Bay 12 Games Forum

Final notes:
The offender was Haron Monis, a man with a history of violent crimes known to the police. Although a fanatic, he wasn't affiliated with any terrorist groups, regardless of what Foxs News says.
General public reactions has been surprisingly good, with people showing support for the local Muslim community. Interestingly Haron Monis was a political refugee from Iran, so it will be interesting to see if the right wing media tries to spin this towards 'ASYLUM SEEKERS ARE BAD, M'KAY?'

Update: According to released hostages, he has two demands. 1st is that he wants the ISIL flag delivered directly to the cafe, and the second is that he wants to talk to Tony Abbott... Honestly this guy sounds like a fruit cake.

Also the witnesses say he has two bombs with him and two elsewhere in the CBD. Well there goes public transport for the day. 

Hey kids, uncle Max to fill you in.
News.
So there is either one or two gunmen with about 19 (EDIT: Wait, apparently that has been changed to 40) hostages held up in a cafe. They have forced the hostages to hold up an Islamic flag to the window, so yea, religious. Interesting is that it is a generic Muslim flag that any peaceful Muslim could own, not related to any terrorist group, and professional opinion seems to be that this is a very poor job.

In other news, there were 'terror raids' on Muslim households across Sydney last night. Not the first... Best guess right now is that this is some hothead with a gun looking for retribution.

Any ETA on when this damn comic plans to update?

Can we get into a master class on how normalization of neoliberalism increases political apathy and fear of economic ruin makes people limit their repertoire of contention?

Now I remember why I wasted so many hours on bay12... 

Actually, in economical terms, horse and human are much more distinct than in biological terms, so this way it is way more stupider than before with my error...

Nope. They both contribute, they both consume. True, few horses I can think of are part of the landed gentry, but they are the prime example of a worker.

You gotta be f**** kidding me. That a person old enough to know how the computer keyboard works thinks that lack of computers lead to downfall of communism OR might be interested in seeing the USSR of all things back? I honestly can not believe this. I have no faith in humans whatsoever, and it still too much and I outright refuse to believe that. Tell me that some troll hacked your account. Also, actually, you got the automation part pretty much wrong way. In communism, the work is the ultimate good, and everybody should work because work is good. In capitalism, if you can get away with not working (because, for example, your spouse earns enough money), hey, good for you! So yeah, lack of work is problematic with communistic society, but not as much of a problem in capitalism.

Hmm... Somebody poses an interesting hypothetical and you respond with an emotional barrage. A'ight, lets do this.

You seem to not understand how automation affects an economy. You see it makes specific jobs redundant. For example, only 300 years ago about 90% of the workforce was employed in agriculture, but these days that has dropped to less than 2%, without triggering any sort of food shortage. This is because agriculture has taken up automation. Crops are sowed, watered and harvested on mass with great big machines driven by a single person, rather than by hand by a very large workforce. Reducing the labor demand of an industry has allowed people to move into other industries, industries that provide us other cool things like monster trucks and vidya games.
So, automation is the greatest gift to a capitalist society because it allows people to make a greater economic contribution per person and therefor things can only get better, right?
WRONG!
1915 was the peak year for the horse population on earth. Since that year their population has rapidly dropped because they have been made redundant and replaced by cars. It isn't that horses are lazy, it is just that they are incapable of preforming as well as a car, and this leaves them with nothing to contribute to the economy. They are pretty much redundant. The free market doesn't just magically make jobs for horses because their old positions were automated, and in economic terms there is no difference between a human and a horse.
It is easy to assume humans will always be able to fill a role that automation can not, but to do so is stupid. The transport industry is one of the biggest in any developed nation, but it is going to change very quickly within our life times with the introduction of self driving vehicles. There are machines that test the interactions of different drugs at a rate of thousands a day. What once took an entire floor of accountants to do is now done using a few megabytes of software. The vast, vast width of our economy is subject to automation, and humans, like the horse, will become redundant.
We are approaching a thing called 'near zero employment' where a very small fraction of humans are able to do anything of value. So how does a capitalist society function is such a technological environment? Well it just doesn't. When wealth is awarded to work, and nobody can work, things break down. The only possible solution is through wealth redistribution, a concept much more closely linked to communism than capitalism.

Study the intersectionality between macroeconomics and technology and everybody turns post-scarcity socialist sooner or later.

So just dropping in to remind you all that THIS is our prime minister.

Ladies and gentlemen, today is the official rumble in the West! After the botched result of the WA election, today is the revote. My prediction is two Libs, two Labs, a Ludlam and a libertarian. Honestly it doesn't matter if that sixth spot goes to Palmer or some other minor party, they will make a deal with the Palmer block anyway. Also interesting to note will be the number of labor votes below the line. Joe Bullock, the no 1 on Labor's ticket, is a very conservative unionist, and not very well liked by many on the left. There have been calls to boycott Labor above the line and either put Pratt first and Bullock much lower down, or just vote Greens. No enough Labor voters are politically engaged enough for it to deny Bullock his seat, but it will be a fun little figure either way.

Order of selection I'm guessing: David Johnston (Liberal), Joe Bullock (Labor), Michaelia Cash (Liberal), Scott Ludlam (Greens), Louise Pratt (Labor), [Insert name here]
Final candidate could be Fiona Patten (Sex), James Moylan (H.E.M.P.), Desmond  Headland (Palmer), Murray Bow (Shooters and Fishers) or just about anybody else.

Recent polling suggests that the Greens have the numbers to pull an entire seat on primary votes, but the Greens vote drops near elections due to not having the same funding for advertisements, still the effects of the last campaign might not have worn off yet and we really will see 15% primary, and that would be absurd and awesome. The other factor here is that the Pirates are running, and they weren't in it last time, so they will once again eat into Green votes, but that is fine, they preference the Greens anyway. Still, the left:right split is looking to go 3:3, but 4:2 is a remote possibility. If only Labor wasn't polling so poorly in WA, it would be a sure thing!

The other thing to watch will be if Palmer and/or the Liberal Democrats breech the 4% mark for those juicy refunds. After getting about 3.5% last time those Small Government Libertarians in the LD party must be drooling over the prospect of a government handout.

Ok, now that I have that out of my system, back offshore. Eye witness accounts given to the ABC about the circumstances of the death on Manus Island. It is pretty grim stuff.