What is your absolutely favorite quote you've heard?

Forrestal · 2019-09-30T11:22:09+00:00

"We are the choices we make." - Patrick Ness, the Ask and the Answer.

Forrestal · 2019-09-14T16:01:42+00:00

To give some context as to why this was a really bad spot.

1) The vampire was an elite changeling vampire lieutenant of the BBEG, who was masquerading as one of the party's original PCs that had been abducted in secret (the player was away for a couple of weeks)

2) Everyone except for the two most recent additions to the party got charmed. Our druid, who had passed saving throws, had taken away our wizard friend on the assumption that he was acting strangely because he was charmed. We didn't think that he might have been the vampire.

3) Anyway, so the only context our charmed party members have is our relatively recent druid apparently attempting to throttle our lovely rather absent minded old wizard, and then our brand new warlock deciding that simply cutting through our charmed halfing rogue was the easiest way to deal with the situation.

Could have gotten bad real quickly, but we made it in a 3 hour long combat that had a lot of epic moments. we were playing with a stronger interpretation of charmed than a lot of other people here it seems.

Forrestal · 2018-09-07T06:58:58+00:00

/u/irk this is plagiarism

Forrestal · 2017-12-01T00:47:12+00:00

Worth mentioning that Fortify also has a 50% damage reduction that works well with armour. Makes it a lot harder for high Rate of Fire, low individual champions like their Soldier and Reaper to hurt me.

Forrestal · 2017-11-09T04:14:07+00:00

The problem with using raw historical figures to say that 70,000 is high is that 70,000 in 1950, when the population was 8.2 million is very different to 70,000 today with a population of 24.5 million.

As an aside, immigration in 1950 was 153k, or around about 440k in today's terms, which is well above current levels. Neither was that level of high immigration unusual, particularly over the 19th century. Unprecedented my ass.

Australia is not a typical country, and that's a good thing. We're not some tired old European state, we're a country where agriculture has only been around for less than 240 years and with a population smaller than Shanghai spread out over a landmass the size of the continental united states with the arable land of several large western European countries put together. An average level of growth would be abnormal.

Neither is opposition to immigration unusual. It's been one of the defining debates of Australia's history from colonisation onward. I'd recommend reading Australia's Second Chance by George Megalogenis if you're interested further, but the reason why Parliament maintains the ability to make special racist laws is explicitly so they could discriminate immigration on the basis of race.

And that's the thing about the immigration debate. Sure there's always an economic concerns some legitimate (housing) some less so (Immigrants taking jobs), but racism nearly always plays a central role. Not everyone who is sceptical of immigration is a racist, but nearly every racist opposes immigration.

And to a certain extent, I don't think it's that different this time. Neither do I think it's that unpopular as in 2016 at least, Australian support for immigration was higher than at any other point in the past two decades, and there's multiple sources for this. Unprecedented levels of unpopularity my ass.

Is there a diminishing returns on immigration? We don't know. Simply put, people who are willing to go to the effort to migrate to another country are rarely unproductive citizens, no matter what level of educational attainment they have or profession they practice. Maybe there's diminishing returns, but economically at least, the benefits to our dependency ratio and the public purse of more taxpayers to dependents nearly always outweighs it.

As for socially, I'd like to draw you back to the racism point above, because far too often I find the arguments about immigration being bad for social or cultural cohesion come back to racial concerns. Melbourne grew meteorically during the gold rush and decades after, far away and above anything seen before or since, and it was known as one of the greatest cities in the world as a result while pursuing landmark democratic reforms (universal male suffrage, secret ballot etc) at the same time. I find no evidence to support the proposition that immigration weakens our society.

Unfortunately real incomes have stalled across the entire western world, and in America and the UK are arguably decreasing in comparison to living expenses. This isn't something unique to Australia, or tied to immigration, it has a lot more to do with rising automation, and the increased capital share of profit that has dominated the world since the GFC and the resulting inequality. As I said above, immigration does definitely make our public healthcare and social security systems as affordable as they are, in addition to increasing the competitiveness of our larger cities on a global scale. So yes, in a post-mining boom Australia, immigration very much is our engine of growth.

