There's a major heap of lack of research and hand waving of history mixed in with decently relatable opinion here, unfortunately. Associating all the "bad things I don't like" with Nomura and the Enix merger is a fine point of focus, but the examples were almost all completely wrong which cuts the point at the knees.

He could have picked more accurate examples, but that would violate his hate-boner for MMOs as a concept that also blinds him to the main hopeful light in the company being YoshiP. Who, in almost every way, IS the anti-Nomura he's looking for. But he'll never see him because his main contribution so far, was an MMO.

I reckon what happened to Final Fantasy as a series is the same thing that happens to all endeavors that grow in expanse. The supporting structure becomes the endeavor once it reaches a certain size, and out of an abundance of caution, the outcome leans as far into safety as possible due to the crushing weight of imminent failure. Being innovative and original is too frightening to consider, and you have to retreat into repeating yourself to guarantee at least some profit.

But even that analysis is very incomplete since every FF game has a huge story behind its development. They have been almost all extremely troubled, wild, and even schizophrenic pursuits individually. All of them had predictable and easily viewed failure conditions they were readily falling into even as an outside observer at the time. The fact that we're on 16 today, despite constant disappointment and failure, really does mean something. It means they're still able to try. That is a tiny bit hopeful, at least to me.

Because mowers use gasoline and because water is more valuable than gold in the communist state of California. Nevermind that grass is integral to cleaner and more breathable air by virtue of being a CO2 absorbing, oxygen producing plant. Oh wait, they have an answer for that too: the new NPC update insists that grass doesn't help the environment and is a net polluter due to CO2 escaping from clippings and for fertilizer (evil nitrogen) being used in its cultivation.

This doesn't pass my smell test. CO2 isn't 'stored' in grass, it is consumed during its growth and oxygen is expelled as a byproduct of its consumption. The fact that CO2 exists in dead grass is not evidence that grass never used any of it beyond storage.

Additionally, I reject the premise that CO2 and Nitrogen are pollutants. They are important elements of our atmosphere that are necessary for all life. Categorizing them as dangerous polluting chemicals is just a way to crack down on your private enjoyment of your own property. It is also a subtle attempt to categorize animals (humans especially) as evil because you exhale this dangerous climate killing gas.

We used to joke in the 90s about the Democrat nuts trying to legislatively control "cow farts" with their methane emissions standards. But it was only a joke in the illustrative sense. This is what they were actually doing, but they framed it as "all these dangerous emissive chemicals should be regulated" without specifying they were referring to... actual farts from actual cows as a way of controlling ranchers and food producers and pricing beef out of the market so we'd turn to their favorite food soy.

Virtue signaling that replacing real outdoor grass with fucking carpet. Is peak nonsense.

Extreme gory violence. There isn't any dialogue though, so no swearing, and the only female is a dinosaur, so nothing sexual either.

The show is excellent. Each of the elements that could become tiring manage not to overstay their welcome: the protagonists not getting along and creating their own problems, the emphasis on non-verbal communication, long slow establishing shots (something I DID get tired of in Samurai Jack, but it feels refined and better paced here).

Some refreshing things: both main characters lean into their strengths regularly: the caveman is obscenely strong, very intelligent, and never gives up in face of pain or fear; the dinosaur is bigger, stronger, faster, but can't climb, can't solve complex problems, and slowly begrudgingly accepts their partnership as being hierarchal since the caveman has more pronounced leadership qualities.

It avoids easy and expected narrative crutches like having the (non-human, non-male) dinosaur be superior (morally if not actually). And instead their friendship becomes incredibly strong and balanced over time.

It also manages room for once-off episodes with extremely awesome premises without it dominating the overall narrative. I won't say more, because going in cold is the best way for these excellent surprises to deliver themselves.

Oh, smashing definitely happened until recently. There was a huge politically charged media campaign claiming concussions == death and anything (specifically football, it was targeted) where concussions were possible were exactly like ancient Roman blood-sport.

That went on heavily during the Obama years (but it had started earlier). Then they hit on the winning ingredient: they began claiming such a thing is also racist because black people play sports, making this actually literally slaves being forced to kill each other for white amusement. The instances of them calling a wide receiver with a $11mil contract a slave were numerous and pointed out as ludicrous every time.

But it didn't matter, the campaign wore down the league who tried to sue for peace by banning every kind of effective hit a tackler could possibly make. Making the game so rigged for offense that it was more sensible to stand back, let the quarterback do whatever he wanted, stand back, let the receiver make the catch, and THEN figure out what to do. The game got very VERY boring and not at all football very quickly.

