Makeitstop @ Makeitstop @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

And even if these cruise missiles were completely undetectable, it would still fail unless the strike takes out 100% of the enemy nukes. If even one is able to survive, you risk a nuclear holocaust.

Being able to theoretically wipe our all the enemy nukes without using any of your own is strategically nice to have, but on its own it isn't enough to negate the threat of a nuclear exchange. At best, it should make your enemy more reluctant to retaliate with a nuclear launch, assuming they realize that they aren't getting nuked and that a launch would potentially change that.

First character: A brooding loner with a tragic backstory, full of obvious parallels to my own life.

Second character: Yes these mechanics I'm combining are wildly mismatched, but my backstory explains it all.

Third character: A centaur that I play as a cab driver. Work in references to Taxi Driver, Cash Cab, Fake Taxi, etc. 100% dedication to the bit at all costs.

Fourth character: Mysterious backstory and ominous foreshadowing throughout the campaign, all leading up to the moment in the final session when I unleash the pun that the entire character was built around.

The first Mission Impossible movie is a fun time capsule in many ways. It has some fun stuff with early 90s depictions of computers, hacking, the internet and email, back before anyone knew what any of that actually looked like.

But it's also a great example of the 90s naivete that the US had about conflict and global politics. There's an entire monologue about how intelligence agencies are obsolete because the cold war is over. There was this vague notion in the 90s that world peace had broken out and things were just going to get better and better. And Hollywood sometimes struggled to come up with villains now that they no longer had soviets for that, so you don't see it reflected as much in films, especially since optimism doesn't make for good popcorn flicks, but Mission Impossible captures the thinking if not the warm and fuzzy feeling.

My other suggestion would be Contact. My theory has always been that 2001 A Space Odyssey, Contact, and Interstellar are really the same movie made in different times. As the 90s incarnation, Contact has no international conflict, only internal politics. It's got that I'm spiritual but not religious" vibe that was everywhere in the 90s. It has a vague message about hope, and belief and trying to understand the universe and what's out there in order to understand ourselves... it's hard to put it all in words, it's just the whole tone and vibe of the thing, it's all just so sincere and idealistic.

(For a great big dose of 90s optimism and hope for the future, I highly recommend watching the Adventures of Brisco Country JR. I'd have nominated that, but it isn't a movie)

The post: Can we just take a moment to acknowledge that there are at least some positives to be found in in the US?

The comments: No

Ultraviolet. It makes other colors that much more cool just by being there. And it kills things.

Your scenario and mine would go hand in hand, we're just focusing on different things.

My point was that the Republican party would benefit from a significant change in direction back towards something more normal. And the country as a whole would be better off as well, because there aren't many upsides to teetering on the edge of a fascist dictatorship, and anything that moves us away from the precipice is a good thing.

I’ve been saying since the primaries that the best plausible scenario was for Trump to get the nomination, then botch the election and drag the weirdos and loyalists in his party down with him.

Trump has spent years purging anyone that was moderate, even slightly principled, or just willing to put the good of the country ahead of his gigantic ego. Not to mention the way they treat the party’s warchest as their personal piggy bank, and it’s rank and file staff and volunteers as disposable. He’s made a party that’s blindly loyal to him, and which is a huge threat to the country, but which is ultimately far less effective as a party.

A more normal candidate would likely be dominating the race given public opinion on the current administration and the economy, to say nothing of the obscene amount of money being thrown around. But instead, Trump looks like he will cause the Republicans to underperform for the fourth time in a row.

If Trump loses dramatically enough and drags his people down with him, the party will likely collapse in on itself as opposing factions get locked in a power struggle. Plenty of big donors just want lower taxes and to not have to deal with regulations, and they will probably want to shift the party away from the MAGA weirdness and back towards something normal that isn’t going to alienate voters on all sides of the aisle. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of the more prominent anti-trump Republicans suddenly got a big boost in support, and a lot of Trump’s parasites suddenly find themselves getting driven out.

I buy most of my groceries at a local employee owned chain. It's amazing how they were able to avoid so much of the massive increase in costs that larger chains were experiencing. It's like they had a completely different supply chain that wasn't anywhere near as inflated. Oh sure, certain brands seemed to be going way up in price, but other items from competing brands didn't. Meanwhile at Walmart, everything went way up in price, and at a much faster pace. Weird how that works.

