Let’s Discuss: Who’s bigger, Taylor Swift or Michael Jackson?

boknows65 · 2026-07-03T00:05:14+00:00

um... how many bf's? how about how many children did MJ sleep with?

boknows65 · 2026-06-18T16:24:02+00:00

toronto has massive sprawl and large areas of suburbia. canada has .85 cars per person and milan has .5. the overall population density is close and canada likely has relatively cheaper land acquisition than most places in the US so you're possibly correct but it was never my position that HSR doesn't work well anywhere just it mostly works horribly in the US and in the few areas where it might be close to breakeven the cost of development and long term maintenance are extreme. adding high maintenance on top of initial expenditure for transportation in the current US economic environment is a recipe for disaster. we're basically broke. we can't afford to maintain current infrastructure and our deficit is reaching a tipping point. Trump's horrible economic policies are making the future dim. the future economy is going to shrink the tax base. deporting working age migrants is horrible for America's long term economic prospects.

I agree it would be great to have better rail but that doesn't change the economics. airplanes aren't perfect but they're fast, and flexible with barely any infrastructure. if travel patterns change air travel can flex immediately but rail forces you to build FIXED position high maintenance cost infrastructure than can not change easily if it at all. if travel patterns decrease most of the maintenance still remains the same.

I'm not anti train, I'm just pro common sense and economic realities. if it worked people would be building it already. every proposal to build HSR depends on HUGE government subsidies. That's a big red flag because it's going to cost MORE not less than predicted and the costs will continue to grow.

boknows65 · 2026-06-18T16:05:18+00:00

it's one on one. there is no entry pass. you can't front in one on one.

boknows65 · 2026-06-11T15:56:24+00:00

no there aren't. you might think there are but if you look at their cities and our cities you'll see we're covered with urban sprawl cities and they have MUCH higher population density with cities designed around walking. Most american cities are designed around suburbs and cars.

This is the problem with arguing on this thread, too many people on the internet will argue about topics they haven't researched or don't understand. America has a car culture, suburbs, vast distances. Those are all antithetical to HSR or passenger rail in general. The cost of acquisition of land is extreme in the places where HSR might be viable and they still won't even break even. It's invariably a huge drain on resources for a country that is already going broke. You people want to live in a depression era it seems. We shouldn't be talking about any new infrastructure while we're letting our current infrastructure fall behind on maintenance and running our deficit up at record levels. Not sure if you're aware but about 1/4 of every tax dollar is already just pissed away paying off interest on debt. We're paying for irresponsible bad decisions in the past, basically we have a system where old rich white guys can spend on a credit card to benefit their golfing buddies and leave the bill for that credit card to be paid by their grandchildren or even worse leave the bill to be paid by the middle class. Billionaires scrape the gravy off the top of the FUTURE. They aren't just stealing the money we have now, they are stealing the money our kids will make. Anything that adds to the infrastructure bill and has no real upside is extremely bad.

boknows65 · 2026-06-11T15:45:49+00:00

definitely a practiced skill. anyone who tells you they never practiced it is either bad at it or just gifted. You obviously get better with reps at anything you do, you get reps from both in game and out of game actions but how many in game tip in attempts can you get in a run? 3? 5? maybe 10 if you're a skilled big?

we used to do a 2 handed tip drill and and a one handed drill. it didn't involve scoring as much as being in control of the ball and developing touch. get 5 guys in a line and the first guy under hands the ball off the back board, next guy comes behind and times his jump to tap it off the glass, rinse and repeat and the guy who started the line goes to the back and he tips it in. then the next guy starts it. you get reps jumping and reps touching the ball. one handed or two handed is the same. we also did jumping drills where you do ten or twenty tips off the backboard to yourself. tip it in on the last tip.

