Twitter and Facebook are full of American propaganda

I see the Whataboutism Olympics are off to a good start this year.

Why is this always the only defense people have when they bend over backwards to write apologia for dictatorships like China and Russia?

Have you ever thought about why international TikTok is the way it is?

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Au contraire, I hope it does, because this kind of shit needs to be punished.

There’s a singleplayer mod of Tarkov, by the way. Might be the safest way of playing this game.

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The thing about Reagan is that he’s not unpopular in Europe at all, since he’s considered a major factor in bringing down the Iron Curtain and ending Soviet rule over half of the continent. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a German TV documentary on the end of the Cold War (and there are many) that didn’t feature either the Hoff or Reagan’s famous “Mr. Gorbachev, bring down this wall!”, which is almost as popular in Germany as Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

Easy for us Europeans to look at Reagan that way, because we weren’t negatively impacted by his social and economic policies, at least not directly. I don’t disagree with your assessment that he caused a great deal of damage that was only increased by Bush Jr., but Clinton with his extensive policy of deregulation is hardly blameless either and is perhaps even more responsible for the current state of the US, in large part due to laying the groundwork for the current media oligopoly. I was however not conscious of this at the time and neither were many other people in Europe even years later - Clinton remained popular enough here post presidency that his 2004 autobiography became a major best seller across the pond, although it’s perhaps less surprising given the contrast to his successor.

The descent into fascism will come at us fast […] and the US is also kinda odd in that states also have a certain amount of political autonomy

I put these two quotes from your comment together, because I think that the federal structure of the US might end up preventing this from happening. If I were French, I would agree with you that federalism is odd (France is highly centralized, both politically and economically), but as a German, I’m aware of just how deliberately this style of government was chosen by the Western Allies for post-war West-Germany, because it makes it considerably more difficult for the federal government to take complete control over the country. It’s also worth stressing that German states are still far less powerful and less independent than American states (there’s no equivalent to the national guard, for example, and legislative powers are also far more limited beyond education) despite being literally conceived to prevent a Fascist government from taking over. The states might be the final line of defense of the American democracy (very much unlike the fourth estate, which is falling in line faster than you can say “Democracy dies in the darkness”).

You are right that the Republican-controlled Supreme Court is one of Trump’s most important assets, but one aspect worth considering about it is that it’s still in service of the Republican party, not Trump directly. For as long as the interests of this party and Trump align, they are on “his” side (and he has been rather shockingly effective at turning the so-called GOP into his personal cult), but if there was e.g. a chasm within it party (e.g. due to an unpopular purge started by Trump, perhaps as part of a blame game after he seriously mucks something up), it could result in some of the Conservative justices to abandon him and vote against him. Yes, this is far-fetched, but you have to consider that they are thinking far more long-term than he’ll ever live - and that Trump has no friends after all and no true allies. Every single person and organization aligning themselves with him is doing it solely out of opportunism, because there certainly is no vision, no ideology and no policy other than his personal brand. The moment there’s a falling out, which are more or less guaranteed to happen with anyone but his closest family members, it’s getting ugly - and Trump is terrible at keeping “talent”, increasingly surrounding himself with useless suck ups, which have no ability to survive for very long in the brutal political battle royale that is Washington DC.

This is entirely unsurprising. China, while being much weaker militarily (as well as in every other way) and having no chance of catching up at any point this century, is the main geopolitical rival of the US and a major destabilizing factor in Asia, a region that has become an increasingly large focus of the US as it slowly disentangles itself from Europe (and Europe from it). For all of its follies (LLMs and image generation mainly), AI in general and AI chips in particular are of enormous and growing military, scientific and economic importance.

If there is one major war that is increasingly likely to happen, it’s going to be a direct clash between China and the US over Taiwan, possibly very soon (likely hoping to exploit the chaos and incompetence of the coming Trump administration) given the preparation we are starting to see at the mainland Chinese coast facing Taiwan. We are also already seeing AI-powered drones being deployed in Ukraine totally changing the nature of warfare (like a large number of German drones recently supplied to Ukraine that can identify and attack targets on their own without any human input, making them jam-proof) and, as mentioned in the article, AI chips can be used for a wide variety of military-related tasks, so it’s unsurprising that America is restricting supply of a critical technology to the one country that will most likely start a war with them soon, similar to how the aggressive expansionist Japanese Empire was heavily sanctioned prior to Pearl Harbor. China appears to be hell-bent on repeating the mistakes Japan made, including possibly by trying to perform a - what they hope to be, but is unlikely to work - crippling first strike on US military assets at the start of the invasion. Preventing them from using AI technology more advanced than what the US has access to in any of this is vital in maintaining the considerable gap in capabilities between the Chinese and American military.

