I think the problem was their balancing strategy was largely nerf based and their design vision was primary weapons should suck against most things. That’s how it felt anyway. Like most guns weren’t viable and they kept nerfing the viable ones until they felt noticably worse but still noticably better than other options.

I really don’t understand their vision for the weapon landscape - most assault rifles felt bad compared to the laser rifle variant, most shotguns felt bad besides one pump and one auto and then they nerfed both of those so I haven’t taken a shotgun in some time, and a sniper or semiautomatic has never felt good as a primary despite being what I’d normally gravitate to.

Half of my play time is taking something like the auto cannon or the Quasar (before they were nerfed) and using them more like my primary weapon.

The slots don’t have identity because of this imbalance and the weapons within those slots don’t have meaningful decisions because they fit either check some boxes - A) can harm most things B) is efficient at harming most of those things - or they don’t.

In a game where part of their business model is releasing a couple of new guns every month I’ve used 90% of those weapons less than 3 times because they immediately feel bad at the highest difficulties.

So this new patch is, to me anyway, a blunt way to improve all guns and all viability - seemingly because they dont know how to do it any other way.

Ergodox EZ has my whole hearted recommendation. Their keyboards are amazing and the only thing better for ergonomics would be a more custom curved piece.

They’re a good company, I would recommend anyone checking them out.

I’ve read it, I read the discussion around it, idk man. One guy’s thoughts on a company and it’s founder isn’t enough to move me off of something without better proof, better alternatives, and worse crimes than maybe having a bad long term vision.

Hopefully every company outgrows it’s founder and becomes a system. We’ll have to see, right now I’m satisfied and that gets me off Google and signals to others I’m willing to pay.

Ya, for an alpha game with unfinished assets and lacking polish - it’s stupid good. I’ve been out of the mobs scene for like a year or two and haven’t had a shooter register for a while, so maybe I’m starved, but this thing keeps me coming back every night.

I recommend Kagi, I’ve been using it for about six months now and results - especially small web results like blogs - are so much better. I also have a pretty good time image searching compared to when I was on Google.

Yes it’s paid, but that to me is the price of resisting enshittification. Find a company that isn’t a publicly traded for-profit world-burner and pay them for their service. Is the idea of paying for email and search an alien concept to me? Yes. But I’m either paying Google whatever €120 a year in eyeballs on ads and an increasingly worse experience, or I’m paying €80 a year and getting a markedly better experience.

Now it’s up to Kagi and Proton to not turn into shitty companies while other competitors catch up and we have a thriving ecosystem again.

It’s amazing what insulation and proper sound proofing can do. Never lived in thicker walls than here in Germany. Other than the blasted church bells, it’d be hard to convince me I was living next to people if the windows were opaque.

He’s saying what you’re attributing to “a specific lack of willpower” now has scientific backing that disagrees. Your take is old school and misinformed if the current science is correct. I personally haven’t done research on the subject or read many studies but Adam Ragusea, a YouTube food science journalist covers this concept in one of his vids and several podcasts surrounding food science and (in my case) the drugs coming down the pipeline to regulate body weight touch on the research as well.

If housing is an investment vehicle for growing your money, then the people who can participate in that system will work to produce outcomes that fundamentally go against affordable housing. A society that believes in affordable housing as a right or a goal can’t allow housing to be used as a place to park wealth so that it grows akin to a stock.

Whatever prices are, they are higher when a landlord is involved. We must get progressively outlaw multiple pieces of land. Owning more than two homes/flats should cost the owner something every year, not generate wealth - and that second one should be nearly neutral.

If housing is an investment (“a nest egg”) then the people and policies that support it as an investment will stand directly opposed to people and policies that want housing to be affordable and a right.

Housing cannot be an investment vehicle akin to stocks in a society that meaningfully values housing for everyone as an objective to strive for.

Yes, of course. I wish you and everyone stuck there luck.

I am paying taxes and am able to vote, but because I make less than the required amount my taxes are essentially zero to the US because we have joint tax agreements between the two countries.

I don’t know if I’ll renounce after earning German citizenship or not but the exit tax is something I have to consider.

Ya, that’s rough. That feels like a very immature take. The two parties are not the same, voting does matter, and I’d even argue that there are people so awful that assassination does make sense but I’m happy Trump survived because I think the Republican party would have been stronger without him.

I left the US, I’m between a millennial and gen z, and I left explicitly because I was worried about the future of the US and because moving abroad is akin to time traveling 20 years into the future. I have healthcare now, I live in a walkable city with great public transit, the crime rates are lower (although most places in the US aren’t super violent, the probability of getting murdered goes way down when you leave), I have 6 weeks vacation, essentially unlimited sick time, and I’m not allowed to work overtime.

