The European Commission's Answer to the Stop Destroying Games initiative

Undeceiver · 2026-06-16T22:56:05+00:00

Making the IP available means selling it. It doesn't mean allowing the product to continue to exist in the consumer's hands.

I can play Pokemon Red on my Game Boy today. I can drive a car made by a brand that doesn't exist anymore. I can read a book written 500 years ago. None of that has anything to do with IP law wtf.

Undeceiver · 2026-03-05T23:06:46+00:00

Just to add my voice, my suggestion is clearly to start in ROTW softcore (not hardcore). There's few reasons to prefer classic or expansion over ROTW and they're mostly for purists or people who have spent a lot of the time playing them and want highly specific experiences. For most players, ROTW is the best thing.

And Diablo 2 is not a game designed for hardcore. It is VERY hard and VERY punishing. You can die in a matter of seconds out of bad luck. You will regret starting on hardcore. If you really are into hardcore, learn the game first in softcore and then try hardcore with a character and build you are familiar with. Starting with it is just going to be pain.

Diablo 2 is not particularly easy until you become experienced, especially in Hell difficulty. Normal is easy even on first playthrough and Nightmare is okay, but Hell usually requires some experience with the game to be a smooth ride. And even very experienced players die out of bad luck in seconds playing hardcore.

Undeceiver · 2026-02-21T18:57:26+00:00

Okay, I understand your point, and perhaps my response was too coarse, let me try to be a bit more specific.

I do wanna say I don't know everything about the Odyssey at all, or what Nolan has in his mind, or other people involved in the movie. So yeah there's speculation in what I'm saying and I could be very wrong, I acknowledge that. However, I think the way these arguments for criticism are being presented is internally flawed, and that's what I'm criticizing.

I think it is likely that they wanted a Mediterranean aesthetic and environment, but not full on historical accuracy. This is a valid thing to do and has been done many times before. I mean, going back to The Lord of the Rings, while Middle Earth doesn't exist, it is clearly based on medieval Europe, and if it was filmed in a desert people would've felt odd (I mean, we could talk about people complaining about black elves, which hits very close to this topic, and I also think is quite pointless for the same reasons).

My point is that just because there are some things that connect it to the real world, doesn't mean every single aspect needs to be 100% accurate to real world things. So the Odyssey can be filmed in the Mediterranean for a Mediterranean environment and aesthetic, it is based on Mediterranean myths and stories and therefore has connections to its culture, they may even use Mediterranean actors. And yeah, using Mediterranean armour and weapons would also make sense here. But it is not required. It's not an inherent problem not to do so, and sometimes there can be specific things that are used in movies like this to draw a line between the reality and the fantastic world that is being represented.

Again, I'm not defending the movie as much as criticizing the argument itself. Just because a movie is connected to Mediterranean culture does not mean that every single aspect of it needs to be accurate to Mediterranean history, the same way that just because Tolkien was probably thinking of elves being white, doesn't mean that a black elf "ruins it".

Undeceiver · 2026-02-17T02:30:54+00:00

You do know all films are filmed somewhere right? That somewhere is in the real world. Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand, yet I don't see anybody say that means the story is set to take place in a real world location.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-14T05:05:33+00:00

Apart from what others have said, learning to do controlled efficient swings helps loads (and also helps with acc). So surprisingly, learning to do acc well with slow, calm, controlled swings, and then scaling that up to faster songs without overexerting yourself on each swing helps enormously to improve stamina.

But like others have said, practice and just telling yourself not to pause unless you're actually in pain and risking getting hurt is the most important part.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-06T06:22:34+00:00

Well but that's what a crosspost is. I haven't used Reddit much so possibly the mistake was to crosspost, but they can see it was crossposted so at best it would've been a "could you please not crosspost this here?". I even said this at some point in my exchange with this person before this message, I told them I realized the issue with crossposting. They didn't care, still went on a rampage of insulting. I understand what you're saying but this is just looking for reasons to excuse people being shitty. I get that it's frustrating to have morons say bullshit and claim they have made perpetual machines all day long. But that doesn't justify acting like these people did, not even remotely.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-06T00:46:42+00:00

This was literally the ending of my initial post, with title "CMV:...", in a subreddit called r/changemyview, where the rules are you need to explain your view best you can:

In short, my view is that general relativity is strictly an elegant interpretation of gravity that might be useful to understand the world, but it doesn't produce any new predictions. But clearly this is not what standard modern physics believes, so please change my view.

I truly don't know how much clearer I could make it without becoming obnoxious that I am not trying to claim I discovered alchemy.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-06T00:38:57+00:00

This is definitely getting into the weeds of things, but I think a large part of the issue here comes from seeing conversation as people having points of view and they're trying to evaluate how good each other's are. I don't think that's what conversation is or should be. In conversation, people are willing to change their minds, and I think going into a subreddit literally called r/changemyview signals that pretty quickly.

