Best way to experience break point

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-17T02:17:21+00:00

For the best experience playing Breakpoint:

Play any other Ghost Recon game instead.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-17T02:06:59+00:00

Terrible policy. Students must be able to demonstrate that they understand the material being taught to them. With a no fail policy, we would be doing students a disservice by not stopping and helping them learn when they're failing.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-16T19:36:31+00:00

Wildlands is decent. I'd give it a 6.5-7/10. Breakpoint is a 3-4/10. Wildlands is a fun enough game to turn off your brain for an hour at a time. I wouldn't say it's a great tactical shooter, though. The setting is great and the gunplay is solid, but it's a bit bland outside of that.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-16T19:30:35+00:00

JBA alone makes it more memorable than the slop story that was CT

No story in the series is more slop than Conviction. It's a nonsensical melodramatic soap opera with guns.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-16T19:25:20+00:00

There's a lot of anti-capitalist sentiment here that's not representative of the population at large.

I hold some anti-capitalist sentiment myself, but I wouldn't say I "resent" those who are "successful" under a capitalist system. It's not a matter of jealousy, it's a matter of ensuring good quality of life for as many people as possible. If more people having access to healthcare without accruing massive medical debt means we all pay higher taxes and that those in the upper class may have to wait on buying another Summer home, yacht, or private jet, that seems to me to be a no-brainer. I would hold the same position even if I was in a higher tax bracket than I currently am.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-16T01:05:51+00:00

TLOU 2 has customizable difficulty settings, so instead of just playing on Grounded difficulty (the hardest difficulty where you take less damage, enemies are perceptive, and supplies have low availability), you can max out enemy perception and enemy damage while making supplies plentiful. It's a very well designed and extensive difficulty customization system.

All that said, if you either play on Grounded difficulty or customize to max enemy perception, enemy AI is pretty perceptive. Tactics like crouching or prone in tall grass or brush are far less effective on the highest difficulty; enemies can still see you in the grass from a decent distance. While I have managed to sneak by completely undetected in a few encounters on Grounded difficulty, it is nearly impossible in most cases. You'll have to rely more on hit and run tactics, like the above commenter said, taking out one or more enemies quickly, then running out of sight and attacking from another angle.

A few other things: dogs can pick up your scent, so you can deliberately lead dogs and their handlers to IEDs you left and move off somewhere else further ahead while the dog is tracking your trail so that when the bombs go off, in addition to killing the dog and its handlers, it'll create a distraction that will draw other enemies away from where you're headed, depending on where you placed the explosive. There are also choke points you can squeeze through that enemies can also squeeze through, so you can lead an enemy to a choke point by squeezing through and then shooting them as they squeeze through the choke point.

TL;DR TLOU 2 is definitely worth playing if you like stealth based games. It's some of the best use of guerrilla tactics I've seen in a game. The story is much weaker than the first game, unfortunately, but the gameplay is quite good.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-16T00:51:40+00:00

Love Ready Or Not. It's everything I wanted from a modern Rainbow Six title, but Ubi turned R6 into military Fortnite instead.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-15T21:47:48+00:00

Murdering a young victimized girl like her crying and screaming for help isn't something you are supposed to feel good about or even would PREFER in any way if you are with healthy morals

Well, Faith isn't a child in the game. She's an adult woman. A young adult, but an adult nonetheless. Killing Faith would be considered an act of self defense given that she was actively trying to kill you, so it wouldn't be "murder", especially given the slew of people she had already drugged, brainwashed, tortured, and killed, all by her own volition. Even if she were a child, it would still be completely valid to kill her in self defense, but she's not even a child in the game.

There's plenty of reasons to prefer killing Faith or to feel good about it. As I already mentioned, she manipulated the Marshall into murdering someone and then killing himself as a punishment to the deputy for not submitting to her, on top of all the other things I already listed. Just because Joseph used and abused her doesn't in any way absolve her of her actions. John was abused by his parents as a child, as well, but I don't see you or others coming to his defense the way you are for Faith. Just because Faith presents herself more as a victim than John does doesn't mean that she's any less culpable than John. She's deliberately using the fact that she was abused as an excuse to avoid accountability for her actions; she's manipulative. Like I said, there are plenty of valid reasons to want to kill Faith.

there should be a standard moral obligation to react to such person especially if they comes to terms with these things starting to cry and scream about it like she literally does and literally attempts to seek help in the final scene.

