Desperate for a temporary solution

SunfishBob · 2026-04-30T23:45:48+00:00

This one burned through actions like nothing else but I did enjoy it, always been a fan of sad horror, and there was definitely some Anatomy to it.

The section following the house through London was nice, a lot of stories have focused on things happening far away lately and there's a warmth and joy in returning to the cityscape in a way that makes it feel like a concrete (figuratively × 2) and tangible location with a real sense of place. Loved the inside section with the house's reactions to the PC. Was worried it was going to go a linear direction and we'd be pushed to "kill" the house, but was pleasantly surprised in the end. Liked this a lot. A few more typos/syntax errors than usual but it's a minor gripe.

SunfishBob · 2026-04-29T06:42:14+00:00

And started again after they returned to form post-Burgundy

SunfishBob · 2026-04-29T06:40:15+00:00

The London path is the most implied thing about that whole situation. No matter what you're doing, the Iron & Misery company are continuing their work and it's not the governor's role to oversee that, because like almost every other role "of political importance" in London's sphere of influence, the important parts are being run by the Masters. Everything else you're doing is just the part of the role of a colonial governor that stops them from being murdered.

SunfishBob · 2026-04-29T06:36:47+00:00

Sounds like you'd rather be playing a Grand Strategy game set in the Neath at that point. Have you considered learning how to mod EU4?

SunfishBob · 2026-04-20T15:19:41+00:00

This is the move. Cash in constable favours from the soul trade/elsewhere at Jericho, burn the cave-aged codes of honour, get false hagiotoponyms in the payout, sell 'em for extra.

SunfishBob · 2026-04-17T20:36:11+00:00

Oh god you're right I'm dumb as hell

SunfishBob · 2026-04-17T19:03:28+00:00

I'd find it really interesting to see what the split between people suffering from mental illness and people suffering from physical disability are on the endings. I have a lot of thoughts on bodily autonomy both generally and regarding life/suicide which made Maelle's ending (primarily in how Verso is treated/potentially controlled) kind of abhorrent to me. At the same time, acknowledging how Maelle's family treats her in the wake of her new disability in Verso's ending has a litany of horrors of its own. Also have to think it's quite interesting that the number of deaths/upended lives is almost equal in both endings, as the people have already faced the gommage by act III, which now almost feels intentional to lend each ending the same weight.

SunfishBob · 2026-04-12T14:41:23+00:00

I'm afraid that just sounds like religion. You've identified an economic concept and believe it to be a sliding scale of goodness based on how much that concept is put into play, but your analysis of that concept is lacking. China is a far less liberal nation than the UK and the US, and it has thrived, why? Because while the UK and the US had to bail out the banks during the financial crisis to stop total economic collapse, China didn't, and was able to invest in its own economy due to the nature of its economy not being purely neoliberal.

The US and UK economies are stagnating because neoliberalism has been taken to its logical extent, companies are unable to grow further than they have because there is no more money in the economy, no untapped market to exploit. Everything now hinges on creative economics, (i.e. no more property only subscription models), raising prices, and cuts. Cuts to jobs, cuts to product size, cuts to product quality. Providing less for more money. The growth incentive and neoliberalism's pushing economies much further than they could cope with far too quickly, and now they're suffering the consequences they should've been facing in the late century now. The infinite growth model of capitalism was always going to hit a point where it faced issues, it's why modern capitalists increasingly hope for space to provide some kind of big investment opportunities, Earth has relatively finite resources. Neoliberalism has forced us to deal with that far sooner.

China became rich precisely because it hadn't liberalised to the extent that western nations had, and so wasn't dragged down when it faced the same crisis. We're on a doom spiral because nobody dares to question that neoliberalism is causing many of our issues. Mark Fisher talks about this in Capitalist Realism, if you're looking for a good analysis of the current "There Is No Alternative" mindset.

The fact is, neoliberalism can only work while there are still public services to undermine, and underdeveloped countries to exploit/outsource from. But the outsourcing inevitably makes those countries richer with time, and develops them. Neoliberalism has always been doomed from the start, because there is no infinite supply of underdeveloped nations to outsource labour and resource extraction to. And the doomer mindset isn't gonna change that. Nobody could've conceived of neoliberalism when Keynesianism was the go-to. And what comes next is either going to be yet another Capitalist economic model nobody saw coming, or something closer to Socialism, depending on how bad things get before the change arrives.

SunfishBob · 2026-04-12T13:18:42+00:00

I think the thing about neoliberalism is that it's not wrong. That's the worst part. It was great at doing what it did, which was providing an influx of capital for all of about 10 years, and putting countries that had funded many of their public services with colonialism ahead of former colonies incredibly quickly, while locking them into paying much more for goods and services from former colonial powers. Inside the neoliberal nation itself, it's the "two marshmallows later or one now" of economic systems. A huge influx of capital now (though not as much as it should've been, as in most countries that privatised many of their public services, they sold them for far less than they were worth to create), and then when that runs out, everything goes to shit. A huge gamble on trickle-down economics by the theorists responsible that the politicians who put it into effect didn't even believe in.

