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Messages - Flee

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151
Serious / Re: New Zealand Mass Shooting
« on: March 18, 2019, 11:14:38 AM »
Fair, I dont consider myself racist but using a phrase like 'oh shit nigga' is one that can be used in my group from time to time, that being said it has eased up a hell of a lot these past few years. Im comfortable with the phrase, of course you dont say it to just anyone. That being said wasnt aware it wasnt all that uncommon.

And I said it as more of a satirical sense not racial, but this was way back when and we've all become a lot more careful these days.
I just want to add that jokingly going "oh shit nigga" is absolutely not the same or comparable to literally saying "you fucking nigger" at someone because you're upset and want to lash out.

Either way, I just think influencers like Pewdiepie (because I'm really not talking about just him) should take more responsibility and be proactive about countering this stuff in their communities. It seems like crazy talk that gaming and meme youtubers can lead people to radical political opinions, but several leadership figures within the alt right like Bannon (Trump's former campaign manager) and the Stormfront admins have openly talked about how this is one of their most successful recruitment techniques and that Pewdiepie is one of /ourguys/ who fosters an edgy counter-culture that's the perfect breeding ground for people to normalize racism, sexism, conspiracy theories and such under the guise of jokes and memes aimed at an impressionable audience that is gradually introduced to ever more hardline and divisive political content. And all of that is definitely something worth discussing.

152
Serious / Re: New Zealand Mass Shooting
« on: March 17, 2019, 03:46:28 PM »
I mean, Pewdiepie has called someone a "fucking nigger", paid people to parade a "death to all jews" sign around, promoted a holocaust denier channel, created a super edgy community rife with racism and sexism that the man himself doesn't say a bad word about.

Who doesnt just have the word nigger slip out? Everyone does it, I dont think saying that work makes you hitler. That sign was pretty bad not going to lie, but I dont think anyone actually thought it was going to happen, and the holocaust denier? Was it when he was promoting a bunch of channels a month or so ago? He was promoting it based on a few vids he watched, you really going to expect someone to watch every single one of their videos before they decide to promote them or not? Thats a bit far fetched.

Hes also said time and time again he doesnt condone the actions of people who watch his vids to attack people, be it online or the other, again hes apologized for his mistakes, what else can he do? Not to mention he isnt responsible for the actions of his 'community'. He isnt telling people to mess up someones place or anything like that. Hes a guy that makes videos about memes, they have been edgy in the past but for the most part hes had to heavily backtrack on a lot of things.

Hell if this moron in NZ didnt even mention Pewdiepie we wouldnt be talking about this. I dont believe for a second he took inspiration of the channel and purely did it to cause this rift and draw attention.  That much should be obvious.
Yeah, I absolutely disagree with that first part. I have spent hundreds of hours streaming in front of tens of thousands of people and not once have I felt the urge to call someone a "fucking nigger" in any situation or under any circumstances - both on-stream and offline. The fact remains that Pewdiepie has done a lot of shitty things and follows plenty of people with some vile and extreme views. Another weak apology after yet another shitty thing he's done really does not make up for that, and I've had yet to see him seriously denounce that part of his following.

You ask what he can do? "To all my viewers: I have made plenty of mistakes in the past and I want to consider how my actions might affect millions of impressionable viewers. If you believe in white supremacy or hold racist convictions, if you support anti-semitism or sexism, if you don't strive for equality and fair, humane and respectful treatment of all people, if you think that some people are inferior on the basis of their color / gender / sexuality / ethnicity, and if you advocate the violent suppression, expulsion, removal of rights and discrimination against them, then you are no fan of mine and I do not want you in my community. I denounce any and all connections with such extremist views and the people who hold them. If you recognize yourself in this, I want to be clear that I do not represent you and do not support you as part of my community. I will try to actively counter the proliferation of these attitudes in my following and take better care of how I present myself and the content of my videos."

