Just want to hop in and also point out the vastly different costs of being wrong in each case.

On one hand, we have a supervisor having to take a diversity course, and an employee getting a written warning about their performance. On the other hand, a person is losing their income and health insurance. If the evidence equally supported both sides and we had to guess, the detrimental effect of incorrectly supporting one side is vastly more significant than incorrectly supporting the other.

And that assumes a hypothetical where the evidence doesn’t support either side, something I do not think is the case. I think the article supplies enough information to support Alm’s case.

:( very sad to hear that. Naughty Dog has made 3 of my favorite online games of all time (Uncharted 3, Uncharted 4, TLOU) and so I was really excited for the announcement of a new multiplayer game. I feel like historically Naughty Dog has done a good job of finding the parts of a gameplay loop that feels “sticky” and give it some grease to make it feel better in subsequent games. There were a few parts of TLOU that could have used improvements; Clans representing some really interesting and incredibly infuriating ideas in multiplayer games, for example. I expected it would still be a niche game, but sad to hear it is probably going to die in development hell after years of me getting excited for it.

sigh oh well, not much you can do about it.

You are welcome to criticize and dislike the writing of the games, but you can do so without insulting people who disagree with you. This is your reminder of the main rule of this instance to “be(e) kind”.

MLK Jr has pretty famously discussed the issues with respectability politics wrt white moderate. He also shifted his beliefs towards socialism and realizing the necessity of violence to the success of the civil rights movement before being assassinated so… even MLK didn’t think his original strategy was going to succeed.

To clarify your opinion for myself: the most common reason cited by moderates for opposing the 1960s civil rights campaign was “I agree racism is bad, but why can’t black people be civil and polite when asking for equality?” Do you agree or disagree with that opinion?

This game has been the bane of my existence. I love the atmosphere, story, and design of Bloodborne. I cannot get myself to enjoy the game. I want to like it so badly because everything other than the mechanics are extremely my-interests, but FUCK do I not like the gameplay.

I wish I had a good answer for your first questions. My best guess is some mixture of American propaganda about poor = lazy, puritanical views that hardworking people are morally good, and a refusal to believe that it will happen to them because they are good, hardworking people.

As for your question about the unhoused, I’ll paraphrase something my spouse, who has been unhoused, told me in the past:

“The false hope is necessary. The people who lose that hope are the ones who OD trying to escape (though those who still have that hope may also use drugs as an escapism) or quietly kill themselves and no one but the few unhoused they know will notice, and most won’t have the energy or mental space to care.”

^^ to add a bit to that of my own; we have studies that show the psychological effects chronic starvation and stress cause: increased irritability, impulsiveness, decreased ability to plan or critically think (from their own previous ability, not saying it immediately drops your IQ to like, 70 [also, let’s agree to brush over the issues of IQ as a measure of intelligence since I am just using it as an example]). And that is a permanent effect. It doesn’t rebound if you suddenly become food-and-shelter stable. Your brain is just permanently fucked up.

Also, I don’t know where else to include this, but I feel like it is important if discussing this topic. My spouse was unhoused for approx 1 year. It has taken 5 years of therapy to get them to view themselves as a person again. After 12 months, they had internalized their treatment as subhuman to the point it has taken 5x that to undo. And that’s not like, positive self-esteem. They still have insanely low self esteem and negative views of themselves and their abilities (along with CPTSD). This is them viewing themselves as a person as much as any person walking down the street. I cannot imagine how it is for people who have been unhoused longer.

I think you are vastly oversimplifying things. For starters, who is going to organize this? If you don’t have food or shelter, your only focus for the day is find food and a relatively safe place to sleep at night.

But, let’s say that they did organize. We know what the outcome would be: the police would show up, beat the shit out of them, jail them, and throw away what few possessions they have left. And most people’s reaction to that would be “I’m glad the police finally cleaned up our streets” because, whether they want to admit it or not, most people hate the poor, and especially hate the unhoused and just want them to disappear. I can say that with confidence because that’s what happens in major cities when the unhoused do anything, every. time. Those who have been suffering for a while have had the spirit beaten out of them, and the recently unhoused quickly learn to follow suit if they want to stay alive and have any hope of improving their lives because if you have any criminal record whatsoever, you immediately become unhirable to 90% of businesses. Creating problems for the system is a way to guarantee you will remain unhoused for the rest of whatever life you have left after.

Sometimes I like their new music, sometimes I don’t. When I don’t, I am bummed that I don’t like the music. But if it is a change the band wanted to make, I am happy they get to make that music. I would hate to be told what kinds of art I should or shouldn’t make, and at the end of the day the artists I love are the same; they’re just people trying to create something that (hopefully) represents something to them. I think because music tends to affect people on a deeply emotional level, it has a particular sting when a band no longer resonates with you and you feel almost like you’ve lost a connection to someone who understood you. It is understandable to be sad that they are no longer making music you enjoy, and it is OK to hope that they someday make music you want again. But at the same time, it should be celebrated when artists try to expand, learn, and grow, IMO.

