No mention of Gaza or BDS and the boycott of Microsoft for helping to fund a genocide. I know you guys mentioned it a couple weeks ago, but it’s disappointing that this isn’t getting coverage alongside reviews of the game. I get that games media and journalism has to cover a new Doom game but it should also cover the call for large scale boycotts of Microsoft. I come to podcasts like The Besties and Into the Aether for stuff like that, and subscribe to both patreons. At least ITA is doing the right and responsible thing, highly recommend it to anyone else disappointed by a lack of commitment to informing listeners here.
Dissenting opinion: perhaps it’s okay for the horrors to not be present in every single facet of our lives forever, perhaps we can just have a nice podcast about video games sometimes. As a treat.
Tell that to the starving skeletal children camped out in tents amongst rubble on my Instagram feed every day. What a shitty comment.
All I’m asking is for a “hey we’re gonna talk about the Doom game, it’s important to note that due to the supply and ongoing use of cloud infrastructure and AI by the IDF, there is a large scale boycott called by BDS against Microsoft, specifically gaming. We were given a code and we’re gonna talk about the game.” People deserve an informed opinion more than treats.
I don’t actually believe that the nice podcast having a Horrors segment is going to help the skeletal children. I think there are some things people can do to substantially help the skeletal children, but being performatively outraged is not one of them. Having informed opinions is great, speaking out about the issue is great, but I truly don’t believe it is a moral imperative or even helpful that every thing be that.
It’s not even talking about the atrocities being committed. We all know about them. It’s informing them the people who published this video game are directly involved in funding them, and you should be aware if you intend on purchasing it.
Literally boycott, divestments, and sanctions help. That was a key factor in ending apartheid. Informing people of a boycott is speaking out and morally imperative. Being snarky and dismissive on the internet isn’t.
Hey, I want to thank you both for giving feedback. I'm going to step in here just because a comments section isn't an effective place for people to reach understanding.
I understand that people would like us to discuss BDS every time a game from Microsoft is mentioned. I hear that feedback and will take it to the group.
I am only speaking for myself, but I have found purpose through other means, whether that be streams I've participated in or the work I've done to platform filmmakers at the movie theater I help to run. But I appreciate that people express their political actions in different ways.
This is a complex and horrifying issue. I absolutely get why emotions are high. We're all trying to do what we feel is right.
I appreciate the response, and I’m sure you’re doing good work in other places, and I genuinely look forward to the Besties every week. I was a day one patron, though now I’m hesitant. It’s just disappointing for the boycott to be a footnote during Oblivion coverage and not even mentioned in this episode. I hope in the future it’s talked about more.
So you just do free marketing for products that directly fund genocide? How much "other means" do you need to do to make that up? What's your internal calculus for the worth of a Palestinian life versus your comfort?
Hey y'all, I'm unsubscribing because of this episode. Microsoft is providing technology to Israel that directly connects to their genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, including data processing for the IDF's assassination program. The Palestinian-led BDS movement has asked for a boycott of Microsoft as much as we are able. Some things are hard to give up, but Doom ain't one of 'em.
You should also make sure you don't go to any websites that are hosted on Microsoft servers, or buy anything from anywhere that sell your data to companies owned by Microsoft.
You should probably also stop using technology altogether, because computers only exist because the military wanted the ability to calculate missile attacks more accurately, and putting your money towards anything connected to an entity connected to the murder of people would make you an evil, wicked person.
And don't eat any food that you don't grow yourself, because who knows what company was connected to the farms that grew them, as they could be be abusing their farmers and not paying them enough to provide for their own families.
If you require ethical purity, your best bet is to just not interact or associate with anything, ever, because nothing is perfect except you.
