The Trump or Biden decision is not democracy

You’re 100% correct there, unfortunately. It’s become the choice between a firing squad, or death by a thousand cuts.

I’m one of those people “privileged enough to not already be suffering”, as you put it; unfortunately I’m also terribly empathetic. Four years of Trump did a lot of damage to the social fabric here; emboldening the worst our society has to offer, appointing three conservative SC justices to overturn Roe, tax breaks for the owning class, and so forth. The country is becoming increasingly hostile to women, queer folks, and other minorities… Hell the MAGA crowd has even convinced a good chunk of the working class to hurt itself in it’s confusion.

I suppose I see any means of staving that progression off, even if I’m repulsed by the choice, as a net neutral. Perhaps I’m naive, maybe another Trump term is exactly what we need for people to wake the fuck up and take it to the streets; but I have a feeling it’s going to be a much more violent struggle fighting against bloodthirsty fascists over milquetoast liberals.

I’m rambling too now lol. Sorry for dragging the conversation out, I think I just enjoy talking about this stuff in a non-combative environment for once 😅

Cute bait, little guy. Keep it up :)

Apologies for the America-centric response, I know these ideas aren’t limited to the states, it’s just what I’m most familiar with.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of neo-liberals and I think they get a lot of justified flak for not doing enough, or what’s right, and I absolutely understand not “voting for people who are able to shrug off my very existence”. If I were in your shoes, I’d be in the “burn it all down” camp too.

In 2016, I wrote in Bernie Sanders out of principle, because he felt like the only candidate who genuinely cared about what was best for regular folks. I also thought the rhetoric around Trump was overstated, particularly, I thought the whole Antifa crowd was super cringe. I grew up in a conservative environment and none of the people I knew were actually fascists after all… Well, 8 years later… I have the hindsight to know that I was wrong. Fascism is alive and well, and it’s thriving in my backyard.

I don’t want to vote for Biden, his administration’s handling of Israel and it’s genocide is an affront to humanity and one more thing to add to the list of shit that makes me ashamed of this country; it’s just that, in my eyes, the only other viable option is so much worse…

I wish I had the answers, any policies that could bring meaningful change to a two-party system are in the hands of people who have everything to gain from keeping things the same. I’d like to think that enough overt acts of civil disobedience could change things, but I don’t think it’s bad enough for most people to gather the numbers necessary to bring it about. We’ve been given just enough luxury to keep us placid, but not enough to allow us the time, money, or energy to air our grievances. It’s a sorry state of affairs.

Anyway…

TL;DR, I respectfully dissent, but your experience is valid and I don’t blame ya, hopefully things start looking up in our lifetime :P

Edit: I missed a word

I get where you’re coming from… but when the alternative is mask-off clerical fascism, it ain’t a hard fuckin’ choice.

Voting democrat is just plain harm reduction at this point, as laughable as that feels to say given present circumstances… But this shit show is what we’re stuck with unless we can somehow convince the feckless bastards to implement a better system than first-past-the-post, so other parties actually stand a chance.

It won’t happen, but neither will convincing over half of the population to vote third-party; and abstaining, while principled, only yields more voting power to Y’all Qaeda.

True.

I could maybe see an argument being made in favor of having these kinds of security measures for the first month after release to protect sales, since it’s usually the period in which most sales are secured; devs do need a sustainable income after all. But that would also necessitate ignoring the potential performance degradation resulting in a poor first experience for players, and many publishers just leave it in for the lifetime of a game, which is a disaster waiting to happen (as seen here).

Overall, I think piracy is mostly a pricing issue above all else. With AAA titles getting increasingly more expensive and being released in broken states, it’s not surprising that people don’t want to spend $70 on a game that they might end up hating and opt to “demo” the game first. Refund policies can help alleviate the issue, but are hardly a silver bullet, with games inserting tons of fluff at the beginning to ensure you exceed the playtime threshold.

Either deliver the games you promise, or price them according to what’s actually there, and I’m sure the majority of gamers would be content in paying full price. DRM only serves to increase friction for the honest people paying for your games.

I mean the premise already feels a bit absurd, but I’ll play…

I’m not a vegan myself, and I don’t really hang out in vegan spaces that much, so my answers may differ from your typical vegan, or not… who knows. But I suppose if the general goal is to preserve life where possible, then you should absolutely try to find some place for the animals to live out their days in peace. If we can manage to stuff them all in neat little boxes on the land we have now, I doubt it’s some intractable problem. You don’t have to let 'em run free and “out of control” per se, repurpose the land of the now defunct factory farms and slaughterhouses, build a number of sanctuaries all over the place, and plop 'em there. Of course, no one can possibly know all of the variables involved, so I’m not saying this is a well thought out solution, I’m just spitballing… but we’re not exactly hurting for land, to my knowledge.

