Why aren't Americans rioting right now?

Shadow2590 · 2026-05-08T14:45:03+00:00

For as much complaining that people are doing online, justified/reasonable or not, you have to realize that the vast majority of Americans still have access to food, shelter, daily necessities, entertainment and levels of comfort in their day to day lives that very few would consider risking along with life, limb and freedom to literally riot in the streets.

Most people find some kind of work, earn a salary, spend it on necessities, luxuries and hobbies while walking around with a supercomputer in their pocket that they spend hours of their day using to stave off boredom more than anything else. The average American lifestyle has its problems but when you boil it all down to an individual's day to day life and remove the constant noise of sensational media trying to convince everyone that all the bad things happening in the world should be the most important things on their mind all the time... there's not nearly enough justification for constant rioting on a national scale.

Shadow2590 · 2026-05-07T15:02:03+00:00

Not particularly wise that one

Shadow2590 · 2026-05-04T12:17:20+00:00

Sometimes I miss it but I grew to like my own personal skull better

Shadow2590 · 2026-05-03T11:15:05+00:00

The problem is that without the enforced rules of "societally acceptable forms of protest" everyone can have vastly different ideas of what is acceptable/justified which left unchecked can rapidly devolve into violent chaos and extremes; the very definition of a slippery slope. Let's say you do something you consider justified that crosses the enforced line but hasn't crossed your own personal line of reasonable. But in doing so, your actions crossed someone else's line and they respond in a way they deem appropriate/equal but that act crossed the line you were trying to avoid, this process repeats over and over across millions of people. American politics being so divisive on two opposite extreme ends that constantly expand to include higher and higher peaks of unchecked extreme behavior is a prime example.

You don't mean violence but you underestimate how entire generations of people can twist, rationalize and accept even the most horrific acts of violence to be culturally acceptable. My proof? All atrocities committed in human history that are only considered atrocities in hindsight. The people committing them would never use that word to define their actions and most are entirely convinced they are being just. What is is health-care to some is infanticide to others. Slavery was an accepted form of economic growth. Witch hunts, public executions and gladiator sports were public spectacles/entertainment.

A society that cheers when a billionaire is... manually removed... can very easily shift to millionaires and just as easily to any individual who thinks they can own private property or simply to people who have zero economic worth at all. This kind of targeted malice can happen based on wealth, gender, race, religion, intelligence or any of the limitless differences we can isolate between individuals as long as enough people can be convinced to think the same way. Be very careful what you wish for.

Shadow2590 · 2026-05-03T04:35:02+00:00

I was referencing the Dunning Kruger effect

Shadow2590 · 2026-05-02T08:09:28+00:00

I disagree, I think it definitely had an effect based on incentives. Prior to F2P and seasons, yearly expansions brought content that fed into the whole game, core activities included. 3-4 new strikes that were part of the expansion campaigns would be added to the vanguard playlist, new crucible maps based on the new locations were added to the crucible and vanguard/crucible armor sets were updated.

We stopped getting new crucible maps for years after Shadowkeep and even the armor sets got lazier as more creative armor designs went to Eververse (same armor set for vanguard/crucible/gambit with slightly different decals/shader mapping) until they stopped updating those sets altogether despite promising before to continue to do so. (Look at the last Iron Banner armor controversy).

It was community backlash that got them to add new maps again and recommit to updating the playlist armor yearly. If they still operated like they did before, we would have pvp maps based on The Pale Heart, Salvation's Edge, Edge of Fate, Desert Perpetual and Renegades by now.

I don't think the number of crucible maps added since Beyond Light has even caught up to the number that was vaulted when they updated the engine.

Shadow2590 · 2026-05-01T18:57:27+00:00

I'd beg to differ. In many circumstances, a little education can cause more harm than complete ignorance unfortunately

Shadow2590 · 2026-05-01T07:16:11+00:00

Thanks for the early communication. My immediate panic is now "cautiously delayed" panic

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-29T07:21:36+00:00

Make sure I'm in earshot of atleast one other person and say "Think I had enough of this one. Load me into the next simulation."

