This used to be the way with all games. You had one version. It was one game and everyone got the same thing. All the additional stuff is just a normalized scam.

I went a couple of times years ago when it was just starting to turn into what you describe. Had a great time, but it quickly priced me out. Now, it sounds like an influencer-laden hellscape. The addition of premium plug and play sites was the nail in the coffin. That said, a lot of the old time Burners are fucking amazing, creative, resourceful, and helpful people.

No you won't, you'll just yell at them anonymously online. We know your tricks!

Nah, it'll just be another, "Gawd werks in mysterious wayz!"

It's funny how I use this guy as an example of what's actually effective rather than just making noise, and the usual response is a LOT of noise. I just ask them, how many people have you convinced to stop being racist and leave the KKK with your current "efforts". Kindness is not weakness, it's effective.

I'm having a blast with a Bard character. So many dialogue options open up and I get like +7 on many dialogue rolls. This is the best D&D experience I've had in a video game.

There's a lot I love about America: the natural beauty, some of the people, access to a lot that most of the rest of the world doesn't have similar access to, but I've never bought into the "Proud to be an American" schtick. Our gov't can get fucked, regardless of who the President is. There's corruption that goes way beyond that office.

Monty Python's Life of Brian. When I was younger and starting to question things, it just kind of struck me how religions are mainly people interpreting things through their own filter and then fighting others who don't filter reality in the same way. It made me decide to try to do away with filters altogether, as much as is possible. Hence, I am non-partisan, non-religious, and simply try to see things from as many angles and taking as many factors into account as I can.

Yeah, don't seek to improve anything. I wouldn't trade ours for that of Cambodia, but I'd sure as shit trade it for Denmark. We could strive to implement better processes in our system. First thing is to admit that there's a problem.

The struggle isn't men vs women. It's different mindsets. There are men, women, and other identities who view things in an us vs them bigoted way and then there are those who don't look at what someone is, but how they treat others. The latter tend to be capable of getting along just fine together and use communication skills and emotional maturity to create solidarity with each other rather than pointing fingers at each other and creating absolutist rules and narratives. They show what is possible and are creating change and progress through being the solution of unity and solidarity by simply being cool with each other and not assuming anything about each other based on whatever identities they have.

I'm certainly enjoying playing. I just wish Bethesda could stop making potato people with weird talking animations and the whole muted, grainy, weird Bethesda art style, but that aside it's pretty fun. I wasn't watching a bunch of footage beforehand, so I didn't build up expectations to get let down. I think paying too much attention to things said during development (which is where lots of changes happen) is pretty dumb.

My only concern is extremists making use of it to organize, spread misinformation, coordinate attacks, etc. and there's zero oversight. That's a serious concern that needs addressing, but I have no idea how.

Finances aren't the only difficulty in life. It's not that simple and reducing down to just the financial aspect of life, while that aspect is important, is oversimplifying things. Don't forget there were tons of poor boomers too. Only about 1/3rd ever saw a pension. Plus, try telling gay boomers, POC, women, people with mental and emotional issues, etc that they had it easier. They weren't all middle class straight white men, and treating them as one homogenous group is disingenuous.

Well, let's see how many contempt of court charges he can rack up.

Panam from Cyberpunk 2077

Diablo 4, Chivalry 2 when I need to blow off steam or just get high and bash about and be silly.

I guess birds aren't real after all.

I haven't entirely left yet, but I'm using Lemmy more and more. Been on reddit for 15 years.

Once I hit my early 20s I had a goal for myself: to find out what the truth is, whatever it may be, even if it shatters my most cherished beliefs. I went through so many different belief systems. I explored every kind of mindset I could regarding everything I could. I would get very involved with some belief system or ideology for a time and absorb what I could from it and then move on to something else.

Over time, I saw a ton of patterns emerge and I saw that ideologies of any kind place a limited filter on how one views reality. I decided that what makes the most sense to me is to simply seek to do the most good while doing the least harm. Whether or not one believes in a god is irrelevant as life does as it will anyway. Adhering to a political party is just team sports. Social norms are basically attempts to not be uncomfortable and only pretend to be about safety and order (neither of which exist regardless of what social norms exist).

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!