Gentoo

Looking for what's going on here specifically. As you said earlier, managers would do things to set their servers apart. So what's being done to set the community as a whole apart from others? You've said that our focus has shifted away from CS:GO, but without a clear new direction (other than 'upwards and outwards lol') it seems at a surface level to be discounting their shrinking popularity and resigning them to their fate. I was specifically looking for non-game answers, but you're welcome to bring those in if you can and feel they're relevant. Current servers aside - why hang out here instead of EGO? Is there a focus or active efforts on the staff being more friendly? Is these services or platforms offered unique from other communities? Am I more free to speak my mind? Is it easy to get involved if I want to make friends or help the community in some way? I understand this is a bit open ended, but if I had a specific point to make or facet to encourage, this thread would be in suggestions box lol. Just looking for something a bit more grounded than 'we want everyone here and we're doing whatever we can to make it happen!' but it's understandable if that's not an answer you have.

i appreciate your efforts to take the topic seriously and provide something resembling an insightful answer. Unfortunately, this was about the answer I was expecting but not quite what I was hoping for, but I'll attribute that to my vague phrasing. During my stint as SM it was difficult to compete with many of the larger established communities as their servers had much more active paid devs, not to discount the talent and dedication of our own, but it was simply impossible to keep up or surpass them in terms of new features or even general integrity and bug squashing. Most communities were already using the same base plugin as us, making it even more difficult to differentiate ourselves and offer something worth having. As a result, we looked at what outlets we had to separate ourselves from these servers and dig out our own little niche. Things like a wider map variety, fine tuned balancing, willingness to mess around with new ideas and events, and, prominently, our tolerance for tomfoolery and non-traditional playstyles in contrast to sterilized, polished, and heavily moderated servers of other communities allowed us to keep a solid foothold with our own culture and direction. With that being said, I think much of this carries over to the community as a whole. What are we doing to dig out our own niche? Is there something we offer that other communities aren't? Is there some sense of culture or direction the community is aiming towards that would cater towards players ostracized by other communities? Or is everything riding on the idea that we might strike it big with an upcoming game like we've failed to do repeatedly over the years. Not that we shouldn't be putting our all into new projects and games, but is there any focus in the meantime on what we have, or are we just in some awkward limbo until that hopefully comes to fruition?

