Posts by Richard Wilson4

bluerider63 said:Just spreading more hate 😬

Some people claim they're fighting fascism, but honestly, it just looks like spreading hate under a different label 😳

Then you got folks saying if you aren't against communism, you aren't a real anti-fascist either😉

Death to the extremists!

I find both of them pretty interesting, actually. In my book, they're both fairly old-school, traditional types, and their daughters are the ones calling the shots as coaches 🤷

Melissa Peterson19 said:Fine, I wasn't implying Californians were a separate nation either. Your reaction is understandable.

You aren't exaggerating; you are stating facts. Cutting off shipbuilding in California is like taking agriculture away from a farmer in the Midwest or viticulture from someone in the mountains. It hurts like losing a limb. Restructuring? Sure. But why compete with cheap Eastern imports? We should focus on what they can't do. The tradition, the expertise, and the equipment are all right here. If residents of Pula can do it, Californians can too—provided you get rid of the "partners." Hang those GOP supporters from the Boardwalk and you'll see ships built at half the price. Don't let this gang of thieves win through sheer spite. Prove what you are capable of!

Honestly, who cares about farming? The Midwest used to have the strongest industry in the whole country.

Henry Myers3 said:That isn't quite the whole story. Back when we were part of the USSR, about 90% of a ship's materials came from within the union. Today, only about 10% of the materials come from America. In short, everything has to be imported. Who wins in that scenario? The importers. Then you have the subcontractors, then the subsidies, then the managers... through all of this, our workers are earning just a tiny bit more than Chinese workers, yet they still make less than Korean or Japanese workers, who in turn have much higher productivity levels. Under the old system, shipbuilding was a genuine profit engine. Nowadays, the "profit" is really just a government subsidy—essentially whatever the client pays for the vessel plus construction costs, because without state aid, we couldn't even cover the wages. To put it simply: for every dollar we bring in from abroad, we send it right back out to pay for imported materials.

A Korean worker earns two or three times more, and the ship they produce is essentially an assembly of parts manufactured in factories located right 19 miles near the shipyard itself. The speed at which they assemble a vessel is unimaginable to us. We might be able to build a single ship at a similar pace, but they can finish a series of five or six ships twice as fast as we could.

It turns out we simply don't stand a chance.

I'm telling you again, these shipyards would run way better if they didn't, say, build a ship's hull for 1 million bucks (give me a break) and then buy paint from some local GOP supporter's nephew for 10 million. That's the real issue right there.

The local government basically gutted the shipyard because they were too busy handing out contracts to their nephews and cousins instead of actually building ships...
Don't go blaming Washington, D.C. for this one.

It’s actually pretty cool seeing people over here getting into this kind of debate 👍

Honestly, my absolute favorite coastal city has gotta be Savannah. It’s got that quintessential American soul while still feeling totally unique—like those two things actually go hand in hand. Even if you're dealing with local patriots or old-school traditionalists, it holds its own despite 👍

Anthony Smith3 said:Meh... this feels just like that other thread about movies being ruined. A few people whine here and there, then after all the arguing, we basically realize things aren't actually that bad.🙄

Every year, you can always pull at least 10 absolute bangers out of the pile, while everything else is just... meh, okay, or whatever. It's always been like that since the dawn of cinema.

Check out my thread 😍

frozenbison3 said:We’re getting older, and honestly, some of that cinematic magic just seems to be fading away. It used to be that we’d sit there with our eyes and mouths wide open, totally floored by a movie or a killer soundtrack. But as the years pass and you gain more experience, stuff stops hitting the same way. It's harder to get surprised or even just genuinely stoked. I mean, think about it—if you’ve already sat through 10,000 horror flicks, what on earth does the 10,001st one have to do to actually rattle you? I was just sitting there thinking about it.

Man, maybe it’s just weird to us seeing our grandfathers just sitting at the table, messing with their food, maybe skimming the paper, and lighting up a cigarette. They just look completely bored with everything.

Solid, spot-on post, unfortunately 👎

silentpilot6 said:I guess I'm on board with the 😁 topic... honestly though, I can't even remember the last time an American movie actually blew my mind... 🤔
:

So, what's a movie that actually wowed you, man?

I mean, what do I know? I haven't really sat down to watch them or anything.

Michael Parker92 said:It’s nothing new—Hollywood quality has been tanking for a long time now. Honestly, I’d say this started back in the late nineties. Since the turn of the millennium, even though we get more movies every single year, the actual good ones are getting harder to find. The last two or three years? Man, I think they finally hit rock bottom. There just aren't any good movies left. (Seriously, if someone names a decent movie, I'll give them enough cash to buy INCEPTION).

Like I said, we already knew this.

My question is this: What do you guys think needs to happen? We have the actors, we have the directors, the tech is better than it’s ever been, yet the soul is gone. How do we fix the industry? How do we get fresh ideas again? What has to change before we see another masterpiece like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Deer Hunter, Taxi Driver, The Godfather, or Pulp Fiction?

Movies used to be 50% business and 50% art. Now, it's basically 33% propaganda (I'll get into that in another post), 66% pure profit, and maybe 1% art—and most of the time, that 1% is just some corporate garbage.

William Gonzalez3 said:Look, just quit whining here. There's a specific thread meant for complaining about the philosophy mods. Use that one instead.

My bad, sorry about that.

Can someone tell me why my thread about osveta jugosfera: Sječa Knezova got nuked?

Is it cool if I just repost it somewhere else?

nimblescout50 said:I honestly haven't the slightest clue.
For me, they’re usually just the most mind-numbing days of the entire year!
I mostly just sleep through half of it—not that I'm complaining, really.
If it were up to me, I'd just buy my own skis and head out to some mountain instead.😂

Once you move out of your parents' place, it’s actually a great way to hang with the family more. But while you're still at home, you just enjoy the fact that there's no school...

Maybe sounds a bit cheesy, but for me, this is the best time of the year.

So, I was thinking about how in places like Italy and Spain, they actually skip the whole Christmas gift thing for kids and wait until the Three Wise Men arrive on January 6th instead.

I’m not really about that whole "nostalgia for the good old days" thing since I grew up in an era where Christmas was already basically one big commercial. But what we're seeing now is just ridiculous. You look at places like Japan or China where maybe 1% of people are Christian, yet they’re out here flaunting massive pine trees and using Santa Claus to hawk toys in department stores...

Some right-wing conspiracy theorists swear that Jewish billionaires actually allow Christianity to exist just so they can rake in the profits from gift sales at their big retailers...
Meanwhile, the leftists claim it's all just some evil capitalist scheme to exploit us...

Honestly, who knows what the actual truth is... 😉

The movie was alright, I guess, but Tony Stark totally steals the show 👍
Robert Downey Jr. is a legend!
Too bad the guy playing Scarlet's partner feels a bit inconsistent, but man, she is gorgeous 👍

cosmictinker4 said:Having access to the coast was an absolute necessity for any nation until the invention of modern aviation changed everything.

You totally missed the joke. I was just messing around, saying even Mexicans would end up polluting the ocean if they had access to it... 😉