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I bought Dreamfall Chapters, which is back to its historical low on Steam. I’ve heard good things about it, and Dustborn from the same dev looks super promising.

Instagram is banned and blocked in Russia but it hasn’t stopped the people from using it at all.

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Ravenlok. It’s only a year old but it runs perfectly fine on my 2016 PC. I’ve not played Zelda but I feel like it’s similar. Lots of retro game vibes.

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I fully read your comments before responding. I also had a look at the Chomsky interview, which contained some of the other points already addressed in the open letter I linked. I’d say you were on the money when you brought up China and how some or more people on the left end up siding with it in their quest to call out the US. I think we’d also agree on that there’s nobody we agree with 100%. My problem is that I find it shallow for someone to not be able to harshly criticize the US government without siding with (or praising) Russia or China, let alone acting as their agent by repeating their main talking points. That’s where I’d want to draw the line at least as far as openly recommending those people, and possibly where we differ the most.

From this I get the broad sense that Chomsky does not side with Putin nor does he support the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

What I get from it is the same thing as enlightened centrism. The Trump-style position of “very fine people on both sides”. The kind of spineless response that only enables the fascists, as they’re the ones to force their views on everybody unless clearly and consistently opposed. Another example? “I’m not racist but”, because that’s exactly the structure of his response at your link. He spent just a bit on criticizing the invasion only to spend 95% of the time on echoing Putin’s narrative of it being related to the expansion of NATO, the US, and some made-up promises (most recently reiterated in Putin’s interview to Tucker Carlson). Also worth noting that for Putin, the kind of wishy-washy “all sides bad” response is precisely the goal of the many years of influence operations, as exemplified by the trolls from Olgino posing and organizing US demonstrations as both Blue Lives Matter and BLM, pro- and anti-Muslim activists, among other things (documented at the same link with reliable sources like The Washington Post).

Authoritarianism is what it is no matter the label, so that’s what I meant by comparing him to the tankies. Putin’s views often revolve around the idea of the greatness of the Soviet Union, which also explains his intent to rebuild it by force. Chomsky’s position on Ukraine is easy to find with a simple search for “Chomsky Ukraine”. Personally, I like this response to his talking points which echo Putin’s.

As noted there, the agreements you mentioned are essentially made up. A dictator like him doesn’t need to be triggered to act. Look up the role of the Russian FSB in the 1999 apartment bombings that helped his rise to power, shortly followed by his hostile takeover of the independent media station NTV. Another highlight of those years was the inaction and censorship related to the Kursk disaster, clearly showing that from the very beginning, Putin cared only about power, not the people. We can go on and talk about the 2002 hostage crisis in Moscow, the 2005 and 2006 killings of Litvinenko and Politkovskaya and others to no end, but let’s just focus on the first year. Would you argue that in the first year of Putin’s presidency or even before it, the US managed to somehow wrong him and turn him into a dictator? That would be wild, especially given that Yeltsin reportedly picked Putin as his successor specifically over his work in the KGB in order to protect himself and his family. Then if you really want to attribute any of it to the West, go farther back, into Putin’s own memories from his KGB work in Dresden and his reaction to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He expected order but that was ruined by the demonstrators, resulting in the revolution. Even from this event alone, it’s easy to explain his reaction to all the revolutions in the post-Soviet countries, be it Georgia or Ukraine, which were his first targets for the invasions.

Chomsky isn’t far from a “tankie” given his support for Putin’s narrative regarding the invasion of Ukraine.

The developers willingly entrust publishers to make those decisions.

I dont need updates or news and if something goes down, someone will make a post about it on lemmy, mastodon, matrix or peertube.

That’s fair, but I don’t think the same is true for most people. There is still a lot missing from the Fediverse in terms of prompt or important updates, especially if related to a matter outside the mainstream. I truly wish everyone had a presence on the Fedi platforms, but that’s just not the reality when even some of the biggest ideological opponents of Musk or Zuckerberg still actively use their platforms, even if their views or practices threaten their very existence.

At the end of the day, the reason even Privacy Guides recommends all the alternative frontends for sites like YouTube is to allow people to stay in the loop without having to share anything with those platforms that collect and sell data. With Nitter dead and Threads being the next big thing after Twitter, the federation could work as a viable frontend and potentially more.

Are you really comparing following a video game page, a media outlet, favorite musician or actor to an abusive ex? Are you on Twitter or any of Meta’s platforms? If not, how do you get the updates exclusive to social media? What if it’s a website that has no RSS feed?

There’s no doubt they have an ulterior motive. The way they’re federating right now is very one-sided and basically tells people they can just post on Threads and get the best of both worlds as they reach both audiences.

However, I see no harm from this to the dedicated Mastodon users who boycott or avoid Meta. They now get to follow Threads accounts without sharing their phone number or other personal information with Meta.

The data collection argument is weak, since everything you post on Mastodon is already public.

The information was added to the wiki by an unregistered user, though most games on Epic at the time were DRM-free. This particular game being DRM-free on every other platform also makes the claim plausible.

System Shock doesn’t really share anything with Deus Ex except that it’s also cyberpunk.

Definitely this. It was one of my most favorite games at the time I played Deus Ex HR, and it’s exactly the game it reminded me of.

Often the cheapest to me, so I buy there primarily for this reason. Even if the prices are on par, Epic offering 33% off each game with their coupon and then 10% as cashback is a sure sell. Knowing that the game creators get a significantly bigger cut is a pleasant bonus as well.

Everything, per the definition: “Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals […]”

Celebrity? Most of them, as they claim to be vegan but are not. Even Phoenix rode horses for Napoleon. Eilish claims to be vegan but bashes activists for being outspoken, like you said.