The players adapted to this (though many argued loudly at the time that this was destroying the game), by adopting strategies of baiting penalties, much like you see in soccer for the same reason. Without the threat of getting hurt standing in the way, ludicrous plays are now the norm, and God help you if you accidentally clobber someone who basically ran into you because he didn't care you were there.

I blame this for also creating the conditions where a talentless grifter like Colin Capernik could single-handedly turn the entire league into his own personal BLM platform.

From the video:

Developers, you want something done, stop recruiting from LinkedIn, go to FurAffinity instead

Wise words.

I'm actually even less invested in Overlord than you. I watched a little bit of it and found it off putting. I was actually far more entertained by the Isekai crossover comedy show where Ainz and Kazuma (from Konosuba) become friends and commiserate over the stresses of leading a cracked team of misfits. While I felt that Overlord was at its worst when it leaned into comedy, the characters actually seemed to work best in that context. That realization made me even more frustrated with the original show.

So rather than wading into the meat of the discussion, I'll make a meta observation:

Taking your characterization of the kinds of comments you were getting, I have a feeling that you're up against a lot of willful "support of current thing" that refuses to consider problems and instead attacks the person asking questions.

It is frustrating when people don't want to engage with a critique and instead choose to categorize you as an outsider or enemy because you want to break it apart for study. But it is also frustrating when someone appears who has only that motivation and isn't interested in enjoying the thing as presented. It is easy to assume that a guy appearing with a critique is just "against the current thing" and wants to kill fun for others as a pastime.

When that tribal instinct to "protect" flares up there's not much you can do to quell it. It is very sad and I've quit many discussions for that reason. Finding people whom you can have good discussions with is, it turns out, much harder than finding topics to discuss. The result is that topic-focused groups can come to resist depth as a matter of pain-avoidance.

There's probably fodder for a conspiracy theory in that where you can assert that media companies are encouraging tribalism around their products for precisely this effect. Smart people who want to move culture forward now have to overcome and navigate that carefully just to avoid being shanked.

That was a short quick road from "Not the victory any feminist intended or hoped for" to "loneliness is proof of misogyny."

Since she doesn't want to convince any man to accept her ideology, she's on a great path since she's now equated any and all pain a man will experience with evidence of his being her sworn enemy and discarded his concern in full.

Men, look at this. This is a serious take from a frank and earnest feminist who wades into a discussion on a social problem affecting males and pivots that into a hateful rant that claims all men deserve pain categorically. These creatures want nothing from you but absolute servility. You are not to be their partners; you are to be their dogs.

Recognize their all-encompassing hate for you and pity them if you choose to think about them at all, because they are well beneath your contempt. They don't deserve the personhood you'd grant to them by hating them back. They are, in-fact, sub-human trash.

The dirty secret of the runaway prices in medical is that they are built entirely on bullying and extortion of anyone without council (insurance or other advocate). That seems wild until the second reason is known: emergency care cannot be refused to the indigent. This second point is actually the entire reason for everything. It has created a class of person, who abuses emergency service for general care.

Medical pricing, then, is a constant haggle and negotiation where most Americans aren't aware of it happening and don't participate in it. The hospital quotes you high-unto-unreasonable, and you look at that price and assume it's just the price, and then wonder why insurance payers don't go out of business. They don't because they ignore the bill and send them the only money they're going to get, and the hospital takes it quietly. That is not "price-fixing" in the monopoly sense, that is price dictation in the haggling sense.

My own experience in this was a surgery for my son. I examined every bill and watched the negotiation in real-time between my insurance and the hospital's many, many entities. Finally, when all was settled, there were some outstanding items that the insurance didn't participate in by their own election (not their purview because my coverage didn't include it). The hospital turned their Eye of Sauron on me and wanted immediate full gratification on the remaining items.

I had a phone conversation where I dictated my own terms to them, basically insisting on a pay schedule for the outstanding amount. They were unhappy and pushed back, and I said, "It's what's happening. The first check will arrive next month for this amount." Finally, after conferring out of my hearing they came back to the line with, "ok," and immediately hung up. I sent my checks as I'd promised, and they never contacted me again.

The extortion system can be fixed. Trump's attempt to mandate that hospitals post prices was a great first step in that, because it forces public competition and eliminates the haggling requirement of pricing being an individual affair. The reason the extortion system exists, can also be fixed, but that is a harder ask because we have 40 years of ER rooms receiving people with non-emergency problems who are up-front about the fact that they will not pay, and no ability to stop it. The hospitals have to squeeze money from payers to cover non-payers they can't refuse. Until that is addressed, this will continue to spiral.