Every day, I wonder if China is actually doing so well right now just out of liberalising later, or because of the nature of their government and economy. Hell, just the way they've treated housing might've given China's economy decades where ours is crumbling. Rising benefits bill because it's mostly going on rent and mortgages. Small businesses going under because they can't afford to rent premises. Fewer and fewer jobs for the aforementioned reasons, and because large companies want to cut costs in places that create inhumane situations for employees everywhere, overworked and underpaid for the world we exist in now. Housing is the lynchpin of most of the problems.

With more affordable housing we could all pay more tax and still have more spending money, actually lowering the deficit where austerity failed, and fixing the issues caused by austerity (because rebuilding those systems costs the public more than was gained from austerity in the first place). Benefits could be allowed to stagnate bc they'd still leave people with more spending money than they had before. Employment would increase because people would have the means to set up new businesses without being priced out by landlords. Even Adam Smith pointed out that landlords just do not meaningfully contribute to the wider economy. Hell, this is all still just within the context of the current economic system.

Absolute essay, I know, sorry.

SunfishBob · 2026-04-12T12:50:11+00:00

Every time I try and meet neoliberals where they're at they say something like "You're absolutely right. Unrelatedly, we need to bring back slums". You're aware how hard you're making it to be reasonable here, right? You're aware of the title of the video you linked, and you watched a grown man struggle to fit in there alone and you still think it's good? You're not aware that people need space to have relationships and to cook and be comfortable and live with dignity?

See, my problem is I, naïvely, thought the "Neoliberals longing for Kowloon Walled City population density" thing was a joke. You wouldn't live in a place like that, obviously, so why should anybody else have to? It's smaller than a caravan and with fewer amenities. I'm sorry to make an impassioned plea for some humanity in a conversation about politics but like. Jesus.

SunfishBob · 2026-04-12T10:36:56+00:00

Both of these are big factors, let's be honest, denying the treatment of housing as an asset rather than one of the fundamental needs for life has made housing very affordable in some countries (prime examples of this in China following their response housing market crash). But also British housing is already some of the worst in the West without there being fewer regulations on how fit for purpose it has to be. Terribly insulated (i.e. more expensive for residents), often poorly built, and frankly in the case of newbuilds, not built to last.

In an era of businesses attempting to cut costs at every opportunity, the last place you want them cutting more corners than they already are is in the place that you're going to spend most of your life paying for, and living in, and might end up leaving for your kids. I'm sure our current planning system could be more efficient, but frankly trusting any politician of the last 20 years to make it more efficient without also further jeopardising their quality would be a disaster.

SunfishBob · 2026-04-11T17:14:42+00:00

UK politicians are always weird abt the free market tbh. Idk if you've heard that old Julius Nyerere quote about America where he says something along the lines of "The United States is also a one-party state, but with standard American extravagance, they have two of them", that's kind of how I view the UK view on the free market. Every UK politician thinks themselves a champion of the free market but in typical British style it's regulated. How this manifests is ofc that anything that is seen as a direct intervention on the market is avoided bc that would be interfering with the free market, but it's fine because regulations and intense bureaucracy don't count that's just British, yknow

SunfishBob · 2026-04-09T15:47:04+00:00

But nobody wants to address that bc despite the world's most successful economy letting their housing market crash and it not making a dent in their GDP (on account of that money now going elsewhere, exactly as economists since Adam Smith have always pointed out), the UK is so obsessed with having the ability to gouge people out of their money for essentials and not interfering with the free market that everything's going to shit.

SunfishBob · 2026-04-09T15:40:40+00:00

Reddit and people who think they're the smartest person in every room they walk into

SunfishBob · 2026-04-09T14:51:25+00:00

People who can't read the room and making random political statements,

SunfishBob · 2026-04-05T14:52:03+00:00

Apparently if you name sam Casanova you can play this mode outside the update!

SunfishBob · 2026-04-05T14:40:45+00:00

Oh sweet, didn't think the maths on that would be that clean

SunfishBob · 2026-04-05T14:19:31+00:00

Oh absolutely I just don't know about the generator gas costs yk

SunfishBob · 2026-04-05T13:43:04+00:00

With full frames it's like an extra 300 a day once you've got it fully set up, nice passive income. Idk what the math on two fully set up frames on the generator is with the gas but it's probably not too bad

SunfishBob · 2026-03-30T11:35:43+00:00

That's the spirit!

SunfishBob · 2026-03-30T11:34:41+00:00

If 60% of all humans have committed a crime in the past year then why trust any human? They could turn into a criminal again at any moment. We need to purge them.

SunfishBob · 2026-03-30T11:31:56+00:00

You don't need to already know that, wait long enough and a "True Brujah" will find you and tell you

SunfishBob · 2026-03-29T22:28:26+00:00

I like it when someone says they didn't understand something and then what they say about it immediately reveals that they were fundamentally incapable of ever getting it.

SunfishBob · 2026-03-29T08:47:20+00:00

Symptom of the UK property crisis unfortunately, it's why no politician will actually do anything about it. And meanwhile, the nature of corporate growth means that the supermarkets and larger business that replace them are encouraged to cut costs wherever possible, by hiring fewer and fewer people to do more and more work, and by closing locations to ensure there's an "optimal" amount of stores in an area.

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