213374U

You guys really have a negative view on the world, it is incredibly unhealthy. It is also terribly inaccurate, your life is much better than it was at any other point in history. Do you really think humanity is the same as it was 2000 year ago? 1000 years ago? 100 years ago? Numbers man, cynicism and negativity does not equal intelligence. Negative how? We are just discussing facts. Facts are neither negative nor positive. Just because I don't believe in pinko lefty coombayah multiculturalism and chocolate-paved streets doesn't mean I'm a pessimist. Humanity has progressed -quite unevenly, too- but humans are largely the same. Been to Pompeii? And I never said I was particularly intelligent, regardless of how cynical I may be. We all have our vices.

You, of all people are accusing me of ignorance? Quick, call an ambulance, I stabbed myself with the irony! United Statian Catholics, perhaps. Please, don't ridicule yourself trying to explain an European how Europeans feel. I live in Spain, bro. It only gets more Catholic than that in some regions of Italy. I know what I'm talking about. You, don't. Old people may feel Catholic, but even for them that takes a back seat to feeling Western any day of the week, except for sundays, maybe. India is a perfect example of the eternal failure of clashing cultures finding an enduring, stable, peaceful coexistance based on egalitarianism. Remember, American Indian-style "integration" is not real multiculturalism. But hey, the government does what it can to keep the lower castes down, you got that right, at least.

That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying there are no longer any protestants and catholics in Europe? Also you don't seem to have a real concept of what the US looks like or how multicultural communities work. The American Indian Nations have also been winning court case after court case against the US for reparations and rights, so you can read up on that if you'd like to learn how they are doing. Is India a perfect example? Of course not, this isn't something that happens quickly, as I've stated. England is a great example, there are still tensions between Ireland and England and even Scotland, but it isn't exactly warfare. Their unique cultures are still predominantly accepted as they are. Do you have a lot of Saxons versus Briton problems anymore? Assimilation doesn't work, accepting diversity does. Lol no. Not even close. I'm saying people in Europe don't consider being Protestant or Catholic a defining trait anymore. People in Europe have -again, after centuries of near-constant war, a fact you conveniently forget- developed a common cultural framework inspired by the ideas of people like Locke, Voltaire, etc. And that didn't exactly come without bloodshed either. So, to sum up, a cultural paradigm was overthrown by means of force. This is, not peacefully. India, either there's peaceful coexistence and mutual acceptance between the different ethnic groups, or there isn't. And presently, there isn't. I just showed clearly that the random example you produced actually works against your argument. Take it like a man and admit it. Dismissing violent religious and ethnic tensions as "not really that violent" in the face of episodes of ethnic cleansing (did you even bother reading the link?) or suggesting that "it'll get better with time" where history actually suggests the opposite is not just disingenuous, it's insulting. And yeah, throwing some money at the Indian "nations" clearly solves everything. Who cares, you can always print more. How about you give them back their land? Didn't think so.

You mean Ireland don't you? Scotland... what?

Oh crap. I don't even know where to start. Let's see... Catholics and Protestants no longer fight across Europe because after centuries of warfare and millions of dead we have finally figured that it's not such a good idea to define ourselves as Catholic/Protestant and make a fuss over that. Eventually we just decided to drop the whole thing, which actually shows how certain ideas can never coexist. And no, India isn't a model either. And read up on the Naxalites, too. Those guys sure know how to have fun. Not exactly a sign of a well-adjusted and peaceful society. Oh, and don't forget the constant reports of discrimination against the Sikhs. And finally, the icing on the cake. I'm honestly flabbergasted that you'd use the US as an example. The US gov't is the perfect model of cultural assimilation, as the MO to be "crush everyone, impose economic slavery on the remains, and build a nice McD's and a parking lot afterwards". If you think that only partially exterminating the original owners of the land and confining them to "reservations" afterwards is an example of successful cultural coexistence... there's not much to say, really. Yeah... And instead you're posting here? FAIL.

This is beautiful, but not very practical. Methinks you haven't actually immersed yourself in a society that has attempted to get "multiculturalism" to work, or any society other than your own, for that matter. I live in a country that has significant (as in, you couldn't imagine how much up there in comfy Scandinavia) immigration, and have had the fortune of coming into contact with many due to jobs I've held. And let me tell you, being nice just doesn't cut it. There's no way to write "being nice" into law, and laws, my friend, are the structure that keeps chaos and anarchy at bay. The are also, by their very nature, a tool and a means to bend wills. There's this little thing called moral minimums where tolerance simply has no place, and as Mes suggests, moral minimums differ from culture to culture. "Democracy" is nice, only there's no true democracy anywhere, and the devil hides in the details. I think it's quite telling that you speak so fondly of "tolerance" but are so quick to dismiss conflicts arising from cultural differences, the solution apparently being simply general niceness. Do you believe people don't love their culture, their customs, their ways? I think your stance is deeply arrogant; those people and their little cultural idiosincrasies should simply drop their generations-old beliefs and customs and "be nice". What if they'd rather continue being who they are instead of conforming to your poorly defined idea of "nice"? Tolerance only goes so far. And, historically, multiculturalism has been proven a failure as a foundation for state-building. Deep down, humans are still deeply tribal. Yes, even iPhone-toting humans. Sad but true.

