Bay 12 Games Forum

I laugh at my own jokes all the time. My wife thinks I am mad sometimes.

The Dude from The Big Lebowski.

There's a reason people say money makes the world go round.

The engines are coin-operated.

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Scene: Sol 3 Engine Room, a number of shadowy figures tend to various flashing displays, the sound of a large bank of engines can be heard in the background.

*engines wind down*

Secret Society Member 1: throwing down the clipboard they were reading, “Oh for fu-“

They walk over to the power display, read it for a few moments, frowning.

Secret Society Member 1: turning to the other figures in the room, “Whose turn was it to keep the meter going today?”

The sound of awkward fidgeting is heard as the other people in the room look around at each other.

SSM 1: “If they don’t own up we’ll have to do a whip round.”

The other figures all look around at SSM 2.

SSM 2: sheepishly: “Well you see, the thing is, all those investments we had to make in order to bankrupt the *engine sputters over the words, making them inaudible* corporation and bribing the various government officials to look the other way have left me a little short this week. I don’t quite have enough to cover it…”

The others all groan and complain to one another, as though this happens a lot when itms SSM 2’s turn.

SSM 1 stares at SSM 2 for a few uncomfortable moments, as SSM 2 looks at their shoes. SSM 1 sighs and digs their hand into their pockets, followed by the sound of everyone else in the room counting change.

SSM 1 grabs a nearby plastic bucket, upends a few used tissues and candy wrappers onto the floor, and walks around the room collecting change from the other members. A few hushed whispers of “you need to sort this out boss, we can’t keep doing this.” are heard as he passes by some of their more unhappy cohorts.

Finally they approach a coin slot and begin feeding coins in, until the engines fire back to life. A panel is read, and a few more coins inserted, before the bucket is placed on a counter nearby. SSM 1 approaches SSM 2, placing a hand on their shoulder. The conversation unheard over the sound of the engines, but SSM2 looks at the floor, nodding briefly, before being lead to the door by SSM 1, the door sliding noiselessly into the frame. After SSM2 passes through it slides closed. SSM 1 shakes their head, and returns to their clipboard and resumes perusing it, as the image pans away.

I'll be shocked if they turn up hard evidence that Trump was directly involved in it, so most likely he'll victimize some executives and throw them under the bus.

Still, one more thing going against him in 2024.

Apparently he initialed or signed a memo confirming a pay cut to an executive for the precise amount of money the corporation was paying for said executive’s rent.

Weisselberg took the fall not because he was thrown under the bus but to protect Trump. He’s been working for Trump for decades, and was briefing both the prosecution and the defense. Trump is throwing him under the bus insofar as he’s blaming him for the episode, while still paying him. He’s a scapegoat, at best.

I agree with None. Humans make mistakes, even the ones at the top of their game. Sports wouldn’t be all that interesting of elite athletes always made the play. Businesses wouldn’t fail if the people involved were making the right decisions. All that malarkey.

Conspiracies are also much less likely to be kept secret the more people involved in them, and for an organization to run the world probably requires a number of people involved.

Tie them together, and any secret organization doesn’t remain secret for long, due to numbers l, incompetence, or hubris.

However, to your point, The OG illuminati were a progressive offshoot of the Freemasons, and discussing things like the rights of man and democracy in “secret” groups and spreading to the various monarchies around Europe doesn’t go down well with said monarchs, so it got stamped out right quick. A touch ironic that the name is now used to refer to shadowy authoritarians guiding the world toward a future for their own ends, don’t you think?

I guess that’s one problem with democracy, essentially it being a popularity contest, and people winning it confusing winning with being popular as opposed to just being the least unpopular, combined with the Trumpian idea that if you put someone in a powerful position they are expected to follow you blindly.

I have to say I respect the audacity of the move though, other than it being unbelievably short-sighted in that the things that happened afterward were pretty obvious consequences of it.

People think it has to do with the Steam release of DF and the influx of guests on the forum.

I think the software just decided it wanted a break.