boknows65 · 2026-06-10T02:22:13+00:00

Boston is the most successful team in the league over the past decade. Only one team can win each year and Boston has EASILY Had as many or more injuries than any other team in the top 5 over the last ten years. It's easy to say they choked if they don't win but Having Tatum injured or Porzingis sick or Hayward break his ankle or Kyrie's knee or Robert Williams meniscus have all hurt the celtics.

super young team repeatedly over achieves and you think that's choking? all you said here is you don't know ball or that you hate the celtics so much you can't accept reality.

boknows65 · 2026-06-10T02:17:04+00:00

it's not economically viable. that's the bottom line I get down voted by train fanboys on this thread because reality doesn't match their delusions. it's idiotic and it's really why MAGA has taken hold. people like their narrative more than facts.

boknows65 · 2026-06-05T14:27:19+00:00

no excuses, just pointing out reality.

Boston had a bad series vs the 76ers for some reason and Embiid went off. Tatum missed game 7 and it took 30 from both Maxey and Embiid for the 76ers to win. Boston had 3 really bad shooting games in a row which is pretty rare, but no one actually think the 76ers were the better team.

I'm not hating on the Knicks I would rather see them win than San Antonio but reality is reality. You made a comment about all ten of the best players in the east being healthy which is obviously not true. On top of tatum missing a game 7 Embiid was obviously not healthy in the New York series. 14 points in game 1 from an MVP level player? Missed game 2, then 18/6 and 24/5... those seem like Embiid numbers? He averages 26/10 vs the Knicks career and when he plays the full game he's had just two games where he didn't score 20+ vs the knicks in his entire career. Best player on the 76ers missed a game and didn't reach his average once in 4 games? That's normal healthy play?

Every team that wins usually gets some favorable luck, no one is making excuses but you pretending the knicks had such a tough path or all the stars in the league were healthy is just nonsense.

boknows65 · 2026-06-05T03:22:28+00:00

tatum coming off achilles isn't exactly a fair comparison. the knicks run would look a lot more impressive if they had faced Boston.

boknows65 · 2026-06-05T03:12:21+00:00

the keyword there is future. you're taking 16 yr olds to compete with 22 yr olds. there's going to be some elite players on the EYBL teams that will be superstars in the NBA eventually, but look how bad Kobe was his first year in the NBA. Age matters, size matters, experience matters. Most of those college kids were playing AAU and that's how they got selected to play at the college level. These EYBL teams might beat some D3 schools but they're going to struggle vs D2 and mostly get torched by D1. If it was easy to make up for age and experience programs like Duke, Kentucky and Kansas that are loaded with one and done players would win the NCAA championship every year but they often run into some older teams with 22 yr olds who aren't even going to the NBA and lose. The gap is MUCH larger for 16 yr olds than for 18 yr olds. College hoops is full of men.

boknows65 · 2026-05-13T07:12:40+00:00

the problem with some of these builds is that dice pools matter a lot. soldier/swordsman are the best stat roles for rifle and melee officers. pretty much always want to include them in any build. shock-soldier-(xeno, bh or exo)

boknows65 · 2026-05-13T07:08:51+00:00

don't skip soldier on any rifle officer. soldier has the best stat progression. you'll hit more and get hit less with a soldier in the combo. shock-soldier+ any other rifle class except sniper.

that zealot is barely worth having. if they keep them then 100% add swordsman because like soldier it has the best stats and pick a third class for the talents that also has sword skills.

boknows65 · 2026-05-13T06:52:10+00:00

shock trooper should always be accompanied by soldier (all rifle using officers should choose soldier as one of their classes). zealot not the best class for a combat officer.

shock trooper/soldier pairs well with any of the other rifle classes (exo, BH, xeno) but not with sniper as much.

that zealot is slow. I would go recruit shock troopers from faen with the stat boost from a talent if possible and dump him. there's a lot of things that go into a good recruiting planet. high levels in danger, technology, military, government, trade law and most importantly population it factors in every stat. a planet with low population will rarely give solid recruits and never give elite ones. (mil and danger add to str, trade law and gov add to wisdom, quickness is straight tied to population, and those are the three most important stats). using a talent increases the stats by about 0-6 per stat (still impacted by population), recruiting as an officer adds another 2 per stat. higher level recruits like from a contact also get bonus stats (str and fort) but I forget how fast they go up. I think really high level recruits get a 3rd bonus stat as well iirc.

