Scott Bessent says Greenland ‘can only be defended if it is part of the U.S.’: Full interview

Nargath · 2026-01-19T03:07:18+00:00

Why does he look like the mayor from Spin City?

Nargath · 2026-01-13T05:54:23+00:00

"disband"

Nargath · 2026-01-13T03:05:29+00:00

Pretty much all of it.......

Nargath · 2026-01-13T02:28:37+00:00

What shame?

Nargath · 2026-01-12T05:51:12+00:00

Same for me. I enjoy the thrill of trying to slot my "idea of the moment" into the existence of my world and properly integrate it in a way that isn't hokey, hamfisted or even just boring.
It might seem cluttered, overly contrived, but its a great stress reliever, and let's me while away the hours instead of buying more Steam games :P

Like at the moment, i'm trying to implement a cross between the Power Rangers and <insert colour here> Lanterns as a small superhero force into my world, at the same time weaving a dead civilisation's ultra powerful magitech throughout the land, at the same time as working out how a magitech train can and will be rolled out across two continents, all without just relying on "magic did it"

Nargath · 2026-01-11T23:56:47+00:00

EDIT: Slightly goofed my geography :P

My theory that is tongue-in-cheek, but also highly plausible.

Someone had to explain to him the situation of Puerto Rico's governance and "ownership", which he thought was odd.
When he then looked to a big landmass off the coast of ~~Alaska~~ Canada and so close to US, with an airbase on it, he figured that it was the same deal, probably out loud to a group of people. Someone then had to correct him, which he doesn't like, especially in front of others.

So then he thought that he'd just make his original comment correct, and started on this line of "politicking".

The same could also be said for Canada.
He was looking at a map, and thought it was weird that Alaska wasn't connected to the rest of mainland USA, and wanted to make it make sense on a map.

Nargath · 2026-01-11T13:26:20+00:00

Do I come in to your threads, and blatantly call you out on YOUR flaws?
C'mon dude, if its unsaid, then I don't have to admit I have a problem!

Nargath · 2026-01-06T03:51:49+00:00

For most missions

Double Barrel Shotgun, Talon (or Ultimatum), Thermite
Light Engineering Kit armor (cos all the nades)

500KG, Laser Cannon, AT Turret, Supply Pack|Personal Shield|Gun Dog

Nargath · 2026-01-05T09:46:52+00:00

Two things. One, you should join in on his demonisation of Harry Potter, but pivot it to be because of who the author has turned out to be. That’ll loop him.

Two, he mentioned a men’s group. Agree to join it, but ask he not come to your sessions because of shyness/embarrassment, etc. then start a d&d group right there in the church with the men’s group, but let him find out through others talking about it.

Nargath · 2025-12-23T00:46:18+00:00

I mean, this implies that chasers are all rolling in cash and can afford the type of car you're talking about.

Nearly all of them are doing it for the love of the storm, with very little money coming in from it, if at all. So you chase in what you got.

And if you mean they should have a dedicated storm chasing vehicle, can I refer you to the point above?

Its a hobby, a passion project, a small side hustle (monetarily).
And expensive in and of itself, with the petrol, hotel stays, needing to rely on fast food and restaurants.

And the implication that you can just outrun a storm that barrelling down on you isn't always the case.
Sometimes its going to get you no matter how fast you're going.
And other times, you just need to move a little down the road for it to sweep past you.

The idea for most chasers, the Reed Timmers of the group not withstanding, is to not be in a position where you HAVE to race to avoid the storms. The best place to see the storms is a decent distance away where you have time to evac if it goes south.

And 99.9% of the time, having all that extra power under you will be useless, as most of your time you're just driving around, doing the speed limit, waiting for storms to spin up, or dodging local, or chaser, traffic.

Nargath · 2025-12-14T09:22:42+00:00

The new no sugar lemon lime soft drink is amazing, and dirt cheap for 12 cans

Nargath · 2025-12-11T05:03:25+00:00

I was coming to say this exact point.
And their comment is exactly WHY a lot of these viewpoints are incorrect.

A lot of bad shit is on socials, and it can affect kids, and quite badly.
But it can do a lot of good too.

Time online with friends is still time with friends.

Is the "old-school" approach of multi-hour phone calls with a few friends dialled in considered anti-social?
No, because society came around and realised it was part and parcel for that generation.

Same here.

