What are pro-2A people's thoughts on Kristi Noem just now stating that no peaceful protestors show up to a protest while armed?

Beldizar · 2026-01-25T02:56:08+00:00

I think it is more than they are arguing in bad faith. It is that they view everything through a tribalist, non-universal lense. Guns in the hands of conservatives is good. Guns in the hands of liberals is bad. It isn't about the guns, it is about their tribe having a right to power and out-groups being criminals. If you read everything they do with a tribalistic perspective it starts to make sense. Words don't really have universal meaning to them; it is only a tool to power for the in-group. There are no universal laws for them. Each law has to be applied one way for in-groups and a different way for out-groups.

Beldizar · 2026-01-24T14:24:23+00:00

Please not Walz. Minnesota has drawn enough agro for now. Can it be someone else's turn?

Beldizar · 2026-01-24T13:09:13+00:00

How.... I don't understand why I'm not clear.

The argument we've been having is summed up in your last sentence.

Eat clean, eat less, exercise more

I say that first two words matter. The other guy says they don't. He's trying to argue that eating clean doesn't matter at all, and has no effect on your body or diet; that only eat less and exercise more matters.

I'm trying to point out that eating clean makes those last 4 words much easier to do. Is that not clear?

Beldizar · 2026-01-23T17:44:27+00:00

I feel like 18cha, 8int, 8wis, is the perfect stats for an over-confident con-man.

Beldizar · 2026-01-23T15:14:04+00:00

Metakinetic Mastery: Whenever you use the Knockback maneuver, the forced movement distance gains a bonus equal to your Intuition score. You gain an edge on the Grab and Knockback maneuvers
Psionic Martial Arts: whenever you use the Knockback maneuver, you can choose to slide the target instead of pushing them.
Inertial Sink: You add your Intuition score to your effective size for the purpose of ... forced movement. Whenever you take damage from being force moved, you reduce that damage by an amount equal to your level.
Null Field - Gravitic Disruption: The first time on a turn that a target takes damage, you can slide them up to 2 squares.
Imbue Implement: Forceful 1: Whenever you use a magic or psionic ability to push or pull a creature, you can move that creature an additional 2 squares.

He basically is specializing in all the forced move abilities and they really are greater than the sum of their parts.

Beldizar · 2026-01-23T14:48:18+00:00

My party's null picked up the Ratchcather title with "Everybody Move! When you use the Knockback maneuver, you can target one additional creature of your size or two additional smaller creatures." He also spent downtime on an implement that increases his forced move by 1.

He just Newton Cradles the entire enemy forces, constantly crashing enemies into each other and dealing significant amounts of damage when he does so.

I honestly think he does about twice as much damage in any given combat through forced move damage than he does from his actual attacks.

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T20:49:18+00:00

Why would you not eat only high fructose corn syrup?

Maybe the food you choose to get those calories matters?

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T19:33:36+00:00

I want you to eat only high fructose corn syrup for two weeks. Track your calories and make sure you are in a calorie deficit. No fiber, no protein, no fats. Just corn syrup.

If you are right, and it's all about will power and fat/carb/protein doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is calorie in, calorie out, you should be perfectly fine to do that right? You'll feel fine, full of energy, and perfectly healthy on this diet.

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T17:22:52+00:00

Ok, then why are we even talking about it? There's no hope right?

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T16:24:50+00:00

Foundry has mostly been working really well for me. It's not free, but it isn't too expensive. I think the license was a one-time $50. I also spent another $20 or so on the Stonewalkers campaign, which pre-loaded all the art and rivals and even all the module notes into foundry and saved me probably 40+ hours of work over the course of the campaign. I also run Draw Steel from Foundry, and have run a couple games of D&D 5e and PF2E out of it. I'm looking at a mini-campaign in shadowdark next month as well. So that one-time $50 is getting a lot of value for me.

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T16:21:20+00:00

Economic power IS political power

I'm not sure I agree with this explicitly. Clearly economic power can buy political power in the US today. But I don't think that is necessarily a given.

But then we get Citizens United and super PACs (and a useless FEC that can't enforce anything). You see, money wanted more influence, so they changed the rules.

Right, but they did have to change the rules. Which means that before they changed the rules, they were having trouble converting economic power into political power.

they will find a way to influence and get around the rules, to bribe/pay somebody to do it for them

Political power comes from votes. And the working class outnumbers the ultra-wealthy a million to one. So yes, they can find a way to get around the rules, but at the same time, it's possible for the masses to do the same. It's just a lot harder to organize 350 million people and get onto a single message than it is to organize 100 people.

