China is planning for an invasion of Taiwan, so they’re certainly putting together a backup plan

Yes, a backup plan for a potential case of Taiwan being used as a static US aircraft carrier against it in a war. You remember that they’re still at war, right? No peace treaty was ever signed between the KMT and the CPC.

Look at your own source:

Shortly after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s arrival in Taipei, China announced plans to hold live-fire drills

It’s almost as if the drills are a response to something other than just Taipei not yet being willing to re-unify.

I also note that the bright red symbols on the mark connote a sense of urgency and yet this is from 2022. Obviously the invasion must be happening any day now…

The map also references other drills from 1995-1996 which I note are denoted as “Third Taiwan Strait Crisis”… If they were at 3 crises by 1996, I can’t imagine how many crises we’ve had since, considering liberals have been unable to shut the fuck up about this for decades.

Please, calm down, you are being reactionary.

This is steel-manning an argument for a feature no one wants which is most likely the thin end of the wedge for increased surveillance and censorship.

This is just how it starts so they can trick well meaning developers into making websites and platforms which make use of this verification while it is still self-ID, but when the laws become more demanding and require connecting your user account to your real-world identity, it’ll already be too late, all of your online activity can be tied back to you.

When I make this argument, people like to call it a slippery slope, but the fact is that there are so many nations cracking down on free, unmonitored access to the internet, with social media restrictions, platforms like Discord requiring you to provide identification, and so on.

All for this, all of that risk, all for a feature that adds very little value to the computing experience of anyone.

I’m the person they’re arguing with, and no I didn’t? I didn’t link anything, I wouldn’t even know where to find a Chinese tabloid and I’ve never read one!

This was literally the entire exchange:

They’ve actually said the opposite, again and again, that they want peaceful reunification. They haven’t ruled out force, because they’re a sovereign state, and a sovereign state never renounces their ability to use force over the territory they claim. The opposite side does the exact same thing for the rest of China, too.

the Taiwanese don’t want to do nothing to do with China anymore, specially the young ppl, they want to be their own thing.

That’s great! Then they can and should remain peacefully independent, but if that ever changes in the future, then perhaps they can re-unite, assuming that the CPC remains open to re-unification at that point.

Maybe ALL imperialism is war.

That isn’t even true. Imperialism is often spread through soft power. I thought that was the entire point you were making, that China was exerting soft power in an imperialist manner… if China invades Taiwan, I will be right there with you, calling it out, but history has shown that the CPC is quite restrained, and I see no reason for them to change their approach.

Maybe ALL imperialism is bad.*

Well yeah obviously, no maybes about that. I am not supporting Chinese imperialism in any way. My point is that the US imperialism is unbelievably bad and much worse, and yet people here just can’t accept that very reasonable critique without getting bent out of shape accusing me of all kinds of shit, including that I am a tankie. Y’all need to recognize the mainstream narrative is told to you by the exact same media that have been lying to us all along to push US imperialism. The media is owned by the ruling class. Please stop being so short sighted.

Other people wrongly believed that Russia, despite having already invaded Ukraine in 2014, that Russia would not invade Ukraine again, for some reason. I am not those people. I am pointing out to you that they have had those favorable conditions already, a number of times, and no invasion ever came. If you want to believe that they just have just one more condition to take into account before invading Taiwan, you have the right to believe that.

But the United States is far worse, and that was my entire point. I don’t want to defend China. Fuck China. But the US has done imperialism for centuries at this point

“I already decided you’re wrong, but I can’t argue with facts, so I’ll insult you instead. I rest my case.”

Israel: does a genocide

China: flies a plane near a country they’ve been at war with for over 70 years

Liberals: “hmm yes these seem about the same to me”

Yes, that’s right. The Chinese Civil War never ended, the KMT and the CPC never signed a peace treaty. The fighting stopped because there was no way to take back control of Taiwan without high casualties - on both sides. Since then, the CPC have been committed to taking back control of Taiwan peacefully. At the moment, the people of Taiwan continue to support independence - but also the One China Policy, which recognizes that there is only One China. The CPC wants to re-unify, but rather than doing that by force, they just maintain their position and encourage peaceful reunification. But there are still moments of tension, of course, each tests the responses of the other, the limits of their radar, and so on. But people aren’t dying.

By contrast, the US is carpet bombing Iran, at the behest of Israel, because Iran threatens Israel’s lebensraum ambitions to turn the Middle East into Greater Israel. You really believe China is still as bad as the US? Seriously??

“ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH ME MUST BE A TANKIE!!!”

I’m not a Tankie, and you can check through my entire comment history to easily confirm that. I just can’t help but notice that people have been saying “China is about to attack Taiwan any day now” for years and it never comes. Maybe they’re just not as bad as us?

China: persues peaceful reunification with Taiwan

The West: “LOOK!!! THEY’RE LIKE US! WORSE THAN US!!!” invades nation illegally

Okay, buddy.

A good game with predatory monetization can still be enjoyable. Bad, boring uninspired game cant’t.

Sure, but I’d say that predatory monetization does a lot more harm than a boring game does. A boring game is just “wow, this kinda sucks, guess I’ll refund it” or maybe at worst you lose the purchase price of the game, but games with predatory monetization can cause serious financial harm to people who struggle to control their spending habits, it’s a bit like gambling.

They also implemented LGBT themes in a way thats actually enjoyable for normal player.

Yeah, this was one of the reasons I asked about it - I think it’s a demonstration of how fun and enjoyable games with lots of diversity can be, and I was curious how you felt about it. Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

I think its different phrasing of the same issue. Instead of pushing the boundaries, these companies produce stuff that won’t cause any controversy, no risk taking, just one established scheme over and over again as long as revenue exeeds the costs.

Yes, exactly! But my point is that I don’t see the root of that problem as political correctness, the root of the problem is greed, and they’re just making a game that tries to appeal (or panders to) modern gaming audiences, who are more and more diverse themselves by the day. They just do a really shitty job of it.

Do you have insight of why UK left the EU?

I sure do. Scotland is very pro-EU, and we had an independence referendum shortly before the Brexit vote (i.e. a vote to decide if Scotland should become independent of the UK or not) and one of the major points the anti-independence people kept making was that an independent Scotland would be kicked out of the EU and have to re-apply to join. It was probably a big reason why the independence referendum failed. Then we were dragged out of the EU a short time later by England anyways. It was a very frustrating time.

As to why the UK voted for Brexit, there are a few reasons, but the central one is basically the same old story - cost of living increasing out of pace with wages, public services under a lot of strain and failing, etc. These things were basically caused by the combined effects of businesses maximizing profits, and austerity implemented by the Conservative party in response to the 2008 global financial crisis, but to avoid criticism, the wealthy who owned the media directed blame towards immigrants rather than the truly responsible party - corporate greed, the ultra wealthy, and the government.

Another major component was the media, who constantly spammed pro-Brexit messaging. There was some other stuff mixed in there too - ideas of “sovereignty” - i.e. British chauvinism (“no damn frenchie is gonna tell me what to do! what if i want a flammable pillow!!”), and to some extent, racism also played a role, but in all honesty, if it wasn’t for austerity, I think we would still be in the EU. I really hope we can rejoin soon.

I trade cryptocurrencies. Won’t say any more due to privacy reasons.

Thanks for sharing that - I’m a software engineer.

Shit happens, if things go bad, I’ll be there to support him.

Good for you <3

To be honest when I socialize, I don’t care about financial status.

Sure, I get that, but what I’m trying to get at, is that you might not be aware of the issues that affect people who aren’t as well off as you are if you don’t talk to them about it, right? Like, I can speak from experience that there are lots of government programs in my own country which exist to provide support to people, but in practice, actually accessing those programs is very, very difficult. I’m disabled, spent my years 18+ in a wheelchair, and applying for disability benefits was/is a complete nightmare. My first request for it, which provided like 300+ pages of evidence, doctors notes, etc. was rejected, and from what I hear basically everyone is rejected on the first try. After appealing, it was accepted - but then, a few years later, they just arbitrarily decided that I must have gotten better, so I had to re-apply and go through an appeals process which is still ongoing over a year later, and I’m just having to scrape by without that much needed money. I’m really lucky that I’m able to work part-time and that I have a supportive partner, because if I had lived alone and was unable to work, I’d be homeless by now. My story is hardly a rare exception, either - I’m a volunteer at a local advocacy & support group for disabled people, and I hear stories like this from almost everyone.

noone ever talks about actual money. People are quite privacy oriented around that subject. Is Scotland different in that regard?

It varies a lot - in my experience, older people tend to be a lot more private, but younger people are more open. It benefits people to talk about things like this, especially at work, so that they can learn that they are being underpaid or paid fairly for their job. There’s nothing that motivates you to ask for a pay raise quite like hearing that someone in the office who does a worse job than you do gets paid more!

