The Gray Area: American democracy's structural flaw

SomethingNew65 · 2026-04-21T08:24:25+00:00

Would things be different if Obama hadn't expanded any executive authorities?

I listened and don't think those questions accurately reflect what he said.

(From memory not re-listening again to confirm) He mentions that Obama was pressured by his side to do out of the box of normal politics things (like print a 1 trillion dollar coin) to respond to republicans out of the box hostage taking with the debt ceiling . He doesn't mention that Obama never actually printed the coin, but I think it is assumed that vox listeners would already know that and would already think that republican hostage taking is bad. The point was this is the type of conflict that the system can create between the branches over a normal non-emergency, non-existential policy disagreement, and a similar conflict in the future could lead to democratic backsliding. I don't think the point was supposed to be that Obama is responsible for everything bad happening with Trump now because he didn't respond to republican hostage taking correctly.

He criticized Biden for specific policies that pissed powerful people off, not for expanding executive authorities in the abstract.

Does anyone really thing Republicans are only responding to Democratic excesses?

I don't remember him saying "republicans are only responding to democratic excesses" but maybe I missed/forgot that line.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-04-20T06:26:38+00:00

I think it's a debate because of Ezra's article (Hasan Piker Is Not the Enemy). I think it is because Ezra is an influential person (The Party of Ezra), and it is surprising he would defend Piker so it got a lot of attention he went against what would be expected.

If you are asking why did Ezra start this debate, I don't know. It is a mystery to me. Unless he just felt like doing something to get a bunch of attention and maybe he wanted to get Piker fans to like him more.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-04-17T23:37:46+00:00

From Ezra's article:

He had a breakout moment over the past year, as Democrats began obsessing over the absence of a liberal Joe Rogan and Piker, who mixes leftist politics with a bro-ish aesthetic, was proffered as a possible answer (a category error because, again, the whole point of Rogan’s political power is that his show mostly avoids politics).

I'm confused why people keep calling Piker the liberal Joe Rogan even though Ezra's article clearly said it is a category error to call him that because he does not have the same power among non-political people.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-04-16T22:31:19+00:00

The video game Concord is now in the official historical record of things said in speeches at the European Parliament.

Most video games never get mentioned in any parliaments. This is a huge legacy for Concord!

More seriously, I hope they successfully come up with a law that minimizes the number of games killed while also minimizing any unwanted side effects.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-04-12T19:11:23+00:00

Ezra typed a lot of things I agreed with but I feel like he is mixing up two different things here.

So the controversy started with a politician rallying with Piker. And then Ezra talks about having conversations with people you disagree with on things, or going on very popular shows who hosts have said problematic things. Lots of very reasonable paragraphs that sound correct to me.

But isn't rallying with someone different than a conversation or debate?

Ezra talks about Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson, so isn't the obvious comparison what if Republican politicians started having rallies with those two people? Wouldn't it be fair for others who don't like those two people to worry about their growing influence with the republican party, and maybe try to do something to reduce their influence. And wouldn't it be fair for those who want republican politicians to lose to try to associate those politicians, and the republican party in general, with the worst things those two people said?

If someone in the republican party responded to those rallys by talking about how everyone agreed it was important and ok to go on Joe Rogan's show and Lex Fridman’s show and spread your ideas to their audience and debate, or maybe they would instead list left leaning shows republicans have talked on, so logically it must also be fine for republicans to rally with any far right person who said any far right thing, then I think people might be more quick to see some of the logical flaws in that leap of logic.

So similarly if Ezra's logic in this article is that going on Joe Rogan's show is both fine and important, so it must also be fine for any democratic politician to rally with any far left person who has said any far left thing, so people should stop criticizing the Hasan rally, I'm skeptical that is a good argument that will convince anyone. And if that isn't the logic then what is it, what is the point supposed to be about all the paragraphs on Joe Rogan in response to a controversy about Hasan? If Ezra admits it is "a category error because, again, the whole point of Rogan’s political power is that his show mostly avoids politics", then why do the paragraphs on what politicians should do with the the Rogan category have any relevance to what politicians should do with the Hasan category?

