HelloThere @ hellothere @sh.itjust.works

Reddit refugee

---

Read more

Posts

1

Comments

330

Joined

2 yr. ago

As I've been saying from the beginning, you would find voting would concentrate around two blocks, drawn on religious lines because that is the main divisor.

Any election campaign would fuel that fight, and voting for smaller parties would be characterised as a negative to concentrate power, likely pushed through narratives of eradication. You'd end up with one major "Israeli" party and one "Palestinian" party, with the "Israeli" party wining because there are more of them.

If you're going to compare to an apartied state - and I think that is valid - you also need to look at how South Africa transitioned, and how Mandela specifically was vital to that. He achieved a largely peaceful restructuring of the country, and one not often repeated elsewhere.

Think about it like this; almost permentently since 1947 the people in power of the region have been right wing, and stoked violent rhetoric against each other, and often calling for the destruction of the other. That dynamic doesn't go away overnight, even if the walls are torn down.

A Palestinian government of a single unified state is not possible. A left wing one doubly so. The demographics are far too split and far too easily divided. There is no Mandela equivalent who can appeal to both sides whilst pushing peace, and so the polarisation would continue on religious lines. It would quickly devolve to a two party state, regardless of electoral method, because it would become solely about power.

You'd just end up with an even worse situation than now, and an all out civil war. All that would be achieved is the expansion of the current Israeli state, something you claim you're against.

Please think things through rather than just wishing for convenient solutions.

Yeah, exactly.

There is no way that coalition would work together. I mean just look at the absolute mess the Israeli government coalition currently is.

It's a complete pipedream, we can't just wish the situation is different.

I never said they should go anywhere. Israel not existing simply means Israel, the Jewish state, not existing, not its people being driven off.

Let's think about this for a second. If one democratic state was created, and a government elected, given population differences alone and presumed voting along established political (ie religious) lines, you'd end up with a Jewish/Israeli government rather than a Muslim/Arab government.

Two independent, internationally recognised, and supported, nations is the only viable option.

Over a very long time powersharing may be an option, but that's not now, or any time soon.

The immoral disaster that is Gaza and the West Bank does not make one state a viable solution, regardless of who runs it.

You need to engage in the practical realities of the situation. Israel has existed for 80 years, so if it suddenly stopped existing, where do the people who have been born there over 3 generations go? That is as much a problem now as it was for Palestinians in 1947. Just because it was handled terribly then doesn't mean we should repeat the situation. It also doesn't satisfy the reasons for why Israel was created in the first place; to have a Jewish state where, in the worst of circumstances, non-Israeli Jews can flee to. And none of that justifies the continued blockade of Gaza, of illegal settlements, or killing tens of thousands of Palestinians.

The disestablishment of Israel is a white nationalist ideal. It is also a view held by other groups as well, but that doesn't stop it being a white nationalist desire. Presuming you aren't a nazi, you should consider why you are aligned on this.

There are so many options we could try before concluding that Israel shouldn't exist. Jumping straight to the most extreme option is just displaying ignorance, or that you have ulterior motives.

I'm guessing you're referring to Irgub, so please remind me when we started conflating the actions of historic terrorist organisations with current governments?

There is enough to criticise the current regime about without needing to skirt awfully close to white nationalist talking points which aim to suggest the state shouldn't exist.

The 30s? 17 years before the state was even established?

But it does allow for a statement to be quantified and compared. So now on to the most dehumanising post I've ever written...

Current French population is 65 million, and USA is 340 million. So USA is 5.23x larger.

Since 2000, 292 people in France have been killed due to terrorist acts, according to this handy Wikipedia page. 90 of which were at the Bataclan, with 131 people being killed that weekend in the most deadly terrorist attack in French history.

That gives the equivalent of 1,527 people, over nearly 24 years, or about 64 people a year.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, in the USA 2,006 people - excluding perpetrators - have been killed...since 1st January, 2021, giving a staggering 668 people per year.

(I would go back further, but unfortunately their data export appears to max out at 2000 incidents.)

So, regardless of your thoughts or feelings about gun violence in America, France's "terrorist problem" - including the worst attack they have ever faced - is less than a tenth of that.

Does this excuse or justify any of the cowardly fucks who killed innocent people? No, of course not. Fuck them all.

But it does highlight the size, and I hope gives people a reason to pause and think about just who is peddling the line, and just who seeks to benefit from demonising overwhelmingly peaceful minority groups.

It's almost like white nationalism is the bigger threat. Funny that.

There are less terrorist attacks in France than mass shootings in the USA, per year, per capita.

So, no, it doesn't have a problem.

