Zonetrooper @ Zonetrooper @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

May I point out this entire question is fundamentally broken.

I have absolute authority over the entire world? I order everyone to vote 'Approve' on me. "But wait!" you say, "You can't just order them to do that! They'll never listen to you!"

And that could be absolutely true. But if it is, then my authority is no longer absolute - in which case, no course I take will work, because anyone can elect to not follow it. I can't compel any group of people - nations, religions, corporations, the local elderly golfer's association - to do anything. And the second they realize that, they'll break off to pursue their own agendas.

At most, I can select one broad coalition who I think will work with me, and try to leverage a smaller group. But now we're just back to good ol' factionalism, and that's not a long-term winning solution.

Hey,

I actually reached out via email and was in contact with someone at Info@lemmy.world. I can respond again and see if there is progress this time.

Oh yeah, I totally understood why you chose to cut it off there. I'm just okay with a few more years of subsequent content.

This, though I'd even be willing to stretch it a few years later.

You get everything from people analyzing the gritty details of the technology of the setting, to the classic wild adventure romps, to wacky mystic stuff. It brought us incredible stuff like the original Battlefront II's portrayal of clones, Jango and Boba Fett being further fleshed out, Shatterpoint being basically Space Vietnam, and more.

tl;dr (if I am getting this right):

• Sometimes moderators don't get if something is forbidden under the TOS, or believe something should be forbidden but isn't. Ask an admin if uncertain.
• Moderators can further restrict content beyond the bare minimum of the TOS. Please don't complain to the admins if a moderator does this (in good faith, obviously).
• Conversely, moderators, please read the TOS and don't tell someone something is forbidden under it if it actually isn't.
• Previously, admins told mods to remove content re: Jury nullification when discussing violent crimes.
• Currently, this has been limited only to discussion of jury nullification of future violent crimes, as it could imply someone should actually perform said violent action because they would be acquitted via jury nullification. As far as I can tell, this is the only actual change of any rule in this post.

Summary over, personal thoughts follow: That one specific change, I don't actually have any issue with. Reasonable enough. Obviously the devil is in the details of what is forbidden under "advocating violence"; that is a monstrously complex discussion beyond the scope of this particular announcement. Furthermore, the value of some of the clarifications in this post are dependent on admins actually holding an open dialogue with users, the track record of which is... variable. (I am still waiting on a response from months ago, which I was then told would be available in a few weeks.)

Additionally, since lemmy.world remains federated with other instances which tolerate unpleasant behavior and I see no indication on this post that this will change, this functionally changes little of users' ability to access that content and contribute to it anyhow.

Yes!

The whole game's aesthetic was fantastic. Nailed that kind of grungy, late-90s cyberpunk aesthetic in a voxel RTS game in a way that I don't feel any has since. Something about the style made you feel like fighting in a world being strangled by Tiberium.

Yep. (Mira Furlan was a real punch in the gut, particularly.)

Ah man, Renegade. Definitely had one of the more interesting multiplayer match concepts. The closest thing I've maybe seen was Planetside, and, uh... well, Planetside 2 has plenty of its own issues.

But still. Good memories of shacking everyone into a flame tank, or running around like madmen trying to figure out where the hell that nuke beacon was planted. Have you seen the Tiberian Sun Renegade efforts?

The volume spontaneously resets itself to the default level ~50%. I think it means the headphone jack has issues, and it's thinking a device is being connected/disconnected.

As long as we're on cancelled sci-fi shows, Babylon 5 spinoffs. The entire setting is more or less dead and it hurts.

(Yes, I know about The Road Home. It's not the same.)

Man, they won't even remaster Tib Sun and RA2. You know fans would go absolutely bonkers for those, even moreso than original C&C/RA.

I'm particularly bitter about the unreleased FPS shooter. Seeing the Scrin as actually in-person terrifying monsters, plus a more empathetic Brotherhood of Nod, could have made for some great stories.

I am in a relatively stable area with police who are reasonably well-behaved and under rational oversight. So... all the usual reasons?

I've called because I sighted a possibly rabid animal. The police didn't arrive in a hail of gunfire which struck a bunch of innocent bystanders. I've had them turn up to take notes on a car accident. They were polite and not aggressive.

Like, I fully recognize I'm lucky to live in an area where the police aren't abusive. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to call them because they are assholes somewhere else.

I mean, at least for me, the question is "Who?"

In more ways than one. It's quite evident to me now that a candidate needs to be charismatic, not just have some good ideas, to motivate voters to take their side. But "leftism" and "leftist" are still pretty vague labels. Just personally, some of the left-wing figures in the US today would earn my vote and some would not. More broadly, and I think there'd be a big difference between voters-at-large's willingness to accept Bernie-esque proposals and some of the more out-there stuff I've seen.

While the kits may use standardized plumbing connector, they are not all guaranteed to use the same standard sizes.

Tossup between "You didn't join the military?" and "Why the hell do you want to sleep so much! You're an adult! You could be up at midnight!"

It's not a great classical literature, for sure. The characters are almost entirely flat and forgettable, and even the handful that do grow (the young Soviet commander, the US destroyer captain) barely do so. Their experiences never almost never inform their later actions.

But among the techno-thriller/war-simulator genre, I found it more compelling than several more recent attempts (Ghost Fleet, Nuclear War: A Scenario, etc). Many of those seem to go out of their way to bend the plot to produce the author's intended point, and while RSR wasn't exactly innocent in that regard, I found it far less guilty than others - largely because Clancy was holding to the known or theorized-near-future capabilities.

Where I actually find it fascinating is how, in retrospect, we can see the biases of the era influencing how Clancy makes certain predictions:

• The Soviets place immense importance on taking Iceland to permit a "second Battle of the Atlantic" against US carrier groups. In retrospect, we know the Soviet Navy had no interest in this and intended to act as a cordon around northern Europe; specifically the Soviet SSBN bastions.
• While Clancy did loosely predict the nature, role, and value of Stealth aircraft, the design and air-to-air role he describes them in is actually too advanced for the 1980s setting. Essentially, Clancy bought the rumors, which were wrong.
• Land attack helicopters with ATGMs play relatively little role in the ground fighting. This was because the current generation (namely the AH-64) had just been introduced; their full capabilities and impact were not yet publicly available.

These mistakes, although understandable, provide an interesting insight into what the American defense establishment was thinking about in the early 80s.

Absolutely solid choice both.

Talon isn't that deep of a character, but he's a great look at a smuggler who "made it". Mara, meanwhile, is just distilled awesome.

Grand Admiral Thrawn - but only the EU version.

Really a fascinating character in so many respects. One of the more complex and difficult to decipher ones. Was he really a genius out for the good of the galaxy? Or a social status-climber willing to latch on to any cause he could while serving his own ends? Were his more questionable deeds really done regretfully "for the greater good", or was that just an excuse?

I have, thank you! Unfortunately, I don't see the niches I'm looking for, and even when they do, they're basically dead. I can only scream into the void so long...

If I'm understanding this correctly, you're looking for fiction that focuses on framing more of cultural and societal shifts than technological changes?

What you're looking for is difficult to find in the framing of Science Fiction because its very framing invokes technological advancement - technology is the application of science, and machinery is the result of technological innovation. Science fiction is, at its core, about how discoveries in science may change the world.

Nonetheless, you may want to look into the sub-genre referred to as "social science fiction". Although it's not going to be devoid of advanced technology, the focus will be more on the social and societal impacts thereof, than the machinery itself.