Also, no one is saying Pewdiepie caused this or is accountable for the man's actions. What people are saying is that he's done plenty of shitty things that his community just eats up and that he does very little to combat the bad shit that's fostered by his following other than go "wow guys don't do this that's bad" when it hits the news.

153
Serious / Re: New Zealand Mass Shooting
« on: March 16, 2019, 08:31:39 PM »
We live in a timeline where we can now watch a schizo maniac shoot up a mosque via a gopro who at the same time tells us to all subscribe to PewDiePie
I would clap if someone blew up the EU HQ.
I know you're just a troll, but you're headed for a permaban with posts like this. Regardless of who the victim is or where the attack is aimed at, I'm not going to tolerate support for terrorist attacks on this forum. You can consider this a final warning.

Can't you already just do it though? What's the point if they're just going to tightrope the line between piece of shit who doesn't break the rules and dumbfuck who does?
I'm not going to make that decision by myself. If enough people decide he's just a troll trying to bait people and offers no discussion value, then sure.

154
Serious / Re: New Zealand Mass Shooting
« on: March 16, 2019, 07:29:19 PM »
What is bothering me is that so many people are not discussing the issues with their opposition.
Sure, but that's a lot easier said than done. How do you go about discussing this with the opposition? The way I see it, there's plenty of that happening already. I'm sure this gets brought up between friends, colleagues and family all the time. And because people make their opinions heard through social media or public gatherings, it gets picked up by their political representatives who then discuss it on their behalf in the government. The problem is that this is very difficult to do this with strangers online. Not that many people are interested in having those kinds of discussions since they all too often happen in bad faith or with huge biases. Good luck starting a debate with the opposition on forums, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Youtube... This is already some time ago and I don't really use Reddit anymore, but I got downvoted and blocked from posting because I posted a meta analysis of a myriad of studies finding positive impacts of gun control in response to someone saying that it's a proven fact that gun laws don't work in a sub about firearms. Having an honest talk with the opposition is a lot easier said than done.

Quote
I look at what a person's core values and principles are and so long as it is obvious to me that they do not follow any particular ideology then I will not associate them with that ideology.
I mean, Pewdiepie has called someone a "fucking nigger", paid people to parade a "death to all jews" sign around, promoted a holocaust denier channel, created a super edgy community rife with racism and sexism that the man himself doesn't say a bad word about, follows Paul Joseph Watson from Infowars / Lauren Southern the alt right leader and proclaimed white supremacist / Stefan Molyneux the "white genocide" guy and many similar people, and a bunch of other stuff. Regardless of whether Pewdiepie himself subscribes to all these people's ideals, it seems pretty strange to deny that he fosters plenty of it and does little to nothing to discourage it.

155
Serious / Re: New Zealand Mass Shooting
« on: March 16, 2019, 12:35:56 PM »
I get the sentiment, but neither of you are really proposing any alternatives. We can't just not explore and discuss the shooter's background or motivations and analyze what led to this happening because that's what he would've wanted. When something like this happens, we try to explain and understand it so we can prevent it from happening again. That's a normal and good thing that does require us to ask the difficult questions and at times even point fingers.

Of course, personal attacks are rarely called for but the shooter will succeed at his mission just the same if no one looks into the how and why while his manifesto gets spread around these hateful communities and the sick parts of the web. Our politics are little more than the manifestation of our values and the way we see society, and there's nothing wrong with people reacting to these events accordingly when they see flaws and problems.These events and the reasons behind them are usually very complicated. You say that the people are looking at gun laws, online influencers, forums breeding hate, subtle radicalization and such but are somehow missing the real problem? These things are very likely part of the problem and should be talked about.

You can't detach this massacre from how loose gun laws might have allowed him to get the weapons he needed to carry out the attack. It's likely that the shooter deliberately planned his attack in NZ because its permissive gun policy would allow him to get guns he couldn't get in Australia, so why should this not be part of the debate or solution?

