You did just fine by my measure, it was folks reading what you wrote who screwed up 🤷‍♂️

The Democrats’ stated strategy, after putting their heads together and trying to figure out how they got trounced on the last election - is to go more hardcore “center” than they previously have.

It’s basically impossible to tell at this point if they’re the most clownishly out of touch group of people imaginable, or actively complicit and just waiting for the pendulum to swing slightly back so they can be “successful” again, for a bit. Certainly a mix, but -

The only reason I lend credence to the former at all, is just how cartoonishly bad Dems are at almost everything lately. I say lately because throughout my life there have been at least sincere-seeming efforts from (some) Dems to help (some) regular people. Some might argue (with ample justification) that it’s always been this way, but the situation does feel distinctly bleak to me today.

Meaning that they claim and promise to care about (some) marginalized groups of humans but actually don’t give a single fuck and serve the capital-owning class with roughly the same slavering, dogged devotion as the goddamn Republicans?

People watch porn on their work computers, after being told not to. And not just a few. The Venn diagram of folks who do that and who wouldn’t give a single shit about handing over their ID has gotta be roughly a circle. A whole lotta folks are seriously ill-equipped for the burgeoning surveillance nightmare, in fact their complacency (and frankly just being thoroughly outmatched in sophistication) will march us all towards it.

In truth, my drift from gaming stemmed from very similar self knowledge, I have such a wealth of ways I can spend my time (including with my kids when I can convince the older one, lol) with stuff that has small but accumulative impacts.

No shade on gaming, engaging with art and storytelling and just straight up play all have deep value and I’d argue all people need those things, but yeah. For me a few games in particular that end up feeling like “Chores Simulator XYZ” and which I almost consider a genre of its own (Stardew Valley, Valheim, TerraFirmaCraft MC were my few) helped me better understand my changing preferences. I’m like “why am I building this fake house and collecting the materials and etc. when my office, garage, and outside areas all look kinda shitty?” I have pets who like activity, I have projects and chores and people to see.

Now, I also do feel overburdened pretty often and my job is challenging and tiring, but yeah. By and large I just enjoy more IRL time spent these days, while also missing the former thrill of gaming with this kind of deep ache.

Edit to add: I should probably also say, I had lots to “escape from”, into fictions of various kinds, and I have over time built a life where that is no longer true, and so my time spent has also internally shifted toward more of a sense of gratitude in general, instead of thinking of things as obligations (though of course they 100% are, of the most critical kind) considering where I came from, and I also get how for many folks games can be some of the only pleasant experiences available.

Yeah I’ll be honest, I don’t have a lot to say about how those kinda scenarios should be managed at the moment, I haven’t thought that stuff through too deeply I’m realizing. I’m pretty happy to defer to folks with experience in community moderation and such, I’m frankly a pretty poor candidate for that, for several reasons (somewhat moody, sometimes fond of borderline hyperbolic takes, etc.).

I do think users should be able to have the experience they want, but that’s vague enough to be almost uselessly uncontroversial, and I also recognize that some people’s wants can be incompatible with others’, without either necessarily being unreasonable or unfair. So, another partial reflection of the human condition in general I guess.

I know that feeling so well, sadly.

Ah yeah that’s a reasonable take and I do know what you mean. I broadly like what federation offers over centralization, but it’s not without its quirks and some drawbacks, I hear ya.

Pretty much same for me! Not sure if I played the actual first or just one of the real early ones, but that def drew me to this one. You should play it! I paid full price and would have paid double, knowing now how thoughtfully made it was.

I guess I’d add, having returned to this, that it’s a bit off-putting for you to be sharing your preferences for how they behave with their own instance, given your non-involvement with that instance itself, or trans things in general.

One of the major points of federation as a concept is for folks to not be mandatorily subject to some overarching singular approach to content moderation. You’re here, so I think it’s reasonable to assume you care at least a bit about the way this platform works and what makes it unique(ish) and valuable.

At the risk of coming across more hostile than I intend - why on earth does Blahaj need to specifically, only, be about trans topics, to be a valid space in your eyes, when it seems they mostly just want to exist how they prefer and interact with federated Lemmy stuff, in the ways federation explicitly intends?

