Don_alForno

We are the Borg.

For getting caught. Not for being Nazi terrorists.

I'm itching for the co-op update to do a second play through with my gf.

Tried it on the Deck in TV mode, but the frame rates dropped so much during boss fights / class strikes I went back to finishing it on PC. I guess on the small screen I could have dropped the settings further, but on TV that was really hard on the eyes. Which is sad, as I mainly got the deck as a "switch but for pc games". Guess it'll mostly only work for pixel art games etc. for me.

That doesn't mean all fact checks are bullshit, just that fact checkers are people with jobs and opinions too.

Wing Commander 1-4, space epics of my childhood.

Gee, it's almost as if their religion's name patron had preached to love and forgive each other and aid the poor and downtrodden. Crazy thought.

Say what you want about al Qaeda, but at least they know they're evil

I'm pretty sure they think they're the good guys.

Everybody is the hero in their own movie.

It's not about who gets the sweeter deal. It's not a transaction. Members don't buy services from the EU with their contributions. If France gets more payouts, it's because France has more of whatever triggers those payouts. It's not the GDI though, so "same GDI, different net payments" is a flawed argument.

If we're both in a tennis club and pay the same member's fees, but I go to play on Thursday, when there's less people, more space and a free drink at the bar for members, but you go on Saturday, when people are fighting for free courts and you can't find a seat at the bar, I get the better deal. That doesn't mean we're not treated fairly, we're just using different parts of what's available.

Now, if you had to pay higher fees in the first place because I said "I"ll only join if I get a discount", that would indeed be unfair.

That means it's working.

You're confirming that France pays less in.

I'm not. They paid more in fact. They just also got more back out.

Obviously I'm talking about Net. Gross doesn't matter.

Wrong. What a country pays in and what it gets out are two entirely unrelated questions.

Payments to the EU are calculated by GDI and that's that (except when there is a rebate). They are supposed to be fair based on that metric.

Payments back to the members are not "free money" the government can spend on whatever. They are subsidies bound to specific purposes that have their own specific criteria of distribution. They are not designed to be fair by comparison of GDI or similar metrics. If there were, as a hypothetical example, an EU program to subsidize local winemakers, you can see how France would very likely receive more money out of this fund than the UK.

It literally does. France does not receive a rebate on the normal calculation by gross national income.

France did receive more EU payouts than the UK in the past ( Example from 2017 ), leading to lower net payments. That's not the same as paying less in the first place though.