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Showing content with the highest reputation on 09/04/20 in all areas

  1. The Church of Ayytom has once again entered a state of total war, last time CoA decided to protect a person not to our liking... The Church had no other choice but to release it's nuclear arsenal... After 30 nooky bois had been sent flying, over the span of a couple of days the war ended... This time however The Church faces another threat... A vile threat... A bunch of opportunistic rats... The Church hereby pledge to rid the world of these rats... The alliance known as micro pockyclypse entered a skirmish with the rank 9 alliance Schrute Farms only to have them lay there as a dead fish and go looking elsewhere for help, rather than countering themselves... They had no luck in some places, but in other they found something... They found the rats! This is where the rank 1 alliance joined the war against a 4 man alliance involved in another war. They chose to defend the pixelhuggers in the Farms, and as it stands, The Church now face more alliances than it has members... There is no other choice now... Total war is upon us, we will never surrender... The 110 day war has started! https://countingdownto.com/?c=3194671 TLDR; Rose decided to be the fun police, now they will pay for it
    28 points
  2. It's not the first time Rose has stood up for someone who others wouldn't. Recalls KT right after NPOLT. Respect for that. Honor, amirite!
    10 points
  3. Hey everyone! I am excited to announce that thanks to the help of Kevanovia, Charlie Traveler, and Dr. Rush we are going to be hosting the Politics and War Discord Server's first ever radio show tonight at 9PM Central Time (US). (2:00AM Saturday Server Time.) Great Job! with Kev and Charlie will debut Friday Sept. 4th @ 9PM Central. I (Alex) will be the first guest. Be sure to tune into the conversation where we will be discussing updates, the Politics & War culture, the ongoing war, and more. To tune in, join the Politics and War Discord Server. There will be a channel group available later with a #radio channel to join in and listen. Going forward, we are hoping to make this a regular occurrence. Hopefully this will better engage the whole community and make things more fun and accessible for all!
    9 points
  4. The difference is KT is actually useful and will stick up for itself. Dwight is such a pixel hugger he immediately went begging to other spheres for counters and bounties and anything else. This of course ignoring too how he was among the fastest to jump on the boat out of town when the game needed a United fist against NPO. He deserves nothing he has or is receiving, including now. Sorry, but just sticking up for someone others wouldn't doesn't make you righteous. It should be pretty obvious without examples why that is.
    9 points
  5. Schrute Farms has no business being mentioned in the same sentence as yourselves considering their history. Furthermore, my disappointment in seeing Rose actively defend a dishonorable, mass-pixel hugging AA like Dwight and his personal city funding minions because ASM wanted to sign them for some unknown reason is too great to express in actual words.
    6 points
  6. *tinfoil hat* This war was just an excuse to extend a sphere-wide NAP between HM/Swamp/tCW so that they can strike at Quack and/or Rose with impunity. The 90 day NAP was the goal, the 10 day war was the price.
    6 points
  7. I'll also go simple: Black hole alliances are a real problem in this game. Alliances are responsible for keeping members interested in the game by providing them protection, [proper] guidance, and community. Therefore, alliances that cannot handle such a responsibility, should be forced to disband or merge by the community. Stop protecting black holes.
    6 points
  8. New alliances made by 13 day old nations who took alliance grants and ran along with two random 3-city nations aren't going to succeed.
    5 points
  9. Considering I was part of the original tJest that compromised of barely 24 people that attacked IQ with 700 nations in it and did 45 bil damage like 3 years ago or so when plane casualties were actually high and whales could be suicides into, I can tell you that using terms like rank 9 or rank 1 or rank 62 does not exactly do anything in a game that was war ranges as a key component of its gameplay. And I know you all know this too considering you were trying to get schrute to pay up after declaring on them if they wanted to be free of your "skirmishes". If you want to raid around and have fun then by all means bro you can, wouldn't have cared at all about it. I actually like and respect you a lot Kimmy and I am all for the memeing you are doing but don't bring statistics into this that do little to back any narrative. Have your fun, do your hits and enjoy the fight.
