@wajoma said
Sounds good right, except all that free stuff you're a fan of makes free and open immigration impossible. One or the other shag pseudy for brains.

A just world can do both.

It's when you introduce profit that things cease being free.

@wajoma said
Libertarian immigration policy: Let peaceful people cross borders freely.

An example of not a peaceful person: Crosses the border then puts their hand out for free education, healthcare, social welfare benefit, accommodation to be supplied by reluctant citizens threatened with goobermint force to do so.

Government force happens when people get slapped down for expecting something for free. Conservative government exists to help corporations make money. How dare you expect something for free.

@rajk999 said
What would you say is the cause of childhood trauma?

Neglect, abuse, injury, separation or illness? It could be a anything really that has caused the child ongoing distress. It can result in a lack of resilience in coping with the day to day challenges of growing up which results in turning to substances or behaviours that bring a temporary comfort.

Take a look at Gabor Maté. He’s worked extensively with families, sick children & people with addiction.

@kewpie said
Just how stupid do you think I am? 13 unknown digits is enough protection. But thank you for giving me another pattern number - 234.

How many tries would it take for us to get that 13 digit number?
Would one and a half dozen years be long enough? That’s 157,680 hours?

We oldies just had radio, and even then people became alcoholics. Pile on cinemas, TV, internet, streaming services, mobile smartphones. It's impossible for a kid to grow up in any society (excepting maybe the Amish) without being constantly bombarded with advertising and propaganda, peddled by people whose lifeblood is money. What amazes me is that so many kids still manage to get through it and become mature, responsible adults.

@KellyJay

We are all creatures who live by faith, and no matter how you view the world and its history that will not change.

Yeah, we get it: you think science is just an alternative belief system which has a god-shaped hole in it. You don't understand how science works, although this has been explained to you numerous times, with the patience of saints.

Scientific truths are all in principle revisable, given evidence to which we may someday have access. This means that a hypothesis, in order to be scientific, must be falsifiable (under some conceivable testable or experimental conditions).

That God (any god, yours or some other) created the universe, or anything in it, is not a falsifiable hypothesis. There is no test or experiment which could establish this or its contrary.

For example, in order to establish that God (some god or other) was necessary to get life started, we would have to have access to a statistically significant sample of alternate universes, 1,000 of them let us say, half of which had been created by a god (some god or other) and half not, wait until each universe collapsed back into a Big Crunch or dissipated into cold dark nothingness, and then see whether a) life occurred spontaneously through mindless processes in any universe not created by a god, or b) life existed only in those which had been created by a god. That is how science works.

What you claim to be evidence for the existence of a creator God is not evidence in any sense relevant to science. What you offer is speculative, but not testable. It evidently seems compelling to you, but it isn't falsifiable, and therefore not scientific.

@bigdogg said
The things that make traps work are fundamentals: pins, forks, skewers, trapped pieces, etc.

Stronger players don't fall for traps very often. The trap-lover may hit a wall against those players and not improve any further unless they learn how to win in more 'boring' ways.

But most people stop improving at some point. Chess is a lot of work with scant financial ...[text shortened]... arn a living from the game, it can be argued, if you're not enjoying playing, you're doing it wrong.

You're getting the picture Bigdogg. Improving is a whole lot of work, with very little to no reward.

However, as you can see, traps give plenty of reward, are easy to learn, and make a man happy.

No matter how much we try to improve, 99% or more of us will never become a master, and IM, or a GM. You have to be born with a special brain for that, and most people don't have that. Tough luck. Learn to live with it.

Still, everybody on his or her level can have a lot of fun with chess. Just don't take it too seriously, enjoy your wins, and forget your losses ASAP.

Trying to improve like crazy and getting nowhere is the best way I know to get disgusted with chess and quit the game.

Here is what a GM writes on Lichess about "The secret to lasting love for chess"
https://lichess.org/@/Avetik_ChessMood/blog/the-secret-to-lasting-love-for-chess/gvoomnBH

And that's what it's all about, having fun and loving the game. Otherwise, what are you doing it for?

Carlsen doesn't want to play word championships anymore. Kasparov quit the game. Kramnik quit the game. Judith Polgar quit the game. Bobby Fisher quit the game.

What is the use of your enormous chess powers if you don't enjoy yourself and quit the game?

Just don't stress out too much about getting better, and just play the game and enjoy the game.

And it just happens to be so that traps add an enormous amount of fun to the game.

https://tinyurl.com/pity-no-traps

@averagejoe1 said
Google?

Google says, "Omar never demanded the release of her daughter."

What else ya got? Where did you hear this?

@anglian said
Can we have a check flag to prevent non-subscribers from accepting new challenges?

Despite setting the game name to 'for subscribers only' I still get nonsubscribers accepting ..... is that something about nonsubscribers that they can't read English?!

If there was a check flag that excluded non subscribers that would be most helpful

You don't say why you don't want to play against non subs.
Surely playing against non subscribers who are trying out the site could encourage them to subscribe?
I know there are players who take 12 games I think it is and then unsubscribe for a while to save money, but I don't think you're ever going to stop that.

@averagejoe1 said
Wait, it is you libs who feel a need to broadcast their feeeeeelings to the world.

It's not about feeeeeee[sick]lings, it's about blasphemy.

Have you bought a Trump bible yet? Are you, or are you not, a son of this mammon? Be honest for once, joe: are you a servant of your mammon Trump?

Larry is right, where's the interest and incentive in a clan system that is good as done with by the end of Feb. This has been the case since IVV won in 2021 and probably for years before that.

I suggested having a 'hard close' to each year but that was rubbished in the forum so, so be it, same likely to happen next year .....

@Shallow-Blue
I bet he bought a case of those bibles to give out to his ultrarightwingnut buddies.
Maybe even sell them for 80 bucks so he makes a tidy profit, since that is his only life.

@Wajoma
Says the dude living ten thousand miles away and thinking he knows everything about American politics. You are impressing nobody. Go back to putting out fires and leave politics to the adults in the room who knows what is going on, you clearly don't understand a thing, you cannot recognize criminal behavior if it pooped in your face.

@sh76 said
===Pointing a gun at someone. The other person is 'at risk' because he doesn't know if it is loaded or what you intend.===

I don't understand. How does that put him at risk?

I'm not talking about a toy gun or a gun that I know doesn't function. Just a dude with a gun. I have no idea if the gun is loaded. If he tells me it is not loaded, I have no idea if he is correct or mistaken (or lying).

You can gauge risk by your reaction: if you immediately move out of the line of fire (I would), then that shows there is a risk.

And that's normal. People who know how to handle firearms never point them at each other because of the risk. What if someone forgot there was a round in the chamber?

@wajoma said
No one was trying to hang Pence.

They were threatening Pence with violence. That's why he was moved.

It's not OK to threaten people.