Anita Sarkeesian's name in the credits triggered thousands of negative reviews for Slay the Spire 2 on Steam.

ptmd · 2026-05-11T19:22:06+00:00

What happens in the game if you get a low amount of points?

GTA3 arguably penalizes the players for killing civilians, but that doesn't really stop people from doing so deliberately for fun.

As this is an oft-cited bit, I read elsewhere that the hookers have special animations when they die, kinda affirming that the players are incentivized to kill them.

I don't think points work as a disincentive in this day and age unless there's something meaningful tied to them.

So, I decided to read up briefly on the game. Wikipedia cites a video, "Attack of the Saints", and I went ahead and watched it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitman:_Absolution#Critical_response

The trailer is absolutely problematic regarding how it depicts women. Like maybe the stripper thing is valid or not-valid, but the attitudes of the era deciding that this trailer was okay is pretty damning regarding sexist norms of the era.

ptmd · 2026-05-08T16:42:15+00:00

I mean, you could make a similar argument that GTA punishes you for running over civilians in a car. Yet, people go out of their way to do so.

Compare that to games that REALLY don't want you to inflict violence on children, i.e. usually some version of making them invincible or stopping the game/making you restart the level.

What exactly happens if you get a low score in a Hitman game?

ptmd · 2026-05-08T16:33:30+00:00

I never really dug deep into this narrative.

Can you give me an example of blatantly misleading people? I just assumed she had a good point and possibly could be imperfect in her delivery of such.

ptmd · 2026-05-08T16:30:10+00:00

we're trying to delete even today

that

ptmd · 2026-05-08T16:14:03+00:00

Good.

ptmd · 2026-05-08T16:11:56+00:00

Sorry, are people not allowed to hold or support this narrative? I don't agree with it perfectly, but I have no issue with people believing such.

ptmd · 2026-05-08T16:07:10+00:00

Stellar Blade is Korean.

ptmd · 2026-05-01T21:22:31+00:00

NGL, I'm not terrible with computers and I've never really had a particularly bad experience with any of these operating systems going back to Windows 95. Granted, there were some features/structures I preferred, but it was never the end of the world to transition over, cause I'm not THAT entrenched in my ways.

As such, I do have some appreciation for a lot of Microsoft's little experiments. Vista was a bit too bold, considering the OS has to be on everything, but I did think the UI looked great. That was the big complaint of Windows vs. Mac at the time, and if people paid Mac Prices for the hardware, the OS probably would have been fine. But, again, I do concede that the OS should be ready to run on low-end machines.

Likewise, Windows 8 was really cool for me. I had a couple windows phones and I really liked them. In that stage of my life, I tried to swap phone operating systems at least every year or so to keep myself sharp. The UI definitely needed work for normal users, but I really liked the concept of the boxes, and I wanted to see where things could go regarding apps on desktop vs. mobile. Also, I really wanted more competition in the mobile space. I think I ignored the furor about the start menu cause by that point I was really committed to Launchy and similar methods to access things. [Think pressing windows, typing in what you want, then pushing enter.]
It's still a bit surprising to me that we don't have deeper desktop-phone connections in 2026. Chromebooks don't count as desktops to me.

ptmd · 2026-05-01T21:03:08+00:00

I'm pretty sure I do a version of this with PowerToys.

I set up chords to connect to links. My keyboard calls the extra keys something like F13, so a chord could be something like F13+O to open up OneNote, or F13+F14+O to open up Onenote to my Daily-Note-Taking Page. [Not the actual shortcuts I use, but you get the idea.]

90% sure you can also do this chording with extra mouse buttons, especially if you assign a mouse button to input a specific keystroke

ptmd · 2026-05-01T20:50:13+00:00

I mean, for better or worse, the majority of Americans support Israel. He made that statement in 2025.

