Tornado

Your first post specifically called for people to not vote for third parties because then the major party candidate might not win; that since third parties can't win the only thing a vote for them will do is make one of the major parties lose. That is opposite of this: But it's perfectly in line with this: Nearly every post I've made since then has been trying to explain why yes, voting for a third party in this specific election, with its never before seen unpopularity in its front-running candidates and never before seen levels of independent affiliated voters and it's never before seen shitshow of an election, could have serious implications for the viability of their platforms. I explained how it could help them get into debates to discuss their views with the viable candidates. I explained how it could give them massive boosts to the funding they have when running their campaigns in future elections, so their voices don't get so easily drowned out in the election cycle. And you still keep bringing up how third parties can't win the White House. I only lightly glossed over the implication that Trump would pack the Supreme Court with the kind of people John Boehner would think were too extreme, an argument that read like it was copy pasted right off of tumblr or Huffington Post comments section; and didn't even touch the part of your post that essentially told people to just shut the fuck up and vote for Hilary: And to be frank, at this point I'm glad I didn't. I've seen you debate political topics for years and I've had no problem debating you in good faith no matter what the topic; and I am shocked that you've devolved your political discourse to this level. That is the sort of shit turbojet used to say when he started these threads, including this one four years ago, so he could just make veiled insults at anyone thinking of voting Republican. That's why people on this forum are so uncomfortable posting in these threads at all unless they lean left.

I'm not saying that cynicism from this election will just carry over to 2020. Again, a good performance in this election by third parties, the best chance for a third party to make a good performance in six election cycles (if not twenty-six of them), guarantees perks to the current third parties that they have never had access to before. It guarantees visibility to them and their candidates, whoever they are next go around. Johnson is already close in some polling to achieving such. Stein looks like she is taking steps with straggling Bernie supporters to accomplish the same. That is a big deal for the 2020 election, regardless who the establishment candidates are for the GOP and DNC. I literally cannot make it more clear that I don't expect a third party candidate in the White House come November. I do not understand why you keep bringing it up. Was that before or after you said voting for third party candidates is just a symbolic gesture? Local elections already don't follow party politics anywhere near as much as national ones. Even state legislature races don't have as much of a party influence and can be dotted with independents. New York's Senate currently has 5 of them. For the past twenty years, there has usually been at least one third party/independent governor somewhere in the country. Hell, now that he has gone back to his Senate seat, Bernie is.

It's really not though. Your principles happen to align with whatever ones Clinton has adopted for this election, but that goes more towards being convenient for you rather than a counterpoint for why people whose principles align with someone else (we'll say Bernie, but it could be Johnson or Stein just the same) can't vote along them without it just being symbolic. I'm not going to vote for Trump or Hilary, but for damn sure I'm not voting for what I believe in just to be symbolic. I could send a symbolic vote for my dissatisfaction with this particular election cycle by not even bothering to show up and it wouldn't make any difference to the front runners. And I don't see where anyone said otherwise; nor do I think anyone actually expects it. Johnson and Stein aren't Roosevelt, and Bernie probably could have been before but isn't anymore. It's not really a point worth hammering. But it isn't just bad candidates. It's decay of the actual parties. The GOP is, as you say, a shitshow of the highest order. They created such an insular party line that someone who almost certainly doesn't believe in any of it was able to manipulate himself into the face of it against the wishes of the GOP establishment. But how much better off is the Democratic Party, the party of social reforms and progressive attitudes, when it turns out that the powers that be fought to get a candidate as... uh... progressively minded as Clinton as the front runner? "I suggest you start getting the word out" about switching the something like the UK system or whatever isn't a rebuttal when I explained why I felt voting third party, in this election especially but not exclusively, can have a greater effect on the future then just towing party lines would and can cause changes to the system. With the disapproval ratings for both of the front running candidates in this cycle, it would not take terribly much to have the Green or Libertarian party get dramatically more exposure than the fringe status they have held off and on in previous cycles.. With front runners that hated, it would not take terribly much to have Stein or Johnson guaranteed a spot on every ballot (though the latter probably will already happen), or a spot in each of the debates over the next few months. And in the general election, with main candidates that unpopular, the 5% popular vote hump to get federal funding (and the air of legitimacy that entails) is not insurmountable; which means in 2020 a third party could mount a more serious offense against the established ones and force them to actually adapt. Your "solution" comes off as nothing more than pretentious, as if the millions of people who go to bat for third party candidates most in line with their beliefs (nevermind the third party candidates themselves) are just doing it wrong.