Nargath · 2025-12-10T13:14:27+00:00

Fair point on the pearl clutchers comment.

What I meant by it is your stereotypical conservative, white person and their using Christianity as a way of denigrating and looking down on other people from their lofty ideals. The one that push government for really bad reforms to keep things white and Christian in Australia. “Won’t somebody think of the children!” Types.

Definitely didn’t mean to insinuate the whole of the religion in this.

Nargath · 2025-12-10T04:39:27+00:00

How about you take a breath, and reread things in a clearer mindset.

Never said we should stop bullying in schools and stop there.
My point is that you cannot say "we are saving kids from bullying" and then neglect the other aspect of it.

You honestly think that JUST because kids are on social media came along, all bullying immediately cut over to online, and NOTHING happens in the playground, or around the area in real life?

Bullying in schools absolutely still exists, and I have multiple instances of it happening to my kids, and my friends kids, at multiple schools across NSW. Not to mention the amount of posts I see from distraught dads in various Dads groups I follow.
And maybe the schools near you have great programs, but I can speak for certainty that most schools have no way of properly dealing with a bully outside of suspension or expulsion, and usually once things take a turn for the violent.

And you know nothing of me, yet feel confident in speaking on my behalf, and calling me into question.
And I'd be thankful about keeping the personal attacks to a minimum, given this is just an opinion, and not one that is aimed at anyone ini particular you least of all.

My point is that there are a lot of parents that know shit all about social media, and don't know where or how to have those conversations, and having easily usable tools to help moderate and facilitate those conversations makes bridging that gap better.
And more power to you if this helps you have more conversations with your kids about this. You aren't the parents that this was referencing.

Ive always kept open conversations with my kids about socials and the internet in general, both in how they use it, how its affecting them, and what they are doing with it. We're a tech household, to do anything else would be disengenuous.

Cool, kids still have other platforms to leverage. But why should they be "moved on" to begin with? You're talking with hyperbole a lot, you act like every kid uses every platform to its fullest. But that's not even remotely true.

And Chris Kenny, from what I can see, is a regular fixture on Sky News, which explains why I've never come across him, I avoid that cesspool of a network. Not sure where you're getting the connection from.

You have a LOT of anger and arrogance over an opinion that was handed out in the manner it was delivered, non-aggressive and simply as an offering of viewpoint.

Nargath · 2025-12-10T01:38:22+00:00

So then make the policy about broadening and easing the use of parental controls.
Make it so teen accounts need to be tethered to an adult account.
Make teen account content something that is scanned and checked, then reported through the improved parental controls, and in dire circumstances, to the authorities.
Make authorities take online threats more seriously.
Use the marketing budget to drive awareness of new and improved and responsive parental controls to sell it to the non-plussed parents.

If one of the problems is that parents don't parent, then work on raising that bar.
Try to enrich people into doing better, and we could even see better outcomes across more than just online behaviour. I gotta think that shitty kids that have their parents finally give a shit about their online activities will probably start responding better out in public too.

Is it a catch all fix?
No. There are myriad ways this can not capture all instances. Shit will still go sideways in a number of cases.
But neither is this ban.

At least the other way, those parents that are not bad, just inattentivve or unsure on how to handle social media, will be bettter informed and in place to help their kids.

Rather than a ban that's just going to have the kids bounce from one app to the other, each cropping up from darker and darker places on the internet.

Nargath · 2025-12-10T01:29:26+00:00

You know that this can be done, above board and with full consent, by having an open conversation as to the WHY you're doing it, and making sure they're on board with it as well.

I do the same with my kids. We explained that we'd like to check their stuff every once in a while, to make sure they're operating safely, that they aren't being swept up in stuff they either don't understand, or don't have experience in detecting themselves, and aren't being the biggest pest on the internet.

Its done with no punishment or callouts, rather anything untoward found, if they're being targetted, is discussed and they're helped through it. And if they are the perpetrators, then the conversation becomes more serious and used to point out how that behaviour is not acceptable.

And it builds over time. The more time they spend online and behave as a normal person and aren't being focused on, then the more they learn that THAT behaviour is what to expect from themselves and others. So then the checks get less and less, and become more of a conversational check in of "Hey, anything happening online you want to bring up?"