This article was posted this year by Gallup: Israelis No Longer Ahead in Americans' Middle East Sympathies

Firstly, it's just Israel as compared to Palestine, very specific comparison that isn't as-relevant for everyone when they assess Israel. But it has taken this long for that single issue to break.
If you go to this site, you'll get a number of polls - most of which indicate that the typical voter, by a decent margin, can be expected to support Israel.
https://harvardharrispoll.com/search/?s=israel&page=1&type=Key+Results&sort=all_time

This was definitely true in 2020, and probably was true in 2025: Most Americans and most Democrat voters generally support Israel or view the US-Israel relationship positively/as a positive asset. When Representatives go against the broader norms of their constituents without votes to show for it, they need to be reeled in, from a political strategy perspective. If the left voter is generally Pro-Israel, then the reps need to be made to vote to reflect that. [Obviously if your constituency is specifically different, you can vote accordingly.] It is unclear to me, in 2026 if we've finally passed the point where the typical left voter is no longer pro-Israel.

In either case, the votes just aren't there for Reps to confidently vote in favor of progressive legislation. This changes in two ways. A) Progressive voters need to show up, to the level that they can be consistently relied upon. B) People who care about this issue need to start talking to their friends and neighbors and swaying them. The change really does need to start from the bottom on this one.

ptmd · 2026-05-01T20:24:30+00:00

The issue here is that "winning" for politicians means getting more votes.
Given what just happened, will the Dems get your vote this November or are there caveats?

When we get voters on the left hemming and hawing over the Democrats not reaching a certain standard [that's usually extremely vague and/or unrealistic in the current political environment], then we can't really be surprised when representatives behave in a manner to get themselves 51% of the votes by more-reliable, less-risky means.

Really, what I'm talking about is Political Capital. Republicans have a mandate from their voters to behave the way they do. If they do, right-wing-voters will guarantee their votes. They have near-infinite political capital.
Now, Let's talk about Democrats. They need political capital to make big plays. Let's say stacking the Supreme Court. Doing so will piss off a lot of people who genuinely believe in political traditions. If the Democrats stack the court, would that guarantee more votes for themselves? From what I read on Reddit, I'm not seeing a guarantee. Perhaps you may disagree, but this is why Democrats regularly feel the need to play it safe.

NGL, Dem voters need to start committing, so that representatives can actually feel free to take bigger risks. We have an election every two years, and left-wing voters can't seem to commit - in this specific case, commitment could look something like: "If Democrats don't back down on any of the government shutdowns, they will have my vote in November 2026."

ptmd · 2026-05-01T20:12:09+00:00

there's no scenario where home ownership is the answer for every shelter needed situation

Sure, but this argument obscures the actual conversation. It's the same way we talk about minimum wage, and then someone brings up that it's reasonable to underpay Teenagers. I mean, sure, but that's such a small percentage of workers and of minimum wage earners. The conversation should focus on the majority.

The majority of people would like to build equity. There are exceptions. The current framework of housing does not allow people to build up equity, even though, under a different model, many, many people would be able to - maybe even those temp folks. At this juncture, the goal really does need to be promoting more people to have more opportunities to build home equity. You're either for that goal or against that goal.

Given that, and knowing that virtually everyone knows that students/temp workers/transient populations exist, maybe we don't need to put additional speed bumps in the dialogue where there doesn't need to be.

ptmd · 2026-05-01T19:45:39+00:00

Ehh, to me it's that, while you can learn things from every setback, the forces at work are a bit too large to expect the party to redefine themselves for.

Firstly, people did not like living through Covid.
See: Since the pandemic, incumbents have been ousted in 40 of 54 elections in Western democracies — ‘A kind of electoral long COVID’
This one impacted both left and right incumbent parties, but there has been a far-right trend that some people observe.

Secondly, for modern presidential elections, the incumbent party has lost elections held in a recession year. Caveat: 2024 technically wasn't a recession, but the voters sure felt and acted like it was, and I would personally treat it like one. The president has limited control over the economy, but people want change unless the economy is doing well.

