Quoting: ArehandoroActually, I would even argue countries that still have it, that are many, should not be considered democracies.

Well that's a take I guess. I'm pretty sure I live in a democracy, even if it isn't perfect.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Arehandoro[...], put us in a situation that we've not seen since World War II.

Well, we've not seen this exact situation before WWII either. And none of this equals "closer than ever to world war", no matter how dire it all seems.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Guestcloser than ever to world war

No, I still disagree. I don't believe we're closer to a world war now than we were at several points in modern history. But I'm not going to get into a pointless argument about this as there's no way for us to objectively measure and compare.

Quoting: GuestThe Ukraine/Russia - Israel/HAMAS conflicts are the most severe conflicts since WW2

To the nations involved, certainly. I'm not sure if everyone else would agree. Some very bloody wars and other atrocities happened in the last ~80 years, and there must be at least a dozen active war zones even now around the world. (I'd find a list but I really need to get to bed. Shouldn't be hard to locate one though.)

Of course, I'm not trying to downplay any of this. Every conflict is important and every single victim is one too many. We should definitely do all we can to help, even if it's small stuff like voting for sane leaders and donating to helpful causes if possible. However, buying into the sensationalist rhetoric isn't very useful, in my opinion.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: WMan22I've always hated the cynical "we as humans are really bad" rhetoric with a passion, it implies there's collective blame to be had for all of humanity, that we never learn anything when clearly if you have people saying "hey can we stop this war shit" that's not the case, as someone is recognizing an issue that has plagued us and wants to put an end to it, thus making it not the fault of "humans" but individuals.

That's not at all what I'm saying though. I can see how it can be read that way and I guess brevity didn't really help my message here.

I'm not blaming human nature for these wars, just opining that the current situation isn't somehow new and unprecedented. Old wars end and new wars start, and innocents die. Usually for the most banal of reasons, just like you said. Someone rich gets richer.

Quoting: GuestIndeed. The difference is that the world is being drawn into it, unlike last decade. There is far more concerning rhetoric and polarization than ever before. The situation is quite unstable, like a powder keg.

I think about 90% of that is just commercial media and a certain class of politicians milking our fears. I disagree with "ever before". Maybe you've just not been around for the previous "powder kegs", or haven't paid attention if you were.

We heard similarly dire predictions when Russia started their invasion of Ukraine recently, and when they annexed Crimea a few years earlier, and so on. Same with various conflicts in the middle east. Every couple of years there's a crisis that's definitely going to start the next world war. I suppose it might happen some day. I'm just not sure we're actually any closer now than we were 20 years ago, or 40 years ago, or 60 years ago. Granted, we're no closer to world peace either.

As a counter to the both of you, I'd say that these days far more powerful people (and multinational corporations) would suffer from a worldwide conflict than would stand to profit from it.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Perkeleen_VittupääPlease, stop these wars everywhere.. Just put down your weapons. Please.

Expect more wars in the coming decade. It will get worse

There's never been a decade without wars. We humans are a miserably warlike bunch. But I guess "worse" is when it affects us personally.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Unless the game got fixed since Samsai streamed the Linux release a week ago, prepare for some jank. Models glitching out etc. You can find the VOD here [External Link] if you want to see for yourself.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I'd say the problem here is specifically how a corporation is incentivized to behave in a typical capitalist economy. It would be naive to blame each ghoul of a corporate CEO individually while ignoring the underlying reasons for their ghoulish actions.

I'm not much of a revolutionary. The solution isn't likely to be that we simply scrap the system and try something else. It would be more logical to honestly acknowledge these problems and take steps to remedy the worst of them using controls and methods that have been shown to work. Active (and adaptive) regulation and mixed ownership models come to mind as examples.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: 14It has gotten very tiring for all the comments to be about politics here, so I'm glad to see this comment that does not make me feel defensive for the place I was born.

First of all, I think this is economics, not politics.

I agree with everything else you said, but economics is political. That's why large corporations, purely "economic" entities, spend so much money lobbying/bribing/etc politicians. Politics is about people having different interests and deciding whose interests will be served how hard--and economics is a really big factor in whose interests get served.

That's fair.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: 14It has gotten very tiring for all the comments to be about politics here, so I'm glad to see this comment that does not make me feel defensive for the place I was born.

First of all, I think this is economics, not politics. And second: You were born in the magical kingdom of Capitalism?

To be less sarcastic: What do you expect comments on an article like this to be about? Something completely unrelated?

I don't understand why you'd feel defensive either. I'm sure most of us live in capitalist economies.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Looks weird. And fun. Wishlisted.

View this comment - View article - View full comments