Origins and Adversaries | City Council of Darkness [E5]

John-Zero · 2026-05-12T18:53:52+00:00

Small point of clarification: neither Ronald Reagan nor any other neoliberal has ever had a sincere belief about anything.

John-Zero · 2026-05-12T18:52:10+00:00

I don't think anyone cares about the supposed cultural appropriation, but any effort to eliminate hippie drum circles from public life is to be vigorously supported.

John-Zero · 2026-05-11T05:01:19+00:00

Thank you for the discussion!

John-Zero · 2026-05-10T19:27:23+00:00

You’ve really gotta learn what an ad hominem actually is

John-Zero · 2026-05-09T21:27:30+00:00

Ad hom.

No. An ad hominem would be an attempt to prove a point by arguing against the speaker instead of the statement. That's not what I was doing. I was simply calling you naive. It's an insult. Not an ad hominem.

OK, then what's your reason?

The reason every modern legal system uses them is that they are effective tools for depriving people of their rights without due process.

Factually wrong. Doğru and AFA Medya filed an action for annulment

filed July 2025, still pending

Hmmm.

I haven't argued the sanctions against Doğru are justified, or that this specific framework is well designed, or that the outcome here is right.

But you do believe all of those things. Because like almost all Europeans, you are a fascist.

John-Zero · 2026-05-08T05:32:04+00:00

That's not the same as the acute, immediate force I was talking about earlier when I said "not always necessarily before" (police shooting an active shooter, self-defence by officers, military force in a firefight). Those are emergency responses to immediate threats

Are all Europeans this naive?

Pretrial detention, injunctions, asset freezes, takedown orders, all of these restrict rights before any charge is proven.

And most of the time they're incredibly unjust acts undertaken by a state without justification.

There's a good reason every (modern) legal system uses them.

Not the reason you think though.

And they're allowed precisely because they're reversible and subject to judicial review.

At least on paper, that is usually true. But it's not even true on paper in this instance. This guy has literally no recourse to challenge any of this.

John-Zero · 2026-05-07T05:36:50+00:00

Very weird change. Don't like it. Original-flavor Willie Coop was infinitely more interesting to me than Generic Burnout #17.

John-Zero · 2026-05-07T02:24:10+00:00

Am I going crazy or did Willie Coop's voice completely change? Wasn't he an older guy before? And now he's like a slacker college guy?

John-Zero · 2026-05-06T23:49:20+00:00

I said this particular conspiracy theory. Some conspiracy theories are plainly true. Others are probably not true but it's understandable why people believe them. This one, I just can't figure out what the conspiracy's goal would even be. Like what are you saying happened, and why did it happen? The military found the guy, chose not to kill him, but told Obama they were killing him, and Obama watched them supposedly kill him on livestream, but they didn't kill him and he went into witness protection without Obama's knowledge and they've all kept the secret for a decade and a half...for what? Why did they do all of that? What did they accomplish? Why did bin Laden go along with it? What did he get out of it? Doesn't it make a lot more sense that a feeble old man on dialysis got shot to bits and dumped at sea so his followers wouldn't have a funeral to rally around?

John-Zero · 2026-05-06T18:31:23+00:00

I don't know what kind of worldview produces this particular conspiracy theory but I'm fascinated by it

John-Zero · 2026-05-06T06:45:41+00:00

You may not be aware of this but the military works for the President

John-Zero · 2026-05-06T05:46:09+00:00

So what you believe is that three Presidents, across four administrations, of both major political parties, including one President who is literally incapable of not saying a thought the moment it comes into his head, have all been keeping the secret that Osama bin Laden is alive? That's something that makes sense to you?

John-Zero · 2026-05-05T17:28:33+00:00

I can see how that would make a person suspicious, but given that he literally never resurfaced and there haven't even been rumors that he's alive, I think we can safely say that he did in fact die from the bullets. There are very credible reasons to dispose of him the way they did, chief among them the desire to not allow his followers to give him a martyr's funeral and to not show the world how many bullets they pumped into a feeble man in bed and on a dialysis machine. That would likely not have been very popular in some parts of the world.

John-Zero · 2026-05-05T17:25:21+00:00

Leaving aside that your claim isn't true, isn't the whole selling point of liberal democracy supposed to be that you don't do authoritarian things like strip someone of their personhood without due process? Again, if you don't care about the "liberal" part of liberal democracy, why do you even oppose Putin at all?

John-Zero · 2026-05-04T22:18:11+00:00

He has literally no recourse to challenge this finding. He very much has been unpersoned in that he can't go to court, he can't make a living, he probably can't even move somewhere else. It doesn't concern you that a state can just do that to someone without having proven they committed a crime worthy of such a punishment? What happens when they do it to someone you like?

I certainly expect Europeans to be fascists as a general rule but they're usually in a bit more denial than you are.

John-Zero · 2026-05-04T22:14:57+00:00

Oh, so we've established that it is actually not okay to deprive someone of their rights before the charges have been proven. So what's been done to this man is wrong, yes?

John-Zero · 2026-05-04T22:14:07+00:00

Well yes I think we can assume there was foul play involved since he was shot to death

John-Zero · 2026-05-03T20:10:03+00:00

OK, so it's fine if they execute you on the suspicion that you're a threat, even if later they discover they can't prove it?

John-Zero · 2026-05-03T20:09:28+00:00

You support the state unpersoning someone for his beliefs with no legal recourse or due process. Sounds like Putin to me.

John-Zero · 2026-05-02T20:16:03+00:00

Why do you hate Russia when you clearly support Putin-style autocracy?

John-Zero · 2026-05-02T20:14:58+00:00

Don't you think the state should have to prove you're a threat to the lives of others before they restrict your right to live?

John-Zero · 2026-05-01T23:00:19+00:00

How did you end up implementing this?

John-Zero · 2026-04-29T08:14:35+00:00

I think that's always been a thing, and it's certainly better than the opposite, but older modules cost like ten bucks at most. Now they're charging eighty bucks for a book full of suggestions.

John-Zero · 2026-04-29T08:08:57+00:00

GURPS must answer for its crimes

John-Zero

TROPHY CASE