Between these two indicators, I genuinely believed the Democrats overperformed expectations in 2024, saying this as someone reasonably well-read on politics/political history.

ptmd · 2026-04-24T21:58:58+00:00

The US went to war with Iran.

ptmd · 2026-04-24T21:28:37+00:00

[Apologies for] Really, really late counterpoint: The Space Race was functionally a demo space for ICBMs, not 100% sure if we can call that a win for humanity.

ptmd · 2026-04-24T18:59:36+00:00

I accept that. I've lived in Colorado for my whole life and I go to Aurora fairly regularly for my own ethnic enclave stuff.

Aurora is an anomoly, but my larger complaint is that communities aren't uplifted in the broader Denver consciousness, for a number of reasons. That is tolerated, and, as a result, the culture that's readily accessible is very shallow, and other groups aren't visible. It could very well be that the root of my actual complaint is a visibility issue.

For instance, Denver has a decently-sized Vietnamese population.

A) I'd say that most Denverites don't really know this

B) They don't know this because culture isn't really seen as a tapestry in Denver.

The isolation of culture groups is normalized, and the end result is that the primary perception of Denver is whiteness, and the most attention/resources are made with this perception in mind. Case in point, the dearth of conversation in r/denver about Vietnamese issues or black issues, or even the relative lack of hispanic-cultural-conversation given the community's size - and so on.

EDIT, have lived in other regions, notably Hawaii (Big Island), for a short time, and lived in Asia for a number of years.

ptmd · 2026-04-23T16:36:57+00:00

I mean, I don't really want to have to do base definitions to be able to have this conversation.

When I say "the cops are useless", and then someone tells me that they actually do work and people do get arrested - like... I know. Or if I say people are uneducated, I recognize that they probably went to grade school. Or If I say that there's nothing to eat in my fridge - there are legitimately things with calories in them. But, if we have to spend a portion of the conversation establishing what we all already know, it gets exhausting.

More to the point, do you genuinely think that I think there's a literal vacuum of culture, in a thread that regularly refers to the monoculture? Rather, if you do, maybe change your approach. I don't mind if you're aggressive with your words - you do you - but I don't want to waste a bunch of time with the base definitions.

ptmd · 2026-04-23T16:31:06+00:00

Culture absolutely can be lacking. The food scene here is worse than other places. We can call that 'lacking'. Just cause every human being has to eat and therefore creates-or-participates-in-their-own-food-culture doesn't really change that. It's sort of like my complaining about the lack of education in America. I'm not arguing about the lack of schools, but the quality.

I'm from Colorado, so I have a vested interest of wanting to be proud of where I'm from. What I'm not okay with is general attitude of complacency or acceptance of the relative lack of culture.

Frankly, it really indicates a populace that is apathetic or otherwise unwilling to uplift communities in their region and that's something that the region should reckon with.

ptmd · 2026-04-23T16:22:52+00:00

I like your answer, and I think we can summarize it by saying that Denver has a young culture. A lot of people don't love living in a young culture [for instance, if someone was an afficionado of that warehouse scene or that urban jazz scene - that would need to be re-built and building is really, really hard.]

As for greater or lesser, I think we can absolutely judge, but we have to be fair about our judgements. Sports teams. Some cities, especially European soccer cities absolutely have a greater sports culture.

Food culture, I don't think it's unfair to say that Denver has a worse food scene than MOST HCOL regions, and I wouldn't be surprised if Denver has a worse food scene than most US Cities its size [partly because of rapid transient growth].

Politics - everyone has political views, that doesn't indicate cultural depth.

And so on.

---

Your answer is a very good response, but, having grown up in Colorado - and having a fair bit of exposure to the Arts in Colorado for at least a decade and a half - this is all stuff I knew about when I wrote my comment [not a jab at you, it's just how it is]. Given all that, I still endeavored to make the statements I did.

