AceTKen

AceTKen , 12 days ago (edited 12 days ago)

Understanding underlying causes? On Lemmy? Abso-fucking-lutely not!

If you like strudel and Hitler liked strudel, then you’re Nazi by default. That’s just simple logic.

AceTKen , 1 month ago

The Jaunt by Steven King

One of my favorites short sci-fi stories ever.

AceTKen , 1 month ago

Well. My child is that age and I very much relate to the protagonist. Was not expecting a gut-punch this afternoon.

AceTKen , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Played the OG version with all the DLC and not the Spacer’s Choice version, so take my comments with that in mind:

PROS:

• The music was completely appropriate and fit the world. It was nothing I’d listen to independently though.
• It ran very well the entire time I played it. Very little in the way of hitching, and very quick load times.
• Achievements!
• From beginning to end I was having a darn good time. It’s a “smooth” game experience that I stayed up way too late a few nights in a row to get through because I couldn’t wait to see what came next.
• Many ways to solve issues; you didn’t feel forced to end nearly anything in a certain way. The only exception was one main DLC quest I couldn’t finish the way I wanted due to the level cap being too low and not having enough points.
• Zero bugs experienced.
• Plenty to explore and loads of side stories to discover. Some stories weren’t wonderfully told and were hard to track, but many more than that were awesome.

NEUTRAL:

• It felt like it ended too soon. A game like this with two expansions should have offered more. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing in that it didn’t overstay its welcome either.

CONS:

• Some of the achievements are deeply annoying to the point that I gave up on completing the set. You’d have to waste dozens of hours to grind all of them and play in some pretty odd ways that wouldn’t match normal gameplay.
• There are no romance options for the player, and only thing even remotely like it in game is a gay asexual romance quest for a side character. You get some G-rated come-ons thrown your way, but nothing can come of it. It’s extremely puzzling in it’s puritanicality in both how the colony operates, and how everything is treated. Not that this has to be a porn game or anything, mind you, but some options to do SOMETHING romance-related (or characters that operate like they have genitals) like Mass Effect or Fallout would be nice. Heck, there aren’t even any kids in the world to show that someone had bred ever.
• Some of the environments and buildings are not terribly visibly distinct and it hurt pathfinding. It would tell me to go somewhere specific and I wasn’t sure what it was referring to, and this was after playing for hours. This has something to do with the “corporate jargon” style language they use as well. It fits stylistically, but can be confusing.
• The sidekicks stories felt exceptionally rushed and some of the outcomes were a little nonsensical.
• I beat the game and both DLCs close to 100% in under 37 hours.
• The level cap even with the DLCs is set to 36 which I hit about halfway through the game, and I felt like it needed far more. It really made that feeling of progression you love in these games stop dead. There was nothing to find for new item upgrades or interesting loot past that point. This was my largest gripe with the game by far as it disincentivized exploration because there was nothing to gain by doing so at that stage. UPDATE: The new version of the game supposedly upgrades the level cap to something a little less horrible. I wish this were available during my playthrough as the game isn’t worth going through a second time. If you’re interested, I HIGHLY recommend waiting for the newer edition.

DID YOU FINISH THE GAME?: Yup! And the DLC. Though if you’re playing now, just get the new edition since it fixes the XP progression block that I mention above.

CONCLUSION: While it won’t stick with me for years, it was great while it lasted and I would 100% play more in the series. If you enjoy story and exploration, play this. The only things stopping it from being Fallout-level good was the awful level cap and the lack of content.

AceTKen , 1 month ago

You are correct. I was dumb. I’ve fixed it now!

AceTKen , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

But there definitely are though. Why wouldn’t you, say, protest the factories where these things are made? Not just hold up some signs outside, but blockade those businesses in.

Maybe find out who their major shareholders are and publicly shame them. Dig up dirt on them. Do anything you can to stop them.

Maybe find the neighbourhoods that those shareholders live in and blockade those.

Protest at the schools that their children go to letting them know their parents are murdering people overseas.

It took me like 3 minutes to think of those and those are far more effective than what is going on in this news story. Are protesters in America really that short-sighted but they can’t think of anything better than annoying other normal people and making enemies?

This is like protesting the food in a prison cafeteria by beating the shit out of your cellmate, and then calling him complicit because he ate food yesterday.

They’re not targeting the right people, they’re simply turning normal people off of their message.

AceTKen , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

I had to go look them up, but it seems that some have protested manufacturing plants, though not in a terribly effective way. The protests seem to be short-term, and none of the other things I mentioned have been done anywhere I was able to find.

