Testing Chat Episode VI: Return of the Chat

[evilsoup]

I was under the impression that Hank Pym hit his wife once, while undergoing some kind of psychotic breakdown/multiple personality deal, and then everyone just turned it into a running joke?

I mean, Ultimate Hank Pym is another kettle of fish entirely, and that's the version that comes to mind when I think about the character. But I wouldn't expect the movies to go in that direction, where it's a genuinely abusive relationship.

[Stofsk]

I was under the impression that Hank Pym hit his wife once, while undergoing some kind of psychotic breakdown/multiple personality deal, and then everyone just turned it into a running joke?

I believe this is the case.

I mean, Ultimate Hank Pym is another kettle of fish entirely

Yeah he's a bit of a penis

Then again so's everybody in Ultimatesverse

[Darksi4190]

That's basically what happened. Its also notable that she knew he was mentally damaged due to chemical exposure and didn't get him help so she could manipulate him into marrying her.

Their entire relationship was a toxic mess. Actually most comic book relationships are toxic messes.

Then when ultimates came out the creative team thought it would be "edgy" to make him an abusive dickwad. Nothing good ever happens when writers use that word.

[evilsoup]

He's basically my 'default' version of Hank Pym, because that's the only memorable encounter I've had with the character. Also in general, the Ultimate universe was an interesting thing to start with, and the bit where he beats up the Wasp was... well, memorable, very well done, it felt like a 'real' situation. 'You shouldn't have made me feel small'. Brr.

But yeah, definitely not the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters.

[Big Orangutan]

I'm genuinely curious to see if they're gonna go with the wife-beating stuff.

i can basically guarantee the answer is no

they didn't even make an issue of iron man's alcoholism, they're not going to have a superhero who abuses his spouse

True, they did kind of half-arse it with the Iron Mang films. Having said that, at least in IM3 they had Tony hit kind-of rock bottom without the alcoholism.

Not that I expect much from Disney.

Yeah, Stark's alcoholism, womanising, and plausible drug taking getting mainly skirted round and the focus being instead aimed on blood poisoning and PTSD (that both get neatly wrapped up by script magic) are major reasons why the Iron Man sequels seem "off".

[evilsoup]

This is the best thing ever

#WhyImVotingUkip because it rained yesterday and it definitely came from another country

#WhyImVotingUkip is because I saw people on a train doing sign language & when I shouted "Go Back To Signland" they pretended not to hear

#WhyImVotingUkip because I can't stand paying 80p for a can of coke in Sandeep's shop when it's clearly marked on the can 59p

[Big Orangutan]

I'm sorry to say that unbalanced immigration has been a socio-economic disaster in England. No laughing matter.

[evilsoup]

The people in the areas with most immigration -- London and the big cities -- seem to disagree with you.

[Losonti Tokash]

I'm sorry to say that unbalanced immigration has been a socio-economic disaster in England. No laughing matter.

ahahahahaha

[Dude]

Did they take your jobs?

[Crazedwraith]

The people in the areas with most immigration -- London and the big cities -- seem to disagree with you.

immigrants have obviously taken our votes as well.


That said, net immigration to country, or really any kind of net population growth can't be great. We only have so much room after all. Don't want to concrete over all the countryside/farmland after all.

[Gands]

Some more:

#WhyImVotingUkip Because my iPod is full of jazz & African folk music and there's no more room.

#WhyImVotingUkip I used to have a job holding a flag, then some Pole came and took it off me

#WhyImVotingUkip because not even my cats speak English and there's two of them and one of me and I feel marginalised in my own home.

[evilsoup]

People in the UK only take up about 10% of the space. We've plenty of room, though we may not have enough houses (with or without immigration: we need to build more houses).

[Oxymoron]

So apparently the National Front won 25% of the votes in the European Election in France. And the UMP, the party of Sarkozy, a bit over 20%.

Let's just say I am kind of pissed against my fellow Frenchmen right now.



Re Urbanization: The obvious solution is Build Up(ward).

[evilsoup]

Also I just got back from watching X-men: Days of Future Past, and it was the best superhero film I've ever seen. They had a fight scene in the fist ten minutes that was better than the one at the end of The Avengers, easily, and they just got better from there. Plus: actual characters! And problems that weren't solved by punching them to death! I was worried that with so many characters, it wouldn't work, but it... did. Almost perfectly. I was also worried that Wolverine would end up taking all the oxygen in the room, but he was very much a supporting character.

There is the usual complaint that the history of the X-men is forty years of middle-class white men telling minorities that they should be nice to their oppressors, but frankly that's a much less horrible message than what most superhero films have.

