warsofasoiaf

[warsofasoiaf]

The annexation of Greenland, Panama, Canada, and the Gulf of America will revitalize the defense industry and strengthen America's security against our socialist rival states. When should the whining leftists opposing the nation's defense policy be arrested as traitors?

Anonymous asked: Why is Carter being given a state funeral? His presidency was a shambles and the only thing he succeeded in doing was in pushing back against the failed socialist slop of previous Democrats. And, obviously, since then, his party has been routed and so thoroughly repudiated it's likely to never be in power again (and thank God!) And, as a follow up, when will we be free of the last of these idiot socialists ruining our country?

-SLAL

[warsofasoiaf]

Stupid question, but im replaying MGS 5 and what do you think of the Nicola and Bart case?

Historians largely believe Sacco was guilty and Vanzetti may have only been a dupe or convicted by association, but the trial procedure was largely dubious and the evidence unlikely to reach the criminal conviction standard. I don't see too much evidence to contradict that finding - that despite Sacco's probable guilt he didn't receive his constitutionally-granted fair trial.

While the common conception is that the political environment was enflamed due to the Red Scare, this is not wholly accurate - the Galleanist sect of anarchism had been identified as domestic terror threat by the US government in 1914, well before the First Red Scare took place, and the First Red Scare had largely flamed out after the May Day riots promised by Attorney General Palmer failed to materialize. Not three days after the trial commenced, newspapers were mocking Palmer.

Thanks for the question, Uncle.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

Oh, I never claimed that cost-of-living was the be-all and end-all of the Liberal Party. It's always more nuanced in any election, of course, but one of the largely prevailing themes in democracies since COVID has been a reckoning for incumbent political parties and it's almost always wise to cite it as a contributing factor. Erdogan is an outlier, but while Turkish elections are free, the campaign environment is hardly fair.

You could argue much the same for the Tories in the UK, who had been in power for a significant length of time. The sheer length of time that they were in power did push people toward something different even if the Conservatives didn't have the headaches the constant chaos of the post-Brexit premiership and BoJo's scandals.

It's only natural, in a democracy, for a long-entrenched political party to topple, either due to the opposition party redefining themselves to better appeal to the electorate (as Clinton did to the Democrats in 1989) or for the dual forces of complacency for supporters along with opposition for opponents simply galvanizes the opposition to perform far better.

-SLAL

Thoughts on Justin Trudeau’s resignation?

Largely unsurprising. He had been rather deep underwater in favorability ratings for a while now. The Liberals are predicted to lose badly, and I'll think they'll be yet another grave in the boneyard of political incumbents of inflation that has claimed so many political careers.

Who the Liberal end up picking is an open question. Probably Leblanc or Joly. Francois-Phillipe Champagne might be an outsider's pick for someone who might be tapped for the elections after next, to try and woo centrists to the Liberals that have flocked to the Conservatives over Trudeau's bungling.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

Thoughts on Justin Trudeau’s resignation?

Largely unsurprising. He had been rather deep underwater in favorability ratings for a while now. The Liberals are predicted to lose badly, and I'll think they'll be yet another grave in the boneyard of political incumbents of inflation that has claimed so many political careers.

Who the Liberal end up picking is an open question. Probably Leblanc or Joly. Francois-Phillipe Champagne might be an outsider's pick for someone who might be tapped for the elections after next, to try and woo centrists to the Liberals that have flocked to the Conservatives over Trudeau's bungling.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

What do you mean by "rent"? Is that the technical term for a particular type of union income, or is it just a catchall expression for what they get from their victims, I mean, members & their employer? Also, that case reminds me of something I read about, I think John Lewis, who was called the greatest oil salesman in America, because he got so much money for mine workers he drove up the price of coal, but he was actually fine pricing miners out of jobs, because fewer would die in the mines.

Rent in this case is economic rent, which is a cost paid to employ production that isn't an operational cost (not something you need to pay to produce, but rather simply to be capable of producing), typically by manipulating the social or political environment rather than creating new wealth. A rent-seeker is someone who engages in behavior to extract rents. Rent-seeking can take place in many forms, from a businessman who lobbies government via PAC donations to achieve a more favorable regulatory environment to a professional organization who arbitrarily limits the number of licenses it issues to artificially restrict the supply of professionals able to practice their profession to tax collector soliciting a lower assessment via a bribe could be seen as rent-seeking behavior.

