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obiwanobiwan (248 D)
26 Jun 14 UTC
Worst Non-Sitcom TV Show You've Ever Watched? (4 Episodes Minimum)
Friends were raving about this Netflix show, "Orange is the New Black." Watched. ..It's awful. Wall to wall. The main lead (not the actress herself, she seems to be trying, at least) is like the adult equivalent of Bella Swann meets Every Yuppie Character Ever. Every character's a stereotype. Every guy is a perv, sex-crazed ass, douche, OR just has no life whatsoever. The writing is as bad as I've seen...and yet, this won awards? xD So, worst shows?
73 replies
Open
NigeeBaby (100 D(G))
25 Jun 14 UTC
Is it just me or .....
..... is there a lot of death and destruction going on at the minute.
91 replies
Open
ssorenn (0 DX)
26 Jun 14 UTC
JMO = King Mod
We all want to thank JMO for his service to the site.

No crying from the Mods!!!!!!!!!
23 replies
Open
glisbao (185 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
Populism and Democracy
I've heard in here that populism is the plague that affects democracy (the topic praising appeasement). I would like people to elaborate on the subject - how does populism undermine the democratic principles, and what can we learn about this in history?
56 replies
Open
ArmaGGedon (100 D)
26 Jun 14 UTC
live game
hi, someone to anime live game :P
3 replies
Open
NigeeBaby (100 D(G))
26 Jun 14 UTC
The link between having a large penis and self-confidence
Here is something you guys should all know something about, please share your thoughts if you've got the balls to do so :-)
11 replies
Open
peterwiggin (15158 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
Man walks into McDonald's with knife in back
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-mcdonalds-knife-back-20140625-story.html
12 replies
Open
rayanking (0 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
join fast victory 4 $$$
it's a great and a live game, it cost only 10 D and in classic map. So let the game start.:)
2 replies
Open
jmo1121109 (3812 D)
18 Jun 14 UTC
Many open games
Today's number is 38. I suggest everyone check out some of the open games. Post here with any games you take over for the next 48 hours and you'll get reimbursed for them. PM me for anonymous games. Games with more then 1 banned cheater will probably be cancelled so don't join them.
58 replies
Open
Putin33 (111 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
Appeasement: unfairly maligned strategy?
I've been reading quite a bit about British & French foreign policy at the turn of the century, and it seems like appeasement (reduction of tensions through concessions) has gotten an unnecessarily bad reputation.
Putin33 (111 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
For instance, the UK appeased the US over Venezuela and thus greatly improved relations with America. French did the same to the UK over Fashoda, ending their colonial rivalry for good. Fear of interference in India led to UK appeasement of Japan over China & Korea. They did a similar thing with Russia despite the fact that Russia threatened the UK more than Germany did. US appeasement of China in the 70s turned two powers who didn't even have diplomatic relations into allies seemingly overnight.

Appeasement seems to work in most cases but is rarely tried anymore. Why?

Tolstoy (1962 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
(+1)
Because that Hitler guy ruined it for everybody.
TheMinisterOfWar (509 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
(+1)
Appeasement is too general a term to fit anything. It depends where you draw the line in the compromises you make.

Yes, reaching accommodations that bridge cultural and ideological divides are good. No, staying true to principles of human dignity and human rights is more important than trying to create understanding with those who violate them.

The argument would be in that last category, when is this the case and when isnt it? When are you just talking to people, and when are you violating your own principles? But let's just say most people agree that appeasement with DPRK is out of the question, whereas appeasement with Venezuela may not be.
pretty much what Tolstoy said, it's unfairly associated with Hitler which is silly

MOST state actors aren't domineering tyrants bent on literal global domination so most of them can reasonably approach a conflict and come away with a compromise that satisfies people

but accusing your political opponents of appeasement is red meat for the commoners so it's hard politically to utilize it
Putin33 (111 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
(+1)
It appears that any inducement is considered a violation of 'principles' these days. Enemies stay in the enemy category, they cannot get out, even when it would be strategically useful (for the preponderant power) to do so. I think China at the height of the Cultural Revolution was far more 'beyond the pale' of bargaining with than Iran, for example, is today. But yet US won't offer concessions to Iran to turn it into an ally. The only time the US hints at possibly becoming more conciliatory is when the country in question undergoes some kind of power transition, but even then it's extremely limited. See: Myanmar

Continued hostility with the DPRK doesn't make any sense either. It's not as if our hardline policy has made us friends with South Korea, who is moving ever closer to Beijing. The DPRK has no geopolitical value for the USA. Why not get rid of the problem by mollifying Pyongyang?


Putin33 (111 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
Yes, we have the Hitler problem, but we've had Vietnam and Iraq since. Much costlier mistakes from the US perspective. Hitler, after all, was Europe's problem. And appeasement did work with Mussolini and Franco, anyway.

