My friends and I like to play Rocket League while chatting. It's free to play now. We were absolutely terrible when we first tried it but we've gotten pretty good over the years. We like doing a Spotify jam and trading off album picks too.

Some of my other friends will do Borderlands while talking, but I think that's a little too much going on, plus I'm not that into shooters. But maybe that's appealing to you guys.

We're probably gonna get Space Marine II soon for this as well. Seems like Gears of War for the modern era.

Streets of Rage 4 is also a fucking good time. Excellent music too.

Really grasping for reasons to not like him, huh? I wonder why you aren't broadcasting that Donald Trump needs to go vegan 🤔

Unfortunately, about half of Congress politicizes objective science and spreads obvious lies about science things because their donors pay them to. And about 1/3 of the people just believe whatever they say.

My wife and I visited last summer! It was an absolutely delightful city. The whole time we were there, I was thinking about how much I'd love to live in a place like that. It was so cool to pop down from the hotel, walk to a nearby cafe for coffee and a light breakfast, and then figure out what we wanted to walk to next. People would buy a bag or two of groceries (including freshly baked bread) and walk home with it. That place was like a goddamn fairy tale lol.

Thanks, much appreciated! I just hope that some of what I say gets through to at least one person and teaches them something or helps them in some way. It's all for nothing if I'm just telling people who already know all of this.

It's tough to hold onto hope regarding these things, but it's worth it.

The litmus test for whether something is a lawful order is to ask what will happen if you refuse. If the penalty for refusal is your arrest, say that you would prefer not to but will comply under threat of arrest. If it actually wasn't a lawful order but you complied to avoid arrest, you'll learn from a lawyer and get to sue over that.

As somebody else noted, driving is a privilege, not a right; if you're pulled over for a traffic offense, you're obligated to hand over your license and other related documents as requested depending on the state, probably registration and proof of insurance. If you don't, then in many states it's assumed that you were driving without being licensed to do so, and you're probably going to jail.

On the flip side, if the cop asks to search your vehicle, you can tell him no. Don't stop him from doing it anyway, just reiterate that you don't consent to it and fight in court. There are some situations (like you're under arrest and your car is being inventoried and impounded) in which they don't need your consent to get in your car. Probable cause also gets them access to your car without your consent.

If you're asked to do a field sobriety test, just refuse. Same for a breathalyzer. They'll probably take you in and have you use a lab machine at the station, but that's preferable to their bullshit games if you know you're not doing anything wrong. Make quantitative science be the only evidence. Don't drink and drive in the first place and you'll be fine on that front.

I'm 99% sure that you're kidding, but a shitload of people actually think like that. Decades of copaganda in TV and movies weren't for nothing, and now social media is full of it. The 80s was saturated with loose cannon cops who get results and it convinced people that sometimes it's okay to violate rights. Now it's cops doing tiktok dances or flipping water bottles to convince people that hey, they're regular people just like me, and well, golly gee, I'm not a fascist so how can I possibly believe that they're fascists?

Have one involuntary interaction with a cop and your view will change. The cops primarily target brown and/or poor people, so it's no wonder that the vast majority of thin blue line dipshits are financially comfortable honkies who've never had the cops target them.

Sidenote: I've always chuckled at the people who have both a thin blue line bumper sticker and Gadsden flag bumper stick/license plate. Basically a billboard that says "tread on those ones, officers" but they're always the same people claiming "I don't have a racist bone in my body!" Okay, but only because bones can't be racist; it's your brain that's racist.

Courts have ruled that the police have absolutely no duty to protect and serve you. That shit is a slogan. The reality is that they exist to protect capital and serve capitalists. Cops are class traitors, punishing anybody who steals or threatens value of capital. Some cops do some good, but that isn't and never was the real intent.

Felon-Running-For-President Who Promised To Be A Dictator Wants Your First Amendment Right Violated

Even better headline.

This. You have rights, but the police will lie, cheat, and steal their way into getting whatever they want, especially when what they want is for you to waive your rights.

