0
Well that's dystopian and dark.
13
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/10045103
The vote to elect a new chair of the Pacifica Grid closes in four days, and an auditor thinks there's something suspicious going on. Records of an incident for the lead candidate's past have been destroyed in a cyberattack, and the manager responsible for the files is being mysteriously tight lipped. Keeping power in the right hands requires answers, and it's going to take a few determined problem solvers to get them!
After releasing the core game manual a week ago, we've now released our first playable adventure. It's a concise little one-shot that can be played in 2-4 hours, written specifically as an easy entry point into the game's world and rules.
Like the game itself, it's FREE! So check it out, tell your friends, and if you like this weird little story of hard-science sci-fi intrigue, please leave us a rating and review!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/482551/fully-automated-a-demonstration-of-power
1
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/10045103
The vote to elect a new chair of the Pacifica Grid closes in four days, and an auditor thinks there's something suspicious going on. Records of an incident for the lead candidate's past have been destroyed in a cyberattack, and the manager responsible for the files is being mysteriously tight lipped. Keeping power in the right hands requires answers, and it's going to take a few determined problem solvers to get them!
After releasing the core game manual a week ago, we've now released our first playable adventure. It's a concise little one-shot that can be played in 2-4 hours, written specifically as an easy entry point into the game's world and rules.
Like the game itself, it's FREE! So check it out, tell your friends, and if you like this weird little story of hard-science sci-fi intrigue, please leave us a rating and review!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/482551/fully-automated-a-demonstration-of-power
I want to add a word that I never see that needs to enter the mainstream lexicon:
"Pogrom".
Apparently, this isn't a commonly known term, although it's less obscure to Jews. A pogrom is a form of terrorism in which a population decides to get rid of or inflict their hatred on a marginalized ethnic group by routinely rolling through their towns or neighborhoods dolling out unrestrained violence. It is often accompanied by warnings and demands that the population relocate or face constantly escalating barbarism. It's a form of persistent mass terrorism, usually sanctioned by the state.
Pogroms as a familiar concept emerged as a practice in Russia in the 19th and 20th century toward Jews, though they're well known to have been used throughout history. Traditionally, Jews have been the historical target of pogroms for centuries, and it's not a coincidence that Israeli Jews are using these tactics. These are familiar to them. They know exactly what they are doing. This is NOT independent acts of violence, this is a reenactment of atrocities faced by the grandparents and great grandparents of many Israelis Jews.
Pogroms are always horrific and depraved on their own. But the added context that these people are appropriating the weapons of extermination that they know well from the receiving end, it's just... I don't quite have the words to capture my horror.
These are pogroms. They are a relic of the medieval era and of the atrocities of the 1800s and early 1900s. They should stay in history, but they are being dusted off with deliberate intent by Itmar Ben-Gvir and the exterminationist wing of mainstream Israeli society.
These are not "Rising tensions" or "Settler violence", they are POGROMS. We all need to say it.
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/9827132
Guess what?
WE'RE LIVE!!!
Fully Automated RPG is now available for "purchase" on DriveThruRPG!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/481979/Fully-Automated-Solarpunk-RPG
If you haven't yet had a look, check us out now! The book is free as in speech, and free as in beer! And if you like what you see, please rate us, review us, and tell your friends! (or foes!)
0
Guess what?
WE'RE LIVE!!!
Fully Automated RPG is now available for "purchase" on DriveThruRPG!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/481979/Fully-Automated-Solarpunk-RPG
If you haven't yet had a look, check us out now! The book is free as in speech, and free as in beer! And if you like what you see, please rate us, review us, and tell your friends! (or foes!)
That's not conspiratorial thinking at all, that's just geopolitical literacy. Your assessment is correct: Iran planned this carefully to avoid causing any major damage. This was pro wrestling.
Which honestly makes it sad to consider that Iran has become the more restrained, rational actor here. The US needs to put Netanyahu on a short leash. He is not worth this.
This is so disgusting to read.
I look at her comments -- she doesn't deny that it's ethnic cleansing -- and I am disgusted to be associated with this woman as a Jew. Her vision is just vile. I've known many liberal zionists who seem confused or cowed, but these far right nationalists have a vision for domination that is completely indistinct from any nationalist movement (Nazis included). It's just horrible to watch how gleeful she is to see these people die or forced off their home at the barrel of a gun.
These people cannot be allowed to win.
47
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/7878389
I’m not sure why but I’ve always found the Civil Defense to be really cool, and I often try to work it into my stories in one form or another (though none of those have been published yet). When I was helping with reorganizing FA!’s box text on the military, I thought it’d be a good addition.
It fulfills the role of being an organized, primarily civilian, primarily voluntary disaster relief organization. It has a long history in dozens of countries, in one form or another, all around the world. Its provided training, search and rescue, preventative measures, emergency response, and recovery, in everything from wars, to natural disasters, and even the Chernobyl disaster. And the different formats used in all those countries give us a historical precident for almost any organizational structure we choose. Want to make it an auxiliary of a military branch? The US did that at some points. Directly part of the military? Some Soviet countries ran it that way. A purely civilian volunteer charity? Britain has recently revived theirs and is running it like that. They can even function as a volunteer militia, like the British home guard, or the American Civil Air Patrol who Wikipedia claims once dropped bombs on axis submarines.
