I can do that, anyone else?

You gotta tell us sooner than that if you can't make it, message came while I was asleep ;0. Okay, I'd rather find another day where 20 GMT works if weekends suck.

Arright, Sunday 20 GMT it is

This bug has caused many failed kills, it's not too rare ;O

Haven't we already established that we could cut military spending in half and still have the largest military in the world by far? Even if we cut it by 500 billion, we would still be the biggest superpower, not that I even think we have to be on top. It should be noted that dumping as much money as we possibly can into our military is not a long-term path to peace, only gradual universal disarmament is. And didn't we already talk about the 26,000 people who die from lack of health care every year? Health care would be a vastly more effective form of guarding our citizens from death. Shy is correct, our own intelligence agencies had predicted that terrorism would be increased by invading Afghanistan, and it was; our safety is not their primary concern. Also, there is one imperialist country that is most certainly not kept at bay by the might of the US, that is, the US.

Military intervention needs to be predicated on a simple moral tenet; treat others the way you want to be treated, barring the occasional exception. It's amazing how this simple principle seems to escape us constantly. If it's wrong for another country to constantly barrage us with drone strikes and kill hundreds or thousands of civilians in the process while keeping communities in a state of constant terror (i.e. terrorism), then it's also wrong that we're doing that right now in Waziristan in Pakistan. If it's wrong for someone else to invade a country on false pretenses, it's wrong for us to do that in Iraq. It's an incredible double standard that pretty much doesn't even register for most people.

Really? Well damn, anyone want to make this map actually invisible and make it a PX challenge?

One fair advantage I can think of; if someone uses a roper map that happens to have some tough to see land on the bottom, people can know exactly where it is. It might be easier to allow it, since people are already using it >_>

Hah, this map wasn't really that interesting, I just wanted to capitalize on the idea of an (almost) unseeable map, since color maps had just become the hot new thing. But yeah it is pretty fun to try with no background.

Quote from: TheWalrus on December 09, 2012, 08:51 PM

Quote from: DarkOne on December 09, 2012, 06:06 PM

Quote from: TheWalrus on December 09, 2012, 10:02 AM
You have to consider the current state of the economy.  In a vacuum, your plan would work just fine, but basic economics tell you that in the short term, it significantly makes things worse.

What you're saying is that in a bad economy, companies should have to spend less on wages to compensate for the smaller income. Sounds legit.
Here's an idea: spend less on bonuses: http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/2012-investment-banking-bonuses/
Tesco is mentioned as an example here: a news report from 4 days ago mentions that Tim Mason is leaving the company and with his departure receives 5.7 million pounds (at the current rate, that's $9.14 million). How many year salaries is that? What kind of work does he do for that kind of money anyway? High profile assassination? It's not like his own money is at risk with his work, anyway. If the company goes bankrupt, he gets to keep all his money (in contrast, in Japan, if a company goes bankrupt, the director loses everything). Basically, the guys at the top get the rewards while the guys at the bottom run the risk. That's messed up, man.

Yeah, the monster bonuses to CEO's are pretty terrible, I'm torn because as a CEO, you should be paid many times more than the average worker in my opinion.  The 'many times' has become exponentially astronomical, though.  I think they've worked harder than others to achieve their position so they do deserve more.  I can't really offer a solution, as I don't believe in governments telling private companies how to structure their pay system.  Regulating minimum wage is one thing, that is a government issue, I do not believe capping bonuses paid in a private corporation should be a function of government.  Once you start with that, where does it end?  What would government end up not controlling in private enterprise?  I don't want to be a business owner trying to turn a profit with a government telling me where to spend what money and what to pay which workers.

Paid a few times more maybe, not hundreds times more though. The only reason you might want a CEO to be paid more is because salaries might have to be structured like a pyramid scheme, just to maintain incentives for workers to move up the ladder. But what would be wrong about the government (ideally meaning us, the people) telling companies to spread their wealth out more effectively, in a way that better benefits society? I think we have to do something about the religion centered around the false idea that a business performs best when it attempts to maximize one factor only, shareholder value. This is a good article on corporate purpose:

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/6/18%20corporate%20stout/stout_corporate%20issues.pdf

The slippery slope argument could be applied to anything though, I mean you could ask 'once we start taxing people, where will it end?', yet no one's pushing for arbitrarily high taxes. I really don't see the risk for getting out of control here, and I'm sure no matter what caps we put in place, CEOs will still be making exorbitant amounts.