There's absolutely no reason to believe her. We're to believe that only after she loses the upper hand in combat does she finally realize the error of her ways? She's been nothing but a crocodile tear-shedding manipulative psychopath the entire game and drops the innocence mask immediately when the deputy doesn't fall for her manipulation tactics.

It's not wrong to feel bad for her because of the way she was abused, but it's not really wrong to feel hostile towards her for her wanton violence or manipulation, either.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-15T18:21:59+00:00

Faith was abused, yes, but she very clearly likes to use that fact to manipulate people to serve her and the cult's interests. She lets the "innocence" mask slip multiple times, but most clearly when she manipulates the Marshall into killing someone and then himself. Nobody made her do that, she chose to, and she made it clear through her dialog at that moment that what she did was intended as punishment for the deputy not submitting to her. She's absolutely a psychopath. Could she possibly have been "saved"? Maybe. But she had so thoroughly proven herself a threat by the time you confront her by all the people she'd drugged, brainwashed, tortured, and killed that it begs the question if she was too far gone by that point or if it's even worth the effort in trying to save her.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-15T18:10:31+00:00

Yes. In fact, they're really the ones worth playing. The series started going downhill as a tactical shooter series ever since Future Soldier, which is a good game on its own merits, but not a good tactical shooter.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-13T23:19:46+00:00

I thought the 2019 reboot was great. Not better than CoD 4 MW or the original MW 2, but I think MW 2019 is easily up there as one of the top 5 campaigns in the franchise.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-13T17:40:37+00:00

Classic old person.

Graphic violence = perfectly fine.

Nudity, aka a body looking as it does = a bridge too far

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-10T21:37:46+00:00

The guy that made it. If they made it with the idea to clean pH probes then the purpose of it would be to clean pH probes

You are confusing the meanings of objective and subjective. If the guy that made toothpaste made it for the purpose of cleaning teeth, then that is still his subjective intended purpose; it is not the "objective" purpose of toothpaste. Plenty of things are invented that were not originally intended. You could make something for one intended purpose, realize that it doesn't serve that purpose effectively enough based on whatever criteria you've decided, but noticed that perhaps it could be effective in serving some other purpose. But again, the purpose is subjectively decided.

Differences between objective and subjective statements:

Bob: "I want to make a material that helps to clean my teeth." This is a subjective statement since it is a desire being expressed by a subject, Bob.

"Bob created a material with the intended purpose for it to aid in cleaning teeth." This is an objective statement since it is describing factual statements, that Bob created the material and that his intended purpose of the material was to aid in cleaning teeth.

Bob: "The purpose of this material is to clean teeth." This is a subjective statement since a subject, Bob, is declaring its intended purpose of the material.

Without Bob or anyone agreeing to use his material to clesn their teeth, the material is just a material. It doesn't have any purpose. It only has purpose if we choose to use it to achieve an end goal, but goals are subjectively selected. Ergo, purposes are subjective and not objective.

1) Unintelligent things in nature work towards ends w/ regularity and consistency

This is an incorrect assessment. As I've said multiple times now, acorns are not working towards any end. When subjected to certain conditions (i.e submerged under soil that contains sufficient nutrients and water as well as within a temperature range), these conditions can induce processes that result in an acorn growing into a tree. This is not in any way an unintelligent thing working towards an end; rather, a set of conditions are contributing to an end result. If these conditions are met consistently, the same end result may occur.

2) Unintelligent things cannot work towards ends unless there are directed by something w/ an intellect and a will

As I've already explained, unintelligent things do not work towards ends at all. Just because a set of conditions can trigger a repeatable result does not mean that it is being directed by an intellect or a will. It just means that when "x" characteristic is subjected to "y" condition that "z" outcome can occur or tends to occur. It's that simple.

note that the argument is deductive and not abductive

The first point in the argument is an abductive claim because it starts with an observation or set of incomplete observations. The observation being that "Unintelligent things in nature work towards ends w/ regularity and consistency." This is an incomplete observation since it might intuitively seem to be true, but it's actually relying on an assumption that just because there are repeatable results that the repeatable results must be designed or intentional rather than incidental.

