General Oh god it's my two least favorite topics in magic

[ahadabans]

Tribalism has certainly taken root with respect to politics. It's completely irrational at this point. As far as empathy and what is really driving younger generations, I have to believe it's more than what you are suggesting. Because as a species we are running out of runway being this retarded. More of the same is likely going to lead to early extinction. Maybe I need to accept that, but I'm just not ready to.

One thing to point out is that upbringing drives a lot of how people evolve. Boomers in particular went hard conservative as they aged, and part of that is because they think back to their childhoods and it seems so much better than now (because it was technically still in the previous utopia - a utopia for white males but still a utopia of sorts). Contrast that to younger people. Even people my age. We are from a generation of broken families and neglect. Both parents worked. Often got divorced. My childhood was better than most but it still sucked. I won't be conservative when I'm older (already in my 40's) because I have zero nostalgia for the past. Only way I see is forward. And I believe you will have an entire generation of people with that mindset. That should create a very strong progressive movement.

At some point we have to transcend countries and become a global society. The farther we get from that, the more dangerous we are to ourselves. So I would argue nationalism is entirely misguided.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Contrast that to younger people. Even people my age. We are from a generation of broken families and neglect. Both parents worked. Often got divorced. My childhood was better than most but it still sucked. I won't be conservative when I'm older (already in my 40's) because I have zero nostalgia for the past. Only way I see is forward. And I believe you will have an entire generation of people with that mindset. That should create a very strong progressive movement.

Uhm... I'm turning 36 this year, my childhood was awesome, I totally have nostalgia for the past at times, and that still didn't turn me into a conservative? I don't think you can reduce the whole progressive / conservative leanings to people's childhoods.

 

[ahadabans]

Fair enough. Could just be wishful thinking on my part. Trying to rationalize how we are going to turn this around. Because we aren't in a good place as a species.

 

[RavebornMuse]

I think a large problem in America is we spent far too long with "communism" as the villain; with the dissolution of the USSR, capitalism has run virtually unchecked in the US, as there is no longer an opposing force that suggests workers should have rights. Now the narrative is not "surely if the commies can do it, we can do it better and still maintain capitalism"; it is "well, that only might work in some small country or Europe or something, things are different here, we're a much bigger country!" Since Bill Clinton in the 1990s, we've seen the Democrats wholly abandon the idea of operating with the interests of the working class in mind, and as they sip champagne and hob-nob with moneyed interests, they simply shrug at Joe Six-Pack; "Well, I do what I must, what with campaign finance being what it is..." Naturally.

This last election is a prime example. People are mad as hell; their money doesn't go far enough, their kids are home from college with no jobs, they can't afford a home, and even when they qualify for any public assistance, many turn up their nose to it, committed to being the "noble poor" (or, more accurately, behaving as temporarily embarrassed millionaires). What did the Democrats offer? "Oh, well, Obama did a great job, and the economy is on the uptick! Why, just last week, Amazon built a new call center in your state! And here's HRC to continue the legacy!" And what did the Republicans offer? "This government sucks, let's take it back! I know who screwed you over, and they're gonna pay!" Surprise, surprise; the group willing to say there's a serious problem and they've got the answers took the cake. It doesn't matter if the answers are right or wrong; they acknowledged the dissatisfaction and capitalized on it.

It's amusing; I've spent most of my life in West Virginia, and people are often surprised by that fact. I remember when I first moved down to Savannah, GA, and some art school students I was living with there were stunned to hear my home state. "But you sound so cosmopolitan!" God bless the upper class liberal. But no, I've seen these "racist hillbillies" people are happy to mock online firsthand; lived among them as a queer neighbor; and they truly aren't as their reputation would peg them. The attitude is very "live and let live", very "I may not approve, but that's your life and your business"; this is the sort of people abandoned by modern Democratic maneuvering, where the only safe purity tests are things that don't question the whims of capital if it can be avoided. And so it's no wonder to me that there's a reactionary wave people are happy to jump onto; they're sick of these minority rights squabbles and want the country to do something about their problems. Only there's no party for them; there's no mainstream interest in addressing single-payer, or increasing the minimum wage, or doing something about college tuition, or altering the public school model, or whatever else is impacting them. All of that is off-limits, because both parties, at the end of the day, operate wholly with respect to the whims of capital.

As for my millennial peers; they're a mixed bag of nuts, like most generations. Most of them are assholes with good intentions or who just want to get out of this shitty socioeconomic situation alive. Some cope with their issues by hurting others. I imagine most people can relate to that, but of course, what would the geriatrics and atheists and philosophy majors of this country have to do if not look down their noses at some perceived lower class? Unless they're paying my bills, I don't pay 'em no mind.