Not all costs are economic rent, some are simply indirect costs. Property taxes, for example, are not considered economic rent, nor are safety and production regulations, since those actually have a productive factor. Just pushing something out of Pareto efficiency does not necessarily make it a case of economic rent.

Thanks for the question, Cannoli.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

Given the importance of horses in feudal societies, I have a question: in Westeros, is each house responsible for breeding and maintaining its own horses, or do certain houses or land owners specialize in breeding specific types of horses on a larger scale, selling them as a source of income? Also, are there any wild horses in Westeros, and if so, where do you think they would live?

Most fiefs would almost certainly had a stable, stud farms, horse breeders, etc. Areas that have the best terrain and plentiful oats can probably breed horses for areas that might be too rocky for horse breeding (but might have lucrative mines).

Wild horses almost certainly exist, particularly on the fringes of large fiefs where it would be incredibly hard to tame and break horse herds.

I have always placed as my headcanon that House Bracken not only breeds high-quality horses, but has semi-irregular races on their riding grounds, with a champion's purse offered for the winner.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

You said that the reason why the Nippon Steel deal was blocked was political. So why is it still being blocked even after the election?

Politics doesn't go away just because it's no longer election season, and it's a great indicator of the very corrosive effects of rent-seeking and the triumph of narrow interest.

The Nippon Steel deal was quite popular with many people involved in the deal. US Steel was, to be frank, bleeding money due to very stupid decisions. It refused to invest in new capacity or in modernizing its technology - preferring blast furnaces to the minimill design using electric arc furnaces. When an ever-increasing amount of steel production was made using the minimill, US Steel stubbornly refused to implement them until 2020 after hemorrhaging jobs and giving up huge swaths of the industry to the more efficient minimill producers.

A bigger share of the blame, however, goes to the leadership of United Steelworkers, whose leadership was adamantly against the deal because Nippon Steel is an electric arc furnace producer. Blast furnaces are labor intensive and highly-unionized, requiring large work crews which are bloated even further by union mandates for superfluous staff. The reason for mandating more workers is rather simple - the union can collect higher rents by upping the work crew requirements (and can assign the cushy do-nothing jobs to senior members while offloading the tougher spots on younger or more troublesome members, that hasn't changed from the days when I worked in a union). The actual members of the United Steelworkers Union were actually supportive of the Nippon Steel deal due to Nippon looking to modernize the mill and the simple fact that US Steel can't really afford to keep employment up due to its poor balance figures. But the union leadership, particularly USW president David McCall, were primarily concerned with how much rent the union could extract from its workers and thus refused the deal on general principle. Nippon guaranteeing veto power on steel production reduction, guaranteeing union jobs, expanding production, none of that mattered because the union would have extracted less rent. Moving to a safer method of production is *less* valuable to the union than extracting the maximum amount of rent, so union leadership had to come out against it.

So we have a deal that the workers loved, the company loved, and made a whole lot of sense from a strategic perspective, killed because a special interest group is mad because it's not allowed to extract as much rent as it wants. Sadly, that's the norm, rather than the exception, when it comes to the labor movement today.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

I'm sure you saw that Jimmy Carter died. You feel that he was a bad POTUS, but what do you think was his greatest achievement in Office?

Real Answer: Started deregulation, the Camp David Accords.

Joke Answer: This response to Nazi apologist and unrepentant bigot Pat Buchanan: "I can't believe God made a woman as ugly as your wife. It's almost enough to make me stop going to church!"

-SLAL

[warsofasoiaf]

A while ago I asked if the West is a belligerent in the Russo-Ukrainian War because we gave them arms and you said no. One thing I did not know is that apparently the Ukrainians need Western assistance, with NATO personnel helping them, to use the weapons. Does that change the calculus?

No. Not from a legal standpoint, and not from a practical standpoint. Military support agreements do not automatically render the nation a belligerent party. Typically, in practice, the other country can exert pressure for the partner to withdraw their agreements (for example, sanctioning Russia for military partnerships in Syria), but if the West was a belligerent power, they likely would have already launched air strikes against the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine.

Thanks for the question, Cle-Guy.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

I have heard recent news stories that the Russian troops and North Korean troops are at each other’s throats. What do you think of that?

It wouldn't surprise me. Wagner and Russian Army forces often fought with each other over scant supplies, including taking each other hostage. Factor in the language barrier and I can easily see it happening.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

Hi, you mentioned in a previous ask that the Soviets made 'severe operational mistakes(deploying armor in cities)'. I'm a novice, could you explain why this is a severe mistake? Presumably it's because the tanks won't have space to maneuvere? Thanks.

