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So, two deaths in two years that have apparently been downplayed or insufficiently investigated, accusations of abuses sexual and otherwise, a mutiny, and a captain that has been dismissed as a result of the political ****storm the Defence Minister is facing. Nope, it's not the synopsis of Oliver Stone's latest project. Not yet, anyway. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/2...rassment-claims http://www.bild.de/BILD/politik/2011/01/26...r-schikane.html The second link is in German, which I can't read to save my life. But it has some juicy pics of the "rituals" allegedly going on aboard.

Yes... that much is obvious, and I actually acknowledge that if you read my post. What influenced that design decision, however? I don't know, and neither do you. They are however capitalising on the shortcomings of that decision to sell cheap micro DLC.

You think so? So, to do away with the silly traditional inventory, they ended up with a system where newly found weapons magically reproduce and equip themselves to your squad, where "weapons lockers" found around the game are in fact "weapons factories", and in which a rebreather (and nipple suspenders!) protects you from hard vacuum. I think it's pretty inconsistent that "gameplay reasons and balance" are used to justify, for instance, the thermal clip fiasco, but that same excuse is no good to explain why characters can carry ridiculous loads. And I agree, ME1 could have done with about 50% of the variety it had, perhaps less. The differences between models IX and X of a weapon were negligible. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the system. @Volo: cool story bro.

Um, no. I never said that living in squalor was necessary and sufficient for revolution, nor that that risk of revolution is a function of poverty that can be analysed and whose inflection points can be used to make predictions. You either misunderstood or are twisting my original statement by introducing a notion I didn't talk about and then attacking that. Bad form. However, historical evidence does suggest a correlation between poverty -or a steep decline in living standards- and the willingness of people to revolt openly and risk their lives in resistance against the system, while the same isn't true for simple oppression or evidence of wrongdoing by the ruling class; I have provided examples, but if you want more, the military dictatorships of South America also support this. Dismissing a sample as "coddled, smug and self-satisfied" just doesn't cut it - clearly, that is a consequence of several generations living in welfare states where people tend to take everything for granted and the sense of entitlement is second only to the qualities you named. This can only happen if high living standards are maintained consistently for a long time. @Wals: true enough. A sufficiently well organized internal security apparatus can go a long way towards aborting any revolutions.

Ah, of course. So they didn't cut stuff from the game, they "simplified" and "streamlined" it. Haha, whatever. The inventory system worked just fine in ME1. You could change weapons and armor for Shep and the squad on the fly, without needing to find a stupid "weapons locker" that may or may not be available in the vicinity. Now you have a system with a much more limited amount of options because "the game didn't need 20 different shotguns", that results in stupid **** like getting a new weapon in a mission that is automagically equipped to all squadmates that can use it, regardless of whether you want to or not, squadmates getting into firefights in nothing but tattoos and a nipple suspender, and "ammo powers" in place of, you know, actual special abilities. Of course, an actual inventory system completely destroys the viability of micro DLC shenanigans that make give the player a bunch of ridiculously overpowered gear, and "alternate appearances" for squadmates, at the start of the game. ME2 did a lot of things right and I like it much better than 1, but either the people shouting that EAWare killed the old Bio are right, or somebody somewhere thought that they weren't making as much money with NWN as they could with, say, Halo 3. @Thorton_AP: Nope. Not an actual DLC that brings back the old inventory system. Just stuff that somewhat addresses the consequences of designing the game without one.

What hyperbole are you talking about? ME2 shipped without an inventory system, and BIO has been selling DLC to compensate this, somewhat.

The inventory.

Err... you've been doing something about this argument, but I'm not quite sure what. So I just had to go back and read what I originally said: You are pointing out that -despite bad conditions in Egypt and Tunisia- it wasn't the poorest arab countries that have revolted, and that despite obvious corruption, people in Europe are "coddled, smug and self-satisfied" (agree 100% btw). Hmm... isn't that basically a declaration of agreement with what I said?

I guess that paying extra for a staple of the genre that has been included in previous incarnations doesn't mean jack for you. And of course they aren't going to do anything like what I posted. It was a hyperbolic example intended to make a point. They will keep removing stuff from the game and selling it separately as long as people keep buying into that. No more, no less.

So? They could ship a game without SFX or music, with a max resolution of 800x600, multiplayer support but no maps etc... and then sell all of that separately. You wouldn't need any of that to "complete" the game, but they would still be selling you bits and pieces that you would expect to be in the game to begin with. Or, you know, the inventory.