You can't look at the recent rise of hate crimes in the West and think of it as unrelated to how some of our leaders advocate vigilantes getting tough against minorities which are mounting an "invasion" of our countries to bring in nothing but bad guys and rapists from shithole countries. Pushing such a hostile narrative that denounces these people as little more than enemies normalizes combative and aggressive attitudes, so why should that not be discussed or condemned?

You can't ignore how admins at Stormfront and people like Steve Bannon have repeatedly talked about how online influencers like Pewdiepie and the "alternative media", alt right / lite content creators and the farce that is the "intellectual dark web" of people like Tim Pool, Sargon, Peterson and that whole bunch are some of the best recruitment methods they have to draw people into rabbit holes that start with slanted and leading questions on serious topics, le epic gamer maymays and casual racist / xenophobic remarks. These people definitely play a part in normalizing conspiracies, mistrust and hostility against "the other", and they massively contribute to introducing impressionable people to an edgy counter-culture that is rife with hateful, misleading and harmful shit which pushes many towards more extreme and radical content (it's only a few easy clicks to get from Pewdiepie to his promoted channels which question the holocaust and rally against SJWs ruining everything to epic Shapiro owned compilations to Alex Jones talking about how liberals fake mass shootings to steal guns and protect brown people who rape our women). Why is this not something we can talk about as potentially part of this problem?

Instead, you dismiss this as people missing the point and just attacking each other when the "real problem" is that this was just a lunatic. A crazy man on a rampage. A problem that you might suggest we deal with just by improving our mental health care, without realizing that this man might be a loner who lives by himself, goes to his menial work and spends his free nights talking to likeminded people in the communities I just mentioned. He's not going to just go see a shrink - he doesn't think there's anything wrong with him. These thoughts he keeps having? They're justified, of course. Why can't he yell "nigger" at people? Damn SJWs, Sargon was right all along. These brown people on the street? Ugh, Trump's so right in saying this is an invasion we need to put an end to by radical means. What's the mental health system going to do for someone him? How many mentally ill people never even consider something like this? What's different about this guy?

People are very right in looking for solutions to these complicated problems. This wasn't just a mentally ill man. There's a lot that went into radicalizing him to this point. It's absolutely fair for people to question how laws, influencers, forums and narratives played a part in this massacre. And while that behavior can definitely cross a line, it's definitely not something you can dismiss as "look at the X, back at it again politicizing these things for their own narrative while ignoring what actually matters".

156
Serious / Re: New Zealand Mass Shooting
« on: March 15, 2019, 06:02:46 PM »
We live in a timeline where we can now watch a schizo maniac shoot up a mosque via a gopro who at the same time tells us to all subscribe to PewDiePie
I would clap if someone blew up the EU HQ.
I know you're just a troll, but you're headed for a permaban with posts like this. Regardless of who the victim is or where the attack is aimed at, I'm not going to tolerate support for terrorist attacks on this forum. You can consider this a final warning.

157
Serious / Re: New Zealand Mass Shooting
« on: March 15, 2019, 06:00:29 PM »
Pretty distressing stuff, considering how tight gun laws are there and here, the video showed him with a modified Shotgun, Pistol and an AR, how he got one is nuts...
If I'm not mistaken, gun laws in New Zealand are pretty loose compared to Australia. There's strong suspicion right now that the shooter deliberately moved to NZ for the attack because he'd have access to the guns he wanted there.

158
The Flood / Re: Abuse of Rights clauses, yes or no?
« on: March 15, 2019, 02:37:17 PM »
The line for me is drawn where expressing their opinion turns into actually encouraging people to go and infringe upon other's rights.
Out of curiosity, how would you apply this to:

- a politician campaigning for Muslims to not be allowed to pray or have mosques?
- an author releasing a book arguing that black people are subhumans who shouldn't be allowed to vote, that the holocaust never happened and that jews are a danger to freedom who should be treated as such?
- an influencer or media personality organizing marches for the preservation of the supremacy of the white race and against the muddying of the ethnicities of our representatives in the government?
- a vlogger or content creator calling on his thousands of followers to not respect minorities (say transgenders) and work against them wherever they can (by not hiring them, deliberately misgendering, making up complaints about coworkers...)

