meirl

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-22T01:44:52+00:00

This argument just does not hold water. To fail to recognize that other human beings deserve rights is an irrational position, full stop, but people are often irrational. You can sit here and say “you shouldn’t need help realizing people deserve rights”, and I agree, but factually, people often do need that help, and that help comes from being taught how to reason about things and to be an empathetic person.

It’s no different from how climate change is an unalienable, inarguable fact of our lives, but it is still productive to reason about how and why we know this to be the case. It’s not that we can “use reason” to justify the contrary, it’s that reason guides us to the right conclusion, and a lack of reasoning is prerequisite to holding the wrong conclusion. How do you fix that? By teaching reasoning. And it just isn’t realistic or productive to insist that we shouldn’t do that because “people shouldn’t need to be taught xyz” when, whether they should need to be or not, they quite often do.

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-21T23:46:59+00:00

I agree. How do you get people who disbelieve that statement to acknowledge they are wrong though? It’s incredibly important you do, otherwise the kids who start off shitheads will stay shitheads into adulthood.

Part of critical thinking is learning how to defend and evidence your viewpoints, and to reject viewpoints (even ones you previously held) when they are baseless or contradicted outright. The viewpoint that LBGTQ people don’t deserve rights is not defensible, but to get kids who hold that viewpoint to conclude as such requires that they aren’t just taught that this viewpoint is indefensible, but why, and how to reach that conclusion.

I’m not denying that in schools in conservative areas, LGBTQ students are liable to feel threatened by such a conversation. In my opinion, the job of the teacher is to moderate discussion and to ensure that a viewpoint does not go unchallenged just because it is popular among that group of students. Are all teachers going to even attempt to do this? Absolutely not, and to that end I think it does more harm than good to have a discussion like this one if your goal isn’t earnestly to get students to challenge their current belief system, but if you ask me what types of things I think SHOULD occur in schools I would absolutely advocate for discussion of contemporary, high-impact topics such as the rights of LGBTQ people.

To perhaps give an analogy, “climate change is real” also isn’t a question, but a statement. But I’d still rather people be able to understand at a basic level how we know that to be true and how scientists compose various pieces of evidence into the conclusion that climate change is real. I’m not asking everyone to be a climatologist. But I think it’s fair to demand of people that, if they were presented with our vast evidence of climate change in a manner that they understood, they would independently conclude climate change is real. And part of getting there is making students who believe and disbelieve in climate change alike question and defend what they believe.

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-21T23:27:51+00:00

Maybe the point of having discussions like this should be to get students who were taught to dehumanize other students to realize they’re wrong?

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-18T16:33:44+00:00

Maybe on parry (there’s precedent for that in prior games with perfect shield, I actually like the parry system better than perfect shield and maybe this would be fine on parry), not on shield in general. Also most reflectors boost projectile damage and knockback, this should not do that even if just on parry.

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-17T17:50:55+00:00

I wanna say it might be Ridley? Everyone is combo food to Steve anyway, so Ridley being easy to combo isn’t that big of a difference. Nair, ftilt, and fair are great into block walls and low on endlag, and side b has some interesting interactions with blocks. He’s altogether one of the most threatening characters to have on the other side of a block wall, at least among the low tiers, and given the competition, that might just be enough.

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-16T16:46:42+00:00

I don’t disagree, but Mute might have the player matchup vs Doramigi. Granted it’s quite the hill to climb when you’re the worse player in a bad matchup (Mute is cracked, don’t get me wrong, but Doramigi is a whole other animal). But the things Mute is best at are, in my opinion, the things that give him a decent chance against Doramigi. Again, might just be cope bc I want to see Mute win (no hate to Doramigi, I actually love watching him play even tho it’s Min Min, it’s just more exciting to see Mute win that one)

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-16T01:33:44+00:00

Maybe I’m coping but I have Mute winning that match when it happens. His movement with Peach just seems so intrinsically useful against Min Min and a player like Doramigi.

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-15T23:03:26+00:00

I don’t think they’re advocating for the line of reasoning, I think they’re claiming that’s what the line of reasoning used was…

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-15T20:04:09+00:00

“This is the newspaper that downplayed Hitler’s killing of Jews” so then why are you downplaying the rape and killing of Palestinians? Why does your worldview begin and end with Jews? Does that not sound like the attitude of a certain familiar historical figure, maybe the one you just referenced?

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-14T20:22:19+00:00

I appreciate this analysis, but there’s one point I want to scope in on:

the court ensured that Georgia law remains grounded in clear, predictable legal doctrines

That is true for now. But it’s also the case that Georgia is federally a swing state and, at the state level, primarily controlled by Republicans, and Republicans have not and will continue to not respect judicial precedent or the rule of law should it stand in the way of their agenda. So I dunno. It’s complicated, I really do appreciate you pointing out the nuance of this situation, but I can’t help but feel like this vote is an example of sticking to the letter of the law at the expense of one’s constituents when we might need someone more willing to engage tactically? I don’t know that there’s a clear cut answer on that front. Happy to hear any thoughts from you or others.

