Just cheat? Whatever happened to class cheating? In the old days if the game was too hard and you didn’t have a big brother to do it for you, you just put in the godmode code or turned on a trainer or something.
Some games are just hard. That’s what makes getting good at them feel rewarding. The Souls games haven’t really been for me either (due to the pking–not so much the difficulty), but it’s not like the game makers owe me anything.
That’s a game of legal Russian roulette I wouldn’t want to play. Eventually he’s going to rip off the wrong person, and in the meantime all his victims have the option of sitting on their claims (SOL notwithstanding) to find out if he ever makes any money.
The problem with a punishment mesmer, defensive juggernaut anything, and turret engie is that they result in degenerate gameplay. Turrets can’t be allowed to succeed in PVE (see: Lake Doric), and none of these class fantasies can be allowed at all in PVP.
Turrets and juggernauts turn into turtling bunkers that either grind play to a halt or turn into raid bosses, and the only way to balance them is to essentially make the style of play unfun for the person who wants it. “Being unkillable” or “controlling this space” can’t be supported in a competitive game mode. Now, you can balance this by just splitting everything and making the specs unplayable or wildly different in competitive modes, but that means you’re now devoting the dev resources to build the thing twice (for both modes), yet players can only really enjoy it in PVE. From a design perspective, that’s a really poor return on investment for an elite spec.
Punishment mesmer worked in GW1 because you had much better defined roles in all game modes with less overlap, and there was ability parity between players and NPCs, so you could interact with an enemy mob essentially the same way you’d interact with an enemy player. In GW2, you can’t punish a playstyle because playstyles aren’t that well defined, and you can’t create a niche for hex gameplay because they gave everybody else the mesmer toys (see: Torment and Confusion). If you try to make a spec that depends on them even more than certain mesmer specs already do, the byproduct will be turning revs into gods (again). There’s also no energy denial in GW2, and you can’t give a player a bar full of interrupts because everybody already has as many interrupts as the game can support without being catastrophically unfun. GW2 is just the wrong kind of game for GW1’s mesmer–like a lot of things that were better in GW1.
If you ask me, we don’t need more elite specs. We need more non-elite specs–stuff we can combine more freely with what we already have–and we need the elites to be “de-elited” so that the power level of the vanilla specs have better parity with their elite counterparts. I know they’ve taken a pass at this before (or two or three), but it has clearly not panned out. The presence of multiple options for ranged elementalists, for example, is definitely something that needs to be supported.
The way faith is treated in the First Century doesn’t translate well to modern audiences. Having faith of a child isn’t an analogy to a child being gullible. It’s an analogy to the way a child trusts in and depends on his parents. Trust, arguably, would be a better translation than faith in many instances.
Faith for ancient religious peoples wasn’t about believing without proof. That would be as ridiculous for a First Century Jew as it is for us. Faith is being persuaded to a conclusion by the evidence.
No, sorry. I try to be deferential when talking about this stuff, but this is pretty cut and dry, and I’m afraid you’re just wrong here. This is Greek–not theology. πίστις is the word we’re talking about. It shares the common root with πείθω–“to persuade” (i.e., that evidence is compelling or trustworthy). πίστις is the same word you would use in describing the veracity of a tribunal’s judgment (for example, “I have πίστις that the jurors in NY got the verdict right/wrong”). The Greeks used the word to personify honesty, trust, and persuasiveness prior to the existence of Christianity (although someone who knows Attic or is better versed in Greek mythology feel free to correct me). The word is inherently tied up with persuasion, confidence, and trust since long before the New Testament. The original audience of the New Testament would have understood the meaning of the word without depending on any prior relation to religion.
Is trust always a better translation? Of course not–and that’s why, you’ll notice, I didn’t say that (and if it were, one would hope that many of the very well educated translators of Bibles would have used it). But I think you can agree that the concept is also difficult for English to handle (since trust in a person, trust in a deity, and trust in a statement are similar but not quite the same thing, and the same goes for belief in a proposition, belief in a person, and belief in an ideal or value, to say nothing of analogous concepts like loyalty and integrity).
The point is that πίστις–faith–absolutely does not mean belief without evidence, and Christianity since its inception has never taught that. English also doesn’t use the word “faith” to imply the absence of evidence, and we don’t need to appeal to another language to understand that. It’s why the phrase “blind faith” exists (and the phrase is generally pejorative in religious circles as well as secular ones).