You are possibly right, but for the wrong reasons. Russian media are overwhelmingly owned by Russian oligarchs, with whom the incumbent president is publicly at odds. So yeah, they may be biased and propaganda filled, but it's mostly anti-regime stuff.

Heh. I work in customer service and sometimes I find myself thinking "everyone (but me) is an idiot". I've realized that's not really a problem, just a sign that I need a 5-min break. It's interesting though, why some attitudes seem to flourish while others spontaneously stifle, on different communities. The BSN is much more over-the-top, to put it that way, than the Obsidz boards (sorry guys), while both cater, in principle, to more or less the same kind of people. Worthy of note is that moderation over there is much more heavy-handed but that doesn't seem to faze the regulars. I've only really been involved with the ME3MP part of the forum, but I remember being perplexed that the threads that contained the most substance invariably drew the most hate. Group dynamics are funny like that. Nice outlook. This sort of thinking makes you feel better if/when you are asterisks yourself or...? I know I've behaved like asterisks myself here sometimes to a point I'd probably have lost some teeth if I wasn't behind a screen in the ass end of Europe. But then again I've had that IRL too, and I can honestly say I never sought to personally hurt anyone with my antics. I try to make no assumptions about people online anymore. Seriously, it's pretty sad that you think so lowly of "most people". Especially when you most definitely don't know "most people".

Flattery will get you nowhere. And come on, no matter how well reasoned and articulate an argument is, it can never beat a pic of someone crapping on a copy of ME3.

Eh. I think rates of piracy are directly related to the demand of said game. I have no numbers to back me up, but would be surprised if crap games are pirated more relatively to sales compared to higher quality games. You are right, of course. Didn't Crysis # break the record for downloaded copies some time ago? Oh well, can't win them all.

Oh, was that what we were arguing about? Next maybe we can argue about whether life is fair or not. I'll take the 'it's not' side The point I was aiming for is piracy is not a good solution for when you do feel ripped off. I'm not sure why you feel the need to jump all over me for that. I've spent the last few pages trying to explain that being ripped off is not a justification for piracy; thatithe comment was in response to something that had been said earlier along the lines of "poor devs, imagine how they'd feel". If you got the impression I was attacking you, I'm sorry. But I'm simply not going to agree that "life is unfair" translates to "you'll be ripped off sometimes and there's nothing you can do about it".

If you've lost track of the arguments, there's this snapback function the boards have. Use it. It started where you insinuated that getting ripped off is a common fact of life and "should get used to it". And it's strictly false that bugs are getting better. Case in point, the original Civ never crashed, ever. The newer iterations... lol. Also, sub-optimal config.sys memory allocations are not related to a particular game in any way, and cannot conceivably be considered "bugs". It's part of the problem, I think. The "fast food" approach to game production fills the market with titles with dismal replayability values, mediocre writing, shallow mechanics, supported by the premise that eye candy overload can make up for that. Market saturation and creative exhaustion mean I'm much less inclined to give my money to someone for a product that's only superficially different from a competitor's or even its own 2-year-old prequel. If I had more time (and a much higher tolerance for crappy games) I'd possibly pirate, while still happily buying the (very) few titles a year that are actually worth their pricetag. Instead, I find myself with a bunch of bargain bin/Steam sale titles that I've barely played for 3-4 hours, and dropped due to a lack of interest and a nagging feeling that playing a game that feels like a chore for the 2-3 hours leisure time that, at best, I have in any given day, is pointless. It's also the reason I cancelled my TOR sub after I hit level thirty-something with my main. Huh, I could play it with mouse flawlessly. Voice Recognition was useless though. Okay, how did you manage that? Could you somehow adjust the weird mouse reverse-acceleration in the settings or just sucked it up? Because I searched high and low for a solution, edited registry entries, etc, and nothing helped. I'd really like to finish that one because the visuals and premise were fairly decent, and the gunplay was at least entertaining. Halp?

I'm not insulting you. I can't afford it - I have 2 warning points already. Fun in games is also the only requirement for me. Unfortunately -for this discussion- "fun" like "unplayable" are subjective notions. See, the problem with your stance is that, no matter the arguments I make, no matter the specific shortcomings in games I point to, no matter the PR falsehoods I remind you about, you can always fall back to "well, that's like, your opinion, man. I had fun with that one". I don't care if you had "fun" with it. The point is, I had to drop Binary Domain because it suffered from the console port syndrome so bad that playing with a mouse is all but impossible. Voice recognition was bunk, too. I had to drop TFU because of similar reasons, on top of the game's writing being especially terrible in a genre renowned for its general lack of quality in that regard. I had to drop Civ4 because it had a memory leak so severe that the game would either crash constantly or slow to a crawl in long games. I had to download a cracked exe for FO3 as Securom thought I was a pirate and prevented me from running my copy. I had to drop ME3MP because my favorite class, the Vanguard, is bugged so deeply it's unplayable (yes, unplayable as in getting locked outside of the map for the whole match), and Bioware hasn't fixed it even after stating in the last patch notes that it had been solved. Those are just right off the top of my head, I'm sure others have similar experiences. I guess they were "playable", in the same sense that a car can still run if the A/C is busted, the lights don't work, but it's not the product I've paid full price for.

