This was deeply silly and sort of made my day. Much more entertaining and funny that I expected from two hours of usb talk. Game show! This is a downer time of year for a lot of us so i hereby offer this little low stakes bright spot.
I really struggle to take seriously what these tech people say about ‘not wanting to censor’. They made a business calculation, and maybe an ideological one, and decided “we want that nazi money, it’s worth it to us.” which really tells you everything about a company and how it is likely to approach other issues, too.
I just want to state very emphatically that deradicalizing people is a specific skill set and set of actions that is completely different than “being friendly to nazis”. And tolerating bigotry so that people don’t feel bad about their bigotry is just tolerating bigotry. On that note, on another post you argued heavily with multiple users that white privilege is not real and that you were being oppressed for your whiteness. I thought maybe you were very young, or confused, and tried to have empathy and explain some concepts, but here you are now also arguing that we need to be nice to nazis for the good of society so that they don’t feel oppressed. I suppose you might say that pointing this out and making you feel more oppressed would drive you further away, but a better approach, i think, would be to tell you very very directly that the things you have been saying here, in multiple places, are white supremacist talking points. And no one here is going to condone that. Stop. If you need help stopping, that is your responsibility, not the hypothetical 9 other peoples’.
Over the past several days I’ve seen you draw out many good faith disagreements about racism or nazism into what seem like intentionally blurry “just asking questions” type derailments whereby you try to shift the topic of the discussion to other, emotional or tangential details and or try to misrepresent the issue at hand to make the racism or nazism seem not that bad. I really don’t think someone would do that if they were coming from a place of genuine confusion or curiosity or dialogue. I might be wrong, but taken together it really gives the impression, intent aside, that you’re trying to spin up plausible arguments for far right stuff and then sow confusion whenever people say “hey, don’t do that, it’s harmful”. I just don’t believe there’s wiggle room here. I don’t want to have a circular conversation about it, but i do want to point out directly what you’re doing, because I think it sucks, and I think that you should stop.
The other user is right. Any tolerance for those ideologies gives them a foothold. It makes room for them. There can be no room, at all, for that shit. Ever. Arguing otherwise is dangerous. There is no nuance here. At all.
“What the fuck is going on” is the reaction I most hope to have to fiction. Games get to be weird in a way books and movies can’t always get away with. I am excited.
I’m looking for a watch that can track my heart rate, stay on my tiny wrist, and that doesn’t cost a lot only to break frequently. Fitbit is….no longer meeting that criteria and was honestly out of my budget to begin with, but i am nervous about spending money again on something random that could also break just as...
If you get a message from someone you never matched with on Tinder, it’s not a glitch — it’s part of the app’s expensive new subscription plan that it teased earlier this year, which allows “power users” to send unsolicited messages to non-matches for the small fee of $499 per month....
The incredible horror of tying self worth to romantic “success” and then charging people money for it, is awful on its face, but it leads to much worse things too. This is, in effect, charging money for people to have “access” to people who haven’t consented to being contacted, furthering the idea that money=access to people who can’t say no to you. Tinder is monetizing peoples’ emotional need for connection at best, which is horrible, but at worst it’s also propping up a whole complex of ideas that erode respect and consent toward potential romantic or sexual partners, and that the far end eventually leads to like, Andrew Tate shit. And why wouldn’t it work? People have had their self worth obliterated by the commodification of human beings that is mainstream heteronormative dating culture. Tech companies making themselves the mediator of human connection, romantic or platonic or in terms of activism, hobbies, groups, etc - and then charging money for us to know each other and meet each other - horrifies me daily.
Have you ever played a game and wondered what if you could do something that it doesn’t really allow you to do, for example being able to move around blocks in Minecraft fluidly instead of in sectors, edit the world in Hogwarts legacy with spells, be able to fly in a world like Elden Ring or Elder Scrolls with epic sky...
I want to play a sci fi horror game that’s got violence, terror and mysteries, but that doesn’t rely on quick reactions or precise timing to beat. I want the full experience of creeping around somewhere derelict and haunted, full of blood and physical plot devices and all the rest, solving puzzles and exploring, doing all the usual stuff, but without any time pressure whatsoever. I want the enemies to give me time to think. I think that if that was done right, in a clever enough way, it could make for a really strange and scary experience for being more deliberately paced. Maybe it’s a dimensional thing. Maybe the monsters exist in a different kind of time. Maybe they can only react to the player for some reason, or take turns. Or maybe the player can leave or hide or manipulate the way things occur, but always has go back to and solve the situation from some angle. I feel like the right person could come up with something really cool. I’m not that neurologically well suited to the kinds of games I like the most, so I just want somebody to invent me a very slow, scary, ridiculously dense game that’s got resident evil or dead space or soma vibes but relies on different combat mechanics somehow.
That’s so wholesome. I think i was there a bit earlier, or simply avoided the branded games, but I remember this….faerie puzzle platforming adventure type thing? And, of course, destructomatch. The Neopian economy was wild. They gave a bunch of kids their own little small businesses to manage, with the social safety net of free omelettes. I sort of wish I’d taken advantage of its features more back in the day.
The Vergecast USB-C Holiday Spec-tacular (www.theverge.com)
This was deeply silly and sort of made my day. Much more entertaining and funny that I expected from two hours of usb talk. Game show! This is a downer time of year for a lot of us so i hereby offer this little low stakes bright spot.
Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content (www.theverge.com)
TikTok requires users to “forever waive” rights to sue over past harms (arstechnica.com)
Are there any good ad blockers for ios anymore?
Any that work for youtube?
Facebook owner Meta faces EU ban on targeted advertising (www.reuters.com)
Inside Alan Wake 2, the strangest game of 2023: “They’re going to be like, ‘What the fuck is going on?’” (www.gq-magazine.co.uk)
Good, inexpensive fitness trackers?
I’m looking for a watch that can track my heart rate, stay on my tiny wrist, and that doesn’t cost a lot only to break frequently. Fitbit is….no longer meeting that criteria and was honestly out of my budget to begin with, but i am nervous about spending money again on something random that could also break just as...
My One-Step Guide to Turn Soup from Watery Crap into Something You Would Want to Eat
Step 1: Add a little bit of oil to taste....
Tinder Now Letting Rizzless Sad Sacks Pay $500/Month to Message People Without Even Matching (futurism.com)
If you get a message from someone you never matched with on Tinder, it’s not a glitch — it’s part of the app’s expensive new subscription plan that it teased earlier this year, which allows “power users” to send unsolicited messages to non-matches for the small fee of $499 per month....
Nintendo Ending Mario Kart Tour Content 4 years after its debut (www.gamescensor.com)
What type of game do you want to play that doesn't really exist?
Have you ever played a game and wondered what if you could do something that it doesn’t really allow you to do, for example being able to move around blocks in Minecraft fluidly instead of in sectors, edit the world in Hogwarts legacy with spells, be able to fly in a world like Elden Ring or Elder Scrolls with epic sky...
Neopets is promising a ‘new era’ with an improved website and fixed Flash games (www.theverge.com)