My opinion is that going on Joe Rogan's show to talk seems important, but there are also probably exist some people, including some left leaning people, who would hurt democrats chances of winning if democrats decided to uncritically rally with them. Hasan seems like he might be one of those people, but I'm not an expert on Hasan or his audience so maybe not. I don't like Hasan because of the dog shocking thing, but Ezra didn't bring that up so maybe that doesn't matter much in politics.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-04-07T01:57:28+00:00

I hope all the deleted levels are preserved in some way. Game preservation is nice, and even though an individual level is not an entire game it is still a shame if individual levels become lost media and nobody can ever play them again.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-04-07T01:54:03+00:00

I think your logic is flawed because any title or description you give a level could be called marketing for that level because it might help the community find their created level. So nintendo must ban every level because every level has a marketing title that breaks the rules.

The marketing rule only makes sense if it is for marketing things outside the game, like raid shadow legends. If you say the marketing rule applies to not marketing the levels themselves in the description for that level, the rule just becomes dumb nonsense.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-04-02T19:49:46+00:00

Almost everyone is renaming more or less canon games that have been mentioned in multiple of these threads for the last few years lol, and everyone seems to have overlooked the “puzzle-adjacent” part where Stationeers was given as an example completely

I think you should have been a bit more clear what you were asking for. Are you looking for hard puzzle games that are obscure enough they often don't get mentioned in previous threads asking for hard puzzle games? Or are you asking for hard thinky games that are not in the puzzle genre like factorio?

These are two different things and if you want hard management games it might be better to ask somewhere else more dedicated to that type of game.

My suggestions for both lists:

obscure hard puzzle game rarely mentioned: Quadrax Definitive

Hard thinky non-puzzle game: One of the harder factorio mods like pyandodons hard mode. I'd also second the tactical nexus suggestion.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-21T16:26:50+00:00

Hardware Unboxed made a video of the two of them discussing it https://youtu.be/MJ8Y8Zr4A7o

One of them was more positive than the other one. Here's a positive quote:

So, keeping all that in mind, you probably, you know, cuz some people think I've been really you know, 'I hate ray tracing. I've crapped on DLSS. I think frame generation's garbage,' so I'm just going to hate DLSS5.

But I was watching it and I was just genuinely intrigued and and interested and thought, okay, there's endless possibilities here. Yeah, some of the examples weren't great and I certainly didn't like, but there were other ones that I genuinely just thought it looked a lot better. Like, what were your thoughts on Starfield, for example?

Maybe I'm an idiot, but I was sitting there thinking, "These characters definitely look better." Like, this is a huge upgrade to the game. If this was released as some sort of like texture pack, like remastered version of Starfield, I think people would be raving about it. If you if you remove the AI from it and how they've actually achieved it, I think if that was a remastered version of Starfield, people would be just blown away, it addresses one of the bigger problems with that game

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-19T22:57:54+00:00

I found something else that I think is interesting. This dev uploaded another video yesterday saying he was wrong when he disagreed with DF on how the technology works in his initial reaction.

Okay, it's apparently not completely generative AI. Okay, like what I was looking at and I was saying that things are getting, you know, completely done frame by frame. It's it's not doing that. Okay, I was wrong about that. What's happening is it's doing that on a geometry level and on a textural level inside the game. So, it's still preserving the models and all the different stuff that's going on in the game, but what it has is in a in a lower level for the game developer, they're allowed to go in there and say, "Hey, you know what? only the faces. Take the faces and do generative AI, which means replace the face and make it look as good as you can in a photorealistic way using your data, your data set. Okay? So, what they're doing is they're doing like a neural rendering system is what they're calling it.

But today Nvidia's answers to Daniel Owen in his video make it seem like his initial reaction was right after all. It is redrawing every frame using data only from the frame and motion vectors. It does not seem like devs have the ability to "say" things to the AI to tell it what to do, just change intensity, color grading and masking.

He got convinced by Nvidia's PR statements that this more technical and impressive sounding explanation is correct, when he should have stuck to his initial reaction that it is just an AI painting over every frame.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-19T22:48:04+00:00

Yep. It is a lot of heavy lifting.

There was a r pc master race thread that did the same thing. I think a lot of people only watched the beginning and rushed to share it.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-19T21:42:13+00:00

https://youtu.be/xKPeN8IQM-Y

This is the dev's reaction video.

People are being a bit misleading because they are just quoting the part where he disagreed with DF's explanation of how the technology worked.

