Now this is going to be largely anecdotal as many of the places I'm speaking about don't allow studies for things like this, but... Having now lived in over a dozen countries and been on scores of ExPat compounds the world over, I can safely say that every country and race on the planet has those that think they are superior to everyone else. This isn't an exclusive thing about the West. Heck, Canada and the US aren't even in the top 3 worst examples I can think of. I've seen it in a much stronger form in Saudi Arabia. We're talking US slavery-era levels of racism there, and that's currently.
Re-appointed you! Wasn't removing for any reason other than I keep a clean house and thought you were away for a good long time.
This was actually the topic I wanted to bring out as the inaugural Steelman! I'm conflicted for a few reasons.
I'd like to know more on the subject, but there's some conflicting science on the issue. I've seen papers that discuss brain differences saying both that there are no differences between male and female brains, but in other papers that there are. Similarly, I've read papers that talked about no differences in trans brains vs. their biological sex, and also ones that state there are. It's kinda wild and I don't know enough about brains to confidently decode the research properly.
In a similar vein, I also know studies are not being funded (and at least two that were actively shuttered) due to not researching the subject in a manor that was explicitly pro-trans, which I have a problem with. Not that I'm anti-trans by any means, but I don't like "activist" research. Put another way, if neutral science and review doesn't support an issue, maybe it's not the science that's wrong.
What changed your mind?
As I said in other threads, I can't even partially understand how people don't want to have a more cohesive / logically sound opinion, so this is close to the heart for me.
I had a major opinion shift on drugs when I was in my mid 20s; I was straight-edge without knowing what straight-edge was until then. No drinking, and no drugs of any kind. My experiences with drugs were of the potheads-that-drop-out-of-school and abusive family kind. Seeing people I cared about become burnouts way too young and do themselves permanent damage really drove home how much harm they could do. As such, I used to think that there was no good reason to do so.
I had a conversation in a forum that changed things when another user spoke about something I hadn't factored in.
Art.
I had no quarrel with the majority of art that came from drugs (and to a much lesser extent, drinking) and actively loved a lot of it. Turns out it wasn't drugs or drinking I had a hate-on for, it was addiction in general.
And to answer my own question, I really want to do that Steelman group thingie if we get a few people in on it.
I don't know if it's the one you're thinking of, but this guy does motion comic stuff and makes fun of superheroes:
It looks like I will be nearly the only dissenter here. I didn't care for the game.
PROS:
- The music and sound design were completely appropriate and fit the world.
- An initially interesting story setup.
- Some of the planets have a SUPER cool premise and are a joy to explore.
- The DLC adds some much-needed (albeit mild) horror elements.
NEUTRALS:
- Achievements are implemented, but are mostly for irrelevant side activities. Do you like using a guide to figure out how to get all the achievements? Well, you will have to.
CONS:
- This is not an adventure game, this is a puzzle game first and foremost. If you are not down with figuring out hundreds of vague Dark Souls-style lore blurbs scattered all over in order to work out how to solve environmental puzzles to progress, do not get this game.
- In the same vein, if you are not down with having a loop end before you're done exploring an area only to have to trek all the way back there and go through everything all over again in case you missed something, do not get this game. This could be partially solved by having the logs you find on a planet permanently NOT GLOW any more after you had read their chain, or maybe a ship notice letting you know there were undecyphered texts on a planet still. I had to re-tread an astounding amount of ground just to make sure I wasn't missing something.
- When your ship directs you to a planet that you need something from, the navigation on some of them is so obtuse that I found several places I could not find again even after dozens of visits to their planets. A map or better signposting would alleviate this.
- The characters were deeply forgettable, and you are constantly inundated with dozens of gibberish alien names so unless you follow a lore guide or take notes, you're not going to figure out who did what. And speaking of...
- The story has a veneer of "pretty good sci-fi" but is told quite poorly. You will beat the game, get the incredibly lacklustre ending that doesn't close out the story in any way, and watch one of many lore explanation videos that will make things click into place. The fact that the lore videos have SO MANY HITS is endemic of the fact that this is a narrative poorly delivered. You will find the lore in random order. If spread over multiple sessions like I played, this will mean you will not make some absolutely needed connections.
- Many things do not make sense within the context of the world and there is no reason for them to be happening at the time except for the hand-waving "It's a video game" excuse, which breaks immersion. Why only now is sand being moved from one planet to another at the beginning of a cycle? Why only now is one planet being broken by lava? These (and other that I can not speak about due to spoilers) are not explained - the systems have existed for ages and would have (and should have given the environments they set up) occurred before this, but because it makes for a more interesting setup, it all happens now.
- The controls are... an acquired taste at best. Look at many of the negative reviews; many state the controls as an issue. There is a reason for this, even though I did become accustomed to them over time. I swapped to a controller and it was less bad. The keyboard and mouse controls are abysmal.
- I played the final build after the DLC came out, and even this far in development, I had some severe bugs. Controls would get "stuck" and force a game restart, achievements didn't unlock correctly, etc.
- I wound up quitting because I didn't know what to do next and didn't care to watch yet another video to figure it out. There were hundreds of text logs that may or may not have been useful, and no idea how to find what was missing to help me progress without consulting guides, and it became too much. I eventually realized that I was just throwing time into a hole with nothing to show for it. It genuinely felt like it wanted me to give up and I couldn't help but oblige. I just... stopped. I hated it. I kept doing the same thing over and over and eventually felt that I wasn't enjoying anything. I hate the very concept of repetition as a game mechanic unless executed well; this wasn't executed well.
