If anything, they’re to blame for the deprivation, waste, and pollution of freshwater in many regions. Even just in the imperial core- the US- there are countless examples of this, not to mention the well-documented, inhumane artificial droughts and water monopolization imposed on northern Mexico by a series of American dams and canals.

Agreed. I will never return to these companies, too. McDonalds is now forever McGenocide to me, same with all these other brands.

I think it matters in the sense that it shows how quickly SMIC is not only recovering, but building itself anew and better, without the prior liabilities of various western dependencies. It shows the triumph of the Chinese system and human ingenuity and resolve, against western attempts at monopolizing said industries and blatantly sabotaging Chinese development- and I imagine it’s an example that is catching the attention of many global south and eastern countries- particularly India and Russia, the two countries best poised to follow in China’s lead in the decades to come (or years if we’re very optimistic).

That said, even if it were financially in the red, the development and production is what really matters most. Everything else is just added benefits in contrast to the above.

As someone else said- the British weren’t half as bad as the AmeriKKKans back then. The Brits and other Europeans started it, but the US perfected the formula by adding genocidal ethnic cleansing (which the Brits and others would go on to copy elsewhere, like Canada and Australia).

For smart brushes in particular- no way they’re not spying the hell out of their customers. Just like smart TVs, smart home setups, etc.

Looking it up- holy shit, you’re right. And naturally the author was a slave-owner, an anti-abolitionist lawyer, and noted racist, which isn’t particularly surprising when one reads the third verse onwards

Honestly as a (ethnic only, sadly, or I’d have solid plans to leave by now) Chinese-Canadian raised in this cursed country, the anti Asian (particularly Chinese and Indian/South Asian) hate has spiraled in recent years into increasing vitriol and mainstream acceptance. This country was always racist, but the way things are headed at this point, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see internment camps return (if slightly more selectively so, or so I’d hope as a minimum) in the near future.

Yeah, I hate it here. And it will only get worse still, don’t think there’s anyone aside from the most sheltered/brainwashed at this point who thinks otherwise.

I have human empathy for the common Brits… but I don’t think there’s anyone who can honestly say there isn’t also some deep karmic irony in all this, from the Genocide Island which at its peak, exported famines to all corners of the earth.

It’s a good conviction. Can’t say what would work best for you, but myself, I know I didn’t bother migrating (not entirely, granted) to lemmygrad just to play nice with fascists, or see them altogether- I have to see enough of that elsewhere. So my tolerance is low (as it should be)

You know well enough that’s not what I said at all- if your friend even ever existed. Go die in a ditch.

I’m not going to play your games of reframing whatever I say in a completely inaccurate context. Go somewhere else where it actually works- or better yet, go die.

Did you seriously just write three massive paragraphs defending the purchase of a baby for use as a sexual toy?

If that’s your takeaway from my post (which was not what I was saying at all)- then all I have to say to you is, go to hell, literally, I hope you die like the Nazi you are, painfully, without dignity, and with the same amount of humanity you grant others.

That’s what I should have said all along, in hindsight. Go to hell

my only direct interaction with any Romani people was from a girl I knew who was purchased as a baby by a Romani man and used as a sexual toy for her entire childhood

And why do you think that is? Perhaps a community that has been disenfranchised, looked down on as worse than the scum of the earth, and often enslaved or lynched throughout their miserable history in miserable Europe might have its own severe issues, not least amongst them being- when not being outright persecuted by authorities, facing criminal levels of neglect by them, the sorts that allow baby-selling and worse to occur.

It seems that the (myth? maybe not entirely, hell if I know) of “child-stealing Roma” is prevalent- but on the other hand, what about when it goes the other way around? I certainly have heard of, and there are many documented cases of, the kidnapping of Roma children, from their biological parents, often not for any good reason other than public hysteria and discrimination over the matter (and them having “white” features)- by the states of Europe (which generally on the other hand seem utterly loath to recognize any Roma as citizens, no matter their personal history and heritage- and which seem to treat their communities with about the same amount of human dignity people grant cockroach infestations- burning their camps down, driving them out, keeping them basically segregated). Frankly, it seems to me that the child stealing and selling tends to be inflicted the other way around more often than not- a war certainly seems to constantly be waged on the Roma, by the countries which- by all rights, they should be afforded citizenship and protection by. It seems incredibly reminiscent of the ongoing treatment of indigenous peoples here in Canada and other settler-colonial Anglo societies (as someone raised in the prairies and who had many first nations childhood friends, classmates, etc- all being raised by white families, some in rather questionable conditions- and I’m not that old by the way- 27- and I know full well these dynamics continue to exist in full force) except there isn’t the (apparently incredibly effective, however possibly occasionally based in reality) blood libel of “baby-snatching” against the natives here.

