There was no question in the past or the present, and there certainly won't be any question in the future.

It's not a fair fight if Cerberus is on one side, unless its Paulie or someone like him on the other side. Mr Ford versus Cerb isn't a fair fight.

Screwing over your own alliance when you decide to quit the game is extremely selfish. They're supposed to be your friends, man! Don't backstab them.

It is worth it to get to about 186% once you're stockpiling. While you're growing, even getting over 180% means that you're growing too slowly.



Republic is better unless you know how to play the market properly. If you know how to make a profit reselling, and to protect your stockpile from devaluing during the food crash, then democracy will come out ahead.

I'd be pissed off if I was suicided on regardless of what names I had chosen for my countries. But to imply that I'm more deserving of being suicided on if I don't name my countries after someone that you think is special is just messed up. If you've seen my country names, I quite often name them after people that are special to me- politicians, mathematicians, artists, etc.

What if a Christian names his country after Jesus, a Muslim names his country after Muhammad, a Hindu names his country after Vishnu or whoever his favorite Hindu God is - should that country be extra exempted from being suicided on?

It's just a country name. It doesn't give you any exemption from being suicided on.

So my country that was named after St. Augustine was more deserving of being suicided on?
Or what about my country named after the Continuum Hypothesis?

You're a scum if you think you're less deserving of being suicided on just because you chose a country name that has sentimental value to you. Some of my country names have had sentimental value to me, and others haven't, but that played no role in how important the country was to me. It's just a country name. Pretending like I'm more deserving of being suicided on than you because of your country name's importance to you is a really douchebag attitude to have. You're not more important than the rest of us. Get over yourself. I'm more deserving of being suicided than you because I'm a brutally honest asshole on these boards. But choosing a country name with sentimental value gives you no special preference with regards to whether or not you should get suicided on.

5% warfare tech means about 60 missiles per day total for your 16 missilers. Relying heavily on spy ops against a dictator farmer or casher will wreck your SPAL really fast, too. The tyranny farmer missiler just doesn't have the economy to keep up with the dictators, not when its SPAL is getting wrecked because of your overreliance on spy ops against warprepped dictators. There's a reason why I like doing just ~10 spy ops per day per country instead of ~40 spy ops per day per country. I like not cannibalizing my spies. Although early in the war, I am more than willing to do spy ops at 100% readiness if I'm taking on countries with similar or lower SPAL that have missile stockpiles. Getting 3 missiles per spy op is worth doing it at 100% readiness, and even at the risk of doing more damage to your SPAL than your economy is setup to handle.

You have to remember, not only do dictators get a 20% bonus to military strength, but their spy bonus strength means that they only have to use 800 industrial complexes to produce the same spy strength as a tyranny with 1000 industrial complexes. When you're running countries that are gunning for a good SPAL in war, that saved land is very helpful and adds even more to the dictator's economic superiority. If your opponent is trying to do 40ish spy ops per day on you, they will find themselves failing more and more spy ops as the war goes on, and they will wreck their SPAL very quickly after the first few days, even if they're running twice as many industrial complexes as you.

I'm sorry, but tyranny farmer spy countries only works when warring countries that aren't warprepped.

From my experience, ABing a tyranny techer hurts more than ABing a dictator casher/farmer. The Dict casher/farmer still has some income while rebuilding, but a tyranny techer has no income at all while rebuilding. The Dict can then work on its bpt after getting fully rebuilt instead of doing spy ops for readiness, whereas the tyranny techer will probably keep its lowered bpt for the rest of the war. The dict casher/farmer can do a better job maintaining a high troop/turret count than a tyranny techer while rebuilding due to its partial production, whereas the tyranny techer can sell off a bit of tech, but will probably also have to sell off some military to fund turns & rebuilding. Obviously, neither will do any breaking after being ABd, but I think the dict casher/farmer is in better shape than the tyranny techer. A tyranny farmer is the most resilient against ABs, but they just don't match up against tyranny techer or against dict casher/farmer when it comes to being a breaker. Tyranny farmers are incredible if you run into someone foolish enough to run very low SPAL (you still find these people who seem to think a good war strategy is to have 1 or 2 very high SPAL countries and the rest with very low SPAL), but against a reasonably skilled target, they're gonna have to do a lot of exploring with their turns (which makes them perfect for restarts).

For maximizing damage, tyrannies are best. For withstanding damage, dictators are best.

The most brutal FS will come from tyrannies, but if your goal is to have all the big countries at the end of the war, you'll want some dictators as well.

