User:TheTimesAreAChanging

"[The Japanese Red Army] had tortured a number of its own members to death in Japan. (One, for instance, was a young woman. They had buried her alive under the floorboards of the rooms in which the gang lived. Her crime had been to ask one of the comrades to pass her a paper handkerchief. The leader of the group, Fusako Shigenobu had seen this as proof that she was 'too bourgeois', for which she deserved to die. The murdered woman was pregnant at the time.)"-From Jillian Becker's 1984 classic The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization, pg. 129. If I were still reading as many Neo-Reactionary blogs as I used to, I would probably include the caption "Leftism in a nutshell." From the fanaticism with which the Khmer Rouge set out to kill (after the most extravagant tortures) every Cambodian guilty of thinking insufficiently virtuous thoughts (or of wearing glasses—which could indicate intelligence—or having received a Western education, like the French-educated intellectual leaders of the Khmer Rouge themselves) in a massacre with few parallels in recorded history, to the censorious campus Left that threatens violence to block a feminist speaker due to her "transphobic" belief that a biological male cannot draw on the same reservoir of experience as an individual that has been female for their entire life, examples such as the above may merely be caricatures, but revealing caricatures nevertheless.

Hello, and welcome to my userpage. My name is Jake Murrin. I am an extreme introvert from Lombard, Illinois, whose primary interests are reading books and editing Wikipedia. (I wish there was more to me than that, but sadly, I live a rather unremarkable life.) As "TheTimesAreAChanging," I am best known for my work on Dreamcast and other articles about Sega gaming consoles, as well as articles on the modern history of the Middle East.

Fast Facts

This user is from Illinois.

This user lives in or hails from Chicagoland.

This user is left-handed.

This user considers himself self-educated.

30YThis Wikipedian was born on 01 November 1993 and is 30 years, 10 months, and 29 days old.

13,000+This user has made more than 13,000 contributions to Wikipedia.

This user helped promote Sega Saturn to featured article status.

This user helped promote Dreamcast to good article status.

This user helped promote Sonic R to good article status.

This user helped promote Sonic Lost World to good article status.

This user helped promote Super Monkey Ball (video game) to good article status.

• My love for Sega is rooted in a natural sympathy for the underdog, as well as the inimitable charm and appeal of Sega games.

• Politically, I've evolved from a radical Leftist fooled by Chomsky into thinking that the Khmer Rouge were framed for the after-effects of U.S. bombing (a conclusion anyone would reach if they knew absolutely nothing about Cambodia and Chomsky were their only source of information on the matter), to a neo-Neocon in the vein of Hitchens (and then an actual Neo-Con), to an Objectivist/Libertarian, then a Neo-Reactionary, and, finally, I've recently been converted 99% of the way to Progressivism by the likes of Scott Alexander (cf. Deirdre McCloskey's "How the West (and the Rest) Got Rich"). (David Frum's admonition "Just generally, whenever anybody praises an arrangement from the past, it's a smart idea to ask: 'If this system was so great, why did people abandon it?'"—albeit in reference to Ron Paul's nostalgia for pre-Civil War bimetalism—is something far too few of the radicals on the Alt-Right grapple with, instead suggesting that all change is due to a vast Leftist conspiracy.)

• Of course, there is still that remaining 1%. I could never be mistaken for a man of the Left, because I can't quite bring myself to believe all 1,001 points of Leftist dogma—any deviation from which is sufficient to be declared "Literally worse than Hitler!" (In fact, I'm a strong supporter of God Emperor Trump himself.) The Left makes believing six impossible things before breakfast compulsory—i.e., race and gender are social constructs, Muhammad was the first feminist, the U.S. opposed Aristide when it sent troops to install him in power, the Bush administration was only forced to hold elections in Iraq by non-violent protests organized by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Russia isn't bombing ISIS but rather "moderate" and friendly jihadists allied with ISIS, and the arc of history inevitably moves towards greater Leftism. Scott Alexander got me to thinking this myself, but a second look is all it takes to reveal that Leftist protest is overwhelmingly astroturf in nature, intended merely to manufacture consent for policies the permanent government has already decided on. (In the same way, the domestic barbarian is "deplorable" because he is the most potent threat to the Left's grip on power, whereas only a "racist bigot Islamophobe" would call Afghans that enslave women and lynch Shias "deplorable"; after all, importing foreign barbarians to outbreed and replace the existing electorate once that electorate cannot be expanded or bribed any further not only serves the purpose of creating a permanent Democratic majority, but also provides the Leftist coalition with much-needed muscle.) Reagan talked about defunding the Left, but—recognizing the scale of the problem—did not seriously attempt it; whether Trump really intends to "drain the swamp" and tell all the "non-political" bureaucrats and affiliated "NGOs" (c.f. Nigel Farage's brush with "the Cathedral" from 1:40 to 3:50) "You're fired!" remains to be seen, given the chaos that would likely ensue. (First impressions are that Trump is not the kind of man that would seek the Presidency without intending to govern, and that his current method of saving American jobs and repairing American alliances through phone calls, business ties, and Twitter is highly effective at bypassing the bureaucracy. And yes, Libertarians, saving at least 800 jobs for $7 million in tax breaks over 10 years is a very good deal, equivalent to the government subsidizing $875 of each employees's annual salary. Considering that the average U.S. welfare recipient receives over $9,000 in government benefits every year and is incentivized to vote Democrat, the Carrier deal is a big win for fiscal responsibility, Libertarian principles, and human dignity. If government contracts were threatened—something that would theoretically be illegal—then more power to Trump: Private profits and socialized losses is not "free-market capitalism." But of course this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the failure of Libertarianism—or Classical Liberalism, the moderate form of Leftism that evolved into our current system—to accurately model reality or to advance anything besides Leftist ends, such as mass immigration pushing the body politic farther Left.) In sum, saying that history leans Left is a bit like calling the increasing diversification of America a "truism" rather than a government policy: If history fails to conform to the script, it often gets a helping hand. (And yet even those that say this may be having second thoughts after 2016.)

