The Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Freaking Constitution.
After the Constitution was passed, James Madison yelled at the other Federalists until they agreed that yeah, we promised we’d add a bill of rights to get New York on board, maybe we should get on that. They proposed twelve amendments. Ten passed.
Proposed amendment number two was one of the boring ones. What it says is that when Congress passes a law changing its pay, that can’t go into effect until after the next election. A good rule to have, but not exactly earth-shakingly important. There were thirteen states, and only seven voted for it, so it didn’t pass. (Um, amendments need three quarters. They weren’t just that bad at counting.)
Pause.
Like, a lot of pause.
Cut to 1992, and it gets its thirty-eighth ratification, making it the law of the land.
(Actually it was the thirty-ninth. Kentucky had ratified it in 1792, but everyone forgot.)
What happened in between? Well, a couple of states ratified the amendment as a pointless expression of We Are Very Angry At Congress. (Which is, like, the default state of being for state legislatures and American citizens in general, so I don’t know how it didn’t pass in the first place faster than you could say “opposite of progress.”) But mostly it was a ten-year campaign started by some guy in Texas who wrote a paper on it for law school.
He got a C. Something about “unrealistic.” And now he’s personally responsible for getting an amendment added to the U.S. Constitution by sheer force of rules-lawyering. (Not even regular-lawyering! He did it by writing a bunch of letters about his favorite piece of trivia!)
Anyway, 1992 was also the year Congress passed a Cost of Living Adjustment act. Couldn’t take effect until ‘94, of course, but now their pay goes up automatically unless they suspend it. Gotta respect ‘em; they know this loophole business too.
Tags:
#this is beautiful #it probably shouldn’t be beautiful but it is #home of the brave #fun with loopholes
You can bring dead people to live again, but for every person you bring back, you have to sacrifice one body part
Me: *plucks out another hair*
Sadistic Genie: Okay I know that technically counts but I really feel you’re not getting into the spirit of-
Me: *ceremonially sacrifices hair, very seriously*
Sadistic Genie: Like one time, just once, couldn’t it be a toe or a finger or something?
Me: Oh like how you so graciously go by what people ‘mean’ and not exactly how they’ve phrased things?
Sadistic Genie: …
Me: …
Sadistic Genie: …sometimes I-
Me: Just resurrect them already.
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#fun with loopholes #death tw #so I tried looking this up #there seems to be a fair bit of agreement that the human *head* has 100k hairs #(though whether that’s true or just something that stuck I don’t know) #nobody seems to know how many in total beyond ”a fuckton” #if regrowing your hair and sacrificing the replacements is permitted #it’s very possible that the limiting factor on how many people you can resurrect #is how long it takes to perform the ritual rather than how many body parts you have
the funniest thing in the entire pirates of the caribbean series is definitely that one scene in At World’s End where they have parlay but davy jones is part of it, and rather than have him stand in the shallows or something they get a big bucket of water and have in stand on it on shore
who thought of that idea? who thought “put davy jones in a bucket of water” and had the guts to suggest it aloud? and then who went “hey that sounds like a great idea!”
at some point someone told davy jones their idea was for him to stand in a bucket of water and he agreed to it
*stands majestically in a bucket*
ok but notice the trail of buckets behind him meaning he walked from the ocean through three other buckets of water before he got into the one hes standing in
It’s even funnier when you consider how he must have figured all this out in the first place.
Some folks are asking “well, if he can avoid the no-dry-land curse simply by standing in a bucket, doesn’t that ruin his whole motivation?”, but he’s not on dry land here.
The parley takes place on a sandbar – which, for the unfamiliar, is a temporary “island” of sand deposited by breaking waves, unconnected with the shore, that spends most of its time submerged, being exposed only at low tide.
What Jones is doing here is rules-lawyering his curse. Can you imagine the trial and error he must have gone through in order to determine that this would actually work?
“Okay, do islands count as dry land? How about parts of the shore below the high tide mark? Reefs? Shoals? What if I stand in a pool of water on a shoal? Does it have to be seawater, or will any water do? Does it have to be a natural tidepool, or can it be something artificial, like a bucket?”
What I am saying is that there must have been a process.
++ for experimenting on curses (and everything else). Knowledge is power, kids!
