Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
User ID: 137
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
Interestingly this crash has seemingly barely affected Finnish businesses and organizations at all (apart from cases where they have projects with foreign companies, of course). Apparently there were some minor glitches at the system of the bank I use, but I didn't notice it at all.
I wonder if it's simply that Finnish companies are patriotically committed to using F-Secure/WithSecure solutions above all others...
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
This is, quite honestly, probably one of the biggest pluses of a national governmental health insurance system. The left-halvers, whatever the situation, can contact a health centre and hope to get whatever their problem is fixed without dealing with an opaque jungle of insurance stuff (and in my experience even if you have private supplemental insurance it's quite easy compared to what Americans seem to go through in these horror stories). Not only good for the left-halvers themselves, also good for the workers or whoever it is that has to be in charge of explaining this stuff in a more complicated system.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
If it happens this way it would essentially make the Dems a semiparliamentary party, one where a gaggle of congressional and ideological leaders can force out a sitting president on a relatively short notice despite not actually having the backing of primaries or anything like that for it, quite like Truss, for instance, was forced out of Tory leadership on short notice after the economic shock. Republicans, meanwhile, are now in uncommonly strong grip of their nominee, at least if these reports are be believed, with Trump easily steamrolling whatever religious conservatives there are to completely rewrite the party's language on abortion and SSM.
Which is a better way to lead a party? Dunno, but the Republican model, with its forceful leadership, would probably seem the more popular one, especially when talking about a singular executive who is expected to possess forceful leadership in general.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
No, not really, from what I’ve seen. A small subsection that is in the process of forming itseld into a tribe of its own does.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
One non-assassination-related explanation could be that someone got an inside tip… of Musk announcing he’s going all in for Trump (ie 45 million donated per month) and took it as indication of a quid-pro-quo deal where Trump returns to Twitter, which would of course kill Truth Social instantly.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
Particularly since it was entirely possibly that Trump would spring a surprise veep announcement or that the veep candidate would even accompany him on stage.
Stephen Fry wrote a novel with a scenario where a time traveler basically cancels Hitler from history and it just means a smarter Hitler alternative takes over and actually manages to wipe the Jews out.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
Tenacious D, and Kyle’s role in it, play to a very obvious male fantasy. You’re a normal schlubby guy who can play a bit of guitar, and all of sudden a Real Live Superstar who oozes charisma picks you up and makes you a celeb as well.
he keeps saying kind of as a joke that you’re a king among men and a sex god and what do you know, a bit of it rubs on you as well. Guys see you on the street and go ‘Heyyyy, Rage Kage! Love you man!’ You can probably get cute women with a fair bit of ease despite, again, being a schlub.
Of course, it’s also knowingly a role Kyle has assumed and built together with Jack Black, but it’s a fantasy, that doesn’t matter. There are obvious dividends for Jack as well, as can be seen from how many guys are angry at Jack for betraying his friend.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
Minor celebrity Kyle Gass, who isn't particularly politically important, might have gotten away with it being a dark joke, but megastar Jack Black, who has frequently stumped for political causes, being involved means that it's on another level.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
If there's a civil war, the battle lines aren't going to fall along neat ideological lines and a lot will depend on which military units stationed wherever will side with whichever side. If you look at the Spanish Civil War battle lines (with the caveat that they moved a lot, of course) and compare them with the preceeding election, there are parts where the Nationalist/Republican territories match the left/right election map and parts where they don't.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
Fico's assassination didn't happen during a national election campaign. You could argue that it happened close to European elections cycle, at least, but the European elections have their own logic due to low voting rates and aren't treated as a "real" election nearly to the same degree as national elections are.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
A better comparison would be Bolsonaro in 2018, who was IIRC behind in polls but cinched a Victory after the assassination attempt.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
At least one explanation I've seen that it tries to convey that it's ok to use both she/her and they/them. Presumably there's a bunch of potential ways it's used.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
I guess that the fluent use of IT systems would then require applying the designation of "birthing mother" to everyone who has given birth, which would mean that presumably you'd then have a lot of form with "father" and "birthing mother".