No, the majority of images from the city clearly show most bodies without their hands tied in close proximity to shelling craters, damage, debris. Source: image. Not a video not an account. A picture of bodies. Any forensics or corroborating evidence? Is there a reason all of the restraints are made up of white cloth (potentially the armbands worn in Russian occupied areas) and what appears to be trash and other ground debris in place of zip ties, handcuffs, duct tape, or anything more likely that Russians in a heavily occupied area would have access to? Going to swan dive off the deep end hear and ask you for an explanation why this caption is any more plausible than Ukrainians crafting a false flag from the situation. No, nowhere did I state or imply this. You responded to one of my counterpoints in response to your list of reasons why Russia is very obviously big bad guy (when Ukraine has and is actively doing just about all of the things you mentioned), and I am urging you not to pull shoddily crafted stories out without acknowledging the multitude of attacks against civilians by Ukraine prior to and during the invasion as well as war crimes committed prior to and during. I don't think I implied or stated this anywhere, but I apologize for the confusion if you chose to interpret it that way. You sort of just grazed over this, but I would love to hear your stance on this as I might be a little retarded and don't see this as immediately self evident. I'm in the deep ocean at this point but I'm going to make this ridiculous comparison as people seem to have a hard time internalizing things so far away or trying to reason through actions committed by a person/country they've mentally equated to Darth Vader. If Mexican Police or the Cartel started gunning down American tourists en masse at resorts would it be out of the question for America to seek some sort of reprisal or rescue? Many of the ethnic Russians slaughtered in Ukraine have family in Russia, friends, many of them live in a portion of the country that has been part of Russia, culturally and politically since they were born and long before. When the coup happened and they declared independence, they sought to form a government that would represent them, that would respect their culture and their wishes. In response, tanks rolled on them. Nowhere in my post did I state that this was the case. I said it was an equally or more likely explanation (which it is) which is entirely different from declaring it as the truth. A concept you could stand to grasp AS THE MAJORITY OF ARTICLES YOU ARE READING ARE DOING THE SAME THING. Is there a reason you think that some rando on Twitter is any less credible when drawing a conclusion and citing the same evidence. Do journalists have some access to secret source they won't cite for reasons? Are they less likely to be a paid shill (that is literally their job if you forgot)? Or does the prestige of The Washington Post immediately make them more credible when citing the exact same source. I don't think I said this anywhere. I talked to a native Ukrainian, in providing aid to his village and friends I was able to talk to many other native Ukrainians currently in the country. I don't think this makes me any more educated than anyone else posting here, but it offered some perspective that helped me personally feel more confident in understanding parts of the conflict, regardless of whether or not that is the case. Something I'd encourage you or anyone else here to do if you have the opportunity. I don't watch or read RT, but I would find it pretty humorous if that was actually the case by pure coincidence. Thanks for catching me up, I was unaware. I don't rely on internet validation and the TV to know what to think, but I appreciate the note anyways. I've been playing devil's advocate since day one and I intend to do so as long as you keep providing weak points and bad sources. If you're unable to discern someone picking apart your arguments from standing counter to you, that's on you, but I'm not going to hold that against you. Would you tell the same to someone living in North Korea or Russia at the moment if they tried to make the same case the majority of the people in this thread are about Ukraine? I think at some point, a countries vested interested in a cause, knowingly or otherwise, can often override it's commitment to providing factual and unbiased coverage. This conflict has been the tipping point for me. The amount of information knowingly obscured, twisted, or fabricated by sources that would otherwise be considered credible is ridiculous. Do I think that discredits them entirely or that they can't be trusted on anything? No, most of them are pretty good about domestic affairs even if they tend to routinely slip their own biases in. I just think that it's very difficult to find any of them that can be trusted to give you a good picture of this particular conflict, especially if they are encouraging you to support America sticking their finger into this pie or, God forbid, actually get involved. Source? I've yet to see any evidence of gunshot wounds, but I'd be concede if there is actually proof of this. The majority of the images from Bucha are able to be cross referenced with the satellite imagery, so hopefully this would be the case too.

I'm not sure why you used a screencap of my post instead of just quoting lol Regardless, here you have a satellite image of a trench, pictures of dead civilians in a Russian occupied city, and no independent verification of anything, as cited by the articles pasted. Here's a quick thread on a reasonable description of what may have happened https://mobile.twitter.com/antiwar_soldier/status/1511086358110027791 TL;DR most victims appear to be killed by shelling during the time of strong Russian occupation. Russians shelled themselves? At least this is less easily debunked than other alleged war crimes such as dead civilians in Mariupol carrying RUSSIAN AID PACKAGES. Regardless of how you want to interpret it, this is the first evidence of something of this nature from Russian forces over a month into the invasion. I don't think you should continue to play this game until you familiarize yourself with the conflict in Donbas prior to this invasion and all the nastiness entailed. While you're there, feel free to acknowledge the calls for and commission of war crimes by Ukrainian forces and government officials. There's a long list of these, many of them difficult to find a reliable source on, but at least one has been seemingly confirmed by both sides of the conflict. I appreciate your efforts to source something resembling a credible news source, but as stated previously, all sources here are incredibly biased and rely on the same handful of firsthand accounts and images, as cited in the pastes. So feel free to just cite whatever twit or telegram that's being referenced so you can expose yourself to something resembling conscious dialogue.

Curious as to who the target demographic of the community is. I mean this relatively, obviously, everyone is a potential member. What niche is the community looking to fill? Understandably, the answer could still be everyone, but that begs the question of what the community has to offer relative to other larger communities with similar servers and more active development. I don't mean this in a passive aggressive way before anyone gets their panties bunched. Previously, it's been somewhat clear what and who we're geared to, and during my time as SM it was something we specifically looked at every time we made changes to the server or moderation. As of recently, likely because I've been distant, it seems that this isn't so much of a focus or it's more difficult to discern.