And they have history. People like that kind of lineage, the sense of being part of something that dug people out of rubble in the blitz, that cleared radioactive debris in Chernobyl. There's a long history of sacrifice and service to draw on. And one with comparatively few atrocities on the record.
They're even pretty cool visually. They have the iconic blue triangle motif common in most countries, and a blue and white color scheme not really associated with combat.
Whether you need someone to respond to wildfires, to assist paramedics, to build levees in a flood, or to distribute and build tornado shelters, it's not a far leap from what they've already done. Like Noir said on the discord, given the scale of the Global Climate Wars in the game’s backstory, it seems pretty likely that every government on the planet would start handing out shovels and white helmets again.
And I think it fits the anarchist influences in solarpunk. Putting some of the responsibilities and capabilities for disaster relief back in the hands of the community. It's also a decent role for a varied cast of characters in a RPG. People with regular lives and skills who can be tasked with a quest and be granted some degree of official legitimacy.
When I wrote up the Civil Defense section for the game manual, I tried to provide enough flexibility to allow players and GMs the option to adjust the local Civil Defense chapter to fit their campaign. I like the idea of modern chapters tracing their lineage to different local groups, a postwar militia here, a wildland fire fighter unit there. Like the Defense served as a way to bring various factions (especially armed ones) into the fold, providing them with improved legitimacy in trade for increasing oversight and standardization. So while they’re supplied and trained by the same organization, at the unit level they have some leeway in how they operate and what they specialize in, which can conveniently fit any campaign that wants to use them.
I haven't had a negative experience, so I checked your post history to see if your communities might provide any clues as to why you're having a lot of negative experiences.
It looks like you post a lot to unpopular opinions and politics. Is it possible that maybe you're inviting debate on contentious issues? For comparison, I checked my own history and it looks like I engage primarily with tabletop RPGs, technology, and memes. I also comment on world news, but it's not my primary form of interaction.
Try actively steering your fantasy past the peak of infatuation and into the latter stages of a relationship and on to breakup.
Right now, you have intrusive thoughts about falling in love with them, and probably the excitement of getting to know someone intimately. Instead of trying to hold back, let that fantasy play out in your head further. Imagine moving in, imagine them not getting you when you're explaining your problems. Imagine liking them, but finding their bad habits increasingly intolerable, and never being able to pick a movie to watch. Imagine them not flushing the toilet and clogging the shower drain with hair. And then imagine meeting someone new, and feeling guilty about crushing had on them. Imagine this new person reciprocates, and imagine politely explaining to your dance instructor that you guys can stay friends but, the romance has run it's course.
And there you are. The itch is scratched, and in your mind they're just a friend again.
These people are like an adversarial neural network being trained to find the most efficient ways to piss of their own customer base.
I think it's important to note that the entertainment landscape as a whole has been changing, and those changes have mixed with the shitty investor culture that already existed to create a terrible set of incentives that are wildly misaligned with consumer sentiment. I say this because I think that if we want things to change, we need to look at root causes.
The entertainment industry is feeling very threatened. It's hard to make money. That's a reality. And all the solutions to the problem are fucked up attempts to find ways to get players to give more money for things they don't want.
I think we need a better patronage model.
It seems to me that they're planning on squeezing the people from the north into the south, then closing off the north from any return. This is consistent with a plan of annexing and depopulating Gaza.
If so, this would be ethnic cleansing. This strategy appears to be genocide.
I've been very cautious to reserve the word "Genocide" because I didn't want to devalue it with hyperbole. For years, I've said that Israel is ethnically cleansing historic Palestine. But reading this article... I think this is the point where it becomes genocide, full and proper.
It's shocking to bear witness to.
Geez. The article doesn't mention until paragraph six of seven:
"Separately, The Associated Press reported that an Israeli shell landed among a group of international journalists killing the Reuters journalist and injuring six others."
It's crazy that it's not even news that Israel is launching shells at journalists.
Sounds like a lovely guy /s
For those who didn't read, he said that student concerns over climate change were dumb because it's not going to affect him personally, and he's rich and they're not, so they should just be grateful to live in the world that revolves around him and shut up. Paraphrased, but only lightly.
I think his intense commitment to getting Trump elected makes more sense when you consider this article.
His enormous wealth is largely stored in the form of Tesla stock, and that stock has been valued based on the belief that it isn't a car company, it's a robotaxi service currently selling the hardware to finance the software development. The value -- and his wealth -- can persist indefinitely as long as investors continue to accept that premise, no matter how long delayed. But if something tangibly undermines that premise, Musk could conceivably lose the majority of his wealth overnight.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Agency is probably the greatest threat to his wealth. He doesn't worry about competitors or protestors or Twitter users or advertisers. They're all just petty nuisances. But the federal regulator over roads... that is his proverbial killer snail. And I think fully capturing the entire federal regulatory state is his strategy to permanently confine that snail.
More than anything else, I think that's what is motivating his radical embrace of fascism.