Nah this is just whataboutism. We all agree that the highest severity issues are access to heathcare/nutrition/sanitation/education in developing countries or among the homeless etc. That doesn’t mean we are suddenly not allowed to talk about anything else.

Do you do this in real life?

Colleague: “hey did you catch the game this weekend, boy I hate being a jets fan”

Blarghly: “that’s rather gauche, don’t you know there’s major food insecurity in sudan”

It has the intellectual weight of a parent trying to cajole their toddler into eating.

Yeah, again this is just semantics, a 401k in British English is 100% a pension. A UK defined contribution “workplace pension” is just a tax sheltered retirement account until it is annuitized, which is common and sensible but not necessary. The annuity is technically a totally different product, offered by life insurance companies (who interestingly with reference to above conversation would typically hold very little equity exposure backing it). Brits also call the equivalent to the social security retirement benefit the “state pension”. It’s a catch all for assets you use in retirement. Whether that’s used to fund an investment drawdown product or a life annuity or just taken out and splurged on a Ferrari makes no difference.

About half of the US population is enrolled in a pension even today…

https://www.unpri.org/private-retirement-systems-and-sustainability/private-retirement-systems-and-sustainability-united-states/5990.article#%3A~%3Atext=The+US+is+the+world's+biggest+funded%2Cactive+(working)+members+and+10.3+million+retirees.

Not true of UK defined contribution, you can do what you want just like a 401k, though it may be disadvantagous for tax purposes.

It’s pretty normal in British English to use pension as a synonym for retirement account, though I can see why you don’t like that.

Didn’t knights of the old republic have farkle in too? It’s a good game, and I guess just unfamiliar enough to bolt into a fantasy setting.

God help the partners of patient gamers (the ones that aren’t gamers themselves)

That’s his whole schtick though, I bet 90% of people end up with the “good” ending and it rings hollow and everything just feels like his chickens coming home to roost. I really into the Arthur morgan/Joel from last of us type: sympathetic but ultimately shitty character getting what they deserve and it feels fair but still sad. Fucking brilliant story telling in both cases.

P.s. I totally agree that the gunfights are almost always immersion breaking.

Some of your examples of harmony involve fourth wall breaking, which is interesting because I had always thought of the harmony between game and story as about immersion You’re right though, being seen as a player for what you are trying to do is the essence of harmony. That is if you’re trying to immerse, being wrenched out of it is bad, but if you’re taking the piss, the world should take the piss right back. Hard for a game to do both, but I had vivid memories or baldurs gate 1+2 characters talking to their “omnipreseent authority figure” that walked that line perfectly.

Yeah, the main story could have been so great if it had more non murder ways to progress. Or made your murders fewer so as to feel as impactful as the deaths of characters around you were. I it’s defence though it has brilliant moments where they’d really woven the game mechanics into the story. Mega points for minigames and the mission where you get drunk.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bigot

It’s mad given that Scotland technically is quite pro-renter. You just can’t enforce anything so landlords have learned not to give a fuck. A friend viewed a tennament they were trying to let with no kitchen (as in no cooker fridge or sink). Like something out of trainspotting.

Thiiis. The insiders need to laud the goals of protesters and the protesters need to ease off on the “complicit” insiders a bit. We are on the same team, and the combination of approaches is more powerful. Disagreeing on methods is fine, you pull, we push, momentum baby.

There are ways to resist short of burning shit down. The idea that this is a dichotomy is exactly the “yet you participate in society, interesting” meme.

What fucks with me is that you can’t control all the variables. School and peers can outweigh the ideas you try to put forward. I feel like I’m working on deprogramming more than I actually have a chance to teach already and my kids are only small.

Fuck me, for self-proclaimed coward you are unbelievably smug. Don’t you consider that a “better” life also means being able to take pride that the way you move through the world doesn’t actively harm others. Just awful.

It continues despite general opposition. That’s exactly the problem. Systemic and unconscious biases are really hard to combat, even if there wasn’t a vocal reactionary minority. “just don’t discriminate” has at this point been proven beyond doubt inadequate to equalize opportunities.

Well how about, before you form an opinion, you go do some reading.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053482221000115

I take it you’ve never been a hiring manager or worked in HR. Hires are almost never made on an objective basis, the bias of interviewers/assessors inevitably affect outcomes. In the absence of positive discrimination, on average, this means unfair outcomes for minorities (because some people are bigots and most people have unconscious bias against out-groups).

I really enjoyed them too, which I guess I could have made clearer. I felt like my enjoyment was heightened by my knowledge and nostalgia for the books, but interesting yto hear another positive perspective without that aspect. I suppose what I’m trying to say is not that they aren’t or can’t be good, but that they aren’t and can’t be a faithful and complete adaptation.

The world building aspect is why I tend to think TV series are generally the better screen medium for scifi than feature film, having more space to explore the causes and consequences of a fantasy premise. But yeah, I love a spectacle. The setting and soundscape of the new movies are top. Like I can’t rember feelings like that in the cinema since Lord of the rings.

It’s impossible to adapt, see all previous adaptations. I think you’ve pretty accurately summed up the shortcomings of the medium for that story. Watch the movie to marvel at the setting brought to life with a nice soundscape, ideally see it on a big screen. If you read the book you’ll have some attachment to the characters and universe anyway so pacing and skipped detail shouldn’t be too much of a problem for you. Just don’t expect it to be perfect. IMO the second part is a bit stronger, maybe because the scope is tighter.