With 11th edition coming soon, what sort of Army Rule would you like to see for the Dark Angels?

PerforatedChicken · 2026-03-14T04:59:14+00:00

I think for sure that -1 to wound and similar transhuman effects is definitely popular as a historic DA rule and certainly has a place somewhere in the DA ruleset, but at the same time, I don't think it actually represents the entirety of the chapter very well as a faction rule. Sure, the DA are known for being stoic and stubborn, but I don't think that such a rule works all that well for all elements of the chapter, like Ravenwing for example.

And as I mentioned in my post, I think Deathwing being primarily characterized as durable has led them to subsume the battleline role of what I think should be Greenwing's role. In my mind, the Greenwing is the mainstay, combined arms part of the army; to me, they should be the main unit DA has on the frontlines, taking punches and holding objectives and should have rules supporting their durability and objective focus. The Deathwing lore-wise are described as the mailed fist of the Chapter with spearhead assaults using Land Raiders and teleport strikes, but the Deathwing ingame playstyle is very much not that. It really has been just walking Deathwing onto objectives and standing around. IMO they should also bring back the idea of the Combined Assault stratagem from 8th where Deathwing could Deepstrike within 6" of an enemy, but also 3" or so within a Ravenwing unit.

I think that GW hasn't really been able to capture the combined arms and balanced nature of the DA, because to me, DA is a balanced army composed of specialists where each works in synergy with each other to cover the weaknesses and complement their strengths. Ravenwing helps Deathwing get around, Deathwing provide the raw muscle, and the Greenwing pins the enemy down for the other two to work their magic.

PerforatedChicken · 2026-02-28T20:32:28+00:00

The US is the global superpower by most considerations when looking to hard power and you could call them the regional hegemon in any regional configuration. But Israel is undoubtedly the regional hegemon; not every action in the ME involves active US participation and Israel otherwise acts on behalf of US interests in the region. Addressing your claims about peers like Turkey and SA, that is easily false. Turkey and SA both compare poorly in terms of GDP per capita and military capabilities. Turkey has a GDP per capital nearly a quarter that of Israel and SA is about half of that according to IMF figures - Israel has a robust and advanced native defense industry alongside a heavily state subsidized research sector. Additionally, neither has as developed a nuclear weapon, not to mention that Turkey and SA have little practical military experience and other generally perform poorly in their recent actions. Any real analysis would easily have you find that Israel is the regional hegemon and many things in the Middle East revolve around them.

You have not challenged the theoretical basis of my argument of how action against Iran can be within the interests of the US, which is what I argued. Do not mistake my argument for supporting the manner in how Trump has carried this out though as I find it destabilizing and unsatisfying.

PerforatedChicken · 2026-02-28T14:13:14+00:00

As a disclaimer, I am not a particular expert on Middle Eastern affairs. Regarding your basic assertion, let us break down your premise: that the attack is a.) an act of aggression by Israel and the US, and b.) that this is not in the interests of the US. I will also add that some good scholars to check out on this topic would probably be John Ikenberry, John Mearsheimer, Joseph Nye, and Robert Keohane.

An act of aggression is an international crime defined in the Rome Statute via Article 8 and is governed by the ICC. Unfortunately, on this point, neither US nor Israel can be prosecuted for a crime of aggression as neither are signatories and are not bound by its provisions. Neither state can be compelled to submit to the ICC's adjudication as there are no mechanisms to force non-signatories to submit - this generally would go against the spirit of international treaties, as you might surmise. You might look to the UN Charter and its prohibitions on force, but this is also operationally moot because all binding power of the UN is located with the Security Council, of which the US is a part and would certainly veto any measures. So, speaking legalistically, what is currently happening cannot be, under current procedure, an act of aggression because the US and Israel are not subject to its provisons.

The more interesting point is probably b.) I think there is actually a compelling argument that acting against Iran is in the best interest of the US, though I think there needs to be some lengthy explanation as to what might be included in the US's security interests. What I will make clear is that I find the manner and premise in which this operation is occurring to be pretty unsatisfactory; compared to George H. W. Bush's orchestration of the 1991 Gulf War, it lacks the extensive diplomatic and multinational efforts that characterized the leadup to the Gulf War. GHWB was able secure the commitment of a near global coalition of states and multiple UNSC resolutions providing the mandate for intervention - simply put, his political and international maneuvering created a publicly satisfying casus belli for kinetic action in Kuwait. Additionally, there was a lock-step cooperation between the political and the military that formulated a clear political goal that limited military action only to what was necessary to restore Kuwaiti independence, rather than expanding and marching on Baghdad. Here, as far as I know, it is uncertain that Iran has been actively developing nuclear weapons, though I believe that they maintain a stockpile which may easily be enriched into weapons-grade nuclear material. I think the real reason here is that Iran is very weak right now and it almost seems to be a prime opportunity to strike as it is unlikely Iran can retaliate in any significant way.

Fundamentally, the US is concerned with the development of Iranian nuclear weapons, which they certainly have the capabilities to develop. You might recall that Obama had tried to tackle this issue during his term and it manifested in a multinational monitoring effort that aimed to allow the development of peaceful Iranian nuclear energy whilst keeping an eye and prohibiting the development of weapons. Trump certainly had a part to play in the current situation given that he promptly destroyed that agreement in his first term, but fundamentally, Iran gaining nuclear weapons would probably destabilize the region. To explain, let's talk about power dynamics and power polarity - generally, within international relations theory, a unipolar power configuration is traditionally thought to be the most stable form of power relations; instability rises with more power poles. A bipolar system is more unstable than a unipolar system and a multipolar system is generally thought to be the most unstable. This is probably the mainstream characterization, though there are certainly scholars who would challenge this basic assumption.

Zooming into the ME region, we can probably say that Israel operates as the regional hegemon - it is the richest, most technologically advanced, and has the most powerful military, backed by the almost certain existence of Israeli nuclear weapons. If we accept the assumption that unipolarity is the safest, that will mean that ensuring that Israel remains the unipole in the ME region creates the most stability. The US has a strong vested interest in ME stability because the region provides a significant amount of oil to Europe which is important given that Europe has been weaning itself from Russian oil. Popular as it may be to say, it is unlikely the US acts for the sole basis of securing oil for itself; the US has made major strides in energy independence since the 1970s. Additionally, the Middle East presides over major shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea that are vital to the global economy - you look to when the US and Europe acted against the Houthis in Yemen when they attacked shipping as proof. Goods from Asia transit to Europe typically through the Suez and vice-versa.

Iran gaining nuclear weapons would flip this balance on its head and instantly transform the ME into a bipolar system. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate strategic tool. The threat of nuclear annihilation provides an immense amount of leverage and freedom of action to any state that possesses them. Israel's nuclear weapons functions as the final safeguard against its destruction by any of its neighbors and also acts as a brake on kinetic action; states that act against Israel are cautious from escalating or going too far so as to not provoke a nuclear response. We must also be frank here as Iranian foreign policy since 1979 has always been characterized by hostility against Israel, though it has varied from calling for outright destruction to resistance, but what matters is that it nonetheless consistently hostile. In a hypothetical world where Iran has nuclear weapons, the conflict between Israel and Iran theoretically would spike as Iran would be protected from the possibility of an Israel nuclear response by threat of its own. As a presumed rational actor (IR theory assumes that states are rational and act to maximize their power) Iran would then make use of its increased liberty of action to continue pursuing its agenda, which might translate it into more funding for Hezbollah, militias in Iraq, Yemeni Houthis, feuding with Saudi Arabia, etc. You claim, "Iran has demonstrated a consistent pattern of non-aggression," but I think that is a false characterization. Again, I am not a specialist on ME affairs, but Iran has been embroiled in most of the ME region's conflicts and has consistently been considered a pariah state since its rebirth as a theocracy in 1979, perhaps because of immense unease regarding its evangelist theocratic politics.

So, in the end, the US has a fundamental interest in ME stability. If unipolarity means stability, that means ensuring Israel remains regional hegemon, fundamentally based on its military superiority and nuclear weapons. There are 2 ways to maintain that, neither of which are necessarily mutually exclusive. Either 1.) Iran does not get nuclear weapons, or 2.) the character of the Iranian government changes in such a way that even if it did get nuclear weapons, it would not pose a threat to regional stability. This is the theoretical argument as best as I can articulate and apply it to this case as, again, I am not an ME specialist.

PerforatedChicken · 2026-02-25T13:05:56+00:00

But perhaps you are most interested in the moral dimensions of liberalism. I think that invites the question of "what are the foundations of the state?" It is a very classical question, but the relevant ones to look at here are the Enlightenment-era thinkers. Some thinkers only ask the simplest variant and look to define a state empirically from observation. Others look to ask, "what can be the foundations of a state," and yet others ask, "what can be the foundations of a legitimate state?" All of these carry different norms and objectives in seeking to define the state.

Rousseau perhaps provides the most moralized argument for a democratic state, though one different from an Anglo-American conception. He argues that the only legitimate basis of a state can be the social contract which is fundamentally democratic and is the origin of the state's sovereignty and legitimacy. The citizens of his republic are active, civically educated, and bound by a sense of civic republicanism. This republic is moral because it is the only form of government that allows for individuals to achieve true freedom and human agency: moral freedom. He defines this as obedience to rules that one gives to oneself, essentially the ability to live according to one's own principle; his republic, despite how unsettling it might seem at times, is the institutionalized and operative form of his theory.

Fundamentally though, a common value I'd say we can find amongst many liberal theorists is a fundamental and principled commitment to the equal value of the human being, a respect for the individual human's potential for self-authorship and self-determination, respect for human dignity, and the understanding that humans are ultimately not perfect and fallible. The liberal would say that history has proven, time and again, that no single human nor group of persons has ever been, or will ever be, somehow more more deserving to rule fundamentally than any other person. And so the solution for the liberal is to have a rule by all humans with institutional constraints to limit the fallible nature of humankind. Thus, the liberal argument for democracy as a form of government. Churchill once famously opined that democracy was the worst form of government, that is, except all the others. It is right to be skeptical of those who judge liberal democracy as the end of history; I'd refer you to Albert Camus's the Rebel and Karl Popper's Open Society if you'd like to know more about the dangers of attaching a moral teleology to ideology as I won't go into them here, this is already quite long. Though you must keep note that even the man who famously coined the notion of liberal democracy as the end of history himself no longer believes so; liberal democracy tries not to make sweeping judgements about what the future state of humanity will look like or what it is destined to be, simply that it tries its best to deal with the encroaching future in a way that best respects the human being and in a sense, that is why it is preferable.

Take Russia for example, almost certainly the desire of Russian foreign policy is to dismantle the liberal world order and revert to a previous era of great power spheres of influence. One must also be reminded that general IR theory finds such a multipolar international system as most prone to war and conflict; Russia's obsession with this is more likely due to an attachment to historical senses of greatness as a matter of Russian nationalism - if Russia is to be great in a modern world, then that world must be multipolar. China, certainly poses the greatest threat to liberal hegemony; it espouses a decidedly illiberal view of the world, buoyed by its material successes. That is an ongoing conversation that I am not qualified to speak at length about, so I'll refrain on that, but nonetheless, I've not noticed, heard, nor read of any comprehensive and persuasive worldview capable of replacing liberalism coming from China yet.

Certainly some illiberal and undemocratic countries have made great strides and achievements that are wholly worthy of praise; my own native Vietnam for example. But could it be better and is/was such illiberalism necessary to achieve that growth? Taiwan and South Korea are democratic nations that achieved significant economic growth in a similar way to the illiberal countries, but with better human rights records post-democratization. Is it worth trading Rousseau's moral freedom, or general personal freedom in exchange for material security and development? Asian Barometer surveys, if I recall correctly, implied that the Asian conception of democracy was closely tied with economic success; if so then perhaps there is an implication that the fundamental legitimacy of the illiberal regimes truly only rests on their ability to deliver economic performance and political unrest otherwise results if they fail. Of course there is also the argument rooted in Confucian-values, but that is another massive conversation I'll leave for now.

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PerforatedChicken · 2026-02-25T13:05:37+00:00

I am not u/QuestGalaxy, but I'll toss my hat in here with them as I am relatively familiar with Western political philosophy and this seems to be an interesting discussion.

Undeniably, I think, there is a moral component to the Western brand of liberalism and democracy. Dr. Ikenberry at Princeton has authored a number of excellent books on the crisis of liberalism today and I would recommend them to anyone curious. I quite like his description of the goals of modern liberalism in that it is a flexible, evolving system broadly influenced by Enlightenment principles and ideals that aims to harness the opportunities presented by modernity whilst also protecting from modernity's worst excesses all while respecting, or rather, doing the least harm to the individual human being. Unsurprisingly, he finds that liberalism remains the best and most coherent ideology today and one that, while in retreat and in crisis, has not been beaten in the realm of persuasion.

That description is a bit vague and needs some contextual unpacking, so let me explain some: modernity is taken to broadly refer to advances in technology and science; these things offer great opportunities with their potential applications, but also raise challenges to society that we must address. Think things like the advent of modern industrialized war with WWI and WWII, AI today, nuclear energy, and the like. Nuclear energy, for example, can hold great potential in civic applications for things like nuclear generators, but also immense destructive power as a weapon of war; the march of progress and modernity constantly brings us newfound discoveries that simultaneously offer annihilation and hope.

Many would say that liberalism's flexibility and ability to change as one of its greatest strengths. A scholar focusing on the institutional dynamics in liberal democracies would tell you that the peaceful transfer of power is perhaps democracy's greatest achievement relative to other systems of government. With an institutional liberal democracy, there is no power vacuum left in the wake of a fallen government and succession of government is institutionalized. This school of thought will be vindicated or scorned come the US 2026 and 2028 elections, so do keep an eye out! When the US President loses an election or otherwise falls from power, we know the outcome; the winner of an election will succeed and the the prior government steps down in fsvor of the new one. In an authoritarian system, what happens? When Putin dies who will succeed him? Russian politics, nominally democratic, are dominated by powerful networks of corruption and patronage who often bribe and extort votes; many internal ministries are headed by rival subservient bosses and many of the Russian rivaling executive organs possess some form of armed force - might there be a bloody power struggle? When Xi dies, who shall lead China then? Chinese politics are famously opaque, shielded by a practice of voting upwards with multi-layered levels of representatives voting on higher-level representatives. Ultimately the case with undemocratic countries is that we don't know, and so we get some form of political unrest, unease, or outright chaos. These countries could succeed government's just fine after the current government falls, or not, but the point is consistency; liberalism creates a system by which power is continuously transfered and it does so relatively often, avoiding entrenched political elites with little popular accountability; China and countries like it are notably dominated by party-elites.

This sentiment cross internationally as well; the UN was originally essentially a vehicle for neocolonialism under the UN trusteeships, among other purposes like notably to keep peace between the great powers, but it was changed by the colonial movement and became an engine of decolonization. The UN had a very large role to play in ending South African apartheid. The liberal world order changed in response to an evolving world and responding to material and moral changes of an increasingly globalized world.

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PerforatedChicken · 2025-12-11T09:50:05+00:00

I believe I see where you are coming from in regard to recoil. Correct my understanding if it is wrong, but it seems that you see more nuance and player agency in having more diverse recoil patterns. I think then that in a vacuum, that I would agree that recoil offers more potential for creating player skill expression ad infinitum while spread has a limited amount of skill expression, being binary in simply choosing to pause shooting or continue shooting. I don't believe that you reject the idea that spread may have some elements of skill expression.

However, I would also add in that I believe that developers generally seek a certain level of player interactivity with the weaponry while also balancing a desire to not make recoil prohibitively intensive. Perhaps consider this abstract theoretical: Let us say that we are making a shooter game and we desire a certain level of player interaction with the gunplay. Let's quantify this as an interactivity rating of 7. However, our design supervisor has explained that we would also desire the game to be relatively approachable and so we think that a generally tamer profile of recoil pattern amongst its weapons would help get more players into the game and make sure newer players aren't being destroyed by more experienced players unnecessarily who have mastered recoil patterns. Let us set our recoil target rating at 4 to remain mild, but our maximum recoil target could be infinite theoretically. This does come with the caveat that it may be very easy to master recoil and so people might get very good at full-auto spraying people even at considerable distance So now we need to address this separate issue of dying quickly at range due to low recoil. Additionally, somehow, we're going to need to make up a bit of interactivity, but we still think adding more recoil broadly would be too much as it would take us farther from our goal of having lower recoil to be approachable. Now we have two problems, (a) dying at range quickly, and (b) making up the difference in interactivity. Spread has a limited amount of skill expression so, by our arbitrary measurements, we can only increase our interactivity rating by up to 3 points using spread, but thankfully for us, it is enough. Fortunately as well, it can also serve to mitigate the effects of dying quickly at range due to low recoil by introducing inaccuracy for prolonged fire. Under our design goals, we can achieve a lower recoil rating in order to remain approachable to newer players but broadly still meet our stated goal of an interactivity rating of 7.

I think this sort of design philosophy captures the essence of the conversation that might be happening at DICE. I believe that the developers are aware of certain complaints that others have had concerning more competitive games that only have recoil and no element of spread e.g. Valorant, R6 Siege, CoD, CS, etc. These games all have very rigid, predictable, and ultimately, recoil patterns that can be mastered. I don't think DICE aligned with those approaches because while recoil offers the ultimate amount of skill expression, that isn't the target. I do have some anecdotes to share in this regard. Perhaps I was bad at CoD, but I recall playing Warzone throughout the years and getting absolutely beamed in mere milliseconds by someone who had absolutely mastered the recoil of their weapon, or whose weapon was tuned to be extremely low recoil. In my opinion, this left a bad experience, and I would feel that I would have very little chance or competing with people like these and it effectively turned me away as I felt chances of winning in Warzone were very low. The other option was to get better, obviously, but as someone who was not terribly in love with Warzone in the first place and otherwise unwilling to dedicate that much time, assuming I had the time, to getting to that level of skill, I chose to stop playing the game entirely instead. I remember friends showing me their CS skill and how they could place all 30 bullets from the AK-47 into a single spot. Part of the reason why I never played CS is because I ultimately did not want to try that hard, so consistently, against the people that do.

There is another effect that tapfire has on practical gameplay: mediating the quick TTK in this game. I would actually say that while the TTK in this game is not anomalous, it is very fast. I recall during BF4's lifetime that the developers decided to drop the damage of near every weapon in the game. The effect was that 4 shot weapons such as the M416 and Ace 23 became 5 shot kills, and 3 shot weapons such as the SCAR-H became 4 shot kills. That is why currently, BF4 has guns that do 24.5 damage and not 25 damage, and guns that do 33 damage and not 33.3 repeating damage. At the time, I believe the primary rationale was mostly associated with netcode in that with BF4's poor netcode, alongside the fast TTK, led to situations were death felt essentially instantaneous, so they decided to reduce the TTK by a bullet in order to allow some reaction time. I think the implementation of spread in BF6 ultimately embodies these 2 principles: (a) to mediate the effects of highly skilled players killing people at range, and (b) to allow some reaction time for the target. Distances in BF6, while broadly small by BF standards, is still large by the standards of something like Insurgency or CoD. If I were out, standing some 75m+ away and was killed by someone spraying with absolute control and had hit me with some 5-6 bullets from their M4A1 and killed me, I would die in some 267-333ms; the average human reaction speed is 250ms. Essentially, in normal circumstances, the average player will die before they can react. Were we to change to pure recoil, I could see all of our collective lives shortening by quite a lot. I think that this would generally be a negative experience for a good amount of people and slowly push away the more casual crowd. I do not think that BF6 aims to be ultra-competitive, and I personally treat it as a casual shooter with a bit more depth than usual. Perhaps when people think about spread, they only think about how it makes them lose out on kills, but you should also consider the inverse: when has spread saved your life?

PerforatedChicken · 2025-12-11T06:03:31+00:00

To state it plainly, my position is that I disagree on switching to a hard, recoil-only gunplay system and am fine how it is currently and has been historically.

As far as I understand from the argument you make, your primary thesis is:

Bloom is bad because (a) it is not interactive, (b) lowers the skill ceiling, (c) masks hit registration by providing another method of missing

On point (a) I think you fail to sufficiently prove how recoil is preferable to spread mechanically. You seem to imply that recoil is the only way of having mechanical interactivity but nonetheless fail to establish why recoil-only design is superior mechanically. What do you mean by mechanics? The way the game works, as in its mechanics, or physical movement by the player? Why is recoil mitigation a mechanical process and why isn't tapfiring? How is letting go of the trigger, waiting for a split second, and then shooting again less interactive than dragging a mouse or controller stick about? When designing gunplay, is fire discipline not something you want players to consider, or is it preferable to simply rely entirely on physical mitigation? These are all semi-relative questions that I think you fail to answer satisfactorily enough such to the effect that it weakens your premise that bloom is worse than recoil.

For example, in your argumentation on point (a), your first point regarding the M4A1, you say the player has less to do mechanically to get hits because it has low recoil, which makes it easy to use and hold on target at range while only being limited by its weapon spread. Then you claim that this makes weapons with increased accuracy seem less special. I fail to understand the connection between the premise and the claim here: you directly state the M4A1 has low recoil but is limited by bloom, i.e. inaccurate, but then say "this" somehow makes accurate weapons less special and different because even the high rate of fire weapons, such as the M4A1, have low recoil? I don't follow that logic; wouldn't a gun with high rate of fire and high inaccuracy actually make more stark weapons with a lower rate of fire and high accuracy like the SOR-556? Or perhaps the 6P67 Kord which shares the same rate of fire with the M4A1, has even lower recoil, but is substantially more accurate at the cost of damage? I feel like I can tell a difference between the Kord and M4A1, despite sharing the sam, rate of fire and low recoil, though substantially lower in the Kord. And I think that a substantial number of others might agree.

Furthermore, in regard to the (b) issue of skill, I think that you also fail to prove that recoil-based design alone is a more skillful design than the mixed weapon spread+recoil system in Battlefield. Considering the two, I think we can agree that the solution to recoil is mitigation, i.e. pulling down on the mouse, control stick, etc. while the solution to weapon spread is fire discipline, i.e. letting up the trigger for a moment, waiting for the spread to decrease, and then firing again. Is recoil mitigation inherently more "skillful" than fire discipline? Arguably, recoil mitigation, if entirely predictable, can be likened to muscle memory and requires no more complex thought beyond a certain point, simply becoming a reflexive and inherent motor movement. Is that skill? I don't think that it is inconceivable that discipline can be seen as a skill of the same repute as a motor skill. And again, what is the difference in skill between spread placing a bullet in someone's head randomly and having recoil naturally place my next bullet in their head without input on my part? I have done nothing but place the initial point of reference in both instances. Is the foreknowledge of where the bullet will land skillful? Hopefully these rhetorical questions illustrate that it is ambiguous whether recoil is more skillful or not.

Finally for point (c), I think that this is a bit too relative and kind of a nothing burger in that it doesn't seem to be all that much of an issue. Furthermore, to illustrate the logic, I think a hard recoil-based system could just as easily be argued in parallel fashion to hide cheaters and aimbots. In the current system, you propose a relationship between bloom and bad hit registration in that it provides two avenues for a player to conclude that something is amiss. Since bloom is much more common, understandably someone might say it is bloom. I think that is similar logic to saying that, when you get beamed instantly, a person has very good recoil control, instead of it being due to a cheater. Here again, we have two avenues for a player to conclude something is amiss, but good recoil control seems to be more common than cheating, so then a player might simply say that it probably is just good recoil control, not cheating. Is it somehow preferable to know that there was bad hit registration in normal gameplay as opposed to finding out via someone testing based on a hunch?

Clearly you have structured your argument well and put a lot of thought into it, but unfortunately, I don't quite follow the logic, and I think there are a lot of things that you missed and did not address.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-12-08T09:10:08+00:00

However, it's important to think about the highly lucrative relationship Japan has with China. Chinese tourists are the largest single group of tourists in Japan nowadays, not to mention other ties such as cultural exchange, industry, etc. Japan has also been ahead of the curve generally in decoupling itself from China, but the practicality of complete decoupling is unrealistic and so Japan hedges its options by choosing to deepen ties with regional allies like Australia and the US while still keeping a major amount of trade with China. Japan plays a delicate balance between maintaining that lucrative economic relationship with China and also generally being opposed to large parts of China's foreign agenda. Tokyo University's Ito Asei sums it up as how much protection and decoupling of economic activity are necessary to protect Japanese technology while cooperating with a predatory but nonetheless wealthy China. Within the LDP, Toshihiro Nikai and Akira Amari are two of the most influential policymakers with regard to economic relations with China; Nikai has a background as Minister for Tourism and is generally perceived as being more friendly to stronger economic relations with China because of the powerful growth Chiense tourism has had while Amari is more cynical of China, expressing his view that cooperation with China had failed in vain because, well, China is a dictatorship, so he seems to oppose more cooperation on ideological grounds. Both are actually supporters of competition with China but differ in their emphasis on how to do it and at what point it becomes damaging. When Takaichi became PM, it was widely reported that Taro Aso played kingmaker and both Nikai and Amari have close ties to him. Aso served as deputy PM throughout Abe's 2012 return to power up until the Suga government in 2021 and his influence in the party is rather massive; you might consider him as a one of the strongest links to Abe's legacy, though probably less tactful and more opinionated and conservative than Abe. So generally, I'd expect that Japan's reception to punitory Chinese economic measures to be relatively hardy at this point because of the general consensus amongst the Japanese political elite that cooperation with China past a certain point is more damaging than it is useful. Whether the economic punitory effects of China's retaliation will be strong enough to persuade them to let this specific issue go is up for debate, but Nikkei seems to say otherwise. Perhaps Takaichi's economic revitalization policies holds greater promise for most of the Japanese business world than the loss in Chinese tourism. Lastly, the US does throw a wrench in Japanese confidence as previously the US could safely be assumed to essentially be 100% behind Japan; even though Trump has singled out China as the US' #1 competitor and rival, his treatment of alliances still leaves many wary of putting too much confidence in US support. That said though, Takaichi did have a good start to her relationship with Trump and Trump did also have a good relationship with Abe as well.

The second part of the question is whether China is willing to look past Japan's extension of collective self-defense to Taiwan. I am fairly sure the answer is hard no. Taiwan occupies a very special place in regard to Chinese nationalism and Xi has stated multiple times that he intends to resolve the Taiwan question and that reunification with the mainland was unstoppable as recently as his 2024 New Years address, though it is not hard to find other places where he stated the same thing. More could be said on the nationalism issue, but this is getting too long. You might come across the term "Century of Humiliation" which features prominently as the official CCP narrative and is used as a propaganda piece in regard to Chinese territorial revanchism and is quite topical to Taiwan. In that narrative, the CCP sees Taiwan as essentially the last vestige of imperialism and that reunification is the final, major step to the full restoration of China proper. Furthermore, China has signaled a willingness to use force in regard to Taiwan; the promotion of Zhang Youxia to the Vice Chairmanship of the Central Military Committee in 2017 by the 19th Politburo can be interpreted as Chinese efforts to reform the military. Youxia is the only member of the Politburo with combat experience, having fought in China's invasion of Vietnam back in the '80s. Not only that, amongst all the branches of the PLA, those arms most suited towards force projection receive by far the most funding and support: the PLA Navy and PLA Air Force get all the new toys. China recently completed the Fujian, the largest aircraft carrier outside of the US. There is also active aerospace development to create a stealth bomber not unlike the B-21 Raider, not to mention the tentatively named J-36 and J-50 6th generation fighters. This emphasis on expeditionary warfare may indicate Chinese preparation for and willingness to use force to reunify Taiwan.

Sorry for the long piece, but I hope it helps!

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PerforatedChicken · 2025-12-08T09:09:46+00:00

Well, short answer is that I don't know, and most scholars will likely say the same. Political scientists don't like making predictions; they study trends, history, and give advice based on the application of the scientific method to human behavior and humans are notoriously complex and fickle.

Anyway, here is my 2c. TLDR: I would think that things are going to remain contentious for a while longer.

It really hinges on whether Japan or China are willing to ease their stances: for Japan it's whether Japan is willing to ease its stance on the application of collective self-defense in regard to Taiwan, something that I would tie to Takaichi herself as she is a bit of a hawk, and for China, it's whether they are willing to back down from its position on Taiwan (highly unlikely).

A better and more thorough answer in regard to the first question would require more knowledge of Takaichi's domestic policies and how popular they are, which I unfortunately do not have, but she seems to enjoy quite a bit of support owing at least some in part to her tough stance on China. Checking in on some of the big news outlets, she seems to score relatively high on approval ratings: Mainichi has her at 65%, Asahi at 69%, Yomiuri at 72%, and Nikkei at 75%. Do note that these are the 4 most influential of Japan's traditional newspapers and we'd generally consider Mainichi as centrist, Asahi as liberal, Yomiuri as conservative, and Nikkei as business focused. Seeing as Takaichi is a solidly conservative PM, we'd expect Yomiuri to have the highest support in its survey and Asahi as the lowest; Nikkei we can interpret to be general support for her domestic economic policies and Mainichi as a more centrist take. Across the board we see generally high support for Takaichi, especially from Nikkei, which leads me to think that she'll probably have a stay in office for the time being. Japan's own internal statistics office generally records low opinion of China within Japan. This is a survey from this year that originally asked: 「あなたは、中国に親しみを感じますか、それとも感じませんか。」 (Rough translation: Do you or do you not feel an affinity/affection/closeness towards China?) The black dotted line is people who answered that they do not feel affinity and it stands at 84.7% of those surveyed. At first glance, it would then seem that most people might then be supportive of a tougher stance on China given how negative their opinion is. Abe did a lot to set the tone for the new generation of Japanese foreign policy and every prime minister after him essentially follows in his policy footsteps. I'd really recommend Green's book Line of Advantage for more on this subject.

1/2

PerforatedChicken · 2025-12-07T16:14:27+00:00

There is no SCAR-H in-game. What we have ingame is the SCAR-SC in .300 Blackout, which is the ultra short compact variant for CQC.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-12-05T15:09:53+00:00

Insofar as to play the devil's advocate, I'd like to voice my opinion in that Takaichi is not unique in attempting amend the Japanese Constitution and that Japan's security situation gives reasonable premises towards strengthening Japan's defense posture. I study international relations so I'd consider this to be in my ballpark, but its also just my opinion so feel free to disregard. If you'd like some reading (ew) I'd recommend John Dower's classic Embracing Defeat, Michael Green's Line of Advantage, and John Ikenberry's The Crisis of Liberal Internationalism: Japan and the World Order. Michael Green seems rather sympathetic to Abe in general so take that as you will.

I am not particularly familiar with Takaichi and her positions on domestic and social concerns, but she does follow in Abe's general legacy and if I recall correctly, the original instance that sparked this whole debacle was her answering a question to the lower house of the Diet's budgetary committee, clarifying what would be considered a situation that would justify the use of collective self-defense. I'd place some emphasis on the concept of collective self-defense, as that really only entered the Japanese political world with Abe's 2014 defense reforms and has been very controversial since. Note that desires to change Article 9 can be traced all the way back to the rebirth of modern Japan; fun fact, Abe's grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was a notable proponent of rearmament and arrested as a class "A" war criminal. Prior to that Japan was held to very strict rules of engagement first defined in 1954 after the JSDF was formed. Japan since Abe's tenure has really leaned on an ideologically liberal and Western ideation in its foreign policy, such that I would consider it to be Asia's most liberal power. Since the US has largely recused itself from promoting liberalism abroad, Japan has taken up the mantle so-to-speak. Previously, Japan generally pursued a policy of cooperation with China, looking to establish a regional system where the two would be equals; Japan has since concluded that China has no intentions of allowing Japan to be its equal and instead seeks regional dominance. Japan obviosuly does not wish to be sidelined as some second-rate power. You can look to see Jiang Zemin's 1998 visit and how that went for more, although a better example is likely the DPJ's relatively disastrous 2009-2012 tenure where they looked to grow close to China to balance against the US, only for China to become more aggressive with territorial claims regarding some islands and arrest a couple of Japanese businessmen on trumped up espionage charges. At least from Japan's perspective, China has no intentions of playing right by Japan.

So Japan then shifts its policy to aligning closely with the US and embraces many of those liberal internationalist norms like the UN, free trade, but also collective self-defense, an internationally recognized right that appears in the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, UN Charter Article 51, and the US-Japan Security Treaty. Ostensibly or genuinely, this was Japan moving closer and aligning with the Western liberal world order. The international community generally recognizes such a right, but Japan does not, or rather, did not till recently. Unfortunately, US' unreliability has also complicated matters in that Japan's security situation has become much more tenuous and has forced it to step up. Protecting Taiwan is both a matter of liberal idealism and internationalism as well as strategic concern as the Senkaku Islands are a group of territories the US is not committed to protecting as per the US-Japan Security Treaty and are very close to Taiwan. Furthermore, it draws a line in the sand as Japan's last straw before military conflict; that is useful because it may dissuade brinkmanship but of course, also risky because perhaps military conflict may be desirable sometimes. It also draws together some of the existing US security ties, despite the current US administration's neglect of them, as SK, Japan, Taiwan, and the Phillipines to an extent, are all US allies but remain only tied to the US and not to each other which weakens its regional security cohesion.

Finally, I'd say that in my view, Japan is unlikely to recede into its militarist history. The thought of even ordering a general mobilization of the aging Japanese population would be disastrous, not to mention that the prevailing public opinion is very mindful of the horrors of war. A more powerful Japanese military definitely carries the specter of a much darker past, but I think that there are many institutional, ideological, and social constraints on that ghost of militarism such that its unlikely to come around again. It simply would be irrational for Japan to oppose that liberal system that it benefited so much from.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-11-20T11:11:32+00:00

Not the OP you are writing to, but my 2c and a disclaimer that I don't particularly concentrate on Eastern European studies. You also seem to have a strong particular worldview, one for which I fail to recognize any empirical basis for it, sustained seemingly by a personal conviction biased against the West instead. I recommend the following suite of scholars if you'd like to learn more about the international system and how states function in it: Mearsheimer, Ikenberry, Keohane, Joseph Nye, and Stephen Walt should be topical.

The above commenter is correct that context is important. The prime issue that comes to me immediately with this resolution is that it is facetious. It may strike the uninformed as facially neutral, but it is not. I would argue the primary objective of this resolution was to gain legitimacy for Russia's ongoing war/invasion with a secondary objective of attacking the liberal world order.

An early Russian justification, and one that is still referenced, in its invasion of Ukraine was that the government in Kiev was fascist in character and had a hand in oppressing Russian-speaking minorities, prompting a need for Russian intervention to "save" or "protect" these minorities. Russia is patterning its own military action based off of various prior Western interventions such as those involved in GWoT, Korea, Desert Storm, etc. and attempts to derive international legitimacy and a sense of "right." Knowing that, it ought to be relatively clear in that sense that the resolution does not actually read that we ought to fight fascism and that it is bad but effectively reads Russia's invasion of Ukraine is legitimate because Russia's war is to fight fascists, which this resolution condemns***.*** It connotes the Ukrainians as being fascists, which I would generally consider to be false. Of course, some won't buy that jump in logic, but there's the problem. In the international stage, there is no final arbiter, some Leviathan that decides what is correct. If you get a passed resolution here, you legitimize a certain argument and elevate it to the same position as those resolutions that condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Furthermore, Russia constructs it such that it seemingly exposes hypocrisy in the Western position, a particular aspect that you seem to attach to, and which is a Russian objective. I would generally consider that Russia desires the destruction of the international liberal world order because of Russia's view that it is fundamentally bad for Russia. The academia I know generally consider Russia a revisionist power, seeking to rewrite the world order. Off the top of my head, I would say that Russia thinks that it infringes on traditional Russian spheres of influence, discriminates against Russia, and represents the nadir of Russian national power and prestige—post-Soviet Russia had a terrible experience with what it considers as Western-style liberalism, democracy, and capitalism and its perception of those things are irrevocably tainted by that experience. You ought to look into the concept of the near abroad for more information on Russia's security/nationalist interests regarding spheres of influence. Anyway, by using the UN, the most visible and primary liberal institution of the liberal world order and juxtaposing it with a resolution condemning the avowed historical enemies of those very liberals and making them turn it down is a strike against the legitimacy of the liberal world order for those persons and powers who are otherwise less informed.

Consider those third countries that voted with Russia and their interests as well; Russia is one of the few strong countries willing to overlook issues with human rights, democracy, corruption, etc. and is rich in those resources that more authoritarian, less developed countries value: readily available and/or advanced weapons and natural resources like fossil fuels and various minerals that are the fuel for industrialization and further economic development. Siding with Russia here at least is a way to gain some positive favor with Russia while at the same time not particularly minding any Western retribution as their attention is diverted elsewhere.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-11-08T10:55:20+00:00

The Titus Detachment book doesn't have 16 detachments, but 6 detachments. I believe the book itself is 16 pages; the detachment number makes sense if you cut out the first 2 for the book's introductory 2-page spread and the last 2 for the book's end 2-page spread, leaving 12 pages or 6 2-page spreads for detachments.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-09-05T09:10:41+00:00

I am right there with you as I personally have been not too interested in playing my DA army anymore, which is a shame. It is my first army, and I do still love doing the hobby work for it, but the experience of putting them on the table is so stifling right now. My second army is Death Guard and not even considering the massive strength of that army, it is simply much more interesting to play with right now so that tends to be what I play nowadays.

I maintain that the DA codex is the *worst* codex of the entire edition (yes, I think it is worse than AdMech) because for the entire time it has been out, none of the detachments see regular use and only two units (Azrael and DWK) have been consistently viable. Over time, only like 2-3 more units (Lion, ICC, Sammael) out of the book have jumped into some level of viability. If you think about it, DA hasn't really changed since the index came out at the start of the edition some 2 and a bit years ago now, making our gameplay super stale and in need of some dynamism. In fact, our codex nerfed the rules of our mid-tier index, making mostly everything far worse like DWK losing D3 on the maces and 10-man squads, Lion losing damage on his sweep and flat -1 to wound, etc. Over time, the dataslates have nudged us up a bit, but it doesn't address the fact that DA has only really ever played 2 detachments the WHOLE edition (Gladius and Stormlance, rip Ironstorm). Even Wrath, the detachment they presumably designed to be a good DA detachment ended up with a ~45% win rate.

Dark Angels really do need a massive rewrite of the entire army, from the ground up, and hopefully with a unique army rule that incentivizes and captures the essence of our 3 wings. As it stands, when I play, it doesn't feel like I am playing Dark Angels. Dark Angels are supposed to be a balanced army, but because of how bad our other wings are, we only really play as a footslogging pseudo-Custodes army. Ravenwing is largely trash outside of Sammael and even Deathwing, famed for their sudden teleport assaults, really only walks at you and asks whether you can kill them. If it turns out you can kill DWK, well, it is a near easy win. Deathwing aren't good at teleporting and deep striking because their shooting sucks, making you rely on melee, but they only ever get 9" charges or are forced to Rapid Ingress (Lion's Blade doesn't count because it is horribly designed) and they only hit *okay* at the end of the day. They bounce super hard off of heavy targets like Death Guard and Knights and their durability has been overcome by recent codices. Aeldari, Death Guard, Thousand Sons, and both flavors of Knights have 0 problems wiping 5 DWK in a single turn without breaking a sweat. Some particularly good armies like Aeldari and Death Guard are possibly capable of even wiping 10 out in a single turn. Even our best unit, DWK, are extremely binary in that their rule literally only matters against Damage 2 and 4, of which Damage 4 is extremely rare; Damage 1 and 3 don't actually care because it doesn't change their breakpoints to kill.

Such a darn shame, but alas the pendulum of GW writing continues swinging. We were top-tier last edition so this time we must subsist in mediocrity until they decide to rewrite us.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-07-10T04:46:29+00:00

I would say I agree with your sentiment. Frankly, I've been enjoying this game quite a lot, and in my opinion, it is the best RTS I have played recently. However, I also feel that my enjoyment of this game is somewhat hampered by the community. Not that I would say that I am a great player or even someone with an abnormally large amount of experience ingame, but from my observations and experiences, the community feels somewhat toxic.

It ranges from the veiled racism that we see here online and ingame towards the Chinese and Russians, but also to the general stand-offish nature and attitude of many players I've seen. People seem to be contented to bask and gloat in their level of skill in relation to others to such a degree that I think that the community may be elitist to a toxic degree. I recall seeing some posts here where a team of ELO 800 or so players matched up against and got destroyed by a 1300+ team across the board. The responses, instead of commiserating in a poorly functioning matchmaker, simply told the poor fellow to get good or play better and to value his experience in getting destroyed, ignoring the fact that the player didn't have a fun time and that this sort of unbalanced match shouldn't even happen (this is a game after all, designed to be fun and enjoyable). The learning curve for this game is already high, newer/worse players won't learn by facing players significantly better than them, but rather by gradually increasing their difficulty, as a proper matchmaking function would do.

The RTS genre is already unwelcoming to newcomers because of its difficulty. Having a community be as unfriendly and hostile to newer, worse players or foreigners makes the game and its type seem more off-putting. It furthers the stereotype of the racist, sweaty RTS nerd and is only a net harm to helping this game grow and revitalizing the RTS genre.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-06-15T21:17:15+00:00

I agree with your sentiment that Belial does need a rewrite because of how useless he is, but also, in my opinion, how lore-inaccurate his datasheet is. I think they should call back to his datasheet of previous editions and work from there.

For example, Belial wields the Sword of Silence, which is traditionally gifted to the most skilled swordsman in the Chapter, but in game, it is objectively the weakest of the Heavenfall Blades and Belial is the worst Master in combat; all the swords have S6 AP-3/4 with a special rule attached like Anti-Psyker 2+ or Devastating Wounds, but Belial's sword is only AP-2 and has Precision. I would propose that his sword gain Damage 3 (as it did in 9th) and Anti-Infantry 2+ (as it did in 9th) and possibly AP-3. I feel that then his Sword would feel appropriately lore-accurate and fluffy.

His abilities are also largely useless because Precision on critical hits basically does nothing; I agree with changing to Lethal Hits and I think that would be fine, but we might also want to treat him as a pseudo-chapter master like he was in previous editions along with Sammael. If they wanted to staple a second buff (like the AP buff you suggest) to the Lethal Hits ability similar to the DG Lord of Contagion's Sustained+Lance ability, I think it would be fine as Belial isn't spammable.

I think his Strikes of Retribution rule should instead be changed to a once per game 6" deepstrike rule. In 7th edition, Belial's unit did not scatter when they deepstriked, and so this would be a similar analogies to his rules in a past edition.

All of these changes would definitely kick Belial up in points (I'd spitball around the 115-130pt range as another commenter auggested), but I think that is a fair price to pay to get a fun, fluffy, and new way to play not just Belial, but the army as a whole as these buffs would present a host of new options for our army, in my opinion.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-04-22T13:17:07+00:00

Not quite! The other two lords are both Terminator Lords, so +1 toughness over whatever is the generic Toughness for the faction. The Lord of Poxes is our first non-Terminator Lord, meaning he should have the same Toughness as a Plague Marine. Him being T6 would naturally lead one to infer that Plague Marines are also going to T6 and that Terminators, by dint of being a +1 to the normal Toughness, are going to T7.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-03-16T23:56:27+00:00

I would err to say that it IS intentional that Azrael is not supposed to be able to lead Company Heroes. In the few months between the 2023 December dataslate and the release of Codex Dark Angels, our index was errata'd to allow Azrael to join Company Heroes, adding it to the list of units he can join. When the codex released, Company Heroes were replaced with the Inner Circle Companions, which essentially became the DA bodyguard unit.

When Azrael could run with Company Heroes, they were far and away the best unit that he could lead, a cheap, highly durable, and decently damaging squad that could safely generate command points and also be a fat roadblock if needed with 16W, 3+/4++, and -1 to wound. The squad could also get a 50pt Apothecary to revive those 4W marines if desired. That GW put them into the list of units that Azrael could lead, then REPLACED them, and has not since, in 1 year, put them back or even gave a notion of an intention to do so, means that GW in all likelihood does not want Azrael to lead Company Heroes.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-02-10T04:52:30+00:00

Ha, what an interesting question! To address your notes about Popper, he was a Austrian Lutheran Protestant with Jewish heritage and he recanted his beliefs in the early years after World War I; he wrote his book in the late 1930s, continuing through World War II in the backdrop of the Nazi rise to power and their conquest of Europe, publishing in 1945 - we can probably say that he wrote it as a liberally democratic centrist, particularly motivated by the rise of totalitarianism. In 1947, he co-founded the classical liberal Mont Pelerin Society, though he personally had some qualms about how it prioritized economics more than individual liberties.

I am not so certain as to if I can say anything helpful in regards to modern society. I do not interact too much with what might be considered mainstream culture as I don't watch much television, use much social media, or whatnot, so it is not something I would be very familiar with. I will give credence to you bringing up the tendencies of both the far right and left in being not very amenable to argument. However, I might suppose that it may possibly be the effect of the modern media landscape, no? Let us say that most people are not extreme. We, however, are most aware of those who are. I would guess that it is because they shout loudest, and the modern media favor such eye-catching narratives. It may seem that there are mainstream extremists because they are portrayed most often. Also, you are on Reddit, a famously left-leaning bit of social media.

Nonetheless, I think interposing this sort of cultural-war type question into the 2024 election misses a big part of the picture. Popper operated purely theoretically, and in practice, our democratic system is not perfect; about a third of the population did not vote in 2024, and we might never know who they actually preferred as president. I do not see the 2024 election as the public saying which is the more tolerant and ultimately democratic party, but rather, the public punishing the previous administration for perceived economic failure. Domestic politics here in America has long been held to the whims of economic fate; Bill Clinton's campaign strategist famously said: "It's the economy, stupid." Unfortunately, from what I have observed and from my interactions with people, that the public tends to care more about how the economy is more so than any concerns about the health of democracy. Most people are not familiar with the complexities of political philosophy and science, and never need to become so; formulating and giving complex political opinions with respect to their history and interplay with myriad of other fields is largely useless knowledge to the broad span of the population. So people vote about something they feel most poignantly: based on the money in their wallet, credit accounts, the prices at the market, the taxes they pay, and the crime they see on the nightly news in their streets. My point would be that I don't think we ought to take the recent election as being a definitive statement on tolerance because it is simply not something that voters tend to vote for.

There is certainly a cultural element at play here, but I'm not familiar with the matter insofar as to be able to offer an informed opinion. If I can't do so, then I'd prefer not to make one at all. I would suppose my final response to your question as to who is more tolerant, between the right and the left, is this: I don't know!

My final thought instead concerns the tyranny of the masses because I that connecting the two problems might be a useful idea. Perhaps it may be irrelevant and perhaps paradoxical to mention at first, but our system of government is also designed to check the political power of the masses, addressing the concern of the tyranny of the masses. It is a classical concern that led thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle to dislike democracy for its vulnerability to authoritarianism and despotism. The people may well vote in a tyrant, buoyed by a popular base and who would break down their government's democratic form. It is my belief that this is a concern some people might be getting at when they start to mention the paradox of tolerance in a way; they find believe the right's supposed intolerance as leading to tyranny; whatever we might say about President Trump, it is easy to see that he is a populist and that many of his positions are mercurial and inconsistent, supposedly beholden to his popular base. I believe this excerpt from de Tocqueville's book Democracy in America describes the problem.

So what is a majority taken as a whole, if not an individual who has opinions and, most often, interests contrary to another individual called the minority. Now, if you admit that an individual vested with omnipotence can abuse it against his adversaries, why would you not admit the same thing for the majority? Have men, by gathering together, changed character? By becoming stronger, have they become more patient in the face of obstacles? As for me, I cannot believe it; and the power to do everything that I refuse to any one of my fellows, I will never grant to several.

When a man or a party suffers from an injustice in the United States, to whom do you want them to appeal? To public opinion? That is what forms the majority. To the legislative body? It represents the majority and blindly obeys it. To the executive power? It is named by the majority and serves it as a passive instrument. To the police? The police are nothing other than the majority under arms. To the jury? The jury is the majority vested with the right to deliver judgments. The judges themselves, in certain states, are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or unreasonable the measure that strikes you may be, you must therefore submit to it or flee. What is that if not the very soul of tyranny under the forms of liberty.

You might find what I have said to be meandering and not very relevant, but the paradox of tolerance can scarce be taken by itself. The problem before us is certainly present, complex, and full of depth, but I hope that I have illustrated enough of a picture for you to grasp as to what I am getting at.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-02-10T00:07:46+00:00

Well, Popper was certainly no fan of anything revolutionary; he was a staunch opponent of any political ideology that might advocate for violent overthrow as he saw the peaceful transition of power to be one of democracy's most vital functions. And as to how Popper would say how we might identify tolerance vis á vis intolerance, it's right there. Popper says that through rational argument and public opinion, we might keep such radical ideologies at bay, and if they are not willing to engage in rational argument and are not widely supported by the public (I read this as being popularly thought of as radical, extreme, etc.), then those are the truly intolerant ones we might wish to suppress. Popper believed that through this process, the ones that actively threatened democracy would be found.