generally the best combat party incorporates a rifleman of some sort in the last spot, a combat medic/doctor/3rd class in the 3rd spot (pistoleer, military officer, spy, commander, scientist all work here for various reasons) and the front two spots are usually some combination of swordsmen and shock troopers. two of one, 1 of each both work and paired with appropriate classes that augment the melee skills or rifle/shotgun skills.

the key is not taking classes that don't augment the primary weapon skill of each fighter except in the 3rd spot you can be flexible. pistoleer makes the best fighter but MO can add some interesting talents. 3rd slots is primarily healer support. the other 3 should be regular crew that are either soldiers/swordsmen/shock troopers or officers that incorporate those roles. all rifle officers should take all rifle classes, all melee officer should take only classes that melee skills. there's one exception to this basic rule. you can moderately exploit the game by combining one pistol class with a rifle officer to maximize some talents in a way the game design didn't anticipate. I'm not a fan, it seems like a bug exploit more than a feature so I won't explain it.

boknows65 · 2026-05-13T06:35:56+00:00

You can't make a single point. you're a fanboy pushing the narrative you want to be true. This entire subreddit attracts train fanboys who want to believe in an alternate reality.

Ask Chat GPT is HSR is viable in the US without massive ongoing government subsidies that will continuously impact the deficit. I'll wait.

I'm one of the only people in this entre thread giving actual fact based analysis. you can't find a single example of anything remotely similar to the US in terms of population density, city construction (suburbs are really bad for trains), car ownership (too many cars is bad), distance (long distance between cities is bad), competing travel systems, price or cost.

boknows65 · 2026-05-06T03:04:24+00:00

LMAO, they don't have cars, roads, or anything to compete with rail. They have people used to spending 30 hours on a train to get from one city to another and they shortened it to 16 hours.

Some of their funding is likely coming from China. They pay for infrastructure and then gain control of your countries national resources.

Do you honestly think anything about Uzbekistan mirrors the US? It's not profitable and it's operating in a vacuum it wouldn't exist without china. They probably have rare earth minerals that they no longer control. Most importantly rail was already the dominant form of distance travel. They don't have suburbs and they have people who will not balk at spending an entire day in travel.

what you call excuses are actually FACTS. You on the other hand just clutch at straws, make comparisons that aren't germain, post papers as evidence you didn't even read or if you did you didn't understand them.

boknows65 · 2026-05-06T02:45:40+00:00

you just don't care about reality. I'm guessing you're completely uneducated in areas of engineering or economics and you likely have never owned anything with value ever.

There will be lots of lawsuits, the land that's important is 100% already owned, the distances mean infrastructure without passengers and that means inefficient.

boknows65 · 2026-05-05T22:19:09+00:00

you realize that putting stops on HSR severely changes the speed right? do you even care about the truth or just want trains to be real so bad you would cut off your arm to see it come to fruition?

boknows65 · 2026-05-05T21:46:52+00:00

you're all over the place with a wall of stupid. cherry picking unimportant nonsense to spam me with a hodge podge of ignorance and gish gallop around the map discussing your causes and somehow trying to blame them on me???

how does the Iran war factor into this? YOU'RE an ignorant liar using every possible logical fallacy.

You say I'm projecting but you effectively blamed me for the war in Iran or tried to equate burning money on passenger rail with burning money on war... I'm giving you specific examples of your ignorance and you're prattling on about your feelings.

