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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Quite. Bluster is cheap. It costs literally nothing to declare, "I would sooner die than accept defeat, I'll fight anyone who wants to go, and I would take a bullet for our President!" It's literally just saying words out loud. Most don't expect to ever have to actually do it. Most, not all but most, strongman types are paper tigers.
They roar because it makes them look cool in front of their supporters and because most people that hear the roar back down. They get all the credit for being a Badass Macho Man without ever having to actually fight for it.
There is nothing more effective at silencing a paper tiger than bopping them on the nose. Calling their bluff and introducing consequences can be very effective at making them firmly reconsider just how far they're actually willing to go, while also damaging their Strongman image in front of their supporters.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 16th 2020 at 9:11:10 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Cohen the Barbarian was old school. Part of Cohen's danger to normal people is that as a barbarian hero he has extreme problems interpreting such things as empty bravado — as a man of his word, he naturally assumes that anyone else saying something like 'I would rather die than betray the Emperor' fully means it. This led to the deaths of several guards and courtiers in the Agatean Empire before everyone wised up.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.A bit of lighter news about the orange man - at 3 AM this morning he tweeted a Babylon Bee article (basically the conservative, christian Onion) thinking it was actually real news.
Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Oct 16th 2020 at 9:16:33 AM
And the worst part of this is the fact there's people not only in the Anglosphere, but in other countries who are falling on that shit.
I've made it a habit on Reddit to repost this every time Qanon shows up and hope it spreads:
I should point out I was on 4chan when Qanon was created. It was always a metafiction game that was meant to be a JOKE. It's no different than if Trump was suddenly fighting Slenderman except believing in a business suit wearing boogeyman (Slendy not Trump) is arguably more believable and his videos have better production values. It took 3 con artists and Patreon to turn it into the national embarrassment it is today.
NBC exposed the people behind it a long time ago: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/how-three-conspiracy-theorists-took-q-sparked-qanon-n900531
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For context, Discworld reference, so he does mean Cohen and not Conan.
Edited by sgamer82 on Oct 16th 2020 at 9:16:55 AM
Unfortunately, this ARG joke turned into one of the biggest right-wing conspiracy movements in recent memory. And bloody hell, are their adherents cultish to the bone in places as far away as Europe and Australia. Is there a way to silence Q into irrelevance so common sense can fare slightly better in a world already struggling for reason?
Edited by Lazlo74 on Oct 16th 2020 at 9:20:27 AM
Scaled seekerEdited by Dirtyblue929 on Oct 16th 2020 at 9:20:30 AM
x 5 Trump reflects his base perfectly.
All of them, him included, being Too Dumb to Live in human society.
And if this can fool him this badly, then he stands zero chance against Putin and the rest of the dictators he is trying to get cozy with, or understand even how a Thanksgiving turkey is made.
(Won't be surprised that none of his family actually knows how to cook and they just order KFC for the "turkey" during that holiday...)
Add the massive debts he owns to "unknown" entities and his security risk factor rockets straight into the stratosphere.
Edited by TitanJump on Oct 16th 2020 at 6:20:22 PM
"The most simple explanation of the lunacy in our country is that rich people pay the Republican politicians to peddle white supremacy, religiously motivated hate against easy targets (gays, "baby killers", trans, "criminals", welfare queens, or caravans of refugees), and so on in order to create voter blocks that will allow them to carry out their financial agenda."
This, so much. Thanks Charles.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.Really? Because I heard rumors the whole Qanon thing was created by the Russian intelligence agencies, in the same way like the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zeon, taking advantage of the many quirks from the American culture that wouldn't work either in Russia or, in theory, elsewhere.
With Bush and the other ‘mainstream’ Republicans I think they could prove useful yet, if Biden wins they could help scupper Trump’s inevitable shenanigans by publicly congratulating Biden.
Trump will never conceded, but if Bush effectively concedes on the Republican Party’s behalf that could help the transition of power.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThing is, I don’t trust any of the republicans like Bush to not want what Trump is doing. They just don’t want their own name on the front page.
So even a symbolic gesture won’t happen.
My musician pageBronies started as a joke too.
That's the thing about these metafiction "joke" movements. You might be participating ironically and telling yourself that it's just for lulz, but other people who aren't in on the joke are watching a bunch of people suddenly flipping out over this thing. And they're intrigued and curious and want to understand what's going on.
Nobody told them that it's a joke. So you start to gather this second generation of totally sincere people who got into it because they thought you were being sincere too. They thought this was supposed to be an actual thing, and they listened to it, and they spread it to others. And that just snowballs.
Metafiction gag movements are the larval state of cults. The addendum to Poe's Law is that when a satirical riff is unrecognizable from a genuine position, it may in fact evolve into sincerity.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 16th 2020 at 10:56:34 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Yeah, no, that's more of their bullshit as it means they're more important than the bunch of gamers fucking around and idiot dad shares than it is. Again, I was there. So were plenty of other people.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Russians spread it, though.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 16th 2020 at 11:03:07 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Trump is now a billion dollars in debt to foreign powers.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.About a million more people tuned in to watch Mr. Rogers over Racist Uncle.
Early ratings point towards roughly 14 million people watching Biden's townhall, with 13 million for Trump. This is despite Trump's townhall being on three channels.
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Secret Service should immediately take away all access to the nuclear codes from him.
He is the most compromised president in American History and I have zero doubt that he would try and sell the codes off to Russia just to pay his debt off, among other things of America he would sell for that purpose if he loses in November...
He is a legit threat to the entire world.
Edited by TitanJump on Oct 16th 2020 at 8:12:24 PM
There is not a mechanism for the Secret Service to withhold Presidential powers from a sitting POTUS if they don't like or trust them.
Nor should there be, despite Trump.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 16th 2020 at 11:14:22 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
The United States military removed Richard Nixon's capacity to launch nuclear missiles during his impeachment. This is incredibly grossly illegal but they did so without hesitation due to fear he'd start a nuclear war.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.This is fascinating, in a "dead animal by the road" way:
"It is important to note, as Trump did Thursday night, that he also has significant assets. Forbes values them at $3.66 billion, enough to make his net worth an estimated $2.5 billion. He is not broke, despite what many critics claim." [from the article linked above]
So it's not "national security" levels of debt, but it's still significant. The net worth of his assets isn't necessarily the figure that matters—capital assets are valued for the annual income they bring in (for example, building rents), and for their worth as collateral against future loans (which can be used to expand his businesses). If he had to sell off a billion dollars worth of his assets, that could harm his credit rating enough to significantly impact his ability to borrow money—the lifeblood of a business like real estate. In fact, that may be the most plausible reason why he wanted to conceal his tax records in the first place—could he have been informally telling his business partners that he is a much better risk than he really is?
An untold aspect to this story are the tenants of his buildings—in many cases journalists have uncovered "empty storefronts" owned by foreign governments, yet paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.

Nothing makes somebody reconsider the whole "die for the cause" thing quite like the prospect of actually being made to do just that.
EDIT: Pagetopper
Edited by Reflextion on Oct 16th 2020 at 11:30:17 AM
Someone did tell me life was going to be this way.