Tyranny techer has the best economy due to tech prices compared to food prices. Dictator casher has the next best economy, and with low enough tech prices will surpass the tyranny techer. You'll wreck your SPAL too quickly as a tyranny farmer doing spy ops for readiness, so I'd recommend a dictator doing spy ops for readiness. You do want to do some demoralize/CD on a target before killing it, but due to spy DR, the number of spy ops you'll run is quite limited. You'll also want to regularly update spy ops on all enemy countries every few days, but sabotage missiles becomes a pointless spy op to use after the FS. During the FS, breaking will be easier because your enemy won't be quite as well prepared, so you'll want to do sabotage missiles instead of demoralize/CD. Bomb airbases will be a very very useful spy op, and my reliance on it is what allowed me to run about 3:1 or 4:1 ratio of troops to turrets when warring. But with 72 turns per day, you'll get to do about 30 attacks and 12 spy ops per country with a dictator, and that's enough spy ops. If you run half tyr techer and half dict cash/farm, you're still getting about 100 spy ops per day per person.

Because of dictators losing less military than tyrannies due to the military strength bonus, they make excellent breakers, too. Tyranny techers are the best breakers, but you need to mix in some dictator cashers and dictator farmers to protect yourself from a bad tech market. You really need to have most of your countries capable of breaking so that you can spread the economic strain around. Breaking is a big strain on a country's economy, so you should keep all 16 countries capable of breaking (except for the ones that are rebuilding from enemy attacks). For that reason, I would not use any tyranny farmers except on restarts (which obviously won't be breakers regardless, although with these new restart rules, maybe that's changed).

My ideal mix would probably be 8 tyranny techers, 4 dictator cashers, 4 dictator farmers. I might drop 4 tyranny techers for 4 more dictator cashers, it'd also be a good mix. I'd want at least half of my countries to be dictator farmer/casher just for the spy ops.

My goal in war isn't to do the most amount of damage, my goal is to have the strongest economy so that I can do a lot of damage, and withstand enemy attacks to keep doing a lot of damage and taking down all their biggest threats. I know how much of a strain breaking is on a country's economy, so I want to place as much of a strain as possible on my opponent, and to make it so that attempting to damage me is too much of a strain on their economy. I want them to resort to only killing restarts as fast as possible. I don't care if they outkill me, if their kills are almost all on my restarts.

http://www.earthempires.com/...ert-mbr-7972?t=1304440283

That was my full-set MBR, done in primary a few years ago. It's a highly difficult strategy.

It wasn't a full-set MBR, but I did switch over to TMBR before the end of the first week (about as close as you can get to a full-set MBR without seriously limiting your ability). I did a tech start on 2k acres, and then I sold the tech off to get the money to buy the units in the first place. I don't remember exactly how I did it, but my guess is that I produced about 60k tech points before switching to MBR. By selling them during the first week of the set (and selling bus/res/agri which have very inelastic high demand early on, whereas military tech has almost no demand during the first week), you can probably sell them for 4k or 5k per point and get over 200 million cash (over the course of like 4 or 6 tech sales) to jumpstart your TMBR.

I agree.

If you want the individual award of top netter, play primary. The alliance server is for alliance play.

LaF's countries have always relied on tag protection for their top 10 finishes. There's not a single LaF player that achieved their top 10 in any set individually.

This game's mechanics are fantastic for suiciding, and many times the changes are even done in a way to make suiciding even more powerful.

Unfortunately, the only way to get the game mechanics fixed it to suicide on Evo. If LaF, PDM, or other alliances get wrecked by suiciders (or especially someone on FFA), nothing will change, even when the need for change is reported, and the exact nature of the harmful game mechanics are clearly stated. Even when Xinhuan gives a clear and logical explanation of a game mechanic that needs to be changed, nothing will happen until we exploit this game mechanic against the people that have the power to bring about a change.

Congratulations LaF!

I was only going to get around 330m anw. All 16 of mine had started their destocks and were doing private market destocks, so my estimate on my anw was quite accurate. It wasn't bad for my first time netting on FFA. All 16 of my countries were on pace for over 300m networth, which means I would have had over half of the top 30 that set. I was an asshole because people thought I was bullfluffting about how much everyone on FFA sucked at netting, but I was actually telling the truth. And the truth hurt. But thankfully, after Mercs beat the old ANW record by about 60 million despite CC killing 12 of my 16 countries, FFA started to do a bit better of a job netting in the future. We had more than double the ANW of Dragon and ESD who thought they were the top netters on FFA, and I was telling them that they sucked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9RS4biqyAc

A showcase of Paco de Lucia's ability. Normally he plays flamenco, but he's playing classical in this song. It's not as technically impressive as his flamenco work, but his ability to use changes in dynamics or tempo here to add emotion is so incredible.