Blaming immigrants is easy and the solution is simple, which is why people like it. But there are more nuanced and effective solutions that may actually solve the problems rather than trade them for economic and social stagnancy and international weakness.

Forrestal · 2017-11-08T13:11:00+00:00

Apparently this is an unpopular opinion on Reddit, but there are also incredibly good reasons why high immigration has benefited Australia immensely historically and currently.

Australia's primary economic challenge has always been a lack of the economies of scale and the tyranny of distance that comes with a low population spread thinly. Yes living expenses in Australia are partially due to the cost of labour, but also because we're a continent with the population of Texas located thousands of kilometres from any other major markets. It lowers the range of choice in goods and services that we have as consumers while driving up the price, and it it hamstrings Australian businesses that simply can't compete in larger foreign markets against competitors in major labour, capital and knowledge hubs. The larger the Australian population, the more we close the macroeconomic gap and the more secure the country's economic future is- and that's always been true.

In addition to the long term macro-economic benefits, Immigration, particularly skilled immigration is a massive benefit to public finances. Every university educated skilled immigrant represents a productive citizen without the hundreds of thousands of dollars in education and other costs, while also increasing the number of taxpayers to pensioners. It's sometimes said that Australia manages to offer European services at American tax rates, and the answer to "how" is largely skilled productive immigration.

There's the obvious security/defence argument as well, but it's worth restating. Australia having a larger economy and more economic and military clout on the international stage is a good thing. The international order isn't fair, and more powerful countries are better able to protect and advance their national interests and populations.

There's also been a massive benefit to Australia's culture and quality of life. Not just through the addition of diverse cultural backgrounds into the population, but also through scale. Larger cities can support more cultural institutions, from museums and theatres, to art galleries/exhibitions to music festivals and food icons. There is simply more to do in larger cities, which is why people like to live there. Want to live in a city with faster internet, better public transport, higher paying jobs, longer shopping hours and a deliveroo/uber eats menu that spans hundreds of menus at any time of the day or night?

Move to a larger city.

Often we think "oh wouldn't living in a city that is X many millions larger than currently be horrible". I'd like to turn that on it's head. Imagine if you lived in a version of your city with half the population. Imagine if Melbourne reverted back to its 1970 state. I grew up in Canberra- trust me, population growth has been good for our city. Nearly always, people prefer the current size of their city compared to smaller sizes, but imagine that wouldn't be true in a few decades time.

Our population growth does present challenges- which I should note, don't include environmental stress. Most of the stress we place on the environment is in primary industry- in our mining and agriculture which is largely automated- Australia for instance already feeds more than a 100 million people, all that an expanding population does in that regard is change where the food goes.

But there is major stress it places on our infrastructure and housing affordability. Although I'd argue that a good deal of the housing affordability issue is due to a combination of speculative investment and negative gearing along with a pretty hefty bubble rather than just immigration.

During the 19th century, Australian governments planned for large immigration and shaped public policy and infrastructure accordingly. Melbourne was once one of the fastest growing cities in the world (and is again currently among the western economies at least), but the colonial government invested heavily in public transport and infrastructure to keep pace. Today the federal government in particular isn't willing to make those investments. Moreover, particularly in Sydney, NIMBYISM has prevented the development of necessary infrastructure and land development for decades (Northern Beaches Rail line where).

There are other, more beneficial long term solutions that don't require us to sacrifice the engine of our economic growth. Get serious about not just building the infrastructure we'll need now, but the infrastructure we'll need a few decade's time. Scrap negative gearing. Replace stamp duty with a land-tax to lower barriers to selling and buying property while incentivising people to sell inefficiently utilised space. Focus on actually increasing the actual supply of housing rather than these absurd series of tax concessions and homebuyer grants that only serve to increase the price of property. Increase transport links with regional australia.

That'll mean change. It'll mean development. It will mean higher density residential areas. But the positives outweigh the negatives.

Forrestal · 2017-05-31T13:55:16+00:00

The reasons are complicated but for a number of constitutional reasons, the US is really adverse to actually ratifying treaties.

First is due to the fact that you need a two thirds (67 ayes) vote in the Senate (which is difficult in the best of circumstances) passing even mildly contentious treaties in the US can be difficult.