So can we chill now or are they still 'dark horses'?

While @kabLemakes a good point about our Import/Export ratio, also important to note is where we're getting our oil from. From energy.gov, you can see our imports with a decreasing trend from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other non-OPEC countries, with a growing amount coming from Russia. While we don't get much of our oil from Russia, the change is not trivial though. More importantly though, as the US and other European countries refuse to continue purchasing their oil, it will create false scarcity in the market, hiking prices across the board as countries scramble for alternate sources. As of yet, nothing monumental has changed in terms of oil flow since gas was $2 a gallon. The majority of hikes come market side, such as when the aforementioned project was cancelled and when Russia invaded, causing sanctions to be declared. The other shoe will fall on the 30th, Putin's deadline for countries to begin making the shift towards buying Russian oil in Rubles. While there has been plenty of speculation and talk, it's most likely going to be a nothinburger fortunately, Russian officials have stated that they understand this process will take time and European countries will most likely cave to this demand. Sorry This Not this. Thought that would've been self evident but guess I should have elaborated.

No...no it doesn't. It deboonks a single shitty propaganda video...hardly. Listened to this during my workout tonight and it's literally just him whinging for 40 minutes, often conceding that most points are true or partially true but presented in a misleading way or pieced together to construct a narrative - like everyone does. If he'd bothered to try to make any conclusions I'm sure I could play the same game - but he doesn't. I don't even disagree with much of what he said, his voice and patronizing is just annoying as hell as well as obviously going for the low hanging fruit. Regardless, this doesn't "obliterate every Pro-Russian perspective with facts and logic", he concedes many of the points in the video or writes them off. Even still, the original video doesn't even address many of the points being made. That wasn't even the point of the video you linked though so that's on you. Thanks for playing tho, 3/10 waste of time but some good bits of commonly misconceived history

Option C, go nuclear seeing it might be too late to make amends with Russia. (You don't actually have to go to war to get oil, see 2016-2020.) I'm not been a huge proponent of shilling EVs it seems a better option than if we have to go to war over it lol. Whenever this blows over, I don't think it's going to be impossible for us to have access to oil (assuming we don't keep burning bridges) and we should be able to wean most industries off within 20 years. This has always been an issue with the Global Economy. I don't mean to go all hippie mode on this, but most of our economic balance relies on exploiting developing countries and the West using it's dominating presence to get what they want out of others. Russia seems to have made it clear that they aren't interested in playing this game and being treated unfairly (from their perspective), and time will tell if they are better for it. Sent from my phone on my 5 minute shit break, will expound upon later.

I like how this guy thinks. Ukraine might be bad guys, but that doesn't have ta mean they're bad guys neither. I says to hell with it and we invade whoever's still standing for free oil. Middle East style like da good ol days.

