u/Figshitter

So in the last few days I've had three games where one player has made a super-aggressive, high-risk play at another player from right out the gate and completely torpedoed both their own game and that of their target. In all these cases both players essentially never got off the ground, turning the game into a two-way race between the other players who developed normally.

I'm talking things like lizards sanctifying a cat building on turn one and then spawning in on their starting clearings single-mindedly, and two instances of eyrie marching across two-three clearings to hit an enemy on turn one, then immediately falling into turmoil...

Can anyone explain the appeal of this approach? I don't understand it at all.

(A bit of a niche bugbear of mine for anyone interested in law/justice/criminology)

Since the turn of the 21st Century, and particularly since the 2020s pandemic lockdowns, there has been a rise throughout common law jurisdictions of parties to legal proceedings putting forward organised pseudolegal commercial arguments (OPCA litigants). These arguments are typically based on unorthodox, fantastical, inchoate and ineffective legal theories that aren't recognised by traditional legal institutions and are inconsistent with established law: the 'strawman' theory, reference to some overarching document like the Magna Carta or the Bible which invalidates other laws, the theory that 'all laws are contracts', the idea that the legal system has been corrupted from the 'true law', and strange ideas around the use of punctuations, names, capitalisation, fingerprints, flags, seals and symbols.

OPCA litigants are (mis)informed and (mis)educated through a number of avenues - online discussion forums/subreddits, through 'self-help' online courses peddled by pseudolaw gurus and grifters at a profit, and through received wisdom from fringe political and social affiliations (such as being part of various conspiracist, 'detaxer', 'militiaman', 'freemen on the land', and 'sovereign citizen' movements, often depending on which part of the world they're from). The litigants who deploy these arguments are (notwithstanding the occasional ideologue) typically people who are facing legal trouble, lack legal sophistication and problem-solving skills, and turn to the Internet for a 'quick-fix' solution (without the discretion or knowledge to discern helpful from unhelpful advice). Meanwhile the grifters who make money peddling these schemes are often split between 'true believers' who have drank their own Kool-Aid and believe they've found some secret legal loophole, and 'mercenaries' who are looking for an angle to exploit for profit.

While modern pseudolaw incubated in and was often adapted from US Sovereign Citizen communities (and with the various global pseudolegal movements and communities sharing a belief in a shared 'pseudolegal memeplex' which can be exploited for their betterment), these movements are all somewhat distinct, with disparate histories, ideologies, methods of organisation, and specific beliefs (legal and otherwise). Different movements which employ OPCA strategies include: the Church of the Ecumenical Redemption International, the Magna Carta Lawful Rebellion, Freemen on the land,  American State Nationals, German and Austrian Reichsburgers, and Romana Didulo's 'Kingdom of Canada' - while these all share fringe, conspiratorial beliefs, they aren't all 'sovereign citizens'.

Despite this, these types of litigants are often referred to indiscriminately by media, courts and legal commissions) as 'sovereign citizens' - you can see this in news coverage, law review articles, and court decisions (where, in the example I provided, the respondent's 'sovereign citizen ideology' is regularly discussed by the presiding judge). This framing projects a particular ideology and motivation onto the litigant, which may lead to barriers in disentangling and addressing their particular pseudolegal theories, and to misunderstandings of the litigants motivations and level of legal understanding by judges and other decision-makers (potentially leading to natural justice/procedural fairness issues).

Legal institutions (the judiciary, registries, legal assistance services, etc) should instead formulate their responses to these types of litigants based on the specific pseudolegal strategies they employ (with, as examples, strategies to expediently deal with 'Strawman' arguments, 'all laws are contracts' arguments etc) based on the merits of those strategies and without unnecessary reference to a purported ideology or membership of a specific community.

Media coverage which portrays all OPCA litigants as 'sovereign citizens' likewise a) distorts the scope and impact of the actual sovereign citizen movement, b) conceals the existence of other anti-government, conspiracist and pseudolegal movements, and c) flattens the understanding and nuance of discussion around extremist communities and pseudolaw more broadly.

Recently I've noticed a huge uptick in the number of people I see/smell vaping on public transport, in public bathroom cubicles, inside stores, in elevators, etc. Just in the past week I’ve encountered people unapologetically blowing their clouds in each of the spaces I listed as examples, as well as under crowded bus shelters and inside a cinema.

This practice is detrimental to the health of others, entirely unnecessary, and I can't think of any explanation that doesn't involve selfishness, entitlement, a lack of consideration for others, or main character syndrome.