xzar_monty

This is mainly for @Gorth, to whom I earlier said that there's a for-ethical-reasons-never-to-be-undertaken study to be made on the effects of warfare on people's sexual behaviors (i.e. their increased appetite for sexual crime). It just so happens that my current work project focuses on some rather grisly topics, one of which is violent conflict and its repercussions on individuals and societies. This has taught me a new concept, that of appetitive aggression, and while it's not precisely what Gorth and I earlier touched upon, it's close enough to be worth mentioning, in my view. So Gorth, here you go: https://researchoutreach.org/articles/fascination-with-violence-appetitive-aggression-males-females/ I believe this topic is pertinent to current Russia and its near-extreme brutality as demonstrated by its ill-disciplined soldiers hell-bent on rape and destruction. I do not mean to imply that this explains everything, but surely there's something in this.

Couldn't agree more. Heck, despite the fairly unimpressive trailer I decided I'm going to buy this title if only to support Sawyer after the Deadfire disappointment; that fantastic game surely deserved a lot more than it got. Now, it looks as if Pentiment is an excellent game after all, which is just wonderful.

This, btw, is one of those things that I find very odd. Clearly, preferences vary, but I also have a hard time understanding why there has to be so much combat when the rewards for it are getting smaller and smaller and it doesn't further the story one bit. The strangest combat situation I have ever seen was in PoE: they removed much of the XP gains for combat. Well, fair enough, I can appreciate that. But why, then, fill so many outdoor maps with enemy groups you essentially have to wade through? It was a terrible waste of time, made so much worse by the fact that there was no XP reward and almost no loot reward. Developers, I'm looking at you. (Luckily, this dreadful gaffe was not present in Deadfire.)

Does the recognition of Russia as a terrorist state have other than reputational and condemnatory consequences? Of course the consequences may vary from country to country, but I'm somewhat unclear about what it actually means. It's not like those four to five countries haven't already minimized their dealings with Russia, for instance, so I wonder whether this legislative move has practical consequences in commerce or other fields (outside diplomacy). Compare this with, for instance, the UN "condemning" or "strongly condemning" something that happens. It's probably better that it does condemn, but it still doesn't mean much, in practical terms.

Good question. By the way, one reason I mentioned children is because Kirill Stremousov, the late head of the Kherson "administration" in Ukraine, who was not a Wagner dude, filmed himself spinning his four-month-old daughter by the legs over his head and commented on how he heard the child's bones popping. This is a good example of the kind of culture these guys live in. Near extreme brutalization that results in total disregard for life. Which of course Putin rewards.

These Wagner mercenaries are taking the concept of "cuddly" to a completely new level. Wouldn't you just want one near your children. And let us not forget that like the murderers and rapists of Bucha, the Wagner guys are precisely the people that Putin wants and rewards.

This is a delightful conversation, I truly hope the subtitles are genuine. The position of some / many / most (whatever it is) Russians is so untenable that it must take an awful lot of cognitive dissonance to maintain.

Yes, lovely! Thank you ever so much.

There is a fundamental difference. It is true that people take different things from, say, a movie, but the movie is the same for everyone. The game, however, is different for each player, and each separate game for the same player is also different. A game is not a fixed entity. People don't consume games, either, they participate in them, which also highlights this fundamental difference. Games may have artistic qualities -- for instance, chess pieces can be really quite beautiful and a marvelously crafted rook, for example, may be regarded as a specimen of Xth century Chinese design -- but the game itself, as an entity, is fundamentally different from a work of art.

"Needs to pay" in this case comes down to "Will absolutely not pay", I would guess -- simply on the basis of what Russia has already done, in terms of foreign airplanes, nationalization, keeping other contracts etc.

Games are not an art form, they are games. They would be an art form if the player was just a recipient, not a participant in shaping how it all turns out. A work of art is finished when it gets to its recipient, whereas a game will only begin at that point. Games don't have to have any story (think poker, chess, or a million others), but if they do, they can potentially be superb at it. Think of BG2, PoE or Deadfire. For me, the excitement of those games relied on the story. Nothing against the battles, gaining XP and all that, but the story was the main thing. This is demonstrated by the fact that once I played the game to the end and knew the story, much of my interest was gone. I don't replay much, although it does happen. The storytelling in the games mentioned above is not particularly great if you compare it to good literature; it is somewhere at the genre fantasy level, I'd say, but the fact that you can shape the story makes it more interesting, to me, than reading books like that, which I never do anymore. I'm all for games with (hopefully good) stories; in fact they tend to be the only games I play. Disco Elysium was a very story-heavy game, and it's the most enjoyable game of these recent years for me. I think it's just wonderful. It didn't matter one bit that there wasn't a single classic battle encounter in it (or perhaps just one, if you count that one thing...). I am very excited about Pentiment, which I haven't played yet, at all, although I installed it yesterday.

