The CTEs don't kill you (unless you count the suicides), but they will turn you into a drooling wreck like Jim McMahon.
CTE leads to dementia, and that will shorten your life expectancy.
There seems to be two main criticisms of this study. First they're talking about players from the mid-80s, so even if they were 30 at the time they'd still be early-to-mid 60s, more likely they're late 50s. That's earlier than you'd expect CTE to really start shortening life expectancy (plus you might not have enough deaths to detect a smaller difference).
Second, they're comparing people who played football at a very high level to people who played football at a slightly higher level. If one group has CTE issues I'd expect both to.
The main thing that's been keeping the NFL afloat is gambling, and thanks to the much higher incidence of injury, the gamblers are finally starting to abandon it for more interesting games, like basketball, baseball, hockey. As a veteran fantasy football player, I can tell you that practically all of the skill has been taken out of it, making it much less fun. This year, I lost my stud, #1pick running back, David Johnson very early in the season, and I only made the playoffs because the other good players also lost their best picks as the season wore on.
And football continues to be a game of exploitation. Parents are putting their kids in football programs in the same numbers any more (except in the South, where brain damage is less noticeable) and I expect football to go the way of boxing. Another fine sport that just got to be too depressing to enjoy.
The attraction isn't gambling it's culture. Especially in the US South it's extremely ingrained into communities and football does have a number of fairly unusual characteristics among sports: 1) Virtually every male body type is well suited towards a position on the football field. 2) It has large rosters so significant portions of high school populations can participate. 3) It creates a very strict social hierarchy. 4) It has a much higher level of planning and organization than other sports
However, the large rosters are also its weakness, I expect CTE worries to drop a lot of schools below the critical mass of kids needed, and a lot of regions are going to lose high school football. And the kids who didn't play football will become adults who don't watch it, and football will become a regional sport in the south.
So that's all that I really wanted to say in response to your comment, but a lot of these accusations against him are being derived from a particular book, The Ultimate History of Video Games, which is a book that I happen to have read a while back. None of them really reflect what the book was actually describing - a company which functioned as an anti-business, run and operated by hippies. The point that the book was making was the extremely casual work environment.
That's how the author viewed it certainly, we don't really know how it was experienced by the women in the office.
That's all that the book has to say about it.
Certainly if the book is her only source she's distorting it, but the article isn't actually clear if the book is her only source. Implying the book full backs her narrative is misleading, but the book does say that women were specifically summoned to the hot tub meeting.
Great point. I really don't want to derail this thread but there is an analogy too good to pass up here.
"Taxation" isn't wrong because of some global movement that took place in 2060. It's wrong because it's theft. It's wrong because the people taxed were being treated primarily as slaves instead of full human beings. The lack of a label made it easier for people to be in denial of the fact they were doing something wrong, but label or not it was still wrong.
It's a harder concept to appreciate because we're still living in a world order based on fear but I still find the analogy striking. Even the pathetic excuses (women welcomed the attention and dressed for it) line up well (those that decry taxation still use the services taxation makes possible).
That's not a good analogy because taxation isn't a clear "wrong" the way that sexism is.
1) Taxation tends to pass the test "design a society without knowing what your place in it will be" while sexism does not. 2) Taxation hits the richest and most powerful the hardest, sexism the opposite. 3) Taxation doesn't actually declare any member of society to be less valuable, sexism does.
They don't affect his achievements. But maybe if humans collectively stop glorifying, rewarding and celebrating known shitheads for their shithead behavior...
No one's glorifying, rewarding, or celebrating his shithead behavior here. Hell, I'm sure most of us never even heard of any of this.
But now you have heard of it. And you can't glorify his achievements from that era without glorifying that shithead behaviour.
So now, on account of gossip and innuendo, we're going to just strike people from history?
Is Bushnell denying the accounts are true? Are people who worked in the office denying it? From all appearances this was common knowledge in the Atari offices at the time, it just never became an issue till now.
Not 20 years ago Christian fundamentalists were mocked and pilloried for ramming their morals down people's throats and following some stupid rule book. Now we have an entire zombie movement enforcing their morals views and attitudes on a public as a whole.
So it's acceptable to treat women as being worth less than men just because people have done it for a long time?
Sure it took a long time for people to acknowledge that sexism was wrong, but now that it's been acknowledged we need to stop the wrongdoing.
There's not ONE PERSON ALIVE who's not guilty of unsavory behavior of one kind or another and we've entered an age where "my unsavory behavior" is now considered untouchable but "your unsavory behavior" is damnable.
There's been a few exceptions, but so far the targets have largely been people with a really ugly past or the reckonings have been mild.
Fuck that. Make a law and make it a crime through the official processes. Did Bushnell actually commit a crime? Bring him up on charges. This condemning or people to non-existence without even a chance for defense is Orwellian, wrong and downright evil - just as it was 20 years ago.
Bushnell isn't being forced from the industry, he isn't being burned in effigy, people are just saying "hey, this specific era you want to celebrate had some serious issues".
Judging from the Tweet he seems to get it and he hopefully understands the problems people have with his past behaviour.
Come on.. This is a leaked document which is admitted to be a draft, subject to wholesale changes, of a budget request from the DOE, which will be edited at the Whitehouse before the president presents it to Congress with a bunch of other similar documents. Congress will ignore the president's input and draft their own budget in the house, argue for months over in committee, sent to the floor of the house, finally arrive at something that won't be recognizable as the original draft that the house passes as a "budget" which will be taken up by the Senate who will likely add their own amendments in committee and from the floor which if it actually passes, will head back to the reconciliation committee to be possibly edited again before both chambers vote to pass it or not.
How's this even news fit to print by a respected news paper much less "News for nerds" on Slash Dot? There is a nearly zero chance these numbers will survive all the coming edits driven by the endless debate in congress.
How do you think it gets changed?
It's public outrage that causes items like this to get scrapped. Extreme cuts like this are designed to change the Overton window so they can "compromise" on slightly less extreme cuts later on. The earlier the uproar the less chance they have to shift the debate.
Men who sexually harassed women in the '70s knew what they were doing was wrong
Incorrect. The concept of "sexual harassment" was first proposed by feminists in the 1970s and was formalized into law in the 1980s, but it didn't reach widespread public awareness until the Anita Hill hearing in 1991.
"Sexual harassment" isn't wrong because of a campaign some feminists ran in the 70s. It's wrong because it's harassment, it's wrong because the women in the Atari offices were being treated primarily as objects of sexual gratification instead of full human beings.
