Here is an idea that MIGHT work... battery rental programs like car rentals.
The battery bays in cars would have to be very accessible. You drive to your local battery rental place and they take out YOUR batteries and give you a rental set. Then you drive from battery exchange location to battery exchange location on your trip. At each place they pull THEIR discharged battery out and put in another of their charged batteries in. For this to be practical they'd have to partner with a lot of gas stations... there would have to be a battery type standard... and there would have to be a lot of checks to make sure people weren't taking a good battery and then giving back a box full of sand or something.
Electrics are only good for commuting. If I go on a long distance drive then I want to be able to stop for 5 minutes to get gas and keep going. With an electric... even if the charging stations are everywhere you're talking about stopping every 200 to 300 miles to charge for six hours.
So what is the idea? Have two cars? Or a hybrid that is expensive because it has a piston engine, an electric motor, a battery, and a gas tank?
The only two situations where I see electric cars working is in a two parent household where one of the two owns an electric and the other has a gas car. Then when they go on trips they take the gas car while the electric is purely for commuting. Alternatively if you're rich you could just buy two cars even though you only need one.
To make electric work I think we either need to get that nano capacitor idea working so that cars can charge in a couple minutes rather than hours OR we need a battery exchange system.
I don't see battery exchanges happening... ever. Which means we're going to have gas cars be the primary work horse until we get capacitors with energy densities similar to batteries.
typo... I meant to say they non-profits cost the same as the for profits.
If the cost inflation were simply going to greedy insurance companies that were spending the proceeds on hookers and cocaine then you'd see big differences in insurance rates between the companies. Instead, they're very consistent... profit... non-profit... they all cost about the same.
Your theory would mean they could charge less and just choose to charge more. Any for profit insurance company could gain market share in that environment by offering cheaper rates. And non-profits don't have a profit motive. So you should see variability. And yet you don't.
That is because the costs are as low as they can be already.
What drives the costs up is not the insurance but the hospitals and the government.
Don't believe me? Pay the hospital without insurance. Look at what they want to charge you.
No insurance company involved. Just you and the hospital.
My mother had an operation that cost something like 40k the other year. It wasn't the insurance company that made the operation cost 40k. That was the hospital's rate. Period.
What the insurance company did pay for everything after my mother's deductible which is pretty low because she's getting on in years and sees the doctors for lots of things. So it makes sense for her to have a lower deductible. I think her insurance covers her for up to a million a year or something.
Her insurance is not cheap. But it costs what it costs because she is a high risk to use the insurance and the cost at the hospitals is very high. Add 1 to 2 and you get 3.
You realize there are non-profit insurance companies right... and they don't cost the same as the for profit ones.
You're so brainwashed its funny.
A fair number of the blue cross/blue shield providers are non-profit.
They cost the same though.
You've been lied to by your political masters, spud.
Wise up.
As to other insurance companies being inflated in cost... compare the trend line of cost increases with other types of insurance. There's no comparison.
You've sadly bought a conspiracy theory about as stupid as the 9/11 being a US government plot... you've been suckered.
I haven't been angry on the internet since 2002, chump.;)
A friend of mine f'ed me over and I was upset for about a week about that... I don't remember when I was mad before that... it doesn't happen often and no shitstain like yourself could possibly make me mad.
Anger is a response to fear and fear requires some sense of danger or threat from you that actually threatens me.... you can't do anything to me... so I can't feel threatened by you. And as I can't be threatened... I don't feel angry.
I'm always amused by you little numskulls thinking you can gain rhetorical advantage by claiming you got someone else mad without understanding what that would even mean.
The reason getting someone mad is a rhetorical win for you is because you scared someone or caused them to lose control.
You can't honestly believe you scare me can you? And as to a loss of control... I suppose you're suggesting that I would only use profanity to insult someone if I were out of control? 'fraid not, stupid. I'm that way when I wake up in the morning and I'm that way when I go to bed. That's my default position and anyone that's been in a discussion with me as long as you have should have realized that by now.
You are stupid... so... I guess that's why you weren't able to connect those dots.
FYI... do connect the dots... it makes the a picture of a ducky.:)
As I'm literate I can bang out a response very quickly. More to the point though, you were utterly and manifestly refuted. The fact that you can't bring yourself to even look at the wreckage of your own credibility only validates my sense of superiority.
I cited many examples of people talking about poll inaccuracy. And really the entire issue is common knowledge. I'm not going to debate whether or not the Sun is hot with you. I've already cited more than I needed to cite.
As to opinion polls, actually the topic is about Pew Opinion poll. Kill yourself. No really. Put down the keyboard. Get up. And stop wasting oxygen.
I'll continue answering questions for posterity but we should assume that the poster has done the honorable thing and committed suicide.
As to ignorance regarding poll participation... You really did zero research in your short life didn't you?
What you can see there is that according to Pew... the same organization that did this poll that created this topic says... is that the response rate in 2012 was NINE PERCENT of people contacted. And from the previous years we can see a clear trend line DOWN.
Now when only 9 percent even respond to the call and that 9 percent is not randomly selected but in fact SELF selects that could very easily bias the results.
If someone has an opinion but doesn't want to talk to you for some reason then you won't record their opinion.
The world is better place now that you're gone. There is one less moron.:D
"Some crazy how" is an expression... Welcome to the 21st century. We're called humans. Where are you from?... I said "then you'll love public healthcare"... you criticize my grammar then out yourself as illiterate? Well played.
*golf clap"
As to insurance companies... wrong. If that were so then car insurance and home insurance etc would be sky high expensive.
why is uniquely health insurance so expensive?
And note, the profit margin of health insurance companies is not that great.
Of all the organizations that are responsible for the high cost of medical case, health insurance companies are the least to blame.
If anything they're keeping costs down.
