aluminiumtrioxid

And I think that's ego-stroking wankery that feeds an unearned sense of superiority. Evil is small, evil is stupid, evil is petty. But we like to dress it up as something more than that, something that has a certain grandeur to it, because it lets us feel better about ourselves when we do small, stupid, petty ****, or feel like we fought off a real menace when we refrain from doing so. Evil is this: A frothing maniac with the world's smallest ****.

And that's exactly the thing I like about it! It portrays evil as something really, really petty and immature, kind of like how it is in real life?

Stupid and doing stupid maybe not the greatest pitch for a worthy villain? *cough* Palpatine *cough* Not necessary, but movie didn't give that as explanation why he has such hard time. Given the sheer volume of information the movie communicates to us about him visually, I'd be really really surprised if the fact that he looks just like an emo teenager would've been some accident and not a very deliberate choice.

Exactly. What people seem to not understand about Kylo Ren even though the movie signals it very, very carefully is that he's basically an angsty teenager with little to no self-control and an unhealthy dose of hero worship towards Vader, who has somehow managed to skid along on sheer force talent alone, but never had the training to make real use of that talent, or a need to step up his game. I think he was the best part of the movie, honestly. Movie does piss poor job to show Kylo Ren's inner struggle and it gives very little reason behind that struggle. Does he need any more reason beyond "he's a stupid teenager doing stupid teenage rebellion stuff with the power of a god at his fingertips"?

Exactly. What people seem to not understand about Kylo Ren even though the movie signals it very, very carefully is that he's basically an angsty teenager with little to no self-control and an unhealthy dose of hero worship towards Vader, who has somehow managed to skid along on sheer force talent alone, but never had the training to make real use of that talent, or a need to step up his game. I think he was the best part of the movie, honestly.

I've never seen a superhero movie that I liked, and I doubt that will change. Those things are pretty much always below 5/10 for me, I can spend my time watching other movies. To be fair, Daredevil is more like a noir series with superhero trappings than an actual superhero series. (Which is what's good about it, make no mistake.)

Interesting question. I mean, if you seek out a supposedly-enlightened old master of mysterious space magic, you'd kind of expect there to be a pilgrimage involving unreasonably high stairs leading to a mountaintop and scenery porn galore, but I'm not sure Rey's companions would think of the tradition.

I prefer to think of it as "enrichening the experience", not "bothering" After all, everything is better with Monty Python references.

Tbh. I lol'd at all three of them. 2 and 3 got a laugh, 2 because of the spotlight and way everything pauses for..The Moment. 3 because the staring went on way too long, became sort of creepy and awkward. 2 got a laugh out of me thanks to the "I want to be free of this pain" line, which, coupled with the actor's looks, totally made me think "emo teenager". ...Kylo Ren in general was a source of laughs, especially at the time when he got shot by a bowcaster (which we've seen to straight-up blow up stormtroopers earlier), which immediately conjured the Black Knight and his catchphrase, "'TIS BUT A FLESH WOUND" to mind.

Tbh. I lol'd at all three of them.

Probably not too far, given that ME3 had far deeper customization options than either of its predecessors (definitely deeper than ME2, that's for sure).

What

...With unlimited resources, there's nothing stopping you from pouring it all into virtual reality research, and let everyone live in their own simulated version of whatever nice place they want to live in.

Personal favorite of the year: Sunless Sea. It may be mechanically subpar, but it easily trumps even classics like Arcanum in terms of worldbuilding. Coming from an essentially unknown studio that only had a browser game to its name so far, that's amazing. Biggest, sprawlingest, content-richest RPG made on a by AAA industry standards laughable budget: Pillars of Eternity. My first playthrough ate 56 hours of my life. It held my attention to the point where I powered through it despite only having half the memory listed under minimum requirements, which caused the game to crash on about every second area transition. It's really, really good. Best RPG I could actually run this year: Shadowrun: Hong Kong, hands down. It's much tighter and thematically more focused than Pillars, to its credit, which is why it inches its esteemed rival out in the end.

Well that is, of course, predicated on the idea that you know better than anyone what good governance is, which is where things start to get iffy. Of course, with unlimited time on your hand, there's nothing stopping you from figuring it out better than anyone ever did.

Well you hardly have unlimited time if you're still bound by worldly concerns like mortality.

Probably go mad with the revelation that I'll outlive the inevitable heat death of the universe, and spend my days gently rocking back and forth in a corner.

There is always some trade off, and some people are willing to make some sacrifices in hopes of various other things that money might give them. Doesn't quite answer my question. Why should society as a whole incentivize people to ruin their physical and mental health in pursuit of the incentives said society offers for doing so? How about this; If people are not working harder to earn more who will pay the taxes that funds the welfare for those who don't work. So you agree paying the welfare of those who don't work is a desirable goal in and of itself? No, I do not. It has to be done, I don't have to like it. I was just trying to answer your question. If it didn't have to be done, what would be your answer? Unless you have a very specific and reliable method of determining who's "lazy", that question can hardly be answered.

Is there inherent value in letting people freeze on the streets because they were unable or unwilling to make decisions that would allow them to earn enough to keep their homes? Is there inherent value in letting people die of diseases because they were unable or unwilling to make decisions that would allow them to have access to basic healthcare? Because at one point, you have to decide whether your abstract principle of "no money should be taken away from people who earned it, even if it impacts their quality of life in a minuscule manner" is more valuable than the actual human lives that are lost because of this policy. Exactly. Why should we judge people's life choices and come to the conclusion that certain people should live below the poverty line, even if they took maximal advantage of the opportunities at their disposal, even if they do work hard, because they deserve it for not going to a business school?

There is always some trade off, and some people are willing to make some sacrifices in hopes of various other things that money might give them. Doesn't quite answer my question. Why should society as a whole incentivize people to ruin their physical and mental health in pursuit of the incentives said society offers for doing so? How about this; If people are not working harder to earn more who will pay the taxes that funds the welfare for those who don't work. So you agree paying the welfare of those who don't work is a desirable goal in and of itself?

There is always some trade off, and some people are willing to make some sacrifices in hopes of various other things that money might give them. Doesn't quite answer my question. Why should society as a whole incentivize people to ruin their physical and mental health in pursuit of the incentives said society offers for doing so?

Sounds like a pretty miserable existence. Remind me again, what societal good is achieved by heavily incentivizing people to do that to themselves?

To be fair, research shows income over 70k dollars a year or somesuch doesn't meaningfully increase happiness, so there's that.

I really don't get the squeamishness. I mean, if you didn't want to murder the absolute living **** out of somebody (or at least inflict grievous bodily harm), you wouldn't use a knife to begin with. That's what a self-defense knife is for!

What happened to "a similarity in core values is the foundation of community"?