The lack of a label made it easier for people to be in denial of the fact they were doing something wrong, but label or not it was still wrong.
Anyone care to explain how personal indiscretions affect his achievements in developing "a breakthrough technology, game concept, or gameplay design at a crucial juncture in video game history"?
From the accounts in the article he was largely responsible for a workplace that was really hostile to women. Given his place in the industry, the games he chose to develop, how he chose to market those games, and the template he established for a successful gaming company, he likely had a real influence on gaming culture (which led a lot of men to software development).
If another man had developed "a breakthrough technology, game concept, or gameplay design at a crucial juncture in video game history" it's quite possible the modern computer industry would be much more gender-diverse. And that undercuts the very contribution for which he was to be celebrated.
In other news, Jesus H. Christ has been rescinded the son of god and lord savior awards to insufficiently progressive views toward women during 15 to 22 in the year of our lord.
The whole purpose of the award is to recognize actions from ~40 years ago that are more appreciated now than at the time. I don't think it's out of line to also look if some of the surrounding behaviours are more objectionable now than at the time.
An old co-worker had a habit of posting obviously fake right wing news articles, so-and-so arrested for treason, Obama caught admitting to X, etc.
When I saw it I would usually post a quick comment pointing out it was fake (often providing counter-evidence) and he'd reply "opps" and move on to most the next obvious piece of BS.
Eventually I prodded a bit too much during the health care bill and he unfriended me.
I still have no idea if he actually believed some of that fake news or if he simply didn't care.
Why? Because the Hebrew scholars didn't want to participate?
Google Translate botches modern languages. The fact that running their results through Google Translate gave them meaningful output suggests they have real data.
I fail to see what the problem is. Would it have been better to test it on humans in some third-world shithole?
I have no issue with animal testing.
But the question here is what scientific value was gained from the experiments.
Now, if you've already tested on lower forms, like rats, and established that there is no harm, I'm personally fine with testing on primates to be doubly sure (though I'm not sure if that's the official standard). But I find it hard to believe that breathing emissions for 4 hours qualifies as no harm.
No personal devices, done. 20 years ago they wouldn't have had cell phones, now they all do. If they are deployed, depending on where and what the mission is, they either get no contact with home or the internet, or they only get access to home and the internet via a shared workstation setup centrally located on the base. Anyone caught deploying with any sort of electronic device besides possibly an approved MP3 or DVD player should be subject to "other than honorable discharge". There is no reason for them to have them when deployed. You want to keep a secret you don't let people talk. Allowing people access to the internet will leak information 100% of the time.
I think there's another side of this where keeping these people sane is a real issue. If you look at the Bowe Bergdahl case one thing that's clear is the kid made some extremely poor decisions, and a big reason seems to be he was socially isolated and more-or-less lost his mind. His reaction was clearly an outlier, but I have no doubt there's a lot of other bad decision making and discipline issues that come from a result of the psychological stress people are under.
So take away their internet and Smartphones when absolutely necessary, but replace them with some other kind of distraction. Don't expect them to be perfect automatons who don't require recreation.
Tool-assisted means in an emulator. The vast majority of emulators are at most cycle-accurate, which in some cases changes observable behaviour. Also, it's possible it was a different version of the game -- a lot of game rips are not bit-to-bit identical; versions for different markets notoriously have slight or not-so-slight alterations beyond just translated messages. Likewise, PAL vs SECAM vs NTSC have different timings that often alter the game.
Possibly, but were a lot of discrepancies and impossible scores entered, I think one record had a value of like 15,000,000 exactly where the other top scores were in the thousands. And most of the records were recorded under very dubious circumstances (with his friend as the referee and only witness).
I suspect Twin Galaxies knew a lot of the records were bogus, but a celebrity is better PR than a cheating scandal.
Agreed. It's rather like everyone else has a dedicated co-processor that takes a set of facial features and returns a person, but mine is broken, or needs much more training. With new people, I find myself unable to re-recognise them when I see them later in the same evening, atleast not with full confidence. I often end up picking out something distinctive, like their style of earring, or tattoo, or clothing, that I can remember as a yes-or-no answer. One of the reasons it's undetected is that there are lots of mitigation techniques, and I've *never* had the ability so I don't know any different.
I don't have face-blindness but I figured the scenario is like the following.
We all have a general image classifier running, it allows us to extract enough features to easily recognize a coconut from a mango and, if we focus on the problem, distinguish two mangos.
But most people also have a dedicated facial image classifier, and it's really good at extracting features from faces (or seeing faces in random things like rocks on Mars). But for some people this classifier is either missing or doesn't work well, they can still distinguish faces, they just need to do it using the general classifier.
I think a comparable problem might be recognizing dogs, give me two dogs of same breed, build, and colouration, and I can't tell them apart at a glance. If I spend a lot of time with dogs I'll get better, I'll learn to look for specific colouration patterns or changes in features, but I'll never be as effective as it as a dog would be because I don't have that dedicated dog classifier sitting in my brain.
Does this comparison make sense to you? I'm curious how you feel about the "uncanny valley", for instance I found fake Tarquin in Rogue One to be quite obvious and unsettling, did you have the same reaction?
Let me answer your simple, very pointed question. The Top Secret contents of Hillary's emails are know to include: 1) raw intelligence from intercepts of foreign government officials, which reveals who and how we are listening in on those foreign governments; 2) raw imagery from NRO satellites. Leaking this shows exactly how capable the US is, how effective the attempts to disguise or camouflage are, and also WHAT the US is interested in watching; 3) human reporting - which again reveals the sources that are willing to talk to the US. There may be other categories as well, but those haven't been confirmed in "leaks" to the press.
Why does the Secretary of State need to know these things? Well, because she was representing the US Government in negotiations with foreign governments are organizations. Giving her the intel helps her understand the specifics of whatever the issue is, such as recognizing that her counterparts are lying to her because the NSA just gave her a transcript how them planning their lies, or the NRO showing her an image of the troop movements that they say aren't happening.
Without that knowledge, the Secretary of State is crippled in her ability to do her job. Hillary had every right to view that information. She had zero right to remove it from the secure networks and put it on her private - and insecure - server.
State Department email is not a secure network, no one was supposed to send classified information over State Department email, that had a separate network for that stuff.
This was something constantly conflated and confused with the whole email controversy.