Wow, this was almost two years ago. Time flies when you're not playing EE.

On all servers, remove the humanitarian limitations on attacking a country if that specific country has made an attack (or harmful spy operation) on your country in the last 72 hours.
On the alliance servers, remove the GDI networth restrictions for attacking as well, under the same conditions of a harmful attack/spy operation in the last 72 hours (but country:country only).

For express, I don't know, that's just a fluffed up server. 72 hours on express isn't a good number to use, but I don't know what is.

This would end the practice of attacking a country and then jumping out of humanitarian/GDI range to avoid a missile or special attack based retaliation.

I'd go with Paco de Lucia or Stanley Jordan.

I'd also include Yngwie Malmsteen, Al di Meola, Buckethead, Wes Montgomery, Steve Ray Vaughn, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Andres Segovia for the rest of my top 10.

I'm not a Mexican, but I don't have to be a Mexican to care about the suffering they are enduring because of the US foreign policies like NAFTA, the war on drugs, and plan Merida. The reason I care is that I have empathy for others, and I have taken it upon myself to learn the history and politics of other countries. I have made a very strong effort to learn the truth about what is happening in the world. My beliefs are "crazy" because I choose to not be ignorant.

You don't know about Argentina anything, you don't know about Mexico anything, you don't know about Colombia anything, you don't know about Brazil anything, you don't know about Turkey anything, you don't know about Greece anything, you don't know about Germany anything, you pretty much just don't know anything about world history. But in your ignorance, you decide that the views of someone else are "crazy" because of the conclusions they've come to after choosing to learn about stuff that you know nothing about.

I can't tell Democrats apart from Republicans. That's why I'm a libertarian, and I have never voted for a Republican or a Democrat. Their actions in office make them indistinguishable from each other. Obama fooled some people with his civil liberties rhetoric, but then look what he did with expanding the drone attacks program, not closing Guantanamo like promised, and ramping up unconstitutional domestic surveillance programs.

I'm a life long libertarian (well, since I was 15 years old), that has never ever voted for a Democrat. So trying to defeat me in an argument by saying that Democrats suck ... it's kind of pointless. You're only proving my point by criticizing them. You're not proving me wrong at all.

How is that ironic? Jimmy Carter was the president of the US, so he kind of represented the US government. It's not called irony, it's called truth.

And how is your knowledge of Argentine political history? I guess knowledge is for chumps?

Just because my government did it doesn't mean that I support it. And you're calling me clueless? Have my posts not made it clear that I am against what my government has done?

I assume that the dictator you're talking about is Jorge Rafael Videla, known for his human rights abuses against left wing political opponents, which is why the US military and US government supported him. The information exposed in the trail of the juntas is why the term "Argentine dictator" makes me think of him.

But what do I know, I'm just living in some fantasy world not connected with reality, right?

A dictator that came into power with the support of the USA. Yet it is irrational for me to not trust the US military? I don't trust authority. I don't trust those who commit acts of violence.

My view isn't idealistic at all, it is in fact a very cynical realistic point of view. My lack of faith in leadership and those with guns isn't idealistic, it is completely grounded in reality and empirical evidence. Idealism is where you are willing to live under the delusion that the authorities are trustworthy. I am not idealistic. I am a hardcore realist.

We have different definitions of reality. I live in a world filled with victims of violence. I talked to a bunch of them today when I was at a protest against Enrique Pena Nieto. These people exist in my reality. These people don't exist in your reality. Unless I was at a protest filled with imaginary friends, then you're the one that is clueless about reality.

Me and my imaginary friends were on RT today.

I form my opinions based not just on my real world experiences, but also on my extensive reading and my numerous friends from other countries. When you've got a lot of friends from Colombia and Brazil, and you're willing to learn about their experiences, you get a different perspective. Especially when you talk to people from Colombia or Mexico, you get to learn about what happens when violence is commonplace. When you actually learn history, you get to learn how the world works. When you learn the truth about the history of the US military, it is laughable when someone claims that the military only follows moral orders.

When you're finally ready to leave your American Exceptionalism bubble and to learn the truth about the world, and to get to know how people from outside the USA think, you'll find it is so very different.