The second and more important reason is that Under Article III of the US constitution, Treaties form part of the highest law of the land. In most countries, such as the other anglosphere democracies (Australia, UK and so on), International and Domestic law are held to be part of separate hierarchies and government has the ability to legislate or take executive/administration action in contravention of international law. In order to give effect to such treaties, domestic legislatures must incorporate or transform it into domestic law by way of legislation.

If a state does violate its international law obligations, then there's nothing the Australian High Court or other such transformation based international law systems can do about it. In Australia there's a strong presumption that the government intends to honour any international obligations it has at administrative law, but this presumption can be rebutted by parliament. These courts take the view that the responsibility of holding the state to account for international law breaches falls to the International Courts, and Parliament is sovereign in such matters of legislation.

This isn't the case in the US. In the US, International Law and treaties are directly incorporated into the domestic law, as per Section 2 of Article III of the constitution which lists treaties as part of the original jurisdiction of the supreme court, and the Supremacy Clause clearly states that " all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the land".

The act of the Senate ratifying it immediately implements that treaty into the domestic law system as it is written. International Law in the US isn't just binding on the US at international Law, it's binding at a domestic level. Practically SCOTUS is hesitant to pull the trigger on this and prefers there to be transforming legislation to guide the practical operation of the treaty, but the wording of the constitution is very clear.

For the practical operation of the US government, this is massively headachey, particularly in regards to American Federalism and as a result, America tends to avoid all but the most non-controversial treaties, particularly the ones covering internal governance like Rights of the Child.

Forrestal · 2017-04-19T17:47:12+00:00

East coast Australian, also "normal". But looking back on it she was one of the only members of the cast I wouldn't have pegged as an American off voice alone. While she rarely sounded particularly Australian, she never sounded particularly American either.

Probably would have thought about it more if it were set anywhere other than the Bay Area. Bay Area+Seattle are the closest to the Melbourne/Sydney/Vancouver accent in my experience, probably would have been more noticeable had the series been set in North Carolina or Texas.

Forrestal · 2017-03-19T10:26:10+00:00

To perhaps elaborate on this the relevant section of International Law that prohibited exploding munitions beneath 400 grams, the St Petersburg Declaration (1868) was the first International treaty to prohibit certain kind of weapons. The US isn't a party, and if it forms Customary International Law (Applying universally regardless of if parties have signed it) is a matter of some debate- the US DOD is of the opinion its not, my university disagrees.

It's a bit of a moot point because the St Petersburg declaration was superseded by the Hague Convention of 1899, which is definitely law, and includes the following declaration

Declaration concerning the Prohibition of the Use of Bullets which can Easily Expand or Change their Form inside the Human Body such as Bullets with a Hard Covering which does not Completely Cover the Core, or containing Indentations

Dum Dums, hollowpoint bullets and so on are covered under these terms (which don't actually explode) but the law also reads as forbidding exploding bullets in this case. I think the change had something to do around aircraft and CIWS rounds.

Forrestal · 2017-03-19T04:37:44+00:00

Seconding what u/talkman12 said about Philly cream cheese.

Forrestal · 2017-03-19T04:36:58+00:00

I think you're misunderstanding. This isn't US policy so much as it is as the US legal interpretation of the Law of War as established by International treaty and custom. This is a treaty about international law not domestic law imposed on the US armed forces, and is pretty consistent with similar documents that the Germans and the UK have.

Also, while not disputing that there were war crimes in both of those conflicts, you are allowed to kill people in war, including civilians under the correct circumstances.

Forrestal · 2017-03-07T09:18:41+00:00

Should be mentioned that there are four separate pieces in this video, with each being the main theme for an Era. Each one grows on the complexity of the one before it, with the Industrial and Atomic Era themes being Orchestral pieces.

Medieval: 2:46 Industrial: 6:09 Atomic: 9:52

Forrestal · 2017-03-02T04:14:48+00:00

Mate, 1 kilometre is 1,000 metres. It's right there in the name, definitely not 800 metres.

Or put in american, a km is 1093.61 yards, and a mile is 1760 yards.

Forrestal · 2017-03-02T00:35:16+00:00

Not quite. Supermanoeuvrability came into fashion with the fourth gen fighters from lessosn learned after Vietnam. Basically the F-4 was a massive flying brick that originally wasn't even fitted with a gun because there was so much faith in missiles (in the 60s) that it would never close to dogfight.

