Tagaziel

Were we ever at reasoned politics? Tribalism has always ruled the human mind, centuries of technological progress and cultural development did not change that.

What's the title? /distractionmode

It's not a particularly long report, to be honest. Just pointing out relevant facts.

Actually, that's a link to The Vault with a more detailed rationale. Funny how NMA and The Vault are the only websites to do a bit of digging.

Woman posts a Fallout 4 rumour on a we-pay-you-for-page-views site, Fallout fans flock, revenue stream grows. The worst part is that I envy the author her business acumen. Posting rumours in that way is a pretty great way to get cash for, essentially, free. http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Blog:News/Why_that_Fallout_4_rumour_should_be_taken_with_a_grain_of_salt

I am aware that the medieval times were dark times (and if I didn't, the game likes to remind me of that every time I castrate a boy), but you're right, I forgot that Islam was much more tolerant than Christianity in the medieval times. I guess after I finalize the Byzzie playthrough, it'll be time to hit the south.

Really? Any recommendations for a starting dynasty? I'm a dirty liberal, so historically tolerant rulers would be a big thing for me. Also, give my regards to Claudius.

Am I the only one who didn't have a problem with those pin ups? I've got the CE and the artbook is just lovely, the high-resolution pin ups in particular. Plus, there's plenty of strong female characters to balance them out. I liked Foltest's daughter in particular, even if she got in a bit over her head.

I've been wondering: how many of you are currently playing the best strategy game to come out in 2012? I'm currently alternating between my Polish megagame (which actually transformed into the Wendish Empire, consisting of Lithuania, Ruthenia, and Finland, the latter accidentally due to inheritance shenanigans) and the Byzantine Empire (which is now the Roman Empire back again and Orthodoxy rules supreme). Byzantine gameplay is pretty damn awesome, especially blinding and castrating your political opponents. The current standing policy is to blind rebellion leaders and infidels (roughly in line with the Byzantine custom), giving Orthodoxy adherents a pass. I have yet to check out the Muslim gameplay, which was added in Sword of Islam. Did anyone play it? The decadence meter seems like an interesting addition. Most importantly, are there fun options to torture people, like in the Byzantine Empire?

That *is* an improvement, though.

If by anti-male you mean "no longer pandering to testosterone-poisoned alpha males and/or socially inept basement dwellers" then sure, modern games are increasingly anti-male.

The system is legal, so the point is moot. The logic "if something ends up where it shouldn't" is bizarre. There is no guarantee that a surgeon won't accidentally sew up a scalpel in your abdomen. There is no guarantee that a policeman won't confuse you for a suspect and detain you. There's no guarantee that you won't get ran over by a car next time you cross the road. See the pattern?

So, do you have a constructive solution? One that doesn't involve blinding and crippling the U.S. intelligence agencies?

Actually, you were the first person to raise a particular point and have not provided any proof. As such, you still have not fulfilled your obligation to provide evidence. Therefore neither I nor anyone else who negates your claims is under any obligation to provide you with any proof. Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. So, until you prove that there is no negative impact (good luck with that), you will remain a whiner who complains about not seeing enough **** in games, instead of a competent partner for a discussion.

Ever heard of the Freedom of Information Act?

There's a world of difference between making attractive female characters and making them objects for lonely males to salivate over. For example: Veronica (FNV) and B&B corps (MGS4). All are women with plot relevance, proper backstory, and are pertinent to gameplay, except Veronica doesn't shove her **** and ass into the camera when she appears. By the way, I didn't bother replying to your previous post because it seems you don't get the point and instead prefer fashioning straw men to fight with.

I'm kind of sad that I share a continent with you.

So you mean when I'm leaving my house and entering a crowded street I'm altering my behaviour to the form desired by society? Cool, totally didn't know that before. Sarcasm aside, I think you've confused Bentham with Foucault, the designer of the Panopticon and the developer of the panopticism theory. Also, 1984 is not really relevant because there is no ubiquitous Thought Police. The key difference is that Miniluv could and did monitor everyone, everywhere, at every point of their lives. Our intelligence agencies do not and cannot do that.

React, but in moderation and with the proper research. Shrieking and flailing is hardly the best answer. I'm a proud EU citizen and I see that Chancellor Merkel and other European leaders are reacting, so I'm not sure why I should flail about and shriek. I'm also willing to give the intelligence directors benefit of the doubt. But maybe that's just the lawyer in me speaking, you know, presuming people to be innocent until they're proven guilty and all the other outmoded foundations of the modern world. You do realize that with exabytes of data exchanged each day on the Internet storing all of it would be impractical, right? You claim that ECHELON was intrinsically limited, but ignore the fact that PRISM is intrinsically limited in the exact same way. You need to have criteria and a granularity policy to effectively wade through the millions of gigabytes exchanged on the Internet every single day. That's what amuses me the most about the claims that all of this data is analysed and stored. I'm not sure, but I doubt the NSA is employing a million employees who are going through 2.5 GBs of intercepted data each day just to seek out DISSIDENT THOUGHT to INTERN people in FEMA CAMPS.