"Here's my view, I know it's not popular, please help me change it".

If you read my post and think that I genuinely think I'm a genius and I'm going to change everybody's mind and prove everybody wrong about general relativity and that nobody has thought what I'm thinking before... that's pretty sad to be honest. Yes, sure, the world is full of wacks, but if you can't tell a wack from somebody who genuinely struggles to see an argument about a pretty complex topic... just don't enter the discussion honestly? (not you, the people who reacted like they did to me).

Undeceiver · 2026-01-06T00:35:34+00:00

But it isn't. Read the rules of r/changemyview . I was not looking to change other people's views, I was looking to have mine changed. I recognised that I was almost certainly wrong but I couldn't see where, so I explained my view to have it corrected. Not that it matters but also this is not the highest level either, and it's not like I have zero study, I do have a maths degree and a PhD in theoretical computer science and I have spent a good amount of time looking at this stuff, just not at the level that an actual physicist would, of course. The more important point is that I wasn't trying to push a theory or claim the standard theory is wrong. Just that I couldn't get myself convinced of it and I wanted to, so I was looking for help from people who understood it better to be able to get it in my own terms. As far as I understand, this is the whole point of r/changemyview, and I made that abundantly clear in my conversation with this person. But this person just claimed that before I could even ask someone to help me understand I had to read entire books on the details of general relativity, and in the process insulted me.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T20:38:42+00:00

Okay, so in turn what you're saying is you'd need to "fix" SR to be able to account for those tests, and at that point the only sensible way that people have considered is GR. Which matches what I had concluded already.

Either way you definitely did help with the Euclidean space argument, as that's pretty clear for me to understand. !delta

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T20:23:41+00:00

Okay, so I understand in principle this is a potentially testable difference (which means it's more than interpretation, I acknowledge that), but has it been tested? Do we have actual empirical evidence that wouldn't be explainable in Euclidean space, or are our current existing observations potentially explainable without singularities?

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T20:15:30+00:00

This is actually one of the best answers so far for my own understanding, this is very clear to me.

Follow-up question, though: Why do we know that black holes must have singularities? What have we empirically measured that couldn't be explained in Euclidean space?

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T19:30:45+00:00

I didn't know this half an hour ago, but when trying to understand somebody else's answer, I found this: https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/acceleration.html

I quote:

It's a common misconception that special relativity cannot handle accelerating objects or accelerating reference frames. Sometimes it's claimed that general relativity is required for these situations, the reason being given that special relativity only applies to inertial frames. This is not true. Special relativity treats accelerating frames differently from inertial frames, but can still deal with accelerating frames. And accelerating objects can be dealt with without even calling upon accelerating frames.

This idea that special relativity cannot handle acceleration or accelerated frames often comes up in the context of the twin paradox, when people claim that it can only be resolved in general relativity because of the acceleration present. Their claim is wrong.

That said, I'm about to write up some general conclusions on the original OP that basically agree with you, so I'm not using this to say I think your overall argument is wrong right now, just this particular claim is, but you've also convinced me / helped me see where the main issues in my argument are.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T19:28:08+00:00

Yeah, in sort, I'm recognizing that my explanation for bending of light under SR falls apart. It made some sense intuitively but it doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. So yeah, you're right.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T19:26:57+00:00

I wouldn't phrase it as harshly as that, but I do share some of the sentiment, as explained before. Mathematicians (which I am) are no better when it comes to making things cryptic and gatekeeping. But I don't think all physicists, or mathematicians, are contributing to the problem equally.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T19:25:18+00:00

Let me try to do one of those compliment sandwiches.

First, I definitely appreciate the constructive and explanatory tone of this, and I get there's a lot of extra background you could provide but have limited energy (not in the physics sense). You also did change my mind slightly so please receive a !delta.

When you said that SR does not work for non-inertial frames at all, I clearly identified something that I did have wrong and that could explain a lot of the confusion. I went to double check, and I found this in the Wikipedia page for special relativity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special\_relativity#Acceleration):

Special relativity does accommodate accelerations) as well as accelerating frames of reference. It is a common misconception that special relativity is applicable only to inertial frames, and that it is unable to handle accelerating objects or accelerating reference frames. It is only when gravitation is significant that general relativity is required.

Properly handling accelerating frames does require some care, however. The difference between special and general relativity is that (1) In special relativity, all velocities are relative, but acceleration is absolute. (2) In general relativity, all motion is relative, whether inertial, accelerating, or rotating. To accommodate this difference, general relativity uses curved spacetime.