Or MAYBE... Corruption will always be in control at the top of things because "good" people are always enforcing impossible purity tests on their own side and pulling their support for good people trying to do good things the moment they reveal they are human and aren't actually perfect. I wonder if the US election might have turned out different if more people on the left didn't require Kamala to be perfect, and instead simply recognized she would be the best person to move us forward instead of abstaining from voting. The right seems to have figured out they can ultimately move their agenda forward if they just accept that their candidate isn't perfect by their standards. If we require perfection and purity, then we might as well hand the world over to them now, because we will always lose if we keep tearing our own down or cutting ties over every single misstep. And we're definitely going to push those in the middle towards the right if they see us always turning on even the best of us the first time they make a mistake. We're stronger together, even if we aren't all perfect. We have to be willing to accept the occasional step backwards if it gets us two steps forward, because maybe once we're taking our next two steps forward, we'll get our first mistake right this time. But we'll only get that opportunity if we recognize nobody is ever perfect, but that we are aiming towards the same future. We'll never get that chance to take that third or fourth step forward if people refuse to accept any steps backwards.
I know someone made a hyperbolic reply already, but maybe a more measured and educational approach to your comment would help. It seems like you don't understand why people are boycotting Microsoft gaming products specifically, and perhaps are unaware of how the BDS movement operates. Here are a few articles to check out, I highly encourage you to read up about it so you can understand where a lot of us in the comments are coming from.
If it were as simple as "I'm not going to purchase or take part in anything that helps Israel continue their genocidal apartheid regime," then you're right- at a certain point we'd run into some trouble operating our day to day lives. We're not all gonna hop on Linux machines and keep a mental checklist of servers to avoid. Nobody likes an impossible purity test, and no one is advocating for that. You're falling into a pretty serious straw-man fallacy here.
The BDS movement is a decades long tradition of targeted boycotts that have proven to put pressure on Israel through consumer action. This specific one asks folks to avoid purchasing Microsoft's gaming specific products, because it's a bit easier to abstain from them vs the servers and operating systems you mentioned earlier.
Your comment also shows a big problem with the boycott not being mentioned on the show this week. You didn't understand what the boycott was, how deep it went, how it operates, or why it's being called. You deserve to know these things, and responsible journalists are obligated to inform you of them.
The boycott is only tangential to the point I was making, and honestly had nothing to do with what I was talking about. The problem I was pointing out was with the person here saying "You failed to mention this boycott every single time you mention Microsoft, therefore I must unsubscribe from your podcast and renounce you."
Like, we know the quality of character of these hosts (as much as we can know other people) and we know they ultimately desire to do good and bring the social change they are capable of. But also, they're not political activists, and while some of them are journalists, the show itself is not even journalism - it's just a couple friends having fun, talking about games. They do their best to use their platform for social good, but that's not their purpose for the show.
Yes, we can bring the BDS movement to their attention and remind them it's important to mention, even if they don't dwell on it. I'm sure they'll want to do better. But to straight up renounce good people for stumbling once is why we keep losing - we tear down our own as much as our actual opponents, doing our opponents work for them. We don't seem to allow any grace for anyone, especially not people we look up to or see as leaders. We barely even have any leaders anymore because we've renounced them all because they've all committed the sin of imperfection. We only hurt ourselves by demanding perfection - and any therapist will tell you that.
You shouldn’t put things in quotation marks if someone didn’t say it that way. In your comments you keep putting words in peoples mouth to make them sound ridiculous and that’s unfair. I don’t want to argue with you, I just want you to read about the boycott.
Keep putting? You say that like I did it more than once. The first time I did it, I was literally quoting the things he called me. The second time I did it, I figured that 1) it was obvious enough it wasn't a direct quotation, but a summary, seeing as we both read the comment which was two inches above my comment, and 2) it was completely faithful to the essence of what he was saying.
I feel you're being disingenuous as 1) you've twice completely avoided the primary point of my comment, 2) you are trying to gaslight that I "keep putting words in people's mouth" when it barely even happened once, (this was how you avoided responding to my point the second time) and 3) you started off by referring to the person who said I was (and I quote), a " lazy pos", an "absolute idiot", and that I was "killing people with my choices", you said it was simply a mere "hyperbolic reply", when it was excessive, gross, offensive, and they weren't being "hyperbolic" - they were saying exactly what they felt without hyperbole, and that's the disgusting problem.
You shouldn't describe such vicious things as simply hyperbole to make them sound less offensive, that's unfair. I don't want to argue with you, I just want you to understand that we need allies if we actually want to make a difference, and holding everybody to impossible standards is more harmful to the cause than learning to accept that everyone is trying their best.