It's interesting that you try to compare an easily falsifiable thesis to something that's much more subtle and hard to track. By your logic, the problem doesn't exist and there are no chauvinist male gamers. Yet there are plenty of them and the problem is very much real, ranging from reducing female characters to eye candy (strange how very few male characters are ever reduced to that position) or placing them firmly in gender-typical roles. Did I say that? Wait, let me check. No, I did not. And yet another straw man. Did I say it was offensive? No, I did not. The point was that the reduction of breast size improved Elizabeth as a character by reducing the overt sexualization of the character. Because men aren't sexualized like women are? It's not a hard concept to grasp. All I have to do is open YouTube comments, random video game forums, or just read the reactions to Kim Kardashian's work.

On the subject of sex: An interesting take on it is present in Baldur's Gate 2, when Viconia, in a moment of weakness, spends the night with the Bhaalspawn. It only gets more interesting from there onwards, as she tries to distance herself from your character. I thought it was a neat way to provide insight into the Drow psyche.

Brilliant! I'm sure no one would even so much as try to abuse the Sacred Right to Total Privacy that Cannot Be Ever Breached for nefarious purposes. After all, if no one is permitted to open mail for any reason, why would anyone try to use such a perfectly secure system for discussing illicit activities or disseminating illegal materials. Sarcasm aside, you do realize that, except for human dignity, no right is absolute and irrevocable, right? The foundation of the modern state is a balance between the interests of the individual and the interests of the many. This balance is necessary for the protection of the citizenry, whether they like it or not. Such as? "Creeping authoritarianism" is a buzzword I'd associate with eg. the German far left, Greens, anarchists, and communists (i.e. the biggest nutjobs of the German society), used to instill fear in listeners without actually having to explain it. I think his point is that shrieking every time a new security tool is unveiled/uncovered and throwing around analogies to Nineteen-Eighty-Four and assorted conspiracy gibberish is a disservice. The populace gradually starts to ignore these "revelations," which can prevent it from acting down the road when the government actually does something terrible.

Maybe you do something like LTC Daniel Davis and create two versions of a report, one that's based on unclassified information and publicly available and another directed to the Congress and other people in power? http://www.afghanreport.com/ Whatever you say about Davis, he did not blow the whistle indiscriminately.

You should play it. Improves on the original in every possible way. If possible, get polish voice overs with subtitles. Can't say if trolling or just trying to make me very sad. Great, you made me sad. Hope you're satisfied. Meanie. Why the hate? Gothic 3 was great, its only problem was a rough technical base.

Why do you insist on pointless arguments attempting to reduce an idea to absurdity? Nobody's proposing (re)introducing barbaric punishments, in fact, people are actively campaigning against them and for the abolition of the death penalty in the United States, so the trend is in the other direction. As much as I like your writing, the point is kind of bizarre. What, background checks shouldn't be used at all? Regardless, you're still avoiding answering the "how." How would someone abuse the system? How would he avoid logging the background checks? How would he avoid detection? You are claiming that the PRISM system would enable political conspiracies to create the equivalent of a dictatorship, yet you fail to answer how such a bloated organism could function. If the Prism system could be revealed by a single employee barely out of his test period, how could an entire conspiracy based on no-one ever blowing the whistle function? In fact, how would it even form in the first place? The infrastructure required for the project requires hundreds of employees, each of which can blow the lid off the whole thing if he notices something wrong or out of the ordinary. Limiting the conspiracy to just the bigwigs won't protect either, since you're relying on dumb luck to not be discovered. Either way, any attempt to use the system for political gain is going to require so many co-conspirators as to be impractical. Terribly impractical, especially when you consider that politicians don't exist in a vacuum and have entire courts. All you need is a single overheard conversation for the house of cards to start tumbling down. McCarty and the HUAC were a product of very peculiar times, emerging in specific circumstances. Claiming that a McCarthy will come again is cheap populism. I.e. an attempt to avoid having to formulate an actual agenda. Describe how he could gain control of the system, avoid being compromised, and produce results publicly without being compromised and dooming his political career faster than Sarah Palin sunk John McCain's campaign.