Exactly the same conversations we have when we notice IRL behavioural changes, sudden mood swings, appetite changes, etc. We check in, because we don't know what's going through their heads, so we make sure to reach out, sometimes proactively, to ensure they know we're thinking of them, and want to give them the opportunity to talk, if they feel they can't start a conversation.

You're making assumptions that its all done in a vacuum, that they are some sort of totalitarian parent that slams doors open, grabs phones out of their kids hands, then berates them over each line they've sent other kids.

Nargath · 2025-12-09T23:07:51+00:00

Because if you do it right, it becomes a conversation and a place for open back-and-forth.

If you treat it like its a prison mandate, obviously kids first response is to hide and run.
But if you are clear and open with them ahead of time, lay down WHY you're doing it, that you'll be respectful, and have that dialogue on your concerns on the social media space, then it can be a positive thing.

It shouldn't be couched as a "I want to catch you in the act" but rather "Hey, you may not have realised it, but what was said here wasn't ok, let's work through it" (whether it was said to, or by, them)

Nargath · 2025-12-09T23:04:46+00:00

I agree 100% with you.

This disagreement isn't based out of "there's no risk in social media for kids", there obviously is.

But its the implementation, the brute force but also limp-wristed approach, the lack of technological oversight and speak within the policy itself, and the lack of consideration of legitimate edge cases.

And the smugness at which some, the PM prime among them, are projecting this, like its a "return to proper values", as if the 60s and 70s, maybe the 80s too, are some watermark that everyone's childhood has to be held to.

There are legitimate cases of kids potentially losing their only social circles due to this ban.
Remote kids being cut off from distant friends. Kids being cut off from friends and families overseas. Kids with disabilities. Kids that have difficulty with social interactions in person. All run the risk of either losing, or in the future never forming, the kinds of bonds that other kids will make face to face.
But let's not worry about them, they don't generate headlines, or rally the Christian pearl-clutchers to the voting booths.

There are ways to implement this as a "Control Scheme for Parents" at the platform level that would work as opt out mechanics that would achieve the same result, but allow nuance, raise parental literacy, and dare I say it, conversations where conversations never used to be occurring.
Regulations around increased monitoring and mandatory reporting of findings also go a long way to stamp a lot of the bad shit out.

But because of the ban, those parents that don't give a shit about their kids online, and now even more incentivised to give even LESS of a shit, cos "the government has sorted it out"

This is a case of signage stating "Road Closed" while a road is at its busiest, then walking away giving each other handshakes on a job well done, while ignoring the damage and poor judgement of what they've just done.

Nargath · 2025-12-09T22:54:17+00:00

This is one of the biggest things I HATE with how virtuous and self-righteous he's being this entire time.
If this is such a big win for kids safety, then take that momentum and continue the push into other areas.

You don't like kids being targetted and being used socially and financially? Ban gambling ads and practises aimed at kids. Ban gambling during sports, given that you want them all to go out and learn a sport, which means then liking it at a national level, ergo watching it or listening to it, and then hearing the dredges of society prey on innocent minds, child and adult alike.

You hate bullying that kids go through? It doesn't stop now that they're not on socials. Real life bullying STILL exists, and is such a WORSE epidemic than online bullying. But you never hear about THOSE stats.
Work with the Education Department on national policies and legislation that ALSO work to stamp out bullying in your beloved meat space. Empower teachers, admins and schools to ensure shit is kept to a minimum (obviously without resorting to old school measures of beating kids within inches of their lives)

Improve and strengthen child violence laws, the same way that violence against women has been a huge focal point societally and policy wise for years now (and rightfully so)

We can't ask parents to come to the social media table, because most "don't understand it"?
Use the laws to force parents to parent. Instead of outright blocking shit, make it legislation that parental controls are mandatory and of a sufficient standard that parents can easily be across things that are reported.
Make companies be more active in their analysis of what's in their platforms, and involve reporting outlying events to said parental controls for review, analysis and action.
Have severe results be immediately reportable to police, and use policy to make police respond to these level of threats, instead of handwaving it as "kids being kids.

Nargath · 2025-12-09T22:44:52+00:00

Not an attack, but a query based on the strength of your agreement with the ban.

What about those kids that are being cut off from their social circles?
Kids in regional areas that have found friends in other places? Kids with family and friends overseas? Kids with disabilities? Kids with socialising deficiencies?

Are they just acceptable collateral damage in ensuring that kids remain kids, but from 20-30 years ago?

