I didn’t think for even a moment that it would be that simple, thank you so much!

Honestly, I agree, putting a gender slant on it, unless completely necessary, can easily arecomplicate the situation, as its putting these expectations at the front of mind. I often see this leading either into resentful sexism, or original sin type self-loathing for being a man.

I honesty just think tbe topic of gender online is so toxic, that mixing it in with mental health can cause lots of unnecessarily complications, and makes it easy for third parties to take advantage for their own ends.

Weirdly it’s the other way for me. I love Cyberpunk and am trying to replay it, and my favourite games have always been long and story driven, I love turning over the rocks and seeing how deep it all goes, playing KOTOR as a kid was just fascinating.

But, they’re a slow burn that take some engagement to really enjoy. When I’m tired I miss all the details and nuance, find I’ve not been listening to dialogue and stuff.

But I can fire up something like Overwatch and can play well effortlessly almost instinctually. I often don’t get much time to game, so the fact its full-on actually helps, whereas in an RPG, you can easily burn half an hour on what’s basically just dialogue and travel. It’s hard to take your time to enjoy it when you don’t have time.

But it’s fine, it’s something to look forward to occasionally. You don’t watch a movie every night, and ultimately I could find time, but I feel better spending that time on other things usually, or just letting off steam on a less thinky game.

It’s the kind of meaningless vague posting that rightoids are rightly criticised for when they post shit about the people they consider to be the ‘problem’. It’s vaguely shaped like the way they see the world, but really this is about as substantial as the ‘immigrant benefit fraud’ posts your shitty uncle posts.

I don’t even know what this is referencing, or how this would work, but everyone is in here saying ‘Omg so true’ and believing that this is the reason that things are shitty.

Like, everyone’s quick to jump on bollocks conspiracy theories, and consider such things as flat-earthers to be significant in any way, but you’ll constantly see vague shit implying these enormous, unlikely conspiracies between multiple competing companies, the government, involving the collusion and silence of thousands of people, and they get up voted because people believe it’s the sort of thing that could happen.

What bothers me is that it ends up coming to ‘someone should do something about this!’, but exaggerating constantly makes extreme options look reasonable or even necessary.

Very few people can actually say what they’d want the new status-quo to look like though, outside of vague slogans or utopian ideas that those in power will somehow do things wisely, justly and selflessly, like they never have before. We can’t compare to any other attempt at communism, and even the most prosperous socialist state would be considered ‘neolib’. Because the thing is, it’s really not clear how communism is the silver bullet many think it is, but also, the vagueness and disparity about the end goal means that we can’t really look at our current situation, look at the proposed one, look at what it will take to get there, and make an informed decision on which is likely to actually make things better.

Examples? I would love some free billions!

*exist for the good of those in power. I really don’t see the value of concentrating power into a single point of failure.

German government procurement is horrendously inefficient, but it’s because of incredible levels of transparency to try to prevent corruption.

It means that even the most minute purchases come with lots of beurocracy attached.

You can look at it almost as its own kind of corruption, that syphons money into the beurocracy, but it does mean that things aren’t happing without people knowing, and that, for an extreme example, when you decide to invade another country isn’t the moment when you discover that you discover that most of your equipment had been sold for vodka money a decade ago!

A company is much easier to crash than a monarch or government. A government will lock you up or kill you for planning to overthrow them.

Efficient and not necessarily too neutral, classy. But coiling that condenser/feed through every single plate must have been a real fucker!

Can someone fill me in on wtf is going on with drag in the US?

I’m from the UK, drag is like our longest running joke, and families go to pantomimes all the time. Recently theres been a more direct association with the LGBT community in the popular understanding of it. I’d say that most people’s view on drag here is:

• not necessarily an LGBT thing, though it very often is
• kinda traditional
• can be funny, or just a fun performance
• pretty lighthearted
• not expected to be overtly sexual by default, depends on context

Some of the stuff I see out of the US is bizzare. I realise that the weirder stuff is always going to be amplified in the news, and people are not necessarily trying to show the full context in photos. But I’ve seen shit like

• rightoids getting so worked up that the pickets outside resemble the Gaza Strip or, as I’m reliabily told, the average us abortion clinic
• performances in weird places like libraries
• people watching a clearly sexual show in dive bars with their kids in tow that look like they’re starting at a painting in a gallery pondering the meaning of nothingness and looking way out of place

Like, wtf? Drag isn’t the problem, it’s the weird-ass way that people seem to be responding to it. Go to a show if you think you might enjoy it, read up on the performance or use context ques to understand what kind of drag performance it’s going to be. Certainly don’t go for political reasons and ruin the fun for performers who are just trying to have a good time. But equally, don’t plan shows that are meant to provoke a reaction for political reasons, for the same reason.