159
The Flood / Re: Abuse of Rights clauses, yes or no?
« on: March 15, 2019, 02:22:37 PM »
It's more or less required, right? It's going to be slightly contradictory either way. Say there's universal freedom of movement, but also right to privacy on your own property - trespassing is a violation of the latter right, but if you forbid it then you don't have the first right. You have to find the balance that has the best outcome overall. Sort of like the Paradox of tolerance.
Very true, but this is more about deliberately (mis)using rights to indirectly undermine those of others and betray some of the core values of our society. That's why it's usually referring to the right of free speech and situations in which people are exercising their rights for the sole purpose of destroying those of others. What you say is indeed common sense ("your rights end where mine begin") as my freedom to walk down the street and swing my fists around doesn't give me the ability to punch you in the face and violate your right to autonomy and integrity, but what about situations where someone uses their rights to free speech, assembly, vote and such to actively seek out the destruction of others? Is or should my free speech still be protected if I use it to call for minorities to lose their right to vote, speak, have a private life, assemble, have their own religion and so on?

160
The Flood / Re: Abuse of Rights clauses, yes or no?
« on: March 15, 2019, 05:46:33 AM »
Yeah I'm pretty much of the belief that anyone should be allowed to exercise their rights as long as they aren't infringing upon another person's rights.
Do you think that extends to speech as well?

161
The Flood / Re: Abuse of Rights clauses, yes or no?
« on: March 15, 2019, 05:45:14 AM »
how am i supposed to rally for 2A repeal now
The US Constitution does not have an abuse of rights clause so go right ahead. The country is also the sole outlier in considering gun ownership a human right as opposed to the universally accepted ones of privacy, speech, fair trial, equal treatment, assembly and such, so all the more reason to go for it.

162
The Flood / Abuse of Rights clauses, yes or no?
« on: March 14, 2019, 07:59:56 PM »
This is in my opinion one of the major questions regarding human rights. I asked Banjo on Discord but he proved unhelpful so I'm putting it out there for all.

For those unfamiliar with the term, abuse of rights clauses are essentially exceptions to human rights when they would be (mis)used to undermine any of the other freedoms. In other words, someone cannot invoke protection of his own rights when he's exercising them solely to destroy rights for others.

A notable example can be found in article 17 of the ECHR, which states that "Nothing in this Convention may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein or at their limitation to a greater extent than is provided for in the Convention."

An example of this would be someone using his right to free speech to rile people up towards destroying our fundamentals of democracy or taking away rights of others (such as fair trial, equality, privacy, assembly...). Under the abuse of rights clause, he would not be able to rely on his protection of free speech if he would be sanctioned for his behavior.

Thoughts?

163
Serious / Re: Just fuck my Brexit up
« on: March 13, 2019, 03:56:26 PM »
Best possible outcome of the day, I suppose.

164
The Flood / Re: How many of you would struggle to pay for unforseen costs?
« on: February 28, 2019, 06:49:49 PM »
I see many middle-aged people in those kinds of positions; at that age very few are attempting to work on their actual career, and even fewer would do so with a company like McDicks. So it makes me wonder what the Hell are they doing there? It's one thing if you lost a previous job, but there's one guy I work with who has been doing the same thing for 40 years, just retail. Like, what the fuck? If he wasn't content in his position, he would've been gone long ago. I only spend one year in my position before I really start getting agitated about not having something harder to work on, I could never imagine doing that for 39 more.

My guess would be that few people in that position are content in staying there forever.
Low ambition maybe. Or constantly hoping for something better just around the corner that never comes.

I couldn't do it either. I like my job because it's very intellectually engaging. Fun stuff.