Now, if you think the evidence that convinces Christians to conclude that Jesus’ followers saw Him after His death is inadequate, that’s perfectly valid and a reasonable criticism of Christianity–and if you want to talk about that, that would be apologetics.
In any event, if you’re going to call something bullshit, you better have a lot of faith in the conclusion you’re drawing. ;)
Oh I know. Trust me, I don’t engage with these people with any illusions. There’s no arguing with the agitprop element here. The point of responding at all is just to identify them to the general public.
“You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to.”
So no, thanks. I don’t owe you a defense, engagement, or an policy apologetics treatment of the current administration’s governance for the last four years. There are plenty of places to find that information if you actually care to find it.
So far you’ve managed to call me an idiot, a liar, and a coward in all of about fifteen minutes. Why on earth would I believe you’re capable of nuanced political discourse? We’ve nothing to discuss.
President Joe Biden is taking fresh steps to help keep gas prices from climbing. For Republicans to see this as “disgusting” and “disgraceful” is bizarre.
Treasury secretary came out against the proposed global levy, which proponents say would stop the rich from shifting wealth into countries where they can avoid paying the tax
But that wasn’t the question, was it? United international action works and also doesn’t really exist. You think billionaires are going to just throw up their hands and give governments their tax dollars if enough nations agree they should. Doesn’t work that way.
Read the article you linked. Who’s going to jail in Panama? A few bankers–maybe. Panama changed its rules, and the billionaires just moved all their money elsewhere–exactly as predicted.
The solution to tax evasion isn’t more tax law. That’s like saying that if only everyone agreed rapists should go to jail, people would stop committing rape.
I’m in favor of a wealth tax just because any action beats no action, but it is absolutely a half measure. The real solution to this problem is not financial. It’s personal.
It’s a safe bet, by a lot, and the calculus doesn’t really change no matter how much nuance you apply, because with every statement you’re always trading some nebulous number of single-issue pro-Palestine/anti-Zionist voters for a much larger group of pro-Israel/Zionist voters.
Then you have folks like the OP who are essentially working as a thinly-veiled propaganda arm of Hamas/Russia/etc., and it really muddies the signal-to-noise analysis on the issue.
It’s a problem for Biden, but there’s no winning. Trump doesn’t have the problem only because he’s not the incumbent right now, so he can hem and haw and try to deflect from the reality that he’s much worse on the issue–like every other issue–for people who align even a little bit with any policies left of center.
So Biden just has to basically take the hit, because the Democrats care about functional government and stable diplomacy and foreign policy relationships, whereas the GOP, as the party of dysfunction, white grievance, and ethno-religious fascism, isn’t saddled with the same considerations. Biden actually tried–and partially succeeded–in slowing down arms shipments to Israel, and the GOP threw a shitfit in Congress because they want those arms shipments: Their donors want them, and they can hang it on Biden’s neck no matter what, because people like OP will continue to go to bat for them.
It’s a safe bet. The number of voters Biden loses if he were to change positions enough to appease any authentic anti-Zionists (as opposed to agitprop elements, for whom no position would be good enough to silence) would dwarf the number of voters he might gain. That might not mean he gets reelected, but hell, changing positions at all would cost him votes. Like I said: all choices are bad. It would have been a political disaster for any president, because every voter who cares enough about it to be a single-issue voter is entrenched enough to not be swayed at all unless the other side is completely alienated.
He can’t find a way to appease both sides? Well what does that look like? What’s the position that appeases both staunch Zionist voters and the subsection of the anti-Zionist protestors who vote? That’s not a rhetorical question. Every other US politics-adjacent post on Lemmy recently has been OP or one of their comrades criticizing Biden for his position on Israel, and I’m genuinely interested to hear someone articulate the nuanced position that Biden should supposedly take that he’s currently failing at, and how he’s supposed to do that and not immediately lose all prospects of reelection. FFS, even characterizing this as a division between “pro-Israel” and “against genocide” is already throwing nuance out the window. From where I’m sitting, Joe Biden has as nuanced a position as he can, because the nature of foreign relations in the Middle East in 2024 is itself nuanced and, for US interests, profoundly precarious. If you want nuance, you better be prepared to swallow a healthy dose of realpolitik alongside it, and that’s something that as of yet I’ve not found any noble armchair advocates and red-shadowed “patriots” willing to do.
