John Oliver updates us on the current state of the Mueller Investigation

This worked in Canada for me.

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I’m on your side with this one.
“The Hunger Games” felt like a put-up job. All those lovely cities and technology to play with, but the poor folks still live like the Waltons. Gotta get your gladiator kids from somewhere…
Whereas Mad Max had a plausible post-apocalypse feel to it simply because EVERYONE is in the shit. Not sure why a lot of people ended up in bondage gear, but hey, anything goes in the end times.
I assume it is pretty similar all over the Max-World, but I get the feeling China and the rest probably watch the Hunger Games on satellite as the world is probably fine. Another reason to keep a close eye on Rupert Murdoch.

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That’s another logical flaw that really gets stuck in my craw; Oh we live in a dystopian society where 2/3 or so of our offspring are forced to fight each other to the death… so we just keep popping out babies to go die horribly, anyway?

As if no form of birth control had ever even existed before whatever apocalypse happened? (Or like we couldn’t figure out some way to produce it again, if all the previous prophylactic resources have somehow been wiped out?)

Get the fuck on with that nonsensical bullshit; that’s not how humans work.

Exactly. Even thepeople at the ‘top of the heap’ in the new social hierarchy, like Immortan Joe and Auntie Entity, were still ‘in the shit.’

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Well. Nationalist Exceptionalism bullshit. Exactly my problem with 3% on Netflix.

Also why it bugs me that Aliens in Anime always crash land in the tiny strip of land that is Japan.

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I think there’s just a huge gap on average between “writers good at world building” and “writers good at storytelling.” It’s Tolkien vs. Rowling type differences. In the Hunger Games, I was willing to ignore the giant backstory hole, but past-me probably wouldn’t have been willing to do that.

Also, District 13 and the Capital still have nuclear arsenals. The Hunger Games Wiki apparently cites this as possibly being how they deter threats from any other nations that may still exist. http://thehungergames.wikia.com/wiki/Nuclear_weaponry

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Fair point; it’s totally not just the US that has major nativism issues.

It’s just that being from here, my home country is the one that most often reminds me of Bart Simpson as a noxious toddler, in all his annoying self-absorption:

Mayhap that’s the case.

IMO, Collins is subpar writer who’s complete SHIT at world building.

Also, I’m gonna move on now; it wasn’t my intent to derail the entire thread like this.

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I completely agree.

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Peeta said it during one of the propaganda broadcasts:

I want everyone watching – whether you’re on the Capitol or the rebel side – to stop for just a moment and think about what this war could mean. For human beings. We almost went extinct fighting one another before. Now our numbers are even fewer. Our conditions more tenuous. Is this really what we want to do? Kill ourselves off completely? In the hopes that – what? Some decent species will inherit the smoking remains of the earth?

I took that to mean “humanity as a whole was brought to the brink of extinction in the last great World War, and Panem was one of the few (possibly only) nations to rise from the ashes.” YMMV.

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Obligatory counterpoint:

…and a reminder that Trump is a symptom and symbol of American fascism, not the underlying cause.

Trump didn’t invent plutocracy, Trump didn’t invent white supremacy, Trump didn’t create the empire. Dealing with those problems requires a lot more than just deposing one man.

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True, but it would be a good start.

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So long as you don’t just replace him with a more competent fascist.

In related news, my Twitter feed just delivered this nice example of why excessive Russiagate enthusiasm is a dangerous thing:

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Retribution for Yeltsin?

Tch. Touché.

Maybe there was no war?

Maybe a bunch of media moguls decided to lie to the American Heartlands about the “war”, and the rest of the world is happily continuing along without the flyover states?

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Fighting World Wars in Europe is so 20th century…

Okay, they tried to mix it up somewhat by spreading it out to parts of Asia in part two, even including the use of nuclear weapons as a plot twist, but if they want to re-boot the franchise successfully they’ll have to come up with something original.

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Which is one reason to take down that symbol. While Russians may not have elected Trump, they provided a massive disinformation and opinion campaign that painted him as a valid choice and his opponents as crooked, lying, etc etc.

While I’m not so delusional to think that cutting the head off this snake will make it safe, it will at least be headless.

So far, no nukes thrown, so we’ll see.

Also, NK is smart enough to realize we can wipe them out 100 times over if they lobbed a bomb at the west coast. They’re using nukes as leverage more than anything else I’d argue. SK and Japan is more in danger than the US.

Well, I think her primary goal was to explore issues of war and trauma among young people, which I think she does.

Plus the events of the story are almost 100 years past whatever event it was, with no real form of education about history, so it’s not a huge surprise that no one outside of the city has any idea what happened, other than some vague notions.

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/-—This.

Although Jong Un seems less of an unhinged lunatic than his father. I’d argue we can be more sure of this leverage argument today than, say, 30 years ago with conventional weapons.

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good thing nobody has suggested we stop there.

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