    5 points
  10. Still using the ayy lmao eh? Don't worry, we'll get to you one day.
    5 points
  11. ty 09/04 10:39 am An unknown nation has committed an act of terrorism against your country. They successfully detonated an explosive in your city, City 5, terrorizing civillians and destroying 1.00 infrastructure. 09/04 10:38 am An unknown nation has committed an act of terrorism against your country. They successfully detonated an explosive in your city, City 4, terrorizing civillians and destroying 1.00 infrastructure Seems abit weak might need a buff/change lol
    4 points
  12. Nobody is looking to start anything nor did we indicate that you had judged Schrute. Most of us passed judgement against him and his AA long ago, their FA shows this judgement is spread very far and wide and the current situation has done nothing except reinforce said judgement, rightfully so frankly. Furthermore, i think your statement would make more sense if it was about ASM perhaps, but Schrute is an ASM ally via an optional treaty, not a Rose ally. If Rose wants to defend Schrute, they should sign them. When you consider that Schrute has 5 nations and their M-level ally WTF has a further 4 in the appropriate range capable of handling the...4 and dwights immediate reaction was not to defend themselves with their own nations but immediately go begging for help to other AAs, some of which they have no relations with is downright laughable. I guess it's honorable that Rose is willing to oA on an oD to defend the FA black sheep of the game, but it's frankly just defending an AA that can't seem to defend itself, doesn't deserve to be defended and will not repay the favor in the future.
    4 points
  13. Politics and War is a game with a bit of a learning curve, a somewhat slow daily set of mechanics for average players, and a place where getting solid advice on playing the game can be difficult if you are brand new without knowing existing players. PnW also has some issues with player retention, and I think there are some changes that can be proposed to assist with this. I am proposing a series of changes to the creation of alliances to better improve the quality of community gameplay. There are numerous small micro alliances out there which take new players, get beaten up, and then leave the players frustrated. These players do not interact meaningfully with the game, and thus they quit without seeing the full capabilities of the game itself. Restriction 1: Alliance Creation Should (Once Again) Cost A Credit(s) This was something from the original restrictions on alliance creation. Credits provide a monetary benefit to Alex as content for the game, but you do not have to pay for them with real life money. Credits also have some actual price attached to them, to prevent the creation of frivolous alliances. Creating an alliance is, or at least should be, a serious venture, and thus it needs to be treated as such. Instituting a price in the form of credit(s) again to create an alliance will be a deterrent to players who do not think through the process of creating an alliance. Restriction 2: Alliance Creation Should Be Restricted To Player Nations With At Least One Year Of Game Experience Frankly, new player micro alliances do not provide much value to the game. Most brand new players (not including re-rolls) do not have the capability to immediately be successful with the mechanics of the game, or know the politics and culture of how the game operates. While I am not going to make snarky remarks about the low ability of some established alliances out there to seemingly play the game, I at least hope and assume that people in those alliances have played long enough to be comfortable with the Orbis community and the mechanics of the game. This process will take some time to learn, and so new players should be prohibited from creating an alliance until the reach a certain point of game experience. Restriction 3: Newly Created Alliances Cannot Recruit New Players Unless They Meet A Minimum Sizeable Standard While creating a new alliance can be done by anyone who meets the above criteria, just having one person go off and and then recruit new players to the game after joining somewhere else is probably not an indicator of success. New players does not mean new members, however. If someone were to create an alliance, and then find other established players to join them, they would likely have all of the skills they need to at least pretend to know what they are doing. There should be a minimum threshold, of members and/or total nation strength, which is required to form an alliance capable of recruiting players who are new to the game, as outlined in Restriction 2 above. Alliances can be created without meeting these criteria, such as as in the case of pirates, financial services groups, pet projects like Fraggle, but those alliances should not be able to recruit players who are new to the game. This does also not restrict established players from going in and out of those new alliances, even if the alliance itself cannot recruit brand new players. Addition 1: New Players Should Receive Automatic Direction To Alliances Which Wish To Recruit Them While the tutorial does encourage players to join an alliance, and there are alliance recruitment pages, advertisements, and in-game messages, there should be more guidance and funneling for players to join established