1) Clinton used her private server for work email instead of the official State Dept email. This was wrong and against the rules though far from unprecedented. It was basically another example of management ignoring the regs that everyone else had to follow. 2) Some people included classified intel in their emails to Clinton, and this ended up on her server (and on the state dept server). This would have broken the rules whether or not she was using a private server or State Dept server. It's also not uncommon when people are dealing with a lot of info from different sources and not everything gets filed or communicated the way it's supposed to. 3) A bunch of emails were deleted after a subpoena was issues for them to be preserved. This seems to have been the sole work of an IT person who was supposed to delete the emails a long time ago, didn't get around to it, and then panicked when the subpoena showed up.
One lousy cyclist?? How do those out-of-shape bums expect to chase down the escaping aliens?!?
Seriously though, it looks like the heat map goes to the granularity of a single single user? I think the app lets you do that already, but it's more than a little creepy from the whole privacy angle. I'm not sure how I'd feel about my daily route sitting there on a map.
Does this change anything about the undisputed authenticity of the emails we saw? No.
I want to say "I hope the DNC has learned a valuable lesson about email and network security," but that would imply I think the DNC is capable of learning from their mistakes.
So if no one ever disputed the authenticity of the emails then why are you now trying to change the topic to the authenticity of the emails?
I said representative, not member. Zim was the trainer and one of the purer representatives of the military as an organization, particularly when he operated in his capacity as a trainer.
Even better; why would you be surprised that an experienced member tasked with training new recruits might have a thoughtful response to a question which he has doubtless heard dozens of times? I still ask: what exactly WOULDN'T constitute glorification in your eyes? Do you require every military instructor to be presented as a drooling simpleton?
No. But the military could be shown, like any organization, to have its own flaws and shortcomings.
The military in the novel is basically a perfect entity, and whenever problems exist they are solved by adhering more closely to the military ideals.
The military portrayed in the novel is one that can generally be trusted to wage war without supervision. That is contrary to the idea of things like the Geneva convention.
You still seem to believe that there's some higher power which can magically force the military to follow the Geneva Conventions if they decide that they don't want to. That's a rather silly proposition.
Which is why it isn't my proposition.
The idea of the Geneva Conventions is that military forces are accountable to external parties.
The novel shows neither the existence nor the need for such accountability.
That doesn't mean that fascism in the context of a military organization (and not society) is bad. But if you're describing a society strictly through the lens of its military it might look a bit fascist.
Sure; especially if you go into the book with preconceived notions and then stop reading after 2 chapters.
If I recall the first two chapters contained a lot of the coverage of the societal structure and training. The rest of the book is mostly action.
But I'd also point out that Russia justified Crimea on the grounds of Yugoslavia and Iraq. Even if X was not your intent it can still be other's perceptions.
I very much doubt that it's "their perception"; more likely it's opportunistic propaganda. I highly doubt that Putin actually believes that his annexation of Crimea is in any way comparable to a UN peacekeeping operation. Regardless, not all perceptions are valid; if he does believe it then he's a fool.
The Russians had a very different perception of the Yugoslavian war than we did. I don't disagree that Putin's motive was territorial expansion, and he was extremely disingenuous in pursuing it. But the average Russian felt that Crimea had been unjustly given to Ukraine by Khrushchev, and that a lot of former USSR countries were still part of Russia, so an attempt to expand NATO and the EU into them were an attack on Russian territory.
I don't know what the right move on the West's part should have been, those countries certainly deserve the protection of NATO and the prosperity of the EU, but it's easy to see why Russia felt threatened.
The way in which Starship Troopers is uncomfortable for me is it portrays a fairly extreme society, which could be troubling in other contexts, and drops it in a context (war for survival) in which it seems reasonable and logical.
I can sympathise with that, but the perception of their society as "extreme" seems awful funny to me. It's a world-wide democracy which seems to function better than our own, which allows all the liberties we enjoy and more while encouraging people to be responsible citizens, which seems to have zero racial or sexual discrimination apart from keeping women out of the infantry, and whose people largely shun militarism, would never institute a draft, and do not recruit or encourage anyone to join.
Frankly it sounds like a much more functional/sane
to be fair the charges against him were a thinly veiled attempt to extradite him to the US. It has very little to do about breaking the law.
That was certainly his position, and perhaps even his belief.
But the only evidence that this plan existed seems to be the fact news leaked about the US considering charges around the same time that Sweden did file charges.
That "the wisdom and humanity" are coming from a member of the military should be no surprise given that 95% of the characters in the book are military members.
I said representative, not member. Zim was the trainer and one of the purer representatives of the military as an organization, particularly when he operated in his capacity as a trainer.
The Geneva Conventions are not "external constraints", they are rules which we have agreed to follow. Politicians are not an external constraint; they are the leaders we have agreed to follow. Without a military which is structured to enforce the ethics of the society which it serves, how will you enforce them? Without military leaders who consent to embody those principles, how will you ensure compliance? Nobody is suggesting that every single military member is the epitome of moral virtue; the only implication being made is that they have taken an oath to follow the ethics and directives of their society regardless of their personal desires.
The military portrayed in the novel is one that can generally be trusted to wage war without supervision. That is contrary to the idea of things like the Geneva convention.
Fascism also encouraged very efficient train schedules. If Verhovens train arrives on time will he conclude that he's living under fascism?
The willingness for self sacrifice in the service of society is a good thing, if the society is good. The problem with German and Italian soldiers wasn't their willingness to put society before self; the problem was the fact that they were serving a fascist state. That's a failure of the political process and of the civilians who were responsible for maintaining it. The military is only as good as the society it serves.
The fascist state is basically trying to be as efficient as possible. Opposition is destroyed because it puts the trains off schedule and weakens the state. I think there's an argument to be made that a military, in it's need for efficiency and strict order, is fundamentally fascist.
That doesn't mean that fascism in the context of a military organization (and not society) is bad. But if you're describing a society strictly through the lens of its military it might look a bit fascist.
That's an incredibly complex question, largely because the objectives were so muddled. If it was solely a humanitarian intervention, such as, say, the UN peacekeeping missions in the former Yugoslavia, I don't think any reasonable person would consider it militarism. The reasons given for the invasion of Iraq were numerous; some better than others, some more believable than others, which all muddies the water quite a bit.
Suffice it to say that I would classify the invasion of Iraq as far more militaristic than the war in Starship Troopers, and far less militaristic than, say, the Russian annexation of Crimea. If that makes sense.
