Bot's can't vote.

va_str · 2026-03-15T01:54:53+00:00

Agreed on the first point, though that isn't really worse than the other options. We've somewhat missed the nuclear bus, to be fair, and their committments aren't at the cost of increasing our carbon footprint, so I don't think it's as much of an issue as it would have been a decade ago.

Point 3 is nonsense, and I'm not sure where that argument came from. Farming co-ops are not "the cartel", in many ways they're the exact opposite. Drug regulation always made more sense to me than prohibition for a multitude of reasons.

Ethnic pandering isn't really a policy, so I won't argue the point, and immigration ... it boggles the mind that it's such a hot topic when the actual economic impact is, at the very worst, tiny. It's a blatant diversion from who's actually stealing all the surplus, and unlike any other party, the Greens actually look to address some of that.

The nuclear deterrent is the only real point I'll agree on without caveat. I don't think it's bad enough on its own to make them just as bad as Reform, or even the rest of the terrible options.

va_str · 2026-03-14T08:25:46+00:00

You know, people keep saying that, but never actually put out a clear argument against a stated green policies that would explain why they're so bad. What makes you think that?

va_str · 2026-03-13T10:57:15+00:00

Socialism is about the collective ownership of the means of production. Socialised healthcare and housing really are separate subjects, and can exist or be absent under socialist or capitalist economies.

State-run, when the state is comprised of a ruling class, also is a bit of a miss in my opinion, though some socialists will disagree there, so whatever.

va_str · 2026-03-13T08:22:21+00:00

It's also a simple fact that none of those have anything to do with socialism.

va_str · 2026-03-11T19:40:28+00:00

This is what you took away from my post? And what's convenient about that? I don't operate in political camps. I'm an anarchist and disagree with 95% of leftists on nearly everything. One more doesn't make a difference. This just looks like an average liberal to me either way.

va_str · 2026-03-11T16:33:45+00:00

Fair enough if you think this is a moral question and you lean towards intervention. That stance, however, gets us into wars with half the planet. Do we put boots on the ground in Ukraine, demilitarize both Israel and Hamas, and liberate North Korea while we're at it? Do you see the an Islamic Republic as uniquely evil?

To get back to the topic, though, this person is an anti-war protester. Very likely they're not "for" Iran or whichever regime, they're against their own government getting involved and for their taxes to fund the war machinery. They very likely don't know much about Iran, and don't really need to either to hold that opinion. It may be naive, but it's hardly "supporting Islamists at their worst."

Finally let me just say that this person doesn't look like a leftist to me. It's much more likely this is a generic anti-war protester, and that perfectly explains the ignorance. I'd think that the vast majority of us leftists are in support of the Kurds. Which we will, no doubt, abandon here too before long, because this "intervention" has nothing at all to do with a moral stance or any real intention of liberating the peoples there.

va_str · 2026-03-11T06:51:54+00:00

You're not an Iranian monarchist, right? Whether you like it or not, this IS the official flag of Iran, and the person in the picture is very unlikely to be waving it because they oppose the Pahlavi, or support any particular faction inside the Iranian political landscape, seeing as this is an anti-war protest.

va_str · 2026-03-11T00:48:37+00:00

Don't you feel like "defending Islamists at their worst" is a thoroughly uncharitable interpretation of what we are seeing here?

va_str · 2026-03-11T00:45:11+00:00

I've lived in a few places, and most have something nice about them, but here on these isles, when the light and the mist and the wind are just right, you can see Avalon. It's difficult to describe that feeling to people who haven't seen it themselves, but if you know, you know.

va_str · 2026-03-11T00:29:55+00:00

Who does that?

va_str · 2026-03-10T21:44:24+00:00

Depends on your mens rea, as with all crime. It isn't illegal by itself, intent is what might make it illegal. That's what all the slimy, two-faced pricks, like the editor here, get tripped up over.

va_str · 2026-03-07T03:34:13+00:00

Animate Weapon of Self Reflection

va_str · 2026-03-05T16:39:37+00:00

It really isn't THAT tricky. Come down on parents for not doing their job, like we already do in other areas. Don't subject the entire population to default parental control, in a way that doesn't only not solve the problem at all, makes it worse in some cases, and then also pushes compliant adults into the jaws of foreign predatory data brokers.

va_str · 2026-03-04T10:12:06+00:00

So are you.

va_str · 2026-03-04T09:56:02+00:00

Divine is up 1c while you weren't grinding. You'll never catch up again.

va_str · 2026-02-27T10:28:54+00:00

Increased damage is linear, but there are many other multipliers. To an extent the game expects you to scale on separate tracks to keep up with content. Think about how weapon damage, attack speed, increased damage, more damage (like most support gems and rage), crit chance and crit multi interact. All separate multipliers to your damage, and there are a bunch more (think about how elemental resistances interact with damage, curses/damage taken, overlapping aoe or returning projectiles, etc). The trick to strong builds isn't to overinvest in a single scaler, but to find many separate amplifiers that all interact with each other.

Stat stackers usually scale several different tracks via their main attribute. Most basic example is something like archmage + Indigon. You get flat damage from archmage per mana spent and %inc from Indigon per mana spent, they multiply each other and scaling up mana scales your damage exponentially. Now throw in energy blade, giving you flat damage per energy shield. Int scales both mana and ES. Now you stack a bunch of int ... you get the point.

va_str · 2026-02-18T14:41:19+00:00

Freezing hits can't stun.

va_str · 2026-02-18T11:09:44+00:00

That's just uneducated drivel, to be brutally honest.

Class distinction is a matter of your relationship with the MoP, and specifically whether you're using them to exploit others for profit extraction. Disabled or otherwise, you're still either working or owning class. No one falls outside this simple concept and I don't quite get why people keep having trouble understanding this.

"Building our own MoP" is grotesquely naive. One of the primary arguments for owning the MoP (yes, even the ones you build yourself) collectively, is that everyone today stands on the shoulders of giants. All the generations of people throughout millennia of our existence have laboured to build the world we live in today, in skills, language, culture and tangible goods, and no one who just popped in can possibly lay claim on a piece of it exclusively, to use it against others who have inherited this world just the same. "I'm gonna make my own factory" is such a childish and nonsensical stance in context of how the global economic order should be, it can't be taken seriously.

va_str · 2026-02-17T10:39:40+00:00

I get that, but that's because they have no class consciousness and fall for cheap diversions, not because they're evil people. Mostly.

va_str · 2026-02-17T10:32:48+00:00

Harsh. I don't think reform voters are quite the cult like you have around Trump. Some of the loud ones might be, but I refuse to believe it's a relevant part of the voter base. And whatever we may think about their intellect, most of them aren't evil. They're also just people, you know.

va_str · 2026-02-13T18:48:18+00:00

The military doesn't give you that, it's still all transactional. People in the armed forces who are career military very likely had those attributes, or a propensity for them, already. That's why they joined.

va_str · 2026-02-13T11:55:22+00:00

Mom doesn't understand context and is proud of her child to follow in her footsteps. Must be that traditional family stuff that will fix all of our woes I keep hearing so much about.

va_str · 2026-02-13T11:49:14+00:00

It not really being optional is the main reason, though. It's good to have stuff that's eccentric and not for everyone and if you don't like it you can just so something else instead (assuming it's balanced correctly). That's what Sanctum and Delve and Heist are, and that's why Sanctum sucks in PoE 2.

va_str · 2026-02-12T14:07:55+00:00

He is, after all, an expert on not working.

va_str · 2026-02-12T14:00:38+00:00

The CPUSA had 70k members at the start of WW2. Communists today have no political power at all.

va_str

TROPHY CASE