- Despite quitting, I have seen all the endings. The real ending is legitimately nonsense and is basically an appeal to emotion while leaving the reality of the universe behind. It abandons the premise with what can only be described as a narrative hug that does essentially nothing, but presents the veneer of "feel good." It is nothing. It is empty. Everyone but me loves it for this, and I can't figure out why.
CONCLUSION: Meh? I really don't understand the adoration people have for this game. It's a mediocre non-combat roguelike with about 3 hour of content they've spread over 20 hours. It feels very much like a case of style over substance. This game genuinely makes me sad. I really wanted to like it, but... ugh. It feels like work.
They are? Where? I mod a Community and I've never seen anything that isn't explicitly for Admins that can see them.
For my community ( [email protected] ) I would adore this as long as it's available to Mods of the community the downvotes are in and Admins of that instance only. It should absolutely not be visible for normal users.
We are hit with downvotes nearly every time we post a new thread on anything even remotely controversial so it would really help us filter out people who simply downvote to bury the thread and contribute nothing whatsoever to the discussion.
If you disagree, we want to know why and discuss that with you. It's the entire point of our Community.
Heck, we actively made it a rule to not downvote unless the user is not adding to the discussion, and that it should not be used as a disagree button. People generally ignore this, however.
That or just add the moderator option to disable downvotes for Communities. It would be an incredibly handy toggle.
EDIT: For an example as to why it should be implemented, see this post you're currently viewing where I give reasons, how it's been impacting us, some alternatives, and people hit the "fuck you" button with zero discussion and that's all. This is the problem.
Figured I'd make a new reply in hopes the system notifies of a response.
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It'd be cool to do an instance, but I don't have the time (or maybe resources) to manage such a thing. Even getting help to manage one Community is hard. We have had two mods vanish, and I can only imagine running an instance being much harder. Our largest issue is actually getting replies instead of drive-by-downvotes. New threads that aren't pretty obviously tuned to the attitudes of Lemmy at large get buried quickly in no-discussion downvotes. For example, the thread about overpopulation was insanely downvoted, with very little actual discussion occurring. It was reported to admins, and I was told multiple times that it was a fascist dogwhistle. I have no idea how or why this is, because nobody explained it or responded to questions. I replied with data, and was told in no uncertain terms to fuck off in PMs. People don't respond because they don't see the thread due to downvoting, won't reply if they do see it due to dogpiling, or can't back up their opinions and stop responding after making insults. This has been my experience of trying to discuss anything of substance on Lemmy. It's a huge problem. I would absolutely help run a new instance, but I couldn't spearhead the effort.
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I like the multiple vote system, but my preference would be to simply disable downvotes altogether and leave it at "upvote only." I don't think we'll ever get through to users that a downvote isn't a "disagree button" to many people. Disabling downvotes would have to be done instance-side, or so I've been told. I don't think the entire instance wishes to do that however. I've requested more Community controls, but there's been a distinct lack of them at present.
I'm totally open to any ideas to help though!
A trash heap where it fucking belongs.
There isn't a thing that you can put ketchup on that a good BBQ sauce or hot sauce isn't better on. I will die on this hill.
Hey! I wish the damn system would notify me when a post is made in the community, so we can start that as a wishlist feature right now. It makes it hard to engage and grow a Community when you don't even know someone has posted there. When I browse Lemmy, I tend to use All and simply filter out subs I have no interest in. I don't think many people exclusively visit specific subs.
First off, I appreciate the positivity! You have no idea how many aggro messages I get because I had the gall to even broach subjects that some people don't like. I've had PMs from people telling me they're going to kill themselves because of threads I've responded to where I pointed out logic failures, been called every name under the sun, had the sub reported multiple time because of threads questioning a personal moral narrative the user had, and much more. It gets to be a real drag when you see a reply notification and get a twinge of apprehension because you're not sure what you'll get.
I have to head out now (work stuff), unfortunately, but I'll edit this reply in a few hours with thoughts on your proposals above, I just wanted to make sure I replied ASAP so you can see that there's some movement.
So... a few things in order to actually change your view. Some of these may sound like snark, but I promise they aren't. I love CMV threads and sometimes the best way to do that is to show a weak or broken logic chain and I know those can look like an attack.
This may be a "politicians" thing, and not a "the West" thing. Every political leader denounces things that other countries shouldn't do and turns a blind eye to things their friendlier countries do. Hell, every religion does it too. So do political parties. And friend groups. And marriages. No country is innocent because humans can be fucking monsters and can excuse things from the devil they know.
Somewhat conversely, I don't know how much you can hold current people accountable for previous regimes. If you can, how far back? Is Biden responsible for things Trump did? How about for Nixon? How about for Taft? How about the Native tribes who were at war and trying to genocide other tribes and take slaves long before white settlers arrived? I bring this up because I've known a good number of diplomats and many of these political deals (one of which being providing weapons to Israel currently) was a previous regime. Breaking those agreements make you a bad "partner country" to deal with. Breaking a treaty deal is... bad news internationally. The country you broke that deal with may also have leverage on you to make sure you keep it as well. Maybe things the public doesn't know about. You also can't come out and say that the only reason you're abiding by the treaty is so as to not piss off other people because it makes you seem weak internationally.
Data sharing in astronomy seems like a universal win and NASA does share date with China. The US shared data and samples from lunar missions past at the time. China is just barred from joint-ops missions from government-funded agencies without FBI approval which is not the same thing. This was due to some suspicion of previous data requested that weren't about space or a mission, but about rocket launching tech that was then put into use for armaments. "It was alleged that technical information provided by American commercial satellite manufacturers to China in connection with satellite launches could have been used to improve Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile technology." Sharing ICBM information with a hostile foreign government is generally a poor move, defensively.
Are any of those seeming like something you'd like to discuss further?