Alaknar
@Alaknar@sopuli.xyz
- Comment on I wonder why the world is on fire? A mystery 6 days ago:
Fun fact! The US is spending more on healthcare than it does on its military. By A LOT. The military gets around 4% of the federal budget, healthcare gets around 12%.
Where does that money go, you ask? Why, to the pockets of the corpos owning private healthcare, of course!
The US taxpayer pays MORE on healthcare in taxes than the the taxpayers in Switzerland or Norway!
- Comment on #StopPayingGames 1 week ago:
My point being: games and art are not necessities. Don’t be a little bitch, if you want to have them, pay for them. If you don’t want to support the company under which the game was made, wait for a massive sale on Steam or some such.
Giving “a shitty company intent on abusing your customers to extract as much money from them” is not done by pirating the game (which makes them try to extract even more money out of their clients), it’s by financially supporting the companies and creators who don’t do that.
- Comment on #StopPayingGames 1 week ago:
There’s clear data showing piracy almost never has a negative impact on sales. If anything, it’s usually a positive impact. And the exceptions to this are not video games.
Please share! Would love to read about it!
- Comment on #StopPayingGames 1 week ago:
Artists don’t get paid for the amount of copies sold, that’s executives and shareholders
Sales numbers are the telemetry execs use when deciding what games to green-light.
Why do you think suddenly everybody was making live-service games? Battle Royale first, then hero shooters, and now extraction shooters? These games are reporting great income because it’s not possible to pirate them. Add MTX on top and suddenly everybody and their mother wants a cut.
Why do you think even GTA became a live-service game, even when it has a single-player story?
Why do you think more and more games have launchers that require people signing in to some accounts to verify if they made the purchase?
All the crap you people are mostly moaning about are a direct result of piracy.
- Comment on #StopPayingGames 1 week ago:
This is such an incredible level of magical thinking that most 12 year olds already grow out of.
What do you think happens with the artists if the game doesn’t sell?
What do you think happens to the genre if the game doesn’t sell?
People are complaining about live-service games, but holy fuck, can you not see that these are the direct response to piracy? You literally cannot pirate these games, because they require constant connection to the servers that verify if you have a license.
- Comment on #StopPayingGames 1 week ago:
The list is so confusing… ESL is an e-sports organisation, they do e-sport events, they don’t make games. Why are they on the list? Why is Netflix on the list??
And why is Riot on the list? Their games are free, we’re literally not paying for the games, we’re paying for the in-game store crap (if at all)…
- Comment on Steam Machine pricing announced (from $1049-$1428 USD), reservation lists open 2 weeks ago:
How many games do you play at the same time?
The absolutely MASSIVE Crimson Desert is only 130 GB. Something like ARC Raiders - 50 GB. Elden Ring - 65 GB.
You can easily fit a bunch of games on a 512 GB drive - especially considering the GabeCube comes with SteamOS, Linux-based, which means it’s not going to gobble up 15-40 GB like Windows does.
- Comment on Steam Machine pricing announced (from $1049-$1428 USD), reservation lists open 2 weeks ago:
But that’s your PC. GabeCube is more of a console, so you wouldn’t necessarily keep that many media files on it.
- Comment on Do you think that Edward Snowden is a hero? 2 weeks ago:
No, the other option was to not speculate.
- Comment on Always with the hidden fees. 3 weeks ago:
What bleach won’t get, high alcohol wet wipes will.
- Comment on I still can't get over Skyrim. Are there any games that can replace it? 3 weeks ago:
But yeah, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is recent and supposed to be for Skyrim fans. Haven’t played it yet.
I don’t know if I’d call it that. It’s much more story-oriented than Skyrim’s “here’s a sandbox, figure things out, do stuff, oh, btw, there’s technically some quests you can do too”.
- Comment on I still can't get over Skyrim. Are there any games that can replace it? 3 weeks ago:
The entire time playing Crimson Desert I have the feeling: “this is Skyrim, but better”.
- Comment on What’s your favorite video game that most people didn’t like ?? 5 weeks ago:
Any time anyone complains about a game and mentions anything at all related to “woke” as one of the reasons for the game being bad, you can immediately dismiss the entire opinion.
- Comment on We produce more resources than we could ever consume in the least sustainable ways possible. 1 month ago:
If you get rid of the capitalist leeches, yes, you have more workers left over because there’s no more demand for yachts and other shit
Yeah, you can’t think like that.
The “demand for yachts” means a lot of employment in very specialised, expensive areas. That means high tax revenue. Yes, the capitalist leeches should be eliminated, but eliminating “the demand for yachts” doesn’t suddenly usher the age of prosperity, it might actually lower the tax revenue.
But yeah, in terms of literally freeing hands to instead do plumbing, that is correct.
Otherwise - fully agree!
- Comment on We produce more resources than we could ever consume in the least sustainable ways possible. 1 month ago:
There are only three solutions to this problem:
- UBI + UBP, like I mentioned.