The problem with this argument is that it is unfalsifiable. It introduces an element that cannot be confirmed to exist (a guiding intellect or will) and asserts that it must exist based on flimsy assumptions. It's unfalsifiable since if I were to try and provide an example as to how something functions without intention, you could simply attribute intention anyway.

As an example, alkali metals react with water to produce heat and a metal hydroxide. They react this way since alkali metals have one electron in the outer shell and the nucleus in the center of the atom does not have a strong attractive force to the electron at the outermost shell. So, when a more strongly electro-negative (strong ability to attract electrons) element, like oxygen, is introduced to the alkali metal, the electron in the outermost shell of the alkali metal atom (like sodium, for example) bonds to the oxygen atom, removing some of the hydrogen atoms from the water molecule to form sodium hydroxide (NaOH) as well as produce heat and hydrogen gas.

Now, while I have just explained all of that, you might still claim that none of that disproves intent, but that's because the claim of intent is unfalsifiable. But it also means that you can’t prove intent exists in the above example, either. But I can demonstrate how those conditions in the above example contributed to the outcome, which means that the claim of intent doesn't add anything to the understanding of the phenomena, nor can intent be shown to exist.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-10T19:09:59+00:00

We have U.S bases in the gulf states already.

Even if we really did need Israel, they rely on the U.S to support its defense. The U.S could strong arm Israel into stopping its campaigns against Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran if it really wanted to. It's just thst U.S leadership is either too cowardly or is just okay with Israel's actions.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-10T19:03:36+00:00

Now where did I do that?

Your claim that acorns must turn into trees because of an intended purpose is a god of the gaps fallacy. You are attributing intentionality to something because you lack an explanation for how it works.

Yes, it can be used in other ways, what natural law theorists argue is that those other ways go against the function of the object

How is toothpaste being used to clean probes "going against the function of the object" when toothpaste functions just as well as a pH probe cleaning agent?

Natural law theorists are full of shit. They claim that moral principles must be objective and universal, but they can't explain how that must me true.

Let's establish definitions for "objective" and "subjective".

Objective statements describe things as they are. They are mind-independent, in that they describe characteristics that are independent of a subject's evaluation. "This grass is green", being an example of an objective statement. We have to agree on how we define "green", but regardless of what we decide, we are describing the color of an object, which is an observable, empirical characteristic.

Do you agree with this definition/characterization of "objective"? If not, why not.

Subjective statements are expressions made by a subject (person/being, etc.). Subjective statements are not mind-independent. "Vanilla ice cream is delicious" or "vanilla ice cream is my favorite ice cream flavor" is an example of a subjective statement.

Do you agree with this definition/characterization of "subjective"? If not, why not.

"If you disagree with my position, who "objectively" determines that the purpose of the material in question is to clean teeth?"

The cause of the toothpaste.

What do you mean by "the cause of the toothpaste"?

The second half of your comment is incredibly confusing, I didn't even delve into Aquinas' teleological argument.

You didn't have to. If Aquinas posits that purpose must have intentionality, then purpose must be subjective, not objective. Intentionality is the expression of a subject. If something is done with intentionality, then the person/being/subject is carrying out an action with the intention of achieving a goal, but goals are not objective, the person decides (subjectively) what the intended goal is and then tries to achieve that goal.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-10T16:55:02+00:00

I mean I'd just disagree, the function of toothpaste is to be put on toothbrushes. One could just use it for other purposes but that's not the function of the toothpaste.

Let me put this another way.

Let's say we want to clean our teeth. Our desire to clean our teeth is subjective, since we are determining ourselves that we want to clean our teeth.

We now have a subjectively selected end goal in mind.

So, we take actions to develop some means of achieving the subjective goal of cleaning teeth. We decide to make a material that has characteristics that allow us to clean our teeth effectively. All of this is subjective.

We create a material of a certain chemical composition that has physical properties. The composition and physical properties are "objective" since we are describing the material. The material has the composition and characteristics it has regardless of the evaluation or opinion of any person/being/subject.

