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ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
4m ago
Could it be then that the answer to all these "what do you mean by 'Nazi'?" question is "Nazism is just the friends we made along the way"?
functor
13m ago
What else does the mainstream left have then the nazi-scare? Free medical care, cheap housing and no more forever wars are popular policies with the base but the elite veto these policies. Trans ideology is losing steam and winning 50+% of votes on trans issues and BLM isn't going to work. What are they going to run on? Free trade fundamentalism, open borders migration and increased deficit spending? The only other issue that they really could run on is a repeat of the inflation reduction act. However, this would require massive deficit spending.
The democrats have Trump = Putin and Trump = Hitler. Other than that they have few policies of their own that they could actually win on.
JTarrou
30m ago
If you don't have a chat the left would cancel you over, you don't have any friends.
JTarrou
31m ago
If this be nazism, make the most of it.
"Nazi" in the current parlance just means "politically sane".
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
33m ago
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
40m ago
“If you continually tell people that everything they want is fascism, they’ll eventually come to the conclusion that fascism is everything they want.”
Or as Sh0eonhead comically put it in a clip I can’t find;
“Oh wow, that sounds great! You’re telling me this is fascism? Uh, waiter! More fascism please!”
Bartender_Venator
42m ago
No, they’re not. Very different guys. But I think there’s something similar, not the same but similar, in their general approach to race/culture (though KD has taken it to the next level with all his travels).
MaximumCuddles
The world-spirit texting on the toilet
44m ago
Do not cite the deep magic to me, witch! I was there when it was written.
CS Lewis / Tolkien tag team, a classic
FtttG
47m ago
I've long had a soft spot for Rockstar Games' controversial stealth/survival horror title Manhunt from 2003. The premise of the game sounds like it was tailor-made to get Jack Thompson's knickers in a twist (to the point that even some of Rockstar's own staff found it objectionable1). You play as an inmate on death row called James Earl Cash who has his execution faked by a mysterious benefactor, who then forces Cash through a gauntlet of urban environments patrolled by violent gangs actively hunting for him. Cash is hopelessly outnumbered, so must resort to the game's core mechanic of "executions": he can sneak up behind gang members and stealth-kill them with a melee weapon, whereupon the camera shifts to a grainy pseudo-VHS perspective. For, you see, Cash's benefactor directs snuff films (for which purpose he's installed CCTV cameras all around the city), and wants Cash to be his "leading man". And these films aren't just a way of making ends meet, but very much a "passion project" for the director: if Cash murders a gang member in a particularly gruesome fashion, he will commend Cash in his earpiece, or even moan orgasmically. (The fact that the director is portrayed by the wonderful Brian Cox lends him a great deal of seedy charisma.) And in spite of the PS2-era graphics, many of these executions remain positively revolting to watch, aided by the game's impeccable sound design.
It's a tremendously fun game that makes you feel tense and anxious while playing it, then dirty and ashamed afterwards, aided by the game's meta, self-referential qualities (the player character is being "controlled" by an overweight creep sitting in the dark in front of a computer monitor, who orders him to viciously murder people for no better reason than his own sick amusement — no prizes for guessing who he's meant to represent). I've played it several times before, but always on the normal (or "Fetish") difficulty, for which the UI includes a circular "radar" which shows the position of gang members in your vicinity, which way they're facing and how alert they are. I'd read that this radar is disabled on hard ("Hardcore") mode, which I assumed would make the game practically impossible (even "Fetish" is plenty challenging). I recently completed my first playthrough on "Hardcore" mode, and I quickly realised that it's the purest way to play the game. It's not a "deconstruction" of stealth-based games, but it's clearly aiming for a more grounded, down-to-earth approach to the genre. Cash isn't a Sam Fisher or Solid Snake, with an array of hi-tech gizmos at his disposal: he's just an ordinary guy thrust into a situation beyond his understanding, with nothing to guide him but his wits and whatever weapons he can get his hands on (you kill your first enemy by smothering him with a plastic bag, and even in the late game shards of broken glass are invaluable tools). Without the radar, you have to proceed cautiously and play close attention to the direction the enemy chatter is coming from. It's a very effective means of putting the player in Cash's shoes, and makes an already tense and stressful game positively nerve-wracking. Highly recommended if you've never played it before, and a suitable game for spooky season. But if you're trying to persuade your loved ones that video games are more than disgusting exploitative "murder simulators" — well, maybe don't show them this one.
