Indeed, why would they? I never said they should, so not sure what you’re upset about.

Good on you for trying. I gave up a while ago. A consensus has formed, at least on here and on most of the English-speaking internet and lines have been drawn. Contrary opinions are rarely tolerated. Thankfully the rest of the world isn’t as gung-ho on isolating Russia and is actually helping restore some balance, because at the end of the day whether Ukraine is a NATO country or a Russian protectorate in ten years time matters little in the grand scheme of things.

What matters more is that the global pecking order between great powers is disturbed and this will likely lead to frequent local and perhaps generalized conflict in the future. It would be helpful for more countries to remain neutral, so as to help maintain balance and independence, while limiting the reach of great powers, but under such intense competition for global dominance most countries have to pick a sponsor for better or worse. And Ukraine’s leadership has chosen NATO, naturally. Whether they could have remained neutral or not is for historians to debate. Right now, as the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Do the US, Russia, and China have to be enemies? Yes, unfortunately they do. They have competing interests and the decline of the US is leaving space open for others. Hence also the focus on getting Europe more heavily militarized again. So that it can hold its own in the uncertain times to come. That is my understanding.

Thanks for the link. Some big parties seem to have hundreds of thousands of members. Didn’t see much for 2024 other than:

Zu Beginn des Jahres 2024 meldeten mehrere Parteien einen starken Mitgliederzuwachs. Bündnis 90/Die Grünen berichteten von 8.000 Neumitgliedern in den ersten beiden Monaten des Jahres.

In any case, considering the political context of our times, AfD’s growth is nothing to scoff at.

Since not everyone is expected to become member of a political party, a more apt comparison would be to membership numbers (and changes in those) for other German parties.

I don’t think they’re infogrames either

Ah sure I was afraid I might have forgotten something. Though again a very different category and not the kind of game I’d play. It would be more accurate to say I guess that Black Myth is the first game out of China that seems like it could make it big in the full price AAA single player action market. I can’t recall another Chinese game of this type that has held similar promise.

It’s the most impressive video game to come out of china, the first that seems poised to generate significant buzz internationally. Whether it will be any good I do not know, but early demos had been very impressive. So I’d say it is hotly anticipated, you were just late to the party. It may not be that original in gameplay but how many AAA productions are strikingly original nowadays? None that I can remember.

Turning over to the round side seems to have garnered a lot more views. I wonder whether he would have stayed flat if it were otherwise. After all many more are making content online in the hopes of money and fame than in some quest for truth.

I dislike most if not all party members. Like not always actively dislike, but don’t care much what happens to them. Even if the writing and voice acting is more than decent. Too grimdark and fucked up is how I would describe it. It’s like Larian took all the criticism about previous games being too lighthearted and overcorrected. And not in particularly relatable ways, feels more like they sat down and brainstormed intensely in nerdy excitement and with little depth or restraint about what would be cool and extreme and fucked up, and oh wouldn’t that be awesome… creating freakish caricatures with oh so dramatic and cursed backgrounds rather than you know, relatable flawed characters. Of course I only feel like this because much is done very well and so any missteps are more striking.

I love the turn based combat but sometimes it does feel like a chore, I wish I could do real time sometimes or purely rules-based AI, and switch to turn-based only when shit goes wrong. For those fights that really do not pose much of a risk and are not that interesting. Someone might say up the difficulty so no fight is trivial, but that can tire one out as well as now every fight can be a major obstacle and sometimes you just want to move the story on a little.

I am disgusted and appalled.

We need to look outside of social media. Doesn’t mean the media we consume don’t play a role in shaping opinions. The short attention spans and highly simplified messaging encouraged by endless scrolling on social media platforms play right into the hands of populists who trade in slogans, scapegoats and easy solutions. The algorithm takes care of the rest. Once you’ve expressed an interest in politically edgy content, you will be served more of that, to the point where your perception of reality will be completely shaped by that.

So there is no evidence, just speculation. Nothing to see here then.

It’s become more efficient to get basic info on virtually any topic by just asking an LLM like ChatGPT and that could be a serious threat to Google Search. People might form the habit of asking AIs for everything and then go to Google Search only when they want to dig deeper / find relevant articles etc. So I assume they added their own AI right into Search in an effort to continue being the first (and perhaps only) place one goes to for information.

You may be forgetting that Kaliningrad is another Russian harbor in close proximity. Don’t know if there’s any credence to assertion that Gotland is in danger, but just saying.

I got burnt out on the first one. Pretty setting and some neat ideas aside, I do wonder how many people would be interested in a sequel to this. It wasn’t exactly gripping in story or gameplay to begin with. Though I’m happy it was made, it was something unique at least.

Easy for China to say, means very little as they are not relevant to the conflict, not even indirectly that I know of. Political posturing more like.

Exactly. As a liberal myself I feel strongly about certain things and am all too aware of that supposition of moral superiority and self righteousness that have been very characteristic of western liberalism. In the meantime, many countries in the “free world” are inching closer to authoritarianism by the day. Sure, Putin bad, but leaving some room for nuance would go a long way. The idea that one need only get rid of “bad actors” is flawed. Especially when at the very same time western powers are enabling what more and more people see as genocide in another part of the world. And the country that has brought a case against that in court is South Africa, The world is changing, the global south is rising, China is rising, Russia is also seeking to extend its influence and global cooperation is needed more than ever.

I honestly don’t know why some on here seem to think that any criticism is a defense of Russia. I did not say anything in defense of Russia but assumptions were made regardless.

Indeed, it was a rhetorical question. And it’s ok, I wasn’t expecting my comment to be well received, I was just hoping that at least some people reading this would ask themselves why Russia triggers Cold War reflexes and what those reflexes mean. I still hope for some diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine and the demonizing of one’s enemies only serves war.