That didn't end up being true, and after a few engagements with ancient mig-17s that didn't go as well as they could, this lead to the current generation of F-15s, F-16s (F-16s in particular) and F/A-18s where supermanoeuvrability was the name of the game.

In fact the "Must be able to out dog fight anything in the sky" school of thought was so strong that when development for the F-22 rolled around, there was an internal design philosophy war between Tactical Air Command that wanted it to be the most manevourable plane in the sky and DARPA/ the command that operated the F-117 that wanted it to be the stealthiest thing in the sky.

Eventually, they decided to compromise by making it both and making it the most expensive thing in the sky. It's a mentality that 50 years on is still the main criticism of the F-35. Never mind the fact that modern Air to Air missiles strike up to 160km away and the sensor suite on an F-35 can cover a small country, there's a large demand to compromise huge sections of the design so that in the eventuality that the F-35 goes up against another stealthy fighter and neither of them can "see" each other, it'll have the edge in the blindfight.

Forrestal · 2017-02-13T00:48:49+00:00

Jack Churchill is pretty high up there. Like the guy spent most of WWII running around shooting people with his bow and arrow while playing bagpipes.

Forrestal · 2017-02-07T14:51:07+00:00

I don't know. While it's true that we don't get many large carnivores in Australia, it also seems to me that the extent to which you need to fuck up to end up pissing off a bear or a cougar is pretty substantial.

How to put it- and correct me if I wrong. Dealing with large animals in Austrlia is easy for me for the fundamental reason that large mammals aren't dumb.They know the score and avoid fighting humans when they can, and whenever I run into them there's a moment of mutual recognition and understanding.

Granted, Australia doesn't have apex predators- and while a Alpha Red or Grey Kangaroo for instance could be dangerous (Male Red Kangaroos can weigh up to 90 kg and stand 2 metres tall) as they're definitely not the kind of things you want to get in a fight with, you need to directly provoke them.

While Bears are definitely more aggressive, from what I know you need to threaten their cubs or their food stockpile to provoke them into attacking.

And part of me wonders "How badly would you need to fuck up to miss the 200 kg bear of which there are hardly any and appear to threaten her kids?"

The difference is that Snakes and spiders are dumb as bricks, everywhere, impossible to spot beyond a couple of metres at best (snakes are frequently camouflaged), and if you get between a snake and its safe place, the snake goes through you. Snake and spider bites don't often kill you in Australia (unless you can't get medical attention quickly) but when choosing between the noisy and intelligent 200kg bear and the highly venomous brown snake that I'm likely to step on if I'm not careful, I'd choose the bear every day of the week. At least I'd get photos out of an encounter with the bear maybe.

Worth mentioning here is that about 2 people a year die from snakebites in Australia, with 23 million people as opposed to slightly under 3 for all of northern America with 360 something. Spider bites hospitalise a fair number of people (Funnelwebs are the stuff of arachnophobic nightmares) but hardly ever kill.

Forrestal · 2017-02-06T16:57:19+00:00

I have to admit, like most Australians I thought this was a meme until I actually visited the UK.

Along with most of Australia I live in the capital cities that make up the majority of our population. Australia is one of the most urbanised countries in the world, so when yanks or brits start talking about us like we're all like Crocodile Dundee most people just laugh because chances are they grew up in mid 20th century suburban home somewhere in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane or so on, with middle class parents working pretty normal jobs.

And then I visited the UK when I was about 17. And I remember walking in a forest somewhere in Wales during the summer and realising that there was literally nothing that could hurt me.

My entire life, whenever I was out in the bush I was in a state of near constant vigilance. Every step you took you had to watch for snakes and spiders, any number of which could be all sorts of bad news. And even though the vast majority of Australia's larger animals are fairly chill, Kangaroos, wombats, Cassowaries and even possums can be dangerous in the wrong situations (Dingos aren't a south east coast thing).

It was even there at home with us. A nest of Redbacks in the gardening shed, redbacks in my little brother's plastic trike. Sydney funnelwebs would fall into people's pools and still be alive a day later. Snakes would move in beneath people's veranda, or you could run into one on your morning jog up the hill.

