OT - Current Affairs/COVID/Vaccines, etc

[gaspar]

On a lighter note, what the hell is this Pokemon GO thing and why is everyone talking about it?

[bwgood77]

On a lighter note, what the hell is this Pokemon GO thing and why is everyone talking about it?

I don't know, but some guy came by my office today and asked me something about my thoughts on Pokemon. He kept trying to make jokes about it and finally I just looked at him and said "I have no idea what you are talking about" so now that you are the second person to mention it, I am curious too.

[lilfishi22]

The higher income citizens have benefited most from the policies that right wing extremists have been implementing for the past 25 years. The wealthy had the money to lobby for these policies and they benefit the most from them.

Sure, they work hard--at getting right wing politicians elected. And they're successful, because those politicians bias our economy to greatly favor them.
'
Many of them prey on low income citizens, by cutting or exporting jobs to foreign countries for cheaper labor, essentially taking money from lower income people to line their own pockets with more. They, in large part impact unemployment so they pay taxes to help pay for systems to not force people to become homeless and to give them a fighting chance (unemployment tax, SSDI, food stamps, welfare). I do agree that lazy people who exploit such systems need to have restrictions on how long they can receive such benefits, and most of these programs do have such restrictions.

Banks and credit card companies exploit the poor by giving them higher interest rates on credit therefore AGAIN lining their own pockets with lower income people's money. Investment banks manipulate stocks to take money from novice investors (eg....upgrading a stock rating from sell to hold to buy to pump up stock prices before dumping their massive holdings at peak value leaving the novice investors holding the bag and wiped out). I really wish these banks would have been shut down or forced to make it on their own or go out of business without getting massive bailouts in 2009.

And of course, the rich who DO help the poor or disadvantages by donating money to charities or non profits, create jobs AND can write those off for tax breaks.

You're absolutely right. It's welfare for the rich. Only the rich has the resources to have a big enough voice as an individual to influence policy which benefit them. Your point about companies and businesses going to overseas labor is great example of the rich not putting back into the economy. There's always exceptions but in general, a lot of businesses have used cheap overseas labor because that helps their bottom line. Very few businesses are out there operating for the good of the economy or their workers.

I also agree that there needs to be stricter measures for accessing welfare (which is a necessity) just like there needs to be tighter controls on guns. When access to welfare becomes too easy (like it is in Australia), you get a lot more lazy people who choose not to work or do the utmost possible not to find a job.

[lilfishi22]

I'm saying that if the tax were low enough, it simply wouldn't be worth the money spent to attempt to pay less in taxes. All these rich people have certain energy efficient stuff, grow certain types of crops, etc just so they get out of some taxes. All this hassle and money wouldn't be worth it if the taxes were lowered enough. And to answer your question about what I would cut, I would start somewhere with welfare. Maybe not cutting it all together but it has become more and more clear that more people are relying on government assistance and don't feel a real need to work. Also, what's counts as "disability" is unreal. You can watch the show "Judge Judy" and it seems as though every few people live off of disability and unemployment. And yet their answer for living off of disability is "I have a bad back". I remember some lady saying she had disability because of asthma!! Go get a desk job then. Whatever it takes to put food on the table and keep the lights on but instead Uncle Sam will just cuddle them and they know it so they find ways to play the system. The sad part is there absolutely are those that need government assistance but these "moochers" off the government screw it all up.

Everyone, whether you're rich or poor, wouldn't voluntarily pay tax if we didn't have to. And that's exactly the choice the rich can make because they have the resources that is exclusive to them which allows them to move assets around into different investment vehicles with greater tax benefits, move assets overseas where the IRS can't touch or don't know about or they exploit other tax loopholes which only the lawyers or accountants they employ would have the time to investigate. For you and I (assuming neither of us are very rich), it cost us a lot to get access to get more beneficial tax treatment for our assets but for the rich, the amount they put into resources that help them lower their tax rate would pale in comparison to the tax savings they would likely made. So it really isn't as simple as, if you lower the tax rate, then people are more likely to pay it. A tax is a tax, if you don't have to pay it, then people won't.

Would you cut military? Because every time I chime in to American politics, it's always the last thing the right want to touch. Cut welfare for the neediest, cut healthcare to those who are sick, cut into the already small amounts going into science but no, cuts to military is rarely ever more than marginal. I would 100% start with military cuts then I would look at reforms for social security. I totally agree that welfare needs to be cut and only those who absolutely needs it will have access to it like I mentioned in my reply to bwgood77.

[batsmasher]

On a lighter note, what the hell is this Pokemon GO thing and why is everyone talking about it?