That's one reason, but there are more. Tank turrets can't incline high enough to shoot at upper floors at close range. Tanks are slow and easy to ambush from above with a simple petrol bomb, to say nothing about troops with purpose-built anti-tank weaponry. Situational awareness is poor inside a tank, making urban environments an even better ambusher's paradise than they already are. Tanks can't move quickly in urban settings and thus lose a key advantage of actually being a vehicle. And a tank, if disabled, blocks the street and renders the whole column stuck and vulnerable.

Some modern tanks have been adapted to urban combat, but World War 2 tanks were mostly ill-suited for urban environments, especially the poorly-designed Soviet tanks.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

The Germans thought low of Americans till they saw the Americans eating cake and realized how screw they were

Everybody's navy gangsta until the USN rolls up with the ice cream barge.

-SLAL

[warsofasoiaf]

I was watching a video on what German forces in ww2 thought of allied soldiers and apparently Americans were seen as sub par both individually being undisciplined and not too tactically skilled and only a threat due to material advantages. Now while that sounds like cope to me, how did Americans perform comparatively compared to their allies and enemies.

It depends on at what point during the war.

In the beginning, the US were not very skilled, as seen in battles like Kasserine Pass. The US didn't have much training, the reasons of which vary from tradition to the Great Depression. The same was true of the British, who despite pioneering close air support in World War I largely forgot the techniques in the interim, forcing them to relearn it all over again in the African theater.

But the US improved their training and became much more effective as the war went on (as did the British). By the end of the war, the US were among the most highly-trained and militarily-effective fighting forces of the Allies, capable of supporting multi-theater operations at fast tempo and accomplishing their objectives, easily the equal of the British or Germans and far more capable than the Soviets, who even very late in the war made severe operational mistakes (deploying armor in cities, accidentally bombing Stockholm, etc.)

Thanks for the question, Cat.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

If a claimant loses a Great Council and then keeps fighting then what would happen?

Well, typically a Great Council isn't called in response to a war - Cat floated the idea, and Aenys proposed a Great Council to address national unrest, but typically Great Councils are called to settle disputes of succession. So it wouldn't be a matter of "fighting" as it would be maintaining their claim. But I would imagine that such an action would make them none-too-popular, since the nobles that won out in the Council would want their wishes respected. Even those who support the claimant may waver, because undermining the decision of the Great Council would mean saying that "your input as a noble doesn't matter, I can override it if I want." Everyone hates that.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

Are the Manderly’s true Northerners? Additionally, we know they brought with them a great deal of wealth, but is it possible they initially struggled with the cultural divide and/or making inroads with the other Northern houses in the years immediately following the Starks gifting them the Wolfsden?

What is a "true Northerner?" Certainly, they live in the North, that makes them Northerners, but is that all that's required to be a "true Northerner?" They pay their taxes and govern their lands in liege to House Stark like the other northern lords - is that what it means to be a "true Northerner?" Or does a "true Northerner" follow the Old Gods? If there are "true Northerners," does that mean there are "false Northerners?" I'm not being flippant - the idea of what is a true member of a group is something that, while often used as a means of dismissal, is actually a very important element of group dynamics.

I imagine there was some level of cultural divide - they follow a different religion after all. But I imagine that since they were invaluable to the Starks and served loyally, eventually they won their neighbors over.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

If you have seen it, what did you think of the Witcher IV trailer? I'm pumped, but I do wonder how they'll address the endings and Ciri undergoing the Trail of the Grasses (no woman has ever done it, nor has any adult).

I think the endings are part of the reason for what appears to be a time-jump. Ciri as Empress of Nilfgaard and Ciri as Witcher with Geralt are pretty mutually exclusive but with time, Ciri can withdraw from her role as Empress to hunt monsters and start at the same location.

I think according to the lore, the School of the Cat might train female witchers.

I'm more interested to see what the gameplay is going to be like. I had fun breaking the systems of the Witcher games (Witcher 3 - alchemy/swift attack crit build FTW), and I want to be able to do that.

Not going to lie, Witcher 3 did give us a good sense of finality. Shifting focus to Ciri is a way to ensure that we don't lose the finality of the Witcher 3 ending for Geralt's story. So the game has that going for it.