Eh… this is kind of nothing. Jurists quote religious texts all the time. Judge Ho–the topic of the article–doesn’t quote the Bible in a particularly eloquent fashion, but he’s far from the first US judge to use a biblical quote to make a point.
And yes, they quote the Quran too–just not as much since not as many of them are familiar with it. Law is a reasoning profession, and people who practice it like finding analogies and drawing distinctions. If they see that a set of facts is like or unlike something from ancient history, they’re likely to bring it up. They’ll bring up song lyrics, mythology, popular proverbs, ancient legal texts, moral fables–anything with any reasoning or legal thinking in it.
Trump appointees are deserving of criticism for horrible jurisprudence, terrible judgment and insight, and piss-poor qualifications. There are plenty of things to hate about lots of them, but “they quote the Bible sometimes” isn’t one.
Would you respect a judge that quotes Harry Potter in official documents on a regular basis?
YES! If the judge used the Harry Potter quotes to advance sound legal reasoning, I’d consider it a potentially clever and humorous way to inject some levity into something that’s otherwise likely mundane and dry. Also I guarantee you a judge has quoted those books in opinions, along with every other popular piece of literature.
I’m sorry to remind everybody incensed here, but the professionals in the profession get to decide what is and is not professional, and the legal profession has a long history of quoting material that’s non-germane. You can be upset about it if you want, but we’re fortunate that judges explain their reasoning at all.
Quoting a book you don’t like doesn’t make a decision bad. A decision is bad if it’s wrong on the law, and as I think everybody in this thread knows, the Bible isn’t the law of the land! Quoting non-law in order to bolster a line of reasoning isn’t good, bad, harmful, or harmless by itself, because the reasoning is the important thing. The Bible has been used to stand for many bad positions–but if it hadn’t been, those positions would still have been bad!
While you lot are pulling out your pitchforks because a judge quoted the Bible for the billionth time in the last 200 years, did any of you even bother to find out what the decisions actually were?
Just to be on the safe side, better vote blue anyway.
Democrats all the way down the ticket, national, state, and local. The Democrats are the party of human rights. That means reproductive rights, the right to privacy, the right to free expression and bodily integrity, the right to be free from government interference in one’s person and home, the right to vote, the right to criticize the government, the right to be paid a day’s wage for a day’s work and the right to bargain collectively for it, and the right to believe and practice or not practice the faith of your choosing, even if it offends the fascists in your local church.
These are all really excellent questions. My son skipped a grade early in gradeschool, and I am fortunate enough to have a friend who had a similar experience as this young lady (albeit not to the same extent) being hyper-accelerated through school, so we were able to interview him about his experience when making decisions about how to handle our exceptional kiddo’s education.
It was not a fun conversation, and as a result we elected to just let our son take advanced classes when possible and not really push to have him skip additional grades or do any of the wacky stuff with enrolling in college as a child or what have you. Of course we’re going to push him to take stuff that is challenging whenever possible, and I’d love for him to graduate high school with as much college credit as possible–but I’m not about to steal his youth in pursuit of putting a PhD on his wall before he’s old enough to vote.
The short version is that our friend was a very miserable child. His advancement essentially meant he had no peers, and especially among teenagers, the acceleration just put a bullseye on his back, since the people who surrounded him either resented him or saw him as a target for bullying. Even professional educators at times resented him. He was adamant that it was a thing he would never put his own children through.
Is that a typical experience? I have no idea; after all, being a child in higher education is already well outside ordinary experience. But the story was enough to make me worry for the child whenever I read a headline like this.
Washington Attorney General (AG) Bob Ferguson addressed recent developments in the state’s governor’s race Monday morning, days after two people named Robert Ferguson joined the ballot....
The nepo babies wouldn’t serve–same as always. And the political unpopularity of conscription has never changed. The last war draft is still in living memory, and US current military activity hasn’t been an improvement in terms of public appetite.
The US introduces conscription again, and there’ll be riots–and I don’t mean “some kids camped at college and the jackboots locked them up” protests; it’ll be government-building burning, widespread-looting riots.
If you want to do conscription, the kids have to trust the government not to kill them for oil.
So you’re not running then? Amidst the rampant, unchecked political corruption you claim to observe in every direction, the solution you in your wisdom have found most powerful is to complain about it on the internet.
The armed wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility on Sunday for an attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, which Israeli and Palestinian media reports said had resulted in Israeli casualties....
