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[Teneb]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1146501820593967104

Great job by Border Patrol, above and beyond. Many of these illegals aliens are living far better now than where they came from, and in far safer conditions.

This from the man pushing to send them back where they came from.

Saw in the comments on that tweet that Trump got shadow-banned, apparently?

If so, that's hilarious.

[nenjin]

He'll just start his own service, just like TrumpTV.

They're call it Trumper.

[Naturegirl1999]

what does shadow banned mean?

[Teneb]

what does shadow banned mean?

You can post, but no one can see what you posted easily.

I tested it, though, and I think he isn't.

[Culise]

But, naturally, it's not about states' rights when the South was willing to trample over the North using their own shady "states' rights" tactics against them (nullification, which the South immediately denounced when applied to federal power in the form of the Fugitive Slave Act as opposed to federal power in the form of tariffs), and it wasn't about states' rights when one of the core matters codified in the Confederate constitution was to explicitly deny any states the right to ever overturn or undermine the peculiar institution within their own borders, even if it applied only to local residents.  States' rights is a red herring created by the Lost Cause movement to recast their struggle as a valiant bid for freedom against tyranny.  For the South, it was about their breed of chattel slavery, which as you yourself say, was the basis for the antebellum Southern economy and society, and it was about power: the 1860 election was the first election in which a united South alone could not decide the course of the entire nation. 

Of course, that doesn't mean it was about slavery for the North.  Abolitionism was still a fringe movement there, and the rallying cry was Union.  The South fought for slavery; the North fought against secesh.

That's overly simplistic. New England almost seceded over States Rights issues around 1812. The notion existed from the beginning, it was never something come up with after the war.

If you're talking about the Hartford Convention in 1814 and 1815, it was all about the War of 1812 and Democratic-Republican dominance of the federal government.  Once again, states' rights were a figleaf to cover the real grievances: trade embargos, the war, and the political power of the agrarian south and west.  As with the antebellum South, Federalists had absolutely no complaints about federal power when it was in their favour: the Alien and Sedition Acts for a blatant example that first sparked the idea of nullification.

EDIT: Perhaps I should be more clear, though, since I can see how on rereading how I misworded it.  "States' rights" as a generic concept dates back to before independence.  "States' rights" to be protected against explicit encroachment by the federal (big-c Constitutional) government dates to 1798, less than a decade after said Constitution was implemented.  "States' rights" as a lead-up to the Civil War was thrown about by both sides, though it's telling that as often in the South it was termed as "Southern rights" specifically and not anything particular to either individual states or a Jeffersonian inalienable rights of all men.  "States' rights" as it has been thrown about since the Redeemers and the Lost Cause was a more palatable alternative for slavery, since normalized as a natural part of the "War of Northern Aggression."  There was only one "states' right" being argued about in the declarations of secession by the people actually on the scene: the right to hold part of their population in bondage as chattel slaves.  There's a reason why Texas, Georgia, and Mississippi, for instance, explicitly argued that one of their grievances is that certain states are trying to oppose the power of the federal government.

[JoshuaFH]

I understand Extra Credits isn't exactly the paragon of political discourse, but this video irked me quite a bit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCj8llyzfWo&t

What irks me is the implication that it isn't enough to espouse freedom, equal rights, justice, democracy, whatever, but you also have to shut up everyone that doesn't, or implicitly doesn't. The point seems to be that we live in a political world, everyone has to be a politician, the greatest virtue is influence, especially influence towards the ignorant and indifferent masses of the world; and that therefore the way to get a freer and better world, you simply have to coerce those apathetic masses towards your side before your opponents do, entangling your cause permanently in the idiotic stupid power game of politics.

It's just a very insecure and cynical perspective; that it's not enough to be correct, but to also keep your supposedly incorrect opponents quiet, as slient as possible, lest some gullible fools trip over whatever shit they're spewing and become instant converts. From how its framed, I'm almost led to believe that the Social Justice folks might think the Nazis have a point. And so they go about trying to control the conversation, control the messages, control the discourse, in the same kind of petty and malicious way that their opponents are so fond of.

Is this the moral high ground? Thanks I hate it.

[Dunamisdeos]

what does shadow banned mean?

You can post, but no one can see what you posted easily.

I tested it, though, and I think he isn't.

If they actually censored him or shadowbanned him or whatever he would turn it into a huge political win. Look the news really is censoring him omg what a downtrodden hero whoo deep state democrats are afraid of all his truths.

[Reelya]

Tech note: I think Toady needs to do that forum-cleanup thing again. links on Ameripol aren't jumping to the correct post, again.