And why the right wingers care so much if fucking beyond me. Imagine having enough free time to consider that important enough to spend your precious free time protesting it rather than doing literally anything else.

Just chill, it’s a fucking stage show. It’s like the whole toilet thing again, just hysterics over something inconcequential. I’m trans and fabulous as fuck and don’t seem to consider these issues nearly as important than a middle-aged cishet blue collar dude from Texas who may never have met a single trans person or encountered anything like this outside of the Internet.

Is only fun show, why you heff to be mad?

Public transport is great in cities, but as soon as things get more sparsely populated, you get diminishing returns. Everything takes longer, runs infrequently, and still barely gets you close.

But then if they run more frequently, they’d be empty.

Yet, where I live, they keep introducing hostile rules, new houses can only have one parking space, at a time where kids are having to live with their parents for longer, so their mobility, job opportunities, etc are really hampered. It would be one thing if there was decent public transport infrastructure, but there’s literally nothing, just people becoming ‘stuck’ because those who make the rules often don’t think about areas as a whole.

I guess a lot of it must be the belief that things could be better, that a country, organisation, etc is actually capable of so much more, but is holding back, and it just needs someone with the will to actually use it.

It reminds me a bit of Fargo, season 3 I think? Two of the main characters are getting constantly outplayed, but are still generally keeping to the confines, rules and routines of their regular lives. One of them, who is trying to deal with it, asks to be ‘unleashed’, to try and deal with the problem directly, no restrictions, the other eventually gives him permission. The guy sets out full of resolve and confidence, but ultimately falls completely flat, because really, pretty much nothing was being ‘held back’, and this direct approach also cost them their status. I think of it a lot looking at Russia at the moment, they could always do X if they really wanted to, but they don’t, but they could. Now they’ve crossed that line, and it has cost them dearly, but they had less in reserve than they seemed to think, now they will hint at more mobilisation, industrial capacity, etc to seem like they’re holding back.

When things are bad in some way, very few people are willing to accept that this is likely the best they can expect. The belief that they could do something if they wanted, is quite the cope, and if they actually do want to do the thing, then they will look to ‘strong’ leaders who claim to have the will to do just that. Then they usually flop.

Sometimes, though, this is completely true, as with your example, Napoleon was someone capable of unlocking the potential of France that had been held back initially by conservative ideas, then by factionalism and instability. But that was an example of extreme internal turmoil, that he was able to fix, while also being a legitimate genius, able to implement ideas decades ahead of his time, with an almost singular focus and determination. I don’t like Napoleon, but I have a great deal of respect for him, especially the earlier part of his career.

People always look for simple answers. Simple things that ‘need to be done’ to get the right outcome. It may be nationalising companies, eating the rich, building the wall, destroying Carthage or taking the Sudetenland. The question is; 1. will these actions achieve the outcomes they seek, and b) what will it cost? Because it’s easy to look at politicians as being malicious, scheming and evil, but really, if there’s such an easy fix to massively improve everyones’ lives, even if they don’t entirely agree on an ideological level, it will secure votes for them for decades, so it will usually be done regardless. The only reason it wouldn’t is when they are worried that the cost will outweigh the benefit.

I just wish they would have a package more suited for power users. I understand the why MS feels the need to treat consumers like idiots, some people truly are clueless and wouldn’t have touched a computer 10 years ago when more user freedom was given. But I don’t see the need to nerf the whole OS, and every variation, so that my nan doesn’t delete system32.

But with the SaaS route the MS are pushing, I’m sticking win Win10 LTSB for as long as I can. I can’t help but see things like pushing MS accounts on regular local users as anything other than laying the infrastructure for a more centralised SaaS approach.

I currently run an Unraid server on some old hardware, mostly as a NAS with some Docker containers. But due to the lack of processing power, I’ve actually been thinking about rolling my main rig and the server into one, then running Windows in a VM. Switching between OS easily would be good, being able to spin up virtual environments easily, and that way I can only use Windows for the things I need Windows for.

Now I’ve just gotta figure out, you know, how to actually do that!