What keeps costs down in a capitalist system is competitive pricing.
When was the last time you saw the prices of hospitals compared between each other? When was the last time you saw them even list prices?
The two big culprits are actually the hospitals and the regulations under which the hospitals operate.
This is why private practices are often cheaper and it is much cheaper to see a general practitioner in his own office not located on the hospital grounds than it is to see even an urgent care doctor inside the hospital.
You blame the health insurance companies for the high prices. Explain to me please how they conspire to inflate costs when somehow their profits are so low? Where is the money going if THEY are keeping it?
As to where you said the current system is free market... or the previous system was free market... you literally said it immediately before challenging me to quote you:
"Bought by insurance companies, that bastion of capitalism."
How are you so fucking stupid that you can contradict yourself just one sentence apart? You're fucking astounding.
As to you still using your brain... as the previous example shows... No you're not.
Way to some crazy how insert your fucking politics on healthcare into another situation that doesn't merit it.
As to why people don't fix pot holes etc... because the government has no incentive to do it. Which actually begs the question of why you think a system that doesn't care about pot holes is going to care about that throbbing brain tumor you're got growing between your ears.:D
Seriously... How is the government doing running public education? Impressed?
Have you seen how the government runs the VA hospitals? Impressed?
Then you'll love public healthcare!
How someone can be so fucking stupid and yet get through life not having that tattooed on their foreheads to warn anyone that looks at them... is one of the many actual flaws of this society.
Here's the reality chump, the problems with the cost of healthcare in the US are largely due to government regulation. Look at the top three floors of most hospitals and you'll see they're full of office space with people doing paper work. All of that has to be billed to patients and insurance companies or even the government. And that doesn't even account for the cost inflation of drugs. Why are drugs pretty much anywhere on planet earth cheaper than in the US even though we invented a good many of them here? Regulations.
That people like you consider the previous or current healthcare system to be a free market system is indefensible. It is nothing of the kind. Everything is highly regulated and quite a few of them cause run away cost inflation or remove any ability to control costs.
Do you see hospitals bidding against each other? Competitive pricing? The only people I see actually offering something akin to free market healthcare are the cosmetic surgery people. But if you don't want breast implants or hair plugs... then apparently you have to deal with some sort of quasi socialized healthcare dystopia... and anyone that doesn't like that... like me or anyone else that is paying attention... we can of course go fuck ourselves because people like you give us no fucking choice. Thanks for that.
Where is my right choose what is done to my body which would include any aspect of healthcare? Apparently everyone else gets to choose but me.
On and on. And then when you're upset with the cost of healthcare... your fucking solution is what? MORE REGULATIONS!!!
You baffle me, sir... why is your brain not floating in a jar of formaldehyde? You are a fucking marvel.
And? You wanted an address and a name. Do what you wanted to do... first, I suggest you start calling them at all hours to send harassing phone calls.
Then you might try ordering some pizzas to their address.
And possibly you can send them menacing pictures of the outside of the building showing them that you're there and WATCHING.
And then when you've gotten tired with that, you can file a false police report about someone shooting someone else on the premises to get a SWAT team to raid the facility.
And of course... I'm a coward if I don't make it easy for you to do that to me?
You're a fucking idiot.
You call me a coward for not letting you SWAT me? I'm not a coward. I'm just not stupid... unlike you.
And your presumption that I'm some how a coward because I won't doxx myself? Who do you think you're fooling with that you pathetic waste oxygen?
You asked for an address and a name. I suggest you troll away. The name by the way is the name of retired police chief. You can go after him too if you want.:D
What a fucking retard.:-D
*giggles*
I'm a old forum warrior, shithead. You're nothing I haven't seen before. I grind the bones of little morons like you and sprinkle them on my toast.
There is nothing you can say that will offend me. There is nothing you can that will get to me. And there is no ploy your feeble intelligence could come up with that I haven't seen a million times years ago.
You're nothing. And the funniest thing you've done is post as AC... which is Anonymous Coward... and call ME the coward even then I actually log in.
I have an excellent karma rating by the way. What's yours? Zero? Hmmm... yet another way I'm better than you.
Suck it long and suck it hard... the prize is well worth the effort... I promise.
Second, while you're mouth is full of literally every dick ever. Let us try to actually get on point so you are cut off from further opportunities to cloud the issue with your pedantic attempts to censor opinions you don't like but actually don't have coherent reasons to contradict.
I went over and talked to the reef aquarium people and I asked them how fast coral grew in their tanks.
What they said was that it varies depending on how much light, what type of life, what temperature, what pH, and then there is a list of nutrients in the water that have to be kept within pretty specific concentrations.
In any case, they said that if all those things happen... the grow rate can be up to doubling in size every month.
Which means its possible if you lose HALF your coral in January that you can get it all back by the end of February.
As to coral dying instantaneously... I didn't say that. I said that certain things will cause it to die. Instantly? If I shoot you in the chest it doesn't kill you instantly... probably... it might take you hours to die... you might not even die at all. So instantaneous death? No. Inevitable statistical death? Sure.
As to your geological citation... during that period what happened to the coral? You say X happened and lasted Y duration. You did not correlate that with Z1 state of coral prior period and Z2 state of coral during the period.
Something along the lines of "you understand that beyond this point there are real dangers beyond the reasonable or desirable control of society and assume responsible responsibility for your own well being."
I can't believe all the stupid shit that is banned or that people have to be warned about because they're just that stupid. My personal favorite was a waiver I had to sign before using an ice rink. It literally was about absolving the rink from responsibility should I slip on the ice and fall... as well getting my initials next to a statement where they inform me that ice is slippery and they wanted it on record that I had been informed of that.
And that sort of thing is just everywhere.