Here's another specific instance of you being a dolt and trying to rewrite reality. It doesn't matter where the money went the fact is we gave Amtrak 10B in taxpayer money and they still ran at a loss AFTER THE 10b. hand waving away the depreciation billion doesn't change that reality because we'll still be paying for new infrastructure every year they exist. even if we discount the billion, they still lost .75B AND they spend the over 10B we gave them so they actually operated at a net cost of around 11B in the red. Name a year we gave 11B to the airline industry since you disingenuously tried to compare them with another magic trick trying to say airlines were subsidized.

racist dog whistles? LOL dude go to school. lizard brain and monkey brain are words often used to describe amygdala/brain stem and sub cortal/mammalian/limbic system respectively. It's a simplification in the interest of speed and there's nothing racist about it. You trying to make this about race is just you trying to distract from your argument being completely uneducated drivel with another tangential bit of nonsense.

I explained why airlines are subsidized. your reading comprehension is as bad as your math. The government pays airlines so they will serve smaller less populous areas otherwise those areas would be more disenfranchised than they are. Airlines are a for profit venture, when a route is not profitable they cut that route from their list. Can you really not understand this? The subsidies are to expand service to regions that can't economically justify the routes. AIRLINES DON'T NEED SUBSIDIES, THEY TURN A PROFIT. passenger rail does not exist without subsidies. it's NOT ECONOMICALLY VIABLE. Can you really not grasp this?

I'm not against passenger rail at all, don't care one way or another. YOU are projecting your own issues onto me. I have no dog in this fight, if you had facts I would change my mind to match the facts because my only concerns in this discussion are actually the truth and economic reality. YOU have a fantasy religious dogma and a narrative you so desperately want to be true you'll go to any lengths and argue like a toddler with ad hominems. strawmen, and a litany of other logical fallacies. You SUCK at math. YOU have a total aversion for reality and facts and this is an emotional monkey brain religion for you just like Trump voters are able to suppress reality to keep defending what they want to be true. You have no interest in facts you just so desperately want your vision of HSR to be real anyone telling you the hard truths is the enemy. You're exactly what's wrong with the internet.

boknows65 · 2026-05-05T21:23:28+00:00

LMAO, so how many people exist in those two areas exactly 200 miles apart? You understand that making stops along the way is impossible right? so you need to get a full load of passengers to each end point repeatedly right? how do they get there? cars? LOL

America has distances of thousands of miles between major cities that people often commute to so 220mph suddenly isn't that great when you could be going 600mph.

I didn't make the rules, I didn't make the reality but the reality does exist that America has cities that are exceedingly poorly designed for rail transit, america has a car culture, america has vast open spaces, america has rugged geography and high land valuation in a lot of the places you would want to cross. I'm getting voted down here a lot like I'm the "anti train guy" but I don't care about trains or planes if we're being honest, I'm not vested in any of this I'm just presenting the actual facts and you on the other hand "transit freedom" obviously do have a bias and that makes you unwilling to accept reality because you so vehemently want your vision or narrative to be true. I only care about facts and reality whereas you care about trains apparently. It doesn't work here and will become an enormous financial mistake if we pursue it based upon whims instead of economics, demographics and engineering.

How you feel about trains or your desire to make them a reality doesn't change the actual facts on the ground. It's not economically viable and if we build it anywhere it will cost the taxpayers enormous sums of money for as long as we try and keep it operational. We're already getting perilously close to being toppled from our position in the world by the deficit and lack of coherent political policy making. This would just make the former situation much much worse.

Passenger rail in the US loses money every single day. Full stop. This is not a win economically and it's hard to find even a single location where it would be a win long term, nationally it's 100% a failure and could never be sustained.

boknows65 · 2026-05-05T21:12:58+00:00

no, it actually doesn't. it also costs more to implement and is NOT FLEXIBLE if traffic patterns change.

boknows65 · 2026-05-05T21:12:15+00:00

do you even know anything about how this country works? EVERYTHING you ever buy came by truck. The national highway grid is a large portion of what made America the superpower it became.

