Just wanted to say I’m loving these posts, thanks for writing them

I thoroughly enjoyed black mesa but I don’t think it improved the game. I think it’s a pretty unbalanced experience with a lot of the original atmosphere replaced with pretty textures. I also think the xen levels were extremely unfaithful to the original and devoid of a lot of the original meaning, but again visually stunning.

I don’t think it’s a controversial take to say that people who are struggling are easy prey for extremist ideology. I can happily link a handful of articles that describe why those in lower economic positions tend to be easily swayed to populist right wing ideas. And I absolutely do see them as victims, I see most people as victims in some way shape or form. After WW2 we had an extremely wide distribution of wealth, the lower classes had homes and some core assets, the middle class had one or more homes and some luxuries, and the upper class had additional land and the best of the best. Over time the ability to get even meager assets has become harder and harder, to the point where the lower class has almost no assets to speak of, and what little the middle class has left is draining directly to the ultra-wealthy. We are all victims of circumstance in this manor, and the system is failing to address this.

I strongly disagree with the focus on individualism, especially when we’re dealing with large groups of people. On a case by case basis, sure, at the end of the day someone may make a conscious choice to engage with something, but to only hyper-focus on that while disregarding the view from only a few steps back? That’s the naive bit. I can find their views reprehensible and look at their choices with disdain, but I don’t think that should be the end of the analysis.

I do not advocate for violent rioting, but to say it doesn’t encourage people to listen to you I think is just wrong. Look back through history, the Civil Rights movement was nonviolent at its core but the presence of the Black Panther Party utilized armed self-defence to keep the police at bay, the threat of violence was the deterrent. The stonewall riots where queer individuals resisting police brutality sparked the birth of the pride movement, it was only the retaliation against the arrests and beatings the police performed that allowed for gay rights to no longer be ignored. The Suffragette movement in the UK set fire to post boxes and sabotaged local businesses. Even more blatant examples like the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa led by Nelson Mandela, although again like the Civil Rights movement was at its core non-violent, they didn’t renounce any of the violence until negotiations were well underway.

So violence is absolutely a tool in a huge number of successful political movements. This is why I think we should be careful about dismissing it, and rather than just shunning them, forcing them deeper into their hatred, we should unify against a common target that would benefit all, and that is the ultra-wealthy that keep us divided on these lines. If we can’t unite on common ground, then I don’t think we’ll ever see change, we’ll just be kept in a state of hating each other as our quality of living slowly deteriorates.

That’s an extremely bad faith interpretation of what I said. It’s the exact opposite of what I’m saying, and I’m unsure if this is an elaborate troll/gotcha, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant no ill-will.

My entire point is that focusing on the symptom, in this case the the rioting and the racism, is short sighted and is prone to create reactionary takes that dismiss the concerns that lie beneath. That dismissal will only further antagonize and drive people further towards populist movements, and I don’t think that’s the smart thing to do. We should not be driving people towards these movements, but rather offering them a tangible and real way to alleviate the root cause of their discontent, catch it before a populist preys upon it.

“A riot is the language of the unheard” - Martin Luther King Jr

I think it’s a mistake to handwave general anger and discontent from citizens and to put the entire blame on the symptom.

Where are all the far right groups being organised? Is it in the wealthier areas where people are able to live? Or is it in the regions that are being hardest hit by austerity? Right wing groups latch onto anger that people have due to their quality of live deteriorating. They divert the anger towards their own populist agenda, and people will fall for it as it feels tangible and achievable, even if it won’t do a god damn thing. Crumbling infrastructure? Must be the migrants who are also using that infrastructure. Oh the building was sold off to a foreign investment firm? Oh the employees who maintained that infrastructure are now paying exorbitant rates for housing? Nah, that’s far too complex of a problem to tackle.

Wealth inequality will continue to grow, and the government isn’t doing anything to truly tackle it. To think that anti-immigration sentiment exists entirely in a vacuum is naive and I think extremely dangerous, as you risk alienating those who are being hit hardest by this inequality. This will only get worse, and you can’t bury your head in the sand forever.