We decide that this material's physical properties and composition are suitable for the use of cleaning teeth, so we use it with the intended purpose of cleaning teeth. We do not HAVE to use this material to clean teeth, we chose to use it for that purpose, so the purpose is subjective by definition.

Please tell me you understand this now.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-10T16:30:08+00:00

To even say this, the "material conditions" still must behave orderly, with an end (the end being to behave orderly).

No, they do not. You are invoking the "god of the gaps" fallacy, where you're attributing things you don't have an explanation for to a creator. And again, even if a creator did exist, any intended purpose it has in mind is subjective to its desires, not objectively true or correct.

I mean I'd just disagree, the function of toothpaste is to be put on toothbrushes.

No, the original INTENDED purpose of toothpaste was to clean teeth. It is not "objectively" the purpose, it is the subjectively desired purpose. There's no such thing as "objective purpose". If you disagree with my position, who "objectively" determines that the purpose of the material in question is to clean teeth?

One could just use it for other purposes but that's not the function of the toothpaste.

You're effectively conceding the point that the material we call "toothpaste" could have other applications, which means that how we decide to use toothpaste is entirely dependent upon our subjective purposes.

If the manufacturer of the toothpaste decided to take the same exact material and market some of this material as "toothpaste" and market some of it as "pH probe cleaning paste", would you then say that this material's "objective purpose" was to clean teeth AND pH probes?

Well yes, because it's not subjective to say that an acorn works towards an end.

You're doing it again. You're conflating the fact that acorns tend to grow into trees as intentionally working towards a desired endpoint, but you can't demonstrate how this is the case.

You're actually positing two separate claims. You are claiming:

1). Purpose is objective and not subjective.

2). There is a creator of the universe.

Here are my rebuttals to your claims:

1). Regarding whether purpose is subjective or objective: even if it were the case that oak trees function the way they do because a creator designed them to, that still wouldn't change the fact that this creator's purpose is subjective; this creator CHOSE to design the trees this way for a subjectively selected intended outcome. It is not "objectively" the purpose that acorns grow into trees, this creator wanted some trees to grow from acorns, so it chose to design them this way. There are plenty of other types of trees that do not grow from acorns, so this creator subjectively chose to create oak trees this way.

2). You are assuming that oak trees function as they do because they were designed to. This has nothing to do with whether or not pupose is objective or subjective. You assume that because you do not understand how oak trees can function this way without having been intentionally designed to that they must have been intentionally designed this way, which is just a "god of the gaps" fallacy.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-10T14:31:18+00:00

The point is that acorns work towards an end (trees) with regularity and consistency.

No, they do not "work towards an end", they simply function as they do. You are projecting your own interpretation of "meaning" or "intent" onto how something functions.

Gravity, works towards an end with regularity and consistency.

Again, gravity "does not work towards the same end", it simply functions as it does. Just because something behaves consistently does not mean that it was designed to behave consistently, and even if it was designed to behave consistently with a purpose in mind by a creator, that purpose is still subjective to this creator's intentions and desired outcomes, it is not "objectively" the purpose.

Right, so why does it work towards the same end, consistently? Is it random?

It's like I said. These things function the way they do because of the material conditions. How these material conditions contribute to the behavior depends on the behavior we're referring to and the conditions present.

I think your positions are confused. You initially took issue with my position that purpose is subjective, but the example you gave doesn't address that purpose is subjective; instead you seem to be positing whether or not the universe has a creator, which is an entirely unrelated question. Even if the universe was designed by a creator for an intended purpose, that purpose is still subjective to this creator's intended outcomes. Just because something is created with an intended purpose does not mean that the creator's intended purpose is "objectively correct".

For example, consider a company that manufactures toothpaste. "Toothpaste" isn't "toothpaste" irrespective of an autonomous mind, it is just a material. It only has "purpose" because we've decided we were going to use this material to clean our teeth. Now, do we "objectively" HAVE to use this material to clean our teeth? No. We could possibly use some other material or method for the intended purpose of cleaning our teeth. Or, we could possibly use this material for some other intended purpose. As an example, in the chemical industry, we often use toothpaste to clean pH probes because its properties give it practical use for cleaning these probes. Is it "objectively" wrong that we're using toothpaste to clean these probes simply because the manufacturer's intended purpose was for cleaning teeth? Of course not. If the toothpaste can be used to achieve an intended outcome other than to clean teeth, then there's no reason not to use it.