When stopped by the police (in America), you say "I invoke my fifth amendment right to not answer questions and I don't consent to any searches and seizures. Am I being detained or am I free to go?" That question starts a clock for what is a reasonable amount of time to detain you for their investigation because you've made it clear that you'd like to leave as soon as you're legally allowed to.

As for any kind of force, just stay silent and unthreatening. They're gonna do what they're gonna do, and anything you do can be used as rationalization for escalation, which they really seem to fucking love. Be polite when you do choose to speak. Obey lawful commands and let them arrest you if that's what they're gonna do. You don't fight armed thugs in the street, you fight them in court. File complaints and sue when they violate your rights and cause undue harm. Swinging at them or shouting in their face is how you get shot. Let their ego win the moment and then administratively destroy their career and life later on.

I'm also not a lawyer, but this is what any half decent lawyer would tell you to do. Just shut the fuck up (but invoke your right to shut the fuck up or your silence can actually be used against you) and be as passive as possible so your lawyer has a slam dunk case getting your charges dropped and/or suing the everloving fuck out of them, hopefully nullifying their qualified immunity in the process. Nothing you do or say to the police can help you, but it sure as shit will be used against you. Even things you think are innocuous can corroborate that you're who they're looking for, so just shut the fuck up.

It's certainly not for everybody, but I find it's worthwhile to pay for the middle tier one for the catalog of games available. I get the same ones as the lowest tier, but then there's also a rotating catalog like a Netflix supply. Right now I'm playing The Plucky Squire for free* and it just came out. Also been playing Watchdogs 2.

I've tried a ton of games I was curious about but not curious enough to want to buy, and then I felt zero remorse for not finishing them because I could just cut my losses when I stopped having fun or they overstayed their welcome. When I buy a game, I feel a sort of pressure to see it through since I paid for it; with this subscription I can just stop, delete it, and try another one. I've paid for access to all of it so the most effective use of the money I've spent is to play whatever I'm most interested in. Some games have been less than an hour of enjoyment, but others like Tinykins and Ghost of Tsushima and The Forgotten City have been total obsessions.

I'm generally not interested in playing new games, so this is sorta perfect for me. it's like the price of two new games per year, but I'm playing like two dozen, and I have zero guilt about losing interest and not finishing them. I'm just straight up not buying games because of this deal. Totally not for everybody, but a great option for some of us.

Keep going. I'm almost there.

From indisputably natural causes. I would love for the martyrdom and conspiracy theories to be optimally minimized. Cultists do scary shit to the general population, and I'd rather that they just get bored and move on to the next grift to be victimized by since they're clearly not interested in not being targeted rubes. The persecution complex is an inherent chunk of their entire identity.

And it's fully constitutional to enslave convicts. So tons of free labor for every company who wants it, and then I guess export everything they help to make since nobody here can buy anything?

I often wonder this. Who do these companies think will be paying for their goods and services when nobody can afford them? And a little further down that stretch, when they pay so little that working full time still doesn't cover rent and groceries, who will bother with showing up to work at all? If you're gonna be homeless and starving anyway, might as well just own your own time and find your own food and shelter on your own terms.

I don't think they understand that if they exploit much harder, they'll be causing a societal collapse that will render their power meaningless. They're stripmining both America's labor pools and consumer pools in one fell swoop, and they won't be invited to neighboring mines afterward. And then the most capable people will understand what is happening and leave, so only poor, uneducated, and underskilled people will remain. Basically Mississippi, but for the whole country.

Trump supporters generally are cowardly cattle. A few can obviously be riled up and pushed to do violence, but not enough to do any real damage. I mean in terms of a civil war. January 6th was a unique situation that will be better prepared for next time.

Only about 30% of people even like trump; probably about 1% of those people are able-bodied, have weapons, have nothing to lose, and could be convinced to kill for him. Of course that's still like a million people, which sure as shit ain't nothing, but they're spread out, unorganized, and still very few compared to military numbers. As for the block of people who would identify as not supporting trump, I couldn't really guess numbers, but people are wildly mistaken to think that only people on the right have guns; we just don't have murder boners or make guns our whole personality. I hope I only ever use my guns for target practice, but I'm absolutely ready to use them to defend my home and family if ever necessary, and I'm not interesting enough to have any reason to believe that that's a likely scenario. Honestly, my biggest concern on that threat is a scenario where trump wins and releases voter registration info and SuGgEsTs that the second amendment folks do something about those tricksy democratses. The only other people dumb enough to break in while I'm home are cops, and I know that the courtroom is where you fight that flavor of fascism.