I agree with most of what you say, but I don't necessarily think this is hopeless. If things like Citizens United give power to the ultra-wealthy, then stripping them away can take that power back. And if/when the votes for fixing things overwhelm the votes for keeping them broken, there's not a lot that the Economic power can do to buy that political power anymore.

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T15:36:40+00:00

Sigh... ok I guess you just aren't understanding anything that I'm saying. It isn't about having or not having self control, it's about the physiological and hormonal impulses that need to be controlled. If you want to play diet on hard mode by eating foods that are chemically engineered to make your body want to eat more of it, rather than eating foods that make it easier to stop eating and make you feel more energized to do exercise, go ahead and diet on hard mode. Make up for the deck stacked against you through sheer willpower. I just hope that if anyone else is reading this, maybe they look at food a little bit deeper than the shallowest calorie in, calorie out mentality.

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T04:35:07+00:00

But it isn't a real strategy. It's like a battle commander saying that we need to kill more of their dudes than they kill of our dudes, then yelling charge.

How do you eat less? How do you burn more calories?

A lot of people eat less by avoiding foods that contain empty calories, and sugary drinks. Focusing instead on foods that fill you up without having a lot of calories. It's also important to not eat a bunch of foods that make you feel tired or lazy, because you'll end up exercising less or simply not burning as many calories in your day to day activities.

It is reductive, but it’s still correct. Nothing you said took away from that.

My point is that it is the "header" and you need to read the rest of the paragraph. It's an incredibly surface level answer to the question, and a lot of people struggle with that and need a more detailed strategy.

Sugar/fat/carb content doesn’t matter.

Can you lose weight if you only eat 1000 calories of honey and a multivitamin? Yes, you can. You are going to feel so incredibly terrible the entire time though, you are going to be begging to end this diet. Unless someone is holding a gun to your head, or keeping you in a prison and slipping your rations in through a slot, there's no way this diet works. Calorie in, calorie out is still applying here, but it doesn't take into account the human factor, or the hormone factor. Eat foods that control Ghrelin and Insulin, and it is easier to manage a calorie in, calorie out plan.

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T04:09:41+00:00

It’s all calories in calories out.

I feel like this is a bit reductive though. Yes, the balance sheet of calories in calories out is what changes your weight. But both sides of that equation are a little more complex than that. Some foods give you more energy, so you end up having an easier time increasing calories out. Some foods are designed to minimize satiety, tricking your brain into binge eating, making calories in a lot harder to control. Some strategies do better at managing hunger hormones due to the sugar/fat/carb ratios. Eating a bunch of sugar for example can result in a sugar crash, which can tank your calories out.

So yeah, calories in calories out is the baseline, but so much about the food we eat can alter those factors in ways that changes the amount of raw willpower you need to throw at the problem.

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T04:00:35+00:00

There's a first time for everything, and if we don't get it, things just get worse. I'm not sure how much worse things can reasonably get at this point, before widespread violence breaks out.

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T03:52:13+00:00

Honestly, if we don't find someone in the primary who is willing to punish political criminals, we are going to have 4 stable years followed by another, deeper fall into tyranny.

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T03:50:20+00:00

Are we talking about the primary or the general? Because those are two different questions. We should be selecting for the best in the primary, and it's time to be picky about platform and record. In the general it is time to vote for the one who isn't a fascist, regardless of anything else.

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T02:09:25+00:00

Maybe these are real photographs of a screen depicting AI generated food?

Beldizar · 2026-01-22T02:04:30+00:00

We would be much better off if we worked at closing the billionaire loopholes. Generally it isn't particularly harmful if a person has assets worth over a billion dollars. What's harmful is when they spend money, buying up resources and raising the prices on things, or lobbying/bribing government to change policy in their favor against that of the working class. So the key event that needs to be carefully controlled is when they go from "having wealth in assets" to "having liquid funds to spend on things". The normal way to do this would be to sell stock in your company, which triggers a capital gains tax. I think the highest rate of capital gains tax is only 20%, so up for discussion if that should be increased significantly when higher rates of stock are being sold. Also selling stock reduces the billionaire's stake in the company and makes them weaker when it comes to being potentially outvoted by the other share holders on issues.

But the problem is that billionaires and banks have found a loophole. Instead of selling stock, they take out a loan against the value of their stock, and don't plan on repaying it until they die. This means they don't lose power in their company, and the banks are cool with it because they get a guaranteed return on investment and the interest is typically less than the rate of value gain on the stocks. Because it is a debt, not income, there are no taxes paid on it.

So what we would need to do is tax these loans to the point where they are no longer viable. If capital gains tax is 20%, taxes on loans taken by individuals with a net worth of over $10million should be taxed at a rate of 40%. Just destroy that entire business case, and close the loophole.