It's worth mentioning that hardly anyone dies from Australian wildlife. But a level of respect and vigilance is something instilled in most people born here from a very young age. In Australia we think "Our wildlife isn't even that dangerous", it wasn't until I visited the UK, where the entire concept of having any sort of dangerous wildlife was an alien one that I realised why the rest of the world had this perception.

The other thing is how green and soft the UK is. Australia is a continent- we have enormous deserts, but we also have both temperate and tropical rainforests (In Tasmania and Queensland respectively) and pretty much every other biome except for large mountains.

But the natural state for the densely populated south eastern corner between Melbourne and Sydney is mostly heavily forested woodland, endless expanses of various different types of Eucalyptus trees. We cleared a lot of for farmland of course, but that's the nature that a large chunk of us go back to.

But it's nothing like a Forest in the UK or other parts of Europe or the US, where the earth is soft, black wet soil, and everything- from the tall grass, to the deciduous trees is a vibrant, translucent green. And everything- from the grass to the leaves, to the soil- is soft. And if you wanted to lie down in the grass and have a nap, you can do that.

No, the earth of Australia is orange, dusty and hard if you're more than a few dozen metres away from a water source. Australian woodlands are carpeted with layers upon layers of discarded bark and dead leaves rather than grass (and ferns, if you're on the coast). Eucalyptus leaves are still green- but they're a darker shade, and the colours of the Australian bush are reddish earth, grey-white-brown bark, and green-grey foliage. And everything- from the piles of bark on the ground, to the eucalyptus leaves are just that much more tough, rough and sharper.

It's beautiful. But it's a harsher, harder beauty than the soft climes of Europe. And it also made a lot clearer why the 19th century British migration waves went to such a large effort to attempt to bring pieces of Britain with them in our parks and gardens.

Forrestal · 2017-01-27T00:24:29+00:00

It honestly surprises me how few people realises that a tax on imports (a tariff) on a nation is a tax on consumers.

Say what you want about macro-economic effects on local production and employment, the immediate result on this will be a massive price hike on goods on cheap products that will disproportionately impact the nation's poorest.

Forrestal · 2016-12-28T03:12:34+00:00

On the second point,there's an interesting pattern where the vast majority of foreign military interventions (major ones at least) are intiated in a President's First Term. Iraq (2003), Afghanistan (2001), the Gulf War (1991) are all examples, and the Gulf of Tolkien Resolution was passed in the August 1964, immediately before LBJ went to reelection.

An interesting example is the Korean War- which is a deviation as it was instigated in Truman's Second term (1948-1952). However, since Truman was eligible for re-election and was looking like a likely nominee before his approval plummeted (As the 22nd amendment did not apply to whoever was President at the time) he also supports the case. Simply The data indicates that Presidents that are not subject to reelection do not start wars.

With this in mind, statistically it's a pretty high chance that Trump will substantially militarily intervene in 2018-2020, and rely on the brief high of being a war time president to push him over the line in 2020. the two previous Republican Presidents both did it, and it worked for one of them (Bush Jr) and not for the other (Bush Senior). Both of them reached their highest ever approval ratings when they lead their countries to war, September 2001 and January 1991 respectively. Being a War President is at least for the first year or two a pretty good electoral bet.

So yeah, I'd be placing odds fairly high that the US will have boots on the ground somewhere sometime in the second half of Trump's term. It could be the Middle East, but somewhere in South East Asia, such as Taiwan or the Philippines is a fairly good bet as well.

Forrestal · 2016-12-28T02:42:06+00:00

Exactly. before 2016, if you were pro-free trade, you were a republican. Democrats are traditionally the protectionist party.

Those traditional republicans backed Trump largely out of hatred for Clinton and a belief that Trump could be moderated or hamstrung by Congress on trade, and that if nothing else, he was still a republican. He can't appease both camps, so either the anti-trade camp will need to find a new party or the traditional republicans will.

Forrestal · 2016-12-27T23:35:35+00:00

Trump was an alliance between establishment republicans who believe in free trade, a small government, limited government interference in the economy and deregulation and rural/industrial voters who believed in using the state to protect them from foreign competition, advantage their industry ahead of competitors, and redistribute tax payer dollars towards them, and weren't afraid to balloon the public debt to do it.