Not a binary proposition. Support Israel and lose voters, abandon Israel and lose more and different voters. Diplomacy is hard. Politics is hard.
Part of the reason it’s hard in this particular situation is bad actors pretending that geopolitics can be reduced to a soundbyte and that the problem is simple and easy.
These people would prefer for Biden to lose, and I’m quite convinced that they don’t really care why or how. Genocide is the buzzword of the year, but if Israel and Gaza make peace tomorrow, all of these people will all have new reasons why Democratic voters should stay home or burn their ballots.
Oh make no mistake, I’m voting for Joe no matter what. The only alternative is Donald Trump, and Donald Trump wants to destroy the Republic. Joe could send American troops into Rafah to glass it today, and I’d hold my nose and go vote for him in November. That’s just facing reality.
Would I prefer things were different? Of course, but however much legitimate criticism might be laid at Biden’s feet for not doing more to stop the genocide in Gaza, Trump has already wholly endorsed completely annihilating the Palestinian people, and he wants genocide in the US besides.
You’re just as disingenuous with your argument as you are with your position. Anybody who wants to know what I legitimately said can read it.
Entertaining a terrible hypothetical to make a point is not the same as being okay with it–and I think you know that already. For example, I still engaged with you lot because I think there might be some benefit for someone reading this exchange to realize that these issues are complicated and nuanced, and they deserve critical thinking. That doesn’t mean I’m okay with you. Fortunately, unlike with global politics, the consequences of ending this engagement are nonexistent.
Sweden is infamous for having some of the highest taxes in the world, and yet the country’s tax agency is still one of Sweden’s most trusted institutions....
Balaji, a 43-year-old Long Island native who goes by his first name, has a solid Valley pedigree: He earned multiple degrees from Stanford University, founded multiple startups, became a partner at Andreessen-Horowitz and then served as chief technology officer at Coinbase. He is also the leader of a cultish and increasingly...
Yeah, that’s inciting insurrection/rebellion. If this guy didn’t already have people monitoring him 24/7, he sure as shit does now. And well he should.
Civil liberties groups are raising alarms about a bill making its way through Congress that applies pressure for a ban on travel to Iran for Americans using U.S. passports. The rights groups see the bill as part of a growing attempt to control the travel of American citizens and bar Iranian Americans in particular from...
Well, there it is: if you’re an Iranian-American, you should get an Iranian passport if you can. By extension, that’s probably good advice for anyone who can get multiple passports (and kind of always has been).
A top Hamas political official told The Associated Press the Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders.
That’s a chicken and egg problem, though, isn’t it: Netanyahu’s government wants Hamas because the conflict keeps Bibi out of prison, and Hamas wants to remain relevant. All the same, the Israeli and Palestinian people are the ones who suffer due to both regimes being in power, and Hamas doesn’t shed its guilt just because Israel doesn’t want a reasonable Palestinian government. Neither side wants to blink because they have multi-generational hatred for the other side, and that means popular support for further violence probably isn’t going anywhere. You back down! No, you back down!
The result is that neither side is going to take real steps to deescalate, because both sides benefit from the conflict. That the Palestinians are suffering more, by orders of magnitude, doesn’t make either side’s position any less entrenched: Bibi wants to stay in power (and free), and Hamas wants to remain relevant and in power, and they’re more justified now than ever. Both regimes need to be replaced.
True for the OP too. There’s definitely an element on some of the Lemmy communities that seems to exist only or at least primarily to push negative Biden prop (or barring that, anti-US prop in general). I checked Reddit recently for the first time in months (kind of like going to Walmart–avoid it like the plague, but sometimes you just can’t), and I was genuinely astonished at how little anti-Biden content was present by comparison.
I’m voting for Joe in November, and you should too. Joe’s administration killed non-competes, flipped the procedure for airline canceled and delayed flight refunds (i.e., pro-consumer), and pushed back the exempt employee loophole–and that’s just the news from this week. He’s an awesome president without even considering that the other side is composed entirely of criminals, Russian assets, and fascists.
“We rely in South Dakota on the fact that I am pro-life and we have a law that says there is an exception for the life of the mother, and I just don’t believe that a tragedy should perpetuate another tragedy.”
If Trump wins and she’s his running mate, it’s statistically more likely than not that she’ll be president.