Being subjected to inhumane conditions, social exclusion, and poverty, tend to breed inhumane results- this is true of any ethnic, racial, or religious group, most particularly when they are excluded from the means, and/or lack the numbers, to establish their own permanent spaces with genuine autonomy, to at least weather out the persecution together. The last 500 years of accursed European history plaguing the rest of humanity, in the Americas, Australia and Oceania, with chattel slavery and systemic destruction of other cultures, is a testament to that- even the centers of historical civilization have been brought low (China, India, the Fertile Crescent, Iran, Mesoamerica, the Andes) and those nations seen for most of history as the heights of culture, prosperity, and dignity have been defiled. Even more so when for the Roma, most of their lot in life seems to be running about effectively stateless, dehumanized, and persecuted in clear violation to various internationally recognized human rights.

not creating creepy secretive self-surveillance programs like you see in the US, China, and other major players.

So no modern security state apparatuses then? What’s your take on China’s booting out the CIA in recent decades and the constant attempts of the west- as well as its long and well-recorded history- of destabilizing and destroying states through “color revolutions,” insurgencies, etc?

Some Americans even rationalize the genocide of first nations by arguing that it resulted in the United States, which is a good thing in their opinion

Shitting on dumbass Americans is fair enough, but we all know that no one is promoting settler-colonialism and genocide here. There is no such thing as a retroactive justification, nor is genocide ever an acceptable answer. But you and I both know there’s no disagreement in this thread on that matter.

I personally reject the notion that a just and equitable future can only be built on a pile of corpses.

Personally I reject the notion that the idealistic path should be taken as the first option- that’s my response to that. Does a better future have to be built on a pile of corpses? Not necessarily, no. But the times when such a path has been possible are a rare, extreme minority, and in many cases throughout history- the establishment of the Soviet Union, PRC, and many post-colonial and revolutionary governments (including many of the now status quo “liberal, democratic” western governments) it could not be done.

Idealism has its place- where and when it can be afforded. For instance, if you look up how modern Communist China re-educated and rehabilitated Puyi, the last Qing emperor and a infamous Japanese collaborationist- it really is something that impressed me, reading it at the time. But that was during a time when Puyi had been truly defanged in every way possible; in comparison, would I blame the Bolsheviks for their handling of the Russian imperial family, or the French revolutionaries for their handling of theirs? Not at all, rather the opposite- these nobles still had their fangs; look up the letters and actions of Marie Antoinette seeking to call foreign interventions from her relatives, for instance (not to mention the other reasons of varying validity, for her charges of treason- the actions of sending the royal treasuries abroad, for instance), or consider the royal family’s significance to the cause of the Whites and to the multiple interventions by pretty much every other global power during the Russian civil war. Consider in the French revolutionaries’, or the Bolsheviks’ circumstances- how many more lives were spared by these actions, than not? Why is there such a focus on the “martyred” nobles, putschists, landlords, kulaks (farmer-landlords), plantation-owners, and all sorts of varying reactionary figures when contrasted with the mountains of corpses from deprivation, disenfranchisement, and abuses of all kinds that always existed behind the maintenance of the former order’s status quo, the sheer brutality brought to bear under their name and through their actions against those seeking to free themselves from their tyranny, etc?

What I’m describing is not limited to individual cases, nor the system of nobility alone- the same goes for liberals, for all manners of tribalists, reactionaries, all sorts of petty corruption, injustices, and criminality alike. Any sensible system will weigh the price of inaction or insufficient action- the “collateral damage” that comes in the form of innocent lives lost to reactionary backlash, irredentism, sabotage, and from merely the typical behaviors of those who are not properly reformed before being allowed loose on the world again.

A “just and equitable” future requires those involved to be willing to defend the process necessary to to create it, from start to finish. Anything else is just willful martyrdom- and I can promise you, while people might remember the countless martyrs of this world fondly, their peoples always, always, would have rather preferred they succeeded in the end, and the outcomes of their martyrdom are near always infinitely worse than if they had managed otherwise.

Left-wing authoritarians: lol, lmao even. You’d understand if you’d read more Mao, Marx, and Lenin. Now get against the wall.

You got that right at least- anarkiddies, l*bertarian pedos, and other false leftists get the wall. You don’t get a pass for being useful idiots for imperialism (if even that), for being “enlightened centrists” and pretending your terrible takes don’t always translate to being racist and worse. Go to the wall, do not pass go, do not collect 200$…

To my understanding it’s that the game looks like complete ass (even compared to other DC games released a decade or more ago) and is probably a prime example of everything wrong with AAA games these days. Hell if I know if there’s any “culture war” shenanigans over this (probably? I haven’t watched any videos about it or read anything, though I’ve seen it mildly mentioned) but from an outsider’s view about it… it just doesn’t look appealing, at all.

Personally I can’t really bring myself to care, because I don’t play such games (most western AAAs) anymore, nowadays. Without outrage, who would even be talking about a game like this anyways? To me it’s like people fighting over their opinions of a turd on the sidewalk at this point. I get why- these people still care about the franchises, they still have hopium for all these studios and whatnot going strong for… some reason? And they probably spent 90$ for the turd on the sidewalk and now feel like dupes.

