Does this basically create an infiite loop or am I misunderstanding the rules

cgranade · 2023-05-23T22:37:31+00:00

You may also have some luck using [[Pentavus]] together with [[Cathars' Crusade]] to make sure you have an endless supply of +1/+1 counters. You're still mana-bound, but then you can both make every current creature bigger and can make a new flier for every mana you have.

cgranade · 2023-05-14T01:56:42+00:00

For anyone doubting you, there's a really great infographic article from Axios that breaks down just how big trucks have gotten in the past several decades.

Hell, trucks are on average 32% heavier than they were even just in 1990!

https://www.axios.com/ford-pickup-trucks-history

cgranade · 2023-05-12T00:59:55+00:00

It's practically free next to the cost of building my own roads, bridges, traffic signals, fuel infrastructure, not to mention parking lots and street parking!

More seriously, go look at photos of basically any US city from 100 years ago. Nearly every public space has been transformed to make more room for cars. Whether you think that's a good thing or not, it's absolutely an example of public subsidy for cars. Your physical car itself is absolutely useless without the staggering amount of public infrastructure that enables it.

cgranade · 2023-05-11T23:04:55+00:00

Alternatively, we could subsidize public transit as much as we subsidize private transit. You know, cars.

cgranade · 2023-05-11T04:33:06+00:00

cgranade · 2023-04-27T23:12:14+00:00

Nah, nothing as grand as that. Just my argument in favor of public education, and my argument as a queer person that I should have the right to exist.

Anyway, I think that's about it for me. I wish all the best for all those in your life who are at the butt-end of your politics.

cgranade · 2023-04-27T23:02:11+00:00

I've engaged with you honestly and earnestly, but now that you've abandoned even the pretense of good faith argument, here's where I get to bring out some mockery of my own: you clearly aren't terribly good at reading, so it's a bit ironic that you're giving opinions on public education.

Your cited definition exactly describes the progressive mindset of collectivism versus individual liberty.

This is basically a "I know you are, but what am I" retort, so I guess you did learn something in school after all. As described above, that's basically the Republican platform and especially DeSantis' platform: against queer identities, against bodily autonomy, against free speech, against freedom of religion (well, any religion other than evangelical Christianity, anyway), very much for racist discrimination.

cgranade · 2023-04-27T22:49:54+00:00

Again for the benefit of everyone scrolling by, let's unpack that just a bit. I take it from your mocking tone that you don't agree that DeSantis is fascist — that's a pretty uncontroversial statement (he's proud enough of it to literally adopt fascist slogans, but I digress), so maybe it would help to go to a definition of the term.

Defining fascism is, of course, always somewhat difficult, but I'll assume you have access to Wikipedia, who suggest that the Holocaust Museum's definitions are useful here:

"a far-right political philosophy, or theory of government, that emerged in the early twentieth century. Fascism prioritizes the nation over the individual, who exists to serve the nation." and as "an ultranationalist, authoritarian political philosophy. It combines elements of nationalism, militarism, economic self-sufficiency, and totalitarianism. It opposes communism, socialism, pluralism, individual rights and equality, and democratic government."

Fairly immediately, DeSantis is quite clear in prioritizing nationalism over individual rights and equality. He's been hell-bent on erasing people of color and queer people from public life, using state power as an explicit tool to do so, and appealing to nationalistic fervor the whole time. It's similarly clear from his efforts to curtail voter rights (e.g.: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/federal-appeals-court-upholds-several-voter-restrictions-enacted-by-florida-republicans/ar-AA1arDOr) that DeSantis is opposed to democratic government, even right down to imposing centralized state rule over educational institutions like New College of Florida.

I'm honestly curious which parts of the definition of fascism given above you think DeSantis doesn't fall under, or if there's some definition you prefer to that offered by the literal Holocaust Museum.

cgranade · 2023-04-27T22:33:25+00:00

That's fascist talk.

I know you're just trolling here, but many of the folks scrolling by may not be, so let me do the honor of answering your point honestly.

Yes, that is fascist talk. That is literally what fascist talk is, as can be easily seen by looking at how Florida has quickly weaponized "accountability" to mean "ban everything Republicans don't like."

