BruceVC

Anyways... yes. War is coming on both sides of the Atlantic. The question is how? Will it be civil uprisings or will the powers that be take us into another world war to avoid such uprisings? As they certainly know they are coming. It's openly talked about in many circles on this side of the Atlantic at this point. My money is on both, but I hope I'm wrong. The momentum towards hot conflict seems inexorable at this point, on many levels. You always were the master of theatrics. So another world war is coming is it. Interesting, maybe you can explain how during the Cold War where the USA and the USSR really didn't like each other they never went to war ,because of the reality of mutually assured destruction due to nuclear weapons, somehow now we are going to see another world war?

Annnnnnd you've missed the point. The Soviet leadership is indeed responsible for a significant loss of life in this period however it is incorrect to say they are wholly responsible and that all of these deaths were a direct consequence of these policies. The U.S.S.R at the time was a huge collection of republics that were at most semi-industrialised. Death on a large scale was going to happen regardless of who was in charge. Where the Soviet leadership succeeded was in pulling out of this crisis and managing to rapidly industrialise and eclipse the productivity of the West: Reducing it to merely "Stalin implemented policies than everyone died" is an inaccurate and dishonest portrayal that fails to capture the success and severity of the period. An excess of 4-24 million is quite the overshoot. And like I said, with a population that size, in a collection of republics with limited levels of industry, in a time of severe drought, a large scale of death is going to happen no matter what man or party is "in charge". Have you studied the era perchance? I say this because all of the historians I first mentioned, although they by no means support Stalin, they highlight his success and effectiveness as a leader. To quote a famous historian who certainly felt no love for the man: "[stalin] had found Russia working with wooden ploughs and left it equipped with atomic piles". - Isaac Deutscher This will be last ,my comment around Stalin on this issue because you don't seem to be understanding my point Stalin's agricultural reforms, known as Collectivization, were implemented between 1928-1940. This was his idea and his concept to make reform agriculture more efficient. It was an absolute disaster and millions of Russians died. It was not the Soviet leadership who decided this, it was Stalin as he was the undisputed leader of leader of the USSR at the time Even if only 100k people died its not the point, the point is if a leader of a country makes a policy decision around something like agricultural reform and the result of that means millions of your citizens die them you have made a bad decision and history will remember you as are bad leader. Of course Stalin made lots of other terrible policy decisions but I am not going to focus on that

This wasn't done arbitrarily. The state capitalism of the NEP had restored Russia and the republics to pre-war levels and begun to plateau. Not wanting to continue presiding over capitalism longer then necessary (kind of looks bad for a CP) and desperately needing to industrialise to "build socialism" and catch up with, and defend themselves from, the rest of the world they believed they had to simultaneously, collectivize agriculture, rapidly industrialize and abolish the remnants of "capitalist relations" (e.g. the kulak class). Given the large landspace, primitive technology, competing interests of individuals (both in and out of the party), poor-planning and ****-ups of the party combined with a massive draught (a common occurrence in the Slavic states) this naturally resulted in an catastrophic loss of life. Despite all this their policies were a success, industrial productivity surpassed the Western powers and they were able to defend themselves from the growing fascist threat. So a success with lots of tragedy. Worth keeping in mind is that the rest of industrialized powers took hundreds of years of colonialism, imperialism, raw worker exploitaton and slavery to achieve the same thing. Lol those statistics are ridiculous. The Black Book of Communism, a widely discredit piece where even the authors themselves admitted to inflating deathtolls says the maximum deaths in the era was 6 million. You said "Leader quality = number of deaths", I was merely following your logic. Oh well it was only 6 million people who died due to his agricultural polices, and here I thought it was a significant amount The point is that Stalins leadership was and is tarnished by the loss of Russian lives due to various initiatives he tried to implement, no rationale person can think he was a great leader unless you don't consider the death of millions of your citizens as relevant?

Monte please don't equivocate, its not clear from this post if you support the endeavors of Amnesty? Just be honest, people prefer honesty ....