FYI Guantanamo bay is a US MILITARY prison.

I've never said that standing up to the government as a lone individual would work, you're putting words in my mouth.

I don't want you fighting for your rights because it puts me in danger when you fight for your rights. I don't want my neighbor trying to use weaponry to defend himself from the government. I have the right to not have you jeopardizing my safety just because you're a paranoid delusional homicidal nutcase.

We are not close to a civil war, but when people are fighting against their own government, that would be a civil war. It's being discussed because people have this silly idea that the second amendment is what makes us free. If you can't see how I equate advocating using your guns against your own government with the idea of a civil war, then you're pretty clueless.

This is where you've got it all wrong. I do not consider the military to be an ally. The military is our enemy. Did you not see my repeated statements that I do not trust the police or military because of their addiction to violence?

The right of the mentally ill to bare arms is one that the military supports, and they will turn against the government if the government decides to take guns away from people who have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted with guns. Why? Because domestic violence, rape, mental illness including both suicidal and homicidal thoughts, and many other problems are far more common among military and police than they are among civilians. The number of ex-military people that commit suicide is incredibly high. Mental health among our military and police is very poor, and our government has done a horrible job at treating their mental health issues that have arisen from their training and the culture that they have joined. But when people have mental health issues which make them prone to suicide, murder, or murder-suicide, then they need to not have access to guns. Even if they are ex-military, current military, or police. Especially if they are one of those.

But of course our military will oppose any attempts to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, because that will disproportionately target the military. Not only will it disproportionately target the military because of the prevalence of mental illness among the military, but military members are far more likely to feel the need to have guns, and to not consider it to be a tragedy to shoot and kill other people with those guns.

Have I not made it clear my distrust of those who use violence? Why do you think I would trust the military????

Orders have to be lawful and moral? I guess torturing people that aren't even being charged with a crime, or using chemical weapons is moral? The US military is anything but moral.

And the last 60 years (and more) have taught us that civil war always sucks. Turning a civilian area into a warzone is never ever good for the civilians living in that area. It is not a desirable outcome. No one thrives when fighting for their home and their way of life. Living through a war is horrible. It is not a solution.

If you've been in the military, and you don't think that the military is capable of defeating an armed civilian, then you were a pretty crappy soldier.

[quote poster=Heston; 34532; 627580][people like yourself... will be killed by people like me [/quote]

Are death threats now permitted on AT? Are you another Jared Loughner? Do we need to have you committed to a mental institution? [/quote]

That would be your first reaction. Twisting something up into something its not. If you can have me committed to a looney bin, i will youtube me eating my own fluff. Punk. [/quote]

Seems like a death threat to me.

At the least, it is very disturbing. You've got a sick sick mind.

Are death threats now permitted on AT? Are you another Jared Loughner? Do we need to have you committed to a mental institution?

Do you think the government cares if you kill a few of their henchmen while they squash you? On the contrary, every pawn of the government that you kill generates more support for government oppression. They do not fear your guns.

Look at what happened with the NYPD. The public was against them. Then a nutcase kills two of them, and the NYPD receives sympathy from the public. Do the leaders mourn the loss of two pawns? Of course not. Do the leaders rejoice at political ammunition that they can use to justify oppression? Of course they do.

Violence plays into the hands of the oppressors. The filthy lie that the second amendment protects us from the government is a lie that plays into the hands of the oppressors. Stop spreading that filthy lie. Stop helping the oppressors.

It's still true. You gotta be a fluffing idiot to think you can successfully defend yourself against the government with guns.

The government can squash you with its military. That is a fact. They do not fear your gun. They fear the political consequences of killing you. It is politics which keeps the government from crushing you. It is not your guns. If you try to defend your rights with guns, you take away the political consequences of killing you. Your guns don't keep them from killing you. Your guns help them kill you.

Do you not understand how much more powerful the US government is than you? You cannot defeat them through force. Do you realize how completely and incomprehensibly stupid you have to be to believe the falsehoods you're repeating?

It takes an idiot to think that the second amendment allows you to defend your rights. It allows you to die as a terrorist for your rights. Trying to use the second amendment to defend your rights will only get you killed. You cannot stand up to a SWAT raid or the military. If you can hold them off once, then they'll just bring more force the second time and succeed. Violent resistance to the government is not a way to defend your rights, it just allows the government to paint their victims as terrorists and to justify their oppression. It is through non-violence and political activism that we can defend our rights. The second amendment only gets you killed.

