Do you have any substantive criticism to offer or are you just here to throw around ad hominems?

Maybe but that’s not what people find cool and seek to emulate. People pick up more on the superficial aesthetic of apathy than on any deeper message the show tries to have.

I didn’t watch much of that series but it seemed to be considerably darker and more cynical.

I can understand 60s nostalgia, even though much is also idealized about that period it was in many ways the last time that there was some real hope for change for the better in the West. The youth wanted a radically different kind of society, there was a strong anti-war movement, decolonization struggles were happening across the world, you could argue things appeared to be on a positive trajectory. Where the 80s and 90s were decades of counter-revolution, the 60s were at least trying to be revolutionary, if in a somewhat naive, idealist way.

But honestly these three are certainly not the worst offenders, not by a long shot. Superhero franchises for instance are half fascist ubermensch fantasy half military industrial complex propaganda. And nearly any media set in the future takes place in some kind of dystopia - it’s like Western society has become unable to even imagine a better future, or rather we are being conditioned to be incapable of imagining a better world. A healthy society would produce media portraying utopian societies to give people something to aspire to and work towards.

Instead we get it drilled into our heads again and again that things can only get worse from here. Because optimism and hope mobilize people whereas pessimism and doomerism lead to inaction and resignation, which is exactly what the ruling class wants. And if there is anything positive that is imagined about the future in such media then that thing is never the result of the mass mobilization of society toward a common goal but by the merit of individual genius, singular individuals who are superior to everyone else and who single handedly advance society and technology. A typical fascist trope.

And that’s what it boils down to. Western society’s sickness at its core is that it has a fundamentally fascist world outlook that permeates the entire Zeitgeist and is fed to us from birth, through schooling, advertising, media, politics and the structure of the economy, and which manifests as various seemingly separate pathologies but which are really interconnected and stemming from the same source: supremacism, worship of individualism, capitalist realism…

These are all indicative of a deep rooted sickness in Western society.

Ironically the first is probably the least objectionable, it shows how lack of social safety nets and opportunities pushes people to criminality but doesn’t romanticize that life.

The second is straight up glorifying nihilistic misanthropy, it’s making an entire generation think social apathy is cool. The third romanticizes one of the worst decades in modern history by portraying the 80s, the decade of Reaganite/Thatcherite neoliberalism, when entire societies were seized by a mass psychosis of selfishness and hyper-consumerism, through rose tinted nostalgia glasses. If someone wants to see what the 80s in America were actually like outside of the privilege bubble of suburbia they should watch John Carpenter’s They Live instead.

Pop science journalism is also frequently sensationalist garbage. In my own field where i am familiar with the subject matter i’d say they have a hit rate of maybe 50% where they actually write something good albeit boring for the average reader, and that’s mostly because the people writing have a real background in science. In other fields where the journalists are essentially amateur enthusiasts the ratio of decent pieces to garbage is even worse.

You’re welcome to stick around and expand your knowledge of China and the rest of the world beyond what your mainstream media shows you.

You don’t even need to agree with us politicaIly to recognize that the mainstream media lies to you. One of the best ways to get an unfiltered view of another country is just to go watch some travel vlogs, and China is no exception.

That’s interesting that you’d say that because personally i’ve always thought that if i ever go to China it would definitely not be to Shanghai or Beijing, at least not for my first trip.

Main reason being that Shanghai is too westernized (which is why i won’t be going to HK either) and Beijing is too touristy. If i’m going to China i want to see the real China, not the parts where all the western tourists flock to. Even if i have to struggle with the language barrier.

I find that in any country it’s the non-touristy parts that tend to be the most beautiful and fulfilling to visit. Also from what i’ve seen Beijing and Shanghai are quite expensive compared to the “smaller” cities.

You’re not alone. I didn’t like Tyranny either and i am normally a pretty big fan of CRPGs. For some reason that game really missed the mark for me, but i can’t explain why.

Dungeon crawlers

Have you heard of Vaporum? It’s a neat little dungeon crawler in the vein of Legend of Grimrock but steampunk.

