumptions, but didn’t want to unfairly ascribe them to you. It turns out I was right, unfortunately, but as a matter of difference between us, I wanted to address what you actually think, feel, and say. I would appreciate it if you did the same, but you haven’t so far.

So to address another position you ascribed to me: I can easily aknowledge that the US is complicit in genocide, war crimes, slavery, and other crimes against humanity, and has been throughout its history. That does not mean the US has a monopoly on evil. That kind of campism is silly.

I’ve had a remarkably similar conversation to this a while back, except the topic was Palestine, and the other user was a hardcore Zionist. It literally began when I said, word for word, “killing civilians is bad.” To paraphrase the rest:

“So it’s bad when Hamas kills Israeli civilians?”

“Of course. Is it bad when Israel kills Palestinian civilians?”

Then the same kind of argument followed. Deflections, straw men, selective interpretation and acknowledgement of evidence, personal attacks… the works. It doesn’t matter what the protesters say or do, or how many of the protestors are Jews; they’re pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic. Any source supporting Israel is valid, anything condemning them is fake news. I was an idiot, I was the one arguing in bad faith… you know. That kind of stuff.

I don’t know you, or what’s in your heart. I hope that the aggression is coming from discomfort rooted in a sense of doubt, which I can also hope you pursue. You can believe me or not—so far, you haven’t—but I really mean it when I say I hope you have a better go of things from here on out. If the nature of this conversation changes, I’m here, but if it doesn’t, then it’s run its course.