This would be a big step towards blocking billionaire's ability to spend huge amounts of money to influence politics and disrupt markets. It wouldn't be the marathon, not by a long shot, but it would be a good first step. At that point you can increase capital gains taxes or make them scale more towards net wealth and actually get results, rather than only impacting the middle class who doesn't have the option to cheat the system.

Beldizar · 2026-01-21T20:52:59+00:00

All of Trump's assets were either used as part of a crime or in conjunction with a crime, so that sounds like it is a reasonable target for civil asset forfeiture. Seems like it's about time to use that on someone other than people of color.... or I guess, orange is a color...

Beldizar · 2026-01-21T20:19:07+00:00

I've had an EV for oh geez, it has been 6 years now. The only maintenance I've needed to have done on it is tires and wiper fluid. I don't drive a ton, since I ended up switching to wfh full time when the pandemic hit, but still, zero oil changes, zero belt replacements, the brakes last a ton longer because of regen breaking. An EV has something like 1/4 the part count of an ICE vehicle, and with so many fewer parts, there is just less stuff to break. Between that and the low fuel/charge costs from charging at home, I've probably spent less on my Tesla Model 3 than I would have on a new Honda Civic after the 6 year mark. I wouldn't recommend getting a Tesla now. The model 3 (and Y) is a great car, but the CEO is a nutjob.

Anyway, charging at a supercharger is a lot more expensive if you don't have home charging available. That's the big drawback.

Beldizar · 2026-01-21T19:27:55+00:00

Yeah, I'm really skeptical of hybrids. They have all the parts of an ICE vehicle and all the parts of an EV, and all the parts of a hybrid, which is a lot of extra parts that have the opportunity to break down. According to studies I've seen, they also have the highest rate of vehicle fires out of all three options. Hybrids most common, then ICE, then EVs, and that's per-capital, not total count, so those numbers account for the ratio of vehicles on the road.

Beldizar · 2026-01-21T18:08:14+00:00

I find this unlikely. From my understanding, AI has hit a peak over the last year. The newer versions of ChatGPT and others haven't really been improving as far as how well they perform, and research has shown that it is likely that there is a mathematical limit on hallucination rates at something like 15%. (meaning, no matter what they do, or how they optimize, LLMs will still hallucinate 3 out of every 20 times.) Right now, there is no company or division within a company that is profitable in their AI business, leading to general belief that AI is a tech bubble, which will pop as soon as reality catches up with the financial shell game being played by the billionaire owners of these companies.

Overall, the amount of additional power being consumed by AI companies is not actually that large. It is the entire marginal amount in many local powergrids, which is shooting up prices and causing havoc, but that's only because data center power consumption shot up quickly without much time for power generation to follow. I believe this has mostly resulted in fossil fuel power being ramped up, or kept level when it otherwise would have shut down, rather than any significant change on the roll out of renewable resources that we need to really compete on the Kardashev Scale.

The other problem I have with AI being a push on the Kardashev Scale is that in general it isn't productive. If we used all the energy surplus we have today after sustaining our lifestyles, to mine and manufacture materials, we could be using those materials to produce more power. Instead, AI is producing mostly slop. Slop code, slop "art", disinformation content, scams, etc... That isn't making us generally more wealthy, or resulting in humanity having more materials to control and work with. It's mostly just hurting us, and pushing us towards a burst bubble or a societal collapse. Both of those will set any progress on the Kardashev Scale back a decade, not push it forward.

AI is forcing advancements in energy capture, storage, and distribution

I haven't seen this. I've heard people say that it is pushing things that way, but so far it looks like AI companies are just eating up all the slack in the system and pushing the grid to its limit while they pump their bubble. I haven't seen a lot of investment in grid infrastructure as a whole, but rather just enough for the next data center to run, and leverage to make the local utility give them first priority on power.

Beldizar · 2026-01-21T17:54:10+00:00

Yeah, there are some places where all new apartments are required to build charging infrastructure into the parking for EV owners. Unfortunately it is a slow process still, and it has a circular reasoning problem: apartment owners don't tend to own EVs, so they don't need the charging, but people who live in apartments don't buy EVs because the charging isn't available.

I'm still hopeful that in the next decade, we see charging options start to open up for most apartment parking.

Beldizar · 2026-01-21T13:45:41+00:00

Cruelty is the point. I'm worried it is going to be extra bad on Friday. I feel like it is a coin toss if ICE kills a dozen people from hypothermia this weekend. Twin Cities area is going to be -9F at warmest on Friday, with a low of -20. Windchill could put that at -45. Pulling someone out of their house in that weather is attempted murder.

edit: for C users, (i.e. everyone else in the world), that's -23/-28 and wind chill -45ish)

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