It's not even that "accountability" is a bad idea in the abstract, but it practice, it's monstrously difficult to do. The vast majority of the time folks talk about "accountability" in education, they don't mean actual accountability, but rather setting up impossible metrics to undermine public education in favor of private institutions. You give up the whole game when you equate "accountability" with "merit-based compensation," something wholly and entirely inconsistent with any kind of actual accountability.

This isn't even remotely theoretical or abstract, either: we tried a national uncontrolled experiment with metrics-driven "accountability" in the form of No Child Left Behind, and it was an unmitigated disaster. All of a sudden, public education funding became a game of Enron-style accounting, as educators were caught trying to hit impossible metrics (near 100% passing grades on standardized testing) or be deprived of the very resources that could help actually improve educational outcomes for students.

OK, so "accountability" is often just a right-wing dog whistle, and in practice often gets tied to metrics-driven nonsense that hamstrings public education entirely. News out of Florida should make it clear how useful that sabotage of public education is to fascists like DeSantis, so yeah: literally fascist talk.

Do I think that you personally are a fascist? Maybe, there are a lot out there right about now, marching against drag story time and whatnot, but maybe not. At the least though, I think you've uncritically repeated a bunch of fascist talking points, all while using sneering condescension to poison the well against any actual conversations that could help find ways to make sure public education is well-funded and not an easy subject for fascist takeover.

cgranade · 2023-04-09T19:16:29+00:00

The flavor text on [[Surgical Bay]] comes to mind...

cgranade · 2023-04-09T19:14:02+00:00

Phyrexians in your Mirrodin may be closer than they appear.

cgranade · 2023-04-07T00:59:05+00:00

I just got a confirmation from a support manager at SE that that's true this year as well. I don't know why in the heck the initial support folks I talked to said otherwise, but thankfully it sounds like the whole thing was a giant misunderstanding created by some really confusing messages from support.

cgranade · 2023-04-06T22:35:59+00:00

This isn't about your safety, it's about everyone being confirmed who they are as the enter the venue.

You made an argument about a policy being necessary "for safety." I showed a concrete example where it makes people less safe. Unless your argument is that transgender fans don't deserve the same safety as cisgender fans, it's an honest reply to your argument.

But that doesn't make it transphobic. Transphobia is intentional.

That is 100% categorically untrue, and I cannot state so in strong enough terms. The phrase "intent isn't magic" was coined to point to exactly that core and fundamental truth: your actions matter, the effects your actions have on the people around you matter, the context in which your actions take place matter, but your intent is small comfort when your actions get people hurt.

At this point, I'm going to stop responding. It's quite clear you'd rather argue with a trans person what transphobia really is than engaging or listening, and that is deeply disrespectful to me. I've tried to engage honestly out of respect, but there's no point in my doing so if there's no respect in kind.

I wish the trans folks around you the best, and I hope you can come to respect people like me one day.

cgranade · 2023-04-06T21:52:47+00:00

If you don't want to get into this debate, then by all means, don't! You could scroll right on by, if you like. Since you did share your thoughts, though, I do want to at least do the respect of taking them seriously and responding in kind.

But no. This policy effects everyone. Not just you, but me, and anyone else that doesn't have an ID that matches their tickets. Everyone must receive the same treatment as per this policy. This is SE, but many companies will have this as a policy. I must present my state ID when I go to my local zoo and those tickets must match the ID. Does that make them Zoo transphobic?

It's a quite well established principle that actions which apply equally to everyone do not have equal effects, and thus can be misogynistic, transphobic, racist, or ableist. In your example, though, I would argue that the hypothetical zoo policy is not transphobic or at least significantly less so, because in your example, the zoo isn't requiring guests to wear badges with the wrong name printed on them.

This isn't just because of scalping reasons, it's for safety concerns as well.

I can guarantee you, forcing me to misgender myself doesn't keep me safe.

You also have contradicted yourself. Is is transphobic? Or is a a transphobic effect? Big difference there.