I absolutely agree that Farmville had a bigger impact, especially as it was geared towards a more casual market. Showing that people who would not describe themselves as gamers would spend a lot of money on games was a huge thing that a lot of people set out to copy.

WoW is a stepping stone, it's used as a frequent example in Reality is Broken, which is good place to start if you want to understand where all this comes from, as well as the rather utopian hope psychologists had at the time.

The thing with coin-ops, and arcades in general, is that you still had to physically go somewhere, and have the coins to keep playing. If you walked away, someone would take the machine. Worst case scenario, the machine stopped working when it ran out of coin/token space.

I'm not denying that there are similarities, and that ultimately every game ever has been built on a fundamental mechanic of risk/reward, but it was rudimentary and broadly speaking deterministic and visible to the user (you knew how to get a free ball in most pinball games, for example).

The combination of easy payments, of very high amounts, and online competitive play where the high rollers can be multi-millionaires from anywhere in the world, and a pay-to-win mechanic makes certain modern games not just addictive, but financially crippling, if played by someone susceptible to addiction.

I don't want to be all old man yells at cloud, but back in my day popular games were played a lot because they were primarily enjoyable for the story, the achievement of completing a particular level or boss, playing against friends, etc. And sure, you'd have the odd bad parent trying to claim their kid was addicted to Counterstrike 1.6, but it was broadly speaking nonsense. The vast majority of games were offline, or had very limited online modes built around direct competition with other players (FPS, sports games, etc), and publishers would get all their money from the initial sale, with only a few games having expansion packs, most notable The Sims.

But in the early 2010s a few things changed:

• broadband internet became ubiquitous in markets with high levels of existing gamers
• distribution of games swapped from physical media to downloads
• 'everyone' had a pretty powerful computer in their pocket making it much more accessible
• a bunch of people in the industry started reading about positive psychology - the idea that you can create habits through rewards - and apply them to video games to increase playtime
• those mechanics turned out to be very powerful in driving particular user behaviours, and started to be targeted at monetisation models - and so we got loot boxes, etc

So we went from a situation where video games were fun for the same reasons traditional games, or sports, are fun, to one where many video games include a lot of gambling mechanics in their core gameplay loops - loot boxes being the obvious one, but any lottery-based mechanic where you spend real money counts - in an industry with no relevant regulation, nor age limitation.

It is definitely possible for people to get addicted to these mechanics, the same way people can get addicted to casino games, or betting on horse racing, especially when for some games that is literally what the developer wants.

Landlords are one of the many factors which restrict access to housing. The sheer complexity of purchase is another major factor.

But again, if you can afford to lose the money then you're probably not the problem. The main problem, in the UK, is landlords on buy-to-let mortgages who cannot afford to lose.

If the bank is already willing to loan money on the property, and rent must be higher than the mortgage payment as a condition on that loan, then all that happens is housing becomes more expensive.

The risk is losing something you can afford to lose.

It may be undesirable, sure, but if you can't afford to lose it then you shouldn't be investing it.

Landlords provide no service, they simply increase the cost of housing. A landlord does not fix your boiler, a plumber does. A landlord does not pay for furniture, you do through your rent. A landlord does not provide housing, they take existing housing off the market and lease it at a premium above the equilvent mortgage rate.

I never said it was the same as losing nothing. It's clearly not the same. I said the cost of losing is £1, if you have structured your business properly. If you then choose to put extra money in, well, you should only invest money you can afford to lose.

If you can't afford to lose it, you shouldn't be spending the money in that way. Money you can afford to lose has considerably less risk than money you cannot afford to lose. By definition, if you can afford to lose it, then harm to you is insignificant.

So the financial cost is £1, and the risk to you is tiny.

For example, I don't go to the pub and complain about the risk of buying liquid commodities I intend to drink and make no return on. I can afford to lose my money in that way, if you can't, then don't go out drinking. The same thing applies here.

If you can't own a property without someone else paying the mortgage for you, then don't.

My apologies, but same question.

You're clearly American, why are you commenting on a thread about UK landlords, and UK company law, using examples not from the UK?

Pay is often linked to the risk you have invested in your business.

This line is routinely trotted out by people who do not understand the very basic facts of limited liability.

It is trivally simple to establish your business as limited by guarantee, and when done so the risk is literally £1.

If anyone establishes a business where they are personally liable for any debts, or losses acrued, by that business then they need to seriously reconsider if business management is for them.

Now, people may well choose to invest personal savings to start a business, rather than take out a loan, but again, rule number 1 of investing is not to invest more than you can afford to lose, so, again, the actual risk is £1.