lol understandable, I did finish it & was glad to have done so but thought it was a slog that was carried by its amazing themes & setting much more than its gameplay. Also, why did they have northern cardinal birdsong in the middle of europe

I am not sure exactly what you are referring to here. Maoists in the Philippines?

Recently played the game Pentiment, which is excellent in bringing this time period to life - albeit very boring as a game. Part of the plot involves peasants revolting and demanding the twelve articles. These came out of the German Peasants' War of 1525, which was put down brutally as the nobility slaughtered 100-300k peasants.

In the modern context I think this is interesting to think about. Probably 1 person in 1000 has ever heard of the 1525 German Peasants' War. 300k people being killed during a revolt in the modern day US, achieving none of their demands, would be a cataclysm. But generations endured that period and the ones before & after it. To me this is an antidote to some of the eschatological thinking I often encounter on the left that is like "this can't go on for much longer"; it will indeed go on for longer. Much longer than you think.

One thing I'll give GoT (spoilers for first season/book to follow but whatever): I love the scene where ned stark shows up in the throne room to lever king joffrey off the throne by appealing to the RULES and then is promptly arrested by the person controlling all the people with weapons. A lesson there, perhaps!

never forget this banger by the cruelty squad dev:

Cruelty Squad uses Godot by the way. It's good. Play it!

not getting into nebulous culture impact stuff but many millions of people would still be alive which seems good

lol this absolutely does not happen, there are entire industries dedicated to providing their justifications for them. at most they will be like "wow all the hard choices I had to make... for the greater good maybe... mortals can never really know... I'm a profound thinker for having these thoughts"

For the latter I think it’s because they mainly operate along the southern border and thus recruit in that area, which has a lot of Hispanic people.

Does your org have the vibe of a friend group hanging out or the vibe of a church volunteer group?

Not that it was ultimately particularly successful but my last org I hosted monthly dinners at my place. People enjoyed my vegan cooking and we just hung out and broke bread together. Board games are a decent option if you're all past 30 and so inclined. Anything to get people to spend time with you IRL. Absent close shared circumstances like coworkers I think you really have to manufacture bonds beyond being mad at the same stuff you read online. You don't have to be best friends or anything but if someone is going to an action they should think "here is an opportunity to hang out with my buddies" instead of just "here is an opportunity to manifest my stated values IRL"

Federated platforms do not have the bandwidth for endless instant-load high definition video. Even pixelfed (instagram clone) is marginal. Photos barely load on this website. It might be viable to home-host something like TikTok in 20 years or so.

I can’t blame someone for wanting to live in the empire instead of struggling for freedom in the periphery, it’s what I do. It’s easier to have a nice life in the place all the wealth is flowing to.