You're not going to take on the government in a gun battle and win. That will not happen.

When the political powers do not wish us to have freedoms, we do not have those freedoms. It is not the military or violence that brings us freedom, it is political power. When political powers advocate giving up our freedoms, we lose.

And yes, look at pearl harbor. Look at the US actions against Hawaii in the 1880s and 1890s and how we overthrew their government to replace it with our own. Pearl Harbor in 1941 was one imperialist government attacking another imperialist government's occupied territory. We were imperialist occupiers. Japan was even more evil than us, but we should not forget that we were also quite evil. Look at the internment camps we setup for innocent Japanese Americans. If you learn history, you learn that the US is the enemy of freedom.

The US gained its independence from England through violence. But what tyranny did our founding fathers oppose? Oppressive taxation? It's much worse now. Lack of rights for American Indians or Blacks? Took about two hundred years for those to come, and they are still limited. Freedom from an imperialist government? We replaced it with a government that is even more imperialist.

Rich white men had more freedom under the early USA than they did under England's rule. But women, blacks, American Indians, and more did not have more freedom. Why did they not have more freedom? The "freedom fighters" used violence, yet they did not bring freedom to a majority of the people living on this continent. On the contrary, they brought more oppression to the people living on this continent.

The Nazis were stopped by violence. But what has kept those who opposed the nazis from turning violent? Was it violence? Or was it political power? Why did Greece end up with a military dictatorship? Why did Francisco Franco have power? Why did Stalin have power? Violence stopped the nazis, but it is not violence that caused those who opposed the nazis to be better (in some cases). Why did war hero Alan Turing basically get killed by his own government? Why did the Soviets imprison soldiers returning from the war? Why did the Chinese get liberated from the Japanese who committed the Rape of Nanking, only to get a regime run by Mao instead?

Look at what the United States has brought upon the world. We gifted Greece with a military dictatorship in 1967. We gifted Brazil with one in 1964. We gifted Guatemala with one in 1954. We just toppled a democratically elected government in Ukraine last year and replaced it with an unelected government of fascist terrorists. We're supporting Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico right now, despite his affiliation with drug cartels. We put a horrible puppet government of al-Maliki in place in Iraq and caused Iraq to enter into a civil war. We're continually funding the Egyptian military with hundreds of millions of dollars of aid every year.

You think that violence brings freedom? You don't know history. Violence brings oppression. The United States military brings oppression and injustice. You think the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was bad? Try learning what the US did to the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands. You think the Japanese attack on the Philippines was bad? Try learning about the US-Philippine war.

Just because the oppressors tell you that they bring peace and justice doesn't mean you have to swallow their lies. The oppressors bring oppression. Violence cannot make us free. Only political power can make us free. Only the doers of non-violence can bring us freedom. Freedom can never comes from the pawns that commit violence. The US military is the enemy of freedom. It is only when political power controls the military and the police that we can be free. We are free despite the police and military, not because of them. We are free because of the media that tells us the truth. That's why our freedoms are disappearing, because people like you are swallowing lies from the media. You are the enemy of freedom.

Well at least he's not biased or spreading bullfluff propaganda, right? Oh wait, that's exactly what he's doing.

Unless those who are committed to non-violence have political power over those using violence to enforce society's laws, then society will be at the mercy of the violent oppressors. We cannot bring accountability to the police through violence. It is only through non-violence that you can defeat an enemy that has superior firepower to you. If violence is the solution, then those with the greatest capacity for violence become the oppressors. If non-violence is the solution, then political power reigns in the doers of violence.

The idiots that believe you can defend your constitutional rights through violence and gun ownership have no idea how brutally efficient the military and SWAT teams are, and how impossible it is to defend yourself against the government through violence. Our rights do not exist because of violence. They exist because of political power, and despite the violence which inhibits our rights. But when we lose control of our political power, then we become captives of the military and SWAT teams which are capable of exerting immense power through violence. That is the danger we face right now, that the US government's capacity for violence is dangerously high.

We have had this problem in the past, but it has not affected rich white Americans. Racial minorities, especially blacks or American Indians, have not had the political power to defend their rights in the past, and thus they were oppressed by the doers of violence - the government. But now it has expanded, and even us rich white Americans are in danger of losing our rights because of our inability to exert political pressure to protect our rights.

Violence is not the answer. Violence is a necessary evil, but it is necessary for society to maintain control over the doers of violence. Otherwise we end up with oppression.

