MTG Salvation

I would add to the cons of MC the fact that they themselves might have to move, and therefore going there could result in us having to move a 2nd time. The smaller playerbase con would also be that we would still be struggling to fill games most likely.

**** it, why not.

/in

I think the lurking mostly comes from a place that post quality just has to be up there, even as a town player. I think if it was more relaxed, like on other sites, people would post most, even just one-two liners. Yes, only one post like this a day is going to be obnoxious, but I can struggle to post a day, when I feel like I have to actually type a paragraph.

The only thing is that's a playerbase issue, and not something a moderator can do about that. But for making a post, I found it easy to just look at the game on my phone, respond to maybe one post at a time, just to put out a little content.

@Iso: Sorry to hear that man, I'll miss ya.

I agree with Blatch, we got rid of the debate forum, why again?

The long and short of it is that not a single person here is saying either party deserved to get death threats. Anyone sending those is not only out of line, but could potentially get in trouble with the law if they were found out. I don't really see anything that Christine did as wrong. Jeremy is an instigator in a lot of situations, and even his "critique" is more of an actual attack, rather than actual constructive criticism. And this was not a single incident that just happened and got blown out of proportion.

As far as how to make the community better, really the only thing that can be done is trying to make sure your table, store, or wherever you play just has the basic courtesy to treat people like people, regardless of how they look or dress. Sometimes, comments can be legitimately made out of ignorance, so try not to immediately jump to a conclusion. Just try to explain why it can be taken as unnecessary and rather than make an enemy, make someone understand the perspective, at least.

I don't even participate that much, and I already miss it.

Thanks mtgs.

Quote from Ljoss »

Trump went off today on fake news outlets Buzzfeed and CNN. There are plenty of things that are going to be bad about a Trump presidency, but this campaign that he's running against the garbage in the media is fantastic. Here's the video evidence.

Quote from Ljoss »

Trump went off today on fake news outlets Buzzfeed and CNN. There are plenty of things that are going to be bad about a Trump presidency, but this campaign that he's running against the garbage in the media is fantastic. Here's the video evidence.

Nobody hear will deny Buzzfeed has a strong lbieral biased, but calling that fake news would be like me calling Fox "fake news".

I think what's amusing to me is how facebook groups like "Occupy Democrats Logic" or "RedPolitics" are still slamming Clinton right now, and liberals in general. Like, come January 20th, Republicans are going to be in the driver's seat, there isn't much you can blame on liberals right now. It's actually just point blank embarrassing.

Also, Mitch McConnell really needs to be thrown out on his ass. I don't know what kind of drugs he is on, but the amount of double talk he is on is just ridiculous. Almost like he doesn't know what the internet is, or how ridiculous he looks. I realize he is a Reagan Republican, all the way to the 11th commandment, but still.

Alright, I had an off period and I was bored so I watched it for fun. This mind set does fascinate me after all and there might intriguing ideas.

1st issue, first 2 minutes: Government always does worse, and the drawing seem to imply corruption in government that would be absent in private hands. Strongly, strongly disagree. I would be terrified to have the courts, police or other government functions in the hands of the private sector. The author is working on a Utopian idea that government is the root of all corruption, and by getting rid of it, the country would be better.

Right's Enforcement Agency: What happens when you have an issue with the REA that takes your case? Do you go to another REA then for restitution, or what's the game plan? Business makes mistakes all the time, what's the redress since you can't go to the government? What happens if both customers use the same REA?

Ok, they answered the lesser issue with REA's clashing, but how about the judge. Who gave the judge his right to be a judge? I assume there is no requirement for law, or to practice law for a period, and what happens when no judge can be found because each party has an issue with all the judges? Picking judges doesn't erally happen today, the closest you can do is maybe get a judge to get reclusal, but eh.

There is also going to be a quality difference in REA. *shrugs* it's true. And no surprise, the ones that have more money will likely have a better REA. Justice? I assume settlements will still be a thing so what happens when a weaker REA goes up against a stronger REA? His example of finding a judge seems to make the assumption that both REAs are about equal in strength, and avoiding conflict seems to be more beneficial because it would end in a likely stalemate or costly victory.

