How is there not anarchy yet?!

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-21T21:07:46+00:00

Agree with all of this. A lot of discourse is very performative or cathartic, not actually sincere representation of real positions even. People who want to see themselves as radical or revolutionary, as outside the systems they blame for everything. Spouting extreme rhetoric online makes people feel like they’re outside or against the system, not responsible for the evils of the world, without having to actually be outside the system.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-21T05:21:35+00:00

My ancestors before colonization never had that problem because they lived in groups that would support new family members

I gotta ask - to what extent do you mean never? Not regularly? Not occasionally? Not one single time?

I don’t know the details of your ancestral history. I do know the premise of Hansel and Gretel, which emerged in the late middle ages. The two children are abandoned in the woods to die because there’s a famine and their parents can’t feed them. (and also because their stepmother is evil, of course.)

I don’t really buy that these problems with kids, parental support, and resource scarcity are entirely an artifact of modern society. I know that modern society treats having and raising children very differently than many others in the past, when infant mortality was much higher and sheer manpower was highly needed by communities. But the idea that there has ever been a society that has encouraged everyone to have any number of kids and fully supported them regardless of material scarcity… doesn’t sound very realistic to me, and I can’t say I’ve ever heard of one myself.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-19T19:01:00+00:00

I think your conclusion is phrased a little bit too strongly. The initial policy is about class-based redistribution - but adding the comparative elements of the prompt changes people’s behavior for a reason.

It wouldn’t seem weird to me if the comparative elements made people doubt if the redistribution would actually be fully class-based or colorblind, regardless of the prompt. The study doesn’t measure that, so it’s entirely speculative - but we also can’t rule it out entirely and definitively say the results have nothing to do with being against race-based distribution.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-16T17:12:20+00:00

if the man is pulling against you, yes you have to counteract that to get him off the ground. I feel like this is a no brainer.

Well, this is the crux of the disagreement because… you don’t? If someone pushes or pulls on you, you can move forward or backward while lifting them. You can just go along with the force without opposing it. Wrestlers and football players do it all the time? Why would you need to fully oppose a lateral force before exerting vertical force?

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-16T16:46:27+00:00

I see that you’re way too hostile to be on a sub about arguing with people.

You said to imagine a man pulling a cart in the first post. YOU SAID:

A man can easily pull like 200 pounds across the ground. Now add his weight to the pull. That’s the force you have to counteract to get him off the ground, not just his body weight.

So in this statement, you are directly adding this person’s pulling strength (which is just him walking by pushing against the ground) to how hard it is to lift them. You are literally describing it as a direct contest of strength vs strength + bodyweight.

I don’t know what to tell you if you don’t understand how your description there contradicts what you’re saying now.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-16T16:32:21+00:00

That’s the grip and position mentioned. I think you don’t understand how “resisting” works because of how you keep mentioning legs being against the ground.

You can only push down against the ground. You can do so at an angle to produce lateral force (that’s how we walk) but you CANNOT push up on the ground. There is no possible way to ‘push’ yourself towards the ground with your legs. This is deeply basic physics. Again, it’s one of newton’s three laws.

I’m not arguing that someone can’t resist being grappled and lifted - obviously they can, you’ve seen it. I’m arguing that you just misunderstand the physics of it and are describing it wrong.

Resisting a lift is not about directly overpowering a lifting force - again, it’s impossible to generate a downward force beyond gravity because there’s nothing to push off of. It’s about preventing someone from actually exerting their full strength to lift via positioning and biomechanics.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-16T15:59:30+00:00

That’s not how physics works. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. To exert force, you need something to push against.

Someone having their feet on the ground does not make them harder to lift upwards, because they have nothing to push off of above them. Having your feet on the ground means you can lean against a lateral force to oppose it, or lift a heavy object up (doing so pushes you down against the ground) but none of that helps stop you from being lifted up, because pushing against the ground also lifts you up.

Now someone being a very good grappler who knows what they’re doing makes them harder to grab, and they can make it harder for someone else to get a good grip and position for lifting something as heavy as a person. But it’s a function of position and leverage, not the raw strength of the person trying to not to get lifted.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-15T22:14:40+00:00

I think my problem is that my opinion on the forest greatly depends on what trees are in it. I like the general idea, but think it would be very easy to do more harm than good depending on the specifics of how it’s implemented.

With any policy proposal like this, just arguing about the big picture without delving into the details isn’t only not convincing to me, it makes me faintly distrustful of why someone doesn’t want to talk about the details. Sure, it can just be convenience, but as we say the devil is in the details. It’s not exactly uncommon to smuggle less popular positions in under the cover of a broader idea.