I’ve seen plenty of stories involving protests uselessly blocking main thoroughfares however.

AceTKen , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

… which just means you have to get creative.

Freeway blocking is not creative, doesn’t get people present on your side (quite literally the opposite), presents safety risks, may delay emergency vehicles, wastes natural resources, and doesn’t change minds of readers. Same with the stupid “throw soup / oil at a piece of art” shit I saw repeatedly. A throw-away headline seems to be the goal, but it accomplishes next to nothing.

Target. Those. In. Power. Make life fucking hard for them.

This thread (not you explicitly) reeks of this attitude I see frequently on Lemmy of “It’s a deeply stupid and astoundingly flawed thing to do, but I’ll defend it to the death because it agrees with my politics!”

AceTKen , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

In this one instance they might do that. In the area where I live where it was done, there was no space for the emergency vehicles to go in the other direction. Just because there are ways they could do it in this one case doesn’t make it universal.

Also, are you able to provide the polling you referenced showing that highway blockades change minds? I was unable to find anything other than web and call-in polls, both of which overwhelmingly showed the exact opposite (but those are hardly scientific so I wouldn’t trust them).

Also, I’m not the one downvoting you. I do not do that.

AceTKen , 2 months ago

But come now, certainly you must recognize that that’s not even close to causation. Just because it’s done often doesn’t even come close to meaning that there’s any proof that it functions as you state.

If I carry a “rock of tiger repellent” and tell you that I’ve never been attacked by a tiger, therefore it must work, it’s the same logic.

Countries that do not (or rarely) have highway blockades have more civil rights or had them earlier than the US did. They also have stronger protections and aren’t helping bomb Gaza. Using the logic stated by you, that may actually mean that highway protests make things worse.

Again, just because it agrees with you politically, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. There’s no study or data indicating that it functions, and scads of loose polls and information saying it doesn’t (which are only slightly better than no evidence at all). I’d encourage an actual study, but judging by every thread I’ve ever seen on the issue, the only people claiming to be even minutely swayed by these demonstrations were people already on the side of the protesters.

AceTKen , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

Street protests generally carried out in front of royal palaces or civic structures where those in power worked had an impact, yes. NOT protests at a random road in town.

I am factually correct here.

I have never stated that protests aren’t effective when carried out well. I’ve stated that these road blocking protests aren’t effective because they do not target.

AceTKen , 2 months ago

Nope. I’m in Canada and it happens here too.

AceTKen , 2 months ago

Hey, wake up! The new Clippy skin just dropped!

AceTKen , 2 months ago

Boy do I have a treat for you.

AceTKen , 4 months ago

There would be no way for them to gain that knowledge. I could believe that they potentially lost their primary language and spoke a mild amount of other languages that they had picked up by osmosis…

But I am doubtful that they would be able to have a full conversation with a native speaker.

There’s no way the human brain could just conjure up a fully functioning secondary language that the person had no exposure to.

AceTKen , 4 months ago

March of the Pigs - Nine Inch Nails

And yes, it does make me feel better.

AceTKen , 4 months ago

Am Canadian. Can confirm.

AceTKen , 4 months ago

Never got into Harry Potter since I was too old. This game was really fun to just explore and I constantly felt a forward momentum. Some of the stories were good, and some were awful.

I would absolutely play a sequel just based on the well done sense of discovery alone. I just wish more of what you found was impactful instead of cosmetic.

AceTKen , 4 months ago

I get it, but it doesn’t have to be just pure stats. Could have been mild ability improvements or something or maybe changed some of the effects or visual things that occurred around you. Hell, even walking speed improvement or something like a tone to help you locate hidden items.

There’s a lot they could have done considering we’re dealing with magical items! Still had a pretty good time with it overall though.

AceTKen , 4 months ago

Right wing? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone call CNN right wing.

Even media bias fact check says otherwise. Am I missing something?

AceTKen , 4 months ago

But airing a candidate debate is not a right-wing thing. Since when (in the last 20 years at least) has anything right-wing allowed debates from both major sides in the American political spectrum? Making an attempt to be fair is a centrist or Left-wing thing. If anything, that would further prove my point.

I can’t debate this as I don’t watch any news channels, but are you able to counter what Media Bias Fact Check (which, as far as I have seen is extremely accurate and vets their information) states, or is this a case that people on the extreme sides of any political movement see anything even slightly closer to the centre as “the other side?”

AceTKen , 4 months ago

I would even argue that it wasn’t pointless. Trump is certainly the biggest candidate for the Right, but there are plenty of things that could get in his way at the moment.