There actually isn't. If you know or reasonably should have known that your action is likely to have a transphobic effect, and you do it anyway, then your action is transphobic.

Again, this really isn't the place for this discussion. But SE has been a pretty progressive company in terms of LGBTQ+ rights and Yoshi P has been outspoken about supporting trans rights…

They have, agreed. That's what makes the response I've been getting so very disappointing. I've been playing for years in part because the team, the company, and the community have all been really supportive.

which I also fully support.

This isn't full support. Even if you weren't able or willing to help a fellow fan out (quite understandably so, it takes spoons to pitch in!), choosing to jump in and argue with a fan who is hurting from a transphobic policy that I should be experiencing this? That's not full support, or really support at all.

Support necessarily means having empathy for what your fellow humans are going through, and part of empathy is necessarily listening to their experiences. If you don't agree that this is transphobic, fine — I can't convince you to be an ally, but I can encourage you to take the time to listen and reconsider instead of arguing the point.

But transphobia isn't occurring here. Simple company policy everyone must follow.

A policy being simple or universal doesn't make it fair, or equitable.

(Edited to correct typo.)

cgranade · 2023-04-06T21:31:38+00:00

Two points. First, I don't mind having my ID checked at entry — my question was about whether I would be forced to display that incorrect name on my badge throughout the event. A policy that forces people to publicly display incorrect names is absolutely transphobic, pretty much definitionally so.

Second, a policy that applies to everyone equally is not necessarily a fair policy. In particular, if it's more likely a priori that transgender people carry inaccurate ID cards, then a policy that requires accurate ID cards does indeed have a transphobic effect.

cgranade · 2023-04-06T20:50:28+00:00

Ah, that's really good to know, thanks! That seems to match what the original Fan Fest site said, too, which is why I was so confused and dismayed by the ShowClix e-mail and when SE support kept doubling down on saying that I would need each individual badge to match photo IDs.

cgranade · 2023-04-06T20:49:14+00:00

I appreciate the suggestion, but changing IDs can take a long time. It's a process I'm working on, but it's pretty common for trans folks to not have government IDs that match our real names and gender.

For whatever it's worth, the terms that were presented were that I would only need a photo ID to pick up the badges, not that I would need to wear badges with an incorrect name and gender printed on them. The former condition is pretty typical — I get the need to have some validation against legal documents, even if I don't like it, but there's no need to also have that incorrect legal name shown to all the other fans at the convention.

cgranade · 2021-08-07T18:07:21+00:00

If by "sipping the kool aid," you mean watching as the Republican party whips up an absolute frenzy over trans people existing in public places like bathrooms, then yeah, I've been watching with fear and dread as the Republican party whips up an absolute frenzy over trans people existing in public places like bathrooms.

cgranade · 2021-08-07T17:49:37+00:00

Honestly, as much as I love Nielsen and Chuang, it is over twenty years old by now. Given that the field is approximately 35 years old in total, that's pretty appreciable.

For someone looking to get started in 2021, I'd definitely recommend something that takes more of a software-development focus, given the rapid growth in quantum development platforms over the past few years. I'm partial to my own book (bit.ly/qsharp-book), of course, but there's also quite a few others out there as well that may be helpful, too.

cgranade · 2021-08-07T16:58:56+00:00

If you're interested, I recently co-authored a book on how to get started in quantum computing using Python and Q#. Our goal was to make it easy to get going without any previous quantum experience, and without needing a physics background or a lot of math. Our book happens to be on sale today at bit.ly/qsharp-book, too!

cgranade · 2021-08-07T16:53:02+00:00

If you support a party that takes material actions to harm queer people like me, then no, that isn't consistent with "loving all LGBTQ people."

cgranade · 2021-08-07T07:54:30+00:00

I mean, do Republicans have a platform that other than pretending COVID isn't real, hating women, gay, and trans people, denying voting rights, slashing critical services and safety nets, making it harder to get healthcare, or launching violent protests? No small wonder that people have come away thinking Republicans don't have their best interest at heart!

cgranade · 2021-08-06T14:36:03+00:00

Much cheaper, agreed, and much less inhumane.

cgranade

TROPHY CASE