I don't know, but some guy came by my office today and asked me something about my thoughts on Pokemon. He kept trying to make jokes about it and finally I just looked at him and said "I have no idea what you are talking about" so now that you are the second person to mention it, I am curious too.

It's Pokemon but in real life using augmented reality. You walk around with your GPS on and find Pokémon in the real world and catch them. You can also turn the camera on to have the Pokemon actually appear in front of you.

It's all the rage because it's the first game most people have played which actually requires real world interaction.

[bwgood77]

On a lighter note, what the hell is this Pokemon GO thing and why is everyone talking about it?

I don't know, but some guy came by my office today and asked me something about my thoughts on Pokemon. He kept trying to make jokes about it and finally I just looked at him and said "I have no idea what you are talking about" so now that you are the second person to mention it, I am curious too.

It's Pokemon but in real life using augmented reality. You walk around with your GPS on and find Pokémon in the real world and catch them. You can also turn the camera on to have the Pokemon actually appear in front of you.

It's all the rage because it's the first game most people have played which actually requires real world interaction.

Yeah, I watched a couple of you tube ads for it which made it look interesting. They were a bit ridiculous, at least one of them, where there were like bikers stopping to look at their phone to find pokemon or a rock climber.

The other one was just kids walking around having fun and then they ended up running into each other at the end and shooting at a pokemon in between them. They could see each other on their phone...like they ran into the same pokemon at the same time and were both shooting it.

Saw some funny tweets like this one...I think this guy copied it because I saw someone post it earlier today... [tweet]https://twitter.com/zabala_cole/status/752719341624307717[/tweet]

[bwgood77]

On a lighter note, what the hell is this Pokemon GO thing and why is everyone talking about it?

I don't know, but some guy came by my office today and asked me something about my thoughts on Pokemon. He kept trying to make jokes about it and finally I just looked at him and said "I have no idea what you are talking about" so now that you are the second person to mention it, I am curious too.

It's Pokemon but in real life using augmented reality. You walk around with your GPS on and find Pokémon in the real world and catch them. You can also turn the camera on to have the Pokemon actually appear in front of you.

It's all the rage because it's the first game most people have played which actually requires real world interaction.

And right after I post that I take my dog for a walk and before I know it he's chasing something in the middle of the street running around in circles trying to catch it (I'm thinking it's some bug and he's running around in circles trying to catch it) and I'm thinking "what the hell was that thing?" then later I walk past three kids walking around, splitting up, looking at their phones and I'm realizing their playing Pokemon, so I walk again back past those houses again where that happened wondering "was someone projecting a pokemon into the street?" I couldn't see anything though.

I wouldn't have realized what was happening until I read about the projection thing from the phone here though. I guess I briefly had seen that in the video I watched.

[saintEscaton]

Its ruining my morning commute cauzing traffic jams/ accidents, also don't use the lure feature unless you wanna get mugged

[rsavaj]

I don't know, but some guy came by my office today and asked me something about my thoughts on Pokemon. He kept trying to make jokes about it and finally I just looked at him and said "I have no idea what you are talking about" so now that you are the second person to mention it, I am curious too.

It's Pokemon but in real life using augmented reality. You walk around with your GPS on and find Pokémon in the real world and catch them. You can also turn the camera on to have the Pokemon actually appear in front of you.

It's all the rage because it's the first game most people have played which actually requires real world interaction.

And right after I post that I take my dog for a walk and before I know it he's chasing something in the middle of the street running around in circles trying to catch it (I'm thinking it's some bug and he's running around in circles trying to catch it) and I'm thinking "what the hell was that thing?" then later I walk past three kids walking around, splitting up, looking at their phones and I'm realizing their playing Pokemon, so I walk again back past those houses again where that happened wondering "was someone projecting a pokemon into the street?" I couldn't see anything though.

I wouldn't have realized what was happening until I read about the projection thing from the phone here though. I guess I briefly had seen that in the video I watched.

To my knowledge you can't actually project anything onto any real life surface; it just shows up on your screen as if it's there, like so:

https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5_iA59P3eNn7qdz3uKMxgBU5ff0=/0x908:1440x1718/1280x720/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/50050949/Screenshot_20160706-204150.0.0.png

Stupid thing is that I've seen so many people playing it while driving. These idiots are going to kill someone. I think it's a cool idea especially since it encourages people to go outside, but I'm not a fan of how they allow the game to be played at driving speeds. I know that everyone's gonna say "nah that's so that passengers/kids in the car can still play", and I get that, but I guarantee you somebody's going to cause an accident because they're staring at their phones trying to catch a pokemon instead of paying attention to the road.

People already text and drive like morons, and this is just another added distraction. I hope that states start enacting strict cell phone while driving laws to crack down on this behavior.