Even if China suddenly had the most advanced AI technology in the world (which is highly unlikely to ever happen, given the inherent R&D disadvantages totalitarian dictatorships suffer from), the gap would still be massive, but no nation is interested in a fair fight or letting the enemy close any gap in capabilities, so the US will be using any chance they can get to keep things unbalanced in their favor, including their vastly superior soft power. China is in the unfortunate position of being far more reliant on the US (and the global trade that is enabled by the American hegemony) than the other way around, which means they can only ever react to American actions against them. Yes, they control a large supply of the planet’s easily accessible rare Earth reserves, which are vital to chip making, but they can’t afford to cut the world off from it given the increasingly dire state of their economy that no amount of falsified figures can hide at this point, not even domestically, so any export restrictions they can enact in response will always be little more than attempts at saving face, an irrational concept that is driving too much of their decision making to their own detriment.

Before I sound too authoritative on this complex topic, this is just my personal opinion based on what little I know. Feel free to pick this apart.

Thanks!

Wreckfest has been big for the last week or so. The only reason why I picked it up again in the first place (after having only played about an hour of it before, mostly on the Steam Deck) was that I got a new controller (from 8bitdo), more or less replacing my worn out Xbone controller, and the idea was that I wanted to test it properly with a proper racing game - and proper racing it is! Hard and punishing, but not really unfair. I’ve been a fan of Finish developer Bugbear ever since the first Flatout (which this is a clear spiritual successor to), so it’s not exactly surprising that it finally clicked with me.

Driving physics in particular are sublime. Even with just a controller, you can feel the mass of the vehicle shifting around, you notice tires losing grip as springs are decompressed on top of a hill. Add to that the second best crash physics after BeamNG and delightfully aggressive AI drivers and the end result is pure carnage. There is some frustration (most races are decided in the first three corners and a single mistake can eliminate any chance of victory at the second highest and highest difficulty), later races are getting too long (since it’s not particularly interesting to lead for five laps after having basically won the race in the first lap) and the gameplay surrounding the races themselves is bare-bones to say the least, with a very basic campaign, upgrade and leveling system and some live service (ultra)lite challenges sprinkled on top, but it does the job.

There are destruction derbies (fun, but laughably easy, all of them) and wacky events like racing a tiny three wheeler against a field of school buses, but the majority of those are really more fun in theory than actually playing them, since most of these unusual vehicles are just slow, fragile and control purely. Worst example so far: RV racing. Nothing fun or interesting about that and the Top Gear segment they copied this from wasn’t exactly a high point in the series either. Normal racing is downright exhilarating though at the best of times, when you just edge out a victory on a slippery, brilliantly designed dirt track, worn out tires barely holding on, opponents trying to spin you out in every corner. I hope there’s more of that in the upcoming sequel. I have not tried the multiplayer yet, but I might in the future. Graphics are excellent - save for the complete lack of driver animations - and there’s a banging soundtrack that would be perfect if it had less screamo, but that’s just my taste. The soundtrack doesn’t quite reach the same heights as Flatout 1 and 2’s, but it’s close.

This really applies to the whole game. It’s not just nostalgia, since I replayed both relatively recently. Wreckfest has better driving physics than its predecessors (or really most other racing games), but that’s about it. The wackiness is more grounded, with plausible or almost plausible and no strictly unrealistic events that involve the driver being hurled into targets anymore, but this also means that, since there is really no “innovation” outside of ultra-basic leveling and daily events compared to the predecessors that it feels like they didn’t really have any ideas and were just doing it by the numbers. Bugbear are masters at the craft of designing tracks, vehicles and the physics that tie it all together, but outside of the immediate racing action, there really is nothing of note there. A campaign system that was below average 21 years ago is now hopelessly outdated. I’m not saying that they should try and make a dirty, ratty version of Forza Horizon with more of those lovely banged up real cars that handle so brilliantly, but… - okay, they totally should, that would be amazing! Anyway, 10/10 racing, 6/10 other events, 3/10 surrounding stuff for a weighed average of 7.99999/10. Don’t check if my math is correct.