I guess the giant monopolies must not have the resources and experience required to run an efficient business. How else can you explain the disparity?

I think the most reasonable interpretation is that the law doesn't currently recognize the undead as being people, let alone being the same person they were in life. It would need to be shown to be a reliable source of evidence, similar to any new technology that claims to offer insight into a case. A random judge might allow it, but it would be easy grounds for an appeal if it can't be shown to do exactly what it claims to do.

DNA evidence was new once, but so was the polygraph. Only one of these is admissible, and for good reason.

You wanna fiddle while Rome burns and mock those who choose an imperfect solution over no solution at all? Go right ahead. I was just pointing out that it seems a bit disingenuous to act concerned about a statement that might alienate voters from a candidate that you already oppose.

There are plenty of Republicans who have effectively quit the party or been kicked out because they weren't 100% loyal to Trump, and weren't willing to support his attempted coup. And even before that, before Trump and MAGA, the Tea Party was working hard to push out the McCain wing of the party.

A moderate with an ounce of integrity has no place among the current Republican party. Which is also why they'd be the only kind who might accept such an offer. It would just be one more reason for their exile from the party.

Hell, MAGA fuckwits in congress get upset when their own legislation might be tainted by even a single Democrat's vote. Bipartisanship is an abomination to them, even when it supports their own agenda or there isn't meaningful disagreement.

Not like you were going to vote for her anyway.

Biden's track record backs this up. He got some limited achievements through legislation and hard fought negotiations with legislators in both parties. But when he tried to bypass congressional gridlock and use executive authority, the courts intervened again and again.

Majorities in the the House and Senate would allow legislation which would be far more likely to survive legal battles than executive orders. And it would also potentially allow for action to be taken to deal with the courts themselves to reign in the more obvious abuses of power, corruption, and general shenanigans.

I was just looking at the poll averages by state yesterday and saw nearly the opposite of this bullshit.

https://www.270towin.com/2024-presidential-election-polls/

When you sort by competitiveness, you see Trump with tiny leads in Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina, followed by Harris leading in every swing state until you hit Florida. Not only is Harris leading in enough states to potentially win the election, but her leads are stronger than Trump's.

Obviously there's a long road to election day, the only poll that matters is the actual election, and even when that's done there's likely to be a dispute if Trump loses. But also remember that shit like this article exists to discourage you and reduce the enthusiasm of anyone who wants a Harris win and Trump loss. Be encouraged, keep fighting the good fight, and fucking vote no matter what state you're in.

If Trump hadn't run and instead had endorsed Haley (or basically any other "viable" candidate) that would probably be the case.

But if Trump lost the primary, I would be surprised if we didn't see some of his more die hard cultists stay home or vote for some third party candidate out of spite. Especially since Trump would never take the loss gracefully and endorse the winning candidate.

He talks about it in one of the interviews from the remastered VHS collection. During the fight on the second death star, the script just said "Luke gets angry" and he couldn't figure out how to flesh that out until he came up with threatening Leia.

He lies a lot, changes positions whenever convenient, and he's pretty much always involved in one legal battle or another. He's basically the lawyer from every lawyer joke minus the law degree.

He does focus groups. It's all about getting more detail, specifics, and answers to open ended questions to (in theory) get deeper insights from a smaller group of people instead of more generic metrics from a larger group. Qualitative data rather than quantitative data.

I wouldn't be surprised if he got those comparisons from participants. But (without actually watching the interview) I would have to assume that he's using those statements to represent mildly negative sentiments about Harris from Republican men, and contrasting it with much more severe negativity among Republican women when it comes to Trump.

Redoing the election only takes pressure off Maduro. It's an empty gesture to appease the opposition for a time, which just gives Maduro room to plan for stealing the next election. And it drags things out for longer, which can easily cause some of the energy to be drained from his opposition, because movements like this tend to fade out after a while.

And what could possibly be the point? If he won't concede this time, next time won't be any different.

Better to keep putting as much pressure as possible on Maduro and his regime. No reason to make hanging on to power any easier for him, and even if he can't be convinced to bow out gracefully, if things get bad enough for him, the decision might not be his to make.

Just logically speaking, a do over makes no sense because it was never the voting process that was in doubt. Both sides agree that the votes were all valid, they just disagree on the count... by a lot.

Well, they disagree about that and the need for any kind of transparency at all. Apparently Maduro thinks that elections should be run on the honor system.