Oh cool. I’ve been out sick all week and have been having panic attacks that my teammates hate me for it and I’m creating a burden for them by not forcing myself back to work. Love to hear management in my field validate that as a reason to be fired.

I’ve been playing a shitload of Valorant. It hits the sweet spot for me between FPS and MOBA. I hadn’t played a tactical shooter before but I’m warning up to it. I still prefer Halo-style battle arena games but this is fun.

Speaking of Halo-like games: I am still playing splitgate even though the game is dead. It’s some of the most fun I have ever had while playing a game with friends.

I have never heard of “reeee” being a record scratching sound.

“Reeeee” being a joke about autistic screech, like a lot of old shitty jokes, originated on 4chan but made its way to reddit and twitch and basically any other site where pepe the frog got traction. It eventually got mainstream enough that shows like South Park and I think Family Guy referenced it as such. Search “reeeee” on google or youtube, it’s going to be almost all references to a joke about autism.

Also, correcting someone making offensive jokes isn’t white knighting. It is a good thing that more people should do. Just because someone from the targeted group isn’t vocal in the comments doesn’t mean harm isn’t done. It isn’t the sole responsibility of the people targeted in situations to vocally defend themselves. Informing others of harm they might be doing to others is a core part of building a community.

I’m sorry, I am much too exhausted to leave a detailed comment, but this reminds me of the book “The Lines Between Us”, which looked at how people’s perceptions of immigrants changed over time when they were exposed to an immigrant population regularly. It’s a really good book if you’re into that kind of thing. I wish I could go more into it because it’s fascinating, but I would just butcher any quote I tried to pull from memory.

Okay so you’re going to sit here with a straight face and tell me that you honestly believe EVERY SINGLE RELIGIOUS PERSON EVER has no critical thinking skills?The LGBTQIA+ pastors that started a socialist christian church in Kentucky? MLK? Malcom X? Johann Bernoulli, Blaise Pascal, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, all of whom are some of the most important mathematicians in history and were religious, all couldn’t think for themselves? Immanuel Kant, famous influential philosopher, no critical thinking. Every Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindi, Buddhist, Shintoists, and every other religion in existence throughout history, not a single person alive today who believes in religion can think for themselves? Between 70-85% of the global population (depending on what source you look at) report themselves as follower of a religion. No critical thinking abilities across 75% of the global population?

Can we please move beyond this 2010 New Atheism view that every religious leader/person is stupid and unable to critically think? It is such a lazy and black-and-white view of a massive global population full of diverse people, thoughts, and beliefs.

So I have a lot of thoughts on this that I have repeatedly failed to word in a way that I am happy with, so I am going to sideline a lot of those to focus on some more high-level thoughts:

As many have noted, there would probably be significantly better discussion happening if the ideas in the post were framed in a less antagonistic way. While I don’t think the post should be removed, it has been reported multiple times as “obvious rage-bait”, and I have a hard time disagreeing with that view. It is hard to take criticisms of things you like when the tone of that criticism is condescending and antagonistic. This isn’t helped by all the “reasons” given are very subjective and vague, with no concrete examples given to give a reader any context for what you think falls in these categories. In my experience, this type of “conversation” (I hesitate to call it a “conversation” because I think the structure makes having an actual conversation nearly impossible) is really prevalent amongst men who studied STEM and Redditors. Rather than a discussion about preferences in games and strengths/weaknesses of different storytelling styles, it encourages “I’m right, you’re wrong” argumentation, which just won’t be as fruitful and serves mostly to build tension within the community. For me personally, while I do think the ideas in the post make for interesting discussions/conversations, I don’t believe it is possible when this is the initial framing. I hope we can avoid this discussion/argumentation style on beehaw.

As for a more general thoughts on the contents of the post: this feels like it could be condensed down to “I only like a very specific and limited type of storytelling and view anything outside of that as lesser and flawed.” It is also comes off as a very simplistic and “rationalist” analysis of storytelling. It is focused only on tropes and structure and ignores how those tropes might be used to emphasize a theme, or the emotional impact of those stories.

I cannot think of a single person at any of the places I’ve worked in the last 7 years, small or large, that has used Windows with a single exception. That exception was me because I needed to use Visual Studio, and I was miserable the whole time. Now that I’ve swapped to a MBP you couldn’t give me enough of a raise to get me to go back. Pretty much everyone I know in DevOps, SRE, IT, and development avoids interacting with Windows unless it is physically impossible. I don’t think I am an exception either. My entire college education was done on Macs (not I chose to use a Mac; every computer in the comp sci building was a Mac). Everyone used Macs while I was interning at Good Year. Everyone used Macs when I was doing ML research in academia. All of my friends who have stayed in the industry use Macs regardless of what role have used Macs. Honestly, it would be surprising to me to hear someone didn’t use a Mac, unless they got a laptop and installed a flavor of Linux as the main OS.