Yes and no. It is difficult to discern certain things with the amount of disinformation going on, but other things are rather straightforward to verify, such as what politicians are saying and doing, what the front (roughly) looks like, what equipment is being used etc. I have a hard time seeing how things are more difficult to discern now than on the last two pages where people were perfectly confident pulling conspiracy theories out of their asses and flinging shit every which way, but for shits and giggles I'll go ahead and provide you with a few things you can try to verify on your own. Let me know if you need any help. So far, some of the things done by Ukraine include: (Obviously this is just a meme to highlight the irony of the original post, but I will verify any of these on request if it makes you that assmad - no it's not going to be a CNN link but you can be reasonably confident in it's legitimacy) Next we can do a qrd assessing Putin's stated intentions in the invasion: (On a side note, it was annoyingly difficult to find original references to Putin's stated intentions; almost every search brings up 20 journalists giving their spin on why they think he did it without a brief mention to what he actually said.) Keep in mind, accomplishment of his stated goals obviously does not mean that these are his true and only intentions and that's not what I'm implying. Merely here to say that there may be some credibility to these statements and anyone who has immediately dismissed or deboonked them is wrong. - This might be a hard pill to swallow, but having a Jewish President does not mean your country is free of Nazis or that Putin is incapable of 'denazifying' it. On the contrary, a large portion of Ukraines forces in Mariupol and other areas are part of Azov, an Ultra-Nationalist Neo-Nazi militia that (prior to the invasion) was almost universally recognized as such and often deemed as a terrorist organization. While much of this battalion has allegedly made efforts to distance itself from it's controversial roots in recent years (since it's induction into Ukraine's National Guard), it's very clear that from photos coming from the conflict feature a large portion of these members sporting Nazi emblems, tattoos, imagery, and even ceremonies. In fact, to nobodies surprise, one of Azov's first bases captured in Mariupol housed a large Nazi flag - not as easy to write off as something like the black sun or runes. In no way am I saying that the ends justify the means here, but at the very least you can verify that Russia is in fact 'denazifying' Ukraine. - Protecting ethnic Russians and other peoples in the Donbass from abuse and conflict. There's not really much to say here. Poroshenko ran on the platform of ending conflict in Donbass, never happened. Zelenskyy ran on the same platform, cooperated with Western powers in fueling the conflict. Putin invades, short of NATO intervention, there will be no war in Donbass when the campaign is over. - Demilitarization. This is a tough one. Clearly he's caused a large influx of weaponry and 'troops' to Ukraine, but is squad wiping them seemingly as fast as they can pour in. Following his impending victory (short of NATO intervention), Ukraine will be demilitarized de facto, or in the terms of their surrender. Hope I could be of help clearing things up for you If the media is driving you bonkers, I recommend Telegram, your choice of Twitter accounts close to the conflict and somewhat reliably sourced, or whatever alternative media platform you like. Clearly these are not reliable sources in and of themselves but it is often easier to find first and secondhand sources for things here and even with disinformation being spewed, the truth isn't nearly as often intentionally obscured. It's 4AM and im out of shitpost energy, but I'm more than happy to elaborate and provide sources as needed if it means deflecting the ban hammer for another day

Take your meds and a few minutes to consider things might be a little more complicated and nuanced than your off the shelf western understanding of things. Please disown and help us fight your friend so the both of you will pose less of a threat to us in the future The West turns it back on Russia time and time again with hundreds of businesses now closing shop in Russia. Looks like we made that decision for them. Why? Is it not valid to call into question that the US and other powers place the wellbeing of their people over playing world police/virtue signal? Or do we have some sort of responsibility considering our crucial role in causing this situation? Ya'll been real quiet now that there's so much to talk about. Zelensky bans political parties. Russia flexes nuclear capable hypersonic missiles. Western media reaches record high levels of ignoring things and making new shit up every day.

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There's about a thousand reasons for Russia to invade Ukraine. To say that it boils down to one or two or even that there's some main reason seems a bit flat. I am curios about the straw that broke the camel's back though. Might have just been a matter of waiting for conditions to be just right.

Sorry, as you can see from my post I don't have some grand conclusion or point to make, mostly came here to gather info. Unfortunately most people seem to be under the impression that Putin is some B-Movie villain that just wants to see as many innocent people slaughtered as possible for no reason at all and can't grasp what it might be like to be in his position. Just wanted to see if anyone had anything insightful to say or any critical thought to substantiate what they believed. Didn't really think I was suggesting anything too controversial but I can understand how some people might see it as a little antagonistic. Anyways, I work a lot so sometimes I struggle to find time a motivation to respond to threads. When something that is at most, a antagonistically worded set of questions is met with a threat of ban, I have to debate if I'm better off trolling or not replying at all.

