SirEDCaLot

The dude is a giant shit stain and an embarrassment on society.
That said, he might actually have a point with this suit.

If I'm understanding the situation correctly, you have a situation where his website and media platform are up for auction to pay the huge judgment against him.

Ordinarily that would be fairly simple, various interested parties submit bids for whatever is on the block, and whoever bids highest gets it.

But it seems like in this case a significant portion of the 'money' from the 'winning bid' came from families who would receive that money agreeing to forfeit it as part of this particular bid. So the bid was 'we will pay XYZ in cash and defendants ABC will forfeit their claims if we win'. And furthermore, there is a claim of collusion between the winning plaintiffs and the auctioneer. That is of course a huge ethical issue.
One could, without in any way supporting Jones, make the argument that due process is not being followed here and the auctioneer is not maintaining impartiality.

Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no love for the guy. But as much as I dislike him and the awful effect he has on our country, the judicial process must stay neutral. That is the difference between a fair trial and a witch hunt. If it truly was the case that the auctioneer was not neutral, and acted with the goal of ensuring Jones did not maintain any control over InfoWars, then he has an excellent chance of winning this lawsuit and at the very least having a new auction process for his media empire.

Taiwan is one country I have absolutely no problem selling weapons to. They need as big a stick as they can get to maintain independence from China.

Quantity isn't everything

That right there hits the nail on the head. There is a certain critical mass, an activity level that makes satisfy most discussion needs for most users. It's a tiny fraction of the total traffic of a place like Reddit or Twitter.
But if we have that, and keep the quality level up, we can succeed.

Success to me doesn't mean killing Reddit and Twitter. It means creating a place where smart people can come and find enough content and discussion that they don't need Reddit and Twitter.

If she was actually using that message, which I never heard, no wonder she lost. People don't want the absence of something, they want radical change. They want a country that works for the middle class rather than just for the 1%. That's why Obama's message resonated. And that's why Trump's message resonates. He at least acknowledges that shit's broken and he promises to fix it. He may be the wrong person to fix it and he may have no interest in fixing it, but his message at least acknowledges that there is a serious problem.

Harris had some policies, but not a real underlying message. She could have made a message like 'bring back the American dream' and that might have gotten her a win. Obama's message was 'yes we can'. Trump's message is 'make America great again'. You need a theme message like that, if you only talk positions you get lost in the noise of our shitty media.

I. Do. Not. Care. About. The. Tech.

Exactly. The tech doesn't matter. Tech only exists in service of the gameplay, and (introduced with HL1), the story (previous to HL1 the 'story' of most games was just a quick blurb on why there's monsters and why you have to shoot them).

Gamers DGAF about new tech. Gamers wanted to be told a story. We LOVED the story.

Valve could've used the existing engine, built NOTHING AT ALL NEW, and just finished the story with existing assets and we'd all have been over the moon happy.

In a sense, you're right. And there's a bit of magic involved. If you cut a certain special rock into slices, engrave runes on one side of it, and inject lightning, the rock starts to think. I don't see how you can describe that as anything other than magic.

This is exactly it. A lot of people are struggling. They see less jobs, less pay, meanwhile the rich get richer. They see a system that benefits everybody except them. So Trump comes along and says he's going to fuck up the system. That sounds pretty good. And if he can make a decent excuse that he's been fucked by the system too, people are willing to overlook a lot.

Plus, let's not forget Harris had very little real message. Obama had a message- hope, change, yes we can. Hillary was as status quo as you can get, and people wants to reform. Kamala's message was basically 'I'm not Trump' but unfortunately that's not good enough to get you elected. Especially not when, before Biden dropped out and she got anointed, she was polling in the single digits.

Once again, you're looking at steak. Obviously sizzle doesn't keep you alive. But someone desperate for meat is going to follow the smoke and fire and sizzle in the hope that there is steak at the bottom of it.

So far that solution seems to be to ignore it as a problem and continue the policies that created it. Dems are a little better on unions, but neither one is addressing the systemic problem.

Just like conservatism, the problem is what parts of it you push.

Focus on divisive issues like gun control, open immigration, and hyper inclusion of any possibly marginalized group and you push people away.

Avoid the wedge issues, and focus on things that will make everybody's lives better, like honest government, social safety net, and good health care, and you bring everybody together.

If you look at the entire range of issues, including the ones politicians don't often talk about, you might find that Americans generally agree on more than they disagree on. But rather than focusing on those shared agreements and trying to build a better country, both parties are focusing on wedge issues where there is strong disagreement.