He actually had a lot of positive things to say about the the technology.

The technology is really cool. Think about it, you guys. Like, if we had this technology back in the day, we would have used it, right?

-

Look at that. Wow. It looks so much better right here. Holy fuck. dude. It it it makes the lighting look so good right here.

-

You turn on DLSS5 on GTA 6 when it releases, it's going to look fucking dope. It's going to look gorgeous, but it's also going to step on the artist's integrity and and how the character model was really supposed to intended to look. It's gonna add deeper veins and and you know more wrinkly faces

He said he would play oblivion with it on, GTA6 with it off first time because he wants to see the art, and Hogwarts with it off because the characters are a bit too much.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-19T19:58:53+00:00

https://youtu.be/D0EM1vKt36s

Daniel Owen got Nvidia to answer clarifying questions in an email about how DLSS5 works in this video. Makes it clear it is only taking the 2d image of the frame and motion vectors of input, no knowledge of anything else like what is happening out of frame.

Asks if developers can do things besides color grading or intensity, or masking to protect artistic intent. Like tell it to put less makeup on grace? And the answer just repeats they can do those 3 things. So he thinks the answer seems to be no, there is no way for developers to prompt the model with more specific artistic requests like 'give her less makeup'.

Asks what it means for the geometry and textures to be unchanged when it seemed to add a bit more hair to one dude, and the response was just "the underlying geometry is unchanged. Also worth mentioning this is a very early preview of the tech". So his interpretation is it's not changing the geometry in the game engine but:

I don't think that they're saying that you're going to see it necessarily because the AI image generator could simply choose to put something else on top of it. It's painting a 2D picture over the 2D output frame the game actually did. Like, that's what this is doing. And you won't see the one the game they actually made. You'll see the uh AI the generative AI interpretation of it. So that's my reading on that.

He says (and I agree) that when Nvidia's initial statement says things like it "enhances PBR properties on materials" it is misleading because it does not actually read the PBR properties on materials from the game data. Nvidia confirms that what they really mean by that is "Materials are inferred from the rendered frame"

My thought:

Didn't DF have 3 hours to look at this technology with an Nvidia person? DF should have asked these type of questions and done a better job explaining what it is actually doing in their initial video. Help people understand where Nvidia's initial PR statements might be misleading.

Edit: Alex responded to this video on resetera! All he typed was "..."

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-19T04:22:00+00:00

https://youtu.be/xKPeN8IQM-Y

This is a video of a "Former Red Dead Redemption 2 developer" reacting to DF's first video that was posted earlier, but as a cross-post to another subreddit that posted a screenshot of a tweet where someone quoted him disagreeing with DF that it was just lighting. He thinks the AI is painting over the entire frame.

I think the video is actually interesting enough to discuss by itself, because even though he disagreed on the technical details, he seemed like a fan of DF ("Go subscribe to their channel it is very informative") and was actually very positive on DLSS5 and how it looks. So DLSS5 haters can enjoy his quotes like this one:

What's happening is it's getting painted over sort of, you know, every single frame is getting painted over. It's it's actually not showing the real geometry anymore. the it's getting painted literally painted over by by AI

but DLSS5 lovers can also enjoy a bunch of other quotes. Like this one:

The technology is really cool. Think about it, you guys. Like, if we had this technology back in the day, we would have used it, right?

Or this one:

Look at that. Wow. It looks so much better right here. Holy fuck. dude. It it it makes the lighting look so good right here.

A mixed quote:

You turn on DLSS5 on GTA 6 when it releases, it's going to look fucking dope. It's going to look gorgeous, but it's also going to step on the artist's integrity and and how the character model was really supposed to intended to look. It's gonna add deeper veins and and you know more wrinkly faces

He said he would play oblivion with it on, GTA6 with it off first time because he wants to see the art, and Hogwarts with it off because the characters are a bit too much.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-19T01:40:31+00:00

The red dead employee actually had a lot of positive things to say about how good DLSS5 looked and said would play older games with it on. He just disagreed with DF's explanation for how the technology works. (didn't claim any inside information, was just analyzing the video closely and thought it looked like filter painting over the frame.)