[bwgood77]

It's Pokemon but in real life using augmented reality. You walk around with your GPS on and find Pokémon in the real world and catch them. You can also turn the camera on to have the Pokemon actually appear in front of you.

It's all the rage because it's the first game most people have played which actually requires real world interaction.

And right after I post that I take my dog for a walk and before I know it he's chasing something in the middle of the street running around in circles trying to catch it (I'm thinking it's some bug and he's running around in circles trying to catch it) and I'm thinking "what the hell was that thing?" then later I walk past three kids walking around, splitting up, looking at their phones and I'm realizing their playing Pokemon, so I walk again back past those houses again where that happened wondering "was someone projecting a pokemon into the street?" I couldn't see anything though.

I wouldn't have realized what was happening until I read about the projection thing from the phone here though. I guess I briefly had seen that in the video I watched.

To my knowledge you can't actually project anything onto any real life surface; it just shows up on your screen as if it's there, like so:

https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5_iA59P3eNn7qdz3uKMxgBU5ff0=/0x908:1440x1718/1280x720/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/50050949/Screenshot_20160706-204150.0.0.png

Stupid thing is that I've seen so many people playing it while driving. These idiots are going to kill someone. I think it's a cool idea especially since it encourages people to go outside, but I'm not a fan of how they allow the game to be played at driving speeds. I know that everyone's gonna say "nah that's so that passengers/kids in the car can still play", and I get that, but I guarantee you somebody's going to cause an accident because they're staring at their phones trying to catch a pokemon instead of paying attention to the road.

People already text and drive like morons, and this is just another added distraction. I hope that states start enacting strict cell phone while driving laws to crack down on this behavior.

There are already enough people staring at their phones while driving. If anyone is really playing it while driving that should be a serious criminal offense. I know texting is already illegal but that's even worse. Neither should happen, but someone playing a game is probably terrible. I already drive so much more defensively these days and if I see someone looking at their phone I pass them and get as far away as possible.

Just the people standing around walking aimlessly too is going to irritate me. There are enough people who do that already.

I'm glad they can't project anything.

[sunskerr]

I downloaded Pokemon GO! since I have a passing interest in the series from when I was a child. I didn't expect much but I gotta say when I saw a Charmander (see my avatar) sitting on my keyboard I had a pretty big grin on my face. That's the only pokemon I have so far but I guess I'll see if I can catch a few more when I'm out drinking on Friday.

For the record, I don't use my phone very much at all (deleted my social media stuff) so its nice to have an app as cool as this.

[bigfoot]

Barkley's take on current events

http://tinyurl.com/gqfd6qd

[Sunsss]

Serious **** going on here in Turkey.

[bwgood77]

Serious **** going on here in Turkey.

Damn, that is some serious ****. I hope all our Turkish fans are ok. I think that is where NTB is from too.

[saintEscaton]

Erdogan isn't much better than Assad, he is a Islamist fanatic on the opposite spectrum and is complicit in the tragedy of Syria tolerating cross border ISIS oil pipelines and the genocide of the Kurds. But the US turns a blind eye because Turkey is a strategic NATO ally against Russia.The military has become guardians of secularism but who knows if they are actually acting on the will of the people , remnants of Kemalism

[sleepyvato]

Sad to see a country in full out war with itself.

I hope and pray that the innocent Turkish people can come out of this situation safely.

[NTB]

Guys first of all, I'm OK if anyone's wondering. These events were all scenario and plan to strengthen Erdogan's hand. They created a fake military coup but every minister could talk on TV and Erdogan made a call to people to go to city squares and airports to fight off the soldier. It was so obvious but our people is stupid unfortunately and they think they really succeed to expel a fake military coup. Now people will think our goverment is strong and can deal with things like this bla bla.

The sad thing is, when people were fighting off to soldiers, they were shouting "Ya Allah Bismillah Allahu Akbar". I was like wtf? How is this slogan related to fighting off soldiers? It wasn't an event related to religion at all. I think our country is going to a baaad bad situation and we will eventually be ruled by sharia.

There are modern, educated, open-minded people like me in Turkey and we absolutely don't want Erdogan and we are terrified by where this country is going but there are also many ignorant, careless, uneducated, religious people. At the moment, I don't really know what to do, I'd like to get rid of Turkey though. It is a great country but only because of its climate and natural beauty. People in it sucks actually, except the minority. And thanks for your wishes.

Btw, nothing can stop me from watching my Suns

[Saberestar]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/MarcJSpearsESPN/status/755531232176279552[/tweet]

[saintEscaton]

Lame, its one thing to condemn senseless violence but another to uphold a rotten instituition

[bwgood77]

Lame, its one thing to condemn senseless violence but another to uphold a rotten instituition

What institution is that?