"Real median middle class income has stayed effectively constant since the 1980s"
That's the entire point that was being made in the first place! Productivity has increased massively, income has "stayed constant" - So, we're working harder and producing more for the sole benefit of the rich.
I've seen this argument before.
Maybe if you shill for billionaires a bit harder they'll give you one of their yachts.
This has literally killed games that failed to deliver the reality of their brief to their players. Promise one experience, deliver another, and people quit.
Maybe people are downvoting your replies because this is a commonly discussed and well-studied issue in design circles, but you're failing to understand the problem and dismissing it as a "misguided" concern.
Just because YOU don't think it's a problem doesn't mean it isn't a problem.
The very concept of "commissioning" an "AI artist" is as ridiculous as it is hilarious.
You see... when you "commission an artist" the first thing you have to do is sit down with them, and describe, in detail, what you want.
All an "AI artist" does is feed what you told them into a robot, get a bunch of low quality shitty facsimiles of art out the other end, then select the least bad one to sell you for money.
But... the effort and time it takes to describe your desired image to another person is just the same effort and time as describing your desired image to the robot. All the "artist" does here is slow down the process then charge you money.
Neither is landfill, and both are about as valuable.
I do love when someone jumps in to "well actually" all over people who are just having fun - and their assertions are just wrong.
It's more like commissioning a thief, but sure.
Are you somehow of the impression that this comic series is about a videogame? This is a scene from a tabletop campaign.
Here's my full unbridled take on this. Strap in, it's long.
First of all, RPGMemes doesn't have a published strict ruleset about what is and isn't "on topic" for the community. If they had rigorous rules saying what people can and cannot post, and this was clearly outside of those bounds, perhaps you'd have a point, but the community doesn't, and you don't
You've said this isn't "roleplaying content" - You haven't provided a definition of what you think roleplaying is. This is pretty common diversionary bullshit from people who don't have a good argument - "your thing doesn't conform to my definitions, but I won't provide my definitions so you can't refute me."
If your definition is "is this related to a roleplaying game" the contextual clues are fairly strong here, what, do you think goblins and orcs are real? These characters and this moment were part of an ongoing tabletop campaign, and anyone familiar with tabletop roleplaying can figure that out without having followed the story. RPGMemes posts are very commonly people sharing a moment from their game that they found entertaining.
Most people would consider this comic to directly contain the act of "roleplaying" itself. It conforms more to that than most of the content in the community. For me, roleplaying is those conversations and moments between the mechanical gameplay, where you define who your characters are and learn more about them. You might not have been following the story of these characters here, but this comic helps reinforce and develop their personalities to the audience that are following it - and these little moments are what roleplaying is all about for a lot of people.
"What is a meme" is a much harder question. There are thousands of contradicting definitions out there, so it's going to be possible to find one to support any position you might have - this makes the whole argument "what is a meme" kind of pointless, and engaging with it won't accomplish anything because you'll just say "no it's not". Reddit RPGMemes (that spawned this community) and this community commonly hold that anything comedic is fair game. If there is "an element of humor" involved it's allowed. There's an element of humor here.
You might think "it's only a meme if it follows an established meme format" - in which case, 80% of the posts here are "off topic" why are you so obsessed with this one specifically?
You might not like the humor, but a joke isn't "off topic" because you don't like it. A joke isn't off topic because you don't understand it.
OP has been very polite, and when posting their first comic here, they asked the community if they thought such content was on topic. There were many positive responses. OP has checked with the community and the mods several times since to make sure that the community wishes to see this content, and they do.
OP posts are almost always original content, made by them from scratch. They have contributed a lot to this community. Their posts are consistently highly upvoted and many users have even stated that they come here specifically to see OP's posts. All of OP's posts here are about roleplaying, and those posts have spawned many productive and interesting discussions about the roleplaying hobby in the comments also. Many of these discussions have helped people explore how they view the hobby and grow as roleplayers. OP consistently engages with comments and provides useful advice to newer roleplayers seeking help.
Comics about roleplaying campaigns have always been welcome here - multiple users post comics about events from their session, not just OP. They're all accepted as on-topic content - even the ones that don't contain any elements of comedy.
In general, it's easy to be kind. It's easy to be nice. If people are having fun with something, and it's not your fun, you can... just ignore them. You don't have to go into the posts and shit all over them for no good reason. You don't have to start fights with literally everyone else in the comments. Don't yuck my yum.
If you, personally, don't want to see a specific user's content in a lemmy community, there is a block feature. It's a single menu click and their stuff is gone - you'd get exactly what you wanted, and you wouldn't cause any drama. You can get exactly what you want, and not look like a total idiot. If other people are having fun, the way to respect the community and keep it positive and welcoming is to just leave them alone - just filter out the stuff you don't want.
OP has contributed a lot of high quality posts to this community. The ONLY thing you've contributed is to show up and demand that they leave. For what? To make the community that you are not contributing to better for you specifically? You don't even post here.
There are multiple other "non-roleplaying, off-topic" posts available here that you could have demanded be removed, but you didn't. Many posts here that are far less on topic than this one, but you didn't demand they be removed.
So, It's pretty odd... I had a look through your post history and your only contributions here are to demand this content be removed, or to argue with the community when they disagreed with you. It seems to be a pattern across lemmy, you show up in a random community that you've not taken any part in, leave a few negative comments, and then contribute nothing else. Maybe it's just that you're a troll? In that case, is this what you really want to be doing with your time? just going around and trying to make other people as miserable as you?
The only connection to that pattern that I can see for this specific post is that several of your posts are explicitly LGBTQ-phobic. Is it because the characters here are both female that you're so offended? Is that why you asserted that this content would be more appropriate in "furry communities" despite none of the characters being animals or having any animal traits? You also said this comic is "about sex" when it's not. It mentions sex, but it's about character interactions and embarrassment, and clashes of personality. Is this the far right homophobic viewpoint that "the existence of gay people in media is inherently sexual" coming out?
Sure. Let's take 20 years.
Healthcare outcomes are worse. Healthcare is more expensive. Life expectancy is lower. Fewer people can afford to buy a home. Fewer people can afford to retire. Commutes are longer. People have to work more hours in a week to get by. A higher percentage of people are living paycheck to paycheck. Infrastructure is collapsing. Towns are in more debt. Higher education is VASTLY more expensive. Literacy rates have decreased. A vastly higher percentage of people work two jobs to make ends meet A vastly higher percentage of households require two working adults, rather than one working adult, to pay bills.
But sure go off about how it's so great we have the Apple Vision Pro now.