alliances. An alliance like Grumpy which is not going to recruit new players does not have to be forced into this. An alliance that would be fine with new players joining but might not explicitly actively recruit (perhaps one of the pirates?) does not have to actively participate, but passively could. Alliances that wish to actively recruit will need to have the human players to do this, which encourages broader community building and active daily play. Note 1: All Existing Alliances Are Grandfathered In Have your own alliance or group now that does not meet the above standards? Great, you can keep it. I do not think it is fair to enforce alliances that do not meet this criteria currently to have to immediately comply. However, creation of new alliances, including by the same people in the grandfathered alliances, would have to be under the terms presented above. Over time, this restriction will be redundant as the number of affected players will diminish. Note 2: Players Should Still Feel Free To Build Nations And Play As They See Fit Want to stay at one city and build nuclear weapons up to the sky like Fraggle? Want to just raid indiscriminately, and do your own thing? Want to stay in an alliance as a small nation, and then when you get out form a small city raiding team with friends? Want to build a financial services alliance? Want to grow as fast as you possibly can? Do it! I do not believe there are any issues with those methods of play style. There is a variety in PnW which is good, and should be encouraged. Micro alliances with new players who do not know what they are doing, and do not engage with the game, however, do not fit something that is good for the community or game. Note 3: New Players Can Leave To Join Another Established Alliance At Any Time Within The First Year Not everything works out, and not every culture is a good fit. If a new player does not believe they have joined an alliance that fits them, they should be free to leave it and apply to be a member of another established alliance. We do not want to promote alliance hopping or trying to cheat the promotional systems of alliances, but there are times where a new player would rather try to join another community to find a better fit. That is fine, and should be allowed within reason. Note 4: We Assume That If You Can Create An Alliance That You Know What You Need To Do To Survive You probably would not create a new alliance without treaties, or know that you will actively raid, or however else you want to play the meta of the game. If you are able to create an alliance, we assume that you will know what to do and how to do it in order to stay protected, or engage with the wider community. It is true that there are some established alliances out there that are truly sorry excuses to be playing right now, but by this point if you have played the game for some time then you should at least have a bit of a clue as to what you are doing. Brand new players, for the most part, will not have this understanding.
    3 points
  14. I'm generally of the opinion that creating alliances with friends is one of the most fun parts of the game, and instead of trying to limit that maybe we should find ways to help new alliances actually succeed.
    3 points
  15. Not trying to start something here, so I'm just going to clarify. I made no judgement on the character of Dwight or his alliance. I experienced the same events as y'all, and I have opinions. Frankly though, my comment had nothing to do with SF rather it had to do with Rose. This is now the second time that Rose has countered for an ally in an unenviable position where they probably could've gotten away with not helping out. First with the KT hit that GGFU didn't counter and now this. To me, that shows a bit of consistency in principle, and that's what I was appreciating. It's a viewpoint that I share: you sign treaties then you reasonably honor them. That's all I was saying as a fellow adherent of the honourgland.
    3 points
  16. 3 points
  17. These are potentially good options, sure. Thing is, they restrict alliance creation rather than directly deal with the problem of noobs being chewed up and spat out. @Borg you do realize that e404 would easily be allowed to recruit new players under any possible system, right? You're fine. This is an OOC forum, remember? The suggestion is to prevent shit like this: https://politicsandwar.com/alliance/id=7725 I mean look at that. On top of the lack of theming and IA efforts, they've got at least 3 dead nations and probably one more. Kudos to them for at least having any activity at all in 50% of their nations, but even so what are they offering to their members? ...Exactly. "Low taxes" means little when you're regularly raided with no backup, and "mutual defense" means nothing for the same reason. "Don't tread on me" is therefore not so much a warning than a plea. And that was just the first one I checked. So, I suppose now that I think about it, my primary complaint isn't so much that little alliances are able to recruit new players, it's that alliances are allowed to engage in misleading and outright false advertising. Since what they are advertising is a game experience that they cannot actually offer, their behavior ultimately reflects badly on @Alex since it is his reputation that these fail alliances are tarnishing and his customers that they are driving off.