I was raised considerably into a lot of the hallmarks of nerd culture myself, but I’ve long let go of these franchises. If a good game or show comes out I’ll try it eventually, maybe (or have it on the backlog anyways). I get the frustration (if it happened to Monster Hunter or something I’d be pretty upset) but I suppose luckily for me, these games and western franchises in particular were never “it” for me.

Russia’s nationalism in the face of NATO besieging is not bullshit, and neither is their “misinformation.” Those pushing a limp-dick “both sides” argument fail to fully understand the nuances IMO…

Is Russia perfect, or an AES? Hell no. But it actively stands for anti-imperialism not merely within its own borders and Ukraine, but across the MENA region, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. There’s a reason why all AES states have such good relations with Russia today, and a reason why masses fly Russian flags unprompted across west Africa as they boot out their neo-imperialist EU masters… and their resistance in this case is not merely preventing the expansion of NATO and further destruction and desecration of the corpse of the Soviet Union (and the hundreds of millions of innocent civilians living within it still), but it is even rolling back a fair bit of the worst of it- a recovery from the prior plagues of true oligarchy and neoliberalism (because capitalism, while the issue, is also not a monolith- though no doubt the necessity for revolution shall show itself yet again in due time if not now).

I don’t hate Russia, because hating Russia for defending itself from the horrors the west had prepared for it, and already waged to such an extent against it, would be wrong in my books- Iran is not perfect, and decidedly not communist, but do I hate Iran? Or Afghanistan, Syria, or the vast majority of countries on earth? No. There is a clear side which is right here, and a clear side which leads to the betterment of humankind, while the other side represents an ideology of unparalleled death and destruction (and I’m not merely talking about the blatantly fascist Banderites, but neo-imperialism, neoliberalism, white supremacy and western hegemony, all of these things of which I would call deeply interwoven and not quite separable).

I would call this a conflict more clear, more black and white, than WW2 with its Nazis on one side, and all the Anglo-European imperialists whose actions inspired the Nazis on the other- Putin is not even a Churchill, de Gaulle, or Eisenhower; his legacy (despite the fact that he’s a boomer chud) is infinitely less questionable, infinitely more agreeable than any of the above. Hell, he’s not even a Chiang Kai-shek.

Interesting; I hadn’t been aware it delved into that. While I’d not call myself a law nerd it does get me more interested yet. Maybe I’ll try it later today- I think I already have it installed anyways.

Agreed, and the possibility of being a shithead adds to the meme factor, but not quite in a way that I feel would be considered problematic or actually glorifying the issue.

If I get the game I’m not likely to abuse my Pals at all, rather the opposite. I’m not generally the kind to engage in wanton or unprovoked cruelty (though I’ll admit in-game- vidya, DnD, etc I do tend to be very… “justice oriented” and entirely willing to indulge in that, which is pretty much just how I tend to be as a person anyways).

Honestly, mixed feelings on this TBH. There’s a lot of appeal that I 100% get for games that allow you to do anything, games that allow you to be a crapsack person in a crapsack world, etc. If I hadn’t seen this thread I don’t think I’d have seen any problem with it at all.

I’ve enjoyed Conan: Exiles (not that I did anything with the slavery mechanics in-game as I mainly went around singleplayer cheating my ass off, but I also didn’t care), Rimworld and Tyranny have been in my library with intent to getting around to playing for a long while now, slavery gets whittled down to either numbers or actually pretty neat roleplaying/lore mechanics in games like Humankind, Endless Legend, and maybe in some Civ games, and I’ve not batted an eye at any of it. Such things can exist, there can even be a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor about it particularly when it’s all fictional and not representing real life humans and events, and the truth is slavery did and does exist, and is a large part of human history- and its inclusion can add a lot of character to a game or setting if done right (and not in a glorified, whitewashing way- that’s definitely icky)

On the other hand, I have actually cared when I saw slavery and such topics being represented incorrectly in games. At least, I didn’t like the pleasant whitewashing slavery got in one quest in AC Odyssey, for instance.

Honestly, I had the game wishlisted already and had been planning to get it- even now, hell if I know if I will. Enslaving Pals or humans IG doesn’t appeal to me, but what I’ve seen of the game (not the slavery bits, the gameplay, the Pals, the artstyle, etc) absolutely does. And what I’ve seen so far even in this thread doesn’t quite sell me on the “Pals are dogwhistle for humans” (quite a stretch IMO) and “Palworld is a dogwhistle for Frenworld” (far less of a stretch, but the devs are Japanese) bits.

There will always be plenty of g*mer chuds even, but I’m not sure I read the comments (the English ones anyways, I don’t understand Polish) as chuds, or particularly bad or glorifying the subject rather than that similar blend of humor which honestly seems pretty tame and acceptable given the context (fictional Pokemon, and if you do so and like the game advertises, you’re playing a cartoonishly evil shitlord- but even that doesn’t mean either being a shitlord, condoning shitlordism, or anything other than making a light joke of it in a fictional, non-human context).