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Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: August 12th, 2025

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  • Gameplay - quick time events weren’t super annoying (I wasn’t a fan of telltale batman quick time events), I personally liked the hacking minigame (though not everyone did), and the actual “dispatch” segments were tons of fun.

    The story was excellent - I kept expecting a “twist” like we’ve seen in a lot of superhero media recently, and there weren’t any big twists. I think this was a good thing, it’s nice to see more of a “reconstruction” of good guy vs bad guy.

    Spoilers -

    spoiler

    If there is a twist, it’s that Shroud’s actually kinda stupid with common sense things - no grand plot, he’s just good at math and let it get to his head. Letting Robert live since he was “unimportant” really was just Shroud missing an opportunity. Not having Toxic kill him in the first scene really was just shitty planning, and probably the need to be a drama queen in the warehouse and the need to defeat Mecha Man, not some “I am your father” type moment like some theories were suggesting.

    I enjoyed this a lot, even though it meant a lot of theories around the game didn’t pan out.:::


  • Steam’s business model does prevent it from pricing its consoles like Sony, Xbox, Nintendo, etc. since they need the console itself to be profitable, not just a means of bringing in games sales.

    It’s plausible that they’re taking into account an uptick in overall game sales from this console - at least for me, I’ve been purchasing new games mostly off of steam rather than playstation/nintendo ever since I got a steamdeck - but you’re right that they aren’t going to sell at a loss.

    Regardless of the price (and whether or not I even buy one), I think it’s healthy to have another “big” player in the console market.





  • Well, there are plenty of famous artists who only became famous after they died. Contemporary popularity doesn’t guarantee historic/cultural impact.

    I’m not aware of the specific requirements of this program, but Iteland also has a case for cultural preservation, particularly with works in the Irish language, which may not have the international appeal necessary to make a good profit but are important for intrinsic reasons to Ireland.

    There’s also the case to be made that in order to become a great artist, you must first be a bad artist - and there aren’t that many jobs for internships/apprenticeships in the arts, especially as some of the more “basic” jobs (cheap graphic arts, copywriters, muzak, etc.) are snapped up by AI.

    I think there is an interesting discussion to be had about what an artist must have in order to qualify for something like this. I would also be concerned with “antiestablishment” works possibly being excluded.





  • Yes. It’s natural that participation will ebb and flow, that’s why it’s important for folks not to give up and say it was all useless after just one day. Having regular weekly events and a monthly “big” protest seems to be the strategy for maintaining momentum.

    Escalation could also be useful - though of course that doesn’t necessarily mean jumping to blood-and-violence, there are many other tactics that can be used (like the targeted boycotts, for example, or a general strike). Even more “passive” things like voter education (where polls are, how to register, etc.) can add up over time.






  • One of the factors in whether a nonviolent resistance movement can succeed or not is whether any state forces end up shifting loyalty. “Appealing to the moral sense of the people oppressing them” may be false if you’re just talking about whoever’s at the top, but it absolutely is a factor for the day-to-day bureaucrats and security forces. Nonviolent campaigns are more likely to cause these sorts of changes (particularly when violent crackdowns against nonviolent resistance backfires).

    Consider the success of the following movements:

    • Peoples Power Revolution (First one in 1986) - several military leaders defected from the Marcos regime
    • Velvet Revolution (1989) - had several government officials defect
    • Malagasy Political Crisis (2002) - Defense minister resigned, generals and military officers were split on who to support (source for this one, since the article is hard to find). In fairness, although this one would largely be classified as nonviolent, at the time, it was hard to say whether or not there would be any armed conflict (aside from some incidents with police attacking protesters early in the movement)

    There’s several other cases of this happening over the past century, but I hope you get my point - nobody’s appealing to the guy on the throne, they’re appealing to all the other cogs in the machine.