    3 points
  18. An ape can muster together the money to buy a credit. There is enough crap that shouldn't cost credits as is. This doesn't do much. One year is too long. While most people shouldn't be making alliances without experience, some people pick things up faster, and you'll naturally drive out people that might have been good leaders by forcing them to wait an entire year. The key issue is people who go straight to making their own alliances. 4 Months and 10 cities (or perhaps more) minimum if you are going to go that route. You risk killing many middle tier alliances and splinters this way. If a person can rise through the ranks within an AA and form a splinter in under a year, they should be able to follow through. How would this be enforceable if the formation of those alliances isn't restricted for pirates, finance groups etc? Would players under a certain age simply be unable to apply to them? If that is what you a suggesting, seems fine. Game has needed something like this for awhile. Preferably some sort of keyword/tag system to allow alliances to define their identity and attract like-minded people.
    3 points
  19. @Borg What makes you drag the OP's alliance into it? I don't know what you have against t$, but if you read his post you would have seen that the problem he is addressing is literally about new player retention and growth. Not all of his ideas were perfect, but that's exactly what forums are for, collaboration. We are here for one purpose, to make the game a better place for new and existing players. I'm sure that is something we can all agree on. There is no reason to bring affiliation into it just because you have a vendetta. If you think the changes are ridiculous, say it without alienating. Your argument is over as soon as you bring affiliation into it. Present your case, don't alienate.
    2 points
  20. This again..... Us joining in on half a round of a war on what was always going to be 1 clear winner isn't being opurtunistic. Us joining in on tcw sure that was opurtunistic but the difference is we can admit it without shame. Just look at the alliance rankings. Number 9 alliance asks pretty much every alliance going to help against a 4 man alliance because their members clearly don't want to assist. SF was more concerned about asking us to "join them". Let's all praise Rose for helping their non chained allies though...
    2 points
  21. I'm not worried about 404, I just think it'd be a shame if new players didn't have the same opportunities I had when I started playing this game. Spice up the alliance join confirmation page, and emphasize aspects like player activity, and recent war losses RELATIVE to other alliances.
    2 points
  22. There are more walls of text in this thread than the recent war declarations... I'll go simple: No thank you to alliance creation restrictions.
    2 points
  23. One of the things I wanted to refer to in the original post, and some of my other commentary, was that different sorts of alliances are needed for the game to thrive. I do not particularly want every alliance to be a major blob. That does not offer a lot of spice to the game. There will always be people who want an alternative path besides just joining a major alliance and being a drone. I completely understand that. My critique is levied at the numerous small alliances that are created by players who have no experience in the game, only to fail as they have not the means to climb up from their position. Starting out can be difficult, and without an introduction to the game and its players, it will often lead to players disengaging. I worded some of the original post and suggestions to not exclude players who gained experience and then wanted to go off and recruit new players to form their own community. For example, an alliance founded by you that stayed small for awhile under this premise, to be closer in NS to new players when they start, and would gradually either grow or stay where you were, is something that I think is great. NPO, classically, is one of those communities where if you are not an Imperial Officer, then it can be difficult to see what all is going on. But even then, there is probably something you gleaned from your time there. There may be things they did well that you liked. There may be things that you found off-putting. There are elements of style and culture that you probably learned. That line of experience that you did in joining an established alliance, and then going off on your own, is something I think is a good idea for those people who want to lead. People find friends and create alliances with some regularity here. Not every community has to be large to succeed. People who are brand new to the game might not always see what might be the best community for them. It can be overwhelming to receive all the pings and messages from alliances that want to recruit. It should be a competitive marketplace, in my opinion. There are people who are going to look at an alliance like BK and love the memes. There are going to be people who are drawn to the democratic ideal that Rose has. Arrgh will