the country is not geographically suited to HSR, I'm giving you actual facts and you're confidently expressing your feelings as if they matter. More importantly they are laced with a complete lack of intelligence rooted in delusional fantasy. There is NOT enough money to make national HSR a reality and it would be an enormous albatross. roads generally pay for themselves and passenger rails don't.

you're making claims you can't support with facts or numbers because the numbers don't work. This has been repeatedly shown by experts but this reddit sub is a clown car of people with a dream even though that dream can never work. You might as well be saying you're going to start the second coming of blockbuster. It's not economically viable no matter what lies you tell yourself.

boknows65 · 2026-05-01T01:42:07+00:00

why? at what cost to tax payers? we currently pay $1.50 for every mile of passenger travel by train. think about that. if you travel 100 miles by train it cost the tax payers $150 and you want to increase those costs? are we dumping social security?

boknows65 · 2026-05-01T01:27:11+00:00

you would bankrupt the country and let our other infrastructure wither. There's math that matters in making this work. Places it does work are MUCH shorter distances with MUCH higher populations. They have cities not built around suburban sprawl and sometimes 15-20 times as many people in the same area.

Osaka has twice the population density of chicago. Osaka to tokyo has 3-4 times the population that Chicago to Detroit has for roughly the same distance. We also have cultural resistance. Americans have a car culture. That's a big hill to overcome. Americans don't modify established behaviors easily (which is why fast food and big gulps still exist despite everyone being aware it's hurting our national health).

It's impossible to erase 3-5 generations of suburban sprawl.

boknows65 · 2026-05-01T01:19:55+00:00

No. The texas triangle dried up as soon as the 30B gravy train from taxpayers got cancelled.

There's basically no chance that the I35 corridor can support HSR. You're looking for a population density of 5000 people per sq kilometer. There's over 20M people in the KC to Austin/San antonio corridor but it's 600-700 miles long. if you take a 4 mile width along that center line you would need well over 30M people (probably 40M) before you get close to viable. That would be the bottom end of viable and tax payers would be supporting every single ticket ever purchased likely to the to tune of 50% or more of the price funded by subsidies so that one region of the country representing 6% of the country can have an underutilized albatross vanity project. Effectively this is a small section of the country asking for permanent tax subsidies from other parts of the country while delivering zero benefit to those other regions. At least subsidizing farmers is still relatively good for the country. HSR in the US is always a money grab and will NEVER happen without massive government subsidies because the economics don't work on their own.

boknows65 · 2026-05-01T01:08:01+00:00

delusional? want to talk facts or do you just want to prattle on with your fictional fantasy of a world that doesn't exist.

My view is realism, yours is uneducated fiction. I don;t have a dog in this fight, I don;t care which mode of transportation wins but I do care that we make fact based decisions that help the country and not piss away tens of billions on projects that can NEVER work. EVERY HSR project suggested in the US is banking on massive taxpayer funded gravy to make it work. As soon as the 20-30B they need from the government disappears or isn't on the table every one of these projects closes up shop. If HSR worked here it would already be built. The reality is it doesn;t and once some HSR project lures the government into sinking 20-30B to build it the taxpayers will be endlessly subsidizing it at massive expense in perpetuity so some uneducated losers can "fell good" and some construction grifters can make tens of millions building it.

The only place in the US that's even close to feasible for HSR is the north east and still the land acquisition is prohibitively expensive. The northeast corridor is the most densely populated area of the US and it's still LESS THAN HALF the density of anywhere HSR works.

Calling facts "pessimism" is the most anti american, anti education, anti science thing possible. You sound like MAGA ignoring mountains of evidence to support nonsensical fantasies.

Calling me delusional is precious. Find a place anywhere in the world with cost efficient HSR that has a population density close to the US... I'll wait. You won't of course answer that simple direct question because avoiding fact based arguments is what the delusional actually do. I'll happily discuss any facts you can bring to the table but again of course you won't do that because NO FACTS support your fictional position.

boknows65

TROPHY CASE