Tolstoy (1962 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
Putin, I think most of the problem (beyond the Hitler association) is that since the fall of the Evil Empire, American policymakers have felt themselves to be so unchallengably powerful that they have no need to negotiate with anyone. And I suspect they also buy their own propaganda to a degree. Why appease an evil dictator who does ______ to his own people when you have 12 aircraft carriers and the ability to turn any nation on earth to glass within an hour?

Hopefully the ruling class (such as it is) is recognizing that there are limits to their power, but I don't think we'll be seeing any real changes until the Millenials (who have lived their whole lives watching pointless wars against shadowy and ill-defined enemies for invisible objectives) get their hands on the levers of power.
SYnapse (0 DX)
25 Jun 14 UTC
Why don't South and North Korea make up? Or Iran and the USA? Or Israel and Palestine?

There isn't one answer, but it's a multitude of power, profit, and the flaw of democracy - populism. It really is a shame but a lot of times it seems more worthwhile to go to war than to make peace.

If you witness a bully in the schoolyard is it easier to change him or to kick his ass?
Jamiet99uk (1307 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
@ Putin: "Enemies stay in the enemy category, they cannot get out, even when it would be strategically useful (for the preponderant power) to do so."

That's not always the case though. Look at the normalisation of relations between Colonel Gadaffi and the EU (and UK in particular) in the 2000s. By 2006 Libya had been removed from the US list of "states supporting terrorism". For several years, until the Arab Spring prompted an anti-Gadaffi rebellion in Libya, Gadaffi's Libya had more-or-less normal relations with the EU and other western powers.

I admit that this doesn't happen often but it is one example.
obiwanobiwan (248 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
"Continued hostility with the DPRK doesn't make any sense either...Why not get rid of the problem by mollifying Pyongyang?"

1. Some of us might find it just a teeny bit morally reprehensible to mollify a government that employs concentration camps for political prisoners, kills its own people, allows no sense of liberty, IS arguably as close as we've ever gotten to an Orwellian State, has hurt innocents from Japan and South Korea, has nuclear ambitions (even if they can't yet be nearly realized), is as anti-America and anti-West as they come, is about as oppressive a regime as there is on the planet, and is on the whole quite arguably the single worst country in existence today, period.

In short--there are HOW many countries that could use our aid right now...and we'd instead give it to one of the very few countries that would most assuredly bite the hand that feeds it?

2. Leaving aside those moral qualms some of us might have...

"But let's just say most people agree that appeasement with DPRK is out of the question, whereas appeasement with Venezuela may not be."

+1 TheMinisterofWar--that, right there.

If we're going to appease a nation, I'd rather it indeed be one like Venezuela or, as the Obama administration has attempted (albeit with admittedly extremely-mixed results at best), some of the Arab nations we keep having issues with.

Change is more plausible in those cases, and there's less of a track record to work against than the Kim Dynasty (you may be OK with it, Putin, the rest of us are not.)

What's more, mollifying the DPRK could upset or otherwise bother two important strategic and economic allies, South Korea and Japan...and what would we get in exchange but mollifying a bereft, starving, cruel Orwellian state that we have no reason to believe would change its position, anyway, it's track record (not to mention its human rights record) is decidedly against it.
Theodosius (232 D(S))
25 Jun 14 UTC
Part of the US so quickly becoming friends with China had an ulterior motive. Canada had done quite a bit of work before then with trade relations with China with, for example, exporting wheat to them. Once the US saw how much money such a big market could bring in, the wall came tumbling down pretty quickly, within a year or two if I remember correctly, to partially steal the market that Canada created.

Good points overall, though, Putin.

Part of considering conciliation is, of course, what is the endgame? With North Korea, there is no halfway point, so there is no point. The power structure only survives by telling their populace that most of the world is their enemy and we're that part of the world.

By comparison, if the dispute is over an isolated island or some small chuck of territory when bigger things than that are affected by bad relations, then conciliation can do a lot w.r.t. keeping national pride on the side that has been appeased ("Yeah we won!"). Since political points have then been scored to keep the populace happy, there is no point in keeping up the rhetoric, and the respective countries can get drunk together again.

One that was missed was the attempted reconciliation with the PLO was somewhat of a win for Palestinians, giving them some international cred etc., even if some of the goals ultimately failed.
Maniac (189 D(B))
25 Jun 14 UTC
When looking at a world problem generally there are two outcomes:-

1 Things get better
2 Things get worse

Sometimes things stya the same, but not often.

If you take an appeasement line to a world problem you don't get any plaudits because you are perceived as doing very little even though you may have been working like crazy. If things get worse you are open to the charge of fiddling while Rome burnt.

On the other hand if you take an active interventionist role and things get better you will be greated as a hero having made a difference. If things get worse you are able to point to how much worse things would have been if you had done nothing (appeasement would have emboldened the enermy).

