Comprehension eludes you. Or you elude it. Either way, you lose.

I know its a joke but just to note: I’d love to see Germany “march through Poland” given the poor state of Germany’s armed forces. As it is rn, Poland alone could most likely reach Russia’s heart in a couple of weeks of conventional warfare and debilitate Russian critical infrastructure long before that. Barring nukes of course, which is basically all the Kremlin would have to hang on to in a full out direct confrontation given just how incompetent their armed forces have proven to be.

Great read, thank you for sharing.

There are no wildflowers on the road to hell, but it is paved with good intentions.

C is right there only if you’re naive enougn to believe it.

Most people don’t want war. Yet they will go to war, each side convinced in their own self-righteousness. That is the human condition. Picking wildflowers isn’t going to stop the Nazi boot or anything else for that matter. Another way to think about it - Charlie Chaplin’s messages in the 1930s were great, full of hope, and reached a lot of people. But that was nowhere near what was needed. Tens of millions had to die. It’s not gonna be any different this time around, Chaplin or no Chaplin.

I don’t want any followers or believers. Calling it as I see it. That is all.

Not to worry, you’re simply confusing freedom of speech with obliging private actors to consume content they don’t want to consume or disagree with. The first is a fundemental principle of democratic legal systems and recognized as a perempotry norm under international law. The second is authoritarianism.

There’s a growing number of legally illiterate people who think freedom of speech is absolute and even affords one the right to oblige others consume their speech through the government. That is fundamentally wrong and a complete misunderstanding of how these key principles of freedom work and have always worked in modern democratic systems.

Newsflash - freedom of speech is not absolute. Never has been. There are very specific, explicitly codified limitations. Why? Because words are the most powerful weapons and can be used to target and threaten the freedoms of other people, including their freedom to life. Which is why rights and obligations are always balanced against each other, following the principle of proportionality.

If you feel so strongly about not being able force others to consume content they don’t want to consume, then I have bad news for you - you are opposing democracy. But it seems like you, and many other like you, are just confused, rather than actively promoting anti-democratic standpoints. The truly sad part? The impact is the same regardless of intent.

Edit: Want to know more? Details at 6.

What field was it? I like to think every field contributes to your knowledge in a meaningful way even if you don’t end up working in it

Yo, did they change the photo? I’m only seeing it in the thembnail

I’m just making fun of the biased dynamics and what often seems like a black-and-white perspective. By no means do I think that one is “good” and the other is “bad”, but I do think there is a lot of misrepresentation going around because of the latest developments around TikTok. We should also keep in kind that the executive decision was put in place over a year ago but ofcourse nobody discussed it back then because policy only becomes relevant once it factors into personal interpretations and ideology.

Oh you sweet summer child!

China good, US bad! It is known!

That’s not how I remember it. The average persin in Eastern Europe couldn’t afford to buy a car and cars were in short supply, resulting in significant waiting periods (we’re talking years). The average citizens in the USSR and the Warsaw Pact had much less purchaisng power compared to their counterparts in the West. Soviet-made cars were much more expensice relative to Western-made ones, and of considerably lower quality, generally speaking.

I guess I must be “retarded” as well - I don’t get what’s so funny about someone being impressed or otherwise stricken with the landscape of a place they’ve never been to.

Edit: typos

Lucky bastard

I think I didn’t explain it well enough.

Its not just software that you can buy as in the case of LoL and essence. You can also buy highly expensive hardware produced by Valve itself which you can either keep or sell irl just like you would sll your phone or laptop. I.e. there are accessible ways to convert into irl value. I’m not intimately familiar with LoL, but can you convert essence into a VR headset or something similar? Afaik, the answer is “no”.

It might be something you personally like but that’s not the issue. The issue is whether the system is similar enough to gambling to warrant similar regulation. And there are a lot of arguments in favour of regulation. Understandby, this is relatively low on lawmakers’ priorities. However, some EU countries have already moved in that direction, ouright banning games with gambling systems if they fail to uphold laws.

Not exactly.

You can’t directly convert steam credits into legal tender without third-party services. But you can buy products and then sell yhose if you wanted to for legal tender. Using CSGO2 + Steam Marketplace and Store , you could sell enough skins to buy Valve’s products, including hardware such as the Steam Deck and their VR headset. So yes, there are ways to convert the skins into value irl.

We should also keep in mind that Valve has behavioral psychologists from the casino industry working on this system. I wonder why.

Agreed, we should not make it seem like Valve has no responsibility just because it doesn’t directly own the casinos, gambling sites, etc. They benefit financially from the way the whole system is set up and they know it. Every round and transaction directly benefits Valve financially. The more underage people get addicted to the casino system they have going on, the more money Valve gets.

I mean, who made the GUI a copy of a slot machine?

They could end this whole thing tomorrow if they wanted to.

Seems like you’re prescribing a lot of opinions to the people you’re replying to. But if you go back and read what they wrote carefully you should see that your deductions and assumptions about what they think don’t really stand the test of reason and semantics. Especially given how much of a tech-focused forum this is. Every third post is about Linux - so realistically what are the chances that you are enaging with primitivists on here?

You’re tilting at windmills. It’s not about rejecting technological advancement. It’s about ensuring its fairness and accessability.

Yes, technology can be (and is) used for social good. It can also be (and is) used to opress and supress. What’s more both dynamics are happening at the same time. The world isn’t black-and-white. The human condition is complex.