How do you even deal with wage compression? It feels like it’s ingrained socially at this point, people just seem willing to accept that pay because there’s no alternative. I know that for public sector jobs it’s a tricky balancing act where the government can’t increase a salary for roles in 1 Civil Service grade as it may disincentivise workers in another role at the same grade. That probably hasn’t helped when highly skilled roles that require decades of experience are tiered similarly to a role that may only take 6 months of training, where that high skill role wage is being constrained by that lower skill role. Perhaps that’s had a wider effect of bringing the perceived value down? I haven’t spent any time really thinking about this though, if you have any resources on this, I’d love to give them a read/watch.

Also sorry if my comments felt like I was implying young people are lazy, that wasn’t what I was getting at at all. I think the apathy that young people feel is absolutely valid, and even workers who are in their late 50’s who have been hit by redundancy are feeling this apathy intensely as they may not see any opportunities that allows them to provide for their families due to the general outlook of things.

I don’t have that many answers, but I’ll give it a go.

I think we need to come down extremely hard on landlords, potentially crippling their income stream. They chose an investment, and all investments carry risk, the risk in this case is that too many people can’t afford housing, and the government has to step in and heavily regulate those who profiteer off of basic shelter. This would apply to anyone with rental properties, second homes, long term investment opportunities, ect.

Along side that, a shakeup to planning permission. Fuck NIMBYism, sorry but you don’t get a say when people are paying 80% of their income on the bare essentials. From the top down, mandate construction of new housing in an aggressive manor. After Thatcher absolutely fucked us by forcing the local councils to sell off their council houses with the start of austerity, we’ve been at a ludicrous deficit. I think the figure I was reading is we need to be building about 400,000 houses a year and then in 5 years time, we’ll get “close” to fixing the lack of supply that we’re faced with now

Where does this money come from for that? I dunno, I would guess borrowing like we have done. It’s risky as hell, but it’s better than the current risk where we borrow against our rise in GDP, just hoping we outpace the loan rate without any long term plan to reduce the cost of living. Failing that, a wealth tax could maybe be possible? In the tune of 0.5% or so. That would generate an insane amount of revenue, but it would risk foreign investors looking unfavorably towards the UK. It would look risky for their assets, so foreign investment may fall in a dangerous way, maybe this isn’t the best plan? I just have no idea, it’s not my area of knowledge.

I think the above could be enough to trigger an actual wealth transfer. By dramatically reducing the cost of living, people will actually have disposable income. Income that can go into buying things. Say you work selling clothing, your customers suddenly having 50% more of their paycheques to spend is like the ideal situation, now they actually have the funds to buy your wares. With that higher income, well now you can hire more staff, you can pay your staff more also. You’re not having to work to such a fine margin as economically your customers aren’t as screwed just trying to survive.

I have no idea if this is all viable to be clear, I hope that I’ve come to some solid conclusions and ideas here, I’d love to hear pushback on all of that as well as I’m sure I’ve made some wack assumptions.

I want workers to earn more, but can you really regulate the economy into being better like this?

The cost of living is insane, but the relative pay per hour of a worker competed to anywhere in Europe is already pretty high. Our current minimum wage is 25% higher than Germany, 28% higher than France, 81% for Spain, and 318% compared to somewhere lile the Czech Republic. Our economy is already stalled out, It’s already prohibitively expensive to run a company in the UK, and I don’t think making employees cost more will stimulate the economy.

Also if minimum wage rises aggressively then I think all that will happen is we’ll get a wage spiral upwards and companies will hire fewer and fewer peoeple. We saw a bit of this as we were coming out of covid as a reaction to inflation at the time. The concern is if wages do inflate quicjly, then that drivea prices higher, which results in people demanding higher wages, ect.

Tackling the actual living costs, housing, utility, food, I think that’s the only way to go about this. Anything like a minimum wage increase just rolls the snowball down the road, and it will 100% be bigger when you reach it again.

Oh sorry, I know which one you mean, the profile button yeah. It’s the same number of clicks unfortunately

I did have a look there, but unfortunately no dice. I couldn’t see any account option. Unless I’m missing something, here’s the options I have

I hadn’t heard of Mozilla Connect, I’ll give that a look, thanks!

Yep! It’s absolutely fantastic. It was the main feature that I’ve been missing from Chrome since I made the switch years ago. Perfectly segregated environments, own logins, passwords, cookies, history, theme, ect, it works flawlessly.