In conclusion, appeasement isn't tried often enough becaus of the likely spinning after the event.
Randomizer (722 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
The US has had a policy of appeasement ever since Reagan took office and authorized the sale of weapons through Israel to Iran to get back the 52 Americans held hostage in Iran and the later ones taken in Beirut, Lebanon. That started the Arab view that the US was weak and even after Gulf War I and II the US is still not going to really fight.

Saddam Hussein lost Gulf War I, but held on to power for years and even tried to kill Bush I. Syria was going to the rebels until they agreed to give up chemical weapons and now the rebels are losing ground. Iraq may split up into factions opposed to the US as Obama negotiates with Iran.

Appeasement only works if both sides stand to gain. Avoiding war for no true gain is what allowed Hitler to rise.
Putin33 (111 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
"That's not always the case though. Look at the normalisation of relations between Colonel Gadaffi and the EU (and UK in particular) in the 2000s. By 2006 Libya had been removed from the US list of "states supporting terrorism". For several years, until the Arab Spring prompted an anti-Gadaffi rebellion in Libya, Gadaffi's Libya had more-or-less normal relations with the EU and other western powers."

@ Jamie

Was it really normalized relations if those very countries decided to arm Libya's Islamist rebels and bomb Libya to enable them to win? Plus, it was more or less Libya appeasing Europe rather than other way around. I suppose that still counts though.

@ Obi

"In short--there are HOW many countries that could use our aid right now...and we'd instead give it to one of the very few countries that would most assuredly bite the hand that feeds it?
"

And how many of those countries have been technically at war for over half a century and have the potential to be a nuclear flashpoint? Dismissing a strategy out of hand because you don't like a country's social system seems to be a self-defeating method of going about doing foreign policy. The human rights situation in China in 1972 when Nixon began relations was probably worse than North Korea's today. What if appeasement led to DPRK being less of a 'Satanic state' in your eyes? Or are devils always devils?

"has hurt innocents from Japan and South Korea"

US/South Korea have 'hurt innocents in North Korea' as well. The one-sided analysis doesn't help your case.

"could upset or otherwise bother two important strategic and economic allies, South Korea and Japan."

If South Korea is an ally somebody better tell them. They seem more interested in being friends with China and anti-American sentiment is extremely high. Plus a good sector of them have been pushing for normalized relations with the north. As for Japan, don't we want them to have an independent defense policy anyway? Perhaps this would incentivize that. And why would they want a potential nuclear flashpoint next door to them?

@ Theodosius

"The power structure only survives by telling their populace that most of the world is their enemy and we're that part of the world."

So if they refuse that's on them. I don't see why that means it should not be tried. And in certain cases (economic opening) it's clearly not true that DPRK has no interest in making nice with previous adversaries. Normalized relations with the US has been a longstanding demand of its leadership.







Jamiet99uk (1307 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
@ Putin:

"Jamie: Was it really normalized relations if those very countries decided to arm Libya's Islamist rebels and bomb Libya to enable them to win?"

I specifically said "before the Arab Spring".
Jamiet99uk (1307 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
* or rather "until the Arab Spring"
Putin33 (111 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
I question the notion that there was any "Arab spring" in Libya rather than a deliberate destabilization of the country by Europe/North America. But that's a whole different topic, I suppose.
Jamiet99uk (1307 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
My point was in response to your claim that once a country is considered an enemy of the west, it's impossible for them to get out of the "enemy category" even if not treating them as an enemy would be in the west's interests.

Would you say, when Tony Blair went and had tea with Gadaffi in his tent, he was treating him like an enemy, or what?
Putin33 (111 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
No he wasn't, but like a mirage in the desert, it didn't amount to much.