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#Pirates of the Caribbean #fun with loopholes #a followup to the previous post #(might have actually been *intended* to be related to the previous post) #(the same person is involved in both reblog chains)
load up the playlist and spend the days writing and…praying
Let’s see…. 6 months of quiet and beautiful scenery to earn more money than anyone in the history of my family has ever seen?
Gee…
is food delivered? do I have access to my meds? can I bring friends? is there cell phone service in emergencies (eg I fall off a scenic cliff)? are there any social opportunities in meatspace or am I just in solitary for six months? what sort of library does the house have? can I leave to go shopping, or do I have to order shit like shampoo and craft supplies delivered too? are my living expenses coming out of the million dollars, who’s paying for them?
*always gets tied up in the logistics of that sort of thing* (also people go literally crazy without human contact for extended periods)
Everything JT said (except I’m not on meds). Additionally, you said no internet and TV. Does that mean I can have a computer as long as it has no internet access? If so, how much preparation time do I have to stock this computer with entertainment supplies? (Can I use external hard drives for more space?) Does non-streaming video count as TV? If videos still count as TV even when locally stored, is that all videos, or just videos that have also aired on television networks? (I’m pretty okay with no video at all for six months, but I’m asking anyway on principle.)
And JT, why limit cell phone service to emergencies? Limit data service to emergencies, sure, but technically nobody said anything about not being able to call people. (I’m less sure about texting, since as we learned recently texting is, for most practical purposes, the same thing as email.)
Carson + Paul is obviously the best choice. Heal the world + never worry about being sick or getting STDs + end the drug war. Only downside is spending three hours a day praying, which is honestly the easiest downside to deal with.
Also I think Paul’s running mate bonus is supposed to say “decriminalization” in the last paragraph.
Kasich is better than Carson I think. If you have a legion of 11 million loyal followers willing to heed your beck and call you could do pretty much anything and it would be a lot more fun than standing around all day touching people and feeling guilty every second that you’re doing anything else
I’m trying to figure out why Ted’s running mate bonus is supposed to be a good thing lol
I mean you could probably earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a day curing AIDS and cancer if you really just wanted to use it on yourself. Which is arguably just as good if not better than having 11 million loyal followers.
Or you could tax the ohioans just a few dollars a day each to earn a hundred times more.
Assuming “Ohio” means the legal state of Ohio, and not “the territory which currently forms the state of Ohio”, Kasich/Paul is totally OP and broken.
First, I legalize individuals and communities choosing which state to belong to democratically. The other states may whine, but governance only with the consent of the governed doesn’t violate basic rights, so with Paul I can totally do it.
Then I end the drug war. In Ohio, because I’ve legalized states setting their own drug laws.
I decriminalize states setting their own immigration rules, and open the borders in Ohio, defining ohioans as “anyone present in Ohio, or who announces their decision to join Ohio, or who has previously fulfilled either condition and has not renounced their ohioanness” (thus, making me immune to assassinations as anyone who would try to do it would have to travel to Ohio, become ohioan, and stop wanting to assassinate me and start wanting to protect me instead).
Then I implement a basic income in Ohio (for those who have been ohioans for a sufficient amount of time, as I have previously suggested). And all the other cool stuff, in Ohio.
Everyone would give anything for the cause, so I ask the people to be excellent to each other, and otherwise be free to do whatever they want as long as they don’t deprive others of the same right (but if they wish to give to charity they really should prioritize EA instead of Make-a-Wish). Crime in Ohio plummets to zero, and so does poverty, deprivation, and coercion. The economy gets an immense boom from the immigrants, and the abolition of zero-sum and negative-sum bullshit games, and all people working together for their prosperity, like a weird libertarian (or, in fact, full-blown anarchist in all but name) version of North Korea’s propaganda films come true.
The obvious consequence is that a lot of people would want to be a part of Ohio. Just as planned. It won’t take long until Ohio has a population of approximately 200 million and covers a vast fractal shape encompassing most of the major cities.
Then I become the president of the US in the most overwhelming election since Washington, seize control of all brances of the government, and turn my Paul powers to international law instead. Rinse repeat with a bit more restraint to not provoke a nuclear war, and I’ll soon have acquired most of the Americas, the major liberal cities of Europe, and vast swathes of territory in Africa as well (I’m deliberately not touching Russia or China because that way lies armageddon), in this only-nominally-stateful community of freedom and dignity.