Okay, and I also played a few more hours of Balatro (more hours than Wreckfest, I mean), because, well, I was forced to. Yup. I didn’t do it willingly, I swear! Is there a “Balatro players anonymous”? Asking for a friend.

The controller I mentioned (8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wired) is great, by the way. It’s a simple wired-only thing (there’s also a Bluetooth variant) that closely mimics the Xbone controller, except for two additional small shoulder buttons that I haven’t found any use for yet, as well as a turbo and remap feature that allegedly works without any software (don’t care about either, so I haven’t tried them). PC and Android only, just FYI. It has the best sticks and triggers I’ve ever used (both Hall effect, so I hope they’ll last) and the buttons and d-pad are also outstanding, despite this thing costing less than half as much as a first party controller. It feels exactly as solid as an original controller, even down to the plastic making the same noises at precisely the same level of grip strength when some hick from outta town spins ya out in the last corner of tha race for some goddarn reason, which is one hell of an achievement for the price. I’ve already had a Super Famicon style Bluetooth controller from the same company for a few years, so I knew their stuff was high quality. The only aspect about it that might put some people off is that for some reason, it’s only available in bright, almost garish pastel colors, but I quickly got over that. There is a branded Black Myth Wukong version with more muted colors, but it didn’t mention having vibration on any of the spec sheets on any site, so I avoided that one.

Which texture packs are you using?

It’s complicated.

“Bad” is first and foremost a matter of perspective and comparison. The United States is a a highly developed democracy (for now at least) and as such, it makes sense to compare it to the short list of other highly developed democracies on this planet (Canada, most of Europe, Israel, Oceania, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan). In the age of the Internet, this is easier than ever before, including - which can be especially devastating to many Americans - hearing first-hand accounts from what life is like in those other highly developed democracies, most of which do not share the same problems or at least not at the same level of severity as the US.

When you do that, issues become apparent. Inequality, healthcare (by far the most egregious), civil rights, violence (both violent crime and police violence), freedom of the press, judiciary, the general state of democratic institutions, the election system and the results it’s producing, etc.

From a European perspective, the US changed from a country that was admired and emulated to a cautionary tale. To me personally, this happened after what was arguably the high point of its existence, the 1990s, the “end of history”, when the Cold War was won, standards of living were improving rapidly across all of the developed world and America seemed invincible and still very much worth copying. Bush changed all of that, with his ignorance, his unjust war against Iraq, his erosion of civil liberties. Columbine just shortly before was perhaps another sign that something was amiss, that there were deeper issues below the shiny surface.

But once again, that’s from the perspective of someone living and growing up in another highly developed nation, which combined only make up a small fraction of the world’s population. The US should be compared to those and judged by the same standards, but most members of our species are living very different lives, under very different and worse conditions and are thus looking at this country from a very different point of view: They are experiencing far more poverty and inequality, violence and corruption, far worse media landscape, far less robust democratic institutions, are at a far greater risk of dying early due to events and powers outside of their own control. Yet they now have even easier access to media, both flattering and not, that shows them that there is this huge country of opportunity, where even a simple clearly exploited farm worker or household help can and does make more money than a doctor where they are coming from. Standards of living are higher for Americans, even during a crisis, than in much of the rest of the world. The gap may not be as massive and universal as it was a few decades ago, but it’s still there and won’t disappear for a long time. Given that much of the developing world will be far more affected by climate change in the coming decades (and yes, I’m writing this as wildfires are still devastating LA - being less affected doesn’t mean this man-made catastrophe won’t hurt us in the developing world as well), it’ll only increase.

This reminds me a little of how Soviet cinemas used to show “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940) in their state-run cinemas in 1948 in order to demonstrate just how bad America was - except that Soviet citizens saw that even the poorest Americans had cars, which were completely unobtainable to them at the time. The film was quickly pulled from cinemas.

It is important to mention that for all of its problems, both relative and absolute, the United States are still a leading nation in many ways, being the global center for science of innovation, popular culture and independent art, which alone allows them to pull in the most talented people from all over the world. It’s not only attractive to immigrants from poor countries, but also the best and brightest from everywhere, who can, with a bit of luck, make careers there that would be impossible anywhere else on Earth.