165
This Russian bot was just too intriguing to remove. Anyone wants to bet on what he's on about?

166
The Flood / Re: How many of you would struggle to pay for unforseen costs?
« on: February 27, 2019, 02:48:58 PM »
it's kind of just the nature of an unforeseen cost, i find
In your experience or in general?
in general, unless you're one of the lucky ones and have disposable income
It's strange to think of people with disposable income as particularly lucky in a developed country.
it's sad, i don't know about strange
It's definitely sad too, but I think it's pretty strange to think that such a large percentage of people living in wealthy countries like the US and those in Western Europe lack the financial security to comfortably deal with (relatively low) unforeseen costs like this.

167
The Flood / Re: How many of you would struggle to pay for unforseen costs?
« on: February 27, 2019, 02:34:36 PM »
I personally plan on striving for higher end jobs so that emergency funds aren't crippling and eventually get to the point where I can handle a $10k unforeseen cost. That's just me however, I have no idea how a burger flipper at McDonald's who's content in their position plans on paying for a $10k emergency bar praying to a higher deity.

Do you guys see this changing any time soon and do you have plans to accomplish that?
My guess would be that few people in that position are content in staying there forever.

168
The Flood / Re: How many of you would struggle to pay for unforseen costs?
« on: February 27, 2019, 01:41:58 PM »
it's kind of just the nature of an unforeseen cost, i find
In your experience or in general?
in general, unless you're one of the lucky ones and have disposable income
It's strange to think of people with disposable income as particularly lucky in a developed country.

169
The Flood / Re: How many of you would struggle to pay for unforseen costs?
« on: February 27, 2019, 03:47:08 AM »
So I'm gathering there's around 4 people who could and 5 who couldn't pay a $1000 emergency without having to go into debt. That's (slightly) beating the odds.

Do you guys see this changing any time soon and do you have plans to accomplish that?

170
The Flood / Re: How many of you would struggle to pay for unforseen costs?
« on: February 26, 2019, 06:27:47 PM »
it's kind of just the nature of an unforeseen cost, i find
In your experience or in general?

171
The Flood / How many of you would struggle to pay for unforseen costs?
« on: February 26, 2019, 03:36:16 PM »
Title says it all. This has been on my mind after reading Kernel's thread about how he'd struggle to afford $700 to register his truck. As you might know, this isn't uncommon at all. Some reports have found that over 60% of Americans are unable to cover unexpected costs or emergencies of over a thousand dollars, which is pretty staggering. I looked it up for my own country as well and found that those numbers are far lower (around 20%) but still too high not to be cause for concern.

So I figured I'd ask you guys the same. If you had to pay $500 for some unforseen circumstances (medical costs, home repairs, unexpected bills, loss of a job...), would you struggle doing so? What about $1000? $5000? $10,000? If not, how do you think you'd manage? Ask family / friends to lend you the money, take out a loan, sell some things, take on a second job, dig into your savings?

172
What presentation?

173
The Flood / Re: Verb... Is this you
« on: February 11, 2019, 06:28:19 AM »
I can't see this going anywhere. Wrongful birth / life cases are nothing new and some of them have been accepted in the past, but they all came from people who were born despite their parents being aware of a serious defect. I don't think I've ever heard of a case where a wrongful birth claim was brought just on the basis of being born (healthy).

174
Gaming / Re: Second PC Build is being bought, but should I upgrade the CPU?
« on: February 07, 2019, 06:36:28 AM »
What would you be looking at? 8700k, 9900k or Ryzen?