appeal to players who want to raid and plunder. The low taxes of Pantheon might be something that someone thinks is an ideal that fits with theirs. There are all sorts of alliances themed around references in pop culture that may be appealing. Or maybe they just like a theme like Children Of The Light has. But there is a two way street with alliances and players; at the end of the day, alliances worth their salt will want to invest in people who come there and have some protections in place for that. Not all of those investments pan out in the end. I think improving the PnW Discord would be a good start, especially if we are going to integrate its features into the game more. I like your server index idea. There is the game-help channel, but perhaps that could be expanded a bit with some of those ideas you suggest. The community has had hubs like this before, but to my knowledge never really centralized into an official place like the PnW Discord. Every single bullet point in your Improving Guidance For New Players piece is something I would very much welcome and encourage. Every one. If none of the proposed changes I suggested happened, but all of those did, then I think that would be at least some kind of start and a positive change. I agree that explaining the specific best mechanics isn't something that is for Alex to do, and the meta changes too much for that to even be true all the time. But all of these terms are from the administration themselves, and hopefully educate players in a way that benefits both them and the community. I will admit that circumvention of rules and terms of service is something that can be difficult to enforce. We have even seen recently fluff mechanics like baseball be circumvented on a mass scale. There were many people who were very upset about the treasure mechanics, which led to them being nerfed. I do not have a good answer for how you would stop circumventions like this. Regarding moderation loads, there are times that I wish Alex would slightly expand the administrative and moderation staff of the game to relieve some of the burden on him. There will be alliances out there, even in the majors or mid-market alliances, that barely have any application process besides clicking the button. I remember years ago when Kastor created Lordaeron and grew it like wildfire. They might not have lasted for a long time, but they did have an easy-to-join model, and they became an alliance that was notable in the wider affairs of the game. There are other examples. I can see some enterprising startups try to do things in this way even with these proposed changes. No application hassle, just smash the join button and come on in! And I think, as long as there is someone there to manage the internal affairs of the alliance who has some game experience, this is totally fine. It is not how I would want to create an alliance, but these types of alliances do have a place in the game and do often have some say in its larger affairs. I have seen what has happened, first-hand, when alliances run out of new players to step up and serve in government roles, or when they have not managed training players for these roles well. It is not good. I have seen this happen in other alliances, large and small, as well. Even the major powers need to find ways to invest in their players, and upskill them to take on the next generation of leadership roles in the alliance. Any alliance that desires to remain relevant needs to address this problem, and provide those accessible opportunities in government or adjacent spaces. i would like to hope that we can provide ways in the greater community to do this with experienced players guiding new ones. One year might be too long, and I do not want to get to tied up on the exact specifics of the OP. You address what I am trying to point at in the key issue being people who go straight to making their own alliances without any experience. Three of four months is a decent amount of time too; for example Borg did not say how long they were in NPO, but they shortly left to found another alliance. They did not wait a year, and with the pace of the game, a year is probably too limiting. Players under a certain nation age would simply be unable to apply to those small-player pirate and finance-groups in this example. But they would be able to apply to people who just created an alliance and have a few others there to help grow a small community as a more traditional alliance. A keyword or tag system to encourage better recruitment and foster community would be a useful addition, I think. Akuryo addresses much of my feelings here: a lot of casual players will find an alliance community and settle into it. Would I want to play this game that way? No. But there are other people who do. Building those communities across the board is ultimately the end goal.
    2 points
  24. I mean who really cares if a micro alliance wants to form? Top alliances pretend they don't exist half the time anyways. Let people play as they want, not how the players who have been here for years want just because they disagree with what's being done.
