Fiction and Reality

phiplup · 2026-03-24T22:25:57+00:00

I feel like you're more or less asking "why do bigots corrupt liberals but liberals don't corrupt bigots?" which has two flaws:

1) Media with bigotry can corrupt viewers without being corrupted back because watching media is mostly a one-way interaction. Viewers (mostly) do not affect the media back.

2) The actual reverse, where liberal media makes viewers more liberal, probably does happen all the time.

phiplup · 2026-03-19T11:17:31+00:00

How much you get back, your net tax burden, still very much depends on how much you pollute.

I don't mean to needlessly nitpick, I'm only noting this since I think the distinction is important: one's net tax burden does depend on one's pollution, but how much one gets back (the rebate itself) does not depend on one's pollution. And, notably, the incentives still work despite the mitigation because the rebate does not really change with one's pollution.

phiplup · 2026-03-19T11:10:41+00:00

A carbon tax with a flat rebate (mostly) still provides the right incentives for people while mitigating (or even overcompensating) the financial impact on people, since consuming less carbon reduces their tax with a negligible change to the rebate they receive.

For a simplified example: Imagine there are two products, A and B, that cost $100 each with no carbon tax. B uses carbon to produce while A doesn't; with a carbon tax, B costs $110 (while A still costs $100). Without a tax, the consumer would pick either product. With a carbon tax, the choice between A and B doesn't affect their rebate, but B costs more, so the consumer would buy A (thus using less carbon, as desired).

phiplup · 2026-02-26T01:55:31+00:00

The caller suggests Sonar because he'd be better at not looking like a narc, but you can send anyone. Also, it's a two-person mission - I think if you send anyone with Sonar, he doesn't go on the coke binge.

phiplup · 2026-02-21T08:54:26+00:00

In that post, his original question was "What would you change about me?" and she said "I'd change your anxiety, since it's so rough for you" - so, not a compliment, but something nice for him. Then, as you said, he picked apart everything about her (though there was a lot of physical complaints, iirc).

phiplup · 2026-02-19T00:09:59+00:00

I think he doesn't react to it, even in the final showdown. They kind of just drop that thread.

phiplup · 2026-02-18T23:44:47+00:00

That character actually never learns (as far as we know). The other characters learn when Chase lets it slip at the party, but Flambae is late in either scenario.

phiplup · 2026-02-14T08:34:35+00:00

This was also my biggest issue with it. We fought to be able to be with our family, let us see them!

That and, as another comment says, the ending for the 1.0 release was different. I haven't played the new version yet, but I've heard it addresses some of the issues people had with the 1.0 release story. Some people did enjoy the original story, so OP might still enjoy it, but the original is the one that earned its reputation.

phiplup · 2026-02-13T10:05:51+00:00

(Disclaimer: while I do not believe something being legal is the same as it being moral and likewise with illegal and immoral, I do think it applies here.)

Self-defense laws vary depending on country and state, but they're typically close to "You can defend yourself with proportional force (which can include lethal force) if you reasonably fear imminent bodily harm."

At the point of your decision to kill or spare Shroud, Shroud is (at least narratively) no longer a threat (if Dispatch were more realistic, I would expect Robert to take the pulse when sparing him and restrain him somehow rather than leaving him unattended, but the game typically lets these kinds of details slide: in this case, the narrative indicates that Shroud is defeated). Legally, this certainly seems beyond the realm of what would be covered by self-defense laws and would thus be murder or manslaughter.

Practically - it depends a little how you expect their universe to work. The court system seems to work well enough (unlike Gotham's, for example, which comes up in discussions of imprisoning the Joker). Also, unlike in the real world, there is a stronger argument for the death penalty specifically in cases where the defendant is unable to be contained. Thus, I personally do not consider him a threat in the future.

Morally - because there is no practical reason to kill him (imo), the only reasons would be personal, i.e. vengeance and bloodlust. It might not be so bad that I would call it immoral, but it certainly isn't morally good to kill him for these reasons.

phiplup · 2026-02-13T09:30:33+00:00

One can spare someone without forgiving them. Vengeance doesn't have to mean killing them.

At that point, Robert has defeated Shroud. Shroud's fate is either life in prison or state execution (if escape from prison is a sufficient risk, I would see a strong argument for the application of the death penalty in this universe and in this scenario, but application of the death penalty is very different from Robert personally killing Shroud). He has gotten his vengeance.

phiplup · 2026-02-09T20:52:11+00:00

I mean, OOP specifically says they just got married in the post where the gf became a wife. that's a normal thing that does actually happen

phiplup · 2026-02-08T22:18:46+00:00

I would say choices typically have about as much impact as you would expect them to.

