THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I SAID.

Okay, but it equals one.

humour presented unironically as a guide to one’s own emotions.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t work in general. It is easier to poison discussion than it is to convince people with arguments. One person screaming obscenities prevent an entire room of people from having a rational discussion. It’s an asymmetrical effort, it’s hard work to produce quality information, and it’s free to generate gigabytes of slanted information.

If you are a human being, there are many things you know are true, but you act as if they are not. We are not rational creatures, we are social creatures. We don’t respond to arguments, we respond to social cues. It is more important for an extremely social creature like a human to agree with their social group than to be objectively correct.

Not always. Sometimes, the whole system collapses, and then after a period of insecurity, we all enjoy a period of massive prosperity.

So many poor and working class Americans will see this and think, “Progress!”

They probably didn’t want to highlight how vast portions of the base game’s overworld had no content whatsoever and seemed unfinished, so they’re pretending it is part of the auteur schtick.

not even remotely similar to what “back to nature” would mean

If you are participating in the two party system, you’re either supporting or enabling fascism.

Dang, wrong Captain Blood. There is something significant to be learned from that game. The symbolic language you use to communicate with other characters is a very simple language and it isn’t interesting in itself, but what does interest me is how quickly some players become “fluent” in the language. When characters speak, each word has a glyph that the player can learn to sight read without looking it up, but each word also has a pronunciation, and very quickly some players don’t even need to read the glyphs. The feeling of realizing you can conversationally understand what this weird alien is saying to you in an alien language is pretty wonderful! I think there is a potential here for some very powerful educational tools.

Wow, we have his doctor here. Lots of people who have had a stroke, even those with partial paralysis, are perfectly capable of driving.

I am 47 and this has been the case my entire life. We have data.

No, riding on the sidewalk was never “fine”. I know it FEELS more safe, but cyclists are struck more often and killed more often per km of sidewalk than road. And I am never okay with pushing risk off on other people because I’m afraid to accept it myself; even if riding on the sidewalk were safer for me, it is less safe for everyone else, so I don’t fucking do it.

Of course he doesn’t understand. He has decades of experience intentionally not understanding things.

No! They are not! That was the exact hypothesis that was DISPROVEN. They are not attention seeking, they are sadistic and trying to hurt people. They don’t want people’s attention, they want people to suffer.

I’m only going to bother reading the first paragraph of your comment since you didn’t read much either.

Their hypothesis before the experiment was that people who liked loud mufflers were NARCISSISTIC, not PSYCHOTIC. The results disproved their hypothesis and supported the new one.

To elaborate, they expected that these people liked attracting attention and having people looking at them, thinking about them. What they found was that this wasn’t the motivation, and rather, these people wanted to hurt others. They knew what they were doing was unpleasant and undesired, and that is why they do it. It’s very different than narcissists, who want to be liked and don’t go out of their way to hurt people for their own enjoyment.

Patriotism and “freedom” as expressed by Americans are concepts used to manipulate you and make you do things that are in other people’s interests, not yours. Here you are trying to steal some of the magic by cargo cultishly invoking the concepts, but I think you know it doesn’t work like that. In any case, it’s very cynical, both of you, and of those you are trying to ape.

Discovery and wonder? Is THAT what I was supposed to feel while wandering aimlessly through vast areas of no content??

Yes, unless you exclusively give your money to people who aren’t exploitative and abusive, you get fucking exploited and abused, and contribute to others getting exploited and abused. It’s 1 + 1 = 2. You’re making it way more complicated than it needs to be. But yes, it’s something you have to be mindful of ALL the time.

We know that Sony has done or does almost all of those things, or worse. You’re defending your abuser. This is a common pattern that many many people demonstrate. Break out. If you think the abuse is going to stop with “needing to have a burner account,” you’re fucking lying to yourself and you probably know it.

Only if you consider only the safety of the vehicle’s pilot. Another perhaps more rational way to look at it is to look at how it affects the safety of all people. And then it’s clear that the car is still more dangerous than the bike, even on infrastructure specifically designed for car safety above all else.