    2 points
  25. There's a simpler solution to this. One that doesn't require anything but a tweak in the code, but requires a massive community wide consensus. Step 1, raise the score required to even found an alliance. 3000 should be fine, that's around the area of c18, I was only c19 when I started my own. If you're an alliance who doesn't have anyone that big to, say, offshore, this is what you have allies and protectors and Yarr for. Make relationships and use them. Step 2, the community needs to simply stop enabling the people you describe. When I ran a micro I made a pointed habit of striking down anything that dared breath without protection, because I knew it was only there as it was an ineffective entity needing to be dealt a death blow. There are many other micros like this that's existed and continue to exist, run by people who've failed time and time again and yet for some reason, this community supposedly so toxic and hateful of micros, continues to enable them. Why is Nokia constantly permitted to runabout tossing players into a fire with his asinine shenanigans? Why does minesome always seem to find someone willing to enable his 3,047th attempt at pretending he matters? We don't just enable the clueless we enable those who should know better but never learn because they are never forced to. At the end of the day, this is a community created problem, and can be solved by it.
    2 points
  26. And who would have thought? It figures.
    1 point
  27. And absolutely everyone ITT agrees with the sentiment that we should help new alliances find ways to actually succeed. Now, perhaps you'd like to expand on that thought beyond wooly platitudes and empty sound bites and consider how to actually achieve this noble goal? Better and more comprehensive tutorials, perhaps? Encourage players to learn the game and be prepared for the rigors of creating an alliance before taking the plunge? Have Mr. Lairotut pay new alliances to make their first treaty? Perhaps while we're at it he could pay new players to apply to an alliance and click their discord? More importantly, how about those new players? Should they really be encouraged to have an unfulfilling experience with an alliance that can't provide what they promise to? Should their expectations be regularly and deliberately deceived by alliances that do not and never have known what they were doing? Simply put, how is it going to be 'fun' to go into making an alliance with big dreams, only to be completely crushed due to being insurmountably unprepared for the challenge of doing so? I mean seriously now, look at this alliance that I linked to earlier: https://politicsandwar.com/alliance/id=7725 Would you actually say that they're "having fun"? They created an alliance with friends, picked up a couple newbie recruits... and half are not even playing anymore. Yep, that's a surefire sign of a satisfied customer Yes, that is pretty much the idea at least for my part.
    1 point
  28. Huh? You tried to do something here but I'm not really sure what lol.
    1 point
  29. No. How does everyone feel about separating the timers and making them each 7 days, with a 2 Credit timer reset cost for each instead of 4 Credits for both? Note, that would allow someone to build 6 cities at once basically because of the 10 Credits / month limit.
    1 point
  30. This is impossible. Akuryo doesn't and has never had honor. I'd have returned it to Walmart for a frozen pizza anyway.
    1 point
  31. 9pm? How young do you think I am? *waves cane around*
    1 point
  32. I have to agree with you. I got lucky being online and ready to take some planes away from you beforehand. I won't say good luck but do enjoy the next few week's.
    1 point
  33. You of all people talking about grudges holding them back. The irony here is densely located it's become minable ore.
    1 point
  34. Lmfao what are you smoking dude
    1 point
  35. Yes lets make this game more exclusive than it already is...that will help attract new players to this game for sure...
    1 point
  36. You can raid enough cash to get to 3000 score in a matter of a couple weeks if you really wanted to, not to mention established alliances usually having great growth programs.
    1 point
  37. Things like this hurt player retention. Things were much more fun when people could make alliances at 300 score. If i had to wait to 3k to make an alliance, i wouldnt have came back, id just go to A&O when it releases.