I knew a girl at my last job at Office Depot, she was the hardest worker I've ever seen. Despite being the most valuable employee at their store for many years, she got paid just a tiny bit more than the rest of us at minimum wage. She had nobody else in her life, and had to pay all her bills on those meager wages, she barely had enough to eat. I refuse to accept the idea that huge corporations like Office Depot or Walmart are simply unable to pay their employees, at the very least, a livable wage. There are companies like Costco and New Seasons who pay their employees a respectable amount, and while that might not be feasible for all companies, it certainly is for huge and successful ones.

There are policies in place to lessen the impact of minimum wage hurting small business; I think we can raise it right now, and it was higher decades ago, adjusted for inflation. But if you're worried about companies finding ways to avoid paying that extra money, by say, employing fewer people, I can certainly say that in a lot of retail stores companies are already employing the bare minimum of people, for the bare minimum of hours, and could hardly cut further. Walmart employs 1.4 million workers, they're the largest workforce of any kind outside of the US and Chinese militaries, and they are definitely not paid what they need to live. Nonetheless, getting paid is fairly useless if it's below a certain amount; would you rather have 1000 people employed and none of them able to eat/pay the bills, or 900-something employed, and all getting enough? Maybe wage changes would be best accomplished by unions, who might be able to better ensure employers don't take out those losses on them, but given that so many companies prevent unionization, a higher minimum right now would be better than nothing.

Wally, one of the most prosperous times in US history, in the 50s and 60s, we had a 90% tax rate for the highest income bracket. That was also a period in which there was enough government support to make tuition only 100-200 dollars per year, which is jaw-dropping. We can tax the rich a hell of a lot more, it's silly to think everything we take out of their pockets will simply hurt us to an equal extent. The majority of the resistance simply comes from the rich themselves, and their influence on politics. Saying that we need less government, fewer social programs right now plays directly into the hands of the super rich, and hurts the vast majority of the populace, though it would be a good way to ensure a revolution; the occupy protests are a genuine glimpse at that.

"Corporations are not whats wrong with lobbying"; so bribing someone isn't wrong, only the person accepting the bribe is at fault? They're both at fault of course, anyone who sits at the top of a power structure, whether it's governmental or private, tends to be corrupt. But the point is, we can stop the possibility of this even happening. By limiting campaign contributions significantly, we can put candidates on a similar playing field, so that it's not always the person with the most money, the person most indebted to a tiny minority of the wealthy, who wins an election. And since some money might still need to play a role, this site: http://anticorruptionact.org/ suggests giving a 100 dollar tax rebate that can be used for campaign contributions.

I completely agree with everything Shy said, I have no idea how you wrote so much so quickly. On sustainability, plenty of governments have more socialized healthcare than us, and vastly outrank us in how well they provide for their citizens. We might have to select the right combination of public and private organizations to actually deliver the healthcare, but for footing the bill, it should be more on the shoulders of the general public, and there is good evidence to suggest some kind of single-payer system is better and more sustainable than what we have now.

Look at Canada for example, they spend 10.4% of their GDP on healthcare compared to our 16%, and from what I've read, the effectiveness of both systems is comparable. The UK's National Health Service is also single-payer, and everything I've read about it suggests it's noticeably more effective than our system. We definitely spend gross amounts on healthcare and get relatively little in return, I think it's a good enough example of an industry in which the free market fails (in terms of insuring people, at least).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/us-preventable-death-rate_n_1843409.html

You're pointing to the government being the problem in every situation; it's kind of like saying the gun is the culprit in a murder. We bailed out all those companies, with virtually no requirements for them to pay the public back (and really, some of the banks went on to screw us over further), precisely because of the power those companies wield. Their lobbying effectively determines our public policy. This is not something that can't be changed, we really can make rules to end our system of legalized bribery and create a government that listens to its citizens, and not just to those with the most cash. Getting rid of the government, or reducing the ability of corporations to influence it negatively, which sounds more realistic/better for society?

Quote from: LeTotalKiller on December 02, 2012, 03:57 PM

Quote from: barman on December 02, 2012, 03:00 PM
WxW/Roper is a lot more logical than WxW/Shopper or Roper/TTRR, as both WxW and roper require pretty much the same set of skills.