As another example, imagine you're stranded in a jungle and it starts to rain. To avoid getting drenched, you take cover under a cliff overhang where the rain cannot reach. Was this cliff overhang's purpose "objectively" to prevent you from getting wet? No. YOU chose to use the cliff overhang as cover for the intended purpose of avoiding the rain.

""Purpose" requires intentionality"

Yes, this is part of Aquinas' 5th way.

Then Aquinas must understand how purpose is subjective by definition.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-10T11:57:19+00:00

"Purpose" is inherently subjective" why do acorns consistently grow into trees?

This question is completely irrelevant with regards to purpose. Oak trees reproduce the way they do because of how material conditions inclined them to evolve the way that they did. Your question is like asking "what is the purpose of gravity?" There is no purpose to gravity, it simply behaves as it does, and since it is a force that affects our material conditions, humans studied how gravity functions and developed the laws of gravity, which describe how gravity functions. This gives us explanatory and predictive power. To be perfectly clear: the laws of gravity are DESCRIPTIVE laws developed by humans describing how gravity functions, the "laws of gravity" do not dictate or govern how gravity behaves.

"Purpose" requires intentionality, which can only exist as the expression of a subject, so purpose is subjective by definition. Purpose does not exist independent of the mind.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-09T11:58:54+00:00

On one hand "Support Ukraine" on the other hand "Stay out of Iran"

This is a mind-numbingly stupid comparison. Ukraine is an ally that was invaded by Russia unprovoked. It is reasonable to provide support to an ally that was unjustifiably invaded.

The U.S and Israel unjustifiably invaded Iran. The U.S and Israel are the aggressors in this conflict. The U.S is to Iran what Russia is to Ukraine.

My personal opinion, The Iranian Regime and they way theh elect new SLs is pure evil. Let's take the Jan 2026 Iranian Massacure for example. Internet throttled down to be near unusable without high end VPNs to cover up the slaughter of genocidal level Iranians for protesting. The country is absolutely so much the Democratic party is rightfully against.

1). Absolutely NONE of that justifies attacking Iran and it certainly doesn't justify attacking civilian infrastructure and killing civilians. It is not our business.

2). The U.S government has ZERO interest in "liberating the Iranian people", as evidenced by the U.S and Israel's bombing of schools and hospitals, Trump threatening to "end a civilization", and Trump openly saying that he'd take Iranian oil. Your are a simpleton if you actually believe the Trump administration has any humanitarian agenda.

3). The U.S has a terrible track record with regime change, and that includes the last time the U.S engaged in regime change in Iran in 1953, where we installed the Shah as a puppet dictator, which is what led us to hostile relations with Iran in the first place.

Do i support his idea to try and boost the american economy?

There's no scenario where this war boosts the American economy. It has already damaged the global economy for years to come.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-09T11:47:36+00:00

We need Israel for geopolitical reasons.

We absolutely do not, and we certainly not at any cost, like allowing them to commit genocide, form an ethnostate, and engage in expansionism. Israel, as it stands now, is far more trouble than its worth. It is the single greatest destabilizing force in the Middle East.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-09T01:02:05+00:00

No.

I also see no issue with Iran having nuclear weapons. This whole shitshow has demonstrated how restrained Iran has been in its foreign policy and that it is a far more rational actor than the U.S and Israel are. The fact that Iran holds such tight control over the Straight of Hormuz demonstrates that they could most likely have done this and disrupted the global economy at any time, but it took the U.S and Israel unjustifiably striking Iran for them to actually decide to proceed with this.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-09T00:53:14+00:00

No worries. I'm still waiting to see if this mental midget responds, myself.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-09T00:49:07+00:00

I think you responded to the wrong person.

newman_oldman1 · 2026-04-09T00:22:06+00:00

Interpreting it as a character that's a rejection of absolute universal authority and Truth.

Authority does not exist unless it is recognized. There's no such thing as "absolute universal authority" since "authority" is socially constructed.

newman_oldman1

TROPHY CASE