I'd agree with that ranking.
But I'd also point out that Russia justified Crimea on the grounds of Yugoslavia and Iraq. Even if X was not your intent it can still be other's perceptions.
People are great at rationalising all kinds of things, but that doesn't mean that there aren't objective truths, or that we cannot define consistent standards. That's why it's important for civilians to think about and discuss these things, rather than just simplifying everything down to "soldiers evil, war bad". A society which is willing to rationalise evil will have an army which does evil, and a society which is unwilling to defend itself and it's values will quickly perish. Let's try to avoid both of those scenarios, shall we?
The way in which Starship Troopers is uncomfortable for me is it portrays a fairly extreme society, which could be troubling in other contexts, and drops it in a context (war for survival) in which it seems reasonable and logical.
The FBI should pay the $2,800 in Bitcoin, then deanonymize the transaction to find out who received the money. Once they know who received the money, execute the person who made the threat. Chances are that they're not in the United States, but there are more than enough American operatives around the world to make it happen. It would do society a favor to eliminate those who use criminal activity to mooch off of others and possibly terrify them in the process. In this case, it would be justice to execute the criminal.
That's why they're demanding Bitcoin.
The trouble with a traditional extortion scheme is the money has to go somewhere, you either need to hand it off in person (big risk!) or arrange some kind of wire transfer (you can probably make this close to untraceable, but it's tough).
But with Bitcoin all they know is the address of the wallet (they know that if they pay or not), and unless the owner of the wallet does something dumb to reveal their identity there's no way to know who actually owns the wallet.
This is one of my big worries about cryptocurrencies, the extra level of anonymity enables a lot of extra corruption and criminality.
This seems kinda cool to me. I get texts that let me know when the ISS will be overhead (usually 1 or 2 days in advance), and they tell me where to look, what time, and give me a rough elevation where the ISS will be visible and where it will disappear. Maybe the Humanity Star gang could take some notes.
The ISS is part of an international space program.
Communication satellites are for communication.
Spy satellites are for... a different kind of communication.
The "Humanity Star" is a cross between an Ad campaign and a self-indulgent art project.
Maybe the next one can blink a secret message in Morse code or something.
> Only during the start, we don't see how recruitment works later on but there's a lot of new recruits by the end of the novel. If the society expanded the military I do not remember any reference to that. They had to replace military men quicker than normal as many of them died. But either way running a skeleton crew in normal peacetime, is not militaristic, and defending yourself from a genocidal and implacable foe is not either.
I remember getting the impression that there were may more incoming soldiers near the end, I think that was one of the messages with Rico's father joining, that everyone now realized it was their fight too.
Furthermore, the novel outright states that military men are no better, no more disciplined, no more intelligent than any other men.
The claim isn't that they start out better, but the military makes them into something better, or at least more deserving of respect.
> The militarism in Starship Troopers doesn't leave a lot of room for individualism, grunts have a lot of autonomy in how to fight, but their purpose is to contribute to the state and authority is highly string.
I don't understand that at all. The grunts in Starship Troopers are practically spit in the face of every earthbound military that has ever existed. Rico goes on and on about how even in the middle of a war, in the middle of an assault, he can just decide to retire, to not participate in the war any longer. It is individualism taken to a laughable extreme.
I don't recall that but if the service to the state is truly voluntary then that contradicts fascism. But it also implies a situation a fascist would love in the sense that it's an option that nobody takes.
Again, I'm not saying it's fascist, but it's militarist and carries some fascist elements.
It's been a lot of years since I read it, but the vibe I got was that the harsh discipline was part of the message that grunts were being held to a held to a higher standard than the rest of society, and being melded into something better.
If by "something better" you mean a superior fighting force, then yes, absolutely. If, on the other hand, you mean some flawless ubermenschen, then no, absolutely not.
There was certainly a lot of talk in the book about morality and how to be a decent, responsible human being, but much of that was outside the context of the military. When Zim is asked why the mobile infantry need to risk their lives instead of just nuking the enemy, he points out that the recruit should have learned the answer in highschool during his moral philosophy classes. The military doesn't teach them some secret knowledge on how to be a good person; it merely follows and enforces ethics which all people should already understand.
You could compare that to what we do today when, for example, we insist our soldiers follow the Geneva Conventions. All civilised people should already know that it's wrong to kill prisoners, and that we should offer aid to any injured person regardless of which side they happen to be on. Yet many people, both inside and outside the military, feel so much hatred and so little compassion that they would gladly beat a captured opponent to death given the opportunity. The military enforces those ethical standards not because it makes soldiers "noble" but because we, as a society, have agreed that it's the right thing to do. Following those rules doesn't make a soldier "something better"; it just makes his actions better than the alternative.
But that's the glorification, the wisdom and humanity is coming from the representative of the military. The implication is that if even the grunts understand ethics and philosophy, and the military is rigorous in disciplining its own, then external constraints like the Geneva Conventions or politicians are unnecessary.
I'm not trying to object to it, just trying to explain how Verhoeven saw fascism in it.
I'm not sure you're having the desired effect. If Veerhoven looked at the passages which encourages self sacrifice in the defense of others and concluded that it is an example of "fascism" then he is more of an idiot than I thought.
Fascism encourages sacrifice on behalf of the state, what is the state if not the defence of others? If you want to understand why fascism and other terrible ideas take root then you need to look at them in a sympathetic light.
How is a massive mobilization with everyone joining the fight not militarism? I'd say the West became militarist for the extent of WWI and WWII, the thing that we generally find objectionable is militarism during a time of peace.
We are mixing definitions, then. Militarism, AFAIK, is the position that a nation should employ military might in the furthering of national interests. In practice this has meant things like the annexation of neighbouring nations, the imposition of military blockades, and the subjugation of unpopular groups, all with no purpose other than the expansion or enrichment of the state.
A nation fighting for it's very survival is in a wholly different category. You could certainly argue that survival is a "national interest", but to put that in the same category as an armed invasion of a peaceful neighbour is asinine.
Insofar as your definition of militarism encompasses any military activity whatsoever then sure, the society in the book was militaristic. However, in that case, the word "militaristic" ceases to have any of the negative connotations which we typically associate with it, and I again fail to see what the objection is or how it's linked to fascism.
How would you classify the US in 2003? A lot of us outside saw the US as
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The CTEs don't kill you (unless you count the suicides), but they will turn you into a drooling wreck like Jim McMahon.
