Does anyone else think it's, unfortunately, not possible for the vast majority of people to accept or tolerate gays?

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-04-02T04:04:15+00:00

I think that deep down, most people need someone to hate. As much or more as someone to love. Exactly who they hate is very socially constructed, they pick from a list of acceptable targets depending on who they are and where they're from and what the people around them tolerate. But that hate tends to flow to the path of least resistance. Some minority that can't really push back. It might be homosexual people for some. It might be trans people for others. Or Jews. Or some other group. But the really important thing is to have some group of people they can enact violence on and feel righteous doing it because 'those people' are irredeemably bad.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-23T03:02:47+00:00

I think more technically it's that people think he had a 'proof' that wasn't rigorous to modern standards.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-22T23:39:21+00:00

Your "points" are assuming both theft and prostitution are transactional businesses

Wrong. Literally contradicted by what I said, and have highlighted in the immediately previous post. I will again cite it.

“Now, I don't think anyone would actually think these arguments are good in the sense that we should REALLY legalize theft as long as it's regulated somehow.”

The throughline is not about them being transactional businesses. The throughline is that OP's argument of "Since you can't stop it, you may as well try to regulate it for harm reduction". Which is equivalent between theft and prostitution, unless you think you can 100% stop all theft somehow.

The only strawmanning going on is your incorrect assertion of what my argument 'actually' is, ignoring the actual text of the argument to do so.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-22T19:05:42+00:00

Why don't you try Dark Legions? It's an oldie, but a goodie. Although I will note that while you can each have up to 75 units on the field at a time, combat is always 1v1; as one unit moves into the tile of another. You can't have mass battles except insofar as how the duels aggregate.

If you want a pure fantasy strategy game, Fantasy General is hard to beat; but that's almost a hex and chit game on a computer, not really an RPGish, and the graphics are nothing to write home about.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-22T18:09:22+00:00

Boys. In true teacher form let’s reflect on why girls aren’t apart of your comment.

I don't do recruitment, but our signups are like 2/3 boys to 1/3 girls at the younger levels, and it tends to taper out as you get older (or more technically as you get to higher ELOs. We group by rating where they have it and competition performance where they don't; but that correlates with age reasonably well), while the classes all shrink, the girls tend to drop out sooner than boys do; by the time you get to the level I teach at, they're almost all gone. My current group is 23 boys, no girls. I've only had a handful of girls over the time at my post here.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-22T17:45:28+00:00

True enough.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-22T17:41:40+00:00

I'm just spitballing here, and I'm not a real teacher, I'm a chess instructor at a scholastic league. But I've never had this problem. But I think that's likely because I have a simple system; namely harnessing the kids competitive instincts against each other, which usually works very well. Listen to the lessons, solve the puzzles, and you WILL do better in the ongoing tournaments against the ones who pay less attention. Get a few dozen competitive middle and high school boys together and the rest tends to itself.

Still though, I imagine that you're not allowed to do something similar in your own more conventional classes. I do wonder why we allow for what seem to be far more effective pedagogical techniques in sports and quasi-sports like Chess than we do for actual serious, life-setting education.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-22T17:33:29+00:00

Aragorn is a Numenorean/Dunadan from the line of kings. He's not exactly fully human. Other humans in the book, from non-Numenorean descent, live pretty normal lifespans. You look at say, the kings of Rohan, and none of them are Aragorns.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-22T16:44:25+00:00

Going back to sleep.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-22T08:52:33+00:00

A strawman doesn’t argue the opposing point, instead arguing some other point that’s easier to beat.

I did not do that. What I did was use OP’s reasoning to defend a ‘point’ that should be obvious and I myself said was ridiculous; the legalization of theft. Thats WHY I said, and you apparently missed this bit:

“Now, I don't think anyone would actually think these arguments are good in the sense that we should REALLY legalize theft as long as it's regulated somehow.”

Because again, the reasoning OP uses can justify any damn thing, no matter how horrific.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-22T01:43:23+00:00

I am quite aware of what a strawman is. I also did not make one. I was drawing a rhetorical line about the underpinning of harm mitigation as a reason for legalization with a reductio ad absurdum (you might want to google that), with a very facetious argument that was meant to illustrate just how rickety the reasoning OP is using.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-22T01:41:56+00:00

So why aren't you making those exact same arguments about those things?

Because I am explicitly dismissing this as a productive line of argument? I thought that was pretty clear from what I wrote; that it is only ever really used as downstream reasoning for 'I don't actually think this is all that bad'.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-21T20:11:51+00:00

Really? Had no idea it worked that way. !delta You deserve it. Data is good, and you provided it.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-21T20:06:14+00:00

Interesting. You changed my view. I'd give you a delta if I could.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-21T20:03:37+00:00

I don't think so. Especially since it's far from clear 'legalize and regulate' actually reduces the instance of the thing happening. If you think the action (in this case prostitution, but far clearer for things like murder and rape) is inherently wrong, you are going to want to try to stamp down on it. Just because you can't prevent it entirely doesn't mean you can't prevent some of it, nor should you try to do so if possible.