 

[CML]

Yes, I think of my relatives on my mom's side, working-class (salesman) stock whom I've overheard bitching about "flamers" and "Chinese" but there's no way they'd dare be cruel to anyone's face, they'd just try to sell them some Cokes or an AC unit. Whenever we have it out about these topics we get mad for like 20 minutes then go back to cheerfully drinking. Archetypal Trumpers

Then there are the relatives on my dad's side, downwardly mobile East-Coast boujee types who do things like overfeed puppies to death or send me a list at age 18 of all my sins from 5 onward. My dad's mom was such a terrible parent that two of her kids converted from atheism to Christianity. My dad was made of sterner stuff, but he's still a very bright man whose life has been appreciably worsened by upper-middle-class hypocrisy—and his parents were perps of this, sure, but also victims. Their parents too. My dad's dad was (I think?) fairly liberal but had no issues hopping in bed with our noisome and banished Republican U.S. Senator come retirement. Archetypal Hillaryites

I think the people on my mom's side are sick of being judged, lied to, and condescended to by the people on my dad's side

On a related note, my college prided itself on being one of the "most diverse" elite universities in the nation, though of course it was missing socioeconomic diversity and viewed skin-deep diversity mainly as an optics thing, everyone kind of thought the same, was docile and boujee enough to not question norms, etc. and it was probably better than in the early eighties(!) when it was still an all-dude place or not many decades before that when it was all White dudes, but it was still vile, miserable, "professional," "polite," and none the less Eurocentric, elitist, mediocre, and greed-riddled for including all races, genders, colors and creeds. NOT COINCIDENTALLY I could see the Clintons' office building from my dorm room

FWIW in September all over Europe people asked us why Bernie wasn't president already. "How the fuck do you think we feel about it?" we said. Or (to the Brits) "Hey, at least our embarrassment hasn't actually happened." Well, shit! Yes, this summer's trip will be a blast too

 

[CML]

Ahada: cycles = Vico. Similar to how when you take the deriv of the sine ...

My generation is better than boomers but man I don't have much hope of us changing anything. Very quickly we are losing our youthful dopeness and descending into bourgeois norms. The cutoff for people turning from Bernie to Hillary was ~32 years old. There's no point to rehashing all of the horrible things about the Clintons but I will say that out of the people who preferred her to Bernie the number of them who have cited to me as the main reason her policies has been: zero. Preferable to the present situation? I think so, but at least this is bringing light to some bad, bad social issues that would've certainly been ignored otherwise, and as conservative administrations go superlatively harmless so far because they are so bad at doing anything and will only get worse.

The main knock on it is everyone's fear and this is a real thing. Fearful Americans are some of the bloodthirstiest people on Earth! 3,000 die in 9/11, 100x die in the Middle East. I guess we could always stop fearing stuff and acknowledge that the problem is us, but the whole point of identity politics is to ignore that—and that, my friends, is the scary part

I don't think I could have this perspective if I worked a job, fwiw

 

[ahadabans]

Yeah. Bernie seemed like the most obvious choice possible and I was very involved in his primary. He's a complete anomaly in today's political world. Still a guy of principles that hasn't been bought yet somehow managed to gain national notoriety by simply connecting with what was happening.

Not saying everything he wanted to do was going to work or realistic, but he never would have sold out or made political choices that wasn't done with good intent. And I really think he could have brought us closer together as a country. We probably won't see another candidate like that with a real chance of winning in our lifetimes. He was a 21st century FDR. A tragically missed opportunity.

 

[psly4mne]

So how about those planeswalkers?

 

[RavebornMuse]

So how about those planeswalkers?

The new Gideon intro deck Planeswalker actually looks quite cubeable at lower power levels!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Not saying everything he wanted to do was going to work or realistic, but he never would have sold out or made political choices that wasn't done with good intent. And I really think he could have brought us closer together as a country. We probably won't see another candidate like that with a real chance of winning in our lifetimes. He was a 21st century FDR. A tragically missed opportunity.

From my Dutch point of view, the real problem in US politics is that the first pass the post voting system and gerrymandering both reinforce the status quo of a two party system. It's very hard for a person like Sanders to rise through the ranks of the big parties, in part because those parties are so broad that even Democrats can't agree on anything with themselves. The same goes for Republicans, just look at how the vote on Trump-care went. If ever the two big parties are brave enough to abolish FPTP voting and gerrymandering in favor of proportional representation, I have no doubt that both will eventually split up into smaller parties, resulting, eventually, in multi-party coalition governments. In that scenario it's far more likely that people can relate to a certain party and really back that party's leader.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

We've been lucky enough to get along this far without a political discussion turning ugly, and everyone should be proud of that. However, people come to the board to relax and talk about magic cards, not come face to face with surprise divisive political discussions. There is a separate thread, in a separate forum for that.