My big issue with these rating systems is not that they exist. I think ratings are fine. My issue is that some countries take the step that if something gets a bad rating or refuses to be rated... that they presume to BAN whatever it is. That's not acceptable. By all means... slap warning labels on things.
I'd like a universal one that just basically reads "for adults only"... and then I'd put that on everything. Anyone that can't handle it will be assumed to be a child... even if they're 40 years old... and will be asked to go back to the various kiddy pools where they'll be kept safe from the big bad world.
Can a VR game scare the piss out of you? Sure. A survival horror game can do that already without VR. And if you have a heart condition or something then there are already games that can kill you. But it isn't the game killing you... its your fucking heart condition. And if you have one... maybe you should be smart enough to not play a game that is guaranteed to scare a little pee out of you.
No... this is the original version. The version you fuckwits have been ignoring from the start.
You really think we gave a shit about some woman having sex with 5 guys? This you think is news on the internet?
Would you like me to post a video for you of a group of guys running a train on a porn star? Because... your position is FUCKING STUPID.
Why do you think anyone would care if some woman had sex with 5 guys?
NO ONE CARES.
The issue was not that she had sex with five guys but WHO those five guys were and what they did for her in return.
They were journalists and media people etc and there is evidence in some of their cases and strong indications in the others that she got something for the sex. Influence... promotion... etc.
No one cares that she had sex with 5 guys. That's no the issue. That has never been the issue.
Her boyfriend obviously cared. But some dude getting cheated by his girlfriend is not news on the internet. No one cares that he got cheated on or that she slept around.
Irrelevant. Zero interest.
What matters is WHO she had sex with. THAT is the issue and that has ALWAYS been the issue.
From the start. Always. No revisions.
Your misunderstanding and bafflment to that fact is due to you being a creduliious fucktwit that gullibly listens to fucking anything he's told so long as they are from your political tribe. And then you just mindlessly believe whatever it is they tell you.
Not only do I know that about you... but even many people on the left are starting to be creeped out by people like you. A day doesn't go by where I don't see a life long leftist stand up and ask where all the fucking zombies came from. It's really pretty funny watching it all.
And what is especially funny is that this issue is causing a lot of your own political allies to wake up to it. They're not changing their politics. They're leftists and they're going to stay leftists. But they are starting to separate from "progressives" who are seen as something "else".
People like you are increasingly being referred to as the "authoritarian left".
The civil war in your own ranks has already started.
Say whatever you like... put out as much bravado as you can manage. It means nothing to me. I'm not ignorant of the issues and I'm not impressed by your ignorance of how horribly you've lost this issue or attempts to gaslight the issue.
You wanted to talk about GG... I responded.
This is what GG means at this point "Good Game"... something you'll hear gamers say when the game is over.
You lost. Accept it and move on... or don't. It doesn't really matter.
You're really having a hard time processing general statements as general statements.
I could be specific, use all the scientifically accurate terms, and go through the various processes... but that is contextually unnecessary because I was making a GENERAL point.
Simply sitting there and being pedantic is not a refutation of my point. It is at best a personal confession on your part as to the context of the discussion... the first point being that this is an internet chat forum and a certain amount of latitude is expected in this context. That you either were unaware of that or think you can use the fact that I'm treating the thread in this way as a way to de-legitimize my position is silly.
On point... if you're able.
Coral dies very easily. It is very sensitive to many things and dies or "bleaches" all the time for any of a tediously long list of reasons. It is however resilient as a "class" of life in that while it does die easily, it also adapts quickly and recolonizes quickly.
You can see lots of people talking about how they grow coral in tanks. The relevance of that is that they're very aware of SPECIFICALLY what the coral needs... a tediously long list of things that seem like a pain in the ass to maintain artificially. But the point is that if those conditions are in place the coral grows quickly.
The notion being spread around by chuckle heads like you is that when the coral bleaches the reef can't bounce back. It can and does so long as the prevailing conditions support coral.
Might the species mix of coral shift around a bit? Sure... that's nature. But will the coral go away entirely in those reefs? Fuck no.
And again, I'm not saying anywhere in here that we should casually destroy their habitat or not care about things that can hurt coral. I am instead arguing against alarmism that suggests that the coral is dying out.
It is not. various things will kill it or cause it to die back... and then it comes back. As a CLASS of life it is incredibly hardy. It isn't going anywhere.
Another twit who's history education is so poor he doesn't even know what the Cold War was... so many fucking peasants. What is going on? Did you people really finish planting all your potatoes? Nothing to do?
Stop bothering your superiors. Go fuck a goat or whatever it is you're doing when you're not saying stupid things.
They started with an accusation against Nathan Grayson of Kotaku. No one cares about Quinn.
Your position makes as much sense as saying that the people that brought up the Monica Lewinsky blow job semen stained dress thing were really just interested in harassing Quinn.
NO ONE CARES ABOUT QUINN.
She's evidence. She's exhibit fucking A. The guy on TRIAL is Nathan Grayson... who unless he's gone transfemale... is still a dude.
The only people that care about quinn... are people like you that are so easily manipulated by progress media ass covering that when the press freaked out because people were finally getting pissed enough to clean house... they basically tricked you idiots to be their cat's paws against what was and still is a legitimate consumer revolt about press ethics.
You say we care about Quinn... but who keeps bringing her up? Oh that's right... YOU do. Now if "we" cared... then we'd bring her up... wouldn't we?
No no... Answer that question. Would WE be the ones to bring Quinn up if that was what we cared about?
But you see... we don't bring her up because we don't care about her. She's EVIDENCE. We cite her only as contextually relevant to point out that Nathan Grayson was having sex with someone he had promoted. And yes he did. He did not promote her FREE game. That is true. He did however promote her PAID game jam event which she was taking a cut of the money from for "management" costs.