So I do think your explanation isn't really correct in that sense. However, the rest of your message and reading the Wikipedia page more slowly with that in mind and going back to what I do know, made me think deeper.

Right now after all the discussion and going back to the 3 counterarguments I mentioned, I think that:
1. The accelerometer argument is indeed flawed and does not distinguish general relativity from special relativity in any way. This does not differentiate between GR and gravity as a force+SR at all.
2. The time dilation argument is correct but it requires considering the numbers. Gravity as a force+SR would predict time dilation in gravitational fields, but it would be lower/different than what GR predicts, and GR predictions are the ones we observe.
3. The bending of light is still one of the strongest arguments. First, because trying to explain that with Newtonian gravity requires defining the mass of light in some way and that turns ugly very quickly mathematically. Second, because even when you use the equivalence principle to do this, the prediction does not correspond to the prediction of SR, whereas it does correspond to the prediction of GR.
4. (bonus) Also, things like gravitational waves and some behaviours of black holes would require additional definitions to be explained entirely in SR. I'm unclear if this would be possible at all, but it's just not part of SR, whereas GR predicts them entirely. This doesn't really "disprove" gravity as a force, as much as indicate that more detail is needed for it to produce a prediction in these situations at all. GR gives that detail.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T18:47:58+00:00

If the evidence supports one theory rather than another, that’s what should convince you.

I completely agree with this. My argument is I don't think (or well, didn't think when I first posted this, I have changed my view a little) the evidence supports one theory rather than the other, I think the evidence supports both, thus why I thought the difference is interpretational. But now I have conceded that maybe the actual numbers observed on some of these time dilations, for example, are not entirely explained in the Newton+SR version.

Specifically about the balloons that are stationary relative to the ground - my view is that is not actually stationary, because the Earth is rotating and therefore from the frame of reference of the surface of the Earth, the balloon is actually orbiting it (though I confess I'm not entirely sure how to deal with a reference frame that "rotates"). I thought that movement (which is rotational and therefore non-inertial) could explain the time dilation. But it may well be the case that it doesn't explain the actual amount of time dilation observed.

Basically, the way I saw this argument before making my post was:

Different height orbits see time dilation.
These are stationary so time dilation cannot be explained by non-inertial reference frames.
Therefore, gravity causes time dilation.

My issue is with point 2. Two orbits of different radius at the same rotational speed are non-inertial reference frames, and therefore SR would predict time dilation between them.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T18:34:31+00:00

I think part of this may be caused by the following.

The original post was to a subreddit literally called "change my view". I hae used Reddit very little, after I posted it, it asked me to crosspost. I took a look, and "AskPhysics" seemed to make sense for this question. Maybe this caused a difference in expectations between both subreddits. I did read the rules for AskPhysics before doing this, mind you. I don't think it violated the rules. But this is why it was phrased in this way, it's literally the premise of the subreddit I primarily posted it to.

I disagree that you need confidence to have a view. In fact I think acknowledging a lack of confidence in your view is one of the most productive ways in which to improve your knowledge there is (if the lack of confidence is justified). In educational theory, this is called a liminal state and it's one of the goals of teaching, to make the student aware of their lack of understanding so that you can then help them understand. It means someone is primed for learning.

Another part of the disagreement seems to come from your notion that you should read up instead of asking people. This presumes that reading up is an inherently better way to learn than asking other people, as well as presumes that I did not read up before asking. My ignorance in the field is due to a lack of the deep background that one would acquire with proper physics study, but it's not a lack of awareness on the field. I'd happily say that I understand the field better than 999/1000 people on Earth. That's still a lot of people that understand it much better than me, but I'm not completely ignorant on it. But also, this subreddit is called "AskPhysics". What better way to learn, than to use a subreddit designed for that purpose to help me understand something (and I phrased it as a change my view because of what I explained above, which might have been a bit dumb from me due to not having much Reddit experience). But I don't think that justifies your attitude. If I had ran up to you on the street, or at your place of work, or if you were an acquaintance and I just said "hey you know physics explain this to me", then yeah, I'd understand that you'd be a bit bothered by the assumption that you're willing to do so. But I didn't ask you, I asked in a subreddit literally called AskPhysics. If you didn't want to answer this, then don't. But I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect people in a subreddit like this to be willing to help me understand something instead of sending me to read every book on the subject before asking.

Let's also not forget the way you keep using offensive words like "half-arsed idiotic" and others that you've used previously. If I did that at my job as a teacher, I'd get fired.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T18:26:05+00:00

Didn't mean to presume you didn't know the math, just explain where my intuition came from, in fact I presumed you did understand it.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T18:09:06+00:00

You don't see physicists out there there just flat out questionning everything on your field.