19 replies
Tolstoy (1962 D)
22 Jun 14 UTC
(+1)
Can atheists believe in free will?
If our consciousness is simply a product of the mushy 3-dimensional circuit board we call a brain, governed entirely by the fixed and unchanging laws of physics and chemistry, is there any kind of free will? Or are all our decisions in life predetermined, like a computer program running through its code, simply responding to various inputs?
126 replies
Open
rojimy1123 (597 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
Taking over CDs
I have recently taken over 2 positions in games where players left. I am wondering why my profile says I haven't taken over CD's at all.
8 replies
Open
obiwanobiwan (248 D)
20 Jun 14 UTC
Again--This is NOT a Christian Country...
http://news.yahoo.com/republicans-obama-must-defend-christian-values-192212780--election.html Christians live here--AND Jews, AND Muslims, AND Buddhists and Hindus and Atheists (fastest growing group!) AND dozens of others (including, hey, all those Native American tribes and religions...many of which were criminalized in part until the 1970s)...WHY? Why must Obama defend the values of a specific sect, when the Constitution clearly is anti-favoritism in terms of religion?
74 replies
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Birchford (167 D)
25 Jun 14 UTC
Parameter 'fromTerrID' set to invalid value '32'
Hello, has anyone encountered this error before, and if so do you have a fix for it? Thanks for your help.
13 replies
Open
dr. octagonapus (210 D)
24 Jun 14 UTC
Commenting on ongoing gunboat games
I realise of course that you are not allowed to circumvent the no talking rule, like press via email or pm or f2f talking etc. but why is discussing the board in general disallowed? I get that I should not say who I am in the game but if someone is to talk about the board unbiased and without revealing who they are would this be acceptable?
23 replies
Open
ssorenn (0 DX)
09 Jun 14 UTC
Two team members per country game?
Would anyone be interested in creating a game, that each of the 7 clasic countries were comprised of two team members consulting together. I understand that only one can actually be listed in the game itself, but maybe create a side pot for the second team members that would pay out equally at end of game
236 replies
Open
KingCyrus (511 D)
24 Jun 14 UTC
Boys State
Anyone familiar with this program?
5 replies
Open
Buzzle (1531 D)
23 Jun 14 UTC
multi-players
What if you have strong suspicions that someone is multi-playing in a game? Who do you contact to check into it?
38 replies
Open
fulhamish (4134 D)
24 Jun 14 UTC
US constitution
I readily admit to starting from a low base on this one, but.....
23 replies
Open
SYnapse (0 DX)
24 Jun 14 UTC
Jihadists in Syria
Right now David Cameron is going on about the "threat" from Jihadists leaving the UK to go fight in Iraq and Syria.
Am I missing something? Why are Jihadists fighting in Syria a threat here? To me, it seems no more different than Orwell fighting in Spain.
28 replies
Open
obiwanobiwan (248 D)
24 Jun 14 UTC
Putin on Putin: An Open Invitation to Putin33 on the Russia/Ukraine/Syria Crisis
Welcome BACK, Putin33...my oh my, how the world of international politics has exploded since you last graced us with your presence...are you ready to decry your namesake for the scourge of the world that he is? Most assuredly not, but let this be an open letter and open invitation for you to give YOUR take on the whole of the crisis--and your namesake in particular--as so many have been wondering if you'd capitulate to common sense and call him out for the thug Big Bad Vlad is.
26 replies
Open
Jamiet99uk (1307 D)
23 Jun 14 UTC
(+3)
Can atheists believe in free willy?
If our consciousness is simply a product of the mushy 3-dimensional circuit board we call a brain, governed entirely by the fixed and unchanging laws of physics and chemistry, is it possible to believe that a disaffected but endearing youth could inspire a captive orca whale to jump out of the water and over a 15 foot high sea wall?
7 replies
Open
curupira (3441 D)
23 Jun 14 UTC
Classic variant: less than seven players.
I have recent engaged at this online Diplomacy. Long time ago, I did played this game in board. There were choices in the Classic Map for less than seven players. For six players, for example, one have to quit Turkey and Bulgaria. Is there any variants at this webDiplomacy that allow games of this kind? Could it be created?
2 replies
Open
Chaqa (3971 D(B))
23 Jun 14 UTC
Pair of press games
gameID=143769
gameID=143770

If anyone's intereste.
3 replies
Open
steephie22 (182 D(S))
17 Jun 14 UTC
Need some web design in the holidays?
Planning ahead, I'll probably be happy doing anything more useful than what most people usually do during holidays, so I figured that doing some web design for someone is a good way to help, brush up and improve my skills and perhaps even earn a couple of bucks. Perhaps someone has such a project for me?
See inside.
26 replies
Open
oscarjd74 (100 D)
27 Feb 14 UTC
(+2)
Backseat Driver Diplomacy thread
gameID=136645

DO NOT POST IN HERE UNLESS YOU ARE ONE OF THE BACKSEAT DRIVERS IN THE BACKSEAT DRIVER GAME.
390 replies
Open
CommanderByron (801 D(S))
22 Jun 14 UTC
Variant?
New variant idea with alot of changes to Classic. would add to the naval combat substantially and would intentionally reduce ground forces at the start of the game changing possibly the direction the countries attacked at turn 0
17 replies
Open
CommanderByron (801 D(S))
22 Jun 14 UTC
(+1)
Challenge
I am looking for experienced players to play against so I can learn more and better myself? I realize i am relatively new but I think I have a valid argument for why I should be given the chance. Looking for a classic, PPSC, ANON no messaging game.
17 replies
Open
trip (696 D(B))
19 Jun 14 UTC
Lusthog Gunboat
Lusthog = no voting to draw until a stalemate line has been established and held.
Anyone interested in a game or two?
37 replies
Open
the southern lord (0 DX)
22 Jun 14 UTC
Strange orders
Hi,

Has anyone else noticed that the orders you've put in the past week, are often not what happens?
16 replies
Open
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