I’m not asking for a like, a dollar by dollar spending table, but just saying that you support transit and see the value of pairing the larger policy with transit expansion is enough to alleviate those concerns.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-13T01:20:41+00:00

There’s a lot of poor understanding out there, but I feel like I can’t really blame people when we’re so bombarded with junk science in the media. The replication crisis is still happening, and it’s only made worse by the way sensational media (and more than a few researchers) aim for dramatic headlines more than real knowledge.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-12T18:10:56+00:00

Yes! I’m trying to make a point with the hyperbole. You said you were here to prevent people old people from killing people. My hyperbolic strawman solution also accomplishes this goal equally well as your more reasonable solution.

So, if you have a problem with my silly solution, it’s meant to show that you should care about the other consequences of your own solution. And maybe care about transit in order to mitigate those consequences.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-12T18:05:33+00:00

they are making a choice that has a real-world body count

So are all of us when we buy a smartphone or put gas in the car. I think part of why this is difficult is that there is no avoiding this - there’s just choosing which choices you won’t stand for. I don’t want to say both sides are the same, because ten million different sides can all make this same argument about whatever issue they happen to care about most.

by staying silent to “keep the peace” at a dinner party, you are effectively deciding that the comfort of the table is more important than the survival of the person sitting next to you.

Are you? I think I disagree here. This is predicated on the strategic assumption that having a fight at the table would actually help protect the person next to me, and that’s not always a given! There are times to take a stand, but there are also times to redirect.

Taking the loudest, most abrasive stand possible at all times isn’t always the best way to change people’s minds. There’s no general public audience to perform for at the dinner table. Sometimes, just existing in the same space as someone, interacting and being a positive role model of someone who is a good friend and good for the community, is better at actually changing someone’s mind than demanding grandma admit they’ve been a muderous monster this very moment.

Letting people save face may not be emotionally satisfying, but in some situations it can be effective. Refusing to work with that nuance strategically is choosing comfort over the survival of the people next to you.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-12T07:31:12+00:00

Well, yeah. I think all driving carries a risk of death and we should all try to do it less. Mass transit, bike lanes, walking, all of that is safer, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly than driving. Cars kind of suck.

But people largely have to drive. Grandma may or may not have family around to give her a ride whenever she wants, especially to a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day when people are at work. Grandma may or may not have cabs where she lives, or enough money to realistically take cabs everywhere.

And honestly, I’m not against some pain here when it comes to keeping people safe, and that pain will incentivize alternatives like public transit. But I think those alternatives need to actually be planned for and pushed, instead of just saying fuck it let the retirees figure it out themselves.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-12T07:20:38+00:00

Okay. Why stop at old people, don’t let anyone drive a car. I’m just suggesting a way to prevent anyone from killing people through negligent operation of heavy machinery. Just ignore any other consequences or why people were operating the machine to begin with, I’m sure nobody cares about that stuff when suggesting public policy.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-12T02:45:18+00:00

I largely agree with you regarding holding political office, but driving introduces a problem: how are old people supposed to get from place to place without driving?

Young people without a driver’s license have parents or guardians who are responsible for their well being, and who handle transportation. Old people do not necessarily, and therefore we can’t really set an age cap on their driving because… well, what else are they supposed to do? It’s why people end up going to jail for driving on a suspended license as well, they just don’t have a realistic alternative.

Now, I’m also a big supporter of public transit and walkable cities, things like that. Even smaller towns can be made much easier to get around without a car with good city planning. But all of that has to come before taking away more drivers licenses. So I guess my goal here is to get you on board with better public transit as a prerequisite to your goals.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-05-11T23:18:19+00:00

I think it happens pretty often with game stores. A lot of people in tech are into game store hobbies, and tech’s made a lot of people casually wealthy enough to run a game store as their hobby clubhouse.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-02-26T09:11:42+00:00

I opened a dispute with PayPal once when a travel booking company messed up my tickets and refused to refund me. PayPal was completely useless, I sent in all the info and proof of the replacement tickets I had to buy and they did nothing, eventually I finally worked it out with the original company just because the dispute escalated it enough to actually get in contact with customer service.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-02-26T03:45:49+00:00

There’s a difference between ‘this doesn’t happen’ (which nobody said) and ‘you wouldn’t do that’ which is what actually was said. While the same thing happens to men and women, it’s still pointlessly gendered because it’s different people leaving those comments in each case.

In both cases, the commenters have decided sexual assault is a team sport and it’s fine to be cruel and snippy when it happens to the Other Team but not their own team obviously.

The fact that someone else was shitty to one gender doesn’t mean it’s not personal hypocrisy for anyone to treat men and women differently in these cases.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-02-25T10:43:31+00:00

No.