Oh, I see. No point in presenting facts because the dudeness is strong with this one indeed. Screw falsifiability, I have an opinion! So yeah, it's always the stupid consumer's fault for not enjoying the endless stream of craptastic, bug-ridden, generic repackages, after all, you do! Good faith, business ethics and plain old shame are worthless concepts from barbaric times, but piracy is a CRIME and y'all filthy pirates are the scum of the high seas. Anything else is just like, your opinion, man. You can try clothes on before you pay for them, and clothes don't start to suck or stop protecting you from cold after you wear them for an hour or two. And if they did, you could return them for not working as advertised. (FACT) edit: agreed about kickstarters (to an extent) and the point about piracy as a "tool" for anything other than getting stuff for free. But that's not what I was discussing.

Yeah but under the old thinking, this was already accomplished by keeping "our bastards" in power. They could be used to fight proxy wars, and they expanded "our" influence, while keeping local undesirables in check and enforcing stability. Their human rights records weren't so good, but that's realpolitik for you. With the new approach, you have formerly stable countries thrown into chaos, potentially or overtly hostile elements filling the power vacuum and, for all intents and purposes, diminished influence both regionally and globally. What's the idea?

A rip-off isn't only a game that "doesn't work". Rarely a game does not work at all (even though this does happen with some bull**** DRM systems) -- mostly it's just bugs preventing the game from working as advertised, the serverity of which varies from title to title. It's also the product not living up to the expectations created, explicitly, by the people charged with promoting it (the Casey Hudson/ME3 ending example). This is an already ludicrous concept (puffery) taken to outrageous extremes. The thing is, the industry is used to really, really low quality/consumer satisfaction standards, and with mainstreaming it's getting worse (!). If you are sold rotting fruit or spoiled meat, you'd be an idiot not to return it, even though you could perhaps still eat it and not die. If you are sold a piece of clothing that completely loses color after washing or tears after wearing it once, you can return it and get a new one or a refund. Same thing with most tangible goods. A game? You are out of luck, there is no physical evidence to push your claim, and you can't go solve your grievances with the publisher or developer face to face either. But on the other hand, they insist piracy is "theft". Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

We both know it's no use trying to rebut the "moral" aspect of piracy, because that's not its raison d'être. You said it yourself in this very thread, even if it was just paraphrasing someone else. It's not about justice, it's not about consumer rights. It's about convenience. People pirate because warez is cleaner, easier to acquire, and to top it off, it's free. Everything else is just an excuse or an exercise in self-deceit. Now, there is a lot the industry could do to attack the real causes of piracy, and that sure as **** is not pump out half-assed sequels every odd year, protected by ever-increasingly obtrusive DRM schemes or ****ty forced-online activation platforms. Good to have you back, btw. I know I always end up picking on you but... seriously? Sorry if I don't fit into your resigned goody-two-shoes consumer land fantasy, but I don't usually accept being ripped off. Ofc, I never preorder or buy on release, but still. That's just not a very good mindset to have.

Looks good on paper. But then, Iraq, Libya, Egypt. So probably that was the MO until '91, but hardly anymore. I have my own ideas (well, not really mine, I'm not that smart) regarding why, but I'd quite like to hear your opinion. What's the master plan behind this radical policy shift whose result is, invariably, political instability and, consequently, economic decline or outright collapse?

Truly one of the mysteries of the world... http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/06/the-absurdity-of-usisraeli-relations/

I'm a sucker for Paradox LPs, your excellency. Will be following this one closely as you diplomatise the **** out of these infidels.

Well, I was thinking something more along these lines.

Not necessarily a "traditional" MMO like WoW or TOR, but something like Planetside. I'd buy that. Err... maybe I wouldn't, right away, considering how bad EABIO are at solving basic problems of the online genre such as connectivity issues. But yeah.

So little love for Victoria ITT. P'dox weekend on Steam means 50% off so I think I will finally get around to giving Vicky2 a try.

Another MP DLC announced, and still no actual patch in sight (unless MC can correct me). I guess it's nice that Bio is trying to keep the game interesting by adding new content, but I'd like a bit more support. The tech kind.

That figures. There is no Nobel Prize for Mathematics. Rumor has it good ol' Alfred was pissed at some mathematician for scoring with some girl he had a crush on or something equally apocryphal. (Come on, Obsidian! you should have spotted that one instantly. I am disappoint.)