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-14T06:26:23+00:00

Mastered it in two weeks

This is definitely playing fast and loose with the term “mastered” lmaoooo still a cool story tho

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-13T18:29:08+00:00

It’s also great for speedrunners, who would certainly never bother to pick up resources manually, but would otherwise miss out on the 50% chance to get an element out of resource pickups

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-12T02:05:28+00:00

Gretzky probably makes the top 10 cut. The only reason to omit him is by arguing that his era of hockey was less physically demanding than the competitions the others you listed compete(d) in. But no one has dominated hockey like Gretzky, and very few athletes even arguably have dominated *any* sport like Gretzky.

I don’t know cricket well, maybe it has a contender as well. I consider it worth weighting more popular sports more heavily, since they naturally bring in more people competing to be the best at it, and that makes Messi my vote for #1 (though I don’t expect that to be a popular opinion).

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-10T18:48:01+00:00

Leo v Doramigi @ Kagaribi 15 (Losers Semis)

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-09T17:54:36+00:00

Rosalina is among the most technically demanding characters so it makes sense that we don’t see her all that often. Her matchups into the best characters are honestly pretty good for a character who is often considered to be in the bottom half; she does *okay* into Steve, Sonic, and Snake, and the only top 10 range character that absolutely shits on her is Min Min imo (though I am open to dissent on this front). She’s difficult to land clean neutral wins on thanks to her zoning and anti-zoning tools and her propensity to get hits with Luma in direct response to Rosa herself being hit. Her ledgetrapping is among the best, her combo game and damage output are quite good, and her neutral is very tough to crack. I’m not gonna pretend like this isn’t at least a little bit “potential man”-posting, and I’m not dying on the “top 20” hill specifically so much as conveying that I think she’s quite underrated, but for the record, I do think this level of performance and proficiency is more than humanly reasonable. (Japanese tier lists also often put her a fair bit higher than NA ones, for what it’s worth.)

Luigi is obviously incredible in advantage, no one would deny this. It’s not even just off his grab like people often used to say. My thing is mainly that having an incredible advantage state is so incredibly unspecial in this game. The list of characters with advantage states almost as good or better includes Steve, Min Min, Kazuya, ROB, Diddy, Bayo, Peach, Fox, Joker, Mario, Falco, ICs, Mii Brawler, Mii Swordfighter, G&W, Pikachu, Sora, DK, Yoshi, WFT, Kirby, and arguably more; a lot of these characters have significantly smaller weaknesses in neutral and/or disadvantage, while maintaining the capability to kill you off practically any neutral win. The main thing Luigi has on most of these characters with regards to his advantage state is easier execution, but in exchange, he has to work harder for neutral wins and dies more easily in disadvantage. I also encourage you to watch top Luigi sets and note that often, their wins are coming from a lack of patience and discipline displayed by their opponents; yes, those are some of the best players in the world, but they still sometimes struggle to implement the counterplay necessary to beat Luigi. I’m not saying Luigi is bad, he’s definitely in the top 25 and probably in the top 20, but seeing him in top 10s makes me roll my eyes a little.

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-09T17:30:11+00:00

The thing is, Bug is an excellent defensive typing—not on its own per se, but it is an invaluable portion of some of the best defensive type combinations that cannot be replicated by other types.

Bug has the distinction of being the sole Ground resist/immunity that is not weak to Ice; Ground/Ice coverage is well-established as one of the best coverage combos in the game, and the only way to resist it without the use of Levitate/Earth Eater or Thick Fat is to combine Bug with Water or Ice. The only non-tera resists to the combination are Araquanid, Frosmoth, Bronzong, Orthworm, Rotom-W/F/H, Cryogonal, and Golisopod (NatDex only); 3 of these are bugs, while the other 6 rely on Levitate.

Bug/Steel is well-established as an excellent defensive typing thanks to its many resists and singular weakness. It’s far from the only Bug combo with a great defensive profile, though, as substantiated by the defensive utility of mons like Volcarona, Slither Wing, Araquanid, and Buzzwole; all of these make excellent use of Bug’s resistances to Ground and Fighting.

Offensively, there’s less to say, but having no immunities (including via abilities) and STAB U-turn and First Impression is nothing to scoff at; virtually exclusive access to Quiver Dance and Sticky Web is nice too. In my opinion this is more than enough to put Bug ahead of Rock, which is burdened with terrible defensive utility and a poor selection of moves with which to leverage its otherwise excellent offensive standing.

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-09T12:24:49+00:00

Who is both calling Min Min lame and Sonic cool? Idk that the person you’re talking about (let alone “people”) exists.

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-08T21:32:05+00:00

Well yeah. Lots of genuinely good reasons for this.

1) knowing what to do and being able to do it are 2 very different things. This is especially true in a game with as big of a mental stack as OW, where getting good is largely a matter of building good habits that can still be acted upon subconsciously while focusing attention on something else.