175
Gaming / Re: Super Smash Brothers
« on: February 06, 2019, 06:11:54 AM »
As for the turning problem, I suffer from that too. Since I main Samus I can kinda use my b attacks as a crutch to turn but it's rare I manage to pull that off anyway. I'd also like advise about that if you've got it, Verb.
i dunno, for me it's a simple matter of tilting the stick in the right direction

if you're unable to turn around while recovering, you just have to be conscience of what direction you're tilting as you do the up+b

if you're too far in the neutral upward position, you're gonna do it in the wrong direction—you have to make sure that the stick is being tilted a considerable amount in the direction you want, but not so much that you'll be performing a side+b by mistake

if you use a gamecube controller or something with a gated stick, use it to your advantage, i've never tilted a stick upward in any direction diagonally without getting the exact up+b that i want
It's not just the recovery though, it happens in other situations as well. Say you block facing left while your opponent is to your right. You drop the block, move the directional stick to face towards the right, and hit the grab button or attack right after. It happens quite often that the turnaround input just doesn't get picked up and that I end up doing the attack or grab while still facing the wrong way even though I already moved the direction stick. I don't know if it's because of the input delay, the way the game (doesn't) buffer certain inputs or prioritizes some over others, or if I'm just not getting something, but it's something strange nevertheless. The movement just doesn't feel as tight as it could be, imo. You also sometimes see it if you want to quickly turn around in midair, let go off the stick again and then do a neutral air attack, but the input seems to linger long enough so that it still registers as a back air. I'm definitely willing to admit to some user error here but I've seen a bunch of people talk about the same problem. I guess it's just something that you learn to play around by getting used to the timings and how the inputs string together (seeing how pros and good players manage just fine), but it is something I think could still be better.

I'll give the diagonal up Bs a try though, thanks.

176
Gaming / Re: Super Smash Brothers
« on: February 06, 2019, 05:31:49 AM »
You've certainly heard this before from Verb, but don't lean too heavily on the AI for practice, otherwise you could develop some bad habbits. Even comparing yourself to the AI isn't really a good metric I feel just due to how janky and inconsistent they can just be sometimes.
Yeah, I know. Thing is just that I'm not really practicing for anything or trying to improve in a meaningful way. The game's fun but it's just something I play irregularly to kill time or late at night when I can't get to sleep. It's far from a main game for me and since you have to pay for the online multiplayer, I don't really see myself playing against other people any time soon. I was just wondering out of curiosity if there's anything you can do to get a general idea of your skill level by playing offline. Like in Dark Souls, I'd say that if you can pull off a level 1 run of all bosses, you're definitely a good player with a solid understanding of the game and its mechanics.  Or in Quake, where you're at the very least decent if you can beat the highest level bots in a 1v1 custom game.

177
Gaming / Re: Super Smash Brothers
« on: February 05, 2019, 07:55:24 PM »
The one thing I know I'm still bad at is fighting off stage. I only recently started trying it and it more often than not just ends in me killing myself. I hop off, go in for a swing and by the time I can recover with up B I'm already so far below the stage I can't back. I suppose it's probably because I should try to walk off rather than jump so I keep that extra jump after the attack, and that I should be careful with holding down to drop faster as it'll put me very low before I can start recovering.

178
Gaming / Re: Super Smash Brothers
« on: February 05, 2019, 07:52:18 PM »
Yeah, matches against the CPU are without items on the neutral battlefield stages. The highest level ones are pretty damn fast and accurate with blocks, grabs and pretty much everything else too, so I like to think I can't be that bad if I can consistently beat them. I played only one other person for a single match and that was with each of using one part of the controller without the black bands on top of them, so I'm not even going to count that one since neither of us could really pull of anything.

The priority thing mainly relates to Link's down sword bounce thing. If you're in the air and use it, you basically just hold out your sword beneath you until you land and I believe it'll just hit anything that touches it. If you're doing that above someone else, I feel it's very inconsistent if they respond by attacking upwards with any move of their own. Sometimes I just win, sometimes we both take damage and otherwise they just knock me away as if I wasn't doing anything. I'm sure there's some sort of a mechanic at play here but it's felt pretty random to me so far.