So sure... Nathan didn't help her promote the thing she was doing that could never make any money. Literally 5 billion people could have played depression quest and it would have made Quinn ZERO dollars. Nothing. The game is FREE.
And that then feeds into what happened with the Fine Young Capitalists out of Canada that were black balled by people like Grayson basically because Quinn told him to do it. They were labeled Transphobic because they wanted to do a gaming event for women where women could suggest ideas and the TFYC would fund the project. It was an effort to help women get into gaming. And Zoe torpedoed it with the help of Grayson and some other people she was way too close to because it competed directly with her Game Jam event.
And from there we get into the Games Journos Pro's list which EVEN a complete brainwashed tool like yourself should realize is a problem. The journalists in the mainstream were caught recently with the similarly named "Journos Pros" list and they had to shut that down because the commentary going around in the chat made them all look like corrupt assholes. games journos pros was the same thing all over again.
And from there we start investigating a widening network of impropriety on a large number of issues and people you're likely not aware of because YOU never got past the Quinnspiracy.
The sad thing is that you know almost nothing. You know what you were told to believe and your entire ideology has conditioned you to be a good little robot. You're told what is "truth" you accept that... add it to your dogma... and that's that.
You don't even have opinions. You have programming.
The opposition shifts the argument. So you'll talk about ethics in journalism, you'll cite an inappropriate relationship between a journalist and a developer... the developer was female... and the opposition will make everything about discrimination against women. It has nothing to do with that.
It doesn't matter what you say or how you say it or what evidence you use... they will only talk about those women and online harassment etc. You can't have any other discussion with them.
Part of your problem is that you're reading media sources that are allied with anti GG. They're only going to tell their side of the issue.
Which defense of which unethical journalist did GG start with? Because to my recollection it didn't start with the defense of any journalist. It started the an attack on several journalists that were seen to be engaged in inappropriate relationships with developers and publishers.
Look... apparently you're not aware of this so I'm going to clue you in here... you're sounding EXTREMELY butt hurt here. Contrary to your belief that you are sounding like you won or you're sounding superior.
You're instead sounding like a sore loser.
Take the loss... move on. A bunch of political asshats came into an established community of people that LIKE to play games, are internet savy, are immune to identity politics because they're anonymous... and they thought they could beat the entire community into submission by making a lot of specious bigotry claims at anyone and everyone that didn't agree with them.
They also made the bone head move of attacking capitalism in a 75 billion dollar a year industry. They thought publishers and developes would side with people that don't buy their games against the people that do.
The game devs and publishers have tried to be patient with you people. The ESRB gave you little subtle hints that you totally missed like when they released the stats on how much positive reviews on gaming sites effects sales... about 5 percent fyi. Which means the entire games journalism complex is disposible. The industry could flush it... stop issuing press passes... etc... and it wouldn't actually change anything.
And it gets better because what they're actually doing is they're giving fewer to ZERO press passes to the people that attack their customers... which is what WE are.. CUSTOMERS. And they're giving more press passes to people that seem to genuinely like the medium and the community.
Your entire faction basically just won the Darwin awards on this issue. And you're too fucking stupid to realize it.
We won. It was no close. It was not gentle... You got raped. --- Note the politically incorrect terminology.... and how little anyone actually cares.
So by all means... show me and anyone else how badly you're emotionally dealing with your loss. The denial makes me giggle.
hmmm... the problem is that you don't see any of those things as controversal or that there are even serious challenges made to the way a lot of that is done.
What you do is blindly take a side and denounce all opposition.
The "denier" comment is a political term... a frankly disgusting attempt to equate people questioning some aspect of AGW theory with holocaust deniers. The argument being apparently that if anyone disagrees with you they're probably racists or nazis.
Use the more reasonable term "skeptic"... it is more accurate in any case and is not as politically charged. You surrender all claim to being for science here if you're just going to be overtly political.
Suggesting I'm racist for saying Vietnam could have been a first world country with economic assistance and trade opportunities instead of being mismanaged by communist fucktards, starved of trade, and given no opportunities to improve itself is the statement of an idiot.
We're done... you're so stupid you're not even amusing.
You're just admitting that you have no idea what the US administration was thinking at the time.
You'd have done better if you had cited domino theory or talked about the spread of global communism.
But what you did there was just validate what I said above. You don't understand there is a strategy. You're so fixated on the details that you don't see the wider picture.
First... shut up... just for the sake of argument.
Second, actually back out from the situation and see it in the context of the proceeding 30 years... yes that exceeds the duration of the cold war to that point but understanding why the US got into the cold war is related to the build up to WW2.
Third, grasp that the US whatever you might think of the US... the US saw itself at that point in time as "arsenal of freedom"... as the guardian and champion of the west.
Fourth, every war that isn't just reacting to an attack like Afghanistan happens according to a grander strategy. And even in those cases we come up with strategies very quickly. The whole concept of fighting terrorism by removing all their safe harbors in the world was a quick improvised strategy that the US came up with literally within weeks of being hit in 9/11.
And that encourages the US to put pressure on any state sponsors to either stop sponsoring terrorism or do something so they can't or otherwise stop doing it.
Vietnam specifically was encouraged by domino theory with the worry being that if vietnam fell the whole region would fall.
Once you understand that the US thinks in terms of these strategies, our actions become more comprehensible.
You might not agree with it still and it could well be stupid. BUT you at least understand what the US was thinking at the time. Very few commentators on US foreign policy especially as regards our wars are aware of how we actually think. And as such their analysis is not actually worth anything.
Slashdot Mirror
And in the unusual situations you're utterly fucked in the ass if you have only an electric car.
Just no.
Here is an idea that MIGHT work... battery rental programs like car rentals.
The battery bays in cars would have to be very accessible. You drive to your local battery rental place and they take out YOUR batteries and give you a rental set. Then you drive from battery exchange location to battery exchange location on your trip. At each place they pull THEIR discharged battery out and put in another of their charged batteries in. For this to be practical they'd have to partner with a lot of gas stations... there would have to be a battery type standard... and there would have to be a lot of checks to make sure people weren't taking a good battery and then giving back a box full of sand or something.
Electrics are only good for commuting. If I go on a long distance drive then I want to be able to stop for 5 minutes to get gas and keep going. With an electric... even if the charging stations are everywhere you're talking about stopping every 200 to 300 miles to charge for six hours.
So what is the idea? Have two cars? Or a hybrid that is expensive because it has a piston engine, an electric motor, a battery, and a gas tank?
The only two situations where I see electric cars working is in a two parent household where one of the two owns an electric and the other has a gas car. Then when they go on trips they take the gas car while the electric is purely for commuting. Alternatively if you're rich you could just buy two cars even though you only need one.
To make electric work I think we either need to get that nano capacitor idea working so that cars can charge in a couple minutes rather than hours OR we need a battery exchange system.
I don't see battery exchanges happening... ever. Which means we're going to have gas cars be the primary work horse until we get capacitors with energy densities similar to batteries.
typo... I meant to say they non-profits cost the same as the for profits.
If the cost inflation were simply going to greedy insurance companies that were spending the proceeds on hookers and cocaine then you'd see big differences in insurance rates between the companies. Instead, they're very consistent... profit... non-profit... they all cost about the same.
Your theory would mean they could charge less and just choose to charge more. Any for profit insurance company could gain market share in that environment by offering cheaper rates. And non-profits don't have a profit motive. So you should see variability. And yet you don't.
That is because the costs are as low as they can be already.
What drives the costs up is not the insurance but the hospitals and the government.
Don't believe me? Pay the hospital without insurance. Look at what they want to charge you.
No insurance company involved. Just you and the hospital.
My mother had an operation that cost something like 40k the other year. It wasn't the insurance company that made the operation cost 40k. That was the hospital's rate. Period.
What the insurance company did pay for everything after my mother's deductible which is pretty low because she's getting on in years and sees the doctors for lots of things. So it makes sense for her to have a lower deductible. I think her insurance covers her for up to a million a year or something.
Her insurance is not cheap. But it costs what it costs because she is a high risk to use the insurance and the cost at the hospitals is very high. Add 1 to 2 and you get 3.
You realize there are non-profit insurance companies right... and they don't cost the same as the for profit ones.
You're so brainwashed its funny.
A fair number of the blue cross/blue shield providers are non-profit.
They cost the same though.
You've been lied to by your political masters, spud.
Wise up.
As to other insurance companies being inflated in cost... compare the trend line of cost increases with other types of insurance. There's no comparison.
You've sadly bought a conspiracy theory about as stupid as the 9/11 being a US government plot... you've been suckered.
I haven't been angry on the internet since 2002, chump. ;)
A friend of mine f'ed me over and I was upset for about a week about that... I don't remember when I was mad before that... it doesn't happen often and no shitstain like yourself could possibly make me mad.
Anger is a response to fear and fear requires some sense of danger or threat from you that actually threatens me. ... you can't do anything to me... so I can't feel threatened by you. And as I can't be threatened... I don't feel angry.
I'm always amused by you little numskulls thinking you can gain rhetorical advantage by claiming you got someone else mad without understanding what that would even mean.
The reason getting someone mad is a rhetorical win for you is because you scared someone or caused them to lose control.
You can't honestly believe you scare me can you? And as to a loss of control... I suppose you're suggesting that I would only use profanity to insult someone if I were out of control? 'fraid not, stupid. I'm that way when I wake up in the morning and I'm that way when I go to bed. That's my default position and anyone that's been in a discussion with me as long as you have should have realized that by now.
You are stupid... so... I guess that's why you weren't able to connect those dots.
FYI... do connect the dots... it makes the a picture of a ducky. :)
As I'm literate I can bang out a response very quickly. More to the point though, you were utterly and manifestly refuted. The fact that you can't bring yourself to even look at the wreckage of your own credibility only validates my sense of superiority.
FYI... don't look... its terminal. ;)
I cited many examples of people talking about poll inaccuracy. And really the entire issue is common knowledge. I'm not going to debate whether or not the Sun is hot with you. I've already cited more than I needed to cite.
As to opinion polls, actually the topic is about Pew Opinion poll. Kill yourself. No really. Put down the keyboard. Get up. And stop wasting oxygen.
I'll continue answering questions for posterity but we should assume that the poster has done the honorable thing and committed suicide.
As to ignorance regarding poll participation... You really did zero research in your short life didn't you?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
What you can see there is that according to Pew... the same organization that did this poll that created this topic says... is that the response rate in 2012 was NINE PERCENT of people contacted. And from the previous years we can see a clear trend line DOWN.
Now when only 9 percent even respond to the call and that 9 percent is not randomly selected but in fact SELF selects that could very easily bias the results.
If someone has an opinion but doesn't want to talk to you for some reason then you won't record their opinion.
The world is better place now that you're gone. There is one less moron. :D
"Some crazy how" is an expression... Welcome to the 21st century. We're called humans. Where are you from? ... I said "then you'll love public healthcare"... you criticize my grammar then out yourself as illiterate? Well played.
*golf clap"
As to insurance companies... wrong. If that were so then car insurance and home insurance etc would be sky high expensive.
why is uniquely health insurance so expensive?
And note, the profit margin of health insurance companies is not that great.
Of all the organizations that are responsible for the high cost of medical case, health insurance companies are the least to blame.
If anything they're keeping costs down.
What keeps costs down in a capitalist system is competitive pricing.
When was the last time you saw the prices of hospitals compared between each other? When was the last time you saw them even list prices?