Would a peaceful revolution succeeed? I don’t like the thought of going to war,, I really hope there is a peaceful way to fix things. Problem is everyone will lie about who will fix it. If anyone will.

If by peaceful and succeeding you mean we piddle along praying the environment doesn't reach an omnifucked threshold while waiting for the boomers et al to keel over and hope the younger generations can manage to unfuck things enough most of us don't die, sure.

Boomer-bashing / waiting for the oldies to die etc, is false peace of mind. Younger people aren't actually going to be any better. Remember, the boomers were the flower-children when they were young, Gen-X were the punks and millenials are the Woke Generation. We've seen how this goes before: a lot of idealistic talk then the generation turns into the same shit as all generations. "the younger generation can unfuck things" is exactly what the boomers told themselves when they were young, you should recall.

[MorleyDev]

It's just a very insecure and cynical perspective; that it's not enough to be correct, but to also keep your supposedly incorrect opponents quiet, as slient as possible, lest some gullible fools trip over whatever shit they're spewing and become instant converts.

I mean, ultimately that is how memes work. They either spread or die.

There are plenty of ideas that are already dead, or so small and spread out in the population as to be effectively dead. The only real difference is whether you favour the long road of letting them slowly wither away as the weight of society as a whole sufficiently rejects them to limit the spread, or the quick one of trying to outright kill them. On the fundamental level of ideas, they all behave the same and spread through the same means.

I favour the former. But you do still need to actively add weight to achieve sufficient tipping point to immunize a society. You'll rarely convince a homophobic person to stop being homophobic, but the weight of society judging homophobia poorly can limit the capacity for that homophobia to spread to others. The goal is to find a good long-term balance. Too hard, and you get too much push-back. Too soft, you leave too much room for the ideas you want dead to grow.

[Reelya]

The Extra Credits guy, if he's going to make a "don't play Nazis, but Allies are ok" has to explain to me why it's then OK to be a Soviet soldier in the game ... ?

Also, making it a black and white thing "normalizes" the UK and America of the era, when in fact they both operated like brutal empires of their own:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/worst-atrocities-british-empire-amritsar-boer-war-concentration-camp-mau-mau-a6821756.html

In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when Winston Churchill diverted food to British soldiers and countries such as Greece while a deadly famine swept through Bengal.

Similarly, you have the USA's tuskagee medical experiments and the medical experiments on orphans in Guatemala during the same WWII era, along with the secret medical chemical weapons experiments on black American troops. normalizing the "allies good, germans bad" thing actually whitewashes that whole history:

https://www.npr.org/2015/06/22/415194765/u-s-troops-tested-by-race-in-secret-world-war-ii-chemical-experiments

When officers led him and a dozen others into a wooden gas chamber and locked the door, he didn't complain. None of them did. Then, a mixture of mustard gas and a similar agent called lewisite was piped inside.

"It felt like you were on fire," recalls Edwards, now 93 years old. "Guys started screaming and hollering and trying to break out. And then some of the guys fainted. And finally they opened the door and let us out, and the guys were just, they were in bad shape."

This is Part 1 of a two-part investigation on mustard gas testing conducted by the U.S. military during World War II. The second story in this report examines failures by the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide benefits to those injured by military mustard gas experiments.

Edwards was one of 60,000 enlisted men enrolled in a once-secret government program — formally declassified in 1993 — to test mustard gas and other chemical agents on American troops. But there was a specific reason he was chosen: Edwards is African-American.

[MorleyDev]

The Extra Credits guy, if he's going to make a "don't play Nazis, but Allies are ok" has to explain to me why it's then OK to be a Soviet soldier in the game ... ?

Culturally nowadays, it seems like the average soldiers and citizens of the Soviet Union are perceived and portrayed more as the victims of the Soviet Union, whilst WW2 German Soldiers and Citizens are seen as being culpable in the actions of Nazi Germany. Of course, in reality there's a little of column A and a little of column B on all sides. And plenty of whitewashing from the winning sides. Most Brits know bugger all about the Boer war, for example.

[Trekkin]

Is this the moral high ground? Thanks I hate it.

I don't think that's the point they were going for -- or at least it's not what I took away from the video. They appear to be arguing for more awareness of what is being implicitly communicated in games as interactive media more than anything else, which is not a new theme for them. They've been banging the "mechanics are message" drum for years, and they drill down to the micro level about it with some frequency too.