That's sort of the point when you want to know what people think isn't it? I've been curious about this conflict but it's very difficult to find people that don't spazz the fuck out any time you ask them why they believe what they do or think that it's not exactly self evident. I apologize if I find it ironic to see Americans complaining about invading foreign countries, bombing civs, politicians lying on TV, and calling political opponents Nazis. Conscripting 19 year olds? I don't see the problem. Threatening to shoot deserters? I think that's been standard fare for war since forever but I can understand how people don't agree. Arresting protestors? I don't agree but I can understand why it's reasonable. I've tried to watch some of the news when I get the chance but it all seems watered down compared to what is actually going on. Social media can be useful, with people providing pictures and videos of the conflict to show what's actually going on, but you quite often see conflicting reports and also have retards who cheer and clap for things like UN delegates walking out. Seriously? How would it feel to be a Ukrainian getting blown the fuck out and seeing that the goddamned UN refuses to even acknowledge your aggressors or attempt diplomacy. I've been spending every day with my Ukrainian manager trying to pick his brain as he has family and friends in Ukraine, has been following their politics for the last 10 years, and has been listening to a Ukrainian independent journalists stream for the last week straight. Some things I can't seem to shake is seeing Ukrainian civies and cons armed to the teeth commanding other civies around and shooting men women and children. Ukrainians putting equipment, troops, equipment, tanks in civilian zones then getting outraged when these places get shot up/bombed. The idea that Zelensky would poke the bear for so long and not forsee this happening, knowing full well he doesn't have manpower, resources, allies to handle it. Not something you're going to see plastered on national television and not something I'm dumb enough to post here but there is videos, pictures, reports out the ass if you go looking. Maybe this is the Russia disinformation campaign we've been warned about, but damn if it's not convincing. All I'm suggesting is that it's not immediately clear to me what's going on and who's in the right here, if anyone. It's very fucking difficult to get a clear picture of what's going on, taking in the whole scope and timespan of this conflict. The fact that everyone seems to have a rock solid idea of what's what and loses their fucking mind if you ask a few questions is mind boggling to me. The fact that you asked for an article and not a history lesson on who's the good guy really paints how far your brain has rotted from bite size media consumption.

Yeah idk what that's supposed to communicate. Please clarify.

Could you be a little more specific in what you mean by this?

A few questions: Why does everyone seem to point to Putin/Russia as the 'bad guy's here? Is it Cold War/Modern Media stigma? Because they're the aggressor? The tactics being used? What are you guys using as your sources for what you believe about what's going on? Why do you think whatever source you use can or should be counted as reputable? (Keep in mind that your country, whichever that is, has previously participated in disinformation campaigns, and whatever outlet you're following has been known to be biased and fabricate stories.)

Just wanted to slide in and say it's annoying to see the idea of consolidating resources and shutting down dead servers consistently brought up and immediately shot down with "people still work on em it's not hurting anything". I can understand the sympathy but in reality I'm wagering that staff is already stretched thin and servers with real potential to be maintained or to grow aren't getting the attention and work they need. From my anecdotal perspective, during my time as SM, this is what things looked like. Things that needed fixed, ideas we had for the server or even things that could work community wide were constantly being brought up. We could never get ahold of the TAs or Modders as they we're constantly busy with the new site, JB, ZE or whatever else. It was also difficult to get ahold of enough people for testing, populating, etc. Too bored to delve much further into this atm, but nuke the servers with 0 proven potential and the people that actually give half a shit about the community will stick around to work on things that have half a chance of surviving through Summer.

This is who you're replying to. Don't play dumb.

See you in a year

Put in the freezer for one hour. Salt, pepper, garlic. Sear on high heat. Top with Kerrygold. You're welcome.

To be quite blunt about it. Anyone who's been a circuit judge for 20 years is so far removed from any sort of poverty or life altering discrimination that it is the last thing they bring to the table. If you think that someone's skin color or possible experiences from childhood are going to offer a significant benefit to the court, that's cool, I disagree but I'm not going to go back and forth about it. I think the meat and bones of this is that some people have a misconception that the Supreme court is about representation. It's not, hence why it's never been an elected position. It's about justice, objectivity, nonpartisanship. These people aren't meant to make laws or make sure people are heard. They're simply meant to RULE on things that have been proposed or that have happened. Whether things are constitutional, just, blah blah. I don't mean to make the case that diversity is without merit in this, but I think it's necessary to qualify why specifically the Court currently needs it and why a candidate would bring something like this to the table. I don't think it's fair to say that someone would bring something like this to the table because of their skin, or to specifically propose that you're looking for a black female is a smart thing to do. And yeah statistics ha funny, I was bored and it got you heated. If you'll notice the post I quoted, it pulled random numbers from a very small group of people and used them as "clear evidence of systematic discrimination". Thanks for catching up.