And “hearing them out” is a way to show that you’re not just unfairly maligning them and keeping them down by keeping them out of media that you don’t want to see. It’s also helping to split the Right, which is INCREDIBLY valuable.

Just because you can’t think of a reason, doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

AceTKen , 4 months ago

Was there a fact-checker at the last Democratic primaries? If not, then why would there be a double standard?

And I think you may be mistaken about what these debates exist to do. They aren’t there to “check facts” and make sure everyone only has correct opinions (which I would argue that even some on Democratic side do not have). They are there to show what the candidates believe, how they behave, and how they respond to pressure. They show how they act in front of a crowd, and how they respond later to missteps during the debates. In effect, they show a good public face for judging a politician.

The simple fact is that you aren’t going to have every fact going into, say, a negotiation with China - you have to think on your feet.

AceTKen , 4 months ago

I misused a term, my apologies (I’m Canadian and my terminology was a little off). I was using Democratic Primaries in place of whatever the Democrats have as a candidate debate session like this was for the Republicans. If you let me know what it’s called, I’ll correct my post! Regardless of the name, did they have a fact checker there at that event?

Again, I don’t believe the candidates have a chance against Trump UNLESS he is rejected as a candidate by enough states or other lawsuits have results that prevent him from running. If those do occur, then it will have been useful because it’s not like the Republicans are just going to not field a candidate. Also as I mentioned, if a candidate has a strong base that really believes in them, sometimes they won’t vote for the person that beat “their” candidate, thus splitting the vote. This is a good thing from the opposite side.

It’s also a good thing because they’re abiding by the Equal-Time Rule (essentially an updated version of the Fairness Doctrine).

AceTKen , 4 months ago

Absolutely, which is why I’m asking for clarification. Keep in mind that like 90% of our TV, movie, and internet content is American, so it’s not like we’re clueless about the goings-on there, we just don’t have some of the finer points nailed down.

So assuming the Equal-Time rule doesn’t apply, splitting the vote still does. Also, as a show of political fairness it still counts, not to mention that you can’t properly fight what you don’t understand.

You didn’t answer my question if the Democratic equivalent had a fact-checker. I’d look myself, but I’m not sure what it’s called.

And before I forget, thanks for talking. It’s not often you can debate on any social media without the other person being rude and condescending. I appreciate it.

I moderate (and do most of the writing for) !actual_discussion if you’d ever like to stop by!

AceTKen , 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago)

Sure. They lied. I’m not going to watch it to verify, but I’ll take your word on it. But again, that’s not what they’re there to stop. It’s akin to getting mad at Sesame Street for not showing you how to make a good stew.

And also, they wanted usage rights. Now that they had footage that they owned, CNN the same night and next day aired basically pick-aparts using their own footage demolishing a lot of those points. Is your issue that it wasn’t done live even though it never has been?

These debates rarely have given equal time to all candidates involved. Historically, they give the most time to the most popular candidates no matter where the debates are aired.

Here is some current polling.

So this is to show that the results are not set in stone. I understand that polling this early on isn’t meaningful, but I think what it does illustrate is that Biden isn’t obviously dominating in a Biden-Haley match up. If anything it looks Haley beats Biden by a larger margin than Trump does.

Rather than trying to support Haley because she is perceived to be less of a (insert whatever pejorative you’d use here) or because Biden will do better against her in a general election (and as far as we know, he won’t), we should focus on pressuring Biden to enact policy changes that his voting base are demanding.

And again, if using a US barometer for politics, none of this really shows that CNN is centrist or right-wing now out of nowhere (while still arguing against and frequently mocking right-wing policies).

AceTKen OP , 4 months ago

I’m okay with political and encourage it as long as people have sound reasoning to back it up.

I’ve changed my mind on many political topics after a good discussion!

AceTKen OP , 4 months ago

Yeah, it may be hard to set the tone at first without alienating anyone. I’m hoping that I’m up for it.

AceTKen OP , 4 months ago

Was going to start doing a few topics today, actually. Slept like garbage though so they may be… dumber than standard.

AceTKen OP , 4 months ago

Absolutely! It’s the first community I’ve run on Lemmy, so I’ll definitely have to pull from how you post it if that’s okay.

Maybe something like: “If you like Casual Conversation instead of Competitive Ranked conversation, try !casualconversation !”

AceTKen , 4 months ago

Now I’m confused… What do YOU call a normal North American muffin?

Like a blueberry bran one or something.