It's not that I don't have the balls to fight, it's that I have too many brain cells to fight. I don't believe that violence or fighting solves anything.

It takes a lot more courage to stand up for your rights with non-violence than it does to use violence to oppress other people. It's cowards like you that resort to violence that lack the balls to stand up for your beliefs without fighting.

Non-violence is the path of courage. Violence is the path of cowards.

What about my right to not live in a society where lunatics carry around guns? I have no problem with gun ownership in a culture where people have responsibility, and where the gun owners realize that shooting another person is a tragedy. But that's not American culture. And it's certainly not the culture in our police or our military. I don't trust cops, military, or civilians with guns. The only people I trust with guns are those who would not want to use or own a gun.

If someone is repeatedly convicted of drunk driving, you take away their right to drive a car. Americans have shown that they cannot be trusted with guns. In this situation, my right to live in a society where drunk drivers are kept off the roads trumps the right of the repeat offender to keep driving after repeatedly abusing his right by driving drunk.

Gun rights advocates have really hurt their cause (shot themselves in the foot, if you want to use a pun). They do not distance themselves from accidental shootings, or frivolous use of guns in self defense. In fact, in the recent Idaho case, they've stressed that the woman was a responsible gun owner, which means that apparently responsible gun owners cannot be trusted with guns. With the Trayvon Martin case, and other ridiculous cases of self defense, the pro-gun lobby has considered it to be an appropriate use of force to shoot someone that you've been stalking. The stand your ground laws are very bad for gun rights, because they encourage irresponsible gun use. Police use of excessive force, especially lethal force, is very bad for gun rights because it shows that the supposedly "responsible" police forces cannot be trusted with guns. The gun rights movement needs to advocate responsible gun ownership and distance itself from all the stupid crap that Americans do. But instead, they support reckless use of guns.

That's why despite being a libertarian, I am not in favor of gun rights. There's too many idiots in this country, people that haven't broken the law, but are still far too reckless to be trusted with a gun (much of the police force and military fall into this category, especially if you look at the numbers on the frequency of domestic violence and mental illness among police and military). As a whole, our entire culture and society is mentally ill. We cannot be trusted with guns. Look at our foreign policy. We're a danger to ourselves and to the rest of the world. We need to be cured of our mental illness. Until we overcome our mental illness and our love of violence and trust in violence to solve problems, we should not be armed.

You've not provided a single example of propaganda by DemocracyNow.

I'll provide an example for you, and then disprove it:
http://www.democracynow.org/...how_the_iraq_war_began_in

You likely consider this propaganda because they are talking about events in history that we like to leave out of our history books. How dare they expose our revisionist history that likes to completely overlook our invasion of Panama! How dare they tell truth! PROPAGANDA!!!

If truth = propaganda, and revisionist history = good solid news reporting, then yes, DemocracyNow is propaganda, and ABC, MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, etc. are good solid news agencies.

I was talking about economic systems, not government types. I made no mention of democracy versus republicanism, or parliamentary systems, or federalist systems. I was talking about economic systems.

As for how they trade world wide as capitalist systems, do you not know how Petrobras, Naftogaz, Gazprom, etc. operate? Do you not know how government subsidies of industries work? Do you not know how tariffs and protectionism work? Do you not know how the agricultural industry in the US works? Do you not know how intellectual property works?

You need to learn how economic systems work. Even more important than learning about capitalism and socialism is to learn how imperialism works.

Oceana - you clearly don't understand what socialism or capitalism is. I suggest you try learning that for once. Any time there is a state owned industry, that is a version of socialism. Even if the profits don't actually manage to get shared with the people, it would still be considered socialism (just a corrupt version). Any time there is a state protected monopoly or state protected company, that is a hybrid of socialism and capitalism. Even the US is partly socialist in its dealings with other countries.

However, the version of socialism that has been chosen by most western countries is a socialized losses, but privatized profits model. This is not pure socialism, and it is not pure capitalism either. It is basically a combination of the two which is an abomination.

Socialism is not a curse. Democracy Now is not socialist, but if they were, that would not make them inherently inaccurate in their reporting, any more than a news agency being capitalist makes them inherently inaccurate.

If you knew about socialism and capitalism, you'd know that the capitalism crowd is the one behind the free trade movement, whereas socialism is more likely to be against free trade (the Zapatistas opposing NAFTA, or Sankara opposing imperialism, for instance). Capitalism believes in the predatory free market, even when it is very harmful to a country, such as the free market eliminating the ability of a country to feed itself and making them reliant on foreign trade for food. Socialism recognizes the coercive power that comes when one country feeds another, and opposes the bankrupting of all the farmers in one country through capitalist free trade.