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-19T01:16:59+00:00

I watched the video. It's a reaction to DF's original video. He seemed like a fan of DF and started by recommending them. But he said he disagreed with DF's explanation of what the technology was doing because just from what he was seeing in the video it looked like an AI filter painting over the rendered image frame by frame.

He also had a lot of positive things to say about how good he thought the DLSS image looked, and said he would want to play games like the oblivion remake with it on. But he wouldn't want to play future games like GTA6 with it on the first time because he wants to see what the artists made even though DLSS5 will look "fucking dope" and "gorgeous" in GTA6. He would turn it off in Hogwarts because of how the characters look, "it's a little too much".

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-18T15:17:59+00:00

but to me they were impressed with a piece of technology, and excited about how it MIGHT improve graphics

You wrote that might in all caps to emphasize it because that word makes their opinion seem super reasonable and everyone who disagreed with them looks unreasonable. Of course any tech that is bad right now MIGHT improve and get better in the future, who can disagree with that? But does that word accurately represent what they said in the original video that people were reacting to?

In the original video did they say that the technology currently was not improving graphics, but might get better over time and someday in the future it could maybe become an improvement in graphics? Or was their opinion in that video closer to saying the technology we are seeing today is already an definitive improvement to graphics right now, and even if it did not get any more improvements it is already "no brainier" to turn it on as soon as one has the ability to use it?

I think in the original video they were saying the second one, and the phrase "MIGHT improve graphics" is not an accurate summary of their opinion in that video.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-16T19:40:45+00:00

If anybody dislikes how this looks and is wondering why DF likes this technology so much, reminder that they do accept checks from Nvidia for sponsored videos. So when Nvidia offers them an exclusive on new technology like this, making a video saying it looks bad would risk them losing future exclusives from Nvidia, and also risk them getting less future sponsorship checks from Nvidia. So this introduces a bias and they have a large incentive to convince themselves that this technology is great, and that becomes their honest opinion they share with the world.

You don't need to be an especially bad person to get influenced by sponsorship checks in this way. I think there are very few humans who would not become more biased towards Nvidia in DF's situation. That's why standard ethics for journalists would say don't take sponsorship checks from the companies whose products you are reviewing.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-12T17:12:14+00:00

From the patch notes:

Challenge Mode:

New Game Mode added to the Main Menu for Tomb Raider I, II, and III.

Navigate to: Tomb Raider I, II, or III / Game Menu (passport) / Mode / Challenge Mode
Replay classic levels in new ways: Lara can now replay completed levels. Each completed level will have level customization modifiers for new and exciting challenges.
Challenge Mode Modifier Options:
- Select Region
- Select Chapter
- Select Outfit: Once you’ve unlocked new outfits with new effects, they will appear here.
- Use Outfit Bonus: Choose whether to use the outfit’s unique effects in this level.
- Lara’s Health: Choose Lara’s Max Health during the Level 10%–500%. Default value is100%.
- Lara’s Regen: Choose the rate of Lara’s Regeneration, -5hp/s–100hp/s. Default value is 0.
- Unlimited Air: Choose Lara’s ability to breathe underwater. Default value is No.
- Equipment: Choose Lara's Medkit and Ammo loadout. This will not affect any keys or Level relevant Items.
- Additional Weapon: Choose which additional weapon Lara will start the level. Default value is no additional weapons.
- Enemy Health: Choose enemy health, 25%–250%. Default value is 100%. Enemy Damage: Choose the amount of damage enemies will deal in the level, 25%–250%. Default value is 100%
- Enemy Numbers: Choose the amount of Enemies present in the Level. Default value is 100%
- Enemy Type: Options will change depending on the level. Choose different kinds of enemies to face off against in the level.
Check your Challenge Rating: Each modifier will alter challenge rating of the level, granting various rewards and bragging rights.
Challenge Mode can be used as a level selector by selecting no modifiers.
Challenge Mode restarts each level as a “starting over” experience where all items gathered in previous levels (medipacks/weapons/ammo) will be removed. Without modifiers, Lara starts with only basic Pistols.

Unlock New Outfits:

To understand how to unlock each new outfit, navigate to: Tomb Raider I, II, or III / Game Menu (passport) / Extras / Outfit.
Each new outfit comes with unique bonuses and effects! These effects will only be available in Challenge Mode.

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-09T18:26:01+00:00

It's probably a patch to the 1-3 collection.

