Ugh, so true. The insidious nature of Steam is the fact that they’re basically a PC gaming business monopoly, but they’re benign compared to other corporations, so gamers tend to turn a blind eye to that fact, or find various grasping ways to convince themselves otherwise (there’s still Epic and GOG! etc). The fact that 80%+ of PC game sales are through Steam doesn’t seem to faze or disturb them, when it most definitely should. What happens when Steam drops the facade? I imagine it won’t be long before Steam turns into the badguy.

Do what? Remind me of the babe

I find it incredibly fascinating that many people in the West can make the connection that their own governments regularly lie and deceive them, but can’t accept that, maybe, just maybe, the same governments are lying about the Chinese government. It’s astonishing to see the contradiction there. Like, perhaps since you are well aware that your own government isn’t completely honest, why would you not question other narratives that are pushed by that same government?

When big Tech, especially the biggest video platform in the world, does something like this it is relevant to tech. The better question is, if you do support lgbtq+ people, why the public freakout about mentioning a far reaching tech policy, by one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) tech company in the world, on a tech sub?

nazis and fascists, without ever knowing what those words even mean

I am Jack’s complete lack of self awareness

Sure, if your issue is that it’s okay for corporations to remove protections for hate speech towards marginalized groups, then yes, go get bent. This kind of false equivalence between normalizing hate and ostraciszing progressives for speaking out against oppression is EXACTLY what we’re fighting against. What in the hell is the ‘rhetoric’ do you disagree with? Having empathy for lgbtq+ people? Jesus. If so, this is definitely not the place for you.

Right on, that’s good on them. I was honestly disappointed to learn that they were deniers years ago, which definitely effected my ability to watch the show afterwards. I’ll have to check out the episode when I can.

Oh, I didn’t realize they’d revisited the gag. Thanks for the head’s up.

Kudos. That got an unexpected, but much needed, hearty chuckle out of me :D

That episode is commonly misunderstood. I too had always thought they were lampooning climate change deniers, but Matt and Trey were actually poking fun of Al Gore and An Inconvient Truth as alarmist. They’ve since apologized for the episode, but it’s wild that it’s so often confused for satirizing the very thing it was mocking. For me I just assumed that Matt and Trey wouldn’t be deniers so it never occured to me until I found out their true intention and now it’s pretty cringy to watch that episode since it’s a lot more obvious. Here’s an article about it:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a25127458/south-park-climate-change-manbearpig-apology-season-22-episode-7/

Just because I’m already on .ml

It’s gotten a fair amount of attention so far, I’m sitting at 49 subscribers now. So, I think it’s best to stay where I’m at. I’d hesitate to move it right now after almost 50 subs. I could see if there was less traction, but right now it seems like it’s alright where it is.

Thanks, will do!

You find tiny phonographs attached to each flower, playing a symphony of staccato squeaks. The music swells and as it does your thoughts become scattered and erratic, you feel your limbs begin to involuntarily move in jerky motions. Describe how you stop the maniacal music from controlling your mind and roll a D6!

The gazebo cries out in agony, a series of high-itched squeaks emit from it and it breaks apart into a swarm of purple rubber duckies that amass into a giant fist, pummeling you for your audacity. The fist swings, the purple duckies bobbing and undulating like a wave of scurrying ants. When the the fist hits you an enormous SQUEAK rattles you teeth. You fly backwards in an arc, hitting a nearby flower stand, the flowers explode out in a flurry of daisies, roses and tulips, the startled flower-seller jumps in the nearby shallow creek in a panic. You are now covered in assorted flowers. What do you do?

Direct link to the community: !Every_Post_Is_An_RPG@Lemmy.ml

Direct link to the Stuperheroes game

Awesome! I am very familiar with Zot, Understanding Comics and Mr. McCloud in general, but I’d never heard of this. Thanks for showing me. I’ll have to check it out sometime!

Parenti, in Blackshirt in Reds, covers this topic excellently. He does not gloss over the flaws and corruptions in the USSR, but he is realistic in giving a fair assessment of their successes in the midst of their failures. A big point being what you mentioned above: the USSR had to continue focusing production towards just being on even footing with the US in terms of defense, to protect against the very real threat of the US overthrowing the government as they were doing in so many other communist countries. At no time during the USSR’s existence were they ever not under attack by some outside force or another (the NAZIs, CIA, multi-national capitalist interests etc). Here’s a good quote talking about the Stalin era and progressive policies during that time:

During the years of Stalin’s reign, the Soviet nation made dramatic gains in literacy, industrial wages, health care, and women’s rights. These accomplishments usually go unmentioned when the Stalinist era is discussed. To say that “socialism didn’t work” is to ignore that it did. In Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Mongolia, North Korea, and Cuba, revolutionary communism created a life for the mass of people that was far better than the wretched existence they had endured under feudal lords, military bosses, foreign colonizers, and Western capitalists. The end result was a dramatic improvement in the living conditions for hundreds of millions of people on a scale never before or since witnessed in history.

Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti

That’s…gross. But entirely unsurprising. I never knew that there was a neutered version in the US. I actually had to look it up. Wow. Go us. This country really just continues to depress me day after day.

Thank you. Yes, she really was. I fell in love with her the first day we met. We didn’t get together until almost two years after, but I never questioned that we were meant to be together. I didn’t talk about her passing to anyone for awhile after it happened. I felt like mentioning it was too close to fishing for sympathy, sometimes I still do. But at a certain point I had to say something, I can’t help but feel the immensity of her loss hour after hour, day after day. I appreciate the kind words. I’m definitely in the process of healing, it’s just a very long, and much of the time, lonely process.

Eh, I’m still recovering from the holidays. My fiance passed three years ago, and during the holidays I still make it out to see her family. It’s always a bit bittersweet since I love seeing them, but I feel her absence so much more being with them without her. This year was tougher than the other it seemed like because of her grandma telling me how the family has kind of drifted apart since my fiance’s passing. The thing that broke my heart though, was talking with her sister and her telling me that sometimes she can’t remember her very well, that she has a hard time remembering her face. It really shook me to hear that. I cried intensely the whole way home. It’s heartbreaking to see the toll that her loss has taken on all of us. I’m in the process of trying to work through the grief, but it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever head to do. Just simply accepting the new normal has been a monumental undertaking for me. I’m trying to figure out a life without her, it’s just hard to imagine what that looks like sometimes :'(