Elden Ring Publisher Addresses Difficulty Criticism of Shadow of the Erdtree, Offers Tips for DLC (gameinfinitus.com)
My beautiful child... (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Indie Dev’s Game Shamelessly Cloned and Released for Free by Grifter. An indie developer has had their game shamelessly stolen and released for free on Steam under a different name. (techraptor.net)
Context: comfycozygaming.com/…/dire-decks-wildcard-plagiar…
Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds - Expansion Announcement (www.youtube.com)
Glad I was too dumb to finish college... (startrek.website)
Trump told donors he will crush pro-Palestinian protests, deport demonstrators | Speaking to wealthy donors behind closed doors, he said that he supports Israel’s right to continue “its war on terror. (wapo.st)
Republicans enraged by Biden’s efforts to keep gas prices lower (www.msnbc.com)
President Joe Biden is taking fresh steps to help keep gas prices from climbing. For Republicans to see this as “disgusting” and “disgraceful” is bizarre.
A Global Tax on Billionaires? Janet Yellen Says ‘No’ (www.wsj.com)
Treasury secretary came out against the proposed global levy, which proponents say would stop the rich from shifting wealth into countries where they can avoid paying the tax
How Biden is winning over corporate America behind closed doors (www.cnbc.com)
In public, President Biden and corporate America appear to oppose each other’s interests and blame each other for the economy’s problems....
Statement from President Joe Biden on the Warrant Applications by the International Criminal Court (www.whitehouse.gov)
Full statement:...
Some Trump-appointed judges keep sneaking Biblical reference into court opinions (www.salon.com)
'People got betrayed': Cardi B says she's not voting in the presidential election (www.msnbc.com)
Texas judge orders new election after GOP lawsuit challenged 2022 election result in Houston area (www.yahoo.com)
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Teen walks at graduation after completing doctoral degree at 17 (abcnews.go.com)
2 Democratic candidates named Bob Ferguson withdraw from WA governor's race (www.komonews.com)
Washington Attorney General (AG) Bob Ferguson addressed recent developments in the state’s governor’s race Monday morning, days after two people named Robert Ferguson joined the ballot....
Germany may introduce conscription for all 18-year-olds (www.telegraph.co.uk)
Democrats make no promises about bailing out Mike Johnson again (www.axios.com)
Biden Just Effectively Killed a Report on Israeli Actions in Gaza (newrepublic.com)
Hamas armed wing says responsible for Israel-Gaza border crossing attack (www.reuters.com)
The armed wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas claimed responsibility on Sunday for an attack on the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, which Israeli and Palestinian media reports said had resulted in Israeli casualties....
Thousands of Israelis take to streets of Tel Aviv to demand cease-fire and Netanyahu's resignation (apnews.com)
1:21 video shows the scale of the protest....
Young Democrats face Gaza blowback as they try to mobilize students for Biden (www.cnn.com)
Why the Swedes love doing something that Americans hate (www.bbc.com)
Sweden is infamous for having some of the highest taxes in the world, and yet the country’s tax agency is still one of Sweden’s most trusted institutions....
Celebrating the 20th birthday of City of Heroes: an MMO resurrected by the people who loved it enough to 'bring the game back for good' (www.pcgamer.com)
The Tech Robber Baron who wants to take over San Francisco (newrepublic.com)
Balaji, a 43-year-old Long Island native who goes by his first name, has a solid Valley pedigree: He earned multiple degrees from Stanford University, founded multiple startups, became a partner at Andreessen-Horowitz and then served as chief technology officer at Coinbase. He is also the leader of a cultish and increasingly...
House Responds to Israeli-Iranian Missile Exchange by Taking Rights Away from Americans (theintercept.com)
Civil liberties groups are raising alarms about a bill making its way through Congress that applies pressure for a ban on travel to Iran for Americans using U.S. passports. The rights groups see the bill as part of a growing attempt to control the travel of American citizens and bar Iranian Americans in particular from...
Hamas official says group would lay down its arms if an independent Palestinian state is established (apnews.com)
A top Hamas political official told The Associated Press the Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders.
62 percent of Biden voters want to replace both candidates on the ballot: Poll (www.thehill.com)
Trump VP contender Kristi Noem says no exceptions for rape or incest in abortion ban (www.independent.co.uk)
Post Roe v Wade abortion law in South Dakota only allows for exceptions to save life of mother...
Louisiana lawmakers vote to remove lunch breaks for child workers, cut unemployment benefits (www.nola.com)