Darkest Dungeon probably doesn’t count since it’s more of a rogue-like than a crawler, plus pretty much everyone’s played it or heard of it.

CRPGs

I suppose since you’ve played Pathfinder you must have played Pillars of Eternity too. If not, I highly recommend it, it’s one of the best modern CRPGs imo, very much in the vein of the classics like Baldur’s Gate 2.

Divinity: Original Sin was good as well. And of course there’s Dragon Age: Origins which is great, but sadly the rest of that series is fairly mediocre. I’m not a big Bioware fan.

Macabre horror

Have you played Little Nightmares? There’s also a couple of creepy Point and Click adventures that i really liked such as Fran Bow and Little Misfortune.

“Nautical games”

This isn’t a genre i’m very familiar with but I’ve heard Sunless Sea is quite good if you’re into that sort of game, and it’s got a bit of a Lovecraft-y aesthetic/lore. Haven’t played it myself though.

Open-world games

This is a long shot since these games are so old by now that probably most people interested in open world RPGs have played them (or haven’t given them a try because the graphics/controls are too outdated) but Gothic 1 and 2 are some of my favorite open world games of all time.

That’s about it for what I can recommend in the genres you mentioned. I’m more into strategy games myself (mainly turn-based but also some RTS and city builders), i can recommend a bunch of those if you want but my experience with other genres is a bit more limited.

I see. Thank you for pointing this out, i was under the impression that Europe still mostly relied on GPS. Shows my age i guess.

I’m not talking about physical infrastructure, and the handful of European companies/brands you mentioned are small fish compared with the US giants. Yes a lot of Europeans work in tech, but the vast majority of them rely on US products to do so, and a good chunk of them work in European subsidiaries of US companies.

The point i’m making is that Europeans for the most part rely on digital monopolies controlled by the US which are subject to the whims of the US government and which co-operate with and are also to varying degrees infiltrated by the US intelligence agencies and the national security state. This gives the US government a lot of control over an important sector of your economy, not to mention a direct pipeline to the minds of your citizens.

A sovereign state would see this digital colonization by another country’s monopolies as a serious national security threat. China for example made sure that Chinese citizens predominantly use Chinese social media platforms instead of allowing them to become dependent on the US’s. But as another commenter pointed out, Europe is not sovereign, it is a collection of US vassals.

Alright, i stand corrected.

But just as a thought experiment: say the US decides tomorrow to cut Europe off from American GPS satellites. Could Europe still function only relying on their own satellite network? I’m not just talking about individual navigation apps, i’m talking about European airlines, European militaries (in this scenario let’s say NATO doesn’t exist and Europeans actually have armies and aren’t just isn’t glorified hosts for American bases), etc.

And who even uses it?

And how many of those companies rely on US digital infrastructure and US platforms?

Maybe. I haven’t read that book either.

The real problem is not this regulation, the problem is that while Europe has a tech market it functionally doesn’t have its own tech sector. Europe is entirely dependent on American tech especially in digital platforms. We don’t have our own social media platforms, we don’t have our own version of Google or Amazon… Europe doesn’t even have its own version of GPS which makes it dependent on tech that essentially belongs to the US military. This is so stupid that it boggles the mind, it means giving up your digital sovereignty to another country. If Europe had its own tech sector then it could force that sector to change the way they do things to abide by European regulations, but as is US tech can just choose to no longer do business in Europe if they don’t feel like following the regulations. Europe can’t shut them down or nationalize them because all of these companies are American. Europe has been digitally colonized by the US, and we saw with that ridiculous crash a week ago where that gets you.

Are you sure we’re talking about the same Labour party? Cause the Labour party i know is Blairite through and through. It was also under Labour that Britain started to wage ruthless and bloody military campaigns post WW2 in an attempt to cling to its colonial empire, for instance in Malaya. These are their genes, that is their fundamental character: imperialism and neoliberalism. Corbyn was an outlier, a short-lived exception.

My name is Inigo Montoya