It’s true that I’m not on any other social media, but I’m here every day. There really hasn’t been much talk about Veilguard at all. Nothing like, say, all the Starfield criticism.

Is it a big commercial failure? I noped out of the series after seeing the direction they went with Inquisition, but I haven’t really seen any negative press about it. Kinda seems like the article’s just trying to stir up some shit

Yeah, I tried Black Flag a while back—because I’d heard good things—but just couldn’t be bothered with all the busy work. I did really enjoy Mafia 3, The Witcher 3, RDR2; I’m not anti-side quest by any means. I think I need a more compelling story, and that’s never been AC’s strong point (based on ~3 AC games I’ve picked up and quickly dropped over the years).

People are saying it. Many great people.

I think 75% is far too generous an estimate, tbh. Every policy I’ve acquired through the ACA-mandated marketplace has been garbage, right from the start. For-profit health care is evil, and the ACA just served to further entrench this evil in our lives. It did some marginal good, and I’m certainly not advocating for its repeal in favor of ‘concepts of a plan’. But 75%? I can’t get on board with that.

This is something I do, so I’ll take a crack at it—though, bear in mind, it might be total bullshit.

It’s a defense mechanism. Many popular things are—in my estimation—objectively terrible. Every time something utterly devoid of merit (and often actively detrimental to the public good) is generally agreed to be a popular sensation, the connection I feel to my fellow human beings takes a hit.

I want to believe in people—in society. But I’m clearly a judgmental sob. So maybe by avoiding the popular things, I’m trying not to further my own alienation.

Top 12 by play time. Definitely wouldn’t have guessed some of these were up there. I’ll often leave a game running while doing something else, which skews the results. I’ll have to check what gog galaxy says later.

I listen to ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore’ pretty frequently, but am not familiar with most of his catalogue. I’ll check it out!

Once it’s been declassified. Executive Order 13526 specifies the necessary procedures. Among other things, it states that the original classification authority must set an expiration date, after which the information should be declassified.

If an earlier date isn’t set, documents will be automatically slated for declassification after 10 years, or a maximum of 25 years(at the discretion of the classifying authority), barring certain exceptions.

That isn’t what NATO Restricted means, at least not in the US—I’m not going to attempt to delve into Hungarian law. It falls under the category of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) established by Executive Order 13556, and codified in DoD Instruction 5200.48

This information is not freely available to the public, and must be cleared for release according to the procedures detailed in the aforementioned documents, which specify that it should only be disseminated for official government purposes.

Downplaying 9/11 as one of ‘a handful of retaliatory strikes against US interests.’

The language is provocative, but factually accurate.

Not even vaguely what fucking happened.

Yeah, it seemed plausible, but I couldn’t find any evidence at all that this took place. Fair enough.

Fucking all of this.

Yeah, it’s some real tanky-tonk incendiary language. And the timeline’s all wrong. The US-backed regime started in 2001, and lasted until 2021. Seems like they just grabbed the first couple of years from the wikipedia article.

That we sold to both sides of the Iran-Iraq War is undeniable; the idea that the war itself was our fault and that 9/11 is just ‘blowback’ for that is fucking insane.

It does appear that the current historical consensus is that the Carter administration did not give Saddam the proverbial green light for the invasion. However, there are more than enough contemporaneous claims to the contrary to convince anyone who’d rather believe that they did.

Christ, I don’t even know where to begin.

I mean, fuck the house of saud. And the US does share responsibility for all their depredations, just as it shares fucking bibi’s.

We were involved in the violent overthrow of many democracies throughout the years, this I agree on. But funny enough, Egypt isn’t one of them. So this had potential to be a good point, but failed by being posted by someone utterly detached from reality.

Yeah, the CIA may have helped coordinate the 1952 coup against the Egyptian monarchy, but doesn’t appear to have precipitated the 2011 overthrow of Mubarak. Happily, this gets me out of diving into whether or not Mubarak’s government could plausibly be called a democracy. Plenty of truth there, otherwise; a misstep, as you say.

'Whatabout’ing 9/11 by implicitly arguing against it as a ‘violent act of terrorism’ as originally quoted, and then trying to justify it by the implicit comparison of 9/11 with the French fucking Revolution of the oppressed lower classes finally striking back against their oppressor.

Yeah, the French Revolution parallel is a real stretch.

Do you really not see any of these as objectionable.

Oh, of course I do. I just have really low expectations when it comes to the veracity of claims made by lemmy tankies in general, inclusive of underpantsweevil. I don’t disagree with you—I was just mildly surprised to see your response, given the average factual content of any of their posts.

Thank you for taking the time to respond! I hadn’t read about some of this stuff for a while, and wouldn’t have otherwise. Best of luck to you.

Old underpantsweevil’s hinges are certainly quite wobbly, but in this particular comment they’re simply providing some historical context for the 9/11 attacks. I don’t know how fair it is to describe the NA regime as brutal, relative to Afghanistan’s current and former governments, but that’s a pretty minor quibble.

They’ve stopped short of claiming that the attacks were justified, and the assertions made are broadly true. What in particular do you find objectionable, if I may ask?

Most SF guys I’ve known have been pretty chill. Some of the young guys are dumb assholes, but that’s hardly exclusive to the special forces community. They’re certainly given a lot more latitude than the rank and file, and that can go to their heads. Shitheels like this are not the norm, based on my limited perception and sample size (mainly us army SF).

Literally every guy I knew in 10th group that went out for CAG came back with some ankle injury from the land nav course. Didn’t help my gopher-hole paranoia. Why is seemingly every stateside DZ just teeming with some kind of burrowing creatures?

I mean, it’s worth a shot.

Money can be exchanged for goods and services!

You’re much better off not knowing, imo. Influencers are like Tinker Bell, in that they disappear if there aren’t enough people who believe they exist.

Hey, if we can make a pencil out of leaves, cephalopods can swim through our GI tract like species 8472 through fluidic space.

I’ve just reinstalled Grim Dawn, having last played it some years ago, and am currently working my way through Act 2. I don’t frequently play ARPG’s, but I’ll try a new one when I get it in a bundle or somesuch. Mostly, they don’t hold my interest. Grim Dawn, vanilla and unmodded (I assume there’s some kind of modding scene; haven’t looked yet) still manages to scratch that itch for me. At some point I’ll pick up the DLC. Right now I just want to find something good enough to replace this crazy caster 2h sword I’m using, so that I can bring Albrecht’s Aether Ray back into the rotation!

I really appreciate this take. It’s good-hearted and makes good sense. I’ll try to remember it going forward, when cynicism overwhelms.