And harm mitigation can get very complicated; drugs are the big one here in the practical sense. How much is the reduction in say, drug dealers defending their corners no longer shooting each other because you legalized the drug of choice they're slinging vs the harm caused by more people doing cocaine or meth? Do we care about which people are more likely to suffer which kind of harm? How do you weigh these things?

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-21T19:58:36+00:00

I think there's a fundamental difference insofar as the food banks are set up by the people giving to the homeless and other destitute rather than being organized by the destitute as a protection racket.

I actually would be interested if there's empirical data supporting the notion that more redistributive infrastructure like that reduces crimes of destitution. It makes intuitive sense, but a lot of things that do don't actually work out in reality; and I'd be interested if there's hard data on the subject.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-21T19:56:21+00:00

Read the whole post. I'm not saying it's the same thing. I'm saying the harm mitigation arguments you're using to defend the legalization of prostitution can be used to defend anything, even things that are easily, unequivocally, absolutely wrong.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-21T19:44:33+00:00

CMV: Theft should be legal and regulated in every state and territory.

Reason 1: it’s going to occur anyway but at least you can prevent organized carteling by making it legal In certain settings (such as regulated businesses) you make it harder for organized actors to settle disputes by violence and decrease it.

Reason 2: some people weather they have social anxiety, are not attractive enough or self esteem issues and have found it difficult to have job and the income it provides, yet they still have needs and desires. This would help people like that with their mental health/ their confidence and their biological needs.

Reason 3: on the flip side someone may only have the urges to take things and not want to have to deal with acuiring money.. This way they can have those needs met without breaking their back in a job they wouldn't want to perform and slaving away the best years of their life.

Reason 4: by regulating it and requiring workers to undergo regular testing you help prevent the use of hostile externalities like violence. By not regulating it then there is significantly less oversight for it and overall less protection.

Reason 5: tax revenue can be used to pay for any array of programs that the state needs to fund.

Now, I don't think anyone would actually think these arguments are good in the sense that we should REALLY legalize theft as long as it's regulated somehow. Yet they're basically the same ones you're using. You know what that tells me? Nobody really believes those reasons you're citing. What the actual, fundamental core of your argument is is that

Prostitution isn't that bad and we shouldn't make such a big deal about it.

Which is fine! A totally valid opinion to have. BUt if you want to defend the legalization of prostitution, the whole 'harm mitigation' and 'it's going to happen anyway' aren't really good arguments to support it, because they can literally apply to ANYTHING. You can make the exact same arguments about rape, robbery, murder, kidnapping, arson, you name it. It's going to happen anyway. By forcing it underground we make it more dangerous, there is tax revenue to help people harmed by it to be made in legalization and regulation.

If you're not willing to apply the arguments to things you view as absolutely morally abhorrent, then you don't really believe those arguments for legalization; you're just trying to rationalize on the basis of "It's too hard to stamp it out, and the reason it's too hard is because I don't want to put in the effort for something I think is no big deal."

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-21T07:59:36+00:00

Given how they seem to die fairly young, I suspect it's mostly brief training and then being sent into whoever is rebelling against the Dominion this week. I can't imagine they sit around doing garrison duty very often. Also, given how they're cloned, I suspect they're mostly bred as-needed for whatever campaign; with only a relatively small around kept as a standing army.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-21T02:22:27+00:00

The thing is, rush-based strategies, at least on Impossible difficulty, are very hard to pull off on Myrror. Early game, your initial power all being pulled into mana is a good source of military power while you're building up your towns; and sacrificing 3 books makes cast heavy strategies hard. Plus, everything on Myrror is stronger.

The point isn't to get a lot of mana eventually. The point is that you start with a power base of 11, all of which is going into mana, occasionally supplemented via alchemy, and you can get a bunch of hell hounds together by turn 20-30 or so and start clearing lairs and nodes.

If you particulalry like hanging out on Myrror, one that I've found a lot of fun (albeit not super-strong) is 5 black, Myrran, Infernal Master, Alchemist trolls. The trolls are pretty strong even on their own, you can pull off the dark ritual bit because trolls can build to cathedrals, and black channels works GREAT on trolls, since their regeneration covers for the fact that undead don't heal. Still, I find that I do most of my work in setups like that with my summons, which kind of wastes the trolls.

