- Surging Chaos
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Member for 19 years and 20 days
Last active Fri, Feb, 2 2018 02:09:55
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Jul 24, 2008Surging Chaos posted a message on What "strictly better" truly means: A challengeWhen I compare cards, I look at them from a game theory point of view. I don't take expansion symbols, rarity, or any of that into account. I look at the functionality of the cards (ie what it says on the card).Posted in: Surging Chaos's Realm of Ruination
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Jul 24, 2008Surging Chaos posted a message on What "strictly better" truly means: A challengeBoth elves are the exact same at what they do. The only thing different are their names (which is irrelevant because Meddling Mage can equally block either one from being played).Posted in: Surging Chaos's Realm of Ruination
Tyler Durden, saying Ashcoat Bears is strictly better than Grizzly Bears is just plain incorrect. Maybe you won't come across a crazy Mindslaver situation over the course of a game, but the fact of the matter is, that situation is possible in a game of Magic and it exists. This throws the 100% better in every single situation out of the window, and it completely invalidates the argument that Ashcoat is strictly better than Grizzly.
Mindslaver makes sure that "strictly better" doesn't exist in Magic. It still boggles my mind how people haven't grasped onto that concept yet.
BTW, Murganda Petroglyphs makes it so Grizzly Bears is better than Ashcoat Bears. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I should point out that some of those GOP governors, such as Charlie Baker and Larry Hogan would be mercilessly branded as RINOs by the gatekeepers of the GOP. They are moderate Republicans in heavily blue states.
State politics is a lot different than national politics. At the state level you don't have to go through all the gatekeepers that will subject you to purity tests.
You see it as optimistic/pessimistic. I see it as realistic.
Whoever wants to become the GOP nominee for president in 2020 has to win over Trump supporters in some way, as well as the media they represent (Breitbart, talk radio, etc.). That person will be subjected to a brutal Trump purity test where they will be mercilessly singled out as being a globalist elite if there is even one thing they don't like about him/her. Then that person will be subjected to ANOTHER purity test, this time from movement conservatives. If that person is not a "true conservative", they will be hammered by those people next. Then that person has to win over the establishment itself.
It is virtually impossible to meet all those criteria, which is a major reason why the GOP is collapsing. But let's say this hypothetical individual does somehow make everyone in the GOP happy and wins the nomination. Then you get to the general election. That person will be endlessly criticized from all fronts by the opposition; from being racist (because they pandered to Trumpists), to being "too conservative" (for winning over movement conservatives) to being "out of touch" (just ask Mitt Romney). Hillary will also have the incumbent advantage, and unless the bottom completely drops out of the of the economy during her first term, I expect her to be re-elected in 2020. She has the demographic and electoral college advantage. I don't expect Democrats to alienate any voting blocs like Republicans have done. They could get greedy and try to go all-in with sweeping progressive reforms but given how the country has gone farther and farther to the left they might be able to get away with it.
I don't see how the GOP can get those voters back. Typically when you lose a voting block it is lost for good.
Democrats learned this back in the 60s when they came out and supported the Civil Rights Act. Racist whites like Strom Thurmond and George Wallace permanently left the party and Democrats lost the South for good. The GOP took advantage of this and essentially hijacked the South by welcoming these people into their party. Those whites never went back to the Democratic party, ever. Though I'm sure Democrats are glad that didn't happen...
The GOP will be facing a similar situation with minorities. In fact, they're already there with black voters. Republicans have lost black voters permanently and they overwhelmingly vote Democrat every single election. Hispanics and Asians will follow suit. No amount of trying to reclaim old voters will undo the damage that has been done. Even if they successfully get rid of the racists those people still won't be convinced that the GOP has reconciled.
I've been thinking about this more and more, and I'm considering a situation where the Republican party doesn't collapse, but simply becomes a party that largely abandons presidential runs and focuses exclusively on congressional, governor, and other state races. Despite the dire straits the GOP is in right now, they still have a very firm grasp on governors, the House, and state legislatures.
I do not see the Republicans winning another presidential election, ever. They are already at a huge disadvantage in the electoral college due to the blue wall to begin with, but the latest fallout from this year and last year in 2012 has shown they are going to be locked out of the White House for good. Consider states like Virginia and North Carolina; both of which used to be easy wins for the GOP, are no longer safe. The former has been cemented as a permanent Democratic stronghold and the latter is a now a swing state that is probably going to lean Democrat once the state urbanizes more. Colorado is the same issue as well; massive urbanization in this century turned the state solidly blue.
