I have been struggling with this lately. I am staunchly anti violence and anti war, and yet, I am conflicted on how far I truly would be willing to go to cull classism, fascism, racism, transphobia , homophobia, misogyny, and pedophilia from the world.

These things are abhorrent to me, and I wonder how much of my humanity I’d be willing to sacrifice in exchange for even one of these to no longer being in existence amongst the ranks of humanity.

How much good does pacifism give to the world in promoting the better angels of our nature? How much harm does it do when those same principles allow the worst among us to march down our roads and drag away our loved ones in the night?

Two scenes from media I consume have lately continually resurfaced in my mind. One is this scene from Vinland Saga, where the main character’s father confronts him when he finds his sword. The father is about to go off to war, and somberly asks his son who he wants to kill with his father’s sword. This culminates with the father, who again, is about to go off to war, emphatically declaring to his son that he has no enemies, that there is no such thing as enemies.

The other is this scene from Star Wars Andor, in which the leader of a burgeoning Rebellion is asked by a spy who wishes to defect to the Empire asks what he sacrifices for the fight against the Empire. The monologue he delivers is chilling, acknowledging he sacrifices all things that make him human, he becomes like his enemy in order to defeat them. When he reflects on the question, and asks, “So what do I sacrifice? Everything!”

That…is what I believe I will have to give up in order for there to be a sunrise for the people I love tonorrow. I’ll have to give up my humanity, everything. And I am afraid. I am selfish. I don’t want to. But I don’t know any other way.

The feelings that scene stir up in me resonate because that is how I feel when I think on the fascist cancer that has once again metastasized in America. Having no enemies… if only. Truly. Having enemies robs me of my humanity, because in fighting them I must bury my humanity.

The thing I am struggling with is… am I the one who makes them my enemies? Or are they? And if the only thing we can agree on is that we are enemies…then what choice do we have when they come for me and those I claim as my kin?

Lol. Nicely shitted.

Illustration major here. Art is such an overarching term that it can pretty much be used as an umbrella term for nearly anything and everything. Etymologically speaking, Illustration just means making something clear, to communicate some idea to someone else. The concept was modernized to encompass the use of pictographs, texts, and diagrams as visual aids.

All forms of illustrations technically can be classified as pieces of art, as the definitions of art vary wildly. I’ve always taken art to be anything that evokes an emotion novel to either the consumer of art or the producer of the art or conveys a novel idea either back at the artist or to the consumer of art, or some mixture of these. The key thing to me is novelty, which evolves and changes based off of sociocultural norms and personal experience. Again, totally my personal opinion, and fine artists in particular would be able to nitpick this idea to death. Conversations I still enjoy when I have the energy.

Rockwell comes from a very classic Americana age of illustration. Iirc he is at the tail end of the second golden age of illustration (though my knowledge on the history is very rusty). I always preferred the work of his predecessor, JD Leyendecker, and his predecessor, Alfonse Mucha. Purely from a technical standpoint, mind you. The content of their work, to be frank, I find quite banal.

As per this particular piece, it’s a simple narrative piece, obviously well executed technically in oil. The narrative is classic Rockwell. I think Rockwell has been ruined for me just because his work created a nostalgia for a time that never quite existed in America. Don’t get me wrong , I think Rockwell was a stand up guy, especially for his time period.

It’s just that his influence over the American Art and Illustration scene eventually ended up resonating with people who aren’t looking to art for anything more than familiarity, not novelty. Essentially, it’s kitsch. Rockwell unintentionally created the ideal white American past that boomers currently are nostalgic for. An ideal that has had negative ramifications for those of us who have to deal with people who vehemently insist that this idyllic Rockwellian world was the great America we should all return to.

Sorry to make this political, but art, like anything, cannot be divorced from politics. And intentional or not, Rockwell has contributed to American sociopolitical sentiments in profound ways. He practically invented modern Americana. And while it has its charm, I find it exhausting to see it everywhere.

In it’s worst manifestation, Rockwell’s legacy ultimately resulted in producing Thomas Kinkade, America’s richest, and arguably the world’s most evil painter. People like to say second most, but Hitler was always a Nazi first and foremost. Calling Hitler a painter is like calling Ronald Reagan an actor. Like yes, but maybe that’s not what he should be remembered for?

Anyways, the conflation between Illustration and other Artistic disciplines, as well as with differentiating between illustration and art, is a topic of discussion I find very intriguing and one rife with controversy, due in no small part to the ambiguity surrounding the definition of art in general.

Same. Best Game Series and storytelling Telltale has ever done.