No, I just won't accept any views of somebody who is pointedly anti-islam. Yes, this is called bigotry. No, I'm not talking about Barry Rubin.

(not really)

And somehow, reasons for the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt are consistently reported to be the high unemployment rates and skyrocketing food prices. It's no coincidence that the increase of the prices and shortage of bread is one of the oft-cited reasons -along with disproportionate taxes on the bourgeois class and the king's unwillingness to listen- for the breakout in Paris. So I'm sticking with my idea that people don't stand in front of tanks -or bayonet charges- unless they don't have much to lose. Yeah, we'll see for how long that holds true, with millions of people having exhausted unemployment benefits and little hope of ever getting back in the labour market, with a very real risk of public bankruptcy looming in the horizon.

[citation needed] <insert links on the AKP's struggle against the judiciary and their constitutional reform work> There is an ongoing effort on the part of the AKP to dismantle if not secularism, at least Kemalism, as embodied in Turkey's constitution. This is not an either-or between a return to a less secular Turkey and simply greater powers for the executive, it's actually both. Semantics. It doesn't matter if the changes were confined to the Age of Enlightenment, while the intellectual foundations of those changes were laid down a century or two earlier - history is a continuum and "Age" markers are never universal, indicative of actual changes, or even uniformly agreed upon. It begins with intellectuals starting to risk their necks by publishing seditious material that is in direct conflict with an organization of society based on the idea of civil authorities drawing their power from -and therefore being defined by- Divine Right. Didn't happen overnight, but it did happen. I am greatly ignorant of Islamic philosophical currents past and present, so I would be grateful if peeps could point me to works and figures with comparable leanings within Islamic academia.

Underwhelming, to put it mildly. Those are basically retextures, as even Miranda's armor is a reskin of femShep's Cerberus Assault Armor. I would be less pissy if they at least made those available through the Cerberus Network, but alas it was not to be. And so much for "listening to the community", when response to their obsession with eyewear has been uniformly negative. Bah.

ORLY?

Yeah, me too. I'd say not too feasible until we appoint Skynet as Supreme Ruler, though. Or, more eloquently: Seriously though, it's worth noting that good ol' Marxism was also advertised as "scientific", much to the damage of actual science. Say what you will, but there are similarities. Also, one of the biggest hurdles this sort of thing needs to overcome is transition and implementation. The Paris commune, the Russian Revolution, the Ukrainian Free Territory, the role of anarchists during the Spanish Civil War, all show that when it comes to putting similarly revolutionary principles into practice, things tend to come apart at the seams, which results in being crushed by competing forces, or a shift towards more traditional, tried-and-true, models. How do we go from what we have now to the proposed utopia? The nature/nurture question on the origin of greed is interesting, but there's no questioning that progress is tied to trade - and greed, coupled with need drives trade. So while there may not be a purely evolutionary advantage to greed, I'd say there's at least a motivational one, for which you'd have to find a substitute. And on a deeper level, you'd probably have to re-wire large portions of mankind from a self-centered scale of values to something different. I don't think science is advanced enough to develop a scientific theory and practice of human societal organization that's really worthy of the name. For the time being, it's just trial and error.

I suppose you could say that idea is wrong and then point to the fact that we have perfectly well-adjusted "Christian democratic" parties elsewhere (ahem, gay rights and abortion...), but to what degree do Islamist parties accept the legitimacy of a democracy to overrule Qur'anic tenets? (not rhetorical, btw)

Nah, the PC is still the superior platform, because it's probably just a matter of time before people crack the PCC file format and start releasing content like that (and better) for free. In the meantime, DLC that's actually decent can still be purchased without loaning MS/BW/EA a penny.

Miranda's armor looks like it may be the only thing worth using of the pack, and the monocle appears subtle enough not to seem out of place, but it's nowhere near enough for me to purchase BW/EA points for that (tangentially, did you know that MS got sued over their points bundles practices?). How hard can it be, Bioware? (LotSB spoilers)

So... here it is: A monocle and light armor for Miranda (remains to be seen if she'll get a proper helmet), orthodontics and disco armor retexture for Grunt, and some Tali fan service to appeal to the legion of Tali creeps at the Bioboards. Why do I even bother? **** this.

