Smuel's good morning extravaganza

Today I've made a modification for my Bloodlines mod where a couple of Anarchs are brawling in their Anarch dive. Really fun stuff. Hope no one else will get hurt though, a few important NPCs are there too

Good morning

 

Regarding the migraine stuff, TL;DR

Damn man, hope you'll find a better one soon. Take care and (again) good morning.

 

Last week someone asked me whether I thought Trump's victory was a good or a bad thing, and I said I didn't think it would make much difference in the end. They were shocked and said they thought it was the most significant political event of their lifetime. So, clearly, one of us is going to be demonstrably wrong, and we can find out who just by waiting a few years. Exciting!

To keep myself intellectually honest, I'm going to record my main predictions here.

Political appointments. Just like last time, Trump will make a series of ridiculous cabinet appointments. He's already started doing this, so it's not a very impressive prediction at this stage. But my prediction is that this won't actually make much practical difference, because the people at the top have less power to effect policy than you think. So for example, if Trump's top health guy decides that hospitals should use mainly homeopathic treatments from now on, the Department of Health will just not do it. Not only are government agencies huge bureaucracies that have momentum, and can't instantaneously change direction, but the people staffing them know that this would be a stupid thing to do. So instead they'll spend four years drawing up plans and having meetings and basically stalling, until Trump is out and the next health secretary abandons the plan.

Wars. Trump may say he can solve Ukraine and the Middle East with one phone call each, but he obviously can't. They'll continue to play out just as they would have under any other US president. So while I can't predict the outcome in either case, I can predict that Trump won't play a huge role. Of course, he will claim he did. If Russia and Ukraine make peace in a couple of years, Trump will parade around announcing that he did it. But "Russia and Ukraine make peace in a couple of years" sounds just as plausible without him in the picture.

Immigration. Was immigration really that different under Trump the first time, compared to Biden? Trump said he would build a wall, and he built a small fraction of it. Biden actually continued the wall building, while revoking another of Trump's policies, which Trump will probably re-instate. But then it can just be revoked again by the next president. This is hardly "major political change" stuff. Everyone basically agrees that high skilled legal immigration is good, and illegal immigration is bad. They might alternate tweaking the numbers up and down, but I don't see any big changes happening here.

Economics. Trump will cut taxes on the rich. Then when the Democrats are next in, they'll raise them. It's business as usual.

Wokeness. This started becoming a joke around about the time that SNL made fun of the word "woke" in 2017 - that's 7 years ago. Games and movies that push DEI had already flopped prior to the election. It's been clear for a while that the demand for diversity in products is actually a lot lower than progressives thought it was. Turns out people care more about cool stories and characters than whether they feel personally represented. So the progressives over-reached and are now facing a correction. They'll call it a backlash, of course, but really it's more like a return to the status-quo. I don't think Trump has anything to do with that, he's just the main one to benefit. So my prediction is that wokeness will die down, but political correctness will remain the same. TV shows will still have diverse casts, just as they have since the 1990's. Eventually the people who talk about diversity a lot will move on to another topic instead. This would have happened without Trump too.

Fascism. Trump isn't a fascist. The word is misapplied. You could say he tries to be a dictator, but that's only when he loses. The remaining danger is that he will spend the next four years trying to change the constitution so that he can personally stay president for more than two terms. But that won't be easy, the entire Federal mechanism will be against him, and even Republicans don't actually want Trump sticking around. Plus he'll be 82 years old by then. Plus if presidents can serve three terms, there would be nothing stopping Barack Obama from running against Trump in 2028. None of this seems likely.

A whole load of tiny things. Yes, Trump will make some dumb changes that people can't oppose. But these will be quite small by definition. Last time he tried to withdraw US funding from the World Health Organisation, when they were on the verge of eradicating polio. Changes like that will be tough for the children who grow up disabled by polio, but in practice it will only be a delay. I don't think the rest of the world is going to give up on the project just because Trump doesn't approve. Again, it's not world-changing.

As an example of something that was heralded as world-changing, the last time Trump was in office he pulled off the overturning of Roe-vs-Wade. This was hailed as a huge victory for the Republicans, as abortion became officially illegal in the US. Except, no it didn't. Even at the time it was still legal in the majority of the country, and since then more states have made it legal. Anyone in the US who wants an abortion can travel to a neighbouring state. I don't mean to downplay the difficulty of doing this in practice if you are a poor single woman in the Deep South, but it's hardly a huge shift in the attitude towards abortion - it was more of a technical political victory. I wouldn't count it as world changing.

TL;DR - Trump wasn't a big deal last time around, and he won't be this time either.

Alternate TL;DR - I will dismiss any actual change as "not world changing" no matter how significant it really is. But seriously, if anyone disagrees, then give an example.

Good morning.

 

Suggestions for a gift for a friend who's graduating at university?

Good morning.

 

A new car.

Good morning.

 

With my budget I can only afford a Hot Wheels, or a book I've already bought.

Good morning.

 

It can also be something funny like a Uni Graduation Ducky?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1868205468...lp:2332490&itmmeta=01JEZKYKH5GST9TMJHX6XHKWZ7

Good Morning.

 

Ah, so you want something low cost and personal? Okay, how about a piece of paper that says "Voucher redeemable for 1 free massage".

Make sure you wink at them when you give it.

(I'm channelling Jojobobo for this answer, since he's not here to channel himself.)

Good morning.

 

God jul, ya filthy animals.

Och god morgon.

 

Merry Christmas to everyone else.

And good morning.

 

Well, the book I gifted her ended up being the same she wrote about in her graduation thesis (I didn't know until I was there).

Good morning.

 

That's no way to buy someone's affection.

Good morning.