I second that.

Yeah, I third that. There isn't a huuuge difference in these two layouts based on these results, but Allrounder 1 is definitely better organized. RR has been such a huge part of worms for so long, even though it's a specialized skill set, I like not having it mixed with other riff raff.

Quote from: TheWalrus on December 01, 2012, 06:29 AM

Quote from: Mablak on December 01, 2012, 06:05 AM
I'm immediately skeptical of anything the corporate media throws at us, especially FOX, news is chosen entirely based on the interests of big business. And one thing that our big business, our military-industrial complex, wants most is to continually fan the flames of war in the middle east, so we have some excuse to have control over the most important strategic areas in the world, not to mention the oil incentive.

It's no doubt a terrible regime, but the media only want to accentuate that fact in order to get the populace comfortable with the idea that going to war with Iran would be a good thing. Their biggest effort is to create an imaginary nuclear threat (which would become an actual threat if we attacked), and if that fails as it did with Iraq, they want to fall back on us 'liberating' the country.

Why would big business have anything to do with this?  Thats asinine, Cody.  Big business is hurt by conflict, not helped.  The military complex you refer to died 30 years ago, I don't know why people think that war helps the economy anymore, thats insanely antiquated.  You don't see Bert Bernanke clamoring for the US to attack Tehran.  Also, this 'strategic control' you speak of is post-hoc bullshit that im betting someone fed you at some point.  USA gets about 10-15% of our oil from the persian gulf, of that probably about 2% from a broken system in Iraq, if that, im being generous.  But we're not talking about your propaganda here, im not even sure why you are steering it in that direction.

I am kind of off-topic here, but I feel the need to put everything said about the middle east under a microscope, especially when it comes from Fox (which by the way, is a major source of propaganda). Business does have a huge hand in war, there's about 1 private contractor for every 10 military soldiers. This is vastly more than it used to be, it's really incorrect to say the military-industrial complex isn't going strong. The defense industry has spent around 100 million or more per year on lobbying for the past 7 years, they have significant influence on our military policy. If a defense company can spend tens or hundreds of thousands on things like campaign donations, and through their influence on policy prevent say, hundreds of millions in slashes to the military budget, then it's money well spent for them.

Fox News is owned by Fox Entertainment Group, which is owned by Murdoch's News Corporation. There's virtually no accountability on what is actually selected as news, and news is decided by the people at the top, according almost entirely to profit motives. Their primary goal is to sell consumers to advertisers, i.e. big businesses, I mean this is explicit, that's how a big news company is run. They don't just get money from showing a company's ads, they get money (and repeated business so to speak) from reporting news in a way that benefits those benefactors.

Oil is a huge motive for us, this is almost transparently true, we've sought a presence in the middle east since the 40s for precisely this reason. I mean if you want relatively recent evidence, in 2001 Dick Cheney commissioned a report on energy security from the Baker Institute for Public Policy, it's kind of disgusting to read: http://www.bakerinstitute.org/publications/study_15.pdf

Among other things, it says : "The United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a de- stabilizing influence to ... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. Therefore the US should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/ diplomatic assessments." This report majorly influenced Bush's cabinet, which essentially agreed in April 2001 that military intervention was necessary.

Dick Cheney was the CEO of huge oil company Halliburton. George W. Bush was the CEO of the oil company Spectrum 7 in 1984. The Bush administration definitely had deep ties to oil. It might not be as deep in the current administration, but it's still a huge influence. Just look at the amount of money oil companies spend on lobbying: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=E01, do you really think that they'd spend tens of millions without some assurance that they can shape government policy in their favor?

I'm immediately skeptical of anything the corporate media throws at us, especially FOX, news is chosen entirely based on the interests of big business. And one thing that our big business, our military-industrial complex, wants most is to continually fan the flames of war in the middle east, so we have some excuse to have control over the most important strategic areas in the world, not to mention the oil incentive.

It's no doubt a terrible regime, but the media only want to accentuate that fact in order to get the populace comfortable with the idea that going to war with Iran would be a good thing. Their biggest effort is to create an imaginary nuclear threat (which would become an actual threat if we attacked), and if that fails as it did with Iraq, they want to fall back on us 'liberating' the country.