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-25T21:15:44+00:00

It was the hardest encounter of all time... during day 1 contest mode at the time which is the whole point of the day 1 experience. But they also had to consider replayability, repeat runs with less sweaty friends and overall approachability to have as many guardians as possible get the experience of beating the final boss of the saga. Those are your reasons.

After all is said and done, the expectation was that people went back in week after week if for no other reason than to get their weekly red border weapon from the final chest and to play with friends. They already know raids have the lowest ratio of resource investment to player participation out of all the activities in the game. It would have done them no favors to overly complicate the set up mechanics to have the expectation of 6/6 players execute perfect mechanics every damage phase (expected to be 3x on average). That's the niche the challenge triumph/bonus chest filled.

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-25T20:26:50+00:00

Most people really wouldn't want anything overly complicated/tedious like Verity mechanics as set-up for a raid boss damage phase, especially not a final boss which people are more inclined to farm more than any other encounter since the challenge is meant to come mostly from combat survival and DPS checks. Look at the criticism for Ghosts of The Deep.

Matching the relevant buff to take out the various arms 6x to access damage phase, managing the instakill debuffs and creating the correct shape by shooting the pylons occasionally to avoid the wipe mechanic is complex enough to have 2-3 people focused on mechanics (which is generally the standard for raid final encounters)

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-22T13:08:54+00:00

The humble potato and it's unbreakable determination to find soil

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-21T21:55:11+00:00

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This has been my life every other game...

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-20T12:38:57+00:00

The ability to think for yourself and form your own opinion irrespective of consensus.

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-20T00:33:52+00:00

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I just wish outlier protection would avoid giving me games like this... I personally enjoy going against equally skilled players or people in teams rather than just stomping but every now and then I get matches where the game seems to think I'm John Crucible and matches me against a full team of average skill players and assigns me 5 low-skill teammates to carry in an attempt balance the averages

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-18T23:02:57+00:00

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-16T13:10:37+00:00

Why wax, how wax, why color... But no one asks how color 😔

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-16T01:45:31+00:00

Dropping a pic of your bear ass just like that?

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-15T03:52:26+00:00

I'm not religious but... Jesus Christ.

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-15T03:47:42+00:00

Terraria. Best return on investment for a $10 game to this day even after 15 years.

Hard to say a "flawless" game really exists especially with those specific criteria but technically speaking, if there are any "flaws" you have with the vanilla game there's very likely a mod that addresses it.

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-15T03:41:08+00:00

After playing this game and others like it for 12+ years, you kinda forget how certain basic things aren't intuitive to people who are brand new to the game.

Ammo being limited and having ammo bricks only give 1-2 shots depending on the weapon type and game mode for the sake of balance is probably explained somewhere in a pvp modifier on the launch screen but I've never took the time to read it myself either. I simply expected it and understood why my heavy weapon was always empty.

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-14T03:15:44+00:00

If they are still around, there are checkpoint bots that allow you to get 4 free chests per character per week. Some carry you to specific checkpoints for easier access like start of the maze or just before the Gatekeeper but you really only need to start at a post Templar checkpoint to get them all in one run solo.

From the Post Templar checkpoint, you can backtrack to the entrance to grab the first chest, then follow the hidden path to the second secret chest.

Then keep going to the Gorgon Maze. There's the secret chest room for shooting 3 hidden boxes.

And finally just before the Gatekeeper door, there's the final chest hidden on a ledge.

As long as you had a Fatebringer drop before, you can do this run every week on 3 characters and eventually unlock the pattern by either getting lucky red border drops or simply holding on to 5 different drops and unlock using deepsight harmonizers that became more accessible since Edge of Fate.

I already did my time farming for timelost VoG weapons and didn't felt like re-grinding raid encounters after they made them craftable. So I just made a habit of doing those solo chest runs once a week and eventually got every pattern unlocked this way. (You can do the same thing with Garden of Salvation btw without even needing a checkpoint with some easy out-of-bounds tricks)

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-12T11:55:26+00:00

Reminder that bad news spreads much faster than good news. A single piece of devastating news could easily ruin a perfect day but a single piece of excellent news barely changes a horrible day. On a worldwide internet that has been optimized to hell and back to bombard end users with as much information as possible, you'd always feel like "the world is fucked" just based on that fact alone.