The two big culprits are actually the hospitals and the regulations under which the hospitals operate.
This is why private practices are often cheaper and it is much cheaper to see a general practitioner in his own office not located on the hospital grounds than it is to see even an urgent care doctor inside the hospital.
You blame the health insurance companies for the high prices. Explain to me please how they conspire to inflate costs when somehow their profits are so low? Where is the money going if THEY are keeping it?
As to where you said the current system is free market... or the previous system was free market... you literally said it immediately before challenging me to quote you:
"Bought by insurance companies, that bastion of capitalism."
How are you so fucking stupid that you can contradict yourself just one sentence apart? You're fucking astounding.
As to you still using your brain... as the previous example shows... No you're not.
No one needs Blizzard's permission to have a SC tourney... so... again... what is the restriction?
You equate my lack of care with a lack of emotional control? Okay, trolololol. :D
*golf clap*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Way to some crazy how insert your fucking politics on healthcare into another situation that doesn't merit it.
As to why people don't fix pot holes etc... because the government has no incentive to do it. Which actually begs the question of why you think a system that doesn't care about pot holes is going to care about that throbbing brain tumor you're got growing between your ears. :D
Seriously... How is the government doing running public education? Impressed?
Have you seen how the government runs the VA hospitals? Impressed?
Then you'll love public healthcare!
How someone can be so fucking stupid and yet get through life not having that tattooed on their foreheads to warn anyone that looks at them... is one of the many actual flaws of this society.
Here's the reality chump, the problems with the cost of healthcare in the US are largely due to government regulation. Look at the top three floors of most hospitals and you'll see they're full of office space with people doing paper work. All of that has to be billed to patients and insurance companies or even the government. And that doesn't even account for the cost inflation of drugs. Why are drugs pretty much anywhere on planet earth cheaper than in the US even though we invented a good many of them here? Regulations.
That people like you consider the previous or current healthcare system to be a free market system is indefensible. It is nothing of the kind. Everything is highly regulated and quite a few of them cause run away cost inflation or remove any ability to control costs.
Do you see hospitals bidding against each other? Competitive pricing? The only people I see actually offering something akin to free market healthcare are the cosmetic surgery people. But if you don't want breast implants or hair plugs... then apparently you have to deal with some sort of quasi socialized healthcare dystopia... and anyone that doesn't like that... like me or anyone else that is paying attention... we can of course go fuck ourselves because people like you give us no fucking choice. Thanks for that.
Where is my right choose what is done to my body which would include any aspect of healthcare? Apparently everyone else gets to choose but me.
On and on. And then when you're upset with the cost of healthcare... your fucking solution is what? MORE REGULATIONS!!!
You baffle me, sir... why is your brain not floating in a jar of formaldehyde? You are a fucking marvel.
And? You wanted an address and a name. Do what you wanted to do... first, I suggest you start calling them at all hours to send harassing phone calls.
Then you might try ordering some pizzas to their address.
And possibly you can send them menacing pictures of the outside of the building showing them that you're there and WATCHING.
And then when you've gotten tired with that, you can file a false police report about someone shooting someone else on the premises to get a SWAT team to raid the facility.
And of course... I'm a coward if I don't make it easy for you to do that to me?
You're a fucking idiot.
You call me a coward for not letting you SWAT me? I'm not a coward. I'm just not stupid... unlike you.
And your presumption that I'm some how a coward because I won't doxx myself? Who do you think you're fooling with that you pathetic waste oxygen?
You asked for an address and a name. I suggest you troll away. The name by the way is the name of retired police chief. You can go after him too if you want. :D
What a fucking retard. :-D
*giggles*
I'm a old forum warrior, shithead. You're nothing I haven't seen before. I grind the bones of little morons like you and sprinkle them on my toast.
There is nothing you can say that will offend me. There is nothing you can that will get to me.
And there is no ploy your feeble intelligence could come up with that I haven't seen a million times years ago.
You're nothing. And the funniest thing you've done is post as AC... which is Anonymous Coward... and call ME the coward even then I actually log in.
I have an excellent karma rating by the way. What's yours? Zero? Hmmm... yet another way I'm better than you.
Suck it long and suck it hard... the prize is well worth the effort... I promise.
Did you have a point you wanted to make or are you content to hand wave from the peanut gallery?
First, eat every last dick. All of them.
Second, while you're mouth is full of literally every dick ever. Let us try to actually get on point so you are cut off from further opportunities to cloud the issue with your pedantic attempts to censor opinions you don't like but actually don't have coherent reasons to contradict.
I went over and talked to the reef aquarium people and I asked them how fast coral grew in their tanks.
What they said was that it varies depending on how much light, what type of life, what temperature, what pH, and then there is a list of nutrients in the water that have to be kept within pretty specific concentrations.
In any case, they said that if all those things happen... the grow rate can be up to doubling in size every month.
Which means its possible if you lose HALF your coral in January that you can get it all back by the end of February.
As to coral dying instantaneously... I didn't say that. I said that certain things will cause it to die. Instantly? If I shoot you in the chest it doesn't kill you instantly... probably... it might take you hours to die... you might not even die at all. So instantaneous death? No. Inevitable statistical death? Sure.
As to your geological citation... during that period what happened to the coral? You say X happened and lasted Y duration. You did not correlate that with Z1 state of coral prior period and Z2 state of coral during the period.
Something along the lines of "you understand that beyond this point there are real dangers beyond the reasonable or desirable control of society and assume responsible responsibility for your own well being."
I can't believe all the stupid shit that is banned or that people have to be warned about because they're just that stupid. My personal favorite was a waiver I had to sign before using an ice rink. It literally was about absolving the rink from responsibility should I slip on the ice and fall... as well getting my initials next to a statement where they inform me that ice is slippery and they wanted it on record that I had been informed of that.
