Once again demonstrating that bigotry and willful ignorance tend to be strongly correlated.

How does the saying go? “When you are used to privelage, equality feels like oppression.”

I just do not get the appeal of fear mongering. Hell, any overt emotional appeal for that matter just puts me on the defensive against the one making the appeal.

As the study said, it is less about actual policy positions and more a matter of self-identity. I get the feeling a lot of the more hyperbolic rhetoric is less said as a literal intention, and more as a tribal boundary marker, a warning to those not of the tribe to stay out of their terrority, and an invitation to…

You know that an ostensibly trained animal that causes harm to people without being commanded is generally seen as a threat and put down for other’s safety, right?

I think the wording “asked permission” sets off a few “That’s odd,” alerts in people’s heads. If she said that she “consulted” her son about it before deciding to do it, that would sound more reasonable (she values his input and had some concerns about how her choice might affect the people in her life she values) but…

Then how the heck did she get elected? I thought that conventional wisdom was that the more purple the district, the more moderate a candidate had to make themselves to be electable.

Let me guess, in a district that is jerrymandered so tightly that only the most ideologically extreme candidates can get elected and saying the most extreme bullshit is not the career-ending move there it would be in a more mixed or moderate district?

Not necessarily. For some kinds of play, getting treated rough enough that you say “Ouch!” is part of the appeal. There is a lot of “experiencial” appeal going on in the kind of situation that would push a person’s limits, and sometimes that experience includes pushing on past the point of nominal protest. The safe…

Sometimes I fantisize about running experiments on them with a neural-shunt to force-feed factual information into their brains, just to see how they would react to leaning the aweful truth about the universe.

“So when Rapey McPredator is sitting there with his best pious face and backed by church elders, You might still be able to argue that he’s still a bad egg, if not a rotten one.”

The thing about bigoted authoritarian followers is that they have a real psychological need to feel like the authorities they submit to endorse and condone their bigotry. It is why they hate Obama so much and are so excited for Trump: the former makes them feel like all their bigotry is useless and powerless, the…

I thought like that too, for a long while, but the more I study the history of racism and sexism in America, the more I start to doubt that. The Angry Old White Men seem to be able to accept women and minorities, even give them power, as long as there is some understanding that the power they are given is ultimately a…

All media is manipulation, the goal of the creator is to make the audience feel something. If they do it well, not only does the audience feel what the creator intends to get across, they do it willingly and gratefully, neither noticing nor caring about the techniques of the manipulator. Done poorly, the audience will…

How the heck does an ass like that even get elected in the first place? I thought most states structure their elections with the goal of limiting the prospect of assholes to get to such positions of power?

In the words of Americans everywhere after the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision, “We didn’t elect him.”

I am not sure allowing the south to secede would be a good idea. Having an economically impoverished nation on our border full of religious fanatics, rich oligarchs who will do anything to maintain their power, and a few munitions industries in working order but running on debt sounds like a recipie for disaster.

I love the crafting system too, but the complaints I have heard about it (and I totally see where they are coming from) is that the system is not explained particularly well, and it requires either experimentation or reaching out to the wider community to grasp some of the details of the mechanics of it.

I remember Fallout 2 had some options for cybernetic enhancement. You had to have high level medical skills to discover how to do it, a good surgeon to apply it, suits of combat armor to sacrifice for parts, and enough caps to afford the procedure. But if you did it, it would give you permanent bonus damage…

That was an old cheat I did frequently. You could just walk in and take it if you knew where to look.