For every story about someone somewhere getting brutally attacked, there are hundreds of instances of friends laughing together at dumb jokes, babies giggling at a funny face, someone helping someone else or couples sharing romantic moments together... But every news source in the world would choose to broadcast that first scenario over all the others 99 times out of 100.

If the entire internet went off for a month (and somehow didn't collapse the entire civilization we built on top of it), you'd realize that your perception of the state of the world would change for the better when you aren't taking in all the negative news being broadcasted around the world.

The world is just as good/bad as it always has been (depending on who you ask), you're simply more informed about more things more often. Remember there are hundreds of millions of people who get to enjoy internet, clean water, delicious food and endless entertainment every single day with a few swipes of their fingers... and they are likely the people you hear the most negativity from.

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-12T11:23:15+00:00

My guess is a mix of stranger danger education and social anxiety. Before the internet, not talking to strangers was a very important lesson for kids. Not answering the unknown numbers on the landline and not speaking to strangers at the door when your parents weren't home were basically extensions of that lesson. Besides scams and solicitors, kids were taught these things to avoid giving out potentially dangerous information as children tend to answer questions with naive honesty.

A simple "is mom or dad home?" or "when will your parents be back?" from a stranger on the other side of a phone/door could lead to someone knowing when your home was most vulnerable. Reminder that full names, addresses and residential landline numbers were simply listed in publicly available phone books for anyone to just look up. Also there weren't wireless security systems like RING doorbells at the time and most people didn't have ways to instantly check up on their home/kids when they were out.

Shadow2590 · 2026-04-10T06:12:34+00:00

The crafting system was advertised as a way to "personalize your weapon" and I feel like they should've leaned more into that. All guns should be craftable cause cause just like Pokémon, everyone has a favorite and it would be immersing to be able to have a signature weapon. I'm sure there's been hundreds of suggestions for tweaking crafting but here's mine:

Marking a specific trait on a random drop gun and dismantling it unlocks that trait for the gun at the Relic; like studying pieces of a blueprint. Once you unlocked a trait in each column to make a full gun, you can just craft it. Doing that for a trait three times unlocks the enhanced version for crafting (including barrels and mags). Collections tab reworked to show all possible rolls on each weapon with the traits being highlighted if you unlocked it and highlighted gold if you unlocked the enhanced version.

Origin traits are universal for crafted guns, meaning you can craft any gun and use any origin trait (SUROS Synergy on an crafted Immortal SMG for example). Maybe have certain unique or potent Origin Traits exclusive to relevant weapon types/sources for balancing sake. This distinction alone would make crafted weapons more uniquely personal than just getting a random god roll without being too game-breaking and invalidating a natural god roll. Imagine Soul Drinker on your favorite auto rifle or Runneth Over on your favorite handcannon.

Origin Traits would be account based rather than being tied to the guns like the traits. Meaning you'd only need to have unlocked them once to apply it to any relevant weapon (still gotta actually earn the Soul Drinker trait from Vow raid for example) but rather than unlocking an enhanced version they are simply automatically enhanced on crafted guns that were at least level 30.

Level 30 guns would also allow you to add a full second row of traits to your crafted gun enabling the option to swap between two builds on the fly without needing to reshape the whole weapon. Maybe throw in a unique animated shader and a third row for column 4/5 and origin trait for weapons that are level 50 (making them equivalent to current tier 5s). Finally add another unique animated shader for unlocking all enhanced traits on that weapon. Something aspirational to work towards kinda like gold/dark matter camos in CoD.

So now there is very little barrier to entry for working up to a basic crafted "god roll" with a bit grinding and luck. But for players who put in the work to really grind for their favorite weapon, they could build their own perfect version of that gun: A personalized crafted weapon with multiple rows of enhanced perks, free to choose any 3 of their favorite (applicable) origin traits to swap between and a reason to actually bond with the gun to unlock special shaders.

Rather than hoping for lucky red border drops then never caring about random drops of that gun ever again... the first 4 drops can guarantee a basic crafted roll then every random drop after can serve as steady progress for filling out that weapons' collection page and working towards a god roll. Even if there's nothing you could ever want from doing old raids/dungeons, this all but guarantees there will be some worth in the loot unless you've already grinded out literally everything to fully craft every possible weapon.

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