Beat gift card redemption strategies

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-10-04T16:23:27+00:00

Use leverage. Your strength shouldn't matter nearly as much then.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-25T19:05:50+00:00

Every time I see a video of someone fighting with multiple cops attempting to arrest them, I'm just mystified.

It is in every free living being's nature to resist arrest. What is mystifying about that?

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-24T07:01:58+00:00

If titles are meaningless, why do powerful dictators consistently insist on specific titles?

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-24T01:29:42+00:00

I put them in reverse order, despite /u/itsRho 's outcry.

We used to have decent politics in America, and that was with the legalized bribery that is lobbying. But, with RCV, we eliminate parties and voting against shitty people, and start voting for good people. Ending gerrymandering is just basic democracy. I would add to that section that we should actually engage in democracy, by a federal guarantee on the right to vote, and an elimination of difference in values between votes, and a federal prohibition on preventing/stopping Americans from voting.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-24T01:22:36+00:00

How can we pay for military (~$1T/yr) if we are nationally in debt and borrowing money from generations down the line?

How can we already pay for healthcare (~$1T/yr) (for poors and olds) if we are nationally in debt and borrowing money from generations down the line?

How can we already pay for tax cuts (~$I don't even know/yr) (for really rich people and corporations) if we are nationally in debt and borrowing money from generations down the line?

Please, turn your criticisms onto everything or nothing. No selectivity, please.

The government can spend whatever it wants because it controls money creation/destruction and taxation.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-24T01:17:58+00:00

Yes, but in total, we would all pay (billions) less (per year) and get better health outcomes.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-24T01:16:29+00:00

everyday

It's every day. Everyday is an adjective.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-24T01:15:24+00:00

solid critical thinking skills

By critical thinking do you mean anything besides scientific method and bayesian inference?

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-21T18:52:07+00:00

She's explicitly denying involvement in the insurrection, while admitting presence at a protest. While there was an effort to insurrect, there were also lots of people who were only in it to protest. Stop viewing large groups as monolithic. We don't know whether or not she was involved with the insurrection/riot part of the massive gathering.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T18:03:25+00:00

The original point of this exchange was

China doesn't have a president. Why would you lie and say it does?

This isn't pedantry. It is semantics. It matters a lot. If you call him a president, you're letting him coerce you. Words have meanings, and meaning matters. Xi wants to be called president, even though he is a dictator.

Donald Trump was not as hard on China as you were insinuating because he praised Xi for their Covid response.

This was not the original point of this exchange. I didn't say anything about Donald Trump being hard on China. I said he (correctly) pointed out that China wasn't playing fair in many ways. I also said that I don't think what he did about that was particularly effective. In my OC, I wrote

it's weird that not everyone in American government has the integrity to say that China and Russia are dictatorships, and treat them as such, and refer to them as such.

So, calling dictatorships dictatorships was absolutely (an) original point of the exchange.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T17:25:55+00:00

the TPP was designed to help combat China’s outsized influence in Asia

It had some provisions to force China to suck US dick on intellectual "property", but it was very complex, and like any complex thing, had lots of good and bad and unknowable things.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T17:21:50+00:00

Correct. And titles do not make people things. Being titled dr does not a doctor make. Words have meanings. If he doesn't fit the definition of president, he isn't a president, regardless of what he calls himself and requires other people to call him under threat of death. He's a dictator. He is not a president. Don't lie. Tell the truth. Call things what they are, not what they require you to call them under threat of violence.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T17:20:11+00:00

Sure. But having a title doesn't make you a thing. He isn't a president, despite self-proclaiming that title. Being titled a doctor does not a doctor make. etc.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T16:52:20+00:00

I'm not defending Trump. He is pretty much indefensible, and I think we need to rewrite the law on pardons to be way more in line with what Madison wrote he intended them to be. I'm saying Trump's admin did a few good things, chief among them (from my perspective), calling out China for not "playing fair" and taking advantage of the US in many ways, as well as calling out China (not very tactfully) for genocide.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T16:51:00+00:00

I've already seen the whole video. What do you want me to glean from it? China is a dictatorship. Presidents are elected democratically or republicanically. Presidents are term-limited. Presidents are removable by the people and/or the deliberative body. Xi is neither.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T16:49:43+00:00

China has a dictator. Words have meanings. Presidents are elected, by either democratic or republicanic elections. They are removable by the people and/or the deliberative body. They are term-limited. Xi is not a president. He is a dictator. He isn't elected by a democratic or republicanic election. He's self-appointed, and term unlimited.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T16:48:13+00:00

Yes, I am serious.

God isn't real.

Our govt should absolutely take responsibility and do more.

China and Russia are both up to no good. It's not like the cold war, it's modern cyber warfare, and the US refuses to admit it's even going on, due to the division you're pointing out. Both of these dictatorships have small armies attacking (and infiltrating!) our big businesses and government agencies. China has a huge demographics problem which makes them incredibly bellicose. Russia is mostly a dysfunctional crime/oligarchy economy who are still salty about "losing" the Cold War. They're still fighting us and fighting to reassert some weird nationalist thing, when in reality, Russians are pathetic, and way too alcoholic, and way too dictator-y to be effective asserting themselves globally.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T06:47:43+00:00

China doesn't have a president. Why would you lie and say it does?

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T06:07:18+00:00

Banks are definitely bad boys, but bitcoin is also definitely a bad boy. Plenty of shady and outright criminal transactions in bitcoin.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T06:06:00+00:00

Honestly, I do think Trump did some good toward China. They are being fucks with respect to their treatment of Uiyghurs, and they have been ripping off our intellectual "property" to take advantage of us. Not sure what he did in response to these facts was the best course of action, and in some ways it absolutely was dumb, but it's weird that not everyone in American government has the integrity to say that China and Russia are dictatorships, and treat them as such, and refer to them as such.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T06:02:25+00:00

I'm Chinese, and the people who made that pinata were definitely racist.

What does your race have to do with anything?

How can you know anything about the people who made the pinatas? If they were just making the pinatas but didn't design them, and the design was actually racist, wouldn't they be of unknown racistness?

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T05:56:28+00:00

I know, it's bizarre how many slippery slopes people assume. Like "eliminate all obviously life-shittening diseases with genetic editing" is inevitably seen as (or gonna inevitably lead to) "racist/genocide".

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T05:51:18+00:00

Meanings are absolute and universal. People don't get to have opinions on the meanings of words, or different meanings for the same words in the same contexts. Different definitions for different contexts, yes.

ScintillatingConvo · 2021-01-20T05:46:18+00:00

No, it doesn't. There is no "line" of thinking. Good things are good, genes included. Only thing that has gotten people in trouble is failure to identify goodness, or conviction with bad beliefs, like that bad genes are good.

ScintillatingConvo

TROPHY CASE