And it just gets worse for them. Georgia is in danger of turning blue now. If that ever happens, the GOP is finished in the electoral college for good. Then you throw in TEXAS of all states, which Trump is just barely holding onto right now. I can definitely see a future where Texas becomes a swing state due to the increasing minority population and the amount of urbanization going on down there (see the pattern here?).
Even if the GOP tries to make a concerted effort to purge the racist and social conservative elements of the party, they are going to have a massive push back from their voting base. "Trumpists" may not make up a majority of the GOP, but they make up a sizeable chunk of the GOP base that they simply cannot ignore for risk of losing elections left and right. These people reliably vote every election cycle (which includes midterms). Evangelicals also reliably vote every election cycle in addition to the Trump supporters. In the end, it's all about votes. That's why the GOP brought these people into the party after they signed a deal with the devil to implement the Southern strategy.
The GOP is completely boxed in. They already can't win the presidency yet they feel complacent with winning downticket races. The underbelly of the party is harming them on the national stage, yet it is in their best interest to not completely cut loose those people because they need the votes. That's why the party is dying but also "not dying" at the same time if you can believe it.
Counterpoint (probably playing devil's advocate here): a good deal of Trump's primary wins were won with a plurality of votes and not an actual majority. Despite this shortcoming, he would still get ALL of the delegates in certain primaries that were winner-take-all systems.
If anything, it's an institutional failure of the first past the post system.
1. Does SaffronOlive have a new article out?
2. If yes, buy out all cards of the deck that were in the article.
3. If no, wait until #2 happens.
The hilarious part is that this is the wrong card to speculate on. Song of the Dryads is getting reprinted next year in the Commander Anthology set. People are trying WAY TOO HARD at convincing themselves that the secondary market is a viable replacement for buying stocks listed on the Dow Jones Index.
Given that Oliver is quite progressive it makes sense he would go easy on Stein and hammer Johnson.
If there's one takeway from Trump and his antics, it's the fact that he has successfully abused the country's polarization. If this election were 50 years ago, Trump would get Goldwatered. People used to split their tickets far more than they do now. Nowadays most people vote straight down the ticket as all D or R regardless of who is running.
I get the feeling many people who are upset about the Twin ban are just mad that they no longer have a deck that has zero opportunity cost attached to it.
If you want to play a combo deck, you have to accept the fact that you will have a shaky contingency plan if your plan A fails. If you're a control deck, you have to accept the fact you can't just win games out of nowhere and that you need to grind someone out of the game. Twin erased both of these weaknesses by combining both the strengths of combo and control into a single deck.
The ultimate nightmare for Republicans is *not* if Hillary wins the election in a blowout, but rather Johnson winning Utah. If Hillary wins, the GOP simply comes back in 2020 while they stonewall Hillary for four years. But if Johnson wins Utah, that would be a historically defining moment that would give Libertarians actual legitimacy as being the first third-party to win a state in almost 50 years. The last time a third party won states was 1968, when George Wallace won a bunch of Southern states. Not surprisingly, Wallace's presidential run came with a massive, massive political realignment in the US that saw Democrats lose the South for good. If Johnson won Utah (and even another Mountain West state or two), there would likely be another political realignment that would shift the narrative to the GOP being a dying party seeing as they lost their safest state to a third party.
I don't see this ending his campaign by a longshot. In fact, I think he will be getting into the debates. Mitch Daniels (who is on the debate commission) is openly advocating for Johnson and Weld to be in the debates.
His wife is a film exec. Her connections are likely the main reason why Zack Snyder keeps getting extra chances.
He could have been axed after BvS but the problem was they are just about ready to start filming Justice League by the time BvS was released. While getting rid of a director right before filming doesn't always result in a disaster (see Ant-Man and Thor 2), knowing WB/DC's track record it probably wouldn't have gone too well. Probably would have mirrored something like what happened with X-Men the Last Stand, when Bryan Singer was yanked and Brett Ratner was hastily put into the director's chair to take on that $210 million monstrosity.