That’s great. I wish all this stuff was more accessible to watch.

I am here to gently wake you up.

Biden has been losing the whole time, pretty badly. I listened to Pod Save America to get their read, and one of them pointed out that predicted election outcomes can change in one of two ways: a major event can force a big shift, or you can rise or fall slowly over time. Tonight showed that neither is coming for Biden. At his best possible opportunity, he didn’t under perform, he made it far worse. The theory that he could slowly gain ground with media appearances is now popped.

Biden is a nice guy, but he’s experiencing a pretty normal cognitive decline, and voters aren’t going to magically come around to him when they’ve been telling pollsters for months that he’s going to lose.

That isn’t going to change unless the nominee changes. You’re right that this isn’t the end for Biden. But sadly, that’s because it’s actually been over for a long time. It’s time to pick up the pieces and begin the overdue work of fielding a competitive nominee.

Oh, this is WAY worse than 2016.

Before, people said that Biden was fine. Now, they’re saying, “There’s just no way to change, so we have to accept it.”

Bullshit. This is supposed to be a democracy, and every volunteer and staffer and voter and activist and voter needs to rattle the bars of the cage that the Democratic party is trying to put us in. Do. Not. Let. Biden. Do this to us.

I think you’re out of touch.

Fascism isn’t unpopular. It’s very popular when people are feeling desperate.

I keep hearing people say stuff like this: He can’t win! He’s so fascist! He can’t win, Biden did such a good job if you actually look at the facts!

That’s not how elections work. People vote based on what they think will satisfy their interests, and a lot voters don’t see any reason to vote for Biden, and so they’ll stay home. People don’t need to vote for Trump for Trump to win. They just need to give in, and Biden is a “give in” machine. He’s poison to voter hope or enthusiasm, and he’s going to lose if he doesn’t get off the ticket.

If we want to take the threat of Trump seriously, no more hiding our heads in the sand.

Unfortunately, this is not in touch with the reality of our situation.

I find people, when trying to cope with the hard truth that Biden is going to lose, revert to talking about how much he SHOULD win.

He should. He’s been a pretty good president (a genocide not withstanding).

That’s not really relevant. Because if he loses, we are likely to lose our democracy. And currently, he’s going to lose.

He is losing in the polls. He has been losing in the polls and the swing states for the entire election. At some point, this needs to change, or we’re going to watch Trump get reelected. And last night made clear that as long as he is the candidate, this isn’t going to change. When he applied all his effort to proving he could win the election he failed spectacularly.

I don’t just mean flubbing lines. I mean he lost complete control of the narrative. He demonstrated that when trying his absolute hardest, he cannot reliably explain to voters why the vote for him. That isn’t a debate problem. That’s a fundamental candidate problem that doesn’t appear fixable (except with a new candidate).

If he were winning, at least by a little, we could pretend that maybe that’s not a big deal. But he’s not. He is losing. He has been losing the entire campaign, and if he doesn’t step aside, the election result will be the same as every time pollsters have asked in the last year:

President Donald Trump.

No more “it’s not that bad”. This debate is a clear synopsis of the campaign until now, and the outcome in November. If this debate “isn’t that bad”, you might as well say losing is not that bad. (It is. It really is.)

This is why they should’ve had a primary.

We could’ve watched Biden collapse months ago while figuring out who is actually fit to run a good campaign. Now we’re going to have to go through it the hard way, because they tried to hide from the obvious for about the last 8 months.

That’s true, but I don’t think they can do that with Biden at the top of the ticket. He’s spoiled goods.

I’m not a Democrat. I left and joined the Green Party. I’m that crazy lefty. But even I can readily concede that I’d like democrats to win, and I think they could with someone like Elizabeth Warren. Or Cory Booker.

I’m not demanding Bernie or AOC or that Ro Khana be the nominee. But don’t act like there aren’t a few Democrats who have credibly taken a stand once or twice in their career for the greater good. They aren’t the majority, but they’re not so rare as you couldn’t find one.

We don’t have much control over this, frankly. But if we have any, I say we use it.

My personal attitude is that although I will concede that it is possible for Biden to win, if we don’t want to have to hope for a prayer, the only way things get better is if we all pop the bubble that Biden and his supporters are in that they can just ignore reality and hope for the best.

It has to be so clear to the Democratic party that not only are they likely to lose this election (and obviously with it, democracy), but they’re going to lose their jobs. No one who works in the election industrial complex is going to keep getting invited to cocktail parties and get hired on for whatever Potempkin election follows this one if Trump wins. No LARPing that they’re “the resistance!” in their endless fundraising emails while they enjoy being in the minority FOREVER. Rattle the fucking cage. Make it clear we blame them for this nonsense, and will continue to assign them the blame for choosing to run a failing candidate in a time of crisis because no one wanted to be the one to speak up and suggest doing anything else.

People keep getting mad when I criticize Biden, as if doing so is helping Trump win. My take: NOT doing so is helping Trump win. Protest this guy like our lives depend on him dropping out of the race at the convention. (They might).

That’s nuts. I was hoping it might explain how, but nope: they’re like, “We’ve got no idea.”

Remarkable. It’s nice to be reminded how much about our world still lies undiscovered.

Agree 100%

I agree with that. Looking through, I find understanding the basic rules to be kind of a burden. It took me a while to realize that “Operations” is the rules section.

I think it makes sense to show players the character sheet early, because that’s the nexus through which they really experience the game. I like the demo scene towards the beginning, but I think a quickstart guide to explain basic rules to the players very, VERY clearly is usually a good idea.

Still, I’m continuously impressed at how well this adapts Star Trek to an RPG. I was initially skeptical that an RPG could take all the nonsense we see in decades of different shows and create a cohesive basis for all of it, but this is really impressive. I’d have to play to see if the rules feel balanced and natural, but at a glance, they make far more sense than plenty of other RPGs I’ve seen. I think this looks like a really fun game.

I spent a while reading through this, and I gotta say that this is a really good RPG book. It’s very thorough, it’s well written for suggesting ways to play, it’s attractively formatted. This is a cool book.

Oh wow, thanks for the heads up!

I’m excited to check this out.

Oh fuck, that sucks.

This is very sensible. Especially when people think of pollution as a local problem that harms their kids’ health.

Yeah, he’s got some dope stuff, and seemed nice. He made a fuse-triggered mechanical thumper from Dune. This was before the movie, so I don’t know how it compares, but it’s quite clever.

Anyone watch attoparsec on YouTube?

I saw him at open sauce last year, and got to type out a tweet using his typesetter’s keyboard:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vdP_sTMOWYo&t=7s

Absolutely. Analog is retro. That’s low tech for sure.

Oh, I see. Thank you for the clarification.

I think you could argue this before the passage of the Nation State Law of 2018. But now it’s enshrined in law that the state exists to privilege Jews specifically and selectively. That’s really putting it all in black and white.

Also I get asked about why I didn’t criticize China or Russia or Iran etc, and the reasons are simple:

1. I do
2. my tax dollars didn’t support their misdeeds and
3. I’m Jewish, so I have a huge investment in Israel’s actions. They insist that I be judged by their actions, so now I have to get involved. Also, I actually like Israel. I’d like it to be a liberal, multi ethnic democracy and not just another Middle Eastern martial theocracy with a Jewish twist.