"Could we have Two Ultra Modern Boards, please." Topic

Did you yourself say on a another post that Politics was for the Blue Fez? (or something like that?)….

Nah.

Just create a Near Future Board like we requested long ago, and get on with it!

It should allow any and all discussions on possible warfare – including, but not limited to, political environments, financial motivations and commercial and military strategies behind the actual battle scenarios you plan to "recreate" on the gaming table – that are projected or simply possible in the next couple of decades, from 2016 to, say 2036!

Just let people know ahead of time, perhaps in the board's description box, that the discussions are for those who can handle opposing views, and keep the discussions civil, without any personal attacks.

Two Ultramodern Boards is ridiculous. Each will be incomplete.

None of the other historical boards have that restriction, because everything that happens before an actual battle can, and usually does, affect what you end up with on the gaming table.

Dan

The Editor in Chief would rather punish left wing politics and let right views slide, so it will never happen.

I say this as a card carrying right wing wacko who sees his views get away with it 80% of the time while lefties get punished 80% of the time.
Not a scientific survey, just a bemused feeling and observation.

Give it up kyoteblue. It's a lost cause. You are tilting at windmills and nobody but you seems to care.

If the Editor and the rest want to keep the discussion of events of the last 10 years absolutely politics-free, I'm fine with the Ultramodern Board being limited solely to tabletop matters. And simply click on the complaint button on all transgressors, and enforce it equally.

But I guess my interests are more about the immediate future, the next 20 years or so, in all its many forms, both the obvious and the behind the scenes ones.

Just view the Near Future Discussion Board as SF discussions about projections for modern governments and armies, including technologies planned for release in the next few years. Then discuss how you would implement that new tool on the tabletop.

And, in a few years you can even go back to the threads there and see how your overall predictions panned out.

Dan

Kyote: "I'm a Democrat in Oklahoma, lost causes are all I fight for."***

Funny you should say that. At work I'm usually surrounded by radically liberal ex-journalists, and all the TVs in the office are on mainstream media news channels that constantly reflect their views all day long. And all their conversations take for granted that everyone feels exactly like they do.

I have to wait to leave work to watch any conservative news, though I may not always buy what they sell. Or, if I happen to be stuck working late, I'll change to any channel I want, as long as I leave the office with everything the way they had it.

If they didn't always gang up on me and ridicule or insult my views The times we've gone out to lunch or for a drink after work, I might be more social with my office coworkers.

So I either eat alone or with folks from other departments who encourage and respect a good debate, can keep it civil and can agree to disagree on things. I've come to respect and even defend everyone who has been able to do that, though our views may be completely opposite. Same goes for topics on religion.

Dan
*** By the way, is that anything like a Republican visiting Austin? If so, I feel for you. :)

Dan,

Try working for the Intelligence Community – I get the impression that the quote from an author who wrote a book about the CIA, "While there I never met as assassin or a Republican," is exceptionally understated.

Dan,
I long for the day when there is no liberal news nor conservative news; just the facts news. I can make up my own mind.

I don't think we need a board for politics. We need a board for modern miniature wargaming and another board for Tango's personal military current affairs blog/link bait.

That way members wouldn't need to sift through dozens and dozens of posts/links/rants about NATO spending, ISIS recruiting, and defense contractor press releases to find the rare wargame related thread.

The main problem with this is that you are expecting TMPers to show some discipline in where they post. That has been proven a problem in the past.

Remember when we had separate Napoleonic History and Napoleonic Discussion Boards? The intent was to keep one board for "serious" posts and the other for the free for alls that Nappies are famous for. It worked as well as one would think, and your proposal is doomed to the same fate.

T Andrews: "I long for the day when there is no liberal news nor conservative news; just the facts news. I can make up my own mind."

Amen, brother. That would be one of the happiest days of my life!

Dan

But CC, we are at a point where the opposing ideologies can't even agree on what a fact is, much less which ones are relevant. A "fact-checker" declares something "techncally true" then labels the assertion false.

link

link

But you cannot get politics out of war, which is "politics by other means." Plenty of games with political elements, too.

Anyone remember the old SPI game of South Africa? The apartheid regime could not win, period, it was built into the game.

everyone agrees the news is biased towards the other guys

A possible solution is just to reinstate the Current Affairs board, but as The Fez is supposed to cover that, I don't think it will ever happen.

As it is, UM works fine. The tin foil hat brigade can post away happily, and I can keep it turned off.

It's a cycle.

Ban all politics from TMP.
Bring a bit of politics back to TMP.
Bring all the politics back to TMP.
OMG WHAT DID WE DO? BAN ALL THE POLITICS FROM TMP!

Just leave it as is. Ignore the folks you deem to be d-wads and read the posts you find relevant.
Thanks,
Pat

There never was a period when news did not have ideological tilts.Never! Not in the AWI, not in the Early Republic, not in the Era of Good Feelings, not in Jacksons Republic, not in the march to the Civil War, not during the Civil War, not during the Reconstruction, not during the Gilded Age, not during World War I, not during the Roaring 20s, not during the 1930s, not during World War II, not during the 1950s, not during the 60s, not during the 70s, not during the 80s, and so on.

There never was a rosy period of love and harmony and understanding. If you have the illusion there was you either were in the winning coalition, or in totalitarian regime. Politics has always been and is (and will be for some time, though Telsa and comapny might free us of a big part of it) deciding Who gets What, How and When with a focus on scarce resources. It always has losers who chafe at losing and winners who try to legitimate their winning. Thus there are not non-ideological facts in politics.

Newspapers still do a good job. If you avoid the NYTs editorial board and Op-Eds( the enemy of journalism) the investigative journalism they do, especially on NYC issues is awesome. But again, the news were always slanted to politics.

If that's the case, why do the WW2 and Napoleonics boards manage to be mostly gaming content while the ultra modern boards fail to do so?

I mean, people can discuss a WW2 AAR without discussing economic central planning versus capitalist market economics.
Why isn't that the case on the A10-ISIS-NATO spending board?

Weasel,

One Word. People.

What might affect us now is political by definition.

Sure, everything is political, even the rejection of politics.

But we can probably talk about how to rate the M60 vs Leopard or whether the distinction between an RPK and an RPD is enough to model in a skirmish game without delving into politics, yes?

edit:
Let me ask this in a different way since it seems everyone is just repeating themselves each time:

What discussion that is directly relevant to a game is it currently not possible to have on TMP?
I am trying to come up with something and coming up short.

Is there something I am missing?