Instead of buying the bullcrap being fed to you by the idiots in the mainstream US, try actually learning about world history (hint: the US has done an incredible number of things wrong in foreign policy that we don't like to talk about, heck, we even managed to convince the American people to support the US while they helped overthrow a democratically elected government in Ukraine). If you look at the history of capitalism and the history of the United States and don't listen to the lies spread by the US government, you will see all the evil that we've done because of our extreme right wing position. Don't listen to the lies from China or Russia either, there are left wing imperialist dictatorships as well. But western Europe is actually quite socialist right now (look at their healthcare and education systems, for instance), and they're still doing fairly well despite the inclusion of southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Greece, Balkans) into their economic system. Or you could look at countries like Uruguay or Bolivia as examples of socialism. There are also examples of socialists that have been bad for their economy like Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, or Francois Hollande in France.

But I bet you were so ignorant about socialism that you didn't even know that France's leader is a socialist.

Try not being the typical ignorant American, and actually learning about the crap you talk about.

Heston, you should try out this website for news:
http://www.wsws.org/

Congratulations, I don't think I've seen anyone so clearly ensure that their opinions are seen as baseless bigotry.

Civil war is not an attractive option, and we do not want civilians having the firepower and preparation necessary to conduct an armed offensive against the police and military and win. The amount of firepower needed to be able to defeat not just the initial attack from the SWAT team, but the subsequent attacks from the SWAT team and military is incredibly frightening.

Look at how bad it has been in Ukraine, and then multiply that by maybe a thousand to compensate for how much more effective the US military is compared to the Ukrainian military. We do not want that.

Guns cannot make us free. Guns merely allow us to die as a terrorist instead of as a martyr. Non-violence is what makes us free (as long as it is combined with a politically interested populace that is afforded 1st amendment free speech rights). But guns just get us killed.

Democracy Now is so far to the left of American politicians that in Europe, they'd actually be considered centrist.

You have to remember that in Europe's eyes, Obama is a right wing corrupt crony capitalist warmonger.

An objective look at US economic policy and US foreign policy shows Europe's view to be more accurate than the trash we get from American media and our two party duopoly. But an objective look at our economic and foreign policy is not something that Americans want. Which is why we eat up the lies that our media feed us.

I would have had around 183m if I hadn't taken the retal.

I got 188,689,086 networth with an explorer, but I did retal an attack on me. I did the math, and I gained about 5m networth from doing the retal. It was a great set for techers, Xinhuan made 365m networth with a techer that set.

This was before the prevalence of landtrading farmers impacted the food peak and weakened the early stocking techer strat - I stopped growing less than two weeks into the set and started stocking. I didn't mess with the oil market at all that set, or do anything unorthodox. I just started stocking on 12k about the same time that LaF's best techers would reach 18k to 20k acres and would start stocking. I made a good chunk of money reselling food, and while I missed the first food peak, I timed the second food peak perfectly and destocked at some price in the high 50s. Early in the set I got a good chunk of time stocking with tech prices at $4k and food prices under $40, and that stock was used to cycle food for profit once food prices started to climb.

I'm not sure how the explorer techer strategy would work now, but I think the landtrading farmers have messed with the food market, and get too much late set production for it to work too well. But at least it hasn't been messed up as badly as the TMBR strategy. That strategy was weak enough, and then the expenses bonus and boosting of the Commie Indy strategy only made it even harder.

Anyone who knows me knows of my ability to go on rants about the most inane topics. I'm a contrarian by nature. Today I will showcase my ability to go on a rant about how evil some seemingly random harmless aspect of American culture is. Today's topic is: Lush Green Lawns!

As usual, I will start off with an intentionally inflammatory statement that precludes the possibility of changing anyone's mind. America's obsession with lush green lawns is one of the best examples of what is wrong with American culture.

And then I will weave an argument filled with facts and sound logic to give a convincing diatribe that will convince the weak-minded reader to agree with me.