No, he’s just a sad excuse for a sack of shit, let alone a human being. He’s talked openly about wanting a child bride, amongst other despicable crap that’s oozed out of the hole he calls a mouth.

I appaude this woman and any others that come for him and his ilk. Fuck Nick Fuentes.

Fuck the algorithm. I’ll take word of mouth any day. Forces me to crawl out of my hovel and be social once in a while. Lol.

Is it a light read?

I don’t consider people who are unwilling or incapable of self reflection and change to be capable of maturing (at least in any way that is helpful to communities and societies), and thereby don’t constitute having achieved adulthood.

It makes sense if you think about how mean spirited preteens/teenagers can be and how many “adults” never really grow out of that. I consider these people to be “stunted” and/or “stuck” at a particular point in their self actualization where they were unable or unwilling to change their point of view because it made them feel bad about themselves or challenged their sense of self.

Instead of doing the hard work of growing up and reorienting their sense of self around a new paradigm (i.e. one based off of empathy for others of different races), they simply decided to ignore the uncomfortable possibility that they might be in the wrong, and were essentially lazy about challenging their own beliefs.

Again, not very mature, sounds a lot like a complaining angry teenager to me. And yeah, there are A LOT of people I would say are play acting as adults rather than actually being one. But that’s just my not so humble opinion.

Anyone who doesn’t occassionally sincerely ask themselves the questions, “how might I be wrong?”, “what might my own biases be blinding me to?,” and, of course, “am I a bad person?” is not only ignorant, but is indeed a bad person because they’re not willing to reflect on how their willful ignorance is hurting both themselves and those around them.

Learning to be uncomfortable with your own beliefs and wrestling and coming to terms with them, and, most importantly, changing your point of view over time with the aim of increasing your empathy for others not like you, is part of what it means to be an adult. There are very few adults in this world.

There’s a lot of reasons people still eat fast food. Others have pointed out though that fast food these days isn’t all that cheap and in some cases isn’t even all that fast/convenient when compared to other alternatives.

I can’t speak to that as it’s been decades since I’ve stepped inside a fast food restaurant save to use the bathroom while traveling, but I can guess that it also has to do with nostalgia. Some people grew up eating that shit and it provides them with a sense of comfort and familiarity. While I’m not going to hold my breath, it is my hope that the predominance of fast food will die alongside cable news when the younger generations come of age.

get up there and have more charisma than him and make him the butt of so many jokes that everyone is straight up laughing at him.

That and be more of an outright Nazi than him. You forget that it’s not just about charisma, it’s about creating a white christian ethnostate. If you can out-Trump Trump, which inherently means amplifying Fascist rhetoric in a folksy charm, but also providing an entertainingly scathing critique of everything not white and rich, then yeah, you’ll win. But otherwise the right will always vote for the biggest Nazi in the room.

Failure to recognize this is a failure to recognize how the right thinks. Fascism isn’t the outlier in the American right, it is the norm. They just don’t like calling it Fascism, they prefer traditional christian values.

I pre ordered it. I had just finished building a new PC with just barely enough resources to handle it. Strangely enough I never encountered any of the bugs people complained about, so I was lucky.

I kept replaying it and heavily awaited the patch releases to see what the devs were going to fix and/or add. Been there since the beginning and play it through once a year (fully, clear the map of objectives every time). Simply put, I’m a fan.

I even was running it on Linux pretty much from day one (though certain patch numbers and updates to Nvidia drivers would occassionally break this compatibility). A small thing, but one that I greatly appreciated.

The driving mechanics to this day is the biggest pain point for me. Even though a patch at some point improved on it, it still feels wrong whenever going around a corner at even moderate speeds. There’s a reason most people opt to use motorcycles in the game (or use mods).

The story is well done IMHO. I feel like they could have spent way more time in the prologue section, fleshing out one particular character (anyone who’s played knows who I’m referring to). Other than that, I’m happy with only a few very small nitpicks.

The combat system is well fleshed out since patch 1.68, and iirc patch 2.0 brought some significant QOL changes. It’s fun and varies extensively depending on how you build out your character’s skill tree.

The atmosphere is perhaps the developers’ biggest achievement. The depiction of Night City is difficult to put into words. It feels lived in, and there are still areas of the map seasoned players are discovering. Other than the combat system, the environment is definitely one of the game’s strongest selling points.

Ever since patch 1.68, the game has run smoothly. I can’t run Ray Tracing or other high resource requiring features as my PC, again, is considered to be mid to low tier depending on who you’re talking to. But if you’re running a high end PC, the visuals are likely to be far more stunning for you.

If you do buy, definitely get the Phantom Liberty DLC, the side content adds quite a bit to the story, including a new ending, and is overall a fun addition to the entire experience.