- Throw so much work at the young that they literally cannot do anything else but work.
- Completely restructure how the retirement system works on a fundamental level.
1 is impossible because Capitalism.
2 ends in an even bigger disaster than we have now.
3 is inconceivable. Would probably require some form of “communism for old people” where everything is provided without money being required and they get a relatively small amount of cash in case they want to travel. Won’t ever happen because greed exists.
- Comment on We produce more resources than we could ever consume in the least sustainable ways possible. 1 month ago:
I would agree with you if we went all in on UBI, including Universal Basic Pension. Because without that, population decline means slowly starving out the elderly, or throwing so much work on the younger generations, that they reproduce even less.
- Comment on We produce more resources than we could ever consume in the least sustainable ways possible. 1 month ago:
We are producing enough food (and clothes, and appliances, etc., etc.) for 10 billion people, and the planet is burning. It is not sustainable long term. And, by “long term”, I don’t mean “the next 20 years”, I mean “the next 100-200 years”.
And the “manufactured crisis” of population decline hits really hard if you’re 12 and have no clue how the retirement system works.
They arrive at the right conclusion (capitalism is currently the cause of all suffering), but through completely stupid reasoning.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
Oh damn, I never heard about this! Cheers, I’ll look into it!
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
(dude here) Same. My pits smell pretty badly after a whole day in hot weather if they’re sporting bushes.
Also… yuck. I don’t know, I just don’t like hair anywhere other than the head + eyebrows + eyelashes. If there was a magical procedure that eliminates 100% of all the other body hair forever, I’d go for it without a second thought. We really don’t need it since the invention of clothing.
- Comment on Im a weekly showerer 2 months ago:
Right? People are so fucking weird, like they never heard about washing oneself in the sink…?
- Comment on “I genuinely feel GameNative could replace handheld PCs like the Steam Deck” — Inside Android’s Fastest-Moving Gaming Project, GameNative (my article!) 2 months ago:
Who wants to use an increasingly locked down operating system?
What’s the alternative? Keep in mind: we’re talking about a primary phone used for calls, texts, navigation, banking, payments, photography, and social media.
- Comment on “I genuinely feel GameNative could replace handheld PCs like the Steam Deck” — Inside Android’s Fastest-Moving Gaming Project, GameNative (my article!) 2 months ago:
What’s the alternative? Keep in mind: we’re talking about a primary phone used for calls, texts, navigation, banking, payments, photography, and social media.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
OK, there’s a MASSIVE gap between “illegal use of white phosphorus” and “chemical eradication”, like, dude, be real.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
- If that’s your point, why did you write about the Sami people?
- Source on “chemical eradication” in Lebanon, please. I searched for it but couldn’t find anything.
- Comment on Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Director Says It Did Gay Romance "Right" By Not Going "Woke" 2 months ago:
It’s the exact same thing as right-wing weirdos associating the term “feminist” strictly with with the most extreme, fundamentalist, fringe elements of the movement, “feminazis” if you will, that went way over the equality hill and ended up in “all men are bad, m’kay” forest.
The fact that public media often reinforces that view does not help.
In short: the game is woke, because it showcases a gay romance with historical accuracy. Vavra thinks it’s not woke, because it doesn’t allow the player character to be a black lesbian with “them” pronouns.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
OK, now I get it.
Of course I heard about it. The “state sponsored Western propaganda” also very specifically mentioned that phrenology studies were shut down only in the 70s in Sweden, in case that would be your further attempt at a “gotcha”.
Why would you think that it’s some sort of secret?
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
I’m sorry, could you re-write that? I’m having trouble understanding what you meant.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
This article would therefore define ANY war as genocide. (in whole or in part, killing members of the group), and it may even be a “peaceful situation”!
People always focus on the wrong part of the definition.
The important one is the intent.
Wars are waged for various reasons - you need “lebensraum”, you need oil, you intervene on behalf of the UN, you counterattack after being attacked yourself, etc.
The goals in these cases are: expansion of borders, hoarding of wealth, arguably humanitarian intervention, or military defence.
If your goal is to eliminate a people, that’s genocide.
And yes, that’s also the reason why it’s so difficult to actually define a military action as “genocide” - because it’s often almost impossible to unequivocally determine what was the intent behind an attack.
And with that, let’s look at your examples:
This would mean the Nazis were genocided by the Allies.
No, because the goal was the stopping of the genocide of Jews, and defeating an aggressor that terrorised Europe and North Africa for four years.
This would mean Japan’s treatment of Aum Shinrikyo was also a genocide
No, because the death sentences were carried out not because of their religious beliefs, but because they committed acts of terror.
This is why no one takes them seriously
No. No one takes them seriously because most people, like you, don’t understand the definition.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
I’m not going to engage in this discourse, just as much as I won’t engage in the discourse about whether or not the Earth is flat.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
Yeah, I think I made a pretty strong refute of his points here.