The only negative, and it’s incredibly minor, is it’s nested behind the hamburger menu top right. It’s just an extra click, but I would prefer to have a profile icon next to my pinned extensions there.

So yeah, I think if you want this functionality, you’ll be extremely happy when it drops!

I’ve been rocking vertical tabs for a while on nightly along side the profile switcher. Honestly? Absolutely game changing. It’s been a breath of fresh air, Firefox feels transformed into a progressive browser for the first time in a long long time.

As for groups, here’s an example. I don’t personally use groups that much, I prefer profiles where I can keep environments segregated, but the groups do look pretty nice.

Here’s 2 groups with another tab at the top to give perspective

And I collapsed the top one

And here’s a full screenshot just to help put it in perspective

Naw shucks haha, kind of you to say. I’m glad my ramble/vent was worth it!

Since ya played Edith Finch, in Until Then you form a much stronger connection with the characters, but the content and topics it faces are less extreme What is there will hit harder because of that connection I think.

I hope you enjoy any of the games I suggested! Also really, just get yourself Donut County. It’s a stupid cozy romp. Do racoon crimes.

Sorry to hear that, there’s been times where I’ve avoided certain bits of media for similar reasons, and that feeling of “should I invest myself in this?” while trying to keep yourself safe. I hope things improve for you.

I don’t want to say anything about Until Then really as I think the experience would be hampered knowing anything about it, but it’ll still be there for you in the future. There are heavier moments throughout the story however, I cried at both the beauty and the sadness at multiple points in the game.

Some comparable games that have some similar themes or vibes

• Night in the Woods - Has themes around mental health issues especially focusing on dissociation
• What Remains of Edith Finch - Covers topics around death of loved ones including issues you’re likely concerned about
• Life is Strange - Mental health and death along with suicidal discussion and events
• Firewatch

I think a lot of these kinda stories revolve around the sadder parts of life to elicit emotion that drives us towards connecting with characters in the same way that seeing hardship and struggle makes you care about your fellow human. To me it feels that through these experiences we’re able to see our humanity in a rawer form, perhaps its because there’s a cost to ourselves due to our emotional investment. There’s no need to take on that cost unless you have the emotional space to do so though, but that cost is often what’s made it so great. I didn’t play any games for just over 2 weeks after I finished Until Then, I just started playing the piano, went on walks/bike rides/runs, and decided to get more involved at a local board game cafe. But really, no need to force yourself into that, focus on yourself, do the things you need to do to improve your situation internally or externally, it’ll be there for you then.

If you want some story-esque games that feel much less soul-consuming, here’s a few of my favourites:

• Stray - it made me have wobbly emotions, but it doesn’t have quite the same “sting” as the games above
• Cloudpunk
• Metro Exodus - Bit of an oddball here, probably a few eyebrows raised, but I think it’s one of the only games I’ve seen actual intimacy (and not sexual intimacy), however that’s few and far between, the pew pew is great

And a couple of cozy games that are a bit adjacent to these

• Frog Detective - Quite how these haven’t won GOTY every year I don’t know… I loved them
• A Short Hike
• Donut County
• Maybe Sludge Life but that’s certainly on the more abstract end of things

Edit: Also sorry for the monologue haha, didn’t mean for that to get so long, just started rambling

I absolutely loved Oni. I didn’t own a copy for a while but I’d play it round a friends house once a week… Those fighting mechanics just felt so tight (for the time) and the gun play was weighty and responsive.

Shame to hear about the fate of Oni 2 from here, I had no idea

Until Then

More of a visual novel, but I had an amazing time with it. I cried. It was beautiful. I’ve been learning the piano since I finished it.

Go in completely blind if you do decide to play it!

Oh! This is just the year in review thing, not your steam gameplay recordings. I don’t want my family members to hear me demolishing a burger while I watch my factory grow

I bought the original r4 just after release in 2013 and it’s still going. I’ve been wanting a new case but I just can’t justify it as this one’s still in great shape despite having had 4 builds run through it, handfuls of hard drives and it being used to test friends failing hardware.

Built a friends first PC with them a few months ago and used the define 7, its the same but with some nice minor tweaks to make building even easier.