Damn, 6 frames of input lag really is quite a lot although I suppose fighting games can get away with some of it more easily than other genres. There's no completely continuous and precise tracking as is the case with your mouse in some FPS games, so having a minor delay isn't that bad when it's the same for everyone since there's some time between tapping buttons anyways. Definitely still noticeable though, unfortunately. My issue is not with a specific character, it's just some with some general aspects of movement. Like, say you're knocked off the right side of the stage and are facing away from it. You float closer to the stage by holding left and at the right time flick left again to turn your character around just before using your up B (with like Marth or Lucina, for example). I've had it happen numerous times where the flick to change my direction just doesn't get picked up before the up B already initiates - causing me to execute the attack still facing in the wrong direction away from the stage. This is a very noticeable example but I feel it can happen otherwise too with just normal attacks and moves. It just sometimes seems like the game drops inputs in quick successive sequences. This might have to do with the input delay or how the game deals with buffering inputs, but it's still a minor issue. I suppose you can just learn to play around it and get the timings for everything just right so that doesn't happen with enough experience.

179
Gaming / Re: Super Smash Brothers
« on: February 05, 2019, 04:51:46 PM »
Three things:

Is there any standard by which you can assess whether or not you're an even remotely decent player offline? I hardly play the game so have no illusions about where I'm at but is there anything that can tell how good you are? I've yet to lose a game against a level 8 CPU, if that says anything. Just a question out of curiosity.

How does attack priority work? Say I strike down above someone who does an up B. Is there any consistency in terms of who gets the hit? I feel like I've seen both outcomes all frequently. Sometimes the attacks cancel each other out but otherwise one just wins and gets priority. Is this whoever does the stronger attack, executes it later...?

What is up with input delay on movement? It's hands down one of the worst parts of this game unless there's something you can do about it in the settings or whatever. I regularly feel like I'm attacking facing left, hit the thumbstick to turn the other way around and then attack, and it'll just come out still going left. Killed myself several times doing up b the wrong direction because the controls feel very floaty in that regard. Am I doing something wrong or is this just something you learn to play around?

180
Is there anything preventing the UK from doing the same thing with Japan?
In legal theory? No. If the UK leaves the EU, it's free to enter into trade agreements with any other country. In practice? Yes, a whole lot. Free trade agreements are delicate things. There's a million things to consider. Import/export controls, consumer protection, health standards, labor law, environmental impact, protecting local business, harmonizing trade policy, practical considerations for customs checks and ports, intellectual property protection and mutual recognition of business rights, tax schemes and so on. This agreement between the EU and Japan has been years in the making because of how complicated it all is. Especially considering how inept of a negotiator the UK has shown itself to be during the Brexit talks, it's doubtful at best it will manage to conclude anything similar within at least a few years.

And that's just the start of it all. Both the UK and Japan's economies are heavily service-based rather than product-based. Free trade agreements work best when each party has something the other really needs, such as when one country produces a lot of goods while the other offers primarily (digital) services. This is not the case here as both countries are relatively similar. Free trade agreements also contain a lot of give and take where the weaker party tends to give concessions in exchange for access to the larger economy. Not only is Japan's economy twice the size of the UK's, but there's also very little the UK could offer Japan (or most other countries) that it won't already get from the EU. This is actually a major concern for the UK's trading future in general. It's expected that the UK will definitely be able to close these trade agreements but it will have to pay the price one way or another. The EU is about the largest economy in the entire world, rivaled only by the US and China. That gives it a lot of bargaining power that the UK simply doesn't have. A worry that many experts have is that the UK will essentially sell itself out to get trade deals with other countries after Brexit by, for example, becoming a tax haven for companies to avoid taxation or conceding on its own consumer protection and product quality standards. While there's already talk the UK could join the TPP (despite being nowhere near the Pacific), it's definitely not the same and will probably result in the UK taking a major hit. Japan has already warned the country repeatedly to avoid a no-deal Brexit as to not misalign itself with European standards.

So can it in theory? Yes. Will it be able to do so? Maybe, but it's going to be difficult. Is it going to get as good of a deal as the EU does? No, it's pretty much guaranteed not to.

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