CTE leads to dementia, and that will shorten your life expectancy.
There seems to be two main criticisms of this study. First they're talking about players from the mid-80s, so even if they were 30 at the time they'd still be early-to-mid 60s, more likely they're late 50s. That's earlier than you'd expect CTE to really start shortening life expectancy (plus you might not have enough deaths to detect a smaller difference).
Second, they're comparing people who played football at a very high level to people who played football at a slightly higher level. If one group has CTE issues I'd expect both to.
The main thing that's been keeping the NFL afloat is gambling, and thanks to the much higher incidence of injury, the gamblers are finally starting to abandon it for more interesting games, like basketball, baseball, hockey. As a veteran fantasy football player, I can tell you that practically all of the skill has been taken out of it, making it much less fun. This year, I lost my stud, #1pick running back, David Johnson very early in the season, and I only made the playoffs because the other good players also lost their best picks as the season wore on.
And football continues to be a game of exploitation. Parents are putting their kids in football programs in the same numbers any more (except in the South, where brain damage is less noticeable) and I expect football to go the way of boxing. Another fine sport that just got to be too depressing to enjoy.
The attraction isn't gambling it's culture. Especially in the US South it's extremely ingrained into communities and football does have a number of fairly unusual characteristics among sports:
1) Virtually every male body type is well suited towards a position on the football field.
2) It has large rosters so significant portions of high school populations can participate.
3) It creates a very strict social hierarchy.
4) It has a much higher level of planning and organization than other sports
However, the large rosters are also its weakness, I expect CTE worries to drop a lot of schools below the critical mass of kids needed, and a lot of regions are going to lose high school football. And the kids who didn't play football will become adults who don't watch it, and football will become a regional sport in the south.
So that's all that I really wanted to say in response to your comment, but a lot of these accusations against him are being derived from a particular book, The Ultimate History of Video Games, which is a book that I happen to have read a while back. None of them really reflect what the book was actually describing - a company which functioned as an anti-business, run and operated by hippies. The point that the book was making was the extremely casual work environment.
That's how the author viewed it certainly, we don't really know how it was experienced by the women in the office.
That's all that the book has to say about it.
Certainly if the book is her only source she's distorting it, but the article isn't actually clear if the book is her only source. Implying the book full backs her narrative is misleading, but the book does say that women were specifically summoned to the hot tub meeting.
Great point. I really don't want to derail this thread but there is an analogy too good to pass up here.
"Taxation" isn't wrong because of some global movement that took place in 2060. It's wrong because it's theft. It's wrong because the people taxed were being treated primarily as slaves instead of full human beings. The lack of a label made it easier for people to be in denial of the fact they were doing something wrong, but label or not it was still wrong.
It's a harder concept to appreciate because we're still living in a world order based on fear but I still find the analogy striking. Even the pathetic excuses (women welcomed the attention and dressed for it) line up well (those that decry taxation still use the services taxation makes possible).
That's not a good analogy because taxation isn't a clear "wrong" the way that sexism is.
1) Taxation tends to pass the test "design a society without knowing what your place in it will be" while sexism does not.
2) Taxation hits the richest and most powerful the hardest, sexism the opposite.
3) Taxation doesn't actually declare any member of society to be less valuable, sexism does.
They don't affect his achievements. But maybe if humans collectively stop glorifying, rewarding and celebrating known shitheads for their shithead behavior...
No one's glorifying, rewarding, or celebrating his shithead behavior here. Hell, I'm sure most of us never even heard of any of this.
But now you have heard of it. And you can't glorify his achievements from that era without glorifying that shithead behaviour.
utter, total, bullshit.
So now, on account of gossip and innuendo, we're going to just strike people from history?
Is Bushnell denying the accounts are true? Are people who worked in the office denying it? From all appearances this was common knowledge in the Atari offices at the time, it just never became an issue till now.
Not 20 years ago Christian fundamentalists were mocked and pilloried for ramming their morals down people's throats and following some stupid rule book. Now we have an entire zombie movement enforcing their morals views and attitudes on a public as a whole.
So it's acceptable to treat women as being worth less than men just because people have done it for a long time?
Sure it took a long time for people to acknowledge that sexism was wrong, but now that it's been acknowledged we need to stop the wrongdoing.
There's not ONE PERSON ALIVE who's not guilty of unsavory behavior of one kind or another and we've entered an age where "my unsavory behavior" is now considered untouchable but "your unsavory behavior" is damnable.
There's been a few exceptions, but so far the targets have largely been people with a really ugly past or the reckonings have been mild.
Fuck that. Make a law and make it a crime through the official processes. Did Bushnell actually commit a crime? Bring him up on charges. This condemning or people to non-existence without even a chance for defense is Orwellian, wrong and downright evil - just as it was 20 years ago.
Bushnell isn't being forced from the industry, he isn't being burned in effigy, people are just saying "hey, this specific era you want to celebrate had some serious issues".
Judging from the Tweet he seems to get it and he hopefully understands the problems people have with his past behaviour.
Come on.. This is a leaked document which is admitted to be a draft, subject to wholesale changes, of a budget request from the DOE, which will be edited at the Whitehouse before the president presents it to Congress with a bunch of other similar documents. Congress will ignore the president's input and draft their own budget in the house, argue for months over in committee, sent to the floor of the house, finally arrive at something that won't be recognizable as the original draft that the house passes as a "budget" which will be taken up by the Senate who will likely add their own amendments in committee and from the floor which if it actually passes, will head back to the reconciliation committee to be possibly edited again before both chambers vote to pass it or not.
How's this even news fit to print by a respected news paper much less "News for nerds" on Slash Dot? There is a nearly zero chance these numbers will survive all the coming edits driven by the endless debate in congress.
How do you think it gets changed?
It's public outrage that causes items like this to get scrapped. Extreme cuts like this are designed to change the Overton window so they can "compromise" on slightly less extreme cuts later on. The earlier the uproar the less chance they have to shift the debate.
Men who sexually harassed women in the '70s knew what they were doing was wrong
Incorrect. The concept of "sexual harassment" was first proposed by feminists in the 1970s and was formalized into law in the 1980s, but it didn't reach widespread public awareness until the Anita Hill hearing in 1991.
"Sexual harassment" isn't wrong because of a campaign some feminists ran in the 70s. It's wrong because it's harassment, it's wrong because the women in the Atari offices were being treated primarily as objects of sexual gratification instead of full human beings.