It's nice that the studio is going to all this effort to straighten out their shit. Undeleting Batman, replacing or at-least minimizing Amber, downplaying politics to some degree. But even if these things are true and not just wishful rumors, nothing will help if the movie itself is boring.

And it will be boring if it focuses on this topic. There is little in cinema more predictable and less engaging than Captain Planet antics in an adventure film. It's frankly too simple of a plot device that strays FAR into morality prescription like the old Sci Fi copouts in the 50s and 60s. "Man was the true monster," and "the true Villain was misunderstanding" are tired and unstimulating as story devices because they are so expected.

Let's give this a shot:

Atlantis is mad cause ocean dirty. Manta is mad cause Atlantis not mad enough for his liking, so he takes the war to humans through terroristic attacks on beach vacationers. But he's a man of black color fighting for the environment so we have to love and understand him anyway. Those randos he killed were all littering, they deserve worse than the vaporization granted them.

When I hear "will tackle climate change" I envision this kind of stuff, and it doesn't make me interested. Movies as self-important educators of the filthy dumb audience are anti-entertainment. No number of three-point landings from a mach-2 approach that shatters the concrete in the foreground will make me happy to be yelled at for 2 hours by a narrative I saw before you lifted it from a 30-year-old Saturday morning cartoon.

Complaining about publicity is also publicity, and a whole new audience thanks to our cultural fixation on outrage.

It doesn't matter if they were baited. They have done nothing but fish from the very first minute of his candidacy. Hundreds of anonymous sources were believed tacitly one after the other. Events were warped and elements fabricated on the regular for things that were actually recorded, and those recordings eventually shown. Nothing has dissuaded them from employing blind-fire tactics. Because no person will ever suffer for doing it. They will be a hero if, even being wrong, one of their fishing attempts reveals even the tiniest, slight, previously unknown spec of dirt.

They don't care that they are wrong. They believe in the axiom that they themselves exist under. Everyone is dirty. All that has ever been required to nuke ANY politician is a thorough dig (including under false pretext). Yet, after arraying their entire machine for going on 8 full years now, they have yet to uncover any actual thing that has stuck or had even the hint of believability to it.

Getting a full FBI raid on Trump's vacation property while he wasn't there was well worth any pretext. Because he definitely had something to be found. Coming up dry, they'll curse their luck and run it up the pole again, and soon. They don't care. Embarrassment does not stick.

The best part of this is that we know for sure beyond all doubt that Trump is the cleanest saint to ever exist in Washington. It is beyond comprehension that he has ever done anything bad, at this point. No one can avoid the Eye of Sauron, and yet somehow, it just can't see his dirty laundry? The inevitable conclusion is that there isn't any to be found in any aspect of his life. There has never been a more vetted man in the history of the world.

That fact will never be recognized widely though. Hate porn is too easy to fap to.

Yep

"I'm credentialed" she says. Acknowledging that this means she is enabled and expected to harass others for their opinions. No one is allowed to harass her for her opinions, though, because she is credentialed, you see. She's a state-endorsed harasser who can't stand being followed, harassed, and questioned. Even by those with "credentials" like hers.

Beautiful, sir. Completely beautiful.

"Progress" toward what? Progressivism is the intentionally vague self-label of Utopianists. The entire notion is a pleasant sounding and entirely stupid dream. Everything is justified behind the idea of "future more good" while deliberately not defining 'good' and packaging every policy in a veneer of emotional reasoning and blind positivity.

The inescapable consequence of this is a derision of "standards" and unwillingness to measure their own progress by examining the real impact of the policies they've enacted. It never matters that they dreamed up and executed the most hellish programs with the most destructive outcomes imaginable (rivaling anything you could have invented that was intended to be that damaging). It never matters because they "meant well" at the time.

Nuns tacitly admitting their virginal status is less technical and more reputational. So long as they get that abort, who cares, didn't count. I guess the title of 'nun' doesn't mean what it used to mean.

"Jesus trusted women. We do too," means what exactly? Trust us not to murder by retaining our access to legal murder? Your position is untenable as a Christian, Catholic, nun, or even as an isolated logical framework.

That shadow was quite lewd, I'm glad they made it darker and rectangular for my virgin eyes.

This is correct. Not just for China.

This was also my feeling during my read of it. What a rollercoaster. From the constant potholes of wacky speech-only constructs, to the hyberbolic points that spanned the entire breadth of the universe, I reached the end and decided I could only save it, to study later.

Good points are there. Weird conclusions are there. Terrifying insinuations are there. All in all, it's one of the better reminders that Jessica Valenti was a piece of shit already in 2013.