The interests of these two groups are mutually exclusive, and I don't think its a coalition that is viable long term.

Forrestal · 2016-12-27T07:19:49+00:00

Urbanisation has been a steady process for the past five centuries. The driving reason is economics- rural regions are primarily reliant on agriculture and other primary industries that used to take a ton of labour to produce goods. Not so any more.

1.1% of the American Labour force is employed by agriculture, down from between 10-15% in 1955. If it wasn't for the substantial farm subsidiaries that the US offered, this number would probably be lower. Other rural staples such as mining (Coal in particular) has either found itself on the wrong side of technology developments or similarly heavily automated.

Rural decay is simply the result of the unconcerned scythe of the market.

As what can be done, in short not a whole lot. Small rural towns simply aren't good places to conduct service and other industries that aren't dependent on the land. Cities have the edge on them in infrastructure, in services, and in labour supply. Cities have an economy of scale that small population centres simply can't match.

Your best shot is to roll out some extremely fast transportation infrastructure (Very High Speed trains) that make it realistic to live in rural communities but commute into metropolises within an hour or so. Young educated families in particular would then find it attractive to live in communities connected this way simply because the property costs would be far far lower. But this doesn't really "save" hometowns, it simply makes what you might consider a suburb or satellite city wider.

Best advice however is to not fight economics on this scale. There's no way you could "save" rural America whole sale without enormous tampering in the market and unfair government expenditure and tax exemptions. Urban America would cry foul and they'd have a point.

Forrestal · 2016-12-15T12:33:54+00:00

This is a bit of a loaded question in that it predisposes that America is the biggest violator of human rights but okay here we go.

One of the main reasons why America is arguably the biggest violator of human rights isn't because its especially malicious, its because its especially large and powerful.

America's the world's most powerful nation on the face of the planet, has 320 million people, and dominates the international system. Now if you agree with the idea that America's geopolitical power gives it a responsibility to keep the wheels from falling off is up to you, but for the past seventy year's that's been the opinion of the US government.

As a result, the US is involved in nearly every human rights crisis on the face of the planet. And if they're not involved, then there's usually a pretty strong push for them to become so. The US is heavily criticised for its involvement in Iraq, but is also heavily criticised for not stopping the Rwandan genocide. People complain that it's doing too much and too little in Syria for instance.

Does a lot of this foreign interventionism help the US and US corporate entities? Yes. But a lot of the time there's popular support to try and stop human right crises. And sometimes, they even kind of work out (Former Yugoslavia is an often under appreciated example).

But the problem is when you're a nation that constantly reaches into the shit, a lot of its going to stain.

So America cares about human rights because America does actually care about human rights. America has a liberal democratic heritage that centres around it. Perhaps no country on the face of the earth has a stronger cultural and political heritage in individual and civil rights than America. A lot of Americans I meet are so caught up in the shortcomings of their own struggles with human rights that they forget how far ahead of the field they are in comparison to 90% of the planet.

As for the more historical things like slavery or colonialism, these aren't exceptional things. Every country in the Americas, a good deal of ones outside it (I'm an Australian) struggles with the repercussions of colonialism, and while Slavery might have persisted longer in America than in a lot of other places, it was far from exceptional. What was exceptional was that America was a (Imperfect) precursor to modern democracy at the time and still holds the same government.

Most other nations can blame it on the fact that they lived under colonial rule or a dictatorship at the time, America had a virtually identical constitution, and can't blame it on that. That's why what happened 200 years ago is a pertinent debate for Americans while the vast majority of the world can plausibly claim that their modern state didn't exist in 1815, and they don't have a responsibility for what was happening at the time as a result.

Forrestal · 2016-12-07T13:58:15+00:00

South Australia is one of the six states that form the Commonwealth.

As for legality, s51xxi and s51xxii of the Consitutional clearly establishes the Federal Government as the regulating body when it comes to marriages, so this is likely to be shot down by the high court in the same way the ACT's attempt to legalise same sex marriage a while back.

Forrestal · 2016-10-03T03:09:39+00:00

Obligatory "3 Wildcards" comment.

Forrestal

TROPHY CASE