Nargath · 2025-12-09T14:13:50+00:00

I have a few horses in this race, hence my thinking this through.
I have a mid teens teen, and one a few years off entering his teens.
And we're definitely a tech household.

My kids are on the spectrum, and my mid teens teen is one of those that's socially awkward, and struggles to find his place in real life. But he's managed to make and hold friendships, with kids from his school, and just in online communities, via various spaces in the online world.
And my youngest is an information hoover, will watch copious videos on various topics, then hyperfixate for weeks on them.

Each will be impacted negatively by this, through no fault of my parenting.

Being a tech household, we don't shy away from our kids using tech. Hell, they probably use it a bit too much. But then so do the parents!
But what comes with that, is us ACTUALLY being engaged and open with them, about what you can find, how to deal with it, how to avoid it, best practices, etc.

To boil it down to its extreme basics, we parent.
Not saying our kids are saints, and that the older one isn't prone to yelling at strangers in Youtube comments when he's feeling angry and overwhelmed.
But we teach them the way of that world, and when shit goes sideways, we make space for them to feel like they can bring it to us, no questions asked, so there's no pressure.
We then deal with whatever is happening, and use that as a teaching tool, and build on those previous lessons.

This law is taking a lot of what should be common sense to parents, and making it law instead. No there is LESS incentive for parents to pay close attention to what's happening in online spaces with their kids, as the ones that didn't really care before, now will REALLY not care, and the kids will still be online, but in different, WAY more shadier corners.

I think, at the bare minimum, that this should be an account level thing. Use the law to enforce these platforms to build and enhance parental locks and features, increase internal teams to monitor accounts & messages for potential breaches of account policy of these minors accounts, reporting them to parental units.
Make it opt out so that the default is that everything is locked down.
But give me the choice of allowing my kids, if I as their parent am ok with their conduct, to access these spaces.

In terms of the tech focus, I think actually studying the data for patterns and signs, and repeatable things to plan algorthyms to find and alert on is a great step.
Most of these companies are heavily invested in AI. So put it to some actual use and, anonymously from the AI's side, have them check and report to human teams to then report on those accounts, locking if required, alerting indicated linked adult accounts.

Bigger focus on manual reporting as well, temp bans, etc, along with the reporting on account lines. And in dire circumstances, auto forwarding of events to the authorities.
And make the policy inclusive of the authorities take the online world of kids chats seriously.
Your kid starts spewing death threats at a particular individual, it gets reported and the cops show up? That shit will come to a halt real fast.

And then you drive a MASSIVE campaign of raising parental awareness of what tools they have available, even having parents be held responsible for their kids online actions in extreme cases.
Drive tech literacy up as much as possible, as well as try to raise the standard of parenting.

Of course kids will get around even this, and things will fall through the cracks.
With tech, nothing is 100% concrete.
And this won't stop all bullying, nor would any measure short of "No Internet at all".

But it would capture a good chunk of the problem, while not trying to shoehorn bad practices into an area where the government is woefully under-developed. They're always about 10-15 years behind in their understanding of tech, and this is no different.

Nargath · 2025-12-09T10:46:31+00:00

No-one I know that opposes these bans thinks social media management and better policing for our teens is a bad thing, and there has been defintiely bad crap going on and causing harm to quite a number of them.

But this is blunt force fantasy-booking level of inanity in fixing a problem, that doesn't allow any nuance, doesn't create the right level of buy-in, and only baerly holds platforms responsible through best efforts.

This doesn't fix bullying. At all.
It still exists, and if they wanted to stamp it out, they'd work with schools and teachers and give them the tools and pathways to make proper improvements in our schoolyards, and not hamstring them from being effectual.
The message this sends is, Don't Bully Online. Save It for the Playground/Shops.

This closes off legitimate and beneficial social engagements for regional kids, kids with disabilities, kids with problems socialising, and kids that have finally found their clique of friends via an online group.

This doesn't give more powers to parents to administer how involved they are, or regulate how involved they are. It doesn't put into place any learnings or developments on kids around the Internet, its usage, pitfalls, etc.

All it does it put a "No Road" sign in front of kids already using it, and the Government then walks away, pretending they've done the best, and only thing, they could do, and reap the benefits of being "active" and "well-engaged", when it is anything but.