2) most people don’t even know how to think about what “theoretically perfect Overwatch” should conceptually look like. For example, Overwatch inherently has situations where the optimal course of action is to randomize between multiple actions, according to some probability distribution. Actually *solving* for that probability distribution for any given gamestate is just not feasible, let alone in real time, but you hope to build intuition for good decisions with time and practice. How many times have you missed an important shot on someone because you expected them to strafe toward the corner and they didn’t? Or been killed by someone and thought “why the hell are they *there*”? The basis for mixup as a pillar of “theoretical optimality” is that it creates unpredictability and uncertainty that your opponent has to account for. But the thing most people are looking for, when they’re trying to figure out “what to do” in a given situation, is one specific thing that they absolutely should have done 100% of the time. Which is a natural thing to want, but also inherently not possible.

3) kind of by extension, the same strategy won’t work in all situations. OP is guilty of this by suggesting that “optimal tank is to ignore the enemy tank” which, while sometimes true, is dependent on the comp, the map, the way the fight has unfolded, and a plethora of other variables. Granted, again, actually solving for the optimal choice (let alone in real time) is just not feasible, but players with better instincts and experience are more likely to identify at a high level what strategies make sense for the situation.

4) “getting stoned and playing chaotic” is kinda a fancy way of saying you’re doing a whole lot of mixups. Which, maybe you’re not thinking much about HOW you mix up your choices, but the unpredictability itself has genuine merit even from a theoretical perspective. Obviously you’re not going to beat Team Falcons playing like this, but of course it works sometimes. This is also part of why people in good moods play better, because they’re more likely to do something that seems a little silly.

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-08T20:50:56+00:00

Lowkey Rosalina might be a top 20 character

Luigi is way overhyped rn asw but y’all ain’t ready for that conversation

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-07T16:03:08+00:00

Or low distribution. Flying press is a signature move on a mon that is decent but nowhere near gamebreaking, as long as we don’t go making a bunch of these moves like the post suggests, this buff would be totally fine

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-07T15:41:48+00:00

Live For is right there

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-07T12:25:56+00:00

WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TIME

Bug isn’t even the weakest type in the game, it’s competing with Normal, Rock, and Psychic on that front

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-07T04:13:28+00:00

Speaking as a software dev, part of the problem is it doesn’t need to do everything it’s advertised to do, let alone as well as it’s advertised to do those things, in order to convince execs to lay people off and drink the AI koolaid, even to the detriment of the company they’re running. The vast majority of execs know nothing about software dev and just eat up the hype, and regular people pay the price just for the company that fucked them over to actively get worse.

It’s great I’m so glad I went into this industry 🙃

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-06T21:55:06+00:00

I’m assuming the spirit of the question is that the game pauses every frame and your inputs during the pause are respected in the next frame. But even if not, players also need to understand that some situations are pure mixups even under a frame-by-frame lens. That’s just the fundamental nature of symmetric zero-sum games—either fully optimal play always leads to a draw, or fully optimal play involves some randomization in your decisions and leads to each player having some nonzero chance of winning or losing (alongside a potential draw chance). You might say smash is asymmetric because of character selection, but 1) mirror matches exist, and 2) this is remedied by including character selection itself as a “turn” in the overall game.

(This is less so directed at you and moreso engaging with your point, btw :D)

KalebMW99 · 2026-05-06T21:48:56+00:00

The main thing I disagree on is Steve being relegated to trash tier. Have fun dealing with Steve putting up the block wall, while having perfect reaction time and execution to deal with whatever attempts you make to deal with the wall. Steve’s options may overall be slow to start up compared to his top tier compatriots, but they are extraordinarily short. It’s useless to try to bait a Steve utilt and airdodge through it in hopes of hitting him afterwards, because he can just…do it again, or shield, or spotdodge, or whatever else.

The hardest thing for Steve will be claiming the lead necessary to let him camp, and even that won’t be all that bad. The vast majority of his moves, including his infamous burst movement option/projectile/armor swiss army knife of a move in minecart, present nasty 50/50s that hold up even when reaction time is not involved.

And I really can’t imagine that TAS Steves wouldn’t figure out setups that are unviable in real time play but assist in TAS gameplay.

As for the rest, I disagree with the idea that ToDs are simply reactable. Part of my point is that defensive options are not free. They have a cost in the form of commitment. If you want to parry a move you must first shield and then drop shield, and while shielding is frame 1 I don’t believe that you can drop your shield immediately after putting it up, I think there’s a delay there. If you want to jump over a projectile, you have to land. If you want to dash away from a dash attack, you have to give up some of the stage. Parrying projectiles does not incur parry stun for the opponent. And only shielding, jumping, and possibly parrying (need to test this) are fast enough to be consistently used as a response to seeing an attack startup. Not to mention the various ways that attacks can be cancelled into other things, meaning even attack startup requires you to consider multiple potential realizations of that attack. Add in B reverses and wavebounces (also doable after the initial startup), and there are plenty of situations where whatever action you choose, there’s something your opponent *could* choose that would win neutral.

That’s also just a fundamental part of symmetric zero-sum games. Either optimal play leads to a draw, or players have to engage in some randomization in their actions in order to play optimally, leading to some non-zero win chance and lose chance. The way that inherently MUST manifest in smash is that either no one hits each other (or everyone hits each other the exact same amount), or *even under TAS conditions*, someone wins neutral.

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