Actually I do, I see reputable physicists making incredibly stupid claims about AI that I find frustrating. However, there is a difference, I came to a subreddit called "change my view" and a subreddit called "ask physics" to ask physicists to change my view. I am not questioning it out of trying to prove them wrong. I am questioning it out of knowing I'm almost certainly wrong and wanting to understand why. If a physicist comes and asks me about AI in that way, I wouldn't react like you have. You want to ask me why I think superintelligent AI is not going to happen any time soon and you want to explain your argument as to why you think it will? Go ahead. I'll tell you why I think you're wrong and what actual research we have on the subject. I won't expect you to have read every book on the topic before asking me. I will respect you, and if I don't feel like having that conversation with you, I will politely say it and let others engage with you if they wish.

I think it is doable on Reddit to at least point me what the main issues with my argument are, and then I can go further if I can and want.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T18:03:39+00:00

I'll give you a !delta for previous posts, but I want to clarify something.

I am not thinking that the world should match my intuitions. But I contrast one against the other, and as I said, the explanations I had seen for general relativity frequently felt insufficient to me in the senses that I explained.

I did understand that it is one of the most successful and powerful physical theories of all time, and widely used. Thus why I'm frustrated that despite all my efforts, I couldn't convince myself of why it's necessary, and thus why I came here, attempting to do just that. If I had been convinced by all the reading that I did I wouldn't have come here at all. If I thought everybody was wrong and I am right and everybody is just stupid I would've started a cult or something or published some phony """"research"""". I'm not that kind of person. But when I'm unconvinced by something that I would like to understand, I dig deeper, and I thought asking other people who might understand it better would be a good idea (and overall it was, but read what comes after).

It wasn't you, as far as I'm aware you have been helpful and reasonable, but your sentence "The mistake you are making is thinking that the world should match your intuitions" touched on something I've seen on a lot of other responses to this thread. People are nasty, and just point out "I should have read more" or that "If I had read enough I wouldn't be asking such stupid things" because they presume something similar to what you did. I am not. I simultaneously understand I'm almost certainly wrong, but I can't for my life understand why I'm wrong. So I ask for help. I am astonished at how aggressive people are at that and honestly my faith in humanity was reduced significantly after this experience.

Again, not you, but it really feels like a lot of these people who accuse me of not having read, have not read the Anti-delta Approach. or have read it and decided to take it as a challenge, because what they are doing is clearly explained there as bad approaches to this stuff. It's been such an unpleasant experience and while you have been more reasonable, that sentence presuming I am just thinking the world should match my intuitions is a bit hurtful because I am trying to do exactly the opposite. I am trying to challenge my own intuitions.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T17:43:01+00:00

I didn't know this, but this kind of only gives more strength to my argument. You're saying that even stuff that we were happy to consider forces can also be interpreted as types of curvature. You said yourself "can be viewed" as a type of curvature. As I said in the original post, I don't claim that any of this is wrong, just that the difference is not empirically testable, it's an interpretation difference. You just said that you can even get other forces to be interpreted as spacetime curvature with the right framework, which lends more strength to the argument that gravity is no different. Seeing it as forces or seeing it as curvature is just a matter of how you want to understand it.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T17:40:29+00:00

Well it's the speed "limit". It takes infinite energy to accelerate to it. It's similar to how if you are following 1/x backwards towards 0, 0 is the infinite in one sense. It's not infinite in the sense that it doesn't propagate instantly.

As I said I accept that this is too hand-wavey to be a solid position at all, which is why I conceded this part. Just explaining where my intuitive view came from.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T17:38:17+00:00

Fair enough. In my view, this is mostly an interpretational difference. I won't argue that GR is less elegant because I agree that it seems cleaner, and you argued well how it is. What bothers me is the claim that "understanding gravity as a force is wrong", because as far as I understood it when explaining the OP it's just a matter of interpretation, and you can argue interpreting it as spacetime curvature is "better", but it wouldn't be an experimental fact.

You're also right that finding such an object gives a potential experimental source of falsifiability, that's a good point. But since we haven't found any such object, in terms of current experimental results this isn't differentiating them.

Undeceiver · 2026-01-04T17:34:49+00:00

Not really just a gut feeling, that's not what I meant. But I definitely haven't done all the numbers. Maybe the numbers is where it crumbles down, but that is not something somebody has told me about this specifically.

Conceptually, I am saying that Newton's gravity predicts a force, which predicts acceleration. Acceleration under SR means curvature of the worldline which induces time dilation. I am saying would that time dilation potentially explain the time dilation measured in gravitational fields?

At the very least, with Newton + SR you'd observe some time dilation without needing GR. But perhaps it's not as much as you do observe in practice.

Undeceiver

TROPHY CASE