And that sort of thing is just everywhere.
My big issue with these rating systems is not that they exist. I think ratings are fine. My issue is that some countries take the step that if something gets a bad rating or refuses to be rated... that they presume to BAN whatever it is. That's not acceptable. By all means... slap warning labels on things.
I'd like a universal one that just basically reads "for adults only"... and then I'd put that on everything. Anyone that can't handle it will be assumed to be a child... even if they're 40 years old... and will be asked to go back to the various kiddy pools where they'll be kept safe from the big bad world.
Can a VR game scare the piss out of you? Sure. A survival horror game can do that already without VR. And if you have a heart condition or something then there are already games that can kill you. But it isn't the game killing you... its your fucking heart condition. And if you have one... maybe you should be smart enough to not play a game that is guaranteed to scare a little pee out of you.
No... this is the original version. The version you fuckwits have been ignoring from the start.
You really think we gave a shit about some woman having sex with 5 guys? This you think is news on the internet?
Would you like me to post a video for you of a group of guys running a train on a porn star? Because... your position is FUCKING STUPID.
Why do you think anyone would care if some woman had sex with 5 guys?
NO ONE CARES.
The issue was not that she had sex with five guys but WHO those five guys were and what they did for her in return.
They were journalists and media people etc and there is evidence in some of their cases and strong indications in the others that she got something for the sex. Influence... promotion... etc.
No one cares that she had sex with 5 guys. That's no the issue. That has never been the issue.
Her boyfriend obviously cared. But some dude getting cheated by his girlfriend is not news on the internet. No one cares that he got cheated on or that she slept around.
Irrelevant. Zero interest.
What matters is WHO she had sex with. THAT is the issue and that has ALWAYS been the issue.
From the start. Always. No revisions.
Your misunderstanding and bafflment to that fact is due to you being a creduliious fucktwit that gullibly listens to fucking anything he's told so long as they are from your political tribe. And then you just mindlessly believe whatever it is they tell you.
Not only do I know that about you... but even many people on the left are starting to be creeped out by people like you. A day doesn't go by where I don't see a life long leftist stand up and ask where all the fucking zombies came from. It's really pretty funny watching it all.
And what is especially funny is that this issue is causing a lot of your own political allies to wake up to it. They're not changing their politics. They're leftists and they're going to stay leftists. But they are starting to separate from "progressives" who are seen as something "else".
People like you are increasingly being referred to as the "authoritarian left".
The civil war in your own ranks has already started.
Say whatever you like... put out as much bravado as you can manage. It means nothing to me. I'm not ignorant of the issues and I'm not impressed by your ignorance of how horribly you've lost this issue or attempts to gaslight the issue.
You wanted to talk about GG... I responded.
This is what GG means at this point "Good Game"... something you'll hear gamers say when the game is over.
You lost. Accept it and move on... or don't. It doesn't really matter.
You're really having a hard time processing general statements as general statements.
I could be specific, use all the scientifically accurate terms, and go through the various processes... but that is contextually unnecessary because I was making a GENERAL point.
Simply sitting there and being pedantic is not a refutation of my point. It is at best a personal confession on your part as to the context of the discussion... the first point being that this is an internet chat forum and a certain amount of latitude is expected in this context. That you either were unaware of that or think you can use the fact that I'm treating the thread in this way as a way to de-legitimize my position is silly.
On point... if you're able.
Coral dies very easily. It is very sensitive to many things and dies or "bleaches" all the time for any of a tediously long list of reasons. It is however resilient as a "class" of life in that while it does die easily, it also adapts quickly and recolonizes quickly.
One can see this in the experiences of the salt water aquarium world at the very least.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You can see lots of people talking about how they grow coral in tanks. The relevance of that is that they're very aware of SPECIFICALLY what the coral needs... a tediously long list of things that seem like a pain in the ass to maintain artificially. But the point is that if those conditions are in place the coral grows quickly.
The notion being spread around by chuckle heads like you is that when the coral bleaches the reef can't bounce back. It can and does so long as the prevailing conditions support coral.
Might the species mix of coral shift around a bit? Sure... that's nature. But will the coral go away entirely in those reefs? Fuck no.
And again, I'm not saying anywhere in here that we should casually destroy their habitat or not care about things that can hurt coral. I am instead arguing against alarmism that suggests that the coral is dying out.
It is not. various things will kill it or cause it to die back... and then it comes back. As a CLASS of life it is incredibly hardy. It isn't going anywhere.
Another twit who's history education is so poor he doesn't even know what the Cold War was... so many fucking peasants. What is going on? Did you people really finish planting all your potatoes? Nothing to do?
Stop bothering your superiors. Go fuck a goat or whatever it is you're doing when you're not saying stupid things.
No they didn't.
They started with an accusation against Nathan Grayson of Kotaku. No one cares about Quinn.
Your position makes as much sense as saying that the people that brought up the Monica Lewinsky blow job semen stained dress thing were really just interested in harassing Quinn.
NO ONE CARES ABOUT QUINN.
She's evidence. She's exhibit fucking A. The guy on TRIAL is Nathan Grayson... who unless he's gone transfemale... is still a dude.
The only people that care about quinn... are people like you that are so easily manipulated by progress media ass covering that when the press freaked out because people were finally getting pissed enough to clean house... they basically tricked you idiots to be their cat's paws against what was and still is a legitimate consumer revolt about press ethics.
You say we care about Quinn... but who keeps bringing her up? Oh that's right... YOU do. Now if "we" cared... then we'd bring her up... wouldn't we?
No no... Answer that question. Would WE be the ones to bring Quinn up if that was what we cared about?
