FaceDeer

I’m in a campaign (with rotating GMs) where I’m playing a character who is literally an alien infiltrator that has infiltrated the party. Except he’s really bad at it and it’s obvious he’s an alien infiltrator, and because he’s bad at it he has no idea that it’s obvious. The party’s superiors told them to play along for now and try to find out what my character is up to.

It’s been about four years now, going on five, and I practically had to spoon-feed them useful tidbits about his mission. I’ve finally just kidnapped them all and took them back to my homeworld, we’re now running through the adventure where they escape. I had to put an alien diplomat in their cell to monologue information about them.

Still, I’ve been having fun so I don’t mind. Just amusing how much PCs are willing to trust other PCs simply because they’re PCs. :)

Sometimes it’s different for NPCs, but not always - in another campaign just now the party encountered an Aboleth who told them that he was a good Aboleth that wasn’t interested in mind control or manipulating anyone. And by the way, there’s this list of quests he’s working on and he’d appreciate some help. They jumped right in. He actually is on the level, but come on - Aboleth. If there’s anyone to be instantly suspicious of it’s someone like that.

Yeah, and as far as I’m aware they can respond to you too. I much prefer it over Reddit’s approach, it was often used as a “Haha, I get the last word!” Button.

Supply military and financial aid, sure, but no boots on the ground.

The US is failing to do even that minimal level of assistance in this case. No American troops are helping Ukraine fight, it’s all been training and supplies. That’s all that’s been requested by them. And that’s what the Republicans are blocking.

Ironically, it was a horrible treaty for everyone except the US. Trump nixing it was yet another own-goal. After the US pulled out, the remaining signatories reworked the TPP into the CPTPP by removing those “dream laws” and passing the rest of it without the US.

Because it will impact them economically, of course. People are less likely to invest in a country that is at risk of being sanctioned, whether “officially” or via unofficial boycotts.

Canada isn’t currently preparing to invade anyone, if that helps.

As far as anyone knows.

“If there are things that emergency managers would do differently, or the public might do differently because a storm has 195 mph winds versus 160 mph winds, then maybe the categories should be changed,” he said. “Personally, I’m getting out of the way if it’s 165 mph winds or 195 mph winds.”

A valid issue, there’s not much point to adding a category if there’s nothing extra that needs to be done for it.

Still, though, I can imagine there being a few possible issues. If a hurricane is strong enough that it’s going to literally level a city completely, like the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed 8000 people and is the reason that Houston is the biggest city in Texas instead, then that might change some decisions when it comes to how to go about evacuating. I don’t live anywhere that a hurricane would ever hit, but if I knew “my house is likely to be damaged or maybe collapse” versus “my house is going to be erased so thoroughly you’d need GPS to know where it once stood” then I’d put different stuff in my car before getting out of town.

The “-bro” suffix is rapidly heading into terminal overuse phase where it ceases to have any actual meaning any more.

And I for one am glad to see it go.

Deflation is bad for people too.

It could shoot back up when the Strait of Malacca gets blockaded, or when it turns out that major oil production companies depend on Chinese-made equipment, or when Russia collapses and stops selling oil to India because China dropped its military support for them, or any number of other possible knock-on effects.

The exact details are not the important thing in what I was talking about. The point is that China’s economic woes will have an effect on you, not what precisely what those effects will be.

Okay, so you’re fine with it. Bully for you. There are a lot of people in your society who are living much closer to the edge and will find themselves in a lot of trouble if prices for the stuff they need go up.

The point of why this is a problem is ripple effects. None of us own shares in Evergrande. But Evergrande’s collapse could cause such big ripples that it’s bound to affect us anyway, even way out at the fringes of seemingly unrelated economies. Your lifestyle may not be impacted directly but you’ll find yourself wondering “why are there suddenly a bunch of wars in southeast Asia?” Then “why are gas prices through the roof?” And then “why are all the prices through the roof?” And finally “why are the poors rioting in the streets and burning my house? Don’t they know how expensive it is now?”

That category is sparser than you might think. If China’s economy collapses you will definitely see an affect on what you pay for stuff. And there’ll be other geopolitical impacts too, as the countries around the world readjust priorities to account for this change.

Display the image and see if a fatwa demanding your death is issued. If so, that was an image of Muhammad.

Okay, amend my comment to read “throwing soup at paintings.” Any other changes needed?

Throwing soup on paintings discredits environmentalism to a lot of people. But what they should really be upset about is misleading graphs cherry-picked to look as alarming as possible.

Sea ice is a concerning indicator, sure, but if you look at other news and other graphs about it you’ll not find anything like this gigantic drop. In particular in the section of that page about Antarctic ice:

At the beginning of December, ice extents were at record low levels. However, the seasonal decline in Antarctic ice extent subsequently slowed. As a result, by the beginning of the new year, extent was only sixth lowest.

It also notes that Arctic sea ice extents were typical during 2023, so whatever was happening to Antarctic ice wasn’t necessarily an indication of global trends.

I am an environmentalist, I want to see continued effort being made on switching to renewable resources and ameliorating the effects of climate change. But I worry that a lot of environmentalists are crying wolf very loudly and it’s going to harm the movement in the long run when people realize how overblown some of these arguments are.

My own personal style of humor is to say absurd things with a straight face, and unfortunately I have found that on the Internet there is always going to be someone who believes me without question no matter how absurd a statement I make. Because unfortunately there’s always someone on the Internet who actually believes something that absurd.

No true Scotsman would throw soup on the Mona Lisa.

“Deathbed confessions” like this present interesting philosophical situations when it comes to law and justice.

At least the EU has a mechanism to overcome that.

There’s also a strong element of religious fundamentalism. Certain sects of American Christianity believe that the existence of Israel is key to the end of the world coming, and they want that. Those sects are bizarrely popular and influential, and are happy to nudge American foreign policy in whatever ways keeps Israel existing and embroiled in war.