I disagree with you here. I just don’t think it makes any sense. People are too complex and varied.

Fascinated by this. Especially because it seems now (ideally) someone with more time and expertise than me will now have to verify or disprove whether companies really do this.

I don’t think you can know anything about a person based on their perceived affiliation to a culture. Wars, nuclear or otherwise, aren’t fought by cultures or even countries, but by groups of powerful individuals within those things, and people are all different and have infinitely varying thoughts about things that their governments do, or that other people they share a group affiliation with do. I think it’s best to target any resentment about a specific event at the actual people who took part in making it occur, and not at people who happen identify with the same culture as the hypothetical nuclear perpetrators. The latter doesn’t make any sense to me, unless the goal is to come up with a pre-justification for cruelty or discrimination, which often has a secondary practical purpose beyond just “I’m upset about that nuclear war”.

Hey I just want to say i think this is a really good question and I’m glad you asked it. So many things get recycled into the language and we don’t know/ever get taught their original meanings. I think it’s good to look into, not just to avoid social slip ups, but because language and idioms have an impact on how we think about things. I’m glad to have these links on my radar

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“What the fuck is going on” is the reaction I most hope to have to fiction. Games get to be weird in a way books and movies can’t always get away with. I am excited.

I love those silly scenes where someone has to take a dozen weapons out of various parts of their outfit before entering a room for a high stakes conversation.

Also kind of love when villains get adopted into the protagonist’s group.

And whenever there’s any kind of mini-universe/layered reality.

Seconding the comment about closed loop time travel.

Edit: also NONLINEAR STORYTELLING. I love that shit. Arranging plot points for symmetry and emotion or thematic resonance rather than just focusing on “what” happened.

I think many people in the U.S. do feel extremely shitty about it. People do care, people are upset, and many are protesting and talking and doing what they can to try to mitigate or heal or push back against the actions of their own governments in the ways that they can. I don’t know if you were around for the 2000s, but people protested then, too. It may not feel that way depending on what media you see or what people you know, but many people do strongly criticize their own government and feel awful about the way their tax dollars are used and the rhetoric that comes out of their leaders. I think most americans (offline anyway) do condemn war crimes, do feel icky about our own government’s involvement and motives, and are mourning the suffering on both sides of this conflict. If you’re seeing lots of disregard for human life around you, it might help to seek out some of the groups and voices and people who are feeling unsettled and are doing something. I know there are lots of donations happening and I’ve seen news about events mourning the dead and groups trying to help the people who are there. It might not be on every front page, but it is out there, if you look for it. The people loudly saying that death and suffering is justified for certain groups of people will try to make it seem like everybody feels that way. But in practice, that has never been true. Anyone with a heart hates this shit. So many people are trying to help. Don’t let propagandists convince you otherwise.

Hey me too! High five!! It really is so maddening to watch people stay inside of and give cover to something that is so obviously not okay. If i think too hard about the people around my age in my family who will probably never leave, or stand up for themselves, or their own kids, and on and on forever, my brain breaks. Cult behavior.

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I don’t think it’s any one factor. I actually think it’s dangerous to think that there iis - the idea that there is some inherent gene or trait or personality type or social condition or event that makes a person evil, has, ironically led to some evil things. The world is a complex web of cause and effect and belief and experience and different ways of reacting to emotion and different decision making and every person is located in a different relationship to all of those things. There’s no one type or person or type of environment or situation that causes bad things, just a series of complex things that are worth being nuanced and thoughtful about.

Rip

I’ve heard really good things about system shock. I’ll have to give the remake a shot sometime when I’m able.

Yesss! Both of those would give me so much joy.

This is a really cool concept and I like it a lot.

I think Pistol Whip does something like this.

I want to play a sci fi horror game that’s got violence, terror and mysteries, but that doesn’t rely on quick reactions or precise timing to beat. I want the full experience of creeping around somewhere derelict and haunted, full of blood and physical plot devices and all the rest, solving puzzles and exploring, doing all the usual stuff, but without any time pressure whatsoever. I want the enemies to give me time to think. I think that if that was done right, in a clever enough way, it could make for a really strange and scary experience for being more deliberately paced. Maybe it’s a dimensional thing. Maybe the monsters exist in a different kind of time. Maybe they can only react to the player for some reason, or take turns. Or maybe the player can leave or hide or manipulate the way things occur, but always has go back to and solve the situation from some angle. I feel like the right person could come up with something really cool. I’m not that neurologically well suited to the kinds of games I like the most, so I just want somebody to invent me a very slow, scary, ridiculously dense game that’s got resident evil or dead space or soma vibes but relies on different combat mechanics somehow.

That’s so wholesome. I think i was there a bit earlier, or simply avoided the branded games, but I remember this….faerie puzzle platforming adventure type thing? And, of course, destructomatch. The Neopian economy was wild. They gave a bunch of kids their own little small businesses to manage, with the social safety net of free omelettes. I sort of wish I’d taken advantage of its features more back in the day.

That’s sad. They should bring them ALL back

Oh! That is good to know. I think i had assumed they all died with flash