Don't forget Master's degrees.

Could easily be argued that the Conan stories were actually tamer depictions than what could be expected within such a setting.

Vermintide 2. Dark Tide. Shadow Warrior 2.

Admittedly AA studios. But you said mainstream, not AAA. :p

There was always an amusing irony with how popular the show was with millennials, and yet many of those same millennials would probably recoil at any suggestion that anyone who served under the Confederates in the civil war could be anything less than pure evil.

Nicolas Cage would've been a far better match. Even though his style of humor's pretty different from the flavor in the original films.

From what I understand, a lot of Romans found them straight up peculiar, and their dogmatic views and senseless contrarian stubbornness frequently came into direct conflict with what the Romans expected from anyone under the empire's control.

And a lot of those expectations weren't especially harsh, and the Romans even made allowances for Jews to get certain exceptions. Yet even so, they were frequently at the forefront of fairly senseless and violent rebellions against Rome in spite of the wide berth of allowances granted to them.

And this is more-so in line with mainstream historians, but it's something that still stood out as rather curious.

Reminds me of the Extreme Ghostbusters cartoon.

It actually made sense in that to some extent. It would be a really niche kind of gig in the first place, so you're not likely to have a wide variety of applicants. Plus the character was reasonably in shape so he could still handle himself in a lot of situations, in spite of the limitations.

There's quite a few. All they usually do though is summarize based off the transcripts/subtitles.

Too big to not fail.

"Hoeflation" also comes from one other somewhat intrinsic element.

On average, guys are "probably" more likely to lower their standards on a woman's looks when a woman puts sex on the table. (Also depending on her approach and other variables besides appearance.)

The inverse is not as likely to work. If a man puts sex on the table he almost has to have good looks, charm, or a certain emotional appeal in order for it to not have a negative impact on his chances.

Which admittedly makes sense from both an evolutionary and logical standpoint when you factor out a lot of the modern hubbub.

Saw a very brief blurb about it in the news but I had almost no context for what the situation was about.

Part of it came about during the pandemic. You had people paranoid about supposed post-covid effects and the pandemic also led to loosened rules for Telehealth.

So a lot more people were getting themselves diagnosed and getting prescriptions for ADHD meds that normally require a little more upfront cost and effort.

I'd also factor in information overload in relation to how increasingly fast paced society keeps getting. Which isn't very straightforward to avoid as it maybe was in previous decades. Still technically doable, just not quite as easy or simple as it used to be.

What little I've heard of its earliest origins isn't much better either.

A few of these could be poor habits and signs of some issues, but the list as a whole is a complete shotgun blast that tries to paint any kind of emotional response that isn't totally flat and submissive as being "immature".

And I say this after having recently dealt with a guy who was legitimately emotionally immature and controlling. (A messy breakup involving a friend)

There's a certain twisted bit sneakiness to this too. Because female characters in anime have long been a thing, and this wouldn't normally seem like something out of the norm.

Except because it's being pushed and funded by a Western company, you know this isn't a natural creative choice but instead yet another DEI-type of motivation.

Turkey is in such a weird spot. They have ties with pretty much every side. And I don't think most of it was deliberate, just a matter of location and timing.

The ballooning costs are in part due to the inflating bloat they keep trying to stuff into every game. Not every bloody game needs a crafting or a skill system, nor does every game need 100+ sidequests throughout the entire campaign.

I think some studios were also banking on investors fronting them for a long time, based on player numbers and playtime, which was never seriously going to hold in the long run. Players can only be led around on a leash in so many games for so long before they just get sick and tired of being denied actual fun in the games they're purchasing.

Feminist nepotism and ideological circle-jerking vs encouraging actual talent and success.

Sometimes they're fun to laugh at. Unfortunately, they're also a massive brain-drain on society, so the payoff may cost a bit much.

Feminism is a bit extra prominent and overbearing in Spain, from what I understand. I suppose that alone could factor in for a small but sizable chunk, especially when combined with even the slightest touch of regressive leftism.

Oh I'll agree. LLM's are an exceptionally efficient tool for gathering, collecting, and organizing that kind of data.

Most of it wouldn't be anywhere near as fucky if there were proper privacy protections for citizens, both from governments and corporations. Or if not for the attacks on VPN's and the attempts to push digital ID's.

Although even then, I do admit that AI could still be used to identify an individual (writing style analysis, any scraps of identifying info leaked from your connection) unless you maintain every security precaution imaginable every single day you use the Internet.

This is the fault of pozzed power mongering governments passing bullshit laws and restrictions on fundamental human rights, not the tools that were employed.

It's less about "respecting their customs" so much as being street-smart and recognizing what kind of situation you could get yourself into, based on the location and environment.

IE, don't walk down a dark alley in a crime ridden city in the middle of the night unless you're damned sure you can defend yourself against an assailant. And, if you can help it, avoid living in that city to begin with.

So, somehow more of an issue than:

Nations and international groups trying to push for digital ID's, while governments enthusiastically pass online verification laws with wild abandon.

Attempts to outlaw/ban VPN's.

Still very much active government/intelligence surveillance programs that collect and store massive amounts of data on people, often without a warrant.

Corporate data collection and the selling thereof.

I mean I'll agree, that AI as a tool is going to make things way easier for various groups in their efforts to collect and store data about individuals. The problem though isn't so much the tools that are being employed, so much as that they're being allowed to collect that data in the fucking first place.