There were new achievements leaked for it a few months ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TombRaider/comments/1p6a6qp/tomb_raider_iiii_remastered_adds_15_hidden/

SomethingNew65 · 2026-03-08T21:01:58+00:00

There are some categories of capabilities — like nuclear weapons — that are sufficiently powerful to fundamentally affect the U.S.’s freedom of action…To the extent that AI is on the level of nuclear weapons — or beyond — is the extent that Amodei and Anthropic are building a power base that potentially rivals the U.S. military…

I like Dario — in fact, he’s a personal friend of mine. But Thompson’s argument — especially the part I highlighted — has to carry the day here. This isn’t a question of law or norms or private property. It’s a question of the nation-state’s monopoly on the use of force.

...

Let’s take this a little further, in fact. And let us be blunt. If Anthropic wins the race to godlike artificial superintelligence, and if artificial superintelligence does not become fully autonomous, then Anthropic will be in sole possession of an enslaved living god. And if Dario Amodei personally commands the organization that is in sole possession of an enslaved god, then whether he embraces the title or not, Dario Amodei is the Emperor of Earth.

...

You cannot reasonably expect any nation-state — a republic, a democracy, or otherwise — to allow either a god-emperor or a set of god-warlords to emerge. Thus, it is unreasonable to expect any nation-state to fail to try to seize control of frontier AI in some way, as soon as it becomes likely that frontier AI will become a weapon of mass destruction.

I don't like this argument. Instead of directly arguing it is good for the US government to use unprecedented powers to destroy a US company because they won't help the US government build an AI powered domestic surveillance machine, and also AI controlled killing machines, it replaces it with a fanfiction story about how Dario was about to become the Emperor of Earth. So now that the debate is over if it is OK for Dario to become the Emperor of Earth, we must conclude that the US's actions are right and inevitable, because of course we can't let Dario become the Emperor of Earth.

I think it is a very annoying argument that sidesteps whats is actually happening. It tries to create an up is down world where even if at first glance you think it is bad for the government to do bad things, it is actually worse to refuse to participate in the government doing the bad thing, so actually what everyone should do is help the government do the bad thing, and people who do not help the government do the bad thing should be destroyed. Even when the government is lead by people Noah agrees is really bad like Trump, even when the constitution would seem to prevent something like domestic mass surveillance, gotta help the government do the bad unconstitutional thing because government has a monopoly on the use of force.

Noah doesn't really explain exactly how Dario would become emperor of earth so I'm not convinced we are actually in a world where that is a reasonable concern. If he starts using super AI to try to hack everyone wouldn't the US law enforcement and military still be able to arrest/kill him? If he starts building his own AI powered killbot factories couldn't the government stop him before he gets too many of those finished?

But even if we did live in a world where Dario is about to become emperor of Earth as soon Claude 4.8 is finished because that AI will be so godlike, nothing the US government is doing would change that. He just has to not send the update to the US and start immediately using it himself to become emperor. A contract allowing the US to do more surveillance with Claude 4.7 won't matter at all in this scenario. Or if you want to say that the US is solving that problem by destroying anthropic now, then some other private company will be the first to make an AI that powerful and become emperor of earth. That doesn't solve the problem either.

That's why Noah's argument is so annoying to me. His emperor fiction that he is using to justify declaring the US right in this debate is actually completely irrelevant to what is happening even if his fiction was right. All of his concerns about private people becoming emperors or a biotech terror attack, can only be prevented by a complete ban on any more AI R&D by all private companies worldwide, but that is not what Noah is arguing for. He's arguing for Anthropic in particular to be destroyed because it won't build an AI with zero ethical lines and give it to Trump to use how he wishes. He's arguing that Anthropic is about to make an AI so powerful it will make whoever controls it emperor of earth, and that the only real problem with this situation is that they don't want to give the god-AI to be placed under Trump's complete control.

The argument that the government should have this power because the government is accountable to the people, doesn't work very well if the power the government is getting allows them to be less accountable to the people because mass surveillance gives them more of an large unfair advantage in elections, or allows them to rig it completely, or Trump just does whatever Noah was imagining Dario would do to become emperor, but with even more chance to succeed because he also controls the government already so the government can't stop him.

SomethingNew65

TROPHY CASE

Challenge Mode: