skibidi

joined 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

The war for Arrakis is the classic tale of a small number of colonizers against a larger, motivated, native population. The Harrkonens drastically underestimate the total number of Fremen, and try to fight stand-up battles while the Fremen simply ambush less protected targets. I thought this came across fine in the movie.

The more problematic undertone come directly from Frank Herbert, who had this theory that military prowess only comes from hardship (that's why the Sardaukar are so tough - because the prison planet they are trained on is so harsh), and the Fremen are nigh-invincible fighters because Arrakis is so hard to survive on. This is a misconception that repeats across earlier anthropological study (e.g. ancient Sparta) and is closely tied to the 'Noble Savage' trope.

Also, there never was a fight against the 'resources of the entire empire', Paul and the Fremen fought and defeated the Harkonnens in months-long (movie) or years-long (book) guerilla campaign aimed at lowering spice production. Eventually the Emperor brought his personal forces planetside to restore order. Detachments from the other houses remained in orbit and were not permitted to make planetfall. This is when the Fremen play their trump card of surprise worm attack.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Beyond making them look horrible, they were marching towards a court ruling against the forced arbitration clause.

Once there is a precedent for the clause being unenforceable, the clause ceases to be a deterrent to legal action - every claim would be litigated at the very least to settle the question of whether arbitration is required in a specific case.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

The US is the world's largest oil producer. The US, however, does not export the most crude oil, but instead exports large quantities of refined products (gasoline, diesel, etc.).

The US was the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas in 2023.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

DnD good and evil are distinct from common usage of the terms; they are cosmic forces, objective truths. Each action reverberates through the higher and lower planes and tilts the scales towards victory for one side or another in their eternal struggle. This lore doesn't leave a ton of room to change the alignment of entire races (and that is by design, structure makes it easier for people to get in to the setting).

But this is just in the established settings, any DM is free to homebrew any setting and justification they like.

Note that I am not trying to defend this as the height of storytelling, it isn't. It is a consequence of how the setting is justified - with deities being active participants, having specific rules for granting and revoking powers, and the physical presence of higher and lower planes embodying perfect conceptions of 'good', 'evil', order, chaos, etc. All of this can be changed, and again any DM is free to change it, but the 'deep lore' of the established settings over the past 40 years is drenched in this stuff.

One way to consider it is simply - the Drow aren't evil because they are Drow. The Drow are evil because their culture promotes actions that align with the literal true definition of evil that is present in the setting. Evil doesn't mean bad, it is just a label aligning with some physical rule of the universe. Just like the positive charge of a proton and negative charge of an electron are labels for physical rules of our own universe. Positive isn't any better than negative, but they are inherently distinct.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Cats convert CO to CO2, and NOx to N2 (mostly irrelevant for this conversation). In closed space, the exhaust is still deadly, but you are correct in that CO would cause quicker death than CO2 displacing the oxygen.

Relatively low concentrations of CO will cause severe drops in red blood cell's ability to transport oxygen, then follows unconsciousness and death. CO2 in contrast would require higher concentrations to be effective, as it would only reduce the efficiency of gas transfer in the lungs and lead to slow and painful decreasing blood pH - and a strong panic reflex and the 'I can't breathe' feeling - until eventual unconsciousness and death.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

FAF absolutely benefits from action spam, to the point where it breaks the game balance.

T1 assault bots lose to T1 tanks, and they are supposed to because they are half the price and much quicker to build. You can dance them around if you click enough and they will dodge the tank shells.. a few micro'd bots can then defeat 10s of tanks. That swing in mass efficiency is already enough to decide the game on maps smaller than 20km.

RTS will always benefit from intensive micro because time is another resource. Doing more actions, assuming they are of positivity utility, gives an advantage over an opponent who does not.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

To everyone saying he is 'scared' that's not really the point, he has no reason to debate her. She is unknown compared to him, starving her of attention is a good strategy as he is still currently leading in polls.

Trump wants to nothing to change in the race, debates - as we just saw with Biden - are an opportunity for things to change.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Common misconception. He was actually saying most political violence is committed by people politically to his left, which I think is undoubtedly true.

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