https://archive.is/9kNLR

I just use archive.is for paywall breaking. Magic.

I’m pretty sure it’s a pretty well known phenomenon that conspiracy theories funnel down into antisemitism

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/10/why-conspiracy-theorists-always-land-on-the-jews/671730/

I don’t know what point you were trying to make

Leaving people to go full Lord of the Flies on their sexual urges leads to violence and fear and resentment.

I don’t think this is unique to sex. Sex is often special-cased in ways I don’t think it really needs to be. We probably agree more than we disagree here.

By contrast, if your basic needs are guaranteed, sex as a profession becomes something you can choose as an entrepreneurial passion rather than a lifeline for your survival.

No argument here. Basic income and the essentials guaranteed would solve a lot of problems for a lot of people. Certain members of the wealthy would be upset, though

This is idealistic, but I think for most people conspiracy stuff is filling an emotional need. If the experiment fails, the emotional problems remain. Thus the theory will be updated to uphold the feelings.

So like if they see a photo of the earth from space, they’re more likely to say it’s a fraud. Truth doesn’t matter. Feelings do.

Anyone who cares about facts on this topic would have left flat-earth after a short while on wikipedia.

So the question is: what emotional need is this filling, and how can it be met more safely?

Anti-vaxxers have hurt many people, but maybe you didn’t mean them when you said these people".

Flat-earth belief likely has secondary unwanted effects, like how all conspiracy theories eventually funnel into anti-semitism. It’s also a huge opportunity cost.

This is a good post.

What we’re really getting boxed in by is the very idea of capitalist rent-seeking through the operation of a business. When you’re selling anything else, the rent-seeking is considered a value-generating profit motive of an entrepreneur. But as soon as what you’re selling involves sex worker’s services, we realize what we’re advocating is human trafficking.

This is a good point in particular. However, it slams into my go to hypothesis for why so many things are kind of bad: People are emotional first and sometimes exclusively so. It happens to all of us. But for most people, sex stuff feels bad in a way that rent-seeking doesn’t. You could make as many points as you want with irrefutable logic, flow charts, and diagrams, and it won’t get through the skittering heartbeat of “BUT IT FEELS BAD”

I don’t really know how to fix this. Dismantle conservative power structures that are centered around placating fear and disgust maybe? If sex work was normalized, in a couple generations many people would probably feel fine about it.

I think having areas with weaker or stronger enemies is fine. Good, even. So long as you can tell by looking at them what you’re getting into.

Dark Souls generally does this. A rotting skeleton is a low threat. A giant knight in black armor and man sized sword is a bigger threat.

Oblivion will often have dudes that visually and behaviorally are the same, but hit way differently because of the numbers assigned to them. You can’t really look at a scene and understand what you’re getting into.

Other games also do a bad job here. Borderlands for example will have identical looking bandits, but in this area they’re indestructible level 100, and that one they’re push over level 5. The ass-creed Viking one did the same thing. Archers on one side of the river you could ignore, but the far side would one hit you.

I think a lot of studios don’t want to invest in the extra art assets and stuff when it’s cheaper to just use the same monster model and assign it different numbers.

I feel like trying to combine

• high vertical power growth
• non linear “open world”
• power fantasy

all together is just fundamentally at odds with itself.

Personally I’d prefer to see less vertical power growth. I’d rather have the numbers stay somewhat constrained.

Like, let’s say the most damage you can ever do with a lightning spell is 100. Work backwards from that to figure out how much health things should have. We want a master mage to be able to blow mooks up in one zap, mid tier in 3, and big scary shit in 6.

A novice mage zaps for 20. We want mooks to take 3 hits, mid tier stuff maybe 10, and big scary stuff a lot.

Mooks: ~60hp Mid tier: ~210 Bosses: 600

If your gameplay is then deeper than a simple stat check, a novice can persevere and win against a big challenge.

I really super dislike it when you have stuff that looks like a mook or a boss, but is statted otherwise. I remember in Oblivion some witch lady was oddly high level, and she kept fighting despite having like 50 arrows in her face.

Something like that, but with more thought put into it than a Lemmy post from the couch.

Oblivion was kind of really bad though. It had the worst level scaling of the genre.

I think the spell crafting was also toned down and more gated than Morrowind. And the equipment I think was overly simplified.

Nine Sols is squarely in the “good but not fun” category for me. It is well executed but I did not enjoy most of it. Also the story is a bummer.

I reinstalled Sekiro after finishing it to see if my memory was rose tinted. No, sekiro is still like music. Even cleared the “you should lose this fight” tutorial boss.

Not surprising.

We probably shouldn’t have private schools. We should fund public schools.

Also eat the rich and bury the racists.

We could all decide to just like… take their wealth. There’s no ref that’s going to call time out.

Path of Exile 2 is pretty good. Wasd movement and a dodge roll are nice. Some parts are still rough, but it’s been out like a month.

I don’t really trust that just anyone will make something new and fun. Something that tries to extract money, sure.

The GOP are bad people and should not be in charge of anything.

Seems kind of bland, but I guess we’ll see

There’s a couple bands I like that do email for updates and such. I think the one from Worriers uses Ghost, based on the fine print at the bottom of the page ( https://getittogether.laurendenitzio.com/ )

Personally I like it a lot more than social media. I think moving everything to Facebook et al was a mistake

I had an NPC in a RPG that was kind of like this. A werewolf was going berserk in a church. The players were like “Reg! Get out of there!”. Reg sees the werewolf rip a corporate stooge in half and come running at him. He goes, “Bro. Fucking metal.”

Rolls really high on his social check. Werewolf high fives him and just runs by to go murder more corporate leadership.

Satire is dead. Not enough CEOs have followed suit.

It’s some sort of irony that I don’t think things will change for the better without violence. The ultra wealthy that drive a lot of culture war bullshit, that enshittify everything for more profits and “growth”, who pollute the air we breathe and water we drink, aren’t going to just give up power.

I’m just so tired of everything being so needlessly bad. Stop shooting kids and teachers. They aren’t the problem.