The lack of a label made it easier for people to be in denial of the fact they were doing something wrong, but label or not it was still wrong.
Anyone care to explain how personal indiscretions affect his achievements in developing "a breakthrough technology, game concept, or gameplay design at a crucial juncture in video game history"?
From the accounts in the article he was largely responsible for a workplace that was really hostile to women. Given his place in the industry, the games he chose to develop, how he chose to market those games, and the template he established for a successful gaming company, he likely had a real influence on gaming culture (which led a lot of men to software development).
If another man had developed "a breakthrough technology, game concept, or gameplay design at a crucial juncture in video game history" it's quite possible the modern computer industry would be much more gender-diverse. And that undercuts the very contribution for which he was to be celebrated.
In other news, Jesus H. Christ has been rescinded the son of god and lord savior awards to insufficiently progressive views toward women during 15 to 22 in the year of our lord.
The whole purpose of the award is to recognize actions from ~40 years ago that are more appreciated now than at the time. I don't think it's out of line to also look if some of the surrounding behaviours are more objectionable now than at the time.
An old co-worker had a habit of posting obviously fake right wing news articles, so-and-so arrested for treason, Obama caught admitting to X, etc.
When I saw it I would usually post a quick comment pointing out it was fake (often providing counter-evidence) and he'd reply "opps" and move on to most the next obvious piece of BS.
Eventually I prodded a bit too much during the health care bill and he unfriended me.
I still have no idea if he actually believed some of that fake news or if he simply didn't care.
Failing to find any Hebrew scholars who could help validate their findings, the researchers eventually resorted to using Google Translate,
(Source)
This "research" is a joke.
Why? Because the Hebrew scholars didn't want to participate?
Google Translate botches modern languages. The fact that running their results through Google Translate gave them meaningful output suggests they have real data.
I fail to see what the problem is. Would it have been better to test it on humans in some third-world shithole?
I have no issue with animal testing.
But the question here is what scientific value was gained from the experiments.
Now, if you've already tested on lower forms, like rats, and established that there is no harm, I'm personally fine with testing on primates to be doubly sure (though I'm not sure if that's the official standard). But I find it hard to believe that breathing emissions for 4 hours qualifies as no harm.
No personal devices, done. 20 years ago they wouldn't have had cell phones, now they all do. If they are deployed, depending on where and what the mission is, they either get no contact with home or the internet, or they only get access to home and the internet via a shared workstation setup centrally located on the base. Anyone caught deploying with any sort of electronic device besides possibly an approved MP3 or DVD player should be subject to "other than honorable discharge". There is no reason for them to have them when deployed. You want to keep a secret you don't let people talk. Allowing people access to the internet will leak information 100% of the time.
I think there's another side of this where keeping these people sane is a real issue. If you look at the Bowe Bergdahl case one thing that's clear is the kid made some extremely poor decisions, and a big reason seems to be he was socially isolated and more-or-less lost his mind. His reaction was clearly an outlier, but I have no doubt there's a lot of other bad decision making and discipline issues that come from a result of the psychological stress people are under.
So take away their internet and Smartphones when absolutely necessary, but replace them with some other kind of distraction. Don't expect them to be perfect automatons who don't require recreation.
Tool-assisted means in an emulator. The vast majority of emulators are at most cycle-accurate, which in some cases changes observable behaviour. Also, it's possible it was a different version of the game -- a lot of game rips are not bit-to-bit identical; versions for different markets notoriously have slight or not-so-slight alterations beyond just translated messages. Likewise, PAL vs SECAM vs NTSC have different timings that often alter the game.
Possibly, but were a lot of discrepancies and impossible scores entered, I think one record had a value of like 15,000,000 exactly where the other top scores were in the thousands. And most of the records were recorded under very dubious circumstances (with his friend as the referee and only witness).
I suspect Twin Galaxies knew a lot of the records were bogus, but a celebrity is better PR than a cheating scandal.
Agreed. It's rather like everyone else has a dedicated co-processor that takes a set of facial features and returns a person, but mine is broken, or needs much more training. With new people, I find myself unable to re-recognise them when I see them later in the same evening, atleast not with full confidence. I often end up picking out something distinctive, like their style of earring, or tattoo, or clothing, that I can remember as a yes-or-no answer. One of the reasons it's undetected is that there are lots of mitigation techniques, and I've *never* had the ability so I don't know any different.
I don't have face-blindness but I figured the scenario is like the following.
We all have a general image classifier running, it allows us to extract enough features to easily recognize a coconut from a mango and, if we focus on the problem, distinguish two mangos.
But most people also have a dedicated facial image classifier, and it's really good at extracting features from faces (or seeing faces in random things like rocks on Mars). But for some people this classifier is either missing or doesn't work well, they can still distinguish faces, they just need to do it using the general classifier.
I think a comparable problem might be recognizing dogs, give me two dogs of same breed, build, and colouration, and I can't tell them apart at a glance. If I spend a lot of time with dogs I'll get better, I'll learn to look for specific colouration patterns or changes in features, but I'll never be as effective as it as a dog would be because I don't have that dedicated dog classifier sitting in my brain.
Does this comparison make sense to you? I'm curious how you feel about the "uncanny valley", for instance I found fake Tarquin in Rogue One to be quite obvious and unsettling, did you have the same reaction?
Let me answer your simple, very pointed question. The Top Secret contents of Hillary's emails are know to include:
1) raw intelligence from intercepts of foreign government officials, which reveals who and how we are listening in on those foreign governments;
2) raw imagery from NRO satellites. Leaking this shows exactly how capable the US is, how effective the attempts to disguise or camouflage are, and also WHAT the US is interested in watching;
3) human reporting - which again reveals the sources that are willing to talk to the US.
There may be other categories as well, but those haven't been confirmed in "leaks" to the press.
Why does the Secretary of State need to know these things? Well, because she was representing the US Government in negotiations with foreign governments are organizations. Giving her the intel helps her understand the specifics of whatever the issue is, such as recognizing that her counterparts are lying to her because the NSA just gave her a transcript how them planning their lies, or the NRO showing her an image of the troop movements that they say aren't happening.
Without that knowledge, the Secretary of State is crippled in her ability to do her job.
Hillary had every right to view that information. She had zero right to remove it from the secure networks and put it on her private - and insecure - server.
State Department email is not a secure network, no one was supposed to send classified information over State Department email, that had a separate network for that stuff.