It’s immune to invasions because open borders mind control magic, it’s immune to terrorism because surely you wouldn’t want to hurt your fellow ohioans, it’s immune to pretty much everything except ICBMs. For ICBMs my policy will be a clear and ruthless MAD if attacked, but otherwise non-interference in the affairs of the other superpower and the little regional Shitholistan with a superiority complex propped up by its ridiculous nuclear arsenal. In fact, I can afford a comparably submissive foreign policy, letting Russia pick the arctic oil and China get whatever gas fields it wants because our anarchist regime is too rich to care about such slim pickings.
We’re going to outer space instead. All the labor and ingenuity currently wasted in pointless things will be redirected in a program of technology and space colonization (and AI research but I’m assuming no FAI because it kind of cuts everything short and turns things boring). We’re going to cure all the diseases, conquer the Moon, Mars, and everywhere. We’re going to win.
A wise man once asked: “Why does everything always end in world domination with you guys?”
The rationalist answered: “Have you ever tried giving us a scenario that did not have world domination built in?”
To the US I came seeking fortune But they’re making me work til I’m dead The congressmen have it so easy The bankers put gold on their bread The people of the world are so hungry But think what a feast there could be If we could create an anarchist state That cared for the people like me:
I am the man who arranges the blocks That descend upon me from up above. They come down and I spin them around Til they fit in the ground like hand in glove. Sometimes it seems that to move blocks is fine And the lines will be formed as they fall – Then I see that I have misjudged it! I should not have nudged it after all.
Can I have a long one please? Why must these infernal blocks tease?
I am the man who arranges the blocks That continue to fall from up above. Come Ohioan! To the every last one! An individualist regime of peace and love. I work so hard in arranging the blocks But the landlord and taxman bleed me dry But Ohio will rise! We will not compromise For we know that the old regime must die.
Long live freedom, burn the flags! We salute the orange and black!
I am the man who arranges the blocks That continue to fall from up above. The food on your plate no concern of the state An individualist regime of peace and love. I have my choice in arranging the blocks Under promethean rule, what you say goes. The rule of the game is our rights are the same And my blocks can make my own-shaped rows.
Long live Ohio! It loves you! Sing these words, you know what it’ll do…
I am the man who arranges the blocks That are made by the men from Shitholistan. They came two weeks ago and back there they won’t go Now they’re working to our world conquest plan. I am the man who arranges the nukes That will make all the Putin keep away The hopes have come back, and ‘Murica is Black! Let us point all our dollars at EA.
We shall live forever more! We can start an altruism war!
I am the man who arranges the blocks That are building a highly secret base. Hip hip hurray for the AS of A! We are sending our men to outer space.
“Every single man, woman, child, and animal in Ohio” (emphasis added)
See the loophole?
That’s right, folks: nonbinary assassins.
(Furthermore, if we’re going to play with definitions as much as “Ohio” has been played with, perhaps the resistance could have elaborate coming-of-age rituals, without which one is not considered to be truly adult, and then deliberately keep binary people in a liminal state where they are old enough not to be children*, but since they haven’t completed the rituals they’re not men/women yet.)
(Might also be able to get some stuff done through gender abolitionism, which I seem to recall Promethea favours? So there could still be some benefit in this from their perspective depending on the resistance’s methods.)
(But nonbinary assassins would still be the quickest and easiest method, because we already have some nonbinary adults readily available and wouldn’t need to spend precious time training people out of old thought patterns regarding the meaning of adulthood and/or gender.)
*For obvious reasons, the definition of “child” should be made as narrow as possible.
Wouldn’t nonbinary people still technically be animals, biologically?
I’d say Carson/Paul. Cure all the diseases and become “the greatest doctor who ever lived” (obvious implications for medical and scientific research) and total immunity to disease (which probably means impressive personal longevity.)
And with Paul’s running-mate bonus, you already control the country (or possibly every country?) Pretty easy to dissolve Ohio by criminalizing it, or direct US forces against the unstoppable armies of John Kasich (if that fails to release to the mind control.) The only issue is what counts as a “human right” in this context – constitutional rights? The UN declaration? Can we experiment on moral law by checking what qualifies as a human right to this power?
“Wouldn’t nonbinary people still technically be animals, biologically?“
Good point. The resistance is clearly going to need more robots.
Tags:
#reply via reblog #fun with loopholes #choice games
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