Generally speaking, regarding the big question here of what will happen if Harris wins, I think that the answer is "nothing shocking". There will be claims of an unfair election process, maybe some meek attempts at insurrection, continued prosecution and convictions for trump's crimes (and probably slap on the wrist sentences). The economy will gently recover, the future will be invested in, maybe some rights get legislatively protected. Military and police funding will continue to balloon forever. We'll still fund genocides and fuck with any country that pivots toward socialism. "Nothing will fundamentally change" but it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

Then after 4 years of sexism and racism on OAN and Fox News, Desantis or a similar creep wins the presidency in '28. They roll back everything they possibly can and fuck the country up for the profits of billionaires and corporations again. Because reasonable people will get too comfortable to care enough, but unreasonable people can't stop foaming at the mouth over every weekly culture war.

When trump is finally gone, trumpism will still remain. And it will have prettier packaging. That's when it gets really scary imo.

Trump supporters generally are cowardly cattle. A few can obviously be riled up and pushed to do violence, but not enough to do any real damage. I mean in terms of a civil war. January 6th was a unique situation that will be better prepared for next time.

Only about 30% of people even like trump; probably about 1% of those people are able-bodied, have weapons, have nothing to lose, and could be convinced to kill for him. Of course that's still like a million people, which sure as shit ain't nothing, but they're spread out, unorganized, and still very few compared to military numbers. As for the block of people who would identify as not supporting trump, I couldn't really guess numbers, but people are wildly mistaken to think that only people on the right have guns; we just don't have murder boners or make guns our whole personality. I hope I only ever use my guns for target practice, but I'm absolutely ready to use them to defend my home and family if ever necessary, and I'm not interesting enough to have any reason to believe that that's a likely scenario. Honestly, my biggest concern on that threat is a scenario where trump wins and releases voter registration info and SuGgEsTs that the second amendment folks do something about those tricksy democratses. The only other people dumb enough to break in while I'm home are cops, and I know that the courtroom is where you fight that flavor of fascism.

Generally speaking, regarding the big question here of what will happen if Harris wins, I think that the answer is "nothing shocking". There will be claims of an unfair election process, maybe some meek attempts at insurrection, continued prosecution and convictions for trump's crimes (and probably slap on the wrist sentences). The economy will gently recover, the future will be invested in, maybe some rights get legislatively protected. Military and police funding will continue to balloon forever. We'll still fund genocides and fuck with any country that pivots toward socialism. "Nothing will fundamentally change" but it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

Then after 4 years of sexism and racism on OAN and Fox News, Desantis or a similar creep wins the presidency in '28. They roll back everything they possibly can and fuck the country up for the profits of billionaires and corporations again. Because reasonable people will get too comfortable to care enough, but unreasonable people can't stop foaming at the mouth over every weekly culture war.

When trump is finally gone, trumpism will still remain. And it will have prettier packaging. That's when it gets really scary imo.

Doubt.

I would prefer Sriracha (shout-out to Underwood Ranch specifically) but to each their own.

I think he does some intentional lying, and he says false shit believing that it is true, but most of what he says is bullshit. And I mean bullshit in the sense that he neither knows nor cares whether it's a true statement, he just knows that it's helpful to his goals in the moment, therefore he says it. When he talks about over 20M illegal immigrants entering this year, it's impossible for him to know a number on that since it obviously isn't tracked, but I'm sure that it doesn't matter what the actual number is at all. He just pulls out a big number to scare racist people into getting upset enough to come and vote for the guy who says that it needs to stop, which is him. He doesn't care that it's not an accurate number, and because he doesn't know the real number for sure then it's impossible to prove that he knows that it's not actually that number and therefore not a certain lie per se. He gets all of the benefit of lying without any of the attached accountability. He bullshits.