Lastly, if you do dive in, enjoy yourself, and want more, I’d highly recommend watching the anime mini series, Cyberpunk: Edge Runners, which depicts a prequal to the events of the main game. And of course, if you’re really in love, perhaps get together with some friends and play the Table Top RPG.

It wasn’t too late when Hitler was at the height of his power and it’s definitely not too late now.

As long as there is even a single antifascist who’s heart beats, it is not too late.

Great work. They haven’t commented on this matter for some time now and its good to see an updated comment on this issue.

I use Graphene OS, but do use Mull. I also use Vanadium and base Chromium. Each for different uses. Mull for general browsing (I have many extensions, but I feel a bit more secure by running NoScript).

Vanadium is for when I need more functionality, and raw Chromium for inspecting responsive design of my own sites.

The GrapheneOS community is a great asset to the Android ecosystem, and their mentality has always seemed to be security above all else (even above privacy), which is a voice that is needed in any organization.

Again, thanks for doing this investigation.

I’ll push back a bit on this, though I generally agree with you. I’ve only worked for a small startup as my career in tech is still in its infancy, but in previous roles I’ve had in other industries, this cult like aspect of corporatism pervades to varying degrees.

That said, when I first started socializing and networking with those involved in the tech sector, I noticed that there definitely is a subsection of the tech industry predominated by those who, in my view, took the concept of "There’s God In The Machine” thing way too far.

This subsection seems to be mainly populated by those who have only a passing understanding of the tech itself and don’t actually write the code or architect the software. This subsection also seems to be populated by those who can code and do architect the software, but appear to me to have a selfish and shortsighted mindset reminiscent of stock traders and crypto bros, communities for which I personally have a particular disdain.

This obsession and claim that tech can do anything from save the world to destroy the planet is very dangerous as it is a perceived pseudo reality that many people, both with power and not, seem to be desperately trying to make real (mainly fueld by a fear of the future and a desire to have some semblence of control over it through power mongering and vacuuming up influence in the present).

And this problem of progress for its own sake with some ambiguous “tech will save us” mindset is only recently exacerbated by the claim that these chatbots are AI (IMHO making a mockery of the term, intelligence).

Additionally, among this subsection, there seems to be an almost ravenous push for AGI, which, whether a boon or blight on future generations of humanity, they tend to argue is an inevitable outcome because technological and economic progress can never be nor should be slowed or halted.

I have definitely encountered this sort of “progress at all cost” mindset in other industries, but never have I seen it so vehemently defended among a not insignificant subsection of an entire economic sector (tech). And I’d imagine it is particularly pronounced in the major FAANG companies.

If you follow Ed Zitron’s other work, his recent articles and podcast episodes highlight a sort of “Villain of The Week” format, and so I don’t think it’s lost on him that this problem is not solely the purview of Microsoft, but rather is an indicator of a larger societal problem.

Indeed the issue Zitron is highlighting here is simply the newest incarnation of the strange cultish mantle that the Tech Industry can and has taken on in recent memory. The topic of Tech Work as Religion/Cult is thoroughly explored in the 2022 book, Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion in Silicon Valley, by Carolyn Chen.

I recently got fitgirl’s Cyberpunk 2077 repack working on Artix Linux with Lutris by following this guide:

It doesn’t take into account you also need to use GEProton as well (for Cyberpunk at least), but its easy enough to install GEProton via ProtonUp, and then just configuring the game to use GEProton in the settings via lutris.

I got mangohud working as well, that was relatively simple.

I also noticed that I needed to install and setup dxvk as an overlay for Vulkan.

Yeah, it was a lot of setup and you need plenty of hard drive space as both the repack and the installed game are huge (have double the space available listed on the repack site).

I have the game on Steam, but wanted to know how to do this, and it was not as bad as I thought it would be.

🥲

Heavy Edit: Just finished watching this documentary after reading this article. Truly a heartwarming story, but is definitely a tearjerker at times. Great watch.

I created my account a couple years before any of the recent reddit migrations. I am always interested in alternatives to the status quo and simply searched in DDG “reddit alternatives” one day and bam, Lemmy came up.

I signed up, but honestly I barely used it back then as the traffic was miniscule.

I kind of just hung onto this account and it ended up being my main social media outlet now that there’s more people here. I’m hoping Lemmy thrives and attracts more users. It is objectively better than Reddit, it just needs more users and communities imho.

Oh Hooty 🙂… Are you talking to the invisible audience in the room again? lol. 🦉🦗

It’s in it’s user profile.

https://mstdn.social/@remindme

Example:

@remindme 1 day

Edit: "@remindme 1 hour”