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Trying to build viable third parties by voting for them in presidential elections is like trying to build a third door in your house by repeatedly walking into the wall where you want the door to be.
  • Changing the voting system so that third parties are actually possible.

    You need a cardinal voting system, otherwise you'll fall prey to Durverger's Law and Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.

    I favor STAR, it's the best system designed to date.

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    unwatchable!!
  • Except the truth is that no, almost every venom is safe to ingest. Provided you don't have any cuts in your mouth or throat.

    Snakes are not immune to their own venom. They don't need to be, because their stomach acid can break it down.

    As can ours.

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    What's your radical opinion?
  • Ranked Choice is an Ordinal voting system that fails Arrow's Theorem.

    In some rare cases, it can produce a result even worse than First Past the Post. There are a bunch of flaws in RCV, because it was invented before mathematical evaluation was as robust as it is these days.

    Simulation, and some unfortunate real world examples, show that if you vote in and election with at least three somewhat viable candidates, and keep strategy in mind, you can rate your preferred candidate second and improve their chances of winning.

    No voting system should be able to do this. RCV has more flaws in addition to this already game breaking one.

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    What's your radical opinion?
  • It is literally to have a viable third party under First Past the Post. It boils down to Duverger's law. Or more broadly Arrow's Impossibility Theorem

    We need to focus on the actual voting system before we can start generating and supporting Third Parties.

    Specifically we need a cardinal voting system. It's literally the only way to gain viable third parties that are not just extensions of the major two.

    Sadly it's too late to get voting reform on any more ballots this year.

    But you can still get involved.

    https://www.equal.vote/

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    unwatchable!!
  • It's not a remake. It's a sequel with the same director and writing team as the first one.

    It also has a few truly disturbing scenes.

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    Japan to criminalise cannabis use
  • As a teen, the main question I had was, "can I make a pipe out of this?".

    Now that I'm old, the question is mostly "why the hell is this still illegal on a federal level?"

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    Trump refuses to say if he wants Ukraine to win the war
  • It would have made shit so much worse, but is a sign of weakness in Putin's rule.

    That's why Putin is so murder happy right now. He's having to reconsolidate his rule.

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    Trump refuses to say if he wants Ukraine to win the war
  • Ukraine was a massive fuck up for Putin. He believes in the bullshit known as color revolution.

    So he thought he'd pull one in Ukraine. A few years of some soldiers fucking around in the East, then he'd walk in and be welcomed.

    Which is fucking stupid.

    But Putin has long since killed anyone who would tell him that an idea is stupid, or that people don't work the way a paranoid, backstabbing KGB trained psychopath thinks they do.

    No, Putin fucked up hard due to the dictator trap.

    Now he's scrambling. He's been killing off rivals and opponents at a breakneck pace the last few years, all because his position has never been weaker.

    And he barely managed to diffuse a coup attempt.

    He had to use treachery to do it, so the next time, the coup leader will not back down.

    No, Putin is desperate to pull out some sort of win in Ukraine, because anything else is the end of his rule, and likely his life.

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    Debate wrap up: No one has ever so thoroughly dominated Donald Trump
  • Being dominated in a consensual way, takes a sort of self awareness and acceptance of your own weaknesses.

    Trump lacks any self awareness, and has likely never been part of consensual domination.

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    Lord of the SCIENCE
  • Now I'm thinking about a pair of elves is the worst sort of codependent relationship, but one light year apart.

    They use sign language to constantly argue and make up with each other, but because of the one light year delay, they're maybe never quite at the same place in the argument/reconciliation cycle, both of them arguing with their counterpart one year prior.

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    Trump calls Elon Musk by wrong name as his biographer says the candidate is 'hyper-aware' voters are doubting his mental acuity
  • For this year at least, it's too late to replace Trump on the ticket. Unless they replace Trump with Vance. That would comply with the rules. Sort of. Trump's name would still be on the ticket. But Vance would take lead, and would pick a running mate.

    There are two major factors that would keep this from becoming a reality. First is Trump will never step aside in favor of someone else.

    Second is that Vance has negative charisma.

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    Is it me or is everyone in hexbear insane?
  • That's some blatant Russian propaganda there. Blame NATO twice for Russian imperialism.

    The "Russia had to invade a sovereign nation because they were talking about joining NATO to prevent Russia from invading them" logic has some holes to it.