1 "It may sound surprising, but there was almost a mutiny at the company over that game. It was Rockstar North's [the Scottish branch of the company] pet project — most of us at Rockstar Games wanted no part of it. We'd already weathered plenty of controversy over GTA3 and Vice City — we were no strangers to it - but Manhunt felt different. With GTA, we always had the excuse that the gameplay was untethered — you never had to hurt anybody that wasn't a "bad guy" in one of the missions. You could play completely ethically if you wanted, and the game was parody anyway, so lighten up," Williams writes.
"Manhunt, though, just made us all feel icky. It was all about the violence, and it was realistic violence. We all knew there was no way we could explain away that game. There was no way to rationalize it. We were crossing a line."
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
59m ago
the game's incongruent mood
Could you restate your criticism?
sohois
1hr ago
It took Uber 15 years to record a profit and zero years to completely change the taxi market
TowardsPanna
1hr ago
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is pretty good if you don't mind some wokery that snuck its way in.
What gpu did you get? Just curious.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
1hr ago
IMO it's more true than not. We are not being fair to him. We're dogpiling him pretty hard, even though technically there really is a point to be made about nazism being bad and extremism being possible in the republican party.
I also think that he really set himself up for it because he's very obviously trying to exaggerate the supposed nazism angle for shock effect, and this falls completely flat here.
So, shrugs all around.
Now I'm looking for another game to use my shiny new GPU with. Something I can beat before EU5 comes out in November. Any recommendations?
The ancient abandonware platforming game Claw is suitable to be played on a keyboard by a controller-hating curmudgeon such as you.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1hr ago
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Haley is rear-ended by Kruti.* Haley suffers severe neurological symptoms, and is diagnosed with concussion and cervical and lumbar disk herniation.
-
Haley sues Kruti. Kruti concedes liability for the crash, leaving for the jury to decide only liability for the injury and damages resulting from the injury. Due to evidence issues, the judge excludes past medical expenses from damages that can be awarded, but Haley's expert witness estimates future medical expenses at 393 k$. The jury decides that Kruti caused the injury, but awards to Haley future medical expenses of only 16 k$, and awards absolutely zero damages for Haley's pain and suffering.
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The appeals panel affirms the award of 16 k$ for future medical expenses, but vacates and remands for a new trial regarding pain and suffering. It is against the weight of the evidence for the jury to find that Kruti is liable for medical expenses but not for the pain and suffering on which those medical expenses logically must be predicated.
*It isn't clear from the names, but they're both women. (Should I have typed Haley (♀) and Kruti (♀) instead of adding this footnote? I think I saw somebody suggest many years ago that such a practice might be preferable to specifying pronouns. ;-) )
Again, rune arcs are a reward for skill.
Agree with much of what you say, but strongly disagree with this. Great Runes are my reward for killing an actual demigod, master of their domain, and stealing a chunk of the fundamental force powering the universe from their corpse. And then finding their rune tower and beating whatever bullshit is guarding it. The whole plot was about how the Elden Ring's shattering and Queen Marika's disappearance sparked a power struggle trying to grab hold of these things! They should be an actual serious meaningful upgrade to reflect my ascension to demigodhood or super-super-demigodhood, and at least one should be permanently active.
Elden Rings isn't Dark Souls, it's epic fantasy. You are on a journey to become God-King and your acquisition of power should reflect that IMO.
That said, Elden Ring is very inconsistent with power levels. I remember beating the really hard boss who owns the second half of the
All to say, as a liberal I view all illiberalism as evil. And this view is to some degree a matter of faith.
Don't worry about definitions then, I think this answers my questions better than any encyclopedia could.
I think each paragraph you wrote here could spark a fascinating conversation all of it's own, but I'll try to stick to the subject that started ours. If we change the scenario somewhat, to be about your fargroup, rather than your outgroup, would it change any of your calculus?
For example if a mostly secular Arab moves into a western Christian town, is met with rejection and bigotry, runs into a Wahhabi mosque that welcomes him with open arms as a brother, would you not say the westerners share some blame for his radicalization, even when the final decision is on him?
Jiro
2hr ago
Sure so why that particular verse in that particular version of that particular song?
Because a zillion people used a zillion verses from a zillion songs, and that particular one was somewhere in there, and someone found it. Do you think that was the only song anyone ever sang?
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
2hr ago
You've been catching a lot of flak over this, and I am already tired of the "Nazi!" topic, and besides there's probably a lesson to be learned from history about spotting extremism early and preventing it from turning moderate societies into failed states...
...but given the last decades, I really don't care anymore. Bring on the nazis. I'd rather have literal Hitler spread his brain-rot than give the left another day to spread theirs. Thank you but it's been quite enough. My patience ran out with some finality at some point in 2021. If we can't have nice things, then I'll be living on spite.