Main takeaway I can muster, is that "following the crowd" is a precursor of mediocrity, but we suffer a societal neurosis that compels us to celebrate when women do exactly that. Pretty right, I think, but again, I will require further study on the many other points to form a real opinion.

Star Wars was bought under a bad pretense. It was sold by Iger to Disney as shoring up an appeal package to male audiences (same as the Marvel acquisition was) because Disney had a self-image of owning the young female market with their Princesses while having little to appeal to the audience they were missing.

But Iger found in Kathleen Kennedy a kindred political actor. She told him all the things he wanted to hear, and herself had a plan for furthering an agenda and narrative that he liked, but it was the complete fucking opposite of "appeal to young boys." For Iger, nothing made more sense than to let the contractually obligated 'protector' of the franchise that Lucas himself installed, to have her way when she was telling him everything he wanted to hear. It was like a massive gift had fallen into his lap.

Iger had undisguised aspirations for a bid for President on the Democrat ticket and pushing any and every Left-friendly agenda with his stewardship of a media mega-giant was a great way to set that up.

Kennedy had more than just Left-friendly messaging on her mind though. She is and remains one of the biggest egomaniacs you will ever find. She felt personally affronted to go unrecognized for her 30 years in Hollywood as the unsung hero of every great story ever told. She truly and actually believed she was personally responsible for the success of Star Wars in the 80s. She believed she was personally responsible for the success of Indiana Jones. Gremlins. Those were all hers, and her genius had been overshadowed by undeserving others. So this was her chance to prove it.

She decanonized the EU for this reason. She had to be in total ownership of what came next, and what was allowed to be 'real' for all time. Disney's favored official excuse to 'create room' for their own stories is HER reason, and she sold this reason to Iger, and it appealed to his ego as well.

Irony on irony has manifested in the meantime. Giving Disney a "male appeal" franchise to compliment all their female-led franchises, morphed into "widening the appeal of the historically male" Star Wars instead. Undoing the whole reason Disney plunked unreasonable cash on the acquisition.

The fact that it all blew up in their faces is just the final comeuppance. Pride goes before a Fall.

To your question: it is about the bruised ego and pride of a small group of power players.

When did Clinton (Bill or the other one) walk back their unfettered praise, love, and constant intentional enrichment of China? That is certainly a development, but no less hypocritical than this. So, yes?

"I see you will do all you can to exacerbate everything. Offer rescinded. See yourself out."

See how easy it is? The fact that it is the most natural and obvious next line, and they won't write it, is why I can't read this shit. I have to be impressed and enjoy what I read. I can't be constantly comparing it to the obviously better version I can conjure on the fly.

Let's see some good writing again, assholes.

Biden's own policy as vice president was to empower and enrich Iran. He was one of the foremost critics screaming like a stuck pig when Trump cancelled the Iran treaty he and Obama rammed through. And today he has the gall to say Iran should be eyed with caution?

Fucking chode.

Haha, you've finally caught up. "Free Speech" is one of "common defenses of hate propaganda." Well, yes, of course. Because they are one and the same thing.

We got here way before you did. But I see you're still not clearing the hump properly. You still live in a universe where "Hate Speech" is a meaningful term, and you're trying to redefine all other terms to suit it.

Expressing unpopular opinions and expecting fascists like you not to murder us for it, is a foundational characteristic of a free society. This freedom is literally the key element of Western prosperity. My ability to try things, risk things, venture thoughts, expand philosophies... these are the intrinsic requirements of a system for finding the best outcome. Policies that limit speech are policies that guarantee stagnation and decline.

Keep on imposing your poorly manifested ideology. Keep on wrecking your cities and nations. Reap the whirlwind.

I would imagine the only feasible system involves swapping trucks at stops. Pre-charging a fleet to pick up the cargo from the previous fleet like a relay-run. This means several things.

• For every one gas-powered truck, you'll have 2, 3, or even 4 simultaneously charging trucks per-cargo-load in addition to the one presently driving.
• Changeover will be an extreme additional logistical overhead. The facilities to do this do not presently exist and it seems obvious that capacity will not soon (or perhaps ever) be similar to the present transportation load.

All this will ultimately serve to do, is drive everyone right back to gas or rail. Since the people who love electric love centralization, they'll try to force rail first, but the capacity is not and never will be there compared to what trucks presently do. Transport companies will cash in on their crony leverage to carve out gas-usage exemptions since it's all that makes sense to do.

All electric is from a government standpoint is an attack on mobility and freedom. Gas is too efficient of an energy conduit and grants the rabble too much of an ability to be anywhere they want without clearance or knowledge of their betters. Gotta snuff it out for that reason alone.