11 minutes: Blah blah blah, Free Market is perfect. A fine premise for studying Econ in class, but a terrible one to apply to the real world.

I don't see agencies ever decreasing their prices if they can raise them and maintain their customers. Like, what real world example would ever let you or the host ever believe that? If you have a product at 4.99, and can raise it to 9.99 without losing a single customer, why would you ever not raise the price?

A lot of things are optimal. It's optimal to not be racist or homophobic and alienate potential customers, but it doesn't mean it happens.

Rational Ignorance would apply here then: One customer is not going to make a company randomly change their money making strategy. Even in a smaller number. In the above, assume Mcdonalds has 20k customers. Raising the prise to 9.99 makes you have 19,999 customers. Did that one really hurt for moving your price is up?

The customers don't chose the court. The REAs do, so the customer has no actual direct say. They could I suppose choose to switch REAs, but again, a lot of people won't be in an optimal position to bargain.

Obama did the wrong thing versus right thing. In your court case, one REA is still going to lose in a dispute. Not much difference there.

Why would a customer of an REA ever accept a court case, and would that even be necessary if an accusation is made against a person who doesn't have an REA.

Like, why link this video and not explain it? It didn't take long, and in the first 5 minutes, his view of the world has a crippling flaw, and makes no many assumptions about why A, B, and C would happen, but doesn't assume that certain other traits would work. In this world, there will be better REAs. There will be corrupt REAs or judges, especially in smaller towns where people living there don't have the option to pick between too many choices (and whether you believe it or not, simply moving will be just as hard there as it is here). So your video actually does your presmise a disservice.

Ignoring the fact that this world view doesn't even discuss how foreign policy would be approached.

Edit: One last point that occurred to me, although a variation was pointed out earlier: These REAs have all this motivation to work together for the best of the customer. What is stopping the 3-4 REAs in say Cook County IL from discussing raising prices, because they can? Even if there is a hold out, not hard to just get all the other interested parties to pressure the dissenter.

Sure, why not.

/in

Quote from Highroller »

Quote from Gentleman Johnny »

Seems kind of stupid, as I doubt half the people mocking him on social media knew what was going on or where Aleppo is.

I would expect a presidential candidate to be smarter than half the people on social media.

Though that expectation has lead to a great deal of disappointment this election.

I don't disagree, but I for instance never knew anything about it. Apart from most media focusing on a person not standing during the National Anthem, has Aleppo even been under the focus of the election? Like, if we are seeing which potential candidate did the dumbest *****, I don't even know how this makes the radar.

If you want to hit Johnson hard and show what a crackpot party the Libertarians are, all you have to do is show that clip of Johnson getting booed for supporting drivers licenses: a ridiculous issue that was mainstream enough in the Libertarian Party it made the debates. It would as ridiculous as if the Democratic party had a debate talking point of "should we allow people to shop online."

I find it fascinating that its such a "important" goal to hunt down people for a single word and make demands to them to edit their signature and delete posts or re-edit posts long in the past just because someone suddenly decided that a word is for whatever reason not welcome anymore.

You can bet that the vast vast majority have no ill intentions what so ever, so the words themselves dont hurt anybody and they are also have no means to hurt anybody , and frankly, the vast majority of people wont care at all if they read "lynch" or any other words, they accept its a game with its own rules and flavor.

Anybody can feel offended by basically anything, its absolutely impossible to create a space in which everyone is welcome to the fullest extend and anybody is protected by being offended ... thats not a possible end scenario ... the only thing that is possible, is to create a space that fits your very own personal guidelines of what you want to accept and what you dont want to accept.

At some point its much more healthy to accept that other people have a different line to draw what they consider offensive, and that line should never be so much in one direction that it alienates a large portion of the actual people its supposed to serve.

----

Its one thing to point out a supposed problem (which they might not accept as such) , but its an entirely different animal to go ahead and enforce that by penalty and threatening to ban or moderate their personal presentation in a forum.

The broad statement:
"Don't discriminate or make people feel unwelcome."

Is something everyone can agree on, but everyone also has a different understanding on what it actually means.