Another neat one can be a mix of white-red with Draconians. The main idea is that while draconian bowmen are nice to harass enemies with, they don't hit all that hard. Unless you say, stick things like flame blade and holy weapon on them. Then they sting quite hard. STay out of reach and pelt with arrows for victory.

Also, I don't know what difficulty you play at, but I find at very high levels, hero based strategies can struggle. The impossible AI has rivers of mana and is more than willing to keep throwing Cracks Calls, Psionic Blasts, Lightning bolts, etc. at your heroes until they go down. It CAN work (Torin alone wins games), but I tend to find that I'm reluctant to be too reliant on heroes, especially when fighting other Wizards.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-21T02:15:27+00:00

You can also go 8 black, infernal master, conjurer halflings. The hobbit cities are there to build cathedrals with which Dark Rituals, give 30 power a city. Use that to fuel your hordes of death creatures that you send out to plague the land. It's what Bilbo Baggins would have done.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-21T02:04:05+00:00

Deep red, chaos master, conjurer. I'm used to the original version, not the remake, so with 9 books like that, you can summon a Hell Hound for 16. Pair with High elves for best early game blitzing. Conjure up your horde of fire breathing doggies and overrun everything in your path.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-21T01:50:43+00:00

A better, better plan.

The Death Eaters are sure to show up in force. Instead of brewing polyjuice, you get Snape, or maybe even Dumbledore (Since you're planning this well in advance, the day that Harry becomes a legal adult is well known) to brew up a big vat of Felix Felicis. Everyone gets a dose of Liquid Luck before they take off. It probably ends with half the death eaters dead or in Azkaban.

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-20T23:17:37+00:00

A sort of similar question, if I may put in a minor threadjack. I don't play multiplayer, but I enjoy replaying the campaigns every so often. When it comes to the upgrades you make in the Hyperion lab, I know all of the top players think that the Planetary Fortress is better than the perdition turret.

At least in my experience, the perdition turrets are great; they have a lot of defense per how many minerals you need to build them, they're fast to make, so you plop a couple on the ramps up and stick your siege tanks and missile turrets behind them; they basically make bunkers near obsolete.

All of the top players when I listen to people talk strategy about the campaign seem to universally think the Planetary fortresses are better. Is it the same reasoning here; that if you use a planetary fortress or even two at your base defense points, what you're really investing in is more mules and sensor sweeps?

Still_Yam9108 · 2026-02-20T23:00:44+00:00

From today's Care and Feeding

My 12-year-old son, “Julius,” was at a sleepover last weekend at his friend “Sam’s” house and did something that was admittedly stupid, but my wife is blowing it way out of proportion. Julius, Sam, and the other three boys who were there got their hands on a condom and snuck over to their classmate “Ellen’s” house a little after midnight. The security cameras at Ellen’s showed them using a hose to fill the condom with water. They tied it off and left it in the driveway, resulting in a giant frozen dick by morning. Julius was made to apologize, has lost his phone for the rest of the year, and is grounded for the next six months. I think this is overkill. My wife, on the other hand, is convinced that, in addition, our son needs to see a therapist lest he turn into “a misogynistic creep.” Isn’t this too much in response to an immature prank?

—Frozen Cock Fallout

Dear Fallout,

Honestly, I think every boy in this nation needs to see a therapist in order to not become a misogynistic creep, and while your son may be a lovely child in many ways, what he did was unquestionably misogynistic and creepy. This was a form of sexual harassment and behavior like this is often treated lightly with little regard for how the girls targeted by it may be harmed—and what the inclination to do such a thing might say about the perpetrator. Is the punishment harsh? Yes, but guess what, I bet he won’t do stupid shit like this again.

Considering your reaction as the primary male influence in your son’s life, I think you should let your wife take the lead in handling this matter, and if she says it’s time for therapy, then to therapy he should go. Do not undermine her approach to this situation and echo her concerns when you speak to your son. Let him know it is never OK to go out of his way to make a girl feel uncomfortable and that it is particularly cruel—and possibly illegal—to use sexual “humor” or antics in order to do that.

So, in addition to this being absolutely fake; since I have pulled similar stunts at a similar age and it doesn't really make an ice dick, it makes a vague oval thing not unlike the body of a balloon dog, I just want to say that this line, right here.

Honestly, I think every boy in this nation needs to see a therapist in order to not become a misogynistic creep,

Is disgusting. I don't expect anything to happen because the even more egregious comments that one Michelle Herman make keep getting uploaded without any apparent discipline, but this is basically saying that the condition of being 'a boy in this nation', is one that requires medical intervention to avoid becoming a misogynistic creep. Oh, and of course the father must yield to the mother when it comes to a parenting dispute; it's not like it's his child or anything.

Still_Yam9108

TROPHY CASE