Sounds plausible, I agree. I have also sometimes wondered that places like Mariupol might still be standing if Russia hadn't shelled them with abandon for so long. Plenty of Ukrainians might also be living peacefully at home if Russia hadn't invaded. But of course this is conjecture. Let us not be too hasty to blame Russia. EDIT: Biden has apparently told the G7 that it was a Ukrainian air defence missile.

Hard to ascertain the significance of this as of yet, but looks interesting to me, at least. Russian code spotted in places where it probably shouldn't be spotted. Two reports: https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-russian-software-disguised-american-finds-its-way-into-us-army-cdc-2022-11-14/ https://9to5mac.com/2022/11/14/us-army-ios-app/

I bet he isn't capable of sweating over something like this. I bet there is a lot of concern in his "inner circle", though, whatever that inner circle might mean.

Article 5 stuff, potentially.

Stop the press: the ISIS style execution was carried out by American intelligence services. Also, Kaja Kallas, from Estonia, is very direct in her speech. The stance of the Baltic countries has been very commendable throughout this conflict, as has been the direct support they've given to Ukraine. The Baltic countries know better than most: life under Russia is hell. (Btw, I've sometimes thought that Serbian support for Russia relies, at least in part, on the fact that the countries are not neighbours. If they were, Serbians would have had a much harder time of it. Let us not forget that Stalin was not fond of Tito at all, but since Tito was too far away, geographically speaking, Stalin couldn't really crush him, or at least it would have been too expensive for him.)

Oh yes, it was. Anyway, I think Sun City is a brilliant example of how art done "in the name of good" can often be embarrassing. Boycotting Sun City during apartheid was a good idea, and raising awareness of the situation in South Africa was also a good idea, but the song just sucks. As a pop song it's not the worst, but the preachy lyrics make it hard to listen to, no matter how pertinent the message. Banksy's new works, on the other hand, look fine to me. And in other news: that Wagner guy Prigozhin shows what a wonderful philantropist he is. This is full-blown ISIS stuff, which is not surprising: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sledgehammer-execution-russian-mercenary-who-defected-ukraine-shown-video-2022-11-13/

Now we're talking. I got into computer games back when Zinclair ZX-81 was the hottest thing around and Red Ants was the game to go to, and I must say I didn't think we would ever reach these levels of erudition. Red Ants taught me precious little about myrmecology...

I was surprised by how cheap it was. The reviews also look encouraging, I must say.

I don't know how old you are and whether I should have expected you to recognize it, but my reference was to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_City_(song)

Not especially meaningful, but still a marvelous show of solidarity from Banksy: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/11/14/banksy-in-ukraine-seven-new-works-appear-in-war-torn-sites Art specifically for or against something tends to be embarrassing (think Sun City, for instance), but these works look good. Of course it helps that there are no words.

Also, Macron tweets "with" or "alongside" Xi, thus: Interesting. The photos of Lavrov in Bali (?) are also delightful: the guy's wearing a Basquiat T-shirt, and he's got a Western mobile phone and a Western wristwatch. Such a staunch opponent of the "decadent West" he is, indeed. No hypocrisy there at all.

Yet another fire in Russia, this time in a factory whose speciality makes you think that perhaps this is not accidental, even if many of the others have been.

The number comprises people whose actions actually mattered and made some kind of difference, such as Oscar Schindler. There were very, very few of those, hence the number one hundred -- although historians naturally agree that there is no way to know the true number. The number comes from Ian Kershaw's book To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949. Recommended. Opinions, in this context, are absolutely meaningless. It's actions that count, actual deeds.

Btw, here's an interesting piece of history which may help explain parts of why the war has so few vehement opponents in Russia at the moment. The comparison isn't entirely fair because the situations also contain many differences, but it's not completely wrong, either. Anyway. In WW2, approximately 18 million people fought for the German Wehrmacht. However, there were also extremely courageous people like Oscar Schindler who did their utmost to help the jews and hinder the Nazis. Historians consider that the total number of these people during the war, in Germany, was approximately one hundred. So that's 18 million vs. 100. Tallies chillingly with the observation that it's very easy to hold to the idea of oneself as a courageous person with high morals -- as long as they are not properly tested.