Speaking your mind is welcome for some, others feel offended if you speak your opinion in their faces.
If you make it impossible for people to speak freely, they will not feel welcome at all, and simply leave if it bothers them too much.
So what you create is a space of people that accept to not speak their mind and never openly disagree with each other, as everyone fears to be threatened and shunned by their community for doing so.

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I must say, the Mafia community is absolutely welcoming and friendly.
If someone is in such a degree offended by a word that it bothers them, its probably better if they move along and let the people have their fun.
If just 1 person thinks its offensive and 1000 other people have no issue at all, its highly questionable if these 1000 people should suddenly be considered offensive and "guilty", or you simply accept that this 1 person might maybe just integrate more openly and learns that they are personally welcome if they dont try to start a rabble for their personal pleasure to be offended (as thats how it feels, if a person is just artificially offended to wield that as a weapon to put themselves into a superior spotlight, that leaves anybody else in the dark ... thats a very ugly and unwelcoming world that people quite likely are trying to avoid by posting in this forum).

----

Leaving your real world troubles at the front door and embracing a game together is the most welcoming message to send.

I dont want to be in world in which everyone is constantly barraging the other on what they find offensive and how they have to change their language right now as they demand it ... it leads to silly and outright insulting language on its own that people then again feel not welcome in.

Yeah, this is pretty much my point.
It's why I'm advocating to move the conversation past the "if" stage and officially to "where".

Quote from Xul »

The only thing that I think that he should have done is that he should have banned more than seven countries. He should have banned all muslim countries just to be sure or, as you've all mentioned above, temporarily freeze immigration to US for the citizens of muslim countries. The safety of his own people should come first.

And still wouldn't have made the US safer from terrorists. With the exception of 9/11 all terrorist attacks committed on US soil have been commited by homegrown lunatics...

The only thing his Muslim ban did was act as a rallying cry for any nutter that wanted to peddle a clash of civilisations narrative, both Muslim and non Muslim alike. On the Muslim side it will act to increase recruitment in both the hellholes we have created with our foreign policies and the lone wolf self radicallised idividuals that are already in the US and Europe who won't be picked up by the travel ban as they are already here legally.


This all ignores the fact that to be considered a Refugee and granted leave to enter the US you will already have to have gone through some of the strictest vetting that exists for the purpose anywhere in the world.

i've avoided commenting on any Trump-related stuff so far - but as an "outsider looking in", it's got to the point now where i'm seeing a sort of cultural state of mind form in the USA, which, frankly, terrifies the rest of the world.

let's examine a few points very briefly to explain my observation as clearly as I can:

1) the candidate for presidency of a world power has been accused of multiple counts of sexual assault. normally, in any professional environment, a person so accused would be temporarily suspended and an investigation carried out until a resolution was found. Remember, this is a serious and criminal accusation.
so far, as far as i can tell, the ramifications for these serious accusations has been, what exactly? His response was that of a bully or a child - effectively say "no i didn't" and then proceeding to insult these women! whether he's innocent or guilty, this is no way for a potential world leader to behave. like, at all.

2) let's take this scenario further and examine his behaviour with regards to women in general (picking on this point because it's half the damn planet's population). there can be no denying that his general admitted behaviour (remember, much of what is being said of him is either on video or admitted by the man) is utterly deplorable. His response to literally everyone saying "holy crap man, that's weak. sort your ***** out" was to say "it's locker-room banter", that's just how men behave?!?!?
No. Just no. He is projecting his own behaviour on others, in a predictable and ignorant fashion, such as a poorly behaved child might. He falsely expects others to share his warped, hateful world view and so projects it onto half the population of the world. I am personally offended by his remarks, grouping all men into this misogynistic, ignorant way of seeing things. This is not who men are, and again, I have to add, this is not how a candidate to be a world leader should be behaving. AT. ALL... THE LEADER OF YOUR COUNTRY SHOULD BE A ROLE MODEL.

