I don’t think the kinds of people who still complain on CS via phone are the ones giving sony a PR crisis on Twitter

At least In the US, that is very much not true.

https://usafacts.org/articles/is-military-enlistment-down/

It decreases overall, but you can definitely trace spikes in applicants with economic slumps. COVID is probably the big exception, for obvious reasons.

The poor are actually underrepresented in the USian military.

That’s why I focused on applications to military. They don’t let everyone in, and it’s well that many of the lower income applicants get passed up because they can’t pass the tests.

Another family example: my cousin was passed up because he had tattoos. They have been more lenient on such policies this decade, though.

you are not forced to join the USian military.

If “respond to the draft or get arrested” is your interpretation of choice, then you are technically correct. But most societies would not call that freedom of choice.

We’re using “volunteer” very strongly in a society where we need to work to live.

Put it this way: military recruitment is almost always inversely proportional to the economic wellbeing. I. E. When the economy sucks and people can’t find jobs, that’s when you often get the highest amount of recruits.

That’s not even going into systematic issues that can lead to that; my mom was in ROTC to pay off her college and my uncles went in when my grandpa kicked them out of the house, almost as soon as they graduated high school.

But yes, back on point: yes, at any point you can be told you are going to be drafted. Just becsuse it’s not this specific boat doesn’t mean it won’t ever happen.

I don’t think it’s inherently bad. We don’t need to use double the world’s energy to power it (as we see with open weight models) . We don’t need to centralize it in trillion aire companies. We don’t need to leverage an entire global economy on it. We don’t need to use it to replace human labor without a proper economic model.

Those are all aspects of greed and stupidity. None of that is inherent.

But we very much do enforce times on when not to use calcs. Thars the whole point here.

nothing is good nor evil, but thinking makes it so.

But i see the issues on both sides of the aisle. Kind of like how social media is a great tool that brings about instant worldwide communication. But those merits don’t cancel out how it’s been used to exploit the human psyche, influence elections, and even coax genocides.

In this case, the downwind effects from encouraging use by mature professionals is impacting the impressionable future. And no one seems to care about the future anymore.

Every US male who turns 18 “volunteers” to be eligible to “volunteer” to die overseas for the Epstein class.

I also don’t know why everyone is surprised by wartime food.

https://xkcd.com/1053/

That’s why awareness needs to be constant. It’s why coke spends a billion a year on advertising despite “everyone knows what coca cola is”.

Haven’t done it in years, but that’s “impromptu weekend getaway with the boys” level of celebration for me.

Everyone is on a different part of the spectrum. There was the hustler or “ambitious” one who makes their whole life about work. Then lately there’s more young people completely dissolutioned on the supposed “American Dream” and just do the bare minimum to stay employed.

I think you need not necessarily passion, but a little bit of pride in what you do to keep moving and not making over a third of your best years into a soft prison. You can be prideful of a job you otherwise find mundane. But, the times of “work above and beyond and you’ll be rewarded” is also over and we need to accept that, unless you’re working for yourself (and you’re playing an even harder hustle in that case anyway).

I’m not gonna say “balance is key”, becsuse it really depends on your lifestyle. but I think most people need to find a dial between 20% and 70% and figure out where they lie for proper work-life balance.

Spend 2 generations going “we’re a family!” then ousting otherwise well performing workers. Then are stupified when the next generation no longer falls for the propoganda. Gen Z is in for a reckoning on this society.

These little things add up and make you realize that that ol statistic of “California spends 100k/year per homeless person combating homelessness” hold weight. They’d rather spend on services and police to do this stuff than address the underlying issue.

The cruelty is the point. They’ll say a homeless person doesn’t deserve a fee hundred bucks a month to get back on their feet, but they’ll spend 100 grand a year per person to make them more miserable. It’s just good job security (and satisfaction) for the police unions.

A cloud is a cloud in this case. I’m here stuck on the ground in the meantime.

Baby steps. You want looser piracy laws, you need to get people used to owning digital stuff.

TBF Dolly probably could have. Dolly doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d care about that, though. And you have to remember her husband passed less than 2 years ago at 82YO.

If a format is “superior”, but is made “inferior”, is it truly “superior” to begin with?

We can daydream about ways to resell, keep, and lend our digital goods. But I’m more judging in the current day.

literally the only problem

hides all the benefits of ‘one thing’

Pretty much western development studios in a nutshell, sadly. Try to go for a model that maximizes engagement and hope the mass monetization comes from various forms of MTX. But lootboxes can’t be used anymore, so you’re stuck focusing on skins. But skins are still expensive to produce and can’t be put out fast (which is how mobile games get away with that).

So there’s big numbers in the beginning but not enough money coming in to justify the expensive production. Executives don’t let it cook on the market long enough and just shut it down early. Even though by all other metrics, it was a good game with potential to foster a new franchise/sub-franchise. No one wins. Its Multiversus all over again.

I don’t think we disagree. I’m just talking about how the sausage is made. Squeaky wheels get the grease.

Networking is always important. And those AAA studios probably have dedicated lines of support to Valve that can open up such deals way more easily than an indie trying to email support.

Valve also does try to highlight some successful indies, but that’s a small slice of indie pie. While every other AAA studio is that direct line gained from events, existing networks reaching out, etc.