Oerwinde

How so? Heads of state are generally in charge of foreign affairs, where his charisma and strength of will would have been huge assets, as they were while he was in power, but the negative aspects, like removing term limits, disasterous economic policies, etc, wouldn't have been able to go through. Like if Mugabe had quit after 2 terms he might have been remembered fondly instead of as a dictator, Chavez will be remembered as the man who set Venezuela on the path to ruin. Good points raised I am very impressed with how you research certain African historical events like Apartheid Whats your interest in these events..most people dont care unless you South African I was pretty active on the Althistory wiki for a while, and I contributed to a bunch of articles on South Africa for the 1983: Doomsday timeline. The point of divergence was 1983, so Apartheid was still in effect. When the guy who was doing the Zimbabwe article bailed and his article was rejected, me and another guy moved on to that one too. So in order to get a realistic idea of how the timeline would have gone in those areas, I needed to research some of the history and the state of the area at the time. I'm also kind of interested in how the white minority rule decolonized states were so successful then collapsed after majority rule was granted. With many black leaders just doing terrible jobs I'm interested in why that is. Just in general I'm a history buff, I found I wasn't interested in various parts of history until I had to research the areas for articles on the wiki. I also played a game or two as Transvaal in Victoria 2, and research for the colonial period of my own alternate history timeline. I really think Alternate History would be an interesting teaching tool, as asking what would happen if things went differently makes you have to look hard at why things happened as they did.

How so? Heads of state are generally in charge of foreign affairs, where his charisma and strength of will would have been huge assets, as they were while he was in power, but the negative aspects, like removing term limits, disasterous economic policies, etc, wouldn't have been able to go through. Like if Mugabe had quit after 2 terms he might have been remembered fondly instead of as a dictator, Chavez will be remembered as the man who set Venezuela on the path to ruin.

What's been happening in Venezuela the last few decades is quite complex, and certainly what's been going on to hurt Venezuela is a bit more than Chavez's policies.There's been little in the western media about the nation other than to demonize Chavez. One should ask themselves why Chavez (or anyone for that matter ever) is demonized. That said, Chavez wasn't perfect (ie: he was a socialist and I'm no fan of socialism) but he did have his nation's best interests at heart much more than almost any current western leader does. That counts for more than a little in a world where most nations' leaders (and most major candidates who ever run to be leader) are at the end of puppet strings of globalist bankers, et al. Oh, I liked Chavez. I probably would have voted for him back in the day had I been Venezuelan. After seeing the Oliver Stone documentary on all the Chavista leaders being elected across South America in protest against US influence I really thought he was a good guy, and he very well may have been. But the policies he put in place have lead to a complete economic collapse in Venezuela, and its looking like hyperinflation. My turn to the right has only happened recently, but seeing Venezuela fall so far is one of the reasons I did so. Had Chavez been the head of state with a more right leaning head of government handing domestic issues I think he definitely would have been remembered fondly.

After seeing what Chavez' policies have done to Venezuela....

You also live in a place where "ethnic" violent crime is unusual. Where you live most crime has an economic motive. It's a little bit of a different story when a insular ethnic group begins comitting violent crimes and the police are ordered to back off and let it happen. The order is not in those many words but the outcome is the same. The problem here is that when criminal behavior is not punished and steps are not taken to prevent it from law enforcement which is supposed to be dispassionate it will be done by the "people" who cannot be dispassionate. Then the ugly things like blaming all immigrants for the crimes of a few start to happen. I haven't looked into it much, but are these Sons of Odin types really even forming in communities that have a lot of immigrants or Muslims? I mean, neo-nazi groups tend to form in places that are predominantly white and poor. I don't know what the north american chapters are like, but my understanding is they mostly formed in major cities in northern Europe. Helsinki, Stockholm, etc. Where there was widespread muslim sexual assaults and a lack of action by police. I know they were patrolling train stations, which was where the majority of the attacks were taking place.

I'm not sure I can sit through this video...did you read the you tube summary..he says the video discusses topics like " catastrophic economic decisions, the devaluation of the S.A. Rand, rampant price inflation, affirmative action, family structure, one of the worst education systems in the world, unemployment, Eskom’s rolling power outages, white flight, rising criminality, an astronomical murder rate, horrific rape statistics, the rampant sexual abuse of children, prevalence of HIV/AIDS, white farmer genocide, police corruption, President Jacob Zuma, the “kill the Boer” song, life expectancy, road fatalities and the untold history of Apartheid." Thats only focusing on the negative....it doesn't seem very objective ? It talks about how Apartheid is looked at entirely as a racist system, while there were many more factors at play, and how economically blacks in SA were more prosperous and were receiving better education that pretty much any other African country, a black middle class was slowly beginning to emerge because of it, and the limitations on blacks and coloureds were being slowly eliminated as wealth and education increased. He posits that the segregation laws were to prevent conflict between rich whites and poor blacks while fighting communist influence that was trying to stir up ethnic conflict, and that as communist influences decreased and black wealth increased the limitations were being pulled back. When outside forces started pressuring them to move to majority rule it harmed the economy, blacks were hurt more economically than whites were, and eventually when Apartheid was abolished it put poor illiterate people with socialist leanings in charge of the country, and policies aimed at increasing black representation hurt the education system and drove skilled whites away, crippling the economy. He claims that ending Apartheid before a black middle class had developed, which was happening, killed that emerging middle class and doomed South Africa. He uses Israel as a modern example for the motivations of Apartheid, where granting Palestinians, who would make up a large majority and are largely poor, full voting rights would destroy the state of Israel, as the new majority would quickly pass laws that would redistribute wealth from the wealthy jewish population to the poor Palestinian population, create a huge welfare state, which would quickly make Palestinians reliant on the state, the economy would be crippled, and the Palestinians would blame it all on the jews, creating even more conflict and violence. So is Israel keeping Palestinians separate because they are racist, or because they don't want their country to collapse? It also talks about how the Bantu were also a migrant population that immigrated from more central africa around the same time the Dutch were colonizing, and there wasn't a lot of conflict between the Dutch and the native inhabitants, while the Bantu wiped them out, yet the Bantu are seen as victims while the Dutch are horrible imperalists who don't belong there.

Thats a long video but I think I will watch it, thanks for the link But just to be clear can you explain what you mean by "anarcho-capitalist "..what exactly does this ? He believes that the state should be replaced with voluntary private corporations serving the free market, Which just sounds like nonsense to me. You would essentially have competing private police forces all enforcing their own laws, competing private judiciaries. It would be like if large population centres operated like the old American West.

Bookmarked. Just finished his The Truth About South Africa and Apartheid, Bruce might be interested in it and be able to shed some more light. His anarcho-capitalist views are entirely foreign to me and I don't see it working in the real world, but I like that he is able to find the good in things he doesn't believe in and the bad in what he does.

Ha! I find some of the things that come out of him intentionally hilarious. The man isn't dumb. Stefan molyneux has a good video outlining all the claims about trump and contrasting them to what he actually said that was quite good. Also quoted the art of the deal where trump talks about his media strategy being to be outrageous so people will talk about you. Free media coverage and people will be caught off guard when you are serious. I generally watch most of Stefan's videos where a caller isn't involved, and I did see the one to which you're referring. Stefan is usually good about contrasting fact from fiction in the modern world, at least on mainstream issues. And yes, Trump is a genius. Hillary's only hope is that the zombies have reached critical mass nationwide. Wo is the U.S. if they have. I actually like some of the call in ones. The Merkel Destroying Europe one I liked, and the Objectivist one I liked. I use an app that converts the videos to audio streams and just listen at work.

Ha! I find some of the things that come out of him intentionally hilarious. The man isn't dumb. Stefan molyneux has a good video outlining all the claims about trump and contrasting them to what he actually said that was quite good. Also quoted the art of the deal where trump talks about his media strategy being to be outrageous so people will talk about you. Free media coverage and people will be caught off guard when you are serious.

This seems really unnecessary..sorry guys I just think this type of initiative is more divisive than helpful Shouldn't I be scared of these guys? They were established as a response to the police not protecting women against muslim rape gangs for fear of seeming racist. So I doubt it.

The Ender's Game director felt Ender was unlikeable so he didn't want to have any scenes he wasn't in for fear audiences would disconnect from him. This ended up cutting a lot of world building and interesting characters, so IMO it was a huge mistake. And those Power Rangers outfits are much better than the Rita costume.

Fantastic Four, the newer one. It actually wasn't that bad. Doom was crap. Like literally, he looked like a green humanoid poop, but the rest of it wasn't that bad. A tad dark for the FF IMO, but up until the accident it actually was decent. Black Johnny Storm wasn't nearly as good as Chris Evans. Like not even close, but Miles Teller and Kate Mara were pretty good. I really don't think it deserved the hate it got. Give it back to Marvel though, I at least have faith they can get Doom right.

If the people don't facilitate constructive discussion, I'd argue the people are at fault not the rules. Changing the rules should be the last resort. More rules does not equal better discussion, even more specific existing rules doesn't either. The more rules there are the more they are abused and the greater the tendency is- as the opposite from encouraging actual discussion- to have personal feelings and personal opinion be paramount. Say there were a rigorously enforced "no cheering death" rule. Perfectly reasonable, on the face of it. Still open to wildly different interpretations though. Enforce it even handedly and you end up banning a bunch of people who celebrate Osama bin Laden's death, enforce it selectively and you just get rid of 'wrongthinkers' like Qistina or Oby who cheer the wrong deaths. Is having a Abrams vs T## argument cheering death because they've both used to kill people? Or you just end up not having any discussion at all because you can't be sure which edge of the rules you're skirting as there's an endless list of hypocritical to mutually contradictory precedents where nothing/ something happened previously. This happened on the Althistory wikia. The head moderator was a guy who saw the wiki guidelines as that, guidelines. The community there was fantastic. Everyone helped each other and collaborated of tins of great content. He got burned out and wanted to pursue his law and writing careers and left one of the hardworking minor mods in charge. Turned out the guy was an absolute rules lawyer and enforced the exact wording of the guidelines rather than their spirit. Half the community left, including me, because it was a constant fight over what was and wasn't acceptable.

I do this too.

You're a pretty different kind of troll from the others - there are different kinds - but if it makes you feel better to call me a troll back, well... Volo is the forum mascot.

So it appears that I've crossed the axis. Redid the I Side With quiz and ended up tied at 79% between Donald Trump and Austin Petersen. The political compass puts me in centre right (because I still support socialized health care and government funding of space exploration). Crap happening in Europe with immigration, the complete failure of multiculturalism, and Venezuela heading for triple digit inflation has shattered my idealized vision of the left from my youth. I am in my thirties now, so I guess its true what they say about being a liberal in your twenties and a conservative in your thirties.

I remember Ye Olde, but I wasn't very political back then so I mostly lurked, I think most people there moved on to Missy's when BIS merged into the Interplay forums. I miss the devs interacting. Its the thing I miss most from the BIS forums.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9352846&fileId=S014976771400028X So Pilates is a white supremecist exercise. Critical Dance Theory FTW Don't know if this had been posted before, but holy crap. Comedy Goldmine: https://twitter.com/real_peerreview

Tigranes I think you guys do a great job considering the reality of how discussions flow and change and how sometimes people debate and how things heated But this criticism about the mentally retarded children I don't understand? Can you explain what was so bad about it as sometimes I misunderstand forum etiquette This is my view, we having a normal debate where certain people seemed to be antagonizing each other ...but this is normal? Now just because Barti and Hurlshot think its inappropriate why should that matter in the slightest? Isn't there a general forum rule that not all debates you need to agree with or think are relevant ..and the only reason I am asking is have the forums become vituperative? Discussions on topics such as this are bound to get heated, but I find they tend to simmer down and we just get peaks and valleys. Most people here are good people, Bruce included. A warning is usually all it takes for people to calm down because I think despite our differences, we have a lot of respect for each other here. As for the mentally retarded discussion Bruce, its mostly because some people are really sensitive to the word retarded. Its become more of an insult for people who act moronically or in a way people think is stupid, rather than as a scientific term, and because of that, people who know developmentally disabled people and the PC tend to not like to use the word as they see it as disrespectful to the developmentally disabled. Some people therefore think it shouldn't be used, and others just see it as the evolution of language same as the word ****.

Squirrels dug up my potato plant now. Used to think they were cute, now I just want to catch one red handed, snap its neck, and leave it as a warning for the others.

Kinda sad about Lionhead. I liked Black and White, The Movies, and the Fable series. Though Fable Legends didn't really appeal to me, being a multiplayer game.

I watched the whole video, it had some interesting points but also many comments that were simply misinformed and based on a level of bias Oerwinde if you are interested I can go into more detail but if you not so keen then its fine but I will refute the overall message using facts and current examples so it may be interesting ? Go for it Bruce. Its not much of a discussion otherwise

Common values are important for a stable society, and the rates of immigration in the west are making assimilation more and more difficult, which breaks down the common values. One government official got a lot of flack a few years back for referring to the Irish as "culturally compatible" with Canada, while trying to attract Irish immigrants. He was called racist and had to apologize for his remarks, but he was right. The Irish are white, generally christian, who live under a parliamentary liberal democracy, and speak english. They are essentially the ideal immigrants, because they can fit in right away with maybe some curiosity over their accent. Most immigrants from the commonwealth realms fit in quite quickly, even Jamaicans. In Vancouver we get a lot more Asian immigrants than European or African, but we find the Chinese tend to keep to themselves in ghettos, though they are very well off ghettos, while Indian Sikhs and Filipinos join right in with the rest of society. Indian Hindus and Chinese often refer to India and China as "back home" even if they were born in Canada, while Filipino and Sikhs refer to their country of origin as "The Phillipines" or "India", even if they are recent immigrants. Anyway, my point is that while the SJW types tend to put a lot of importance on race, culture is much more important. For a society to be stable, its people need to feel like they are one people. This culture of celebrating differences that politicians and the media like to push only divides people as the focus is pushed away from what unites us to what separates us. A country needs to have a culture, not thousands of pieces loosely held together by laws. Yeah, I don't agree with everything, his Women Destroy Civilization one was pretty controversial, but he still made some good points. I also like his voice. He's kinda sounds like a conservative CGP Grey, which makes him easy to listen to. His videos don't seem as long as they are because they are so well made.