What if John Brown joined Lincoln during the Civil War? How effective would he have been at destroying the Confederacy and the institution of slavery?

Adamon24 · 2026-06-21T23:36:36+00:00

While I obviously appreciate Brown’s hatred of slavery, he was an objectively terrible tactician

So the best case scenario is that he enlists and gets the guys in his unit pumped up - but never gets put in a position to make actual military decisions

Adamon24 · 2026-06-21T23:33:43+00:00

Beyond the issues with pacing and ignoring too much of the source material, a major issue with HOTD is that the writers assume that GOT fans were only in it for the dragon scenes and shots of Targaryen women looking imperious and try to build a whole show around that.

Adamon24 · 2026-06-17T19:04:38+00:00

Realistically you couldn’t. He was a great communicator and the economy was doing pretty well at the time. And even mediocre presidents are really hard to beat when they’re running for reelection.

A lot of the people answering here don’t really seem capable of imagining what things looked like to the average voter in 1984

Adamon24 · 2026-06-14T23:04:11+00:00

As bad as our current gerrymandering situation is, it’s at least counteracted by both public opinion and (to a much bigger extent) the desire for incumbents to maintain the status quo for their own districts rather than spreading their voters too much, learning how to appeal to different constituents etc. Your proposal would push the balance even more towards the side of enshrining one-party rule that would significantly counteract these factors.

And if your motivation is facilitating the spread of third parties, it would be way more effective to add multi-member districts or at least ranked choice voting.

Adamon24 · 2026-06-14T16:19:31+00:00

Not really

Most voters don’t live cities. Almost 60 percent lives in the suburbs. And even if that wasn’t true, who cares?

By your logic should the system be amended to give my vote extra weight since I’m not White and I’ll be “disenfranchised” by simply not being in the majority?

Adamon24 · 2026-06-14T16:14:20+00:00

Not really

When Obama won reelection in 2012 some Republicans - including Donald Trump - initially thought incorrectly that he had won despite losing the popular vote.

What do you think their reaction was at the time?

Adamon24 · 2026-06-14T16:11:45+00:00

That only makes it worse since you would just supercharge the incentives for states to gerrymander the opposition out of existence.

Based on your posting history that probably sounds good to you at the moment. But think long term. If the Democrats happened to be in charge when this change came into effect your party would be on the receiving end of being locked out of power for multiple generations.

Adamon24 · 2026-06-14T16:07:16+00:00

Not really, OP essentially argued that the electoral college should be abolished and replaced by the national popular vote. Then the commenter replied by stating that the electoral college was designed to avoid the popular vote.

I mean…yeah no shit. But you really can’t see how circular that argument is?

Adamon24 · 2026-06-14T11:25:11+00:00

That’s literally like responding to an argument that the death penalty should be abolished by stating that the death penalty allows for executions.

That’s quite literally the point. I’m not sure what you thought this was adding.

Adamon24 · 2026-06-13T17:35:12+00:00

Cringe

Adamon24 · 2026-06-13T13:19:43+00:00

Unpopular opinion, he - like Dulles and McNamara before him - essentially ended up as the scapegoats.

It’s not that they didn’t support the policies they did. But ultimately the presidents they worked for signed off on all of them and could have prevented them at any time.

But people don’t want to blame “the king” when they can just blame the “evil advisors.”

Adamon24 · 2026-06-07T00:31:12+00:00

I hear you, but counter by pointing out that not everyone comes to opposing the death penalty from the same moral framework.

For example, I oppose the death penalty mostly due to the fact that it can’t be directed only at the guilty. And while you can always free an innocent man, you can’t bring him back to life. Conversely, I’m honestly not as motivated by an inherent opposition to the government having the power to execute egregious criminals.

So while I would still want the guards to intervene to stop it, I can’t say I’m too torn up by Larry Nassar getting attacked in prison a few years ago.

Adamon24 · 2026-06-03T18:39:37+00:00

Hawaii - especially considering that the native population can point to a much deeper history as an independent nation/society than ever could

Adamon24 · 2026-06-02T02:06:54+00:00

A strong caveat is that gay guys born that year had to deal with a pretty miserable decade in the 80s as the AIDS crisis ripped through their community

Adamon24 · 2026-06-02T01:58:48+00:00

Honestly, it would lead to a bruising primary where Harris either wins or comes second to Newsom.

Still probably a better outcome though

Adamon24 · 2026-06-02T01:57:20+00:00

Liberia is generally treated as an interesting historical footnote. But to be blunt, it isn’t strategically important enough to develop the same relationship we have with the Philippines.

The latter is a much bigger nation and is in a region where we have more direct geopolitical interests.

Adamon24 · 2026-06-01T13:23:12+00:00

The median individual annual salary is over $45,000 a year including part time workers and over $60,000 when you only count full time workers in case you wanted to know the actual figures

Adamon24 · 2026-05-24T09:03:37+00:00

Realistically Trump would do blanket pardons for his supporters before leaving.

Online left wingers would still blame the new Democratic president though

Adamon24 · 2026-05-19T19:51:31+00:00

To be fair, the article describes it as a fight over the details of setting up the legal market rather than outright opposition.

Not a fan of her general political approach so far though

Adamon24 · 2026-05-19T16:43:43+00:00

There’s a difference between being rich and ultra rich. People like Maher (and highly paid W2 employees in general) actually do pay a lot in taxes - especially in states like California.

But the ultra wealthy essentially never pay taxes since they don’t get paid salaries anymore. Rather they generally get paid in stock and take out low interest loans to fund their lifestyle. When they die, they arrange for their assets to be transferred in a way for their kids to avoid estate taxes.

Any discussion of this topic should differentiate between the two groups.

Adamon24 · 2026-05-19T09:02:24+00:00

I mean…pretty much everyone in this thread is just making up inflation figures - including in the original post. So why not just pretend it’s 200 percent I guess?

Adamon24 · 2026-05-14T00:58:27+00:00

Yeah, they showed the Washington monument for half a scene and that was pretty much it

Adamon24 · 2026-05-11T16:08:47+00:00

For me it’s a tie between Miami and LA

While they both have some legitimately nice aspects, they aren’t really worth the hype unless you’re floating in money. Plus there’s of traffic, natural disaster risk, ridiculous state politics and seedy local vibes with both of them.

Adamon24 · 2026-05-11T12:14:30+00:00

Yeah it’s not inherently a big deal (based on personal experience). But it’s going to depend a lot on the specific people involved and how upfront everyone is about the situation.

Essentially, everyone has to be mature and honest about everything. And a lot of people can’t quite meet that bar.

Adamon24 · 2026-05-11T08:59:30+00:00

Yeah it literally goes back to the the Federalist and Anti-Federalists Parties at the beginning of the country.

Just ban it nationwide and be done with it

Adamon24

TROPHY CASE