Both parties are not the same but if Democrats won in a landslide in every single election both state and federal in every chamber and every seat, how many years would it take to achieve all of those same things. I have no doubt these policies would happen with the right people in office, with radical change to the party they could even happen quickly and I believe it’s what half the people want. But the two other outcomes are 50/50 with the parties and little gets done in a timely manner and worse the corrupt judges continue to error the system, or the Republicans win one big election just one more time and project 2025 starts getting a percent complete tracker and we slide back into the dark ages.

So I left. I believe if things go bad in the US historians will look at Trump’s first victory as a period of brain drain from the country. But that’s my two cents to go with this article.

That’s my point, higher taxes does not mean less growth - you have a flawed understanding of taxes and economic growth. The government could take your tax money and convert the overwhelming majority of it towards meaningful services that a private company would have no incentive to be efficient about. That’s what free market capitalism does, it finds services and then chokes out competition until the system is inefficient at using resources.

You can look at healthcare as a great example. The US spends more money on healthcare than most other countries and yet achieves worse results than the overwhelming majority of other countries. This is explicitly because healthcare is privatized in the US and prioritizes economic growth over providing a service. Other governments prioritize providing good healthcare and when government run provide better service and a cheaper price point. So if you live in the US you have worse living conditions because your government doesn’t tax you more.

This same concept applies to transportation, Internet service (and often other utilities), elder care, housing, food. The government’s “structural nature” doesn’t mean much, every company is structured and just as inefficient. The difference is companies have an express intent to make more money, not provide better products or services unless that guarantees more money. What we see in an unregulated economy, which would require taxes to prevent, is companies find it easier to monopolize their market than provide better products/services. Governments on the other hand have the express intent to govern by the will of the people with power. In a good system this is the vast majority of constituents and not just the top 1% of wealth owners.

Your experiences with working for government or company or small town are not invalid but you have to understand that your experience is miniscule compared to the number of experiences out there. This is called anecdotal evidence. You can have all the anecdotal evidence and experience you’d like, but it’s meaningless when compared with the whole world’s experience which can only be measured using real world data - scientific conclusions or at least ones relying on some methodology. Because most governments implore 10s of thousands of people over hundreds of departments and locations, you simply couldn’t experience a meaningful amount. So you have to build your opinions not based on your limited experiences but based on data.

Cable monster I think you’re debating in good faith and for that I thank you. But you’ve got a lot of deprogramming to do - your opinions seem very implanted instead of individually formed. I

once believed less taxes and less government spending was an inherently good thing because I was told those things. With a bit of independent research, growing up and leaving the house that watched daily conservative programming, I learned that trickle down economics don’t make any sense and that reducing taxes and government spending isn’t simply good or bad - it’s dependent on what services we feel we no longer need provided by the government.

So your statement of less taxes being better on every level is false from my understanding of the world. And just like you, I’ll provide no sources, because I’m matching your effort here. The reason you’re getting down votes and the reason I can confidently say you’re simply wrong in some of these elements, is because these ideas are easily disproven with a bit of thinking, a bit of research in the real world, and it can upset people when someone holds such wrong opinions attempts to share them on the Internet without first supporting their statements.

Idk if this helps but I’ll continue to respond as long as you continue to come off as not a bot or someone looking to simply stir the pot.

Well he and congress at the time permanently cut taxes for the rich and raised them for the middle class and poor so does that speed up or slow down the economy and does it fuel or resist inflation?

Cause it’s pretty fuckin clear to me that taxing the rich less and the poor more isn’t a good strategy for a healthy society.

Ya, remember some number of them are bots or underpaid people who’s job is to spread frustration and essentially commit information warfare.

Since I moved to Lemmy I’ve gotten into the habit of blocking the bad actors after it was clear they are incurable and unsaveable. The ones who seem to live for pro-russian messaging or refuse to have a dialogue like these TLDR people.

The AFD and their supporters are a disgrace to any decent society. I hope we can educate our neighbors and improve our living conditions so that these awful groups disappear for good.

It’s just a weird concept in general despite being wholly believable. I don’t blame you nor think you’re wrong or right. Just a hilarious and sad picture, a societies main hall for political dialogue being an endless feed of algorithmically addicting content. Idk, just a boring dystopia kinda thing.

Oof, if Instagram’s comment section is where we’re having political discussions these days that’s disheartening. There’s clearly a need for a town square application for these sorta things.

This is such a shame. I just moved to Germany and I haven’t had much time to engage in politics but it seems a fundamental misunderstanding of the solutions we need is still present here (possibly with the help of destabilizing countries like Russia or China who seem to have strong misinformation campaigns running online).

Guess I need to accelerate getting involved with my local politics as soon as possible. What social platforms do Germans use to communicate about politics? I used to post on Facebook for Americans, and obviously reddit was a good place to have small conversations, but is there any place I can directly address conservative talking points in a public forum. The fact that young people are voting far right tells me we’re losing the digital battle more than anything.