But you see... we don't bring her up because we don't care about her. She's EVIDENCE. We cite her only as contextually relevant to point out that Nathan Grayson was having sex with someone he had promoted. And yes he did. He did not promote her FREE game. That is true. He did however promote her PAID game jam event which she was taking a cut of the money from for "management" costs.
So sure... Nathan didn't help her promote the thing she was doing that could never make any money. Literally 5 billion people could have played depression quest and it would have made Quinn ZERO dollars. Nothing. The game is FREE.
And that then feeds into what happened with the Fine Young Capitalists out of Canada that were black balled by people like Grayson basically because Quinn told him to do it. They were labeled Transphobic because they wanted to do a gaming event for women where women could suggest ideas and the TFYC would fund the project. It was an effort to help women get into gaming. And Zoe torpedoed it with the help of Grayson and some other people she was way too close to because it competed directly with her Game Jam event.
And from there we get into the Games Journos Pro's list which EVEN a complete brainwashed tool like yourself should realize is a problem. The journalists in the mainstream were caught recently with the similarly named "Journos Pros" list and they had to shut that down because the commentary going around in the chat made them all look like corrupt assholes. games journos pros was the same thing all over again.
And from there we start investigating a widening network of impropriety on a large number of issues and people you're likely not aware of because YOU never got past the Quinnspiracy.
The sad thing is that you know almost nothing. You know what you were told to believe and your entire ideology has conditioned you to be a good little robot. You're told what is "truth" you accept that... add it to your dogma... and that's that.
You don't even have opinions. You have programming.
It was.
The opposition shifts the argument. So you'll talk about ethics in journalism, you'll cite an inappropriate relationship between a journalist and a developer... the developer was female... and the opposition will make everything about discrimination against women. It has nothing to do with that.
It doesn't matter what you say or how you say it or what evidence you use... they will only talk about those women and online harassment etc. You can't have any other discussion with them.
Part of your problem is that you're reading media sources that are allied with anti GG. They're only going to tell their side of the issue.
Which defense of which unethical journalist did GG start with? Because to my recollection it didn't start with the defense of any journalist. It started the an attack on several journalists that were seen to be engaged in inappropriate relationships with developers and publishers.
Look... apparently you're not aware of this so I'm going to clue you in here... you're sounding EXTREMELY butt hurt here. Contrary to your belief that you are sounding like you won or you're sounding superior.
You're instead sounding like a sore loser.
Take the loss... move on. A bunch of political asshats came into an established community of people that LIKE to play games, are internet savy, are immune to identity politics because they're anonymous... and they thought they could beat the entire community into submission by making a lot of specious bigotry claims at anyone and everyone that didn't agree with them.
They also made the bone head move of attacking capitalism in a 75 billion dollar a year industry. They thought publishers and developes would side with people that don't buy their games against the people that do.
The game devs and publishers have tried to be patient with you people. The ESRB gave you little subtle hints that you totally missed like when they released the stats on how much positive reviews on gaming sites effects sales... about 5 percent fyi. Which means the entire games journalism complex is disposible. The industry could flush it... stop issuing press passes... etc... and it wouldn't actually change anything.
And it gets better because what they're actually doing is they're giving fewer to ZERO press passes to the people that attack their customers... which is what WE are.. CUSTOMERS. And they're giving more press passes to people that seem to genuinely like the medium and the community.
Your entire faction basically just won the Darwin awards on this issue. And you're too fucking stupid to realize it.
We won. It was no close. It was not gentle... You got raped. --- Note the politically incorrect terminology.... and how little anyone actually cares.
So by all means... show me and anyone else how badly you're emotionally dealing with your loss. The denial makes me giggle.
hmmm... the problem is that you don't see any of those things as controversal or that there are even serious challenges made to the way a lot of that is done.
What you do is blindly take a side and denounce all opposition.
The "denier" comment is a political term... a frankly disgusting attempt to equate people questioning some aspect of AGW theory with holocaust deniers. The argument being apparently that if anyone disagrees with you they're probably racists or nazis.
Use the more reasonable term "skeptic"... it is more accurate in any case and is not as politically charged. You surrender all claim to being for science here if you're just going to be overtly political.
Suggesting I'm racist for saying Vietnam could have been a first world country with economic assistance and trade opportunities instead of being mismanaged by communist fucktards, starved of trade, and given no opportunities to improve itself is the statement of an idiot.
We're done... you're so stupid you're not even amusing.
Nope.
You're just admitting that you have no idea what the US administration was thinking at the time.
You'd have done better if you had cited domino theory or talked about the spread of global communism.
But what you did there was just validate what I said above. You don't understand there is a strategy. You're so fixated on the details that you don't see the wider picture.
First... shut up... just for the sake of argument.
Second, actually back out from the situation and see it in the context of the proceeding 30 years... yes that exceeds the duration of the cold war to that point but understanding why the US got into the cold war is related to the build up to WW2.
Third, grasp that the US whatever you might think of the US... the US saw itself at that point in time as "arsenal of freedom"... as the guardian and champion of the west.
Fourth, every war that isn't just reacting to an attack like Afghanistan happens according to a grander strategy. And even in those cases we come up with strategies very quickly. The whole concept of fighting terrorism by removing all their safe harbors in the world was a quick improvised strategy that the US came up with literally within weeks of being hit in 9/11.
And that encourages the US to put pressure on any state sponsors to either stop sponsoring terrorism or do something so they can't or otherwise stop doing it.
Vietnam specifically was encouraged by domino theory with the worry being that if vietnam fell the whole region would fall.
Once you understand that the US thinks in terms of these strategies, our actions become more comprehensible.
You might not agree with it still and it could well be stupid. BUT you at least understand what the US was thinking at the time. Very few commentators on US foreign policy especially as regards our wars are aware of how we actually think. And as such their analysis is not actually worth anything.