They are also the only superpower on this planet, have more soft (diplomatic, cultural) and hard (military) power than any other nation and by a massive gap that nobody will be able to come close to this century, if ever. Russia is a global pariah that is struggling to defeat a much smaller, poorer and weaker nation directly at its border and China has a far longer list of problems than the US, currently engaged in several genocides, is squandering its soft power with an arrogant, aggressive foreign policy that makes Trump look like a skilled diplomat and is hell-bent on repeating Russia’s recent mistakes in Taiwan. America’s military dominance is unpopular for a number of reasons globally, especially since Bush Jr. abused it and with Trump’s recent remarks about Canada, Panama and Greenland, it creates worries everywhere, but one thing many critics are either knowingly or unknowingly ignoring is that it has also resulted in previously unprecedented levels of global stability and peace. There are so many conflicts around the globe that were limited or prevented entirely from escalating into full-on wars only by the simple act of sending a carrier group close to the right shore line - and sometimes even by just a sternly worded letter. The ability to wage three full-on wars anywhere on this planet against any other nation at the same time while still having more conventional firepower in reserve than anyone else is unique to the US - and it’s the only thing that ensures the freedom of nations like Taiwan. And no, America could easily afford both having both the best military and best health care system in the world - their current health care system just is bloated and inefficient, with corrupt insurers being responsible for most of the cost.

This should answer the first part of the question.

I won’t go into as much detail to answer the second part, because this comment is already long enough, but the gist of it is that it’s very difficult to produce change in a system that is designed to be deliberately slow-changing, which can be discouraging. This was done to protect it from demagogues like Trump and it has to some degree worked, except that the “bad guys” like Republicans and foreign actors that support them can of course engage in the same slow grinding away at institutions that well-meaning activists are engaging in, which has resulted in the “two Americas” we have now, firmly democratically-governed states and cities vs. Republican ones, which are drifting apart further and further in terms of economic success, standard of living, human rights, etc. Faster and radical change has been attempted to various degrees of success. The Suffragettes, Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s are an example of significant change for the better happening comparatively swiftly, whereas the Occupy Wall Streets protests that occurred more recently are an example of a complete failure in every way.

I think the most difficult thing to accept for most Americans is that for all of their individuality, for all of their emphasis on being responsible for their own success and failures, the overwhelming majority of them are each mere single droplets in a current that will take them with them wherever it’ll go, no matter what the individual is doing and thinking. There is nobody actually in control of this thing, not even their leaders. This isn’t very different from the equally vast majority of other human beings now and throughout history, but it can be a very uncomfortable thought. There are just too many variables to this equation. This doesn’t mean that equally determined and capable individuals can’t produce a massive amount of change, but this is a once in a generation kind of thing. If you’re not fine with being a small cog in a very large machine - and many people are not - then you’ll be quickly discouraged, since even the most engaged activists are usually nothing more than that, which leads to high levels of attrition among such activists. Add to that the fact that it’s costly (you have to take time off work, which is difficult if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, like many Americans), risky and uncomfortable to engage in political activism and it’s not really that surprising that there are perhaps not enough US citizens trying to defend and improve their country from the many issues that are primarily threatening it from within - with foreign actors like Russia, Iran and China having to do little more than fan the flames.

Who knows what will happen. Maybe Trump will screw up so badly that it’ll birth a powerful new movement akin to Martin Luther King’s that fundamentally changes the country - but given that American voters absolved him from killing more than one million of their own, I have my doubts.

ChatGPT has taken the joy out of these sites more than creeps have, because you just can’t really be sure anymore that there isn’t some sort of LLM at the other end.

He can’t legally own a gun and has to provide a DNA sample. Still barely anything, but I would imagine the first thing is annoying and the second - given that he’s a rapist - is terrifying him a little. I wonder how many cold cases there are with his DNA in the evidence locker.

I just realized these are just from this trial alone.

I’m not a fan of burning down the house to catch spiders approach. Equally slow, gradual, boring and tedious democratic change has the best track record in history, whereas even successful revolutions result in ordinary people suffering the most for many years until things improve, if they ever improve.

In other words: Organize and vote, don’t fantasize about who to put up against the wall in which order.

Can’t wait to be called a fascist for this comment too.

WTF?

where you can die from a wasp in your house if you leave the doors open all the time

Funny how they managed to sum up everything I hate about games like these in one line of a patch note.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system

Shitting on company time is fine though.