This was something constantly conflated and confused with the whole email controversy.
1) Clinton used her private server for work email instead of the official State Dept email. This was wrong and against the rules though far from unprecedented. It was basically another example of management ignoring the regs that everyone else had to follow.
2) Some people included classified intel in their emails to Clinton, and this ended up on her server (and on the state dept server). This would have broken the rules whether or not she was using a private server or State Dept server. It's also not uncommon when people are dealing with a lot of info from different sources and not everything gets filed or communicated the way it's supposed to.
3) A bunch of emails were deleted after a subpoena was issues for them to be preserved. This seems to have been the sole work of an IT person who was supposed to delete the emails a long time ago, didn't get around to it, and then panicked when the subpoena showed up.
One lousy cyclist?? How do those out-of-shape bums expect to chase down the escaping aliens?!?
Seriously though, it looks like the heat map goes to the granularity of a single single user? I think the app lets you do that already, but it's more than a little creepy from the whole privacy angle. I'm not sure how I'd feel about my daily route sitting there on a map.
Does this change anything about the undisputed authenticity of the emails we saw? No.
I want to say "I hope the DNC has learned a valuable lesson about email and network security," but that would imply I think the DNC is capable of learning from their mistakes.
So if no one ever disputed the authenticity of the emails then why are you now trying to change the topic to the authenticity of the emails?
I said representative, not member. Zim was the trainer and one of the purer representatives of the military as an organization, particularly when he operated in his capacity as a trainer.
Even better; why would you be surprised that an experienced member tasked with training new recruits might have a thoughtful response to a question which he has doubtless heard dozens of times? I still ask: what exactly WOULDN'T constitute glorification in your eyes? Do you require every military instructor to be presented as a drooling simpleton?
No. But the military could be shown, like any organization, to have its own flaws and shortcomings.
The military in the novel is basically a perfect entity, and whenever problems exist they are solved by adhering more closely to the military ideals.
The military portrayed in the novel is one that can generally be trusted to wage war without supervision. That is contrary to the idea of things like the Geneva convention.
You still seem to believe that there's some higher power which can magically force the military to follow the Geneva Conventions if they decide that they don't want to. That's a rather silly proposition.
Which is why it isn't my proposition.
The idea of the Geneva Conventions is that military forces are accountable to external parties.
The novel shows neither the existence nor the need for such accountability.
That doesn't mean that fascism in the context of a military organization (and not society) is bad. But if you're describing a society strictly through the lens of its military it might look a bit fascist.
Sure; especially if you go into the book with preconceived notions and then stop reading after 2 chapters.
If I recall the first two chapters contained a lot of the coverage of the societal structure and training. The rest of the book is mostly action.
But I'd also point out that Russia justified Crimea on the grounds of Yugoslavia and Iraq. Even if X was not your intent it can still be other's perceptions.
I very much doubt that it's "their perception"; more likely it's opportunistic propaganda. I highly doubt that Putin actually believes that his annexation of Crimea is in any way comparable to a UN peacekeeping operation. Regardless, not all perceptions are valid; if he does believe it then he's a fool.
The Russians had a very different perception of the Yugoslavian war than we did. I don't disagree that Putin's motive was territorial expansion, and he was extremely disingenuous in pursuing it. But the average Russian felt that Crimea had been unjustly given to Ukraine by Khrushchev, and that a lot of former USSR countries were still part of Russia, so an attempt to expand NATO and the EU into them were an attack on Russian territory.
I don't know what the right move on the West's part should have been, those countries certainly deserve the protection of NATO and the prosperity of the EU, but it's easy to see why Russia felt threatened.
The way in which Starship Troopers is uncomfortable for me is it portrays a fairly extreme society, which could be troubling in other contexts, and drops it in a context (war for survival) in which it seems reasonable and logical.
I can sympathise with that, but the perception of their society as "extreme" seems awful funny to me. It's a world-wide democracy which seems to function better than our own, which allows all the liberties we enjoy and more while encouraging people to be responsible citizens, which seems to have zero racial or sexual discrimination apart from keeping women out of the infantry, and whose people largely shun militarism, would never institute a draft, and do not recruit or encourage anyone to join.
Frankly it sounds like a much more functional/sane
to be fair the charges against him were a thinly veiled attempt to extradite him to the US. It has very little to do about breaking the law.
That was certainly his position, and perhaps even his belief.
But the only evidence that this plan existed seems to be the fact news leaked about the US considering charges around the same time that Sweden did file charges.
That "the wisdom and humanity" are coming from a member of the military should be no surprise given that 95% of the characters in the book are military members.
I said representative, not member. Zim was the trainer and one of the purer representatives of the military as an organization, particularly when he operated in his capacity as a trainer.
The Geneva Conventions are not "external constraints", they are rules which we have agreed to follow. Politicians are not an external constraint; they are the leaders we have agreed to follow. Without a military which is structured to enforce the ethics of the society which it serves, how will you enforce them? Without military leaders who consent to embody those principles, how will you ensure compliance? Nobody is suggesting that every single military member is the epitome of moral virtue; the only implication being made is that they have taken an oath to follow the ethics and directives of their society regardless of their personal desires.
The military portrayed in the novel is one that can generally be trusted to wage war without supervision. That is contrary to the idea of things like the Geneva convention.
Fascism also encouraged very efficient train schedules. If Verhovens train arrives on time will he conclude that he's living under fascism?
The willingness for self sacrifice in the service of society is a good thing, if the society is good. The problem with German and Italian soldiers wasn't their willingness to put society before self; the problem was the fact that they were serving a fascist state. That's a failure of the political process and of the civilians who were responsible for maintaining it. The military is only as good as the society it serves.
The fascist state is basically trying to be as efficient as possible. Opposition is destroyed because it puts the trains off schedule and weakens the state. I think there's an argument to be made that a military, in it's need for efficiency and strict order, is fundamentally fascist.
That doesn't mean that fascism in the context of a military organization (and not society) is bad. But if you're describing a society strictly through the lens of its military it might look a bit fascist.
That's an incredibly complex question, largely because the objectives were so muddled. If it was solely a humanitarian intervention, such as, say, the UN peacekeeping missions in the former Yugoslavia, I don't think any reasonable person would consider it militarism. The reasons given for the invasion of Iraq were numerous; some better than others, some more believable than others, which all muddies the water quite a bit.
