Re: General Non-game Chat Thread

[Loreia]

Calling First on the Rampant Stallone


I just thought this was a funny play on words.

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

[Ser Alfred Haigh]

Or perhaps this guy ?

https://youtu.be/njJ3bFZBAmE?t=5m8s

[Reader]

Your narrator's politics are probably easy for long-standing players to guess, and to make matters worse I've got about a month's pay that I've bet on the election (and not to hedge myself psychologically!).

Fingers crossed.

Professionally, Asian market reaction will be interesting too! [for the newer faces, my day-job is in Asian equities]

[Baelon Drakeson]

I did my part a week ago. Glad to live in a state with early voting - no standing in line for me.

[Theomore Tullison]

Right now I'd liked to have an American citizenship so that I might have a say in the election of the person with the most potential to screw up the world.

Frankly though, I can't really think of any place I'd rather be born, objectively speaking. I guess rest of Scandinavia is pretty good, too, though. But the difference is so insignificant that national rivalries makes me conclude that the Swedes are the people serving the master race at restaurants and stuff for a reason. :8-):

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

I have been trying not to think about it, but drinks are on Reader if he wins his bet. :;
):

[Loreia]

A majority voted early in October or September. If you ask me, early voting is a mistake.

[Theomore Tullison]

A majority voted early in October or September. If you ask me, early voting is a mistake.

How so?

If you know who you'll be voting for, just go with whatever is practical. There were a couple of brits with me in Uganda during the Brexit vote, they pre-voted because they couldn't be there for the day. Let's more people vote basically, which is a good thing.

[Loreia]

I thought I was sure I knew who I wanted to vote for then. Then I wasn't sure I wanted to vote at all. Today I voted for someone different. I guess that's my luxury.

[Septon Arlyn]

I have been trying not to think about it, but drinks are on Reader if he wins his bet. :;
):

exactly.

[Baelon Drakeson]

[url=CNN exit polls indicate that 62% of voters had already decided by September.][/url]

For those that are certain, early voting is fine. For those uncertain, taking more time to learn about the candidates is better. I've been paying attention since the primaries (and was already familiar with the eventual nominees of the 4 most major parties), and nothing that occurred since swayed my opinion one way or the other.

[Reader]

I've had to cash out my bet and take my gains on the various free hedging bets I placed on trumpt. Thank god UK gambling site gives you a free £20-£25 bet when you register that you can use to offset your risk!

Maybe I'll look back on this in a few few hours (almost 5am in the UK) and regret it, but doubt it. Looks like Hilary needs Arizona to pull through.

[Septon Arlyn]

So it's Scandinavia or Sweden looking for any immigrants?

[Reader]

Perversely, my largest exposure now is a Hilary win as I've cashed out there but not on trump free bets. Feels like a side issue compared to politics...

[Septon Arlyn]

Yeah... The immigration site is down for Canada right now. Will have to try and apply tomorrow if looks like the my work visa

[Nathaniel Mason]

Perversely, my largest exposure now is a Hilary win as I've cashed out there but not on trump free bets. Feels like a side issue compared to politics...

Looks like she is going to lose Pennsylvania, and if she loses Pennsylvania she is done.

[Reader]

Perversely, my largest exposure now is a Hilary win as I've cashed out there but not on trump free bets. Feels like a side issue compared to politics...

Looks like she is going to lose Pennsylvania, and if she loses Pennsylvania she is done.

This will be a fairly bitter £300 gain. Beats £3,700 loss I was on hook for had Hilary surged back. Pennsylvania has indeed gone to trump now, he's ahead in a few more, any one of which does it.

Actually, forget betting - equity markets off quite a bit, so I'm a massive net loser from the night given my pension holdings etc. Will see how relative return funds did when Asian markets close in a few hours... Young folk take heart - we're still net buyers of equities over our lives, so cheaper share prices are a long term gain (trying to convince myself here?).

[Nathaniel Mason]

I, for one, have warned all my friends the possibility of a Trump victory for a long time. I was never taken seriously.

His campaign was very visceral to the disenfranchised, and there are a lot of disenfranchised in the US. There are a lot of white voters that think they have lost something over the last eight years. There are a lot of voters who want revenge against the 'elites' that are oppressing them. And... as my grandmother used to say... there are a lot of voters that would vote conservative if you put a cow on the podium.

Even still, the fact that 42% of women would vote for such a raging misogynist surprises the hell out of me.

If markets thrive on certainty, I think you are going to have a rough four years ahead.

[Ser Alfred Haigh]

I hope people start using their heads and see this for what it is: A warning signal.

People in the USA have made clear they want change and don't want old soup in new cans (which one could see the establishment candidate, Hillary, as). Politicians in Europe should now ask themselves what can be done to get the losers of the struggle between democracy and neoliberalism back into the boat. because if they don't, these angry and disappointed people wil take them down and might also take some parts of the system down with them. Parts that are important, but don't look important until they are gone.

I fear they won't do that, but simply engage harder in the struggle against the right-wing parties and people, which will only foster the sort of 'us vs. them' that has partly shone through the US elections every now and then. Trumps victory also brought us some breathing space from TTIP, but that's a small relief. The constant claims that things are 'without an alternative' leads voters to the poles of extremism.

I hope that Trump's assistants and advisors do a good job of advising the guy so things don't deteriorate badly. I also hope that politicians wake up and start to grasp the concept that the system as it is now, in Europe, but also overseas, needs reforms to stay viable and workable. I hope some people grow some testicles / ovaries and actually fight for those reforms. We shall see what happens.

[Ser Jorah Holt]

and that so far has been the problem.

Certainly EU and UK aren't currently learning that lesson after Brexit. Hell, getting the UK to agree on agreeing with something our sovereignty says is proving a problem (i.e. listening to Judges)

[Ser Alfred Haigh]

It will remain a problem judging by the first reactions to the electoral results. I admit people have to arrange with trump, but so far, all the mainstream does is continue stressing the importance of civic morals and ideals, as opposed to the right-wing groups, I see little problem-consciousness or even a realization something needs to be done. Votes next year should get interesting. I'm pondering getting involved just to make sure the right-wing parties don't gain too much ground without having to fight for it.

[Baelon Drakeson]

It's not that I think that a the disenfranchisement isn't real;
it is. I just have a hard time figuring out why so many people think that Trump would fix it. To be fair, I don't think Hillary would have fixed it either, but you don't burn down your house because your furnace is broken.

I think a lot of what happened is a product of self-selection media bias and it's effect on belief formation. The ugly side of modern massive information flow is that it is easy to pick and chose to listen to people who agree with you on various things. Then you start to believe the other things they tell you, because you trust the source. Rather than listen to a diversity of opinions, people prefer to be told what they want to hear. That leads to greater and greater polarization and makes it easier for people to be spoon-fed propaganda and misinformation.

The most dangerous thing in a democracy is not an uninformed electorate. It is a wrongly informed electorate.

President Trump is bad. President Trump with Republican controlled House and Senate, and the ability to shape the Supreme Court for decades to come?

[Ser Alfred Haigh]

Which is what happens when the media forget their job is to inform people about politics and not try to become political king-makers in their own right. A lot of government media have tendencies that one needs to be aware of and that feeds nicely into the notion of them being mere 'propaganda-machines' of the reigning system.

Another house that might burn down once the furnace starts to fail...

[Lady Corrine Marsten]

My attempts to dissect the whole messed-up situation are only resulting in panic attacks and an intense desire to not live on this planet anymore. I'm literally having booze for breakfast, I'm so stressed about it.

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