I have made major contributions to CIA activities in Iraq, CIA activities in Syria, Dreamcast, Iraq–United States relations, Presidency of Jimmy Carter, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, Sonic Lost World, Sonic R, and Super Monkey Ball (video game). I also reviewed Resident Evil (2002 video game) for GA.

Awards:

		The Video Game Barnstar
		For your incredible research and editing at Sega Saturn, which I am sure will reach FA status soon. Indrian (talk) 18:11, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

		The Sega Task Force Barnstar
		For your absolutely awesome work at Sega Saturn, one of the task force's most important articles.
		this WikiAward was given to TheTimesAreAChanging by Red Phoenix let's talk... on 01:44, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Congrats on your 13,000 edits. Don't agree with you on anything (almost), but the stamina and dedication required to hit 13k edits are not to be sniffed at. BowlAndSpoon (talk) 20:08, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

"TTAAC's Greatest Hits" include:

• Debunking the standard narrative that the Sega Saturn was originally designed around a single SH-1 CPU prior to Sony's famous January 1994 PlayStation tech demo (see also "Proof that the Saturn was always designed around the SH-2 and vice-versa," and note that Indrian—who I have admired since 2012, when I first became aware of his work exposing the innumerable propaganda hoaxes of the infamous Jagged85—persuasively argues that Sega doubled down on the Saturn's 2D proficiency by adding the VDP2 and some additional RAM to the system);
• Exposing numerous examples of Hamas propaganda during the 2014 Israel-Gaza war (see, e.g., government salaries, causes—although the question of when Hamas started firing is purely academic since even extreme Hamas apologist Nishidani's own sources openly admit Hamas was no longer enforcing the ceasefire on other groups—targets, power plant, shields, Nishidani can't do math);
• After sufficient nudging from Guccisamsclub—a Leftie that not infrequently gets the better of our exchanges—concluding that estimates of 500,000-650,000 deaths during the 1979-1980 famine in Cambodia are highly exaggerated (for other instances where Gucci has corrected me, see here and here, though there are more);
• Questioning the veracity of Jerry Robinson's claims regarding the creation of the Joker, which have been widely repeated despite the contrary testimony of undisputed co-creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger;
• Revisiting Sega Genesis sales figures (plus Saturn and Dreamcast, and with apologies to the true experts at NeoGAF);
• Refuting allegations that the CIA helped the Iraqi Ba'th Party seize power for the first time in February 1963 (see also here and here);
• And discrediting the Iranian "Grand Bargain" panacea supposedly neglected by the George W. Bush administration.
• Of lesser interest: Sorting out arcane discrepancies regarding Sega's financial losses during the fiscal years 1998 to 2000 (the figures in the second link are extremely valuable for quantifying the dramatic collapse in Saturn sales outside Japan following the U.S. launch of the Nintendo 64 in late 1996); nailing down Saturn launch titles.
• I have also uncovered my fair share of fake quotes (e.g., [1]/[2], [3], [4]) and sockpuppets (e.g., [5], [6], [7], [8]). And one more hoax debunked for good measure.

Fun Facts About The History of Sega:

• Naka felt relief;
• Sega still had the ability to lock EA out;
• Curse that "market research!";
• Alex Kidd reflects;
• Yu had a thing for Namie, but I digress;
• Oh, the irony!;
• Why don't we call it Sega Rally Championship 1995?;
• Is 32X Doom really that bad? (Classic Game Room's Mark would disagree!);
• Toy Story-quality graphics, "Jack into the Matrix!" and "Iraq buys 4000 PlayStation 2s in world conquest bid"—Truly a different time;
• Who named Dreamcast? (h/t Indrian);
• The "Sonic!" chant preceding Sonic Adventure's Perfect Chaos boss fight was led by a familiar face...;
• Fate of the last Dreamcast;
• From Virtua Fighter to Tomb Raider.