This was, I think, more about how randomly assigning players to teams makes mechanical sense but also carries an implication that the teams are equivalent in more than a mechanical sense -- and while that's fine in a game about sports or in a markedly unreal setting, saying the Nazis and the Allies are equivalent to the RED and BLU teams is probably something that, even if you want to say, you probably don't want to say accidentally or without providing any explanation or context. It's kind of like how Rimworld got in trouble for making it mechanically advantageous to slaughter homosexual colonists, or, distantly, how Dwarf Fortress encouraged mermaid murder farms. Nobody made a conscious decision to communicate these things to the player, or even to explicitly implement them, but the default assumption of the player is always going to be authorial intent, especially if it's not consciously noticed.

[nenjin]

That's all well and good but I'd point to Red Orchestra 2 as a counterpoint.

You know which team between the Germans and the Russians always had more players on it, without autobalancing? It wasn't the Ruskies. Even in a game where the context is well understood, players are going to make their own choices about what's fun to play for them.

I guess my argument would be that you can act as though players are just automata following the dictates of the game design, but I think in truth that's not the case. You kind of have to afford others the same sense of place, time and meaning that one would ascribe to themselves, and that the choices they make as just as informed as your own.

[PTTG??]

I understand Extra Credits isn't exactly the paragon of political discourse, but this video irked me quite a bit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCj8llyzfWo&t

What irks me is the implication that it isn't enough to espouse freedom, equal rights, justice, democracy, whatever, but you also have to shut up everyone that doesn't, or implicitly doesn't. The point seems to be that we live in a political world, everyone has to be a politician, the greatest virtue is influence, especially influence towards the ignorant and indifferent masses of the world; and that therefore the way to get a freer and better world, you simply have to coerce those apathetic masses towards your side before your opponents do, entangling your cause permanently in the idiotic stupid power game of politics.

It's just a very insecure and cynical perspective; that it's not enough to be correct, but to also keep your supposedly incorrect opponents quiet, as slient as possible, lest some gullible fools trip over whatever shit they're spewing and become instant converts. From how its framed, I'm almost led to believe that the Social Justice folks might think the Nazis have a point. And so they go about trying to control the conversation, control the messages, control the discourse, in the same kind of petty and malicious way that their opponents are so fond of.

Is this the moral high ground? Thanks I hate it.

I disagree somewhat. Philosophies are entities, and if your faction doesn't work hard to preserve itself and reduce its enemies, it will eventually be destroyed by those that do. If we want to preserve an environment where ideals, goals, and concepts are weighed against evidence, and discarded if not supported, we must take action to ensure it.

That said, the video is going waaaayyy out of line. He sounds like he's arguing about how bad them Pokemen is for kids.

[Trekkin]

I guess my argument would be that you can act as though players are just automata following the dictates of the game design, but I think in truth that's not the case. You kind of have to afford others the same sense of place, time and meaning that one would ascribe to themselves, and that the choices they make as just as informed as your own.

Well, yes, players aren't automatons; that's central to the idea that they can read into game design things the designers never intended. I think the reason they focused on automatic team assignation was that it's one of the areas in which player control is taken away.

Yes, if you give players any kind of opportunity to do hateful things, some fraction of the player base is always going to do them; teenagers' eagerness to scream various slurs into voice chat is a meme for a reason. However, when those choices are instead imposed as a precondition of playing the game, the players who want to make them are joined by the players who just aren't bothered by them to the point of quitting, and maybe getting people used to seeing Nazi iconography isn't something game designers want to just passively accept.

Now, there's the related argument that maybe we don't want game designers doing that at all, which is I think what some people are reacting negatively to, but that's a bigger problem than just with video games, from our modern neo-Nazi edgelords to the reenactors who enthusiastically wear the uniforms and carry the guns and aim for historical accuracy in every tiny detail except for the ones we might arguably consider the most important -- and there's considerable overlap between the two groups.

I might have a bigger problem with the video and the impulse behind it were the far right not actively, consciously engaged in normalizing extremism in precisely this manner. They want you to look at swastikas and see historicity, to listen torch-bearing mobs chanting racist slogans and hear free speech, to look at our migrant concentration camps and think only that our immigration laws are being duly enforced. They want to create an environment in which you start comparing them to their even more extreme cousins and going "well, they're not as bad as those other guys" because that's a step closer to "well, they're not so bad." They want you to compromise, to be reasonable, to meet in the middle over and over and over again until you take the moral high ground by going with the slightly less enthusiastic Nazis.

Extra Credits was heavy-handed in their messaging, but I think the core idea that we shouldn't normalize extremism by divorcing its appearance from its reality is a good one.