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[smjjames]

Now it's definetly been punted to December, passed both chambers of Congress.

lolwut Bannon? He's now claiming the Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election. Which is usually something thrown at Democrats. It's Bannon anyway, so, go figure....

[Trekkin]

lolwut Bannon? He's now claiming the Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election. Which is usually something thrown at Democrats. It's Bannon anyway, so, go figure....

It makes sense; he's obsessed with destroying the government, particularly the "deep state", so smearing Ryan and McConnell while they're currently out of favor over the debt ceiling deal is entirely in keeping with his actions to date. He's also a craven opportunist who isn't nearly as smart as the Breitbart crowd would have you believe, which explains the timing.

[EnigmaticHat]

lolwut Bannon? He's now claiming the Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election. Which is usually something thrown at Democrats. It's Bannon anyway, so, go figure....

McConnell, Bannon recalled, told Trump that “I don’t want to hear any more of this ‘drain the swamp’ talk”

Well of course McConnell would say that.  Where's a toad to live with no swamp?

[wierd]

In a hole, as they hibernate until it gets wet and swampy again.  Getting corrupt asshats to go into hibernation would be a good thing, but I really dont care for nationalist economics either, just for totally different reasons than the old-guard republicans.

Namely, it does not make a lick of sense. (In some respects, it is necessary to keep some domestic production even though foreign production is cheaper and more efficient, especially when you are just one big trade embargo away from a recession, like the US really is.  If China decided to play hardball with the US over NK, it would be a bad thing) The strategy supported by Trump is the most inefficient mix of "Raw!! Amerika, Fuck yeah!", with dangerous magical thinking, without even the slightest hint of strategy involved. (Keeping a small but servicable industry domestically alive and on life support as a fallback should foreign trade go sour is a strategic position. It assures that there will only be high prices on such an eventuality, instead of complete scarcity in the market; there will still be people with the necessary equipment and skills in active service to produce the now scarce product starting day 1 of the embargo, and possibly ramp up domestic production to cover the shortfall. That is not what Trump and Co are saying though. They want to prioritize the inefficient domestic production over the more efficient foreign production, because reasons. Nevermind that this squanders resources in every way imaginable for no real tangible gain-- which is why it is NOT strategic at all.)

The thing is though, Trump does not seem intelligent enough to comprehend that distinction in why someone would not want his nationalistic platform implemented. (Is it "I like swamps, because I am a bloated fat toad that thrives on corruption", or is it "Your nationalist platform will spell economic ruin for the whole damn nation. Do not want."-- Both persons will say "Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on." just for different reasons.) He is likely to conflate the two, when such conflation makes no sense whatsoever.

[Sheb]

What's more worrying is that he's painting opposition from Congress as somehow anti-democratic. Separation of powers is there for a reason.

[wobbly]

Is it actually more efficient to produce things outside the US though? It always bothers me how happy people are to hide such things as exploiting cheap labour, laxer OH&S regulations,  laxer enviromental standards under a positive sounding term like "more efficient".

[EnigmaticHat]

Currency exchange rates.  A Chinese employee living exactly the same standard of living, with the exact same regulations, would still require far less pay to survive.

[martinuzz]

According to the Eurogamer website, who got to play as a tester, in the new South Park game, "South Park: The Fractured but Whole", playing as a character with a darker skintone will make the game harder. Your character will earn less money for the same jobs, and interaction with NPCs will be different.
The player is warned by Cartman, if he uses the slider to turn skin colour into a dark shade, saying "Don't worry, this doesn't affect combat, just every other aspect of your whole life".

Obviously, this is satire, and a statement about the reality of life for many non-white persons in the US. Sadly, half of the internet is already screaming 'discrimination', instead of applauding the authors for their efforts to criticize US society in a humorous way.
It is also possible to play the game as a transgender character.

The game will hit the stores oktober 17. Sadly, it's published by Ubisoft. It will be rated 18+, just like the South Park series.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/techblog-in-dit-south-park-spel-word-je-gewaarschuwd-als-je-een-personage-met-een-donkere-huidskleur-kiest~a4509849/

[Reelya]

I think it's a bias against / not understanding a new medium.

e.g. if the exact same type of irony was in a film, people would completely get the joke. When it's in a "game" however then people suddenly have zero sense of perspective. e.g. there was an educational adventure "game" about life as a slave in the Old South, and the media freaked out about that "trying to make slavery fun".

I think the core issue is expressed in the word "fun" - traditional media people can only comprehend of anything labeled a "game" eliciting exactly one emotion, "fun". Whereas they have no problem understanding that e.g. books and film can elicit the whole range of emotions, they have a blind spot to understanding that interactive media can do that, too.

And this is just idiotic. Clearly a game that explicitly pays black characters less money is a statement about discrimination and not actual discrimination. It's kind of hard to wrap my head around why social justice types are so pissed about this, except to think that they are acting like they "own" the issue, and any sort of take on it that's not coming from them needs to be shut down.

[wierd]

Much like when film was a new media, (and subject to many snooty asses and their biases against it as a vehicle for art), video games as a medium suffer from people saying it cannot be art, and so want to treat it as something other than that, so that they dont have to acknowledge it as a means of expression. (for a variety of reasons, some of them revolving around legalities and money, but mostly around general snobbishness. Take Roger Ebert for instance.)

[Reelya]

I think we can just dismiss what Ebert had to say there. A medium capable of diversity such as Gone Home, Paper's Please, This War of Mine, etc, has no need to defend itself from people unfamiliar with the medium.

If a literal poop on canvas is real art then - go fuck your snobby shit - Paper's Please is a work of art.

[wierd]

Indeed. I was just giving the devil his due. I dont have to agree with Ebert to know his position, or what effect that position has.

I will agree with you that he is simply dead wrong, and that we are surrounded by evocative story elements and quirky mechanics in EXISTING games that can only be described as art.

Amusingly, Dwarf fortress meets that requirement, especially as it evolves. It very closely matches his own preferred definition of art from Aristotle; It has no objective goal, and cannot be "won". there is no scoring mechanic really. (and no, money value has no reward except in dwarven happiness.) There is no final boss. It just is; It is entertaining, fun, and also has many interesting things to tell. Slight twists and adjustments of its core assumption set (raw files) results in some very interesting outcomes. It is an interactive exposition on "what if." I have difficulty calling it anything other than a work of art, especially under ebert's preferred definition. It tries to imitate life, with a fantasy theme. That's all it does.

[scriver]

Personally I agree with what Ebert is saying in that article almost 100%, except the insistence that games cannot be art.

[wierd]

His argument boils down to a fallacy. specifically, a no true scottsman.

To whit-- "Nobody has shown me a game that is art." 

He gets shown many games, he asserts "not art", creating justifications for his retort each time. The medium is rife with examples of evocative art. Take for instance, OFF. It is a twisted, and noir exposition on very dark themes (which all come crashing in when the ending is revealed) that PRETENDS to be an ordinary RPG. You dont come away from that game the same way you went in. That is characteristic of true art. Ebert just cannot comprehend how this can be.

Ebert is cut of the same cloth as the people who have asserted that high fantasy, and science fiction cannot be real literature. (and yes, that argument has been around for a very, very, very long time.)

[Max™]

Roger who? Isn't he dead? Lord knows his relevance is, what with the apparent emergence of shit like youtube stars.