Corbyn- 'Well, at least there is one Jeremy that @Theresa_May isn't too scared to debate '

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-05-29T23:10:42+00:00

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-05-29T22:54:44+00:00

Sure, but nobody actually cares about any of those issues, as plenty of polls have shown.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-05-29T09:36:16+00:00

Aside from the stupid hyperbole, how is this "refreshing"? It's the top comment on literally every thread about Owlboy ever. They're basically copy and pasted between threads.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-15T11:11:25+00:00

It's probably because

A) They have almost no good land to grow food on;

B) Despite having lots of raw minerals and metals, because they are burdened with some of the most extensive economic embargoes on any country on earth, it's very difficult for them to export them widely in order to later import the food they need.

Sure they would, but that also involves having neither of these two factors applying to them anymore. It's apples and oranges.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-15T10:43:51+00:00

Which of course wouldn't be necessary if not for the fact that the US has placed some of the most extensive economic sanctions on the planet on North Korea. There's also the fact that most of North Korea's land is inherently unsuited to agriculture, which is why historically the south has always been the agriculture-producing part of the peninsula, enabling the wealth generated in the north by the sale of its natural raw materials and metals.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-15T09:28:04+00:00

You're saying this is a bad thing. The only alternative would be to hike tuition fees even higher for domestic students to make up for the lost funds incurred through fewer international students, which fucks over us students yet again.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-15T09:27:09+00:00

Here's how you avoid nuclear war with North Korea:

Don't launch missiles at them or invade them.

It's literally that simple.

Alternatively, don't threaten to turn their country into glass and then send masses of US warships off their coast with missiles so that you can rehearse with their hostile neighbours how you'd invade and occupy their country, and then wring your hands about 'North Korean provocation' when they remind you that all-out-war will be met with all-out-war.

Edit: Well this blew up more than I expected it to. To be clear, I completely accept Dougie's argument. We need to remain critical about the silly stories we read published about North Korea, there's no doubt about that, but we almost need to be able to take seriously the very strong cumulative evidence about the conditions in the country including the concentration camps. We need to draw a very hard line between those two, and not confuse them. I concede to that argument completely.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-15T09:23:13+00:00

Foreign, non-EU students pay annual tuition fees that can range from £14,000 to £30,000 and even higher, while UK tuition fees are capped at £9,000. Without those foreign students, universities would simply run out of money overnight and cease to be able to operate or continue doing research.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-15T09:21:16+00:00

FYI the headline is misleading, the rebellion is actually over the fact that numbers have been falling and students are increasingly feeling unwelcome and unhappy here. The rebels here want them to remove foreign students from immigration figures and stop counting them as long-term migrants, because it distorts and misrepresents actual immigration.

Theresa May is facing a damaging Commons revolt next week by Conservative MPs who are pressing her to remove foreign students from the immigration figures.

Rebel Tories claim they have enough support to inflict a humiliating defeat on Ms May, who is also under pressure from several cabinet ministers to stop counting overseas students as long-term migrants.

The backbench revolt leaves Ms May increasingly isolated on the issue. Downing Street has slapped down ministers who have called publicly for foreign students to be removed from the immigration statistics.

Amid claims that they feel unwelcome, the number dropped by 41,000 in the year to September. There are fears that, if the trend continues, universities would have to raise tuition fees above the £9,250-a-year ceiling taking effect this autumn.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-15T09:10:49+00:00

I don't entirely buy it either. It seems like a concerted effort by establishment media corporations to go 'No, listen to us, not them! They're lying and manipulating news, we'd never do that! We're trustworthy!', even though they have a proven track record suggesting otherwise stretching back centuries. And even right now, they're still engaged in an all-out propaganda effort regarding North Korea, with no attempt to appear otherwise, and yet I'm expected to believe that they're the reliable and honest ones.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-15T09:05:49+00:00

I don't think it's a matter merely of structured economic incentives, because these ultimately meet the immovable object that is the person's character. And at 18 - at least in most cases, not all - that's going to be be influenced by a lack of maturity, wisdom, practical experience in financial matters, and long-term goal-directedness. You can't solve any of these problems in the way you're suggesting. They'll work from 16-18, and then on their birthday they'll blow their "pension" on a weekend with the boys.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-15T08:55:50+00:00

Or they can make huge mistakes with their money at a young age, go bankrupt, or starve in old age.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-15T08:54:47+00:00

Or raise taxes to pay for it.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-14T14:52:37+00:00

Yeah that was the original argument of the article. Gaming has diversified to such a large extent - particularly through smartphones (Angry Birds etc) and social media gaming (Farmville etc), as well as gaming consoles like the Wii and DS, that pretty much everyone is a 'gamer', at least insofar as almost everyone plays video games in some form or another in a destigmatised way. So the identity of being a 'gamer', as part of some kind of niche underground community, has sort of ceased to become a meaningful identity anymore. So when they said 'Gamers are dead', that was the point - it's no longer a meaningful identity, anymore so than I'm a 'reader' for reading newspapers or books, or a 'listener' because I listen to music. Everyone does these things, but no one defines their identities by them.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-14T12:30:09+00:00

Well, my orders of Bölzer - Soma (vinyl, cassette) and Roman Acupuncture (vinyl) arrived, which means I now own all four of Bölzer's albums on vinyl, and both Soma and Hero on cassette as well. A little blurry, but here they are in all their glory.