Suffice it to say that I would classify the invasion of Iraq as far more militaristic than the war in Starship Troopers, and far less militaristic than, say, the Russian annexation of Crimea. If that makes sense.
I'd agree with that ranking.
But I'd also point out that Russia justified Crimea on the grounds of Yugoslavia and Iraq. Even if X was not your intent it can still be other's perceptions.
People are great at rationalising all kinds of things, but that doesn't mean that there aren't objective truths, or that we cannot define consistent standards. That's why it's important for civilians to think about and discuss these things, rather than just simplifying everything down to "soldiers evil, war bad". A society which is willing to rationalise evil will have an army which does evil, and a society which is unwilling to defend itself and it's values will quickly perish. Let's try to avoid both of those scenarios, shall we?
The way in which Starship Troopers is uncomfortable for me is it portrays a fairly extreme society, which could be troubling in other contexts, and drops it in a context (war for survival) in which it seems reasonable and logical.
It should be noted that Heinlein
The FBI should pay the $2,800 in Bitcoin, then deanonymize the transaction to find out who received the money. Once they know who received the money, execute the person who made the threat. Chances are that they're not in the United States, but there are more than enough American operatives around the world to make it happen. It would do society a favor to eliminate those who use criminal activity to mooch off of others and possibly terrify them in the process. In this case, it would be justice to execute the criminal.
That's why they're demanding Bitcoin.
The trouble with a traditional extortion scheme is the money has to go somewhere, you either need to hand it off in person (big risk!) or arrange some kind of wire transfer (you can probably make this close to untraceable, but it's tough).
But with Bitcoin all they know is the address of the wallet (they know that if they pay or not), and unless the owner of the wallet does something dumb to reveal their identity there's no way to know who actually owns the wallet.
This is one of my big worries about cryptocurrencies, the extra level of anonymity enables a lot of extra corruption and criminality.
This seems kinda cool to me. I get texts that let me know when the ISS will be overhead (usually 1 or 2 days in advance), and they tell me where to look, what time, and give me a rough elevation where the ISS will be visible and where it will disappear. Maybe the Humanity Star gang could take some notes.
The ISS is part of an international space program.
Communication satellites are for communication.
Spy satellites are for... a different kind of communication.
The "Humanity Star" is a cross between an Ad campaign and a self-indulgent art project.
Maybe the next one can blink a secret message in Morse code or something.
> Only during the start, we don't see how recruitment works later on but there's a lot of new recruits by the end of the novel.
If the society expanded the military I do not remember any reference to that. They had to replace military men quicker than normal as many of them died. But either way running a skeleton crew in normal peacetime, is not militaristic, and defending yourself from a genocidal and implacable foe is not either.
I remember getting the impression that there were may more incoming soldiers near the end, I think that was one of the messages with Rico's father joining, that everyone now realized it was their fight too.
Furthermore, the novel outright states that military men are no better, no more disciplined, no more intelligent than any other men.
The claim isn't that they start out better, but the military makes them into something better, or at least more deserving of respect.
> The militarism in Starship Troopers doesn't leave a lot of room for individualism, grunts have a lot of autonomy in how to fight, but their purpose is to contribute to the state and authority is highly string.
I don't understand that at all. The grunts in Starship Troopers are practically spit in the face of every earthbound military that has ever existed. Rico goes on and on about how even in the middle of a war, in the middle of an assault, he can just decide to retire, to not participate in the war any longer. It is individualism taken to a laughable extreme.
I don't recall that but if the service to the state is truly voluntary then that contradicts fascism. But it also implies a situation a fascist would love in the sense that it's an option that nobody takes.
Again, I'm not saying it's fascist, but it's militarist and carries some fascist elements.
It's been a lot of years since I read it, but the vibe I got was that the harsh discipline was part of the message that grunts were being held to a held to a higher standard than the rest of society, and being melded into something better.
If by "something better" you mean a superior fighting force, then yes, absolutely. If, on the other hand, you mean some flawless ubermenschen, then no, absolutely not.
There was certainly a lot of talk in the book about morality and how to be a decent, responsible human being, but much of that was outside the context of the military. When Zim is asked why the mobile infantry need to risk their lives instead of just nuking the enemy, he points out that the recruit should have learned the answer in highschool during his moral philosophy classes. The military doesn't teach them some secret knowledge on how to be a good person; it merely follows and enforces ethics which all people should already understand.
You could compare that to what we do today when, for example, we insist our soldiers follow the Geneva Conventions. All civilised people should already know that it's wrong to kill prisoners, and that we should offer aid to any injured person regardless of which side they happen to be on. Yet many people, both inside and outside the military, feel so much hatred and so little compassion that they would gladly beat a captured opponent to death given the opportunity. The military enforces those ethical standards not because it makes soldiers "noble" but because we, as a society, have agreed that it's the right thing to do. Following those rules doesn't make a soldier "something better"; it just makes his actions better than the alternative.
But that's the glorification, the wisdom and humanity is coming from the representative of the military. The implication is that if even the grunts understand ethics and philosophy, and the military is rigorous in disciplining its own, then external constraints like the Geneva Conventions or politicians are unnecessary.
I'm not trying to object to it, just trying to explain how Verhoeven saw fascism in it.
I'm not sure you're having the desired effect. If Veerhoven looked at the passages which encourages self sacrifice in the defense of others and concluded that it is an example of "fascism" then he is more of an idiot than I thought.
Fascism encourages sacrifice on behalf of the state, what is the state if not the defence of others? If you want to understand why fascism and other terrible ideas take root then you need to look at them in a sympathetic light.
How is a massive mobilization with everyone joining the fight not militarism? I'd say the West became militarist for the extent of WWI and WWII, the thing that we generally find objectionable is militarism during a time of peace.
We are mixing definitions, then. Militarism, AFAIK, is the position that a nation should employ military might in the furthering of national interests. In practice this has meant things like the annexation of neighbouring nations, the imposition of military blockades, and the subjugation of unpopular groups, all with no purpose other than the expansion or enrichment of the state.
A nation fighting for it's very survival is in a wholly different category. You could certainly argue that survival is a "national interest", but to put that in the same category as an armed invasion of a peaceful neighbour is asinine.
Insofar as your definition of militarism encompasses any military activity whatsoever then sure, the society in the book was militaristic. However, in that case, the word "militaristic" ceases to have any of the negative connotations which we typically associate with it, and I again fail to see what the objection is or how it's linked to fascism.
How would you classify the US in 2003? A lot of us outside saw the US as