I honestly dont know. I have suspicion that’s result of women doing careers all the way to their 30s spending most of their fertile part of life on working rather than building a family, but thats just my hypothesis

I’ve heard this hypothesis before - I guess my first question is, if women have to spend their lives working, isn’t that just a second-order effect of financial reasons? It used to be that a single working man could make enough money to afford to pay for a whole family, but that is no longer true. Women need to take on a career so that they can afford to live.

I am one of the developers for Project Rubi-Ka, a server emulator/private server for the classic sci-fi MMORPG, Anarchy Online.

AO is now nearly 25 years old and no longer has any developers at the company that released it, but it is still running.

I have written over 2,000,000 lines of server emulator code for AO. I am now probably one of the world’s foremost experts in how the game works.

Thanks again for your continued honest and good natured responses, I really appreciate it.

The most? The twisted idea of political correctness.

Does political correctness in video games bother you more than predatory monetisation practices (lootboxes, microtransactions, increasing prices relative to content, and so on)? How about live service games becoming unavailable after servers are shut down, i.e the issue addressed by the “Stop Killing Games” movement?

Witcher 3… Expedition 33… Black Myth Wukong

Those are some great games! I’ve not gotten around to Black Myth Wukong yet, but I preordered both of the other two. Been a Witcher fan for a while, even listened to the audiobooks and enjoyed them too.

Have you played Baldur’s Gate 3? If so, what did you think of it?

Every game made by well established corporation is bland.

I totally agree with you on that - though I would identify the issue as being caused by video games more and more becoming products intended to maximize profit, rather than works of art. I believe the best games are those which are daring, and try something new, rather than aimed at mass-market appeal. Making a game appealing to as many people as leads to bland, derivative design driven by focus groups and design committees, rather than artists with a compelling vision.

Yeah, I’m from Poland

Nice! I have never visited Poland, but I’d love to go, I definitely will some day. I’m from Scotland.

I make above average, so I’m not that hard impacted

Can I ask what you do for work? Of course, don’t dox yourself or anything, just a broad idea.

I’m really sorry to hear about your cousin. I hope things improve for him soon.

Population growth is horribly nagative - people often say its due to financial reasons, but I don’t believe this to be main factor

What do you think is causing it?

the poorest people have plenty of subsidies

Is this based on your personal interactions with them? I wonder to what extent you socialise with poorer people and hear from them directly about their experiences of this?

Thanks very much for the honest reply :)

He’s just funny.

That’s fair, how long have you been watching him for?

I don’t like modern trends in modern gaming and shows

Which trends bother you the most?

for someone who grew up in powerty in broken post communist economy, his pro communist stance is just pure cringe to me.

I totally get that. I’m guessing you’re from an ex-USSR republic in Eastern Europe, or somewhere around there, right? My partner is Estonian, so I have a lot of understanding and sympathy with this.

I’m glad you have someone you enjoy and identify with.

I’m also wondering a little about how you feel about things like the cost of living crisis - do you feel impacted by that? Not sure where you’re from or what you do for work etc. but have you experienced issues with public services getting worse, prices going up faster than wages, struggling to buy a home, things like that?

Will do! Thanks <3

Haha, sorry you feel that way! I’m just doing everything I can to fight for the working class, and working class solidarity is important to me. Much love, solidarity forever!

I don’t remember, I just remember your username

I don’t hitch my opinions to streamers in any way.

Neither do I - actually, kind of the opposite! Hasan represents a voice which spreads many of my my long-held beliefs to millions of people. I only started watching him pretty recently, after hearing a bunch of criticism and deciding to check him out myself and being pleasantly surprised, but I’ve been far-left since I was a teenager. I disagree with him on many issues, and I’ve even argued with him on his stream. I’ve seen him actually get closer to my beliefs over time, which is very nice to see.

I don’t remember you but I bet you were saying dumb shit

I was saying what I always say - that capitalism inevitably leads to fascism and that liberalism is a shield to capitalism.

Thanks for responding and for your honesty. I’m really curious about a few things, I hope you don’t mind if I ask you some questions and maybe we can chat a little? I’m not interested in judging you or shaming you or anything like that, but I would love to understand you.

• What got you into watching Asmongold?
• Did you have any strong political/ideological positions/beliefs before you started watching him?
• What are your political/ideological positions/beliefs now?