I'd also say that this should be expanded to cover other areas and avenues too. Book publishers, specific writers, individual books, and companies they end up coordinating with over "sensitivity" editors.
Same for film and TV (studios, writers, companies). And also trace money trails from government, charities, NGO's, etc.
And then publish that information through structured lists or whatever on multiple websites and other avenues we can muster. Don't give them a chance hide. Don't let them conceal and bury the evidence. Expose every bit of this shit, and don't hold back until there's nowhere left for them to run.
The book's actually a pretty fun and easy read. It's also an interesting example showing how Michael Crichton was perfectly capable of writing a story that wasn't centered around technical or scientific topics.
I seem to recall that the book did a better job of detailing how the Arabic character was assessing the "Northerners" through a lens and perspective very much based on his religious and cultural background. He was also clearly a former person of status, so that also factored into his character's portrayal.
Very much true. It's a specific point that's been danced around and often ignored throughout a lot of the rhetoric surrounding SBI.
Frankly, besides calling attention to their antics, the main boon of hammering on SBI is to expose a lot of what's been going on with these shitty "cultural consultant" companies, and how deeply in bed everyone is between them, government funded programs, NGO's, and publishers/studios.
For all intents and purposes it's an entire scam, propped up as though it were a charity for people who otherwise wouldn't even have a shot at getting a job in the industries they're working in because they're really that incompetent and unskilled at anything besides making up bullshity "victimhood" stories. In other words, low effort diversity bucks.
Every time this bullshit pops up, I like to imagine an Eaters of the Dead/13th Warrior scenario. Where a bunch of subhuman cannibals tried to fuck with the Vikings and got themselves wiped out by the likes of Buliwyf (Beowulf).
In my previous comment I wasn't referring to asset flips so much as what I'd describe as a fairly lazy execution of height-map and terrain generator tools like World Creator. Assuming Capcom used something close to that kind of method
The tools can provide some incredible results but only if the developer knows how to plan ahead, utilize the results, scale it properly, and flesh out the details once it's shipped over to the actual engine/game.
The last step though is where I often see what I think you're describing, a half-assed use of mediocre assets that look rather out of place and repetitive. Another issue I've sometimes found is where they generate these large scaping landscapes but they don't put a lot of thought into planning ahead for unique and detailed locales (and factoring that into the geological design of the terrain). And this is of course not factoring in voxel terrain generation... which is a whole other ballgame.
One other thing with the asset flipping though is how the most frequently flipped assets are some of the cheapest you can find on a marketplace. Which is funny/sad in a way because there are artists/asset makers who put out some really stellar quality work, yet you'd be hard pressed to actually find it in many games because those artists aren't spitting out easily rehashed work that can be tossed into every which game.
Ah, okay, I understand now. I honestly wasn't looking at it as much from a gaming lens as a general narrative one.
I agree with you though. When we're talking about anything that strongly claims to an RPG, there should be a lot more latitude and freedom, allowing the player to dictate how they decide their character does things. And far, far less moralistic narrative pushing.
I can't even fathom how godawful tabletop RPG's must be with woke campaigns/groups. Like it's one thing to hear the kind of stupid shit WotC is pulling, but I doubt I could stomach even 15 minutes of that kind of shit during an actual game session.
To be honest, it's not exactly easy to make a case where mega corporations won't abuse the massive power that they accumulate. I do agree though that the way leftist writers often portray corporations at a cartoonish level of villainous, with very little depth, nuance, or seriousness.
The mistake leftists tend to make is in assuming that capitalism is the problem and that total communism is the solution. They also fail to take note of how the left wing is just as much (if not more-so) in bed with large and wealthy entities exerting power and influence however they please.
That does remind me of how I'd once calculated out how much time it might take for me to redo all the NPC visuals in Skyrim (like custom design every named NPC's face). The number of hours it would take unless I really optimized a speedy approach was pretty insane. (Something like weeks if I didn't want to go at an extremely grueling pace)
Not that this is a solid defense for these studios that have hundreds of employees available, it's just something I thought was kind of startling and eye opening.
As for terrain, I don't mind if they use generation tools for that at all. I've played around with some and the results can be pretty fucking cool if you know what you're doing. But you have to put a fair bit of planning and deliberation into the process, otherwise it absolutely will look pretty bland and generic.
A good majority of primary/original source material for cyberpunk (IE, the books that really created the genre) absolutely covered this shit.
It's Hollywood specifically that glossed over it a lot. Partly due to time constraints, and maybe partly because it was too "deep" for them and their assumed audiences.
Look up William Gibson, arguably one of the main founders of the entire genre.
I prefer to look at it this way. I don't hate America, but I do hate the woketards who live there and want to destroy everything, including their own country. Get rid of those idiots completely and utterly and things will be better off.
Same. I mean hells, porn star "bimbos" from the 80's and 90's seem to have more going for them than these thots, and I never found most of those chicks appealing decades ago (too fake, both physically and mentally).
I half wonder if at least some of those view/tip numbers are actually coming from foreign heathens with cultures completely devoid of taste.
Ugh. Reminds me of how some women in my family were legitimately mad at the ex-husband of someone I know for committing suicide. Focusing almost entirely on how it "hurt" his ex-wife.
Not that I know much about their marriage, or the guy in question, but I was kind of pissed at their "woman most affected" kind of shit-take, especially given how a lot of these stories sometimes end up with the guy killing the woman and then himself.
That such a thing didn't happen in this instance indicates to me that the guy was not in a good place, but at least had the moral fortitude or sense to not take someone else out along with him.
Even more-so with the specific attitude taken by right-wing pundits.
Like maybe a case could be made that too much time invested into gaming can sometimes be detrimental for a person. But instead of tackling it with a fair minded approach like that they almost always hand wave any such hobbies as being "childish" and "unworthy".
I find it especially annoying because I've been debating the pros and cons of having grown up and spent a fair bit of time gaming. Maybe too much. I dunno, but it's something where I'd rather see some legitimately honest and constructive discussion over it. Unfortunately that's something that'll almost never happen in any kind of public space, because extreme takes are all that can really be expected.
And on another note, can I say just how fucking stupid it is for right wing pundits to try and dunk on gamers right now during a major election season?
The name is certainly retarded and has been overplayed in a rather vague ominous way, but long-term after effects can certainly be a thing (much like with other nasty hitting viruses).
It's not entirely untreatable though, but can occasionally be tricky to find the right remedy. What specifically has been thrown out of whack in an individual's system can vary a bit.
Sadly true. Although having given it a proper rewatch a year or two ago, I did find some aspects of the attempt rather endearing. It was still a clusterfuck, but you could tell that there was at least some earnest and honest effort given by some of the writers, cast, and even the visual effects department.
Unfortunately the studio was a bit too greedy while expecting more and immediate results than were reasonable given the scope of the story they were working with.
Go crawl back to your ADL/Mossad masters you pathetic excuse for a psyop agent. No one's buying into your predictable two-week old account.