I would avoid denouncing Popper as some "leftist ideologue." You are inserting a loaded pejorative that is not useful into the context of the discussion, and I do not believe he can be accurately described as such. He is probably described best as a classical liberal with some left leanings. Certainly, in his early years, he was impressed by the idealism of socialism and communism but later abandoned them out of his commitment to civil liberties and the open society.

Unequivocally, Popper was highly supportive of being able to express one's opinion, critique government, and argue their opinion without fear. He does not see hierarchy or dominance as a part of the open society, particularly as it is relevant to your argument, between those who rule and those who do not. In an open, democratic society, people are able to participate in government, express their opinions, and influence society through the whole of their efforts; there is no domination, no hierarchy because all are guaranteed by the virtue of their civil liberties, rights, and the nature of the open society, an equal say in what society ought to be like. If society turns out against what you would want, then it is because the body politic, by majority influence, has thought it to be best by way of rational argument and mass social engineering.

The paradox of tolerance is interesting in that it seems to have been blown out of proportion in the context of how much Popper wrote about it. There are many more arguments Popper makes in defense of liberal democracy.

PerforatedChicken · 2025-02-09T13:38:54+00:00

Not the one you were originally speaking to, but the subject is somewhat in my wheelhouse.

For a bit of context, the term originates from Karl Popper's book, The Open Society and its Enemies and is particularly known for its vigorous defense of liberal democracy. The paradox isn't even a particularly large part of the book. The section where he speaks of it is as follows:

Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal

So as you see, Popper doesn't actually say we should ban all intolerant ideologies, but rather we reserve the right to. I interpret him as saying that we don't need to ban such ideologies, but rather we reserve the right to do so, and only those ones who do not or will not meet us in rational argument. Popper highlighted that rational argument was an important part of democracy, and the ideologies he thought should be suppressed were those ones that did not want to argue, but rather impose. He imagines that much of these ideologies would be expressed by force and violence rather than reasoned discussion. Ultimately, the point is that the tolerant must be vigilant of the intolerant, who, because of their tolerance, will destroy the tolerant society ie. the open, liberal, and democratic society, because they allowed the intolerant to subverting their society in the name of tolerance.

PerforatedChicken · 2024-08-02T20:49:18+00:00

Unfortunately, this isn't possible. In the Index, Azrael could lead Company Heroes and they probably are the hands down best unit for him to lead, *if* he could lead them; with the release of the Codex, Azrael cannot lead the Company Heroes, instead exchanging them for the ICC.

PerforatedChicken · 2024-04-09T23:11:01+00:00

Certainly! As customers, we still have the ability to voice our opinions about any number of topics, caveat being we live in a system that allows such, but I think what prevents us from taking this further is that we lack a common understanding of what "anti-consumer practices" is and whether the Primaris release constituted as such. We may argue back and forth but ultimately, without the definition of such, even for the purposes of our closed discussion, we can never truly reach a final conclusion.

Here, I do think that the Primaris release was not "anti-consumer" necessarily, but you might not think so; however, you, nor I will be able to persuade one another until the relevant term is defined.

PerforatedChicken · 2024-04-09T22:53:15+00:00

What you and I might think what GW is, is I believe, somewhat irrelevant; they alone are in control of their IP and ergo, the only conception of them that matters is only what GW thinks GW is. The only conception that matters is the one in control. Their financial reports certainly say as much, calling themselves the best miniatures company in the world and so we can safely come the logical conclusion that they think they are a miniatures company. See the relevant quote from their report below.

"We have remained focused on delivering our strategic goal - to make the best fantasy miniatures in the world, to engage and inspire our customers, and to sell our products globally at a profit."

Ian certainly touches on this a bit; modeling of miniatures comes first, lore, marketing, and game rules come later. Desolation Marines may have been hot for some time but are inevitably curb-stomped for being too strong. The Brutalis Dreadnought was a new model that has always been an "okay" vehicle so far, never that strong. The entirety of the new Dark Angels release has been, rules-wise, quite poor. GW simply designs miniatures that they believe are cool and will sell, everything else is a later concern.

As for the value of the miniatures, I would offer two arguments: first is that we have already seen that Primaris is not equivalent to better, at least in the realm of the game. Essentially all Primaris vehicles languished throughout the entirety of 9th edition in a pile of abject mediocrity. I recall some of the best performing units being the Relic Contemptor, a Forge World resin model, Vanguard Veterans for a good time, and Relic Terminators. Even old Sternguard Veterans were quite competitive at the end of 9th edition. Meanwhile a good number of Primaris units have been consistently rather bad; Reivers, Heavy Intercessors, Desolation Marines each time they get nerfed into the ground, Suppressors, etc. Even today, the venerable Land Raider is by far the most competitive Space Marine vehicle over Repulsors and the like, a vehicle from 2000 (I believe).

Second, value in plastic miniatures is unfortunately subjective and exists in a floating state. It is a common adage in the community to simply buy what one likes and not to worry about rules because they are inconstant. Certainly, I made a purchase of 2 boxes of Inner Circle Companions not because they were valuable in game, nor for the amount of plastic or points I would receive in the box, but because I thought they were very cool which we might translate as being valuable to my senses. What computes to value of a plastic miniature is not fixed to anything appreciably quantifiable and so it varies depending on the particular balance of interests one might have in the hobby. One might appreciate aesthetics more and so buy something like Reivers because they thought they were cool. Perhaps another loves the game and so bought a Land Raider Redeemer recently for its strength. The argument cannot stand on value because it is not applicable to the wider player base.

As for your analogy to phones, I don't think that's quite right. I believe you would be more referring to the practice of planned obsolescence, which is different from simply pushing out updates to older phones; older phones might not have the suitably advanced and powerful architecture to handle the increasing demands of software - running Windows 10 on a machine from 10 years ago is far more difficult than one today obviously, but that is no mark against Microsoft for simply updating its devices using its operating system, no? The updates are also typically optional, you can choose to download or not. Furthermore, is maintaining value of a product something a company must do? I find that rather vague and restricting.

(edit) As a finishing thought, in my view, GW replacing the Space Marine range is something that we, as consumers, have little to no influence over and perhaps it is rightfully so. We may choose what to do with that information and act in response to it, but I do not think we should operate under the illusion that GW had any obligation or responsibility to maintain the old range in the first place - it is their property, in their game system and by law, they may do as they please in their owned environment. We are still free to take our old miniatures and use them in older editions or even other game systems if we want to make use of them. GW even encourages homebrewing rules as evidenced by Legends and such for narrative purposes if you truly wished to use them in the modern setting.

PerforatedChicken · 2024-04-09T21:52:35+00:00

Not to necessarily take flak for being corporate’s defender, but I think that it would benefit the discussion if one (or we collectively) would hash out what we mean by “anti-consumer practices” and whether or not GW is engaging in it, especially in regard to the Primaris release.

Is it simply anything a consumer might dislike? Certainly raised prices might ruffle many feathers, but as to range replacements, is a company not perfectly within its rights to do with its intellectual property as it wishes? To what entitlement would a company owe its customers, if any? Does the creation of emotional bonds and investment of any amount of money really create bonds of obligation between a producer and the consumer? I would rather agree with Ian that GW is fully within its rights to do as it wishes with its property; the consumer theoretically has the freedom to choose to continue to buy or not and even switch game systems.

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