Thanks for the question, Bruin.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[warsofasoiaf]

Came across this dribble on Reddit and was curious what your thoughts would be:

“We see House Stark through the eyes and actions of Ned Stark. As a result, the vast majority of fans end up believing Ned Stark to be representative of the Stark family. But the thing is … Ned Stark is a major aberration from the traditional Stark values. Hence the fan misunderstanding of what House Stark is all about.

The slogan of House Stark is Winter is Coming. And that has been the central guiding philosophy of House Stark and its leaders.

During Winter, the North is all but uninhabitable. If Winter lasts for a year, or years, it means mass starvation and a plummeting of the North’s population. It is the duty of House Stark to minimize the impact of Winter and also to pull the North back to a position of strength after a harsh and terrible winter. It is also imperative for House Stark to recognize that no matter how good things might seem, Winter is Coming. It’s always coming.

For this reason, a “Good Stark” carries the following virtues:

(a) Harsh (some might say … stark) personality

(b) Indifference to Southern politics and affairs

Ned Stark for example lacked the “hardness” of traditional Starks, and was willing to take large risks just so to avoid the murder of children, including Jon Snow, Daenerys, Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen. Ned Stark also traveled South to serve as Robert’s Hand, married a Tully from the Riverlands, and marched South during Robert’s Rebellion. The same applies to Robb who also marched south after his father’s imprisonment. Robb further deviated from Stark values by marching south during Autumn, the time of year when it was most imperative for Starks to stay in the North, bringing in the harvest, stockpiling food, and preparing for Winter.

Better Stark examples would be e.g. Alaric Stark who had a reputation for being hard and (again) stark. Or Cregan Stark who refused to march during Autumn and only marched south during Winter, after all the harvests were collected, with men who were more than happy to die in battle because that way they would not have to burden their relatives back home and so more of the women and children could survive the harsh winter months (or years).”

First, factual problems. Cregan Stark did not march with "men who were more than happy to die in battle because that way they would not have to burden their relatives back home." The Winter Wolves under Roddy the Ruin were explicitly mentioned as greybeards who would have "gone hunting" during the harsh winter, not Cregan

The idea that the Starks exhibit "indifference to Southern politics and affairs" is laughable. Torrhen Stark put down the Sunderland revolt at Aegon's royal request. Ellard Stark supports Laenor in the Great Council of 101. Cregan Stark became the Hand of the King and purged the royal court and has the Pact of Ice and Fire. Rickon Stark fought so notably in the Conquest of Dorne that Daeron wrote about him. Rickard Stark fought in the War of the Ninepenny Kings and was one of the principle architects of the Southron Ambitions conspiracy. The Kings of Winter fought with the Falcon Kings over the Sisters in the War Across teh Water, playing Reversi with the Arryns for generations. Hell, King Theon Stark sailed across the Narrow Sea to put the fear of the Old Gods in the Andals for daring to try to land on his shores.

Similarly, a "harsh" personality is hardly indicative of all Starks, even restricting it only to the Lords of Winterfell (since discussions of "all Starks" would inevitably run afoul of Sansa Stark, whose most prominent character trait is romantic compassion). Cregan Stark in the Hour of Wolf fights for the sacred body of king Aegon II even though he fought against him in a civil war. To Cregan, the principle was as such that "regicide, even through inaction, must be punished." That's not harsh, that's abiding a set of clearly-defined principles. Alaric spoke fairly harshly with King Jaehaerys in the tomb under Winterfell, but the text displays a fierce love with his brother, so much so that he risked breaking decorum and *almost defending the (he still calls them the "worst", but it's striking that he says the revolt happened due to lack of food as opposed to a condemnation for lack of moral fibre) Night's Watch mutineers just to tell Jaehaerys that it was *his* action that cost the life of his brother and that he could stuff his apologies. Brandon Stark, raised to be the Lord of Winterfell, so fiercely loved and defended his sister that he went down to King's Landing personally to call Rhaegar out.

While GRRM sometimes fumbles the ball and makes some houses extremely one-note to the distinct disadvantage of the story (every Bracken being an asshole makes the Blackwood-Bracken feud weaker), we cannot say that about the Starks. There is some truth in this passage - House Stark rules over lands that are brutalized by the irregular Westerosi seasons and so needs to prepare for winter, hence their house words, but it takes this fact along with some faulty assumptions to jump to a conclusion that's very off the mark.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King