naw, i've heard it all my life

like… think about it. the web is obscenely valuable, and the icann is headquartered in one of the more socially progressive states in the us (california). if america dissolves california will be in an extremely good diplomatic position because its exports will basically be internet regulation and a large portion of the us entertainment industry

given at this point that it’s a piece of global infrastructure managed by a nonprofit with offices across the world i imagine the web is going to outlast the us tbh

primal rage is one of those games where i often wonder if it was actually as good as it seemed when i was a kid lol

honestly i need to remember this for myself too lol

but like like... when large government structures fail, local structures rise to take their place. you end up with petty tyrants but you also end up with small equitable social structures too.

so uh... move to a blue state if you can and you're not already. and if you can't i wouldn't be surprised if we see a rise of aid groups to get vulnerable people out of the worse locations, and incentives for skilled workers as well.

i'm a little tired today so this is going to be kind of rambly, but i can't imagine the united states lasting more than another 200 years lol. as far as i'm concerned we're living through a collapse. the question is whether it's going to be partial or complete. my guess is in the gap states, or alliances of states, will take over what the federal government fails us in.

like when you think about it, voter turnout for the presidency was less than half. only a quarter of americans actually voted for trump. the administration is growing less popular by the decade. it's pretty clear to a lot of people that it's completely ineffective. the loudest voices are always going to be flag fuckers but then we end up with folk heroes like luigi mangione so it's not like confidence in the system is very high in general.

we'll probably see at least one quasi-militarized social aid group crop up, similar to the black panthers. i don't know if the current government will have the finesse to squash them like it could during raegen's day, but that probably won't be pretty whatever happens. probably will result in police becoming more militarized at least in red states. at the end of the day though that'll just result in further public discontent.

whatever the case, it's a process that'll take decades or centuries. rome wasn't unbuilt in a day, after all.

even if the us were to begin a process of balkanization, the irs is how the federal government extracts value from its citizens, so i imagine it'll be the last to go. in many empires, one of the last bodies to stick around has been the tax collecting arm, long after any actually useful offices are closed.

even the ottoman empire, whos dissolution was pretty fast, took about ten years from what is considered the start of its dissolution. the mongol empire, considered to have begun collapsing after kublai khan's death, stuck around for several decades, and that was also considered relatively quick

I think there's an important distinction that needs to be made here based on the other conversation: a potion of healing will prevent scarring for a wound that it heals, but it won't remove an already-existing scar. Otherwise you wouldn't have burly scarred warriors adventuring all over the place.

And if it can't do that, let alone restore lost limbs, I doubt it could undo circumcision. That said, I'm sure a potion that could do so can be researched without too much trouble.

"you can't cease and desist fun" is so good lol

i mean they do that too, it's a multi-pronged approach.

i'm pogging so hard about this lol. even if you're not personally interested in the archive, expect the quality of video essays about games to increase across the board as this tool matures

This is literally how professional gamblers do their thing lol. One of the strategies is to drift from "free money" deal to "free money" deal and take advantage of it without falling for the addiction trap. The thing is you only get those promos once per place. If you're going to do it read the terms of service very carefully to make sure there isn't a catch.

true

oh i was just making a joke cause this is basically what all regular fiction is lol