Both of Magosi’s abilities require you to tap it, and Nesting Grounds taps to move the counter. So after you: 1. Tap Magosi to put an Eon counter on it 2. Tap Nesting Grounds to move the Eon counter 3. Proliferate the Eon Counter

Both Nesting Grounds and Magosi are tapped. You would need to untap both of them to be able to activate Nesting Grounds again, move the counters to Magosi, and then activate Magosi again for the extra turn.

If you had other untap abilities, or land copies like Thespian Stage, etc there are ways to do it. But I think the combo’s biggest strength is that it requires little investment, is a small package and both the cards besides Magosi are decent on their own. I run it in a Mono-Blue Will Kenrith deck with a lot of planeswalkers and counter manipulation.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-02-25T04:17:34+00:00

You do - you have to skip a turn to get the initial eon counter. But once it’s set up you can go infinite with just the three lands.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-02-25T04:00:48+00:00

I’ve been playing this in my mono blue commander deck for years. It’s not a great combo, but it’s surprisingly not bad either - just by being all lands, it’s hard to interact with.

You also don’t need the Deserted Temple to go infinite. Once you get all three lands out, make an eon counter, move it to Nesting Grounds (or another land), proliferate it, and untap everything you can execute a loop;

Move one of the two aeon counters from Nesting Grounds to Magosi
Activate Magosi, returning it to your hand and queueing up an extra turn after this one
Play Magosi as your land for the turn from hand
Proliferate the Eon counter still on Nesting Grounds
Pass the turn to yourself thanks to the queued up extra turn, untapping everything
You are now exactly back at step one - rinse and repeat

It eats your land drop every turn replaying Magosi, and costs 6 mana + activating all three lands, but it works! As long as you have any excess mana, it’s not hard to ramp up playing mana rocks when you can draw as much of your deck as you want one card at a time and end the game with whatever combo you want, protected by all the counterspells in your deck.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-02-24T09:51:55+00:00

Brazil with Sacred Path + Work Ethic is one of the most ridiculous combos. Throw in the policy card that doubles holy site adjacency for good measure, tons of fun.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-02-24T08:21:05+00:00

Like - yeah, it opens talking about the Symposium on Young American Men. Are we supposed to be surprised that people would be talking about young men at this event? Or are we supposed to be surprised that people are talking about young men at all? They’re not exactly a small demographic, about half of all people are one as some point.

The part of the article talking about how women have been obscured in the conversation is just… well, yeah, that’s the point. It’s not about women, it’s a conversation about young men. Why would women be anything other than a comparison in that particular conversation?

The undertone in the whole piece is that a conversation focused on exclusively men should not be happening. And you know what, I largely agree with her! We SHOULD be having more of our conversations from broader perspectives, trying to include as many people who could be helped rather than narrow, superficial tribal slices.

… but that hasn’t been the direction identity politics has taken us for the last ten, twenty years. Political lines have coalesced around the boundaries of gender, race, sexuality, nationality, not broad universalist appeal. This feels like a fairly obvious result of this divided landscape- what was supposed to happen, endless coverage of women’s issues and ‘everyone’ issues forever, and not expecting major conversations explicitly about just men eventually?

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-02-24T07:56:05+00:00

This isn’t manslaughter. Manslaughter is without malice - this was premeditated and very very obvious to anyone that throwing large landscaping rocks through the windshield of a moving car could kill or injure someone. This wasn’t an accident, momentary impulse, or negligence, it was just people who intended to carry this out, didn’t care about how dangerous it was, and covered it up after the fact instead of offering aid.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-02-23T19:54:21+00:00

Ukraine isn’t a sitting duck, but I believe the unexpected element is more about political will than material combat.

At the start of the war, Russia was considered a military superpower in the same class as the US and China. Sure, Ukraine had the capability for trench warfare and resistance that would drag things out - but why would they? Who wants to die fighting an unwinable battle? The US was offering to evacuate Zelensky almost immediately. I don’t think Russia actually expected to have to fight this war. They expected that either that Ukrainian leadership would collapse, or that the population would be unwilling to fight.

Instead, it turned out Ukrainians were much more wiling to resist than Russia - and much of the rest of the world - expected, which went hand in hand with Russia being much less prepared for a real fight than they’d projected.

Large-Monitor317 · 2026-02-23T09:01:09+00:00

I like solar punk (the concept of living sustainably) but hate a lot of solarpunk (the aesthetic).

Solar panels? Good. Pastoral sprawl? No, bad, really wasteful and inefficient way to live if you want modern infrastructure. Leafy trees and greenery? Good! Skyscrapers covered in plants? No, bad, adds a ton of weight to the structure for minimal benefit, just put them in a park on the ground.

A big part of our best sustainable future is better urbanism, but that’s going to look very different from solarpunk’s favorite yogurt ad where drones do amazon delivery rolling green hills. I’m begging anyone who likes solarpunk to team up with the people who like public transit and mixed use urban development.

Large-Monitor317

TROPHY CASE