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
I don't think that the actual intent is as much serving trans men as it is serving lesbian couples who, presumably, would have two parents who want to be called mothers.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
The rioters didn't necessarily vote for NFP (at least in the first round), or vote at all.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
What, would it be more democratic to somehow force them to make coalitions with Those Awful People if they don't want to? Generally, no-ones misleading the voters about anything regarding such preferences and parties communicate at least their negative preferences clearly in advance.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
This was intended to continue with other stuff that was probably inessential. Fixed.
There's a genuine structural factor. For example, in the European Elections, Finns Party refused to accept one of their MEPs, Teuvo Hakkarainen, as a candidate again, because he was a pitiful drunken failure and a national joke. The said MEP went on to be a candidate for a minor fringe party and got absolutely nowhere, but there was also a fair amount of comments around social medias from Finns Party supporters going "They didn't take Teuvo so I don't trust them any more, they've become too elitist and not for normal men of the people any more". Clearly the party's supporters pay close attention to stuff like this and this limits the party's opportunities to clear away chaff, even if they had to do it in this instance.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
Having been active in a (far-)left party, I have personal experience with party being dragged down with weirdos and people with outlandish views. In a local punk forum (ie. place where you'd expect the far left to have a reliable base of support) there have been more than one post to the tune of "I was thinking of voting for the Left, but I met one of their guys in a bar and he was drunk and shouting that Soviet Union should still exist, so fuck this, I'm voting for the SocDems."
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
IMO this would guarantee electoral annihilation in the next polls.
At some point a political party that wins elections, or even has a chance, will also have to exercise that power, and exercising power always risks electoral annihilation (and usually leads to at least some setbacks).
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
The French elections ended in a vast underperformance for Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National. They won more seats than previously, but nowhere close to their hoped majority, with the big winner being the leftist NFP coalition and Macron's supporter parties also performing reasonably well compared to expectations.
This seems to show that the right-wing populist parties still have a major hurdle to pass on their path to power; they have a lot of fervent supporters, sure, but even more fervent opponents of the sort that would vote for a fence post or a dead dog to keep them out of power. In France this was made easier by leftist and centrist candidates dropping out from three-person races to concentrate votes against RN, but vote concentration might have happened to a lesser degree even before the dropouts.
The right-wing populists are predictably blaming elite machinations, migrant voters etc. but the true reason is genuinely that a lot of their agenda is unpopular, such as their opposition to EU (usually moderated in recent years but still in the background), past or present favorability towards Russia, or simply the fact that their rows of candidates are often full of perceived extremists (fundamentalists, supporters of historical movements of the goosestep variety, antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists, monarchists in countries with a strong republican tradition etc.) or people who just come off as plainly too incompletent for people to vote for them.
These things could of course be solved, and the leaderships of the parties usually want to solve them, but such parties are also affected with a heavy bunker mentality where any accusation of extremism or stupidity aimed at a genuinely extreme or stupid candidate is just taken as more leftist lies that everybody in the party will face, and if the party leadership goes too heavily againt such candidates or touches some pet causes, there might be a revolt amongst party membership who are always looking for signs of their leadership betraying them and going over the side of the establishment.
The French government will probably be formed by some combination of centrist parties, ie. everyone expect RN and LFI, the most left-wing party in the leftist coalition, but if such a coalition is unstable or gets other parties tarred with Macron's current unpopularity, it might create opportunities for RN to do better in 2027.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
4mo ago
I disagree! I believe the writing is also, at the very least, more to my liking in Sunless Skies. Playing Cultist Simulator made me understand that not only was the game mechanic boring and confusing but I'm not also particularly fond of Kennedy's style of writing, and having less of his touch in Sunless Skies meant that within the dark fantasy/steampunk/occult horror vibe of the games there's more of the first two and less of the third, and that's very much fine with me.
Of course, things might be different if I had played Sunless Sea first and came into Skies with an expectation that the writing was more of the same, but alas...
Possibly a part of the explanation, too.
More options
Context Copy link