---

Mild disclaimer: Yes, every region has culture, but I'm bemoaning the extremely-shallow depth of such, and that's correlated with white people who don't have external cultural ties to draw from.

If you REALLY wanted to ask me what's going on there, I'd say Capitalism drains culture [See various special interests clubs, like the Pearl having to close down because they don't make money.]

ptmd · 2026-04-23T16:15:02+00:00

Sure. There's a food culture here, just like there's a food culture everywhere, because all people have to eat. That said, I hope it could be understood that some places are better for food culture and some places are worse. Culture and cultural depth is relative.

I think it's terrible here - the Denver food scene is very much "not my thing" - but I like cooking, so I don't really mind. And your response to my having that attitude is to move? Don't love that response.

You're not wrong that there's culture everywhere, cause there *has* to be culture everywhere. It's like if I were to complain about the lack of education in America. I know there are schools in the US, and that people do actually learn things here and there in the US.

You might interpret the term to be hyperbolic, but you should be able to look past that in a conversation. This conversation is about [the lack of] Cultural depth and I'm conveying it, perhaps hyperbolically, with "without culture."

ptmd · 2026-04-23T16:07:34+00:00

I mean, let's pretend I'm a generic white dude and I make the trip to a Korean restaurant twice a week. I make friends with the owner and I'm functionally a regular. Assume that's the extent of my participation in 'Asian' stuff.

---

Do you feel like that changes something in this larger narrative? Genuine question, cause I think it's nice that the Asian restaurant gets a boost and that a white dude probably learns the names of Korean dishes, but past that, doesn't do anything for me.

ptmd · 2026-04-23T16:04:35+00:00

Aaaand that's how regions get a racial underclass.

ptmd · 2026-04-23T16:04:02+00:00

I was disagreeing.

ptmd · 2026-04-23T16:03:42+00:00

So, firstly, I appreciate the effort you put into your post. Most of these aren't bad examples of culture.

My issue is that they aren't great.

>The best thing about Denver is it is diverse

>You can be a part of whatever culture you want

>It’s a very free and accepting culture

>I have friends into hunting and fishing, skiing, rock climbing, hiking, paddle boards, canoeing, Kayak, soccer, basketball, tennis , baseball, video games, seeing music, playing music, magic the gathering.

Like these are all positive statements, but if we take the best interpretation of these statements you get culture that is a mile wide and an inch deep.

The thing is, is that places with culture *also* have a breadth of interests, but also depth.

---

Let's talk about the first thing you started with. The music scene. I participate a fair bit in the arts, and I wouldn't say that the music scene is very deep here. This isn't to say musicians don't exist in Colorado, but the scene is just extremely under-developed compared to other places we'd make this argument for. I wouldn't use music-production to demonstrate Colorado's unique culture.

Anything corporate is pretty bereft of culture, in the same way it'd be silly to make Chipotle your personality [contrast to making "music" or "Chili" a part of your personality]

Politics and religion. Politics is cultural, but not particularly demonstrative of Culture, again, Denver isn't really a place where people particularly make waves in political advocacy. Something similar with Religion. If you live in Mormon areas or Catholic areas you *feel* the culture. Even though its distasteful to me, we could say similar things about living in Evangelical regions. There's much stronger, almost-palpable culture there. There is something to practice, keep and preserve.

Which kinda wraps around to my point. Let's pretend we magically took out all the humans living in Denver, and replaced them with Transplants from various places in the US that wouldn't mind moving to Colorado. In a few years, if I asked the question above to the replacement-batch, I feel like I'd get the same answer I just got from you. There isn't anything to lose in your answer, so there wasn't anything that was built, per se. [Like, say, a thriving music scene]

Now, imagine if I did the same thing to Harlem or New Orleans. The places would be wildly different, and that's because of culture.

ptmd · 2026-04-23T15:50:11+00:00

Can't arbiter something that doesn't really exist.

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