Yeah... no. Introducing a bill doesn't equal passing a law. And again, laws can be reviewed by the courts, which are independent. So there is no single "ruling" body. That's what the "rule of law" + "separation of powers" results in. Power has to flow from somewhere, doesn't it? Do you have a better plan? This is false. You can operate on it, and it is in fact your duty to do so as a citizen. Just claiming that "judges are all inepts/corrupt" when, after appealing, they keep not find merit in your 9/11 conspiracy theories just doesn't cut it and doesn't say much about you or your theories. Go fundraising. With the amount of anti-American sentiment in general and anti-Bush in particular, you should be able to find someone that wants the "truth" to see the light. If nobody cares or takes you seriously, chances are you have nothing. Chances are, and this is important. You may well be the Galileo of our times, but that's beside the point. A democracy is as functional and virtuous as the electorate it draws its sovereignty from. If people are fine with their rights being trampled on and being fed some bull**** as justification, the problem isn't with the system... it's with the people. edit: "you" in this case, doesn't refer to you personally.

No. Again, nobody "rules", except for perhaps judges, in some cases, and more often than not at the behest of the people. The Prez can't just write any legislation (in fact, he can only sign things into law, the legislative power is Congress), he is constrained by the Constitution AND the judiciary which is, again on paper, supposed to be independent. I'm not sure exactly what you are complaining about. Is it about democracy as a concept? Maybe how the system works in practice? What? Because if it's the former, I'm always happy to discuss possible alternatives. And if it's the latter... shouldn't you be doing something about it like, I don't know, running for office yourself? As for the other points you made, I think your mind is made up on how corrupt politicians are and how little power they have in comparison to corporations. Not much to discuss there. I could ask for PROOF! but that never ends well. So meh. No. The analogy you made isn't just imperfect, it's fallacious. The raison d'

And that's a fundamentally poor analogy because seatbelts can't kill (well, in the proper hands...), but freely disseminated state secrets can. Therefore, the risk needs to be balanced vs the "right". Besides, read the post I was quoting. I'm not saying information in the hands of the general public can't help, ever. Rather, I was simply questioning the implied "information ergo protection from tyrants" relationship that Calax was suggesting. And I wouldn't be so quick to use Ben Ali's fall as an example of the triumph of freedom of information, just yet. It remains to be seen if the change is going to be for the best, assuming there is a real change. And at any rate, an authoritarian regime that doesn't have the backing of the military establishment is a card castle. Anything could have sparked a revolt, be it its corruption being exposed or some street vegetable seller self-immolating in desperation. Can you actually prove this? Further, can you prove they do so to a point it's detrimental to their function as public managers? Because if you can, chances are you can get a judge to kick them out of office, be it due to a conflict of interest, unjust enrichment, embezzlement, influence trafficking or any number of things that actually mean the politician in question is using his power for personal gain. And what happens if two or more different groups with conflicting agendas make substantial donations? Do they cancel each other out? Do they block the President from acting? Do they turn the President into a schizophrenic puppet? I think the importance of special interest groups is overrepresented. Mostly because what the President can and cannot do is constrained not only by the Constitution but also by Congress. And that is a melting pot of conflicting interests itself. Funny you say that, because the US is remarkable by the level of closeness and accountability between candidate and constituency. In other "democracies", voters don't have a say about candidates, only about parties. Think about that. But also, I'm going to turn your argument around. If Mr. X was a President "from the hood", he would understandably want to help his homies, and this may come through adopting policies and making decisions that place undue weight on those issues, which may or may not work against the general interest. How is that any more fair than helping the fat bankers with the top hats? Or do you think all Presidents derive some sort of sick pleasure from seeing the poor suffer? Wrong. The President doesn't rule. Senators and Reps don't rule. Civil servants don't rule. A body of written principles rules. It's not a coincidence that one of the pillars of Western democracies is called "the rule of law". Making and changing laws is neither simple nor instantaneous, and there are safeguards in place to prevent excesses, as well as a whole body of people entrusted to protect the people from the abuses of possibly unjust laws. Enlightened democracy is ostensibly a response to the excesses and shortcomings of (quasi) absolute rulers. You'd think they'd try and come up with something that didn't have the same flaws as the system they had just torn down, right? Of course, excesses and even a steer towards authoritarianism aren't impossible, but then, show me a flawless system and I'll show you a fantasy.