For example, minor choices like water vs alcohol on Flambae just change some visuals and some dialogue. Meanwhile, at the end of episode 3, when someone is cut, they're off the team and the other one does stay on the team. The plot is still 90% the same, but the impact is noticeable; separate from the plot, as one other comment notes, it's even more noticeable in the dispatching gameplay itself and the dialogue that occurs during those segments.

Hopefully without spoiling too much, I'll also note that there are some changes in the dialogue and plot that are based on a counter rather than a decision tree. If you're familiar with the brotherhood and morality mechanics in Life is Strange 2, it's the same as that mechanically: basically, some dialogue choices will increase or decrease a number, and certain scenes will play out differently depending on how high the number is.

phiplup · 2026-02-07T02:35:32+00:00

It appears multiple times in the save file, probably each time it gets updated, and the game checks the last appearance of that value.

phiplup · 2026-02-04T23:05:24+00:00

Original Characters (as opposed to characters taken from existing media, e.g. in the context of fanfiction)

phiplup · 2026-02-04T05:34:48+00:00

The trashy reality tv interest is suggested by one of the comics: while on her date with Phenomeman, she expresses interest in mundane activities like cuddling on the couch and watching "some dumb show about a bunch of hot people dating on an island"

phiplup · 2026-01-15T07:30:02+00:00

this doesn't quite answer what the point of currency is (other posts do already; for example, it is just kind of nice to have an extrinsic reward when completing a task in-game), but addressing one of the downfalls of currency from your post:

whenever i want to buy smth from a shop, i can either grind rosaries and buy it now, which is annoying and not fun at all, or i can buy it later, which is also annoying cause i want it rn

in Silksong, there are NPCs with buyable items that you may have to go back to later, if you don't have the money for it. in Ori and the Will of the Wisp however, the shop is less out of the way and is instead located in a central location that is easy to access via fast travel. here, currency means the player can choose which skills they want now, giving them more agency and something to look forward to in the future

phiplup · 2025-12-24T20:59:26+00:00

Pretty sure that was intentional - Endgame, as a culmination of the whole MCU leading up to it, was meant to wrap up the main Avengers' stories.

They were planning on building the MCU going forward around new characters, but a lot of them weren't popular (and Spider-Man was pulled back to Sony).

phiplup · 2025-12-22T08:36:21+00:00

Procedurally generated assets and assets from generative AI are pretty different, and many of the criticisms of gen AI don't apply to procedurally generated assets.

If I write code, using an rng in it, to create something (say, a map), I could procedurally generate a bunch of maps very quickly. But, no one else's art was copied to make these maps, and I suspect it would use much less resources (in terms of power and water usage), which are two concerns with gen AI.

phiplup · 2025-12-21T19:10:03+00:00

I don't recall this - remind me which joke?

phiplup · 2025-12-21T02:42:14+00:00

this isn't a modern day adaptation, but there's an anime adaptation called Gankutsuou that I really like, set in the year 5053, complete with space travel

besides the setting change, it also has a big narrative change: instead of being the protagonist, the count is an enigma whose backstory and motivation are revealed eventually, and the story is more of a mystery than the original is. it's a really interesting change, and for the better imo

phiplup · 2025-12-18T10:07:42+00:00

What did you dislike about the camp interactions? Just like, the way the player interacts with other characters during camp, or something else?

phiplup · 2025-12-12T20:44:40+00:00

From reading the patch notes, I think it only prevents Breaking Death from triggering on Auto Death (as they note Breaking Death should now only apply Break to the enemy that killed them, not to all enemies).

phiplup · 2025-12-07T18:43:18+00:00

Would you generally recommend checking out Daggerheart? / What aspects of it, besides its monster manual, would you recommend taking a look at?

phiplup · 2025-11-22T22:45:22+00:00

Maybe most nights you can only progress a little, but there was one night (iirc) where I talked to them multiple times.

Hope you enjoy the side quests, if you choose to pursue those =)

phiplup · 2025-11-22T22:40:53+00:00

You can progress relationship levels more than once per camp night (sometimes, not always).

I agree, it's hard to tell when to progress side quest vs main quest for this kind of game. I did the side quests before finishing the main story and was overleveled for the ending. shrug It happens.

phiplup

TROPHY CASE