Jiro
2hr ago
You know I don't think people are being fair to you.
He posted a long rant which left out the fact that one of his "Nazis" is a pro-Palestinian Muslim. People are being plenty fair to him.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
2hr ago
Vidya thread.
I finally finished Clair Obscur this week. Well, I didn't beat every optional boss, but I'm too old for this shit. I must say, my earlier criticism about the game's incongruent mood has been invalidated when the game provided an in-universe explanation for it.
Now I'm looking for another game to use my shiny new GPU with. Something I can beat before EU5 comes out in November. Any recommendations?
Jiro
2hr ago
why do the Nazis seem to feel so comfortable in modern conservativism?
Not only is this begging the question, your whole post is a Gish gallop. There have already been plenty of posts pointing out that the Young Republicans chat is not pro-Nazi. Someone already has pointed out that Myron Gaines is a pro-Palestinian Muslim--yeah, he doesn't like Jews, big surprise. Maybe he even identifies with Nazis. That reflects on the Democrats, who support the Palestinians and who Muslims are allied with, not on "conservatism". And the swastika flag, being nonobvious, was probably planted there to discredit Taylor. You clearly have not bothered checking any of your items for accuracy before posting them.
If you have a list of 20 reasons why creationism is true and the first item is about how the sun couldn't be millions of years old (written before nuclear fusion was discovered) it's not worth looking at the rest of the list.
RenOS
something is wrong
2hr ago
Sorry for the late reply. I understand where you're coming from, but I find your perspective a bit one-sided. On many of these, the DS devs (and many players) simply have a different view, and they would be less happy with the game you would design. Which is fine - imo games, like most art, should be designed first and foremost to your own vision, with as little accommodation to others as possible. But it wouldn't be, strictly speaking, an improvement.
Take Bloodboil Aromatic: it's extremely expensive to make (requiring an Arteria leaf), meaning you can only use it sparingly. Yet it increases your damage taken by 25%! As a casual player, by far your number one concern is bosses killing you before you have a chance to heal, which this item (and many others, e.g., Fire Scorpion Charm) exacerbates. So what exactly is the point of this item? "Well, if you're good enough to not need it, it makes the game a lot easier!" Yay?
"Increase damage inflicted at the cost of increased damage taken" is a common design choice in DS games. As you say, these actually mostly make the game harder, but they allow you to do content faster if you're good enough. It's intended as a reward for skill, as I see it.
Similarly, the Great Rune system is only useful if you're good at the game and don't need it anyway. I'd just remove rune arcs entirely: once you have a great rune, you can just set it and it's active.
DS already has pretty minor penalties for dying unless you're really careless. Again, rune arcs are a reward for skill.
Even potions (ahem, Flask of Crimson Tears) run afoul of this. Good players don't need these at all: just don't get hit, yo. But for bad players, attempting to use a potion often causes you to get hit, as the animation is painfully long and many bosses are coded to input read it. Again, this could be trivially redesigned in a way that's better for everyone: make potions fast or even instant, and increase boss HP to compensate. For casuals, potions would actually feel useful; for better players who weren't using potions anyway, the game gets harder.
That would be pointless, you might as well just increase player health if the potion is instant anyway. And since increasing boss hp is one of the most awful ways of increasing difficulty, the logical next step is to remove that extra player HP AND the extra boss hp to make the game more fun again.
Also, potion usage is a skill test, yes, but a fairly minor one. Generally speaking once you've passed beginner level in skill, potions are imo fairly satisfying: You get hit often enough to need them, you are good enough at timing to usually be capable of using them, but it's always risky enough to keep you on edge, and it's definitely better not getting hit in the first place. It incentives you to git (even more) gud. At the highest skill lvl, you'd just convert all flasks to mana, which can be viewed as another reward for the skill of not being hit.
Overall, imo you need everything in a good game: Some items/mechanics directly help bad players. Some are low lvl or medium lvl skill test, encouraging you to get better, but once you can reliably pass that threshold, they help you clear higher-lvl challenges. Some are just pure rewards for good play and outright require high-lvl skill to use, but allow feats not otherwise possible. Some are memes that actively gimp you, so that simply using them serves as a way of showing off your skill.
In general, I also like the DS aesthetic choice of being able to simply take a short look at another player, and I can usually tell quite reliably whether they're a complete noob, a loser, a tryhard, a "simple" good player, or a total monstrosity.
Because OP is a returning poster who was well-known for maximizing ragebait posts that were barely within the rules to try to generate responses that were over the line. If you check said poster's reddit account, they're currently posting about the exact same topic there and making the same arguments.
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