So if a cheater wins hard enough, it can be called “fair and square”? Not sure what specifics could get me on board with that.

Perhaps, but with all of the voter suppression and election rigging that has been done by the Republicans, can you really say he won “fair and square” at this point?

Who could stay away from Zion? It’s a lovely national park and the folks I meet there are usually very nice!

Comparison mostly. HD and 3D isn’t impressing you by virtue of it being superior to real life (it isn’t after all), it’s impressing you compared to other examples of the same thing done “worse”. The best portrait artist in the world can not make something look more “real” than the reference material, but it can compared to other attempts at painting.

This is true in other natural things as well. For example, a really big tree surrounded by smaller similar sized trees feels “really impressive” compared to a mountain surrounded by other… similar sized mountains. Or why a particularly colorful plant seems impressive surrounded by a bunch of green and brown plants.

On the other hand, things like OLED screens can be impressive compared to the natural world due to their ability to arrange and display colors rarely found in nature.

While I could see the wisdom in not propping up a vegetable, I’m not sure acknowledging that they are propping up a vegetable is any more of a “winning strategy”.

Fun fact, Trump ran for the Reform Party nomination, which eventually went to Pat Buchanan, back in 2000.

ranting: noun

a long, angry, and impassioned speech. “at times, his rantings would become incoherent”

adjective

speaking at length in an angry and impassioned way.

I’m more familiar with the definition that includes the length of the speech. If you were using a definition that only refers to the energy, then I wouldn’t call it hyperbole.

Calling it ranting is hyperbole, but but he did randomly start talking about immigrants murdering women when answering the question about abortion.

https://youtu.be/z8eMauO_T88?si=_MDIXV7B-Hi3IU_5

Well you see, when a capitalist and a politician love eachother money very much, they engage in an act of love collusion. This gets both of them very much money. So much in fact, that they couldn’t possibly hold on to all of it. And the money that falls out of their pocket trickles down to every one! Thus, products are improved, and everyone gets their needs met!

This is the free market in action, and anyone who disagrees is a dirty Commie!

1 vegetarian baby or?

I see no evidence that Biden has anything to gain from appeasing the left.

I would argue that failing to realize how large of a voting bloc the left is was a large part of what got us Trump in the first place. Moderates weren’t enough to push Hillary through in 2016, and Dems made sure to send a strong “we don’t need or care about you” message to the left.

If you want people to agree with you then you need to convince them that sharing your point of view benefits them.

I fully agree with this, but here is the thing. The Dems aren’t arguing that their point of view benefits the Left. They are arguing Republicans will be worse. Which is true, but saying I have to pay you $20 so your asshole friend doesn’t beat me up and take my wallet isn’t a benefit to me. It’s extortion.

I will be voting for Biden, being extorted is a less terrible option in the short run after all. But I won’t be surprised if the Dems “We are less awful” strategy doesn’t woo enough voters. And the Dems will have only themselves to blame. Because just like you said, if you want people to agree with you, you have to show them the benefit.

Piggybacking on to this excellent comment to elaborate on modding New Vegas. Everything except NVR works great! I’d recommend using this to install MO2

4GB patcher has a Linux specific version on the Nexus Mods page.

You can run most tools like the BSA decompressor or the TTW installer using Protontricks.

xLODGen can be added as a tool to MO2 and just works.

edit: Forgot to mention, Wabbajack doesn’t work. Best just to run it on a Windows VM and move the files. Also, the current working version of MO2 doesn’t support Root builder. So just move any files that need to be in the game folder directly to the game folder.

I don’t see anything that they said about TikTok or ByteDance

Smfh, so then you didn’t read what they said, since they specifically said:

I acknowledge that TikTok is a problem.

And given that Whataboutism is a tactic to discredit the severity of an accusation by pointing to similar or worse behaviors by others, this not only isn’t “textbook Whataboutism”, it’s not Whataboutism at all. Their point was that the scope of the issue exceeds TikTok, and as such, attempts to solve the issue by focusing on TikTok are either misguided or of suspect intent.

In no way did they try to make the point that what TikTok does is okay, nor did they claim that TikTok wasn’t censoring content. I’d accuse you of trying to strawman their argument, but you just flat made up a different argument and pretended that was theirs instead.

They are saying the forest is on fire, and you are accusing them of Whataboutism because they aren’t focusing on your favorite tree.

Fuck dude… Really??? Did you even read what they said?

Lol, oh, guess I was preaching to the choir.

Its the most simple handheld gaming PC by far. As with all unfamiliar systems, there is a learning curve that exists, and person to person the difficulties in this will vary. But at a base level, out of the box, the SteamDeck is almost as simple to grasp as something like a Switch (or any other console). If you just want to game, and just want it to work, SteamDeck is your best choice.

Full disclosure though, the deeper you choose to dig into advanced use, the more complicated this question becomes. If you are more familiar with Windows, then using the desktop on a Windows handheld will naturally make more sense at first. But if you are comfortable with Linux (or put in the time to learn), the SteamDeck is far easier to use fully handled than it’s competition thanks to easy to remap on the fly controls and the track pads. But again, this second “advanced usage” point is moot if you just want to buy games from Steam and have them work out of the box.

Yeah, always make assumptions. They make conversations faster.

It is interesting that in this economy which is intentionally managed to create a shortage of jobs and to lower wages, that employees are expected to betray the public trust and even engage in illegal activity at the behest of their employers just to stay employed, and that some of us might find this as an acceptable state of affairs. And yes, when business goes sour for the company, those employees will be discarded with no additional acknowledgment for their loyalty.

I fully agree with the point you are making here. It’s a fucked up system with a whole mess of badly designed incentives that cause people to be shitty to each other.

My only disagreement is with your willingness to condemn innocent people who lost their jobs over the actions of a few. I worked for GeekSquad, data privacy violations were not only a fireable offense but also something those I worked with prided themselves on protecting. All of my coworkers were privacy advocates and enthusiasts who did not go digging through anyone’s personal data. Rather, oftentimes they would try to help clients be more informed, even risking their own job stability when doing so lost sales.

There are good folks who didn’t deserve to lose their jobs, were not guilty of the actions you are upset over, and don’t deserve people callously implying they deserved it.

Yes, a handful of BestBuy employees accepted payments from the FBI to report on CP found on a customers device. So let’s all feel good about underpaid workers losing their jobs in this economy.

While the specific context and criteria may differ between the “No True Scotsman” and “No True Christian” fallacies, the underlying logical error remains the same: attempting to maintain a generalization or stereotype by selectively redefining the category to exclude inconvenient counterexamples. There is no meaningful difference. (In a somewhat ironic twist, you’ve essentially applied the “No True Scotsman” fallacy to the concept itself.)

I didn’t argue that China isn’t Communist because of trivial reasons like using sugar in their coffee; rather, my point was centered on their significant presence of a private sector. Just as you emphasize that democracy necessitates “free and democratic elections,” I similarly emphasize that Communism entails certain defining characteristics. The absence of private industry serves as a clear benchmark, not a moving target or an impossible standard, but a fixed criterion. Despite whatever label the controlling party in China holds, they fall short of meeting this criterion.

In essence, you’re basing your argument on a false premise. Your definition of Communism holds as much weight as North Korea’s definition of Democracy. While you allow Democracy to define itself based on its ideology, you insist on defining Communism based on the actions of its deceitful actors.