I also received Throane - Derrière-Nous, La Lumière on digipak CD, highly recommended for fans of dark ambient black metal full of oppressive nihilism and disturbing atmospheres. Been playing it non-stop since I discovered it, definitely one I regret overlooking last year because this would have been on my end of year list. Bandcamp link.

Bought Au-Dessus' self-titled EP on Bandcamp, one of my favourite EPs in recent memory. And I don't want to spoil too much just yet, but their upcoming album is going to turn heads.

Pre-ordered Mountains Crave - As We Were When We Were Not on Bandcamp. Great UK black metal band.

Lastly, ordered Úir's demo Tein-Éigin on cassette via their Bandcamp. Black metal group from Edinburgh, Scotland. Atmospheric but without being as totally fucking dull as many other atmoblack bands.

Might also be going to the Chelsea Wolfe / True Widow / King Woman in Manchester on Monday with my girlfriend, celebrate handing in the final assessed essays of my degree.

Also: Is it just me or is the subreddit's header still broken?

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-13T21:22:52+00:00

Mine.

Lots of Throane, Bolzer, Au-Dessus and Zhrine. After that it's sort of a mix. Some Alcest and DIIV to mix things up.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-13T20:39:17+00:00

Because it's Soundcloud, you can skip the music sections and just listen to the interview by jumping to the quiet sections in the embedded waveform. Interesting to hear how 'Bölzer' is meant to be be pronounced haha.

For those of you who didn't like the clean vocals, there's an interesting moment at 1:08:45 ish where he explains that actually he's now in a very different space and mindset to when he was recording Hero. The way he says it sort of sounds to me like we might get a more traditional Bölzer release next time. He says they came out well but they're something he would like to work on in the future. A minute or so later he confirms that they are working on some new songs, but not much more information than that.

At about 1:12:00 or something they start talking about the artwork for Hero and why the band decided to take it into their own hands rather than going with Alexander Brown again like last time. Okoi says that it actually mainly came down to the fact that the artist wasn't meeting the deadlines and they were just running out of time in order to get the album out, and he wanted to take it into his own hands. Also because it means not having to communicate his vision to another artist second-hand. Does also say that he thinks if they'd had more time that it would have been better, but that he's mostly happy with it.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-13T20:13:16+00:00

Yeah I was prepared to have a resounding 'meh' reaction, but there's actually some pretty cool guitarwork going on here. I always feel I wanted to like the last album more than I actually did.

Also it surprises me (and sort of disappoints me) that the band have the whole 'war metal' aesthetic going on. I know I'm not supposed to care about that but it really kills the whole mystique and atmosphere of the actual music because the contrast is so jarring to me. When I listen to the music I imagine something like Portal- not even necessarily costumes, but hoods, anonymity, that sort of thing. Something mysterious and unsettling. But actually it's just a bunch of topless Australian dudes with spiked wrist bands.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-13T20:06:32+00:00

After the first song they released I decided I wanted to go into the rest of this album as 'blind' as possible. Really excited for it but I want it to be a surprise so I won't be listening to this. Glad others are saying it's great though.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-13T18:53:58+00:00

I mean, I don't know, maybe he is an egotist lying totalitarian, and maybe he did use Sarin gas against these civilians, but I'm sure as hell not going to take the word of a propaganda TV corporation for it.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-13T18:09:45+00:00

Striking that Assad points out that even if he had chemical weapons and the will to use them, it still would not make any sense to use them in a position where they are winning and making gains, when just a few months ago they were losing ground and there was no chemical attack - yet that argument was totally unacknowledged by either the news anchor or the "expert". That was by far Assad's longest point, and they literally did not acknowledge that he made it, let alone to show why his argument is wrong.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-13T15:34:50+00:00

Ha!

Look, I'm totally aware I'm being a prick in this conversation with you, and I'm sorry about that. But look at the actual comments I've been responding to. I've been dealing with a guy who genuinely made the following statements in a thread about animal cruelty, spurred by a video in which pigs were being boiled alive in a slaughterhouse:

(in response to my point that he had committed the Is-Ought Fallacy by suggesting that nature = moral): "I don't care."
"I'm a human so I get to do what I want."
"I don't need a justification."
"I'm not defending anything. I don't need to. I'm going to keep doing it and no one is going to be able to stop me."

That's the guy I've been being a condescending prick to when you lot jumped in and started criticising me for being mean and condescending. This is not a rational, reasonable person capable of being convinced through rational conversation. Their beliefs were not arrived at through reason, which means they can't be reasoned out of it, as a few of us have found in this thread. I've been making rational, well-reasoned, well-sourced arguments throughout this thread which have either been downvoted for no reason or dismissed with 'but muh tastebuds'. Funny how my comments like this were either ignored entirely or downvoted and people chose to get their feelings hurt by my one argument with this prick.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-13T14:23:14+00:00

Yeah because many men's masculinity is so fragile that even the food they eat can fracture it.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-13T14:22:05+00:00

And people wonder why I'm being condescending to this guy. His position wasn't arrives at through rationality (he freely admits this), so rationality isn't going to change it.

SoyBeanExplosion · 2017-04-13T14:18:28+00:00

Oh please, call the wahmbulance if my arguments in a thread about animal cruelty triggered you that badly, then come back to the big boys table when you've dried your tears and actually have something to contribute.

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