So yeah. Ya'll should go watch it.

[Gands]

I'm sorry to say that unbalanced immigration has been a socio-economic disaster in England. No laughing matter.

To be fair, unbalanced British emigration doesn't have a great track record either.

[Oxymoron]

#shotsfired

#archdukedown

[thejester]

#shotsfired

#archdukedown

I look forward to a wave of ridiculous comparisons between old franz meeting his grizzly end and 9/11

why did the Triple Entente hate freedom

[Oxymoron]

Let us celebrate the 100th anniversary of WW1

By starting WW3

[evilsoup]

Re Urbanization: The obvious solution is Build Up(ward).

Unfortunately, that well has been poisoned by previous attempts using shitty building materials and generally half-assing the whole thing, at least in the UK.

[Stofsk]

I'm sorry to say that unbalanced immigration has been a socio-economic disaster in England. No laughing matter.

To be fair, unbalanced British emigration doesn't have a great track record either.

[Sandman]

I'm sorry to say that unbalanced immigration has been a socio-economic disaster in England. No laughing matter.

Every time I see a message like this, I just want to go on a rampage and a very big, very sweary rant because this kind of ignorant bullshit seriously pisses me off. But I'm going to detail it succinctly and calmly instead, because that's better for my health.

The first thing is, none of the problems in England, or Scotland, or Wales, or Northern Ireland, have been caused by immigration, and there is not a substantial enough link between immigration and the problems worsening in order to blame it for dragging us further down. The reason I can say this with a degree of authority is that the actual cause is pretty obvious, and rather independent of a bunch of poor and marginalised people from a poor and marginalised country trying to find somewhere where they can be less-poor and less-marginalised.

The current socio-economic problems of the United Kingdom can be traced back far more to tax-dodging members of the ultra-rich conservative classes, and the ravages of conservative-run austerity campaigns.

But people are xenophobic and don't like foreigners. And there are problems going on right now so obviously the foreigners must be at fault. And that's why people don't like foreigners, because there are problems going on right now and obviously the foreigners must be at fault. You can continue this cycle indefinitely. The Daily Mail and the Sun and the Daily Star tend to have a habit of it.

[magic princess]

Why is it a human right for populations to cross boundaries? This ideology presupposes that human individuals should be allowed to choose wherever they live on the planet... Essentially breaking down the boundaries and virtues of the state as a body. Since I believe there are actual benefits to the function of a distinct nation on a distinct land -- I would say the great multinational empires like the United States already cover too much land and allow too much freedom of movement. You can assert what you like about immigration not causing any problems, but politics is not based in fact, but ultimately is a subjective phenomenon based on peoples' widely varying views of self and country. You simply have to deal with the fact that many of your compatriots' views differ quite radically from your own, and that's legitimate.

Immigration to a certain extent is very cruel. It allows rich white countries to skim the best and brightest of every other ethnicity on the planet off the top, which helps contribute to leaving their homelands mired in poverty and disease. And that simple fact, of course, cannot be addressed the standard liberal discourse on immigration. None of this of course applies perfectly; for example there are millions of Anglo-Indians and Anglo-Burmese who one could argue based on the legacy of Empire have an automatic right to immigrate to the UK, as well as many other groups whose status in their homeland was profoundly defined or affected by the Empire. You can't just hand Hong Kong over to the communists and not let anyone who wants come to the UK, in another example. But there is the real problem that immigration solves nothing, and just hurts less developed countries by invariably preferentially stealing the people who could help fix their problems.

It's quite different from temporary residence for short term employment, business, or educational purposes, of course; opposition to that is just racism. But having legitimate enforcement mechanisms to guarantee that residence is temporary and to deny people temporarily in the country social services designed for the body politic are quite legitimate actions, on the proviso that you are then not bringing in massive numbers of migrant farm labourers who need such services; that isn't a legitimate kind of temporary employment, because people like that don't have the socioeconomic resources to actually be migrant--this is why a large scale amnesty is ethical in the US.

[Ralin]

You can't just hand Hong Kong over to the communists and not let anyone who wants come to the UK, in another example

Isn't that exactly what the UK did?

In stark contrast to Portugal granting citizenship to basically everyone in Macau who wanted it.

[Gands]

Immigration to a certain extent is very cruel. It allows rich white countries to skim the best and brightest of every other ethnicity on the planet off the top, which helps contribute to leaving their homelands mired in poverty and disease.

I would be more sympathetic to this idea if those same rich white countries weren't usually the ones exploiting the poverty-mired homelands for cheap manufacturing and such.