They're not inherently insulting - there are ways to use those phrases appropriately, but they can be (and often are) used sarcastically, when the speaker had been clear in the first place.
Do a multitude of automated posts without comments and conversation really count as activity?
Yes, absolutely. Posts are activity just as much as comments - arguably even more so, since Lemmy is not immune to Reddit's flaw of having a hundred comments saying essentially the same thing. Some subreddits have insightful comments that are worthwhile in-and-of themselves - but they are few and far between.
Respectfully (truly - not the shitty Internet trolling version of it), it is very confusing to me that the right to bear arms would be a factor in this decision. My perception is that 2A rights are prized precisely because they offer protection against a government that is overstepping bounds or acting dishonestly/aggressively. In this hypothetical situation where you're moving to a country where the government is acting in a way that you approve of so much that you want to immigrate there - why do you need a gun? Is it as a safety net in case the government changes, or as a symbolic exercise of a right that you value even without practical applications, or for some other reason?
Genuine question, I would love to understand this viewpoint (which is, to me, very foreign - I've never been under any illusion that my ownership of a gun would have any effect if the government seriously decided to do something to me)
"_Every person who has ever done in the past, has done it with and it had _" does not imply "_The only reason anyone could possibly ever do is with to achieve _". That's a valid reason to be cautious, but not a reason to make blanket statements about an entire category of thing.
EDIT: for Day1 DLC in particular, a totally valid and non-exploitative reason for it is "we had a release date that we absolutely had to hit (because of marketing, contracts, etc.), which necessitated calling a production halt well in-advance of the release date for QA and testing - but instead of moving on to the next project, developers worked on more stuff for the same game. If that was too complex or didn't work out, we could drop it and no-one would complain; but if we'd kept developing it in the base game, and resulted in a slipped release date, there would be hell to pay"
When a company actually exists that utilizes your view of DLC, then it might be a valid criticism of the phrasing
No, that's precisely the point I'm trying to make - "every example of X that has existed so far is Y" does not imply "by definition, X is provably and definitively always Y".
You can claim that all DLC that has ever existed is predatory and exploitative (I suspect there are counter-examples; but, fine, whatever, not relevant to my point). You can say that, because of past performance, you are disinclined to trust future examples of DLC or give them the benefit of the doubt. That is all reasonable. But you can't conclude "because all DLC so far has been bad, the concept of DLC as a whole is bad and can never be used well".
As a super-simple example - here are some prime numbers: 5, 11, 37. Are all prime numbers odd? I can give you a bunch more examples if you want!
I got into a discussion about this on the TheGoodPlace subreddit before I left. You've hit the nail on the head there - it's not possible for you to get bored, listless, frustrated, unfulfilled, etc. in a perfect paradise, because then it wouldn't be perfect. If you're imagining those effects, then the paradise you're imagining isn't a perfect one, and so is irrelevant to discussions about a perfect one.
A slightly more interesting discussion is "I, as I am now, dislike the thought of becoming a pleasure-zombie in the future. It makes me uncomfortable now to consider being motivationless and content in the future" - which, sure, fine, ok. Sounds like internalized protestant work ethic to me ("I don't deserve to be happy unless I'm working hard, and I only know that I'm working hard if I'm miserable"), but at least it's not logically irrelevant like the first argument.
The most interesting version is "I don't see a continuous line of consciousness between me and the hypothetical-future-me who lives in bliss, so there's no reason for me to be concerned with their fate - they're not really me" - which is pretty subjective depending on your views of continuity of identity.
That's not the case. The following two statements can be simultaneously true:
a sufficiently-good product would sell through word-of-mouth
corporate executives are not satisfied with the small amount of purchases this would generate, because they want more profit.
Advertising is a way to generate morepurchases (and so more profit), but it might be increasing from a non-zero amount.
I don't think that the person you're replying to is entirely correct (some products or markets really do require advertising to make consumers aware), but they're closer to right than they are to wrong on a level playing field. But if the other side is using advertising, you basically have to do the same in order to remain competitive.
Arguments about the definitions of Communism or Property aside - yes, my farm. As in, the one I work on. The possessive pronoun, despite the name, sometimes connotes association rather than ownership - I do not own my school, my country, my street or (despite what Republicans might wish) my wife.
They're not inherently insulting - there are ways to use those phrases appropriately, but they can be (and often are) used sarcastically, when the speaker had been clear in the first place.