    1 point
  38. I never said they did it for fun or sport or even that it is the norm. What is the norm is police brutality, against citizens of all color. I didn't focus my attention there because I wanted to stay in this narrow line of questioning, but we agree. As far as there being an "epidemic" of police murdering black people, I don't see it, but there is a number of murders committed by police that a society should not accept, and a number of brutal acts by police a society should not accept. This isn't even a strictly moral stance, it's an effectiveness stance. Many institutions lose all effectiveness when trust in them is gone, the police are one of them. We fundamentally disagree about whether someone can be killed for an alleged crime, but I don't think that's a stance I'll talk you back from. What I will say is, I agree, being a police officer is an incredibly difficult and stressful job. But, you know what is also stressful? Having a gun pointed at you. I've watched many videos of people being shot just because they are visibly scared shitless of the guns pointed at them and therefore fail to obey instructions because they are under enormous amounts of duress. You know what the difference between a citizen scared shitless of a police officer wielding deadly force and a police officer? One is trained in deescalation (or should be), one has a civic and professional responsibility to control their emotions and reactions, one is wielding a weapon already that can snuff a life out in an instant. The other isn't. I think there is also an enormous discrepancy between when a police officer actually deems the drawing of a weapon necessary based on race. I remember as a kid watching videos that were meant to be comedies of naked violent white men literally assaulting cops, and people laughing it off. That shit still happens. I would still be pissed if the police were shooting the naked white guy, but there would be far less room to blame it on race. I'm kinda rambling, so sorry about that, but one statistic that I think really captures to some degree what both of us are talking about: 1/5 police feel near constant frustration or anger, and this anger is directed at citizens they police. Workplace frustration is normal, but it's deadly when it happens to police and breeds a sort of callousness that may not make murder fun, but makes murder easier. I recently wrote a short piece about this. First, you're not alone, nearly half of the population doesn't trust the police. The police have an image problem they are utterly unmotivated and refuse to address, instead they blame it on others. And I agree, we are never going to get a perfect police force, but we aren't even close to trying to have one. Perfection should be the goal, but knowing we can only do our best. THis is not our best: 1. Of the 50 states, only 16 require de-escalation training, of those 16, only 10 set a minimum hours requirement, with the highest minimum being 4 hours per year (good job, Massachusetts?) 2. On average, a state or local police officer who attends police academy will only need a High School Diploma and will receive 806 hours of training (excluding field training which is typically an additional 500 hours). For comparison, barbers need 1,500 hours. 3. Two studies have found that at least 40 percent of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10 percent of families in the general population. 4. Police are also kept on the force at incredibly high rates after breaking the law (29% stay employed after a DUI, 28% after domestic violence, 26% after assault) I keep trying to make this first bolded point. BLM is, by all measures, a coalition, not a unified movement. I don't condone looting, rioting, or violence, but we've just expressed that enormous stress can cause a police officer to murder. I can't imagine a life of stress and frustration at the lack of accountability by the police. I am generally really confused what a second amendment uprising would look like? Would it be peaceful? From the folks I hear talk about it, it would be violent. This is tyranny through a different vehicle, in my opinion. I disagree with both the second amendment preppers and the BLM rioters, because I think we still have democratic institutions which are somewhat responsive to the desires of the people... when that finally goes away, ask me again how I feel about it. Finally, there have been enough verified reports of right wing and anarchist instigators and provocateurs in these protests. I am relatively certain it doesn't account for all of the violence, but it's certainly exacerbated it. Not going to touch on the politics of it, because honestly, I can count on one hand the amount of politicians I trust at the national level. Agreed on most points. The issue is "reform" has been tried time and time again. The gap between the idea police force and what we have right now is ENORMOUS. Also, look at the reception that these reforms have within the police community. They are rejected out of hand, and cops feel so comfortable that they commit all sorts of atrocious race baiting and trolling online. You can't tell me that attitude is the result of stressful split second decision making. That is a conscious decision to reject the key responsibility of your job, and to see yourself as some badass skullbasher who has the backing of the government and strong police unions. You want to reform the police? You're going to have to fire a frick ton of police. For instance, here is a list of the NYPD officers who are STILL employed despite tons of VERIFIED accusations from the community they serve, many of them making over 6 figures in tax payer dollars: https://www.nyclu.org/en/campaigns/nypd-misconduct-database Man you touched on poverty in your closing statements, I need another page or two just to tackle the crippling effect of poverty on crime, health, education, etc. As always, glad to have these conversations. I hope you'll continue to engage
    1 point
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