However, suppose I granted you:

Realistically the amount of livestock is not sustainable and they’d need to be culled in gargantuan numbers

Why would that necessitate this outcome?

And then you get the slaughter without the benefit of feeding billions of hungry people.

Veganism isn’t some virus that physically prevents you from eating meat, and plenty of vegans have been meat eaters at some point in their lives. If it came down to it, I imagine there would be a steady supply of folks who would opt to revert temporarily instead of letting it go to waste. Vegans may disagree with me here, but I think it’s certainly a more ethical choice if the animals are already dead, can’t let the sacrifice be for nothing.

The vegan viewpoint on animals really just boils down to eliminating unnecessary suffering and death. Many are fine with the prospect of hunting, fishing, or raising livestock for food when there aren’t other options (eg. environments with insufficient crop yields to feed everyone or infrastructure to get other food), the problem arises from the fact that those of us privileged enough to live in a land of abundance continue to needlessly slaughter. Do we need to eat? Of course. Do we need to kill things to do it? Fuck no.

All that said, I think a more realistic transition scenario would be something like the meat industry halting slaughter operations, exhausting their existing supply until either there are no animals left to kill, or there are a small enough quantity to where we can just yeet the rest onto some farms somewhere. Not that vegans would be entirely on board with that, being anti-slaughter and all, but it’s at least a reduction in harm and a more believable way for things to play out… I think.

There’s truth to that. None of us is free of blame, and there’s always going to be a cost associated with the luxuries and comforts that many of us enjoy; but it’s not about “feeling morally superior”, it’s about doing the right thing, reducing unwarranted harm and suffering as much as you reasonably can. And changing your diet, eating more fruits and veggies and less meat, is probably one of the least obtrusive ways to do so (save for folks with rare medical conditions, or people who live in an environment without an abundance of arable land). Even if you don’t give a shit about the suffering of animals or the environment, you at least ought to care about your own well-being.

I’ve eaten meat my whole life, still do… but I’ve cut back a lot, and it really hasn’t been that difficult. Every time this conversation comes up, nothing annoys me more than the hive-mind crawling out of the woodwork to dump on vegans for daring to speak out against something that is demonstrably harmful in several ways, and then claim that vegans do it only for the purpose of moral grandstanding. Moreover, the absurd amount of appeals to nature and the lazy “bacon tasty” retorts make all of these people look like fucking dorks.

You don’t have to flagellate yourself for eating meat, you don’t even have to give up meat entirely… But don’t be a jackass about it, acknowledge the harmful reality you’re contributing to and you can either accept it for what is, cut back and reduce your contribution, or choose to lead a life that doesn’t enable it at all.

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Potatoes, pasta, bread, legumes, nut butters, vegetables, fruits, jelly, jam; all things that many people already eat with some regularity.

Time and resources are hardly an excuse, you don’t have to spend two hours a night preparing some 5 Michelin star meal with the most organic, non-GMO, [insert buzzword] ingredients in order to make better dietary choices, at least not in the first world where we have ample options… Shit, even just reducing your meat intake by 10% is a net harm reduction that adds up.

The slave labor thing is valid to an extent, but not entirely analogous. For better or for worse, modern society is increasingly dependent on technology; folks rely on it, in some form, to find/perform work, pay the bills, stay in contact with friends and family, survive the climate they live in, travel, etc… This isn’t typically the case with meat, it’s often just carnal desire which results in the death of something to the tune of ~80 billion (with a “B”) animals every year that didn’t really need to be slaughtered.

People absolutely should be upset about the conditions of workers being exploited anywhere in the world and advocate on their behalf where possible, but our position shouldn’t be: “Oh, some bad shit happened over here, so I guess it’s fine to allow this bad shit over here to proliferate as well”… just sayin’.

Probably because they do, at least in the realm of dietary choices. Choosing to slaughter billions of sentient creatures every year for food and accessorization, when the majority of us have an abundance of other options, is morally fucked… and this is coming from somebody who eats meat with some frequency.

Just because we like it, or because it’s easier, or because it’s “tradition” doesn’t mean it’s morally righteous, it just means we’re selfish assholes 💀

When people lash out at vegans it always seems to boil down to some degree of cognitive dissonance… Eat meat and revel in the immorality if you so desire, no one’s stopping you; but don’t fucking lie to yourself, and don’t get butthurt when someone holds a mirror up to your face. The loss of life, environmental impact, and the effects on our own health is enough justification to argue in favor of veganism, vegetarianism, or some other alternative that doesn’t result in needless harm.