3) let's examine the wider context. it seems that due to Trump's presence in the race, both sides are being dragged into the muck, and the people voting in polls and arguing about the race have got so hopelessly lost in an ideological war of insults and dishing dirt, that they've forgotten what a leader should be like! there is no way, at all, that a man such as this can be considered a fit leader. regardless of whether you agree with his bizarre sociopathic and xenophobic views (and they are, taken in the wider context. whether you agree or not, they are), he's just not the type of person you want sitting on the top of the pile calling the shots. just look back through his life. look at what he's done to achieve, and how he behaves towards others as a result of his playboy devil-may-care lifestyle. look at how superficial and false his appeals are to voters. it only takes a moment to see that this isn't an unbiased, rational, calm leader who takes all sides of an argument into consideration before acting. Instead, we see (all too clearly) a man who, in an effort to appeal to voters, is condoning violence, hatred, racism, and is flagrantly lying to people and making random impossible stuff up (like that damn wall). his behaviour is all on video, recorded, there for people to see. I am saddened to see journalists and critics being brought down to his level, trying to deal with torrents of insults and strange comments made by him, instead of being able to ask the proper questions, as you'd expect from someone who could potentially run the country. where is the actual commentary on policy and structure? it's terrifying, honestly.

so here we are, thousands of miles away, watching all of this media storm unfold, and the USA just devour itself in childish, immature behaviour from what should be upstanding, intelligent candidates. the rhetoric coming from this debate, the allegations, the hatred, the xenophobia and everything, it's so utterly terrifying to watch from an outside perspective it puts knots in my stomach just to think about the potential outcome. I have become embarrassed to be a member of our species, if this is what we consider to be a fit role model and a suitable carrier of the torch, leading us into the future.

do you think this man understands or cares about the future of our species? do you think he's considered the extinction-level perils we face over the next 200 years? does he consider the importance of developing the space programme and trying desperately to secure our survival in the future (which we should be doing), or instead is he just concerned about his bottom line, and "keeping these people out" of his sad little speck of land.

i am disgusted by this man, in a way that I find it difficult to express. not because he holds these hateful views, but because somehow, inexplicably, he has been held up on a plinth, above all other reasonable and intelligent people, and the USA has said "yeah! that's him! the guy with deplorable views, who may or may not have raped several women, who is clearly a violent, ignorant man! that's the guy we want to be in charge! Woo!"

it's a sad world we live in. the history textbooks of the future will look on this time with embarrassment and solemn understanding of the mistakes we all made.

Quote from bLatch »

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/09/16/gary-johnson-trump-clinton-debates/90507686/

It's official. he will not be on the stage. According to the polls utilized only 10% of the electorate (average) would vote for him, so he is out of the first debate.

The two party lock has never been more obvious, and while there have been electoral outcomes I disliked and disagreed with this is the first time since I've been eligible to vote that I am legitimately disappointed by the system itself.

The former New Mexico governor added that the commission "may scoff at a ticket that enjoys ‘only’ 9 or 10% in their hand-selected polls, but even 9% represents 13 million voters, more than the total population of Ohio and most other states."

You're disappointed that the guy who has a 0% chance of being president isn't in the debates to figure out who should be president?

Quote from Magicman657 »

Quote from dox »

Quote from Magicman657 »

1, He asked them to turn it over if they already have it, not to actively pursue it. Please try to avoid misrepresenting what was said, even though it was almost certainly phrased that way as a "gotcha!" for the media outlets to unintentionally misquote him so he can start another controversy where he isn't technically in the wrong. It feeds directly into what he is after, and believe it or not, I'd still rather Trump not get the attention he craves.

perhaps you should recheck what he said because you are mistaken. Trump said:
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
He didn't ask them to turn it over he said he hoped they can find it. He is actively advocating another country uncovering classified information. If a sane person has any problem with how Hillary handled her emails then they should have equal issue with anyone else asking another country to uncover said classified information. So no, a Trump supporter can no longer condemn Hillary for being careless after Trump has directly called for another country to gain access to the same classified intelligence.

Try not to accuse others of misrepresentation and then do the same thing yourself please.

If Russia is "finding" these emails, where do you think they might find them?
1 - In their own servers containing data they've hacked into already
2 - As part of a trove they will get access to after hacking into a server FBI forensic investigators currently have possession of which I guarantee you is not connected to a network with access to the Internet?