Americans have an obsession with green lawns. (See, I told you I'd start off with facts). Although this fascination predates the 1950s, it is best captured by the culture of the 1950s, by the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses". A green lawn represents success. A green lawn represents social status. There's another phrase indicating how important a green lawn is: "the grass is always greener on the other side". This phrase indicates the fundamental American traits of never being satisfied with what you have (i.e. greed), and of envying what your neighbor has. For a "Christian" country, having greed and envy being such a major part of our culture does make us look decidedly unchristian. Ironically, the 1950s was the decade where anti-Communist sentiment was the strongest, and in our "love for God and country", our culture embraced materialism, greed, and the relentless pursuit of social status. In our show of how "Christian" our country was, we became obsessed with the accumulation of wealth in this world. And what better way to show off your material success than to have a lawn that is greener than your neighbor's lawn?

Another key quality about Americans is our love for being wasteful. We love consuming things at an unmatched rate. We love throwing things away. The rate that we produce trash is incredible. Green lawns are an excellent example of our wastefulness. There are many useful things one can do with their land. One could have a vegetable garden and grow food. That's actually against the law in some places in the US. One could just grow flowers for their beauty and smell. One could keep trees to prevent erosion, to create shade, and to help the environment. You could even keep trees that produce food and grow your own apples or pears, while also having the environmental benefits of trees. Or if you absolutely want to have a green lawn, you could use the lawn for grazing animals like goats, sheep, or cattle. But do you think a millionaire would want to have cattle grazing on their front lawn? Can you imagine someone living in Potomac in a neighborhood filled with million dollar mansions being permitted by their neighbors to keep animals in their front yard? Of course not.

Why do Americans not grow their own food, or keep grazing animals on their land? Because growing your own food is a sign of being poor. It's believed to indicate that you are so poor that you cannot afford to purchase food, and that you need to grow it instead. If a beautiful big lush green lawn is seen as a sign of success, then growing your own food is a sign of not having success. If we had the choice between doing something useful with our land that makes us look poor, or doing something wasteful with our land that makes us look rich, it's a very easy choice for Americans. They make the wrong choice without hesitation.

Grassy lawns aren't just completely useless, they're actually wasteful. They are literally a drain on our resources. Grassy lawns need to be mowed regularly. If your lawn isn't kept freshly mowed and properly maintained, it indicates that you don't have the money to afford paying landscapers to keep your land looking wealthy and useless. So you'll pay hispanics (who you want to leave the country, even though they are the ones who do all the jobs us white people don't want to do) to do your landscaping for you. And they'll use lawn mowers burning fossil fuels to keep your lawn looking pristine. Because you can't have your neighbors seeing you with grass that is three inches tall. What would the neighbors think???

And if you do happen to have some trees in the area, these trees will have the nasty habit of losing their leaves every autumn and nourishing the ground with excellent fertilizer. But you'll again pay landscapers to gather up all of this natural fertilizer and to put it in piles by the street where it will get picked up and taken somewhere that you won't be able to see it. Because decaying leaves can't be anywhere near your house. That'd be a sign of poverty. So instead we burn a bunch of fossil fuels to hide these decaying leaves from sight.

Possibly the most offensive thing about green lawns is their water usage, especially in drought stricken areas. Grass requires an incredible amount of water to look lush and green. No one wants to have a lawn that is yellow or brown, and looks sparse. That would make it look like you can't afford to pay your water bill to artificially water your lawn when the rainfall is not sufficient for healthy grass.

And while the rich people in the suburbs with their big green lawns in drought stricken areas are flaunting their wealth, you'll have poor people in cities and poor farmers in the country needing drinking water or water for their crops. And the media controlled by rich people tells them to blame the other poor people for taking all the water. The number of big green lawns in southern California that are unaffected by drought, while farmers are without irrigation water is depressing.

Because they have money and can afford to pay higher water prices to maintain their lawns, the social status symbol of the lush green lawn of the rich person is safe, while the poor person that can't afford high water prices for their drinking water or irrigation water is screwed. The beauty of America's capitalist system and of the free market of supply and demand is that the water goes to where the money is. And in America, where is the money? The money is tied up in the wasteful status symbols of the rich.

That is why the big lush green lawn is the epitome of American culture. It is wasteful and materialistic. It represents our obsession with social status and our disinterest in utility, ecology, or sustainability.

That concludes my rant against American culture, by way of a seemingly completely innocuous item such as the common grassy lawn. If I've failed to convince you of the evils of green lawns, have I at least been able to convince you that my ability to post an insulting and provocative rant about the most random topic is unmatched?

How can I be humble when I am this awesome at doing something as completely useless like posting an offensive and pointless rant on the internet on a subject that no one cares about? I hope you've enjoyed this TLDR post.

stubbornness is a virtue