AceTKen , 4 months ago

Ah yes, nothing like a nice rum and water.

AceTKen , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

I truly don’t mean to be pedantic here, but aren’t these nearly word for word the same beliefs Left-leaning people here have about the Right in America?

Maybe if you’re being generous and want to write out the other side of these beliefs you could leave out the descriptors “lazy and weak” and replace them with “psychotic and brainwashed”, but other than that, is this meme not the same for Left and Right?

AceTKen , 5 months ago

Most likely they’ll continue to heavily downvote me when I describe the complex communication systems plants and fungi have.

AceTKen , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

What I’ve stated is not baseless. There are many sources and studies claiming how plants communicate via root systems, pheromones, and other mechanisms (some we’re discovering continually). As someone who worked in forestry (and lived on a non-corporate farm that produced mostly alfalfa), it’s somewhat more apparent once you’re there and present in that world.

To quote myself on another thread:

I trust you know how to use search, but some brief citations: science.howstuffworks.com/…/plants-feel-pain.htmsciencetimes.com/…/a-group-of-scientists-suggest-…

You can find many more if you look. We’ve known for quite a while that trees do this, and fungi are absolutely notorious for this. Speak to a botanist (or read the articles above) and they’ll tell you that plants respond to warnings from their peers about dangers, brace for pain, and signal pain to others. To be clear they don’t seem to feel pain (but keep in mind that they said this for years about crustaceans as well, but it was simply because we didn’t know how they functioned well enough) - not understanding the pain does not mean there is no pain.

Life for some organisms means death for others. Period. You can not avoid it on a micro or macro scale, all you can do is change WHAT you kill.

Plants are cool as hell though I suppose that understanding the above means that it can fuck with the worldview of vegetarians, and nobody likes that. If you disagree, please be respectful and let me know what your reasoning is.

AceTKen , 5 months ago

Understood! Wasn’t trying to be a dick, just adding clarity if needed.

AceTKen , 5 months ago

But they are scientifically accurate beliefs. They are true.

Emotionally, plant communication is awesome. Simultaneously factory farming also sucks.

Getting mad at a poster because you draw an uncharitable conclusion from the beginning of a post chain is extreme.

AceTKen , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

First and foremost, let me say that I appreciate you actually engaging.

Now, if what I’m interpreting is correct (and feel free to set me straight if I’m incorrect), your argument stems from a moralistic one. Moralistic arguments are not solid stances to argue from; similar to a hardcore Christian seeing abortions as vile and evil because of a personal moral stance, you feel your moral position is better, therefore you look down on opposition. However that is a personal opinion and those aren’t convincing - certainly not for sensitive topics. Let’s approach the debate from a scientific standpoint.

Trying to stick to the logic of the situation, the crux of statements I’ve seen here seem to be “Being vegan is eliminating suffering and therefore should be the end goal.” Is that not correct? I’m not arguing in bad faith like many here or making a shitty “bacon = good” joke. I want to make sure you’re not being misinterpreted.

Other reasons I have seen in threads similar to this coming from the “angry vegan” side of things (and some responses to those) are:

• If you want to be vegan because you enjoy it? Go for it. That is inarguable. It’s no more or less valid than someone liking the colour red.
• If you want to be vegan because you feel it’s healthier? Rock on. Go you! You are probably correct if you monitor your diet. I would argue against it being better than a vegetarian diet however.
• If you want to be vegan because it’s easier on the environment? Well, for individuals? Yup! At the moment, you could make a good case that it would be better for the planet, but only because we’re overpopulated and statistically, being vegan is unsustainable if the entire planet were to switch tomorrow. A smarter case to make would be for a reduction in humans as being vegan is an extremely minor step of harm reduction compared to fewer people. Also, most food fed to livestock is not human-consumable and is often byproducts that would otherwise go to waste. Creating more food from waste is more efficient than discarding it.
• If you want to be vegan because you don’t like factory farms? Sure, I hate them too, however quitting animal products altogether is not a logical jump to make from that feeling. There are plenty of smaller suppliers you can procure from that do not have those issues; the more logical jump is to just not use bad providers no matter what the product. For example, I have raised bees and worked in a co-operative apiary. There was no abuse, and the likely alternative to us creating the hives was death for the entire bee community. Tell me how being vegan is better than creating my own honey and essentially creating hives and colonies from scratch, but using animal products in that instance.
• If you want to be vegan because it’s eliminating suffering (or death)? Again, kind of. This is simply making substitutions for suffering that you’re comfortable with. You can make an argument that it’s somehow lesser, but it’s bad logic and therefore a bad argument. You’re also applying your own morals (because again, this is a strictly moral standpoint) to other people, which is silly no matter who is doing it. From activists to religious extremists, your morals apply to you and only you. Do not try to enforce them on the outside world. You can argue for them, but getting mad at anyone with a differing view is silly and unproductive. As you said (and dismissed), you can lessen suffering or death, but you can not eliminate it. Your existence causes death. All existence does. Everything alive is only alive because it feeds off other living things who have their own way of existing. A suffering or death being a style you choose to not recognize is not only not a valid defence, it makes you just as guilty as those you attack. Your opposition also feel that their being is higher than those they ingest and they also do not recognize the deaths of those they consider lesser, they simply drew their line elsewhere.