Nah, that's far too simplistic. More Americans died under Lincoln than Bush but that doesn't mean the latter is a "better leader" than the former. Under Lincoln people didn't die because of policies he implemented to change how food was produced. Under Stalin anything from 10 million to 30 million Russians died of starvation You can't count the loss of American lives in the Civil war as a direct fault of Lincoln, the Civil war wasn't his decision. It would have happened irrespective if he had been president or not ? So that's not an accurate analogy

In western academia, once the archives were opened, the most prominent historians in the Soviet field (J. Arch Getty, Robert Thurston, Sarah Davies, Sheila Fitzpatrick etc) more or less debunked the "evil totalitarian" paradigm. Yes, they don't support Stalin in the sense that they're Stalinists or whatever but they do acknowledge although ruthless he was indeed a competent and thus "great" leader of the time (much like Sorophx's Russian pals). Of course the West can't be peddling an educational curriculum that's sympathetic to the reds so instead they stick with the flawed historical narrative of Cold War works like Robert Conquest and Service. But you know, crazy Russian propaganda vs glorious Western freedom. EDIT: RE: The comments provided by sorophx's Russian friends) Although I have no love for the Russian, nor U.S state I can't help but find it amusing that the "brainwashed" Russians have a more level headed (albeit wrong) approach to this whole situation compared to many of the "Free-minded" people of the West. Of course this is only two people so we can't be making sweeping conclusions but it's amusing none the less. I won't deny Stalin did something's right, but he had a complete and callous disregard for loss of Russian lives in whatever initiative he decided to implement. Whether it is was the war of attrition against the Nazi's or his disastrous agriculture reform programs, millions of Russian died to prove his policies didn't work . Surely the definition of any good leader needs to be measured by a comparison of the number of citizens who died during a persons reign? This should matter and if this is true then everything that Stalin did that was good is overshadowed by the horrific loss of Russian lives he is responsible for?

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/08/19/sex-romance-and-dragon-age-inquisitions-improved-relationships Guys it looks like Bioware will be implementing many of the Romance suggestions we have discussed and also have acknowledged past issues, like the " I'm giving you a present, lets have sex" This is good news

Its clear that Bioware is obviously taking criticism about there previous implementations of Romance seriously. You guys should be celebrating this as it looks like Romance in DA:I is going to be more realistic and varied. This is good news folks, I'm interested to see what will be different

Hi Melk "waves " Where have you been? It seems like you haven't posted in ages?

You know what's weird but I also remember that hot producer, I watched a video with her and at the time I was blown away by how beautiful she was. I wonder what happened to her and where she is working now?

This has been a very good exercise to see what Russians think around those questions, I have to be honest they answered some of questions better than I thought but you can still see the influence of the propaganda machinery especially around the younger Russian. For example thinking that Stalin was a great leader and that the Ukrainian separatists are defending there families, also he is basically in complete denial around the degree that Russia is supporting the separatists. The younger one also doesn't seem to have much knowledge of history which is always a problem when you want to understand current events in the world and how history defines current decisions leaders make . But once again good idea Chilloutman. And well done Sorophx for getting those response from your friends I'm also disappointed with several of KP answers, I hope other Americans answer and give other perspectives . I'll gladly answer those questions if you guys don't mind but obviously I'm not American so you need to say its okay

What !!! You mean you normally don't eat fruits and veg...so what do you normally eat?

If I'm in the majority, I should be able to have the society I want, not one where anything goes. Everything someone does affects the society in some way, people are social animals and no one is an island. For example, if you don't have stable families, you don't have a stable society either. People used to understand that, but now we're tending towards absolutism. Like I said, Republican party is already dead, now they're driving away their base. I see major political realignment coming, but for the foreseeable future I guess we're stuck with one party Democrat rule. Do you think if you criminalize homosexuality you will have more stable families? Because that's what they do in the Middle East and I wouldn't say there cultures or family structures are better off than the USA?

What happens when they are squatting at the location they don't want to work at and are preventing anyone else from working there? In fact I want to add to this valid point to give you an example of how out of control the trade unions are in South Africa. Our constitution says "you have right to strike " so strikes are generally always allowed but we also believe in the " right to work" yet in every single strike the striking workers not only prevent workers who want to work from going to work but there are always examples of people getting killed by strikers...getting killed for wanting to work. So the trade unions basically force all people who work for a company to go on strike, you don't have a choice. And that's not reasonable or acceptable

Also there are millions of fans, like me, who love the Witcher franchise and RPG world. There is still so much to explore and for CDPR to show us through future games, I want to see a Witcher 4,5, 6. and maybe even a 7

Sometimes governments have no choice but to end strikes using force Volo, sometimes they have no choice....

Wow that's an insightful and interesting post, good job

Thanks Bruce! They're so cool. Can you tell me moar of your "enemies" - i do want known moar progressive forces in Africa Trust me Oby even you wouldn't align yourself with the EFF, check there website http://www.economicfreedomfighters.org/ They are anti-western and anti white monopoly of the economy but the truth is they have no idea of how economies work or have much business sense. They consider Robert Mugabe a great and significant man

Got to be honest but that sounds f****g terrible, you definitely have an ability to convincingly describe how horrendous a situation can be

is he chubby, can you post a pic or two?

Not at all, I'm a DA supporter which is the main opposition party in South Africa. But just because I don't vote for the ANC it doesn't mean I automatically agree with any criticism they receive or think its justified. And in the case of Marikana they cant be held responsible for the massacre. The real "enemy " in the South African political arena is the EFF who believe in nationalization of the banks, mines and taking land away from white farmers with no compensation. They are populists and suggest economic policies that are tantamount to economic suicide for South Africa

Send a PM to Fionavar (head moderator) and they will fix this situation for you. Can I change my name to Gfted2? That way people will hopefully think we are the same person and since we share so many common interests, like campaigns around SJ issues, it just makes sense?

Cyril Ramaphosa. What's happening in Ferguson is mainly just 'respect my authoritah' from police who have got used to people kowtowing because anything else is too much bother and want to intimidate the resistance out of anyone who doesn't. It's crappy for sure, but they haven't actually been using their AR15s etc for direct personal gain or to attack the crowds with live fire with 'proper' bullets. OTOH Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy President of RSA- and board member and large shareholder of the Marakana mine's owner Lonmin- called on the police to end the strike. On August 15. The mass shooting's date? August 16. Of course, it's possible that those dates are coincidence, but if so it's one hell of a coincidence. I'm impressed, but its not the first time you have had some relevant knowledge of South Africa especially around unusual political and social events Many people do blame Cyril for the massacre, in fact at the moment the lawyer representing the slain miners at the special court around this matter called the Farlam Commission say he needs to be charged with murder http://www.lonminmarikanainfo.com/rep_farlam.php#.U_SfCU0cSpo But these accusations are based on political grandstanding and a way to undermine the ANC because the lawyer representing the miners is a prominent member of the EFF which is an opposition party in South Africa that espouses nationalization as a way to transform the economy The truth is Cyril was on the board of Lonmin and he did say the protracted strikes need to be ended. But anyone who understood how harmful the strikes were also said the same thing, we have a massive problem in South Africa with intransigence around what the Trade Unions want and expect. And they don't care if they drag the countries economy down with there unrealistic demands Also what Cyril said to the Police didn't change the facts that the miners had killed several people, they were extremely violent and they genuinely believed bullets wouldn't effect them which made them think they could challenge the police with impunity http://www.enca.com/marikana-miners-families-face-mr-x

I saw this, but the way I see if people are stupid enough to ruin the story for themselves before the game has been released then let them. I won't be doing it so everything will be exciting for me

Funny you mention that because that is exactly what I was thinking about. People are saying the USA police are being heavy handed but in South Africa 2 years ago we had the Marikana massacre which is what you are referring to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marikana_miners%27_strike But I don't have too much sympathy for the miners who were killed as there are parts of the story you probably aren't aware of. Firstly the miners for weeks were making the area and the mines ungovernable, secondly before the actual " massacre" the miners had death squads which were responsible for the deaths of 10 people that included Police officers. Then the miners were being manipulated into believing that the more mayhem they caused the more likely there strike demands would be met so they were very pugnacious. And finally, and this is weird part of the tragedy, is that many of the miners are uneducated people who still believe in superstition and magic. Witchdoctors had convinced them that bullets wouldn't harm them and they had nothing to worry about from the police So all these factors cumulated in the perfect storm. on the day of the "massacre" you had thousands of hostile and armed miners who were facing up against maybe a few hundred police. The Police were obviously concerned for there safety as some of there colleagues had already been hacked to death by the miners and you also had the miners thinking that bullets wouldn't effect them, they charged the police and police opened fire. Who do you blame? I blame the miners and the trade unions for encouraging violence. This was on them, the Police were defending themselves, I don't blame them