I'm sorry to hear that you feel voting for principles you hold dear rather than simply against whatever boogeyman happens to be in the other party in any given election is a purely symbolic gesture; but it is something I simply cannot agree on; in the election we are currently facing especially.

And reinforcing the status quo lowers those barriers to entry? Telling people to just vote for whatever Democrat or Republican candidate is vaguely closer to whatever their political views are doesn't entrench those above things even deeper? Right now we have a candidate who has spent sixteen years of political office as a Democrat seemingly only because her husband was a (conservative, Southern) Democrat' and a Republican candidate who went into interviews and debates without even realizing what the "correct" answers were to popular Republican talking points. Both of them have decades of baggage and, other than probably the 1860 election, unprecedented disapproval of the choices provided by the political process; but the correct solution is still "just vote whoever isn't as bad as the other one?" So when does the math about the voting threshold required to receive federal campaign financing come into play? When does the math about the popularity threshold required to get in on debates or on the ballot come into play? When does the math about these two candidates being the most strongly disapproved candidates in the history of polling for candidate disapproval come into play? When does the math about the record number of people registered as independents come into play? This is an election where the nomination process has failed for both major parties to provide anyone who would be electable at all if the alternative was basically anyone else, and is so mired in corruption and supposed corruption and controversy that there is practically a new scandal every day. Mitt Romney would have walked Hilary. John Kerry would have walked Trump. This is an election where a third party could have a legitimate shot at building itself up for the future as a viable option; or at least fracturing one (or both!) of the current ones until they get their shit together; which they clearly need to do if Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump are the faces of the two parties in 2016. This is an election where one of the potential nominees stirred up a lot of his substantial support from people who never had any interest in the political process, and have gone right back to not giving a shit now that he is out; and where one of the potential nominees of the other party basically told the winner to go fuck himself instead of endorsing him. This is an election where it is possible that neither candidate would even be allowed to finish their first term if they were elected. This election isn't 1992, or even 1912. Third parties in this election have a unique opportunity provided to them to make serious inroads to political legitimacy; to actually lay groundwork that won't automatically be destroyed by a popular incumbent in the following election cycle.Telling people, essentially, that every vote they make out of principle is a vote for the major party least aligned with you, flies in the face of all of that.

This election has two candidates currently so unpopular that Donald fucking Trump is the Republican candidate straight off of his reality TV show and he's polling comparably to his Democratic competition. And its not just because there are so many racists or Christian fundamentalists or rich people that he's mega popular. We have an election coming up that might as well be Richard Nixon versus Richard Nixon, yet the assertion remains that voting for a third party is throwing your vote away? The assertion that actual left wing members of the Democratic party (and not just the existing ones that Bernie dug up who never would have voted for Clinton at all otherwise) should just give up and vote for someone who is probably only even a Democrat because it was more convenient for her political aspirations? The assertion that, yes, long time Republicans should vote for someone who would never have been considered Republican until he started being an idiot over Obama's birth certificate last election cycle? The assertion that people who are somehow undecided on who they should vote for at this point should just vote for whoever sounds less scary? Sorry, but no. That's bullshit of the highest order. I hate Trump, but even if I didn't hate her as much as I do I'm sure as shit not going to vote for Hilary just because I hate Trump more; or because I'm assuming that he's going to do a bunch of heinous shit that he never showed much indication of supporting before running for president; nor should anyone who leans more towards the ends of the political spectrum than I do. Lesser of two evils is a false dichotomy of the highest order, practically a synonym of it; and to perpetuate a "lesser of two evils" mindset when both of the candidates are complete scumbags is just irresponsible. He said it directly after the leak of an email scandal showing that the former DNC head was involved in a conspiracy to stymie the Sanders campaign; the former DNC head who was immediately integrated into the Clinton campaign (albeit in a meaningless window seat after) her resignation. Said email scandal was almost immediately noted to be from the Russian government. Hilary Clinton had her own email scandal that she squeaked by actual charges being brought to bear against her over it; which conveniently can be tied in to taunt her over it. So, yeah, it was a joke. The Russian government wasn't waiting for Trump to give them the go ahead to perform espionage they were already capable of before they supposedly dug up the DNC stuff; and if they have the ability to dig up whatever "personal" emails Hilary sent that concerned national security they haven't been waiting for Trump to say it is okay to try. The alternative (or addition) to it being a joke is that it was a clever way to trip up Hilary's team over her email scandal. Which, amusingly, they seemingly ran right into. And considering Trump keeps walking into these gold mines with this shit, I'm having a harder and harder time believing that he's as much of a fool as everyone plays him for; blindly stumbling and capitalizing on controversy to controversy because he's just so racist that everyone loves him anyway. Politically inexperienced or presidentially unsuitable that he may be we can bring up examples for all day, but he still basically walked the nomination process. He blew out the person everyone assumed was going to be the nominee, to the extent that most late night television writers probably already had all of their jokes written; and despite obviously being against the GOPs wishes did so so fast that Jeb's campaign was dead in the water before the actual year of the election. Perpetual political opportunist Hilary Clinton, who has probably spent at least 20 years doing whatever she could to build enough political capital to spend on this election and was obviously favored by the DNC long before any emails were sent confirming it, almost lost the nomination to another Senator from the northeast no one had ever heard of before last Fall. Again, this sounds an awful lot like scare tactics to justify why you shouldn't vote outside of whatever your party affiliation is. The obstructionist GOP controlled house that also isn't, never has been and never will be particularly thrilled with Donald Trump, you say? Yeah, they'd probably pick Trump. But considering how quick people all over the political spectrum are to point out how full of shit he is, you know what the main difference between the obstructionist GOP House picking Hilary and the obstructionist GOP House picking Trump would probably be? Congress would have an awful lot easier of a time impeaching Trump.

Fixed. They fiddled with it anyway for Mega Collection, but it wasn't a bug.

Also, while this is specific to the Game Gear and the shitty caps that Sega put in it (NEC had a bad batch around the same time that kills a lot of PC Engines and Turboduos, and it plagues the Sega CD Model II as well), bad caps are a good starting place to look for any older electronics not working correctly. Any computer or TV repair shop should be able to do it. Failing that, any independent shop that sells and services high end audio equipment would definitely be able to handle it.

What Akito is trying to say, for you tl;dr people, is that it is very important to have a sash that says "moderator" on it.

Who would Trump actually elect to the Supreme Court? Someone pro-business, for sure, but beyond that what could we realistically assume will be put in place? That seems pretty self-fulfilling to me. Beyond whatever Bernie stragglers decide that they don't want to go back to just not voting every election, who is going to change their opinions about Hillary Clinton over the course of 4 months?

Commenting on this because I didn't notice this until it popped up in my recommended today, but it's very interesting that Sony didn't design it anything remotely like Sega did with theirs. Based on the way that cartridge seems to work, it seems like the whole CD unit was designed to interface with the system almost identically to how PC Engine Super CD did.

That's true, and I agree, but my point was that those don't have emulation quality issues because thry aren't emulated.

In a word, yes. Ironically, the DS Collection version has higher quality sound than the original games tended to; something akin to a CDX/X'Eye, if not a Model 2 modded to remove the sound filtering. Those are also actually ports.