Despite all my rage I’m still a rat refreshing this page.

I use arch btw

Credibly accused of being a fascist, turbolib, commie, anarchist, child, boomer, pointlessly pedantic, a Russian psychological warfare operative, and db0’s sockpuppet.

Pronouns are she/her.

Vegan for the iron deficiency.

  • 1 Post
  • 74 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

help-circle





  • You should probably know that historically societies collapsing has typically resulted in improved health of the lower classes as judged by skeletons in the archeological record.

    We should not really understand societies collapsing as a violent or spectacular thing. It’s usually just growth slowing, people move away, the ability of states to enforce taxes and provide services weakens and people work out their own stuff.

    I’m not saying society is collapsing, just that if it does it’ll probably look more like declining birthrates and movement away from cities and advanced manufacturing to more agrarian lifestyle. Also that for the poor and downtrodden this will probably, on average, be an improvement.







  • You are literally spreading propaganda against climate protest.

    Why? Do you want to discouraged protest? Do you want to distract from the environmental vandalism of oil companies? Do you want to empower governments to pass anti protest measures?

    What is your goal here? If you are trying to recruit for an eco terrorist cell surely you’d do better psyching people up rather than ridiculing some of the most risk-comfortable protesters.

    edit: You know I’m actually not done. They haven’t destroyed any paintings, they threw soup on glass. Unlike the fossil fuel industry which has destroyed like entire fucking species, in unknowable numbers.

    Also you want to whinge about a blocked road but want people to destroy pipelines? what do you think happens when petrol stations can’t get fuel? Sure seems like that’ll stop even more people getting to work on time.

    Could you uncritically absorb oil company astroturfing and pro status quo media bullshit a little less eagerly?

    relevant usa civil rights quote applies:

    First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”

    Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

    Your armchair iamvertsmart take is counterproductive.


  • you get that this wouldn’t work as a critique if it was obvious you could make different choices right? Then it wouldn’t make the player complicit. If you’re not complicit it’s just a game saying “military shooters could be different” which is a nothing statement.

    Like how games with a “get the information (evil)” and “get the information (good)” button aren’t offering real moral choices. Or how deus ex would lose all impact if the “here’s a gun, go kill these people” starting mission tempting you with a rocket launcher popped up a “you might change sides in the future” warning.

    By involving you, leading you just like any other military shooter for a bit then cutting you loose is what creates the critique. You compare notes after playing and someone points out something and you go “huh, why didn’t I try that?”. It’s not condemning you for not trying that, it’s asking you if you’re happy with a genre which trains you to never to try it.


  • Military shooter games glorify war and shallowly reward horrible behaviour. Spec ops does it differently.

    Majority of people: do horrible thing

    Some people: experimental and find heroic thing is rewarded.

    Discussion possible, why did the majority do that? could we talk about horrible and uncreative design patterns in the genre of military shooters? How media portrayals of war train us not to look for peaceful solutions? Whether this feeds into how we view American imperial wars?

    you: no spec ops bad video game because I didn’t do the good option.


  • I think you’re actually engaging with it a bit shallowly. You are the one who invented the rule and a different framing is exploring how, if games seem to put us in situations where we must do horrible things to advance even a couple of times, we take that as a rule instead of risking losing to find other ways.

    Which is a fairly glaring indictment of the whole military shooter genre which is all about “hard men and hard choices” that completely dehumanise the factions you’re in opposition to.







  • Assuming the government defs doesn’t care and wont cooperate with lawsuits.

    Yes and no. Knowing your IP is sort of like knowing a PO box you rent. It can be used to try and transmit stuff to you, it can also be crudely geolocated, or if the person you’re buying it from gives you up it can be traced directly to you as a person.

    If someone wanted to, and you had terrible safety practices (such as opening mail you aren’t expecting, the digital equivalent would be having software listening to ports) they could send you something harmful but this is probably not very likely unless you are pissing powerful people off (e.g. you’re using that IP to distribute anti mossad documentaries or something :P). Your biggest threat is that somebody finds out who you are by going to your ISP and making them give you up.

    If you are confident that this is very high effort and you are a small fish it’s not much of a risk.