And the way vegans are going about it in these threads isn’t helpful to your cause. Mindless emotion-driven downvoting does not change hearts or minds.

A better outreach for you would be to use the Food subs and post legit great vegetarian food and entice people that way. Doing it the way they are now will accomplish nothing of value. Well, unless they secretly work for a factory farm and want to piss people off so they eat more meat, in which case those psuedo-vegans are doing exactly what they should be in these threads which is mindlessly downvoting instead of engaging.

Feel free to ask for sources for any statements I made that aren’t related to personal preference. I can back up everything with peer-reviewed studies.

AceTKen , 5 months ago

To be clear, I didn’t say suffering, I said death and I was moreso referring to animals and how we survive.

You can cause death without causing suffering, and also the opposite.

AceTKen , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago)

It’s social media. People really like to hit the “fuck you” button and not discuss anything.

You have to put yourself in their position though. If they commented anything and didn’t just casually dismiss, that would mean they’d have to think. Thinking is hard. Don’t do that to them.

Edit: They also really hate having the above pointed out, but never argue with it.

AceTKen , 5 months ago

This is a really well-put description. Having pride in the color of your skin is fucking stupid and applies to everyone.

Pride is for achievements.

Skin color is not something anyone achieved (and no, paying for aesthetics is not an achievement either).

AceTKen , 5 months ago

Why? Having correlary traits in common with someone doing something dumb isn’t embarrassing.

Andrew Tate doesn’t make me embarrassed to be a man, he’s just embarrassing himself (and anyone who chooses those views are doing the same). We are individuals.

AceTKen , 5 months ago

So I know this isn’t going to be popular, but… I lived in Saudi Arabia at 14. White people were targeted for kidnapping and rape continually, and no, not only women. Men too.

I myself was very close to having both happen multiple times and escaped by pure panic and luck. My father and I were nearly killed by police with assault rifles because they wanted a bribe from my Dad. We were forced to drive into the desert at gunpoint to a “second location.”

This was not unusual for the expats.

I also went to school in Cincinnati and had the shit beaten out of me multiple times because I was white.

Racists no matter who they are racist to are fucking gross and I’m sorry you had to go through what you did. Please don’t think your experience applies worldwide though. Being white, gay, black, brown, trans, or damn near anything in some places is fucking dangerous.

AceTKen , 6 months ago

As a Windows user who manually updates weekly and reads changelogs for what actually changes, neither do I.

But then again I don’t leave 400,000 items open on my desktop for no reason whatsoever and get mad when I have to close them.

AceTKen , 6 months ago

The I.T. firm I run does this except we donate them to nonprofits.

AceTKen , 6 months ago

My favorite Star Trek game of all time was the video board game with the Klingon host. I had everything from the Nightmare games so this was the next logical step and we loved it to even though it was cheesy as all get out.

AceTKen , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

That might be what you wish they are learning, but I assure you that’s not the case. There may be more of those Highway blocking protests that you’re thinking about, but you’re simply hearing about them spread across many, many locations. They are not occurring frequently enough in one location to warrant a change to the way people commute. I have never even heard of anybody linking those two points together before.

If they’re blocking a highway, it’s not like you can just see the protest up ahead and turn off instead instead of choosing to be stuck. Often they are held in the middle of long stretches where they will trap as man cars as they are able on both sides.

And the lesson most people learned from COVID was that there was absolutely no reason why we couldn’t work from home. Although I could potentially see a link between working from home and, when the time comes to replace the infrastructure, replacing it with something more environmentally sane… but they’d have to convince big business owners to not force people to come into work for no reason, and good luck with that.

It seems like there’s a lot of wishful thinking to get from “those protesters are blocking this street” to “man, we should completely redo the entire infrastructure of North America because of these protests.”