Bay 12 Games Forum

S'definitely kinda' amusing how we seem to interpret that as a hug, rather than the cat holding on so it can tear out the prey's throat with its teeth and disembowel the prey with its hind legs. Lookatit so adorable it's RENDING THE FLESH OF ITS VICTIM d'aww.

EDIT: Just heard that ESO gives the former explanation. Huh.

So, the later is true then?

HUGS FOR THE HUG GOD!

Hm, let me give you a counter-example from that period: The German weavers got very, very angry at the cheap machine-made English cloth that was taking away their jobs. But Germany didn't go all "We have to protect our workers from foreign competition" because a) it didn't exist yet and b) the rulers didn't care. And what happened? A few years later Germany was an industrial powerhouse, because it rose to the challenge.

Had the English acted like corporations today they would have gathered German orphans from the streets and locked them in some cheap half rotten barn outside of town working nonstop all daylight hours for food and place to sleep, while trying to prevent other Germans from getting their machines in use either trough bribery legislation or by hiring local thugs lobbyists to "convince" it's better to work for them. German weavers wouldn't have stood a chance. Lucky us that English government didn't try to pressure German states to accept conditions so one-sidedly in favor of English industries.

Don't get me wrong here, organizing unions and empowering people are all good and much needed, but when large portion of the economy of the whole country is dependant on industry in foreign control (as opposed to partially domestically owned as in China, Japan and others that were mentioned) that has had decades of headstart in lobbying for power there's not much room for them to make changes. And if those changes aim to change status quo the industry will threaten to close the shop and move away, reducing jobs and taxes that are already in short supply to begin with. That's heavily in heavily against any changes, and curent "free market" system is dependant on curent state of things to survive. If people have the choice between job in locally owned joint that's possibly all the owner owns so he can't easily run away and another job offered by international corporations who can afford to cut their losses if it looks like costs rise and there won't be profit to be made, people actually stand a chance to demand decent pay for their work and effort because they are not forced to accept whatever shit job they can get just to make a living. You can't underestimate the affect that has on peoples psyche.

Paying as little as possible to produce as much as possible, that's how profits are made today, and that guarantees that whoever ends up doing all the dirty work has very little to show at the end of the day. The ones who reap the profits on the other hand are acting as consultants to government agencies deciding where and how much developement founding and aid will flow to those countries they profit from...

Do note that "unions = higher costs" thinking will drive most international corporations to move their business elsewhere, and benefit those countries that oppose (or downright suppress) unions.

Unfortunately union activity has been several decades late in starting, and there's lot's of money working against it, while local govenments have been dependant on foreign corporations and will be very reluctant to change status quo. First you have to sever those dependencies and create more fair conditions for local economical growth, exactly what big corporations try to avoid. Why do you think so many fasistic dictatorships, military juntas and faux democracies has been established trough the ages, needs of "free trade" in the form of cheap labor and materials has always outweighted the value of human rights in realpolitiks and doesn't show signs of changing anytime soon. Did you know that in Israel some of the most vocal supporters of separate palestinian state and normalization of relations are the local business man? They want their own Mexico that would provide cheap workforce with zero pollution and safety standards.

"Free trade" in it's current form is obstacle for developing countries, it has to change and stop it's lobbying to western governments. If there were more unexploitative form free trade then maybe...

Weird? I hope not, he's been very entertaining for lurker like me.

I noticed in that LP from LordBucket he's interested in +science+, so maybe some related thread or forum game (Arcanum anyone?) will hopefully draw him in eventually.

Sad thread contribution: there will never be Arcanum 2.

4chan, /b/. Gif thread about most violent game scenes you've seen. Someone posted gif on breaching HFS and massacre that followed, and then the thread was about DF.