Trump knows this, and even tweeted afterwards specifically saying that he didn't mean #2. #1 is the only option that makes any sort of sense. His statements were made intentionally for you to have the reaction you are currently having to steal the media's attention away from the DNC while leaving him enough plausible deniability to deflect any claims of personal fault. This tactic isn't new (for him), but everyone seems to keep falling into it, and that's why he's the Republican nominee instead of Cruz. Stop feeding into his nonsense. You aren't going to "get" him on accusations of treason. It's a game designed to keep Hillary from also getting a post-convention bump in the polls.

I tend to agree with this view. Trump wasn’t inciting Russia to hack any servers. He seems to believe that because the servers were already hacked, the damage was already done. In my mind, he seems to be making the mistake of not realizing that the dissemination of classified material is also a crime, along with the hacking, but it looks like that is a mistake and not deliberate incitement.

At any rate, the left-leaning media seems to me to be making too much of it. As above, it can only serve to give Trump a bigger microphone. It’s not as if Trump hasn’t already said dozens of things that implicate violations of the US Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, you name it. Hoisting this latest of his into the air for all to see isn’t likely to convince anyone that was already decided one way or the other, if that is the goal. More likely the media outlets just want more click-bait.


Also in what seems like a similar situation to me, different issue, I didn’t particularly like the DNC parading out illegal immigrants to tell their sob stories on day 1 of the convention. At worst, someone committed the crime of abetting an illegal immigrant on a deportation order, or violating campaign laws that prohibit the participation of foreign nationals in our elections process. But even at best, it shows immense disrespect for our immigration laws to have granted a forum as prestigious as that to persons who have admittedly violated the law. So even if not overtly criminal, certainly it was ignorant and careless.

In my mind, the bodies of voters that Hillary hasn’t won yet are to either side of her, and they consider wage stagnation among the working middle class and asset inflation to be the central issues of the election. Trump assigns blame for those things according to some prejudiced views, but Bernie supporters on the other side also see the same issues, only differ in explanation and proposed resolution. But either way, those issues are intertwined with expectations of social status that developed over multiple generations of Americans, and statistically impact Whites more than other groups. So, this tired old virtue signaling routine on illegal immigration just seems likely to further alienate those voters to either side of Hillary. Not a good move.

Quote from bravesbaseball »

Hint:

Trump did not say all judges from group A are biased. So your question about judges outside of group A is immaterial to determining whether or not Trumps response about this judge is racist. It's possible another judge from group A to rule differently as well.

No, the question of judges outside of group A is critical. Because what Trump wants is to replace the Mexican judge with a non-Mexican judge. Trump's thesis is that Mexican-ness indicates (be it deterministic or probabilistic indication) a level of bias against him greater than that of non-Mexicans. If he did not believe that Mexicans were more likely to be biased against him than non-Mexicans, then he wouldn't have said "He's Mexican".

The implied comparison of Mexicans to non-Mexicans is the part that makes it racist. If Trump's argument were simply this one particular judge is biased against me because he doesn't like the things I say, then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Quote from Silvercrys3467 »

Well, speaking as one of those new players... I'm came here for Magic information first (been lurking MTGS for years looking at primers and what not) and accidentally stumbled on to the Mafia subforum. I had some experience playing face-to-face and figured I'd give it a shot. Not sure how you'd really target the "Magic players who also play Mafia" population besides what's already been suggested like tweets from the MTGS account and articles on the main site page.

Same thing for me.

I got here because I wanted to up my Lorwyn game. Then I got too good and upped my win rate in limited format to something absurdly high like 90%, and that's when I lost interest in Magic -- I started playing like a Spike, which made playing against Timmy and Johnny a snore (but a friendly snore!), and sheer frustration when dealing with the attitude of other Spikes.

So I looked around to see if there was anything else for me, and then I discovered the Mafia subforum.

I also imagine Jace talks in an Australian accent like Jeice from DBZ.

Quote from Gentleman Johnny »

Quote from Seppel »

I blame Curse 100%. It crippled MTGS and it hasn't recovered since. They haven't even TRIED to restore the site to its previous functionality.

MTGS is an absolute pain to browse and post on. The only reason I tolerate it is because I like you all.

If I had a heart, I would be crying right now.

(You doing Gen Con again this year again? I feel like I need to get you a beer or something)

Yup, I'll be there. Booth 2442.

(Also I prefer wine over beer.)

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