    The fact that Russia has invaded their neighbors 14 times since the end of the cold war tells you why one of their neighbors would want to join NATO.

    Also, remember that time that Russia shot down a commercial airliner? The Ukrainians sure as hell do. That was the true beginning of the invasion, which is why Ukraine was in talks to join NATO.


    And yes, people have the right to defend themselves. But the Israeli government has locked down the anti-terror propaganda, because Hamas is pretty vile as far as organizations go. It's why Israel let Hamas grow and become powerful, and why the Israelis paid to keep Hamas in power for the last decade or so.

    As long as Israel can point at Hamas, they have just enough of an excuse to claim their ethnic cleansing is actually just an anti-terror campaign.

    Hamas is a full on terrorist organization, not that all terrorist organizations are bad. Or rather, there are some causes where a terrorist organization is the appropriate response. John Brown tried it. So did Nelson Mandela. But Hamas is a religious extremist terrorist organization. One that has distasteful views, and was sort of put in place by Israel for those views.

    You see what I'm getting at here? Hamas is fucking evil, and Israel has mostly succeeded in making Hamas the face of Palestinian resistance against Israel.

    I doubt many of the original leaders of Hamas are still alive, but that doesn't matter either when Israel can just lie and say that whoever they kill is Hamas. It's a bit maddening, and I doubt there's an answer to it all except for the other Palestinian resistance groups to step up their social media game.

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    Is it me or is everyone in hexbear insane?
  • There was no economic or rational factors. The only thing that makes a lick of sense is the irrational.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/putin-dictator-trap-russia-ukraine/627064/

    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/3/24/22982864/vladimir-putin-russia-ukraine-war-brian-klaas

    Those are a warm-up, but then you have the purges since the invasion began.

    https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-purges-in-putins-shrinking-inner-circle

    Putin has sort of been the butt of jokes for years for killing anyone who looks at him funny. He's a KGB stooge, who made his career out of backstabbing and paranoia. His entire inner circle were afraid to tell him the truth, because he would kill them if they did.

    He's never been "savvy", he's just been willing to kill as many people as necessary to secure his own power.

    The classic authoritarian dictator who throws people out of windows for saying no. And whose vaulted military had body armor made of cardboard, because the corruption was so ingrained that every single level was accepting bribes and stealing shit.

    I'm surprised that they're still going, but Russia has shown the world that they're a third rate military, at best.


    As to Palestine. It doesn't matter what the resistance movements call themselves now. Israel will just say they're Hamas, and no one likes Hamas. There are good reasons not to like Hamas, they're religious extremists who want to kill all Jews.

    And for decades, Israel has funded Hamas behind the scenes, while coming down extra heavy on any other resistance movement. And now it's all paid off for them because they can just claim that anyone they kill was actually Hamas.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/

    This tactic of creating the perfectly detestable opposition has been used in quite a few places. For example, Greenpeace gets a lot of money from oil company heirs. Specifically the Rockefeller family.

    I doubt anyone from Hamas, or Greenpeace, ever took orders from the people giving them money. They were given the money with no strings attached, because they were already jackasses. The money just extended their reach.

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    Is it me or is everyone in hexbear insane?
  • Everyone knows Putin invaded Ukraine because he's a dumbass dictator who started to believe his own propaganda. It's the dictator trap. Putin surrounded himself with backstabbing yes men by literally killing anyone who wasn't.

    As to Palestinian resistance. I don't think Hamas is a good resistance movement. For a whole host of reasons. Which is why the Israeli government has been propping them up since the 80s.

    An unsympathetic resistance movement can do more to damage a cause than not having a movement at all.

    From now until the ethnic cleansing is complete, Israel will call any resistance movement Hamas, regardless of their actual name or beliefs. I'm not sure how to fight that... I don't think anyone really knows beyond screaming the truth everywhere we can.

    It didn't work in the 1920s in Europe. But maybe with the Internet... Likely not though.

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    What is the most severe case of brainwashing you have seen?
  • Yeah, while there are dozens or possibly hundreds of flavors of "wicca". The first tenent is almost always some variation on "do no harm". Normally phrased something like "as it harms none, do as thou will"... Which is odd phrasing for something written in the last century.

    The main exception is those who follow Crowley. His whole deal was "do what thou will shall be the whole of the law".

    Crowley was mostly in it for the shock value.

    And again, Crowley's "ancient wisdom" is newer than the invention of photography. We even have recordings of him speaking.

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