Just buy your games on GOG. No DRM

See, that’s bullshit because you can’t be outraged that Harvard admits foreigners but also pretend to not care about or be affected by Harvard at all.

This however highlights the fact that foreign students used to be a source of revenue for the USA. This is wealthy European money that was getting spent in America but now will likely be spent somewhere else.

This is also denying American Harvard business students the opportunity to establish lucrative connections with European money. You’ve heard of “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”? Poor Harvard students on a full scholarship who plan on setting up their own business someday could have benefitted from being classmates with the future queen of Belgium.

My point being that even if you fully subscribe to “America first”, this is still a really dumb policy that’s shooting America in the foot. Foreign students studying in America were, by definition, bringing money into America. No longer.

What you consider proof and what I consider proof might be different, so do you have a link to show what, SPECIFICALLY, you’re talking about? I’m not saying you’re wrong I’m just saying I don’t believe stuff randos on the Internet tell me unless they have links so I can know what they know

And he always proudly points out that he himself has never been personally bankrupt. Somehow, the fact that he always manages to bankrupt his investors instead of himself was seen as a good reason why America should become his next big investor.

I would say that:

-O’Brien keeps the machines running

-Bashir keeps O’Brien alive

-The black markwt keeps the economy running

-Quark keeps the black market running

-Rom and Leeta keep Quark’s running

-Odo keeps Quark in check

-Sisko’s reputation for DGAF ruthlessness keeps the Cardassians away

-Garak keeps an ear to the ground for the rare occasions when the Cardassians dare to plot fuckery

-Keiko keeps the kids from turning feral

-Kira keeps Bajor happy with the Federation setup

-Dax is also there

I would develop some city neighborhoods and set up some community land trusts to run them.

Alternatively, and I’m playing devil’s advocate here, but maybe there was more concern that someone might try to assassinate Luigi. After what happened with Jeffrey Epstein, authorities might have figured “the people will lose their minds if Luigi dies in custody, so let’s not take any chances”.

Interesting! Added to my wishlist.

I honestly think it would be interesting to play a game by sound alone, where you play as a blind person (maybe Daredevil or Zatoichi or something) and you navigate the world by listening. Ironically, it’d probably need to be on a VR headset so that the game can detect you turning/tilting your head and adjust the stereo balance accordingly.

Maybe Zatoichi would be best, as you could hear an enemy swinging a sword like “SHING” and “SWOOSH” etc, and maybe that would give you enough information to block or dodge. You’d probably also need haptic feedback to tell you when your blade connects.

Maybe there could be graphics, but only to recreate the sense of smell, like the screen is pure black except when you smell something and then a word appears on the screen like “rose” or “blood” etc.

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Remember that MAGA can’t empathize with someone unless they identify with that person. To MAGA, the struggles of immigrants are unimportant so focusing on them is targeting the wrong audience if we want to change minds.

More Americans need to watch The Grapes of Wrath.

“A red is any son-of-a-bitch that wants thirty cents an hour when we’re payin’ twenty-five!”

That’s a rug pull, though. Both the American and EU states only agreed to join their respective unions in the first place on the promise that these systems of balances would give them this level of input on union policy. Without such assurances, what small nation would ever agree to become inevitably subordinate to the whims of a larger state? It would never happen, and the western world would remain fractured into small nation-states constantly warring with each other, failing to cooperate and probably getting picked off, one by one, by nations like China or Russia which have no such qualms about forcing a union through conquest.

No, these unions were negotiated in good faith and if we’re unhappy with them now, then the answer should be secession. Brexit proved that nobody is forced to remain in the EU if they don’t like the deal.

Buy fairtrade bananas; it’s relatively easy to switch

The EU has a similar system:

• Each EU member state gets ONE seat at the EU Council, regardless of population. This is comparable to the US Senate.
• Differences in population size are accounted for by EU Parliament, where the number of MEPs (Members of European Parliament) a member state gets is determined by population. This is comparable to the US House of Representatives.
• Finally there is the EU Commission which is the executive branch, comparable to the US president and cabinet.

The point of the EU Council/US Senate is to protect isolated regions from getting steamrolled by urban regions. Farmers are comparatively few relative to city industry workers, but any nation, union or federation is built on the back of farming. However, due to the distance and lack of interaction between city dwellers and rural dwellers, it’s easy for city dwellers to grow disconnected from the reality of just how important the rural dimension is, and vote for laws that only suit the city. It is utterly necessary to create a system which balances the two. Otherwise you’d have, like, three states (New York, California, Texas) making all the decisions, with the other 47 states having to like it or lump it.

I still maintain that as great as DS9 was, it started Trek on a self-destructive path of constantly trying to go even darker and edgier. Gene had utopian rules for a reason, and although some of them were probably too restrictive, the whole point of Star Trek, the unique selling point it possesses that no other franchise has, is that it offers us a vision of the future that isn’t a dystopian hellscape. A positive look at what the future could be for us if we follow our nobler instincts. DS9 eroded that by suggesting that it was all bullshit, that the Federation was just as unenlightened as we are today, and although it made for a great show in the short term, in the long term it hurt the franchise because darker and edgier yields ever diminishing returns.

In fairness I think the memetic virus was meant to stimulate individualism and perhaps general revolt in the Borg, and Picard and co didn’t think it would result in the collective simply purging entire cubes remotely just to keep the contagion contained. The memetic virus was meant to be the nonlethal option. It turned out to be lethal only because Picard and co underestimated just how ruthlessly it would be crushed. Of course, then again, perhaps I’m misremembering.