I’ll admit that I don’t always remember to look at where a given post originated from before commenting, and I should get better at that - could be that’s all you need, too 🤷‍♂️

Hilariously this comment is precisely as confusing to me as the comm itself.

“Middle-school sass with a poetic twist” is certainly what I aim for when crafting my roasts and witty jabs

Wouldn’t surprise me a bit, that show was crazy influential, at least initially. Punchlines came way faster than we were used to, sometimes deliberately abruptly (iconic example of that for me is Peter’s instantaneous face-plants, which I still find funny TBH). And people liked the endless gags that were just random non sequiturs of dumb stuff happening that had nothing to do with anything. Fun at first, not enough to scaffold a whole show around IMO, but most folks couldn’t get enough.

That kinda stuff really cheapened humor (“mainstream humor”? is that even a thing?) over the long run, according to me. I started to say I’m just crotchety and old, but actually I wasn’t then and I thought it was lame pretty quickly after the initial “fun new show everyone’s into” vibe wore off.

Then again if it wasn’t them it would’ve just been another, audiences were just kinda “ready” for that sort of humor I suppose, obviously wouldn’t have been the runaway success it was otherwise. I’d be shocked if The Simpsons weren’t influenced, seems almost impossible with the cultural swell around Family Guy at the time.

I really don’t understand that comm either, but I haven’t looked too closely cuz I’m not that interested. I also moved off .world entirely for my accounts because I don’t like some of their moderation stances. I understand why they have them and don’t begrudge them for it, to be clear. But I do eye them warily as a kind of emerging de facto instance in some ways (AKA potential for more centralization than seems wise, given their need or desire to comply with certain local laws that limit speech).

Sad thing is from what I understand, Spanish language news commonly available in the US (Unavision I believe?) basically fed Latinos a straight up false version of the guy, the description I read sounded even less accurate than Fox.

The overwhelming effectiveness of widespread media manipulation is the real story (and human tragedy…) here.

Blahaj has a no tolerance policy on trans rights, from what I understand, and I think they like how they run their stuff. Maybe you know that already, but if not, maybe that’s helpful? It’s not so much thin skin as “we’re here for the purpose of not seeing that kinda stuff, so we block it here”.

DB0 is legitimately one of the coolest places on the modern internet, I’m curious to hear what kinds of things you’ve seen bans for. The admin/host (by the same name) seems to have very rational, reasonable takes toward moderation, and he values transparency and community feedback. Frankly from my own (instance-level, not community or thread) observations, he seems like a model of high-quality moderation. Your experience sounds off to me, but I hope that doesn’t come across as an accusation, I don’t intend one.

Yeah, it all changed after Trump’s victory and all the crazy shit he started immediately doing. I have both contributed to the problem, and lamented the shift. I don’t want this platform to be about slinging half-baked political takes (lumping myself in there, to be clear), but also I can’t blame anyone for wanting to discuss the terrifying stuff we’re seeing. Really was cooler here, even just 6 months ago.

I like your taste. These are some bangers lol.

If you haven’t, you should play Armored Core 6. It’s a FROM game, and it feels like one, in all the best ways.

But it’s also a mech game, and it feels like one, in all the best ways! Every button assaults your enemy, every motion feels fluid, fast, effortless - or huge, heavy, clunky - your mech is your mech, and many thoughtful builds can become OP. The customization is bananas. And yet - some fights will remain challenging.

With all sincerity, easy 10/10 game for me, I proceeded from NG -> NG+ -> NG++ directly, which is a first for me and I’m an oldish dude. AND I felt thoroughly rewarded by the end of NG++. It’s a literal perfect game, just unreasonably fun and well-crafted.

Dope, detailed writeup, thank you!

Oh, also - largely with you on Robux. I mean I don’t have a problem with it in principle, ideally it lets kids (through their parents) effectively choose which games and creators to support, and there have lately been some big games with big frequent updates that kids have found to be super enjoyable. Like, content updates at rates traditional games would be embarrassed by.

But like all things involving $, I’m sure there’s lots of eventual exploitation. And manipulation of kids to want to buy is definitely bad. But then again, by my measure, kids need to be instructed on recognizing and resisting precisely that from a young age. That manipulation is everywhere and getting worse all the time.