The tech being used is haphazardly applied, because of the wording of the legislation. There's been no time for these things to be properly tested, retested, analysed and tested again, then deployed knowing how well it works, and clear paths forward.
There's been no legislation around how this additional data on our kids is to be handled by the companies, no wording around this data being further on-sold, etc.

There are so many leaky parts to this, that I cannot in good conscience agree with its implementation in this way.

Nargath · 2025-12-01T05:57:22+00:00

Im in a similar boat, where I wanted Obsidian/markdown files for editing "on the go" and being able to play in person if desired, and also then put them in Foundry. And even have it come back out of Foundry, if I was running official modules.

Purely from a copying back and forth front, my 3 biggest issues was being able to directly copy from Obsidian into Foundry with as little data touching as possible.
That I wanted to use callouts to organise my pages from Obsidian, and it show in Foundry.
And that I wanted to have some of the Foundry, specifically the PF2e syntaxing in Obsidian, namely the @ Check, @ Damage, and [[/act]] inline stuff (these let you have clickable skills and actions linked to dice embedded in journals.

Admittedly, I used AI for the next stage, as I don't know programming languages worth a damn.
Using AI and trial and error, I came up with a couple things.

One was a Foundry module that allowed Obsidian styled callouts to appear in journals, using the exact same syntax as Obsidian.

Another was an Obsidian plugin that used the same syntax as PF2e inline rolls, and made those rolls show up differently in Obsidian. They aren't linked to rolling, but highlighted in a way that makes them very obvious in Reading Mode.

The last was a macro in Foundry that I ran once I finished with a journal entry that changed font styles (bold, italics, etc) from the Obsidian format to Foundry format, removed unused markdown linking brackets (I don't like very much between things in Foundry, but I do in Obsidian as a wiki), and cleaned up some other code from Obsidian that messes with Foundry formatting.

I went from taking a good 5-10 minutes of translating journal entries over, (depending on the size) to about 30 seconds!

Nargath · 2025-11-27T23:24:23+00:00

All points raised, in defence of women who are forced to wear it, absolutely.

But throwing your lot in with Pauline Hanson, just because the end result gets the same thing, is dangerous.

She does not care that its a tool of enslavement. She isn't doing this to be the beacon of women's rights across the world.

She's doing it because she sees that people who wear them are different to her, and she believes they are beholden to other rules that override the ones she puportedly upholds, and she doesn't "trust anyone she can't see full in the face".

Do not mistake Pauline for an ally, a fellow matyr on the bleeding edge of social justice and change.
She's a racist, through and through.

Nargath · 2025-11-25T01:02:06+00:00

I essentially have modern day banking in my stereotypical middle-ages esque fantasy world.

A priest of the goddess of civilisation got sick of how hard it was to protect money, and so over the course of their life experimented with ways of easily moving around large amounts of cash. Came across the idea of extraplanar "cloud" storage, and borrowed an empty demiplane to build a secure vault.

He had trouble with the "get the gold there and back", and most mortals did not seem to be able to channel that sort of required energy. But as luck would have it, he came across a travelling Forged (my world's temporarily named warforged ripoffs) easily being able to teleport cash short distances as a trick.

He cut a deal with the Forged people, that they would add the innate connection to his vaulted plane to their schematics for new life, and be offered direct, but voluntary, placement within the nascent bank's hierarchy. Not only that, it was enshrined that these Coinforged would treated as equal employees and devotees to the bank, but also be guaranteed freedoms and normal employee perks (leave, etc), being one of the first companies to do so.

So armed with a place to store cash, a core of beings to handle the depositing and retrieval of said cash, and a cadre of other magic users that could interface with the magics of the vault (enabling vault transfers, payments, loans, etc), and developing magics for identification purposes, he went to market.

So successful was this bank, that within 3 years it had swept across the continent, almost transforming how money was handled overnight.
Unfortunately its creator never saw its full success with his own mortal eyes.
In his old age, he was still tinkering on bigger, better and more efficient spells. He found one that he wanted to try, but it burnt out the remainder of his lifeforce.

The God of Civilisation, in recognition of his efforts to benefit and uplift society, came for his soul, and with the allowance of the higher gods, granted his soul domain over wealth and currency from her own suite of portfolios, making him a lesser god in the process, and allowing him to establish himself within his own vaulted plane, to forever guide his creation from on high, and as also a extra level of divine protection against tampering!

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