I'm tolerating this shift, but personally not enjoying it, and would like us to change the topic.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

My apologies. It's easy for an outsider to critique the US political system. Please don't think of my opinion on US politics as anything but that, an opinion on US politics. My dislike of the FPTP system and gerrymandering doesn't mean I dislike the US in general, and it's a critique that is equally applicable to the UK, for example. Also, I'm used to having respectful discussions on politics with friends and colleagues, even with those at the opposite end of the political spectrum, so I'm quite comfortable with voicing my opinion on the topic. I realize this might not be the case for others on these board.

Anyway, I haven't seen the new planeswalkers, so I can't really comment on that.

 

[James Stevenson]

Glad to hear you're moving, C. I hope it brings you many new thoughts!

 

[Chris Taylor]

From my Dutch point of view, the real problem in US politics is that the first pass the post voting system and gerrymandering both reinforce the status quo of a two party system. It's very hard for a person like Sanders to rise through the ranks of the big parties, in part because those parties are so broad that even Democrats can agree on anything with themselves. The same goes for Republicans, just look at how the vote on Trump-care went. If ever the two big parties are brave enough to abolish FPTP voting and gerrymandering in favor of proportional representation, I have no doubt that both will eventually split up in smaller parties, resulting, eventually, in multi-party coalition governments. In that scenario it's far more likely that people can relate to a certain party and really back that party's leader.

Keep an eye on canada in the near future, our current prime minister ran on a platform of electoral reform and is (predictably) walking back on it.

We've been lucky enough to get along this far without a political discussion turning ugly, and everyone should be proud of that. However, people come to the board to relax and talk about magic cards, not come face to face with surprise divisive political discussions. There is a separate thread, in a separate forum for that.

I'm tolerating this shift, but personally not enjoying it, and would like us to change the topic.

So if we must get this back on track, how about specific planeswalker type answers:
Here's a few obvious ones, but if there's a few people have forgotten that's valuable:


You know shit like that.
Obvious other helping factors are if your cube encourages people attacking, Jace the Mind Sculptor is obviously a way better card if he activates ten times before he dies, or survives until the end of the game then if he dies one to two turns after he hits the board.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Keep an eye on canada in the near future, our current prime minister ran on a platform of electoral reform and is (predictably) walking back on it.

The problem with electoral reforms is that the ruling party is disincentivized to push for them, knowing they wouldn't have been the ruling party if these reforms had been pushed by the previous ruling party. It's a pity ruling parties can't see the revelatory paradox in that truth.

 

[ahadabans]

I'd love to see the US get away from two party politics. We really have two parties in name only anyway.

And Phyrexian Revoker is a really great card IMO. Has so many uses and it's even a goblin piker for 2 colorless mana.

 

[CML]

Well of course Canada has always been about the appearance of cleanliness rather than actual infallibility. It's one of two Western countries to treat their native population worse than the US of A and man how they HATE being judged—it must be the world capital of self-righteousness and passive aggression. It's no joke when you call someone from the BC capital a "Victorian"!

Back on topic, god, Wizards is sure sensitive about race/gender things because they're racist and sexist

Er, crud, OK, sorry. AHEM

Cycling! What a great mechanic. Should be evergreen IMO

 

[safra]

Back on topic, god, Wizards is sure sensitive about race/gender things because they're racist and sexist

Jesse Mason (killing a goldfish) wrote a top-five piece of writing adjacent to Magic culture (a topic of central interest that imo distinguishes us from the plebes, well, everywhere else) which I heartily encourage us all to (re-)read.

Maro and the Creative Department's box-checking with minor characters is nice but ultimately more safe, spineless corporatism beholden to a Player Survey every invested minority player fills out and retweets and no straight men are even aware of and which still shows a 75% majority share of exactly the sort of person we all think of when we hear a breathlessly excited "Magic: The Gathering" at a house party, i.e. the kind of guy who's really interested in internal Reddit drama and thinks gaby spartz has a nice rack, just saying

I shook Justin Trudeau's hand once, by the way! he's a dick

 

[CML]

Ohhhh yeah Jesse. He's a talented writer and an acute cultural observer but! Blinded to his own faults and those of his friends—for that is a side effect, if not the chief purpose, of all this identity stuff, at least as conceptualized by WotC.

Check this out. Great hatchet job! Except ... This book is the product of the most cynical marketing possible; not only does it advise using a fun bit of the Internet solely for self-promotion and saying things that will get you attention rather than saying things that are correct or interesting, but he subscribes to a worldview where everyone is prone to simple psychological tricks. Yep, sounds like MTG to me, not just Mikey F (wonder what happened to him, btw). It is like those New Yorkers who insist Times Square is "not really New York" when it is in fact the most representative part of the city.

I shook Justin Trudeau's hand once, by the way! he's a dick

!! Not surprised at all. Tell Trudeau story

Of course I will continue to tell my little students that I like him iff they ask. Yep, I'm part of the problem