Your initial post was an entire straw man argument putting words in peoples mouths, and you continue to do so. I’m not gonna argue with you, I hope you have a better day than the bad one you’re clearly having.
yeah because if there is ANYTHING you can't do you should do NOTHING instead of what you can. absolute idiot making excuses for living a life of comfort while your choices are killing people in the real world. disgusting. you can't even do the bare minimum but you'll rant for paragraphs about why YOU'RE in the right for being a lazy POS instead of just biting the bullet and taking on a CRUMB of discomfort to try to make the world a better place.
At what point did I say I was doing nothing, or to do nothing? I literally volunteered to give out free produce yesterday morning to people that can't afford to buy it in my community. But I guess that's not as important as being performatively angry to strangers online. Keep up the good fight, hero.
You COMPLETELY proved my point - because you equated me not doing everything, not being PERFECT (in your opinion) with me apparently doing NOTHING. I volunteer, I fight for change, I do what I can in my community, and I have to tell you, the people that hurt the liberal cause the most are people like you who demand perfection and will call someone (a complete stranger, no less) an "absolute idiot", "disgusting", or a "lazy pos" and tell you you're "killing people with your choices", for saying something as benign as "hey, maybe we shouldn't torch people to ground the moment they make a single mistake."
Did I tell them not to give af about what Microsoft was doing? Did I say not to do anything and just live comfortably? No - I simply said that we are all human and fall short of perfection, and the examples I have showed that being perfect is impossible. Unless we can accept that it is impossible to be perfect, that it is impossible to be personally on top of every current global atrocity, unless we can allow our allies to do what is within their capabilities without jumping to saying vicious and gross things like you said to me, then we will find ourselves without the allies we need when we can actually make a difference. If perfection is all that is acceptable to you, then the only person good enough to stand for what you believe will be yourself, and even that will be a delusion.
I hope you learn and grow a little from this encounter, because even though you're clearly not perfect, I know you're working towards the same things I am. Please stop shooting yourself in the foot with this way of thinking.
does "doing what I can in my community" include scolding others for simply asking people with a platform to acknowledge and ongoing genocide? Does it include shouting down anyone who makes you uncomfortable playing one of thousands of available games and using genAI fueled rants to make yourself feel smart?
No, but it does include helping people get to voting centers, making phone calls for Democrat campaigns, donating clothes and food, spending time to respectfully convince those on the other side that we are all stronger together no matter what our background is, and - like this post - try to convince those on OUR side that we do more damage to ourselves in the long run by expecting perfection from our allies.
Did you perhaps read a different post? The original comment didn't "simply ask them to acknowledge genocide", they said ""you failed to acknowledge it this week, so I am cutting ties with you and unsubscribing"".
Please don't misrepresent their comment to make your attack seem more justified.
Also, please don't misrepresent my comments saying I was "shouting everyone down". I have been calm and respectful to everyone. Perhaps a little hyperbolic in my first post to highlight a point, but go back and read it - I never once directly insulted them like you insulted me multiple times, but I can see how they could feel attacked and defensive over being called out, so I guess I could have been kinder about how I pointed out their mistake, but everyone else, including yourself, has been proving my point about being immediately vicious towards anyone you perceive as "imperfect".
They did something wrong, so I called them out on it. If you want to call that scolding, then fine. When a child does something wrong that will hurt both themselves and others in the long run, what else should one do but make them aware of it? It's my cause that this behavior hurts, so I'm not going to just ignore it.
I'm sure you've dealt with a lot of crap online, so I forgive you for jumping to conclusions about the points you thought I was trying to make, but I'm tired of pointing out to you all that you've completely missed my point. You can read my other responses because I'm not going to keep repeating myself. Best of luck to you, and I hope you learn that "unsubscribing" (ie, cutting people out) from overall good people because they made a single unintentional mistake is going to hurt yourself and your cause more than the good you think you're doing by requiring people to be perfect.
Talking about a Microsoft game and a Disney Plus program when both are covered by the BDS boycott makes this a rough listen.
I feel like there are plenty of other things you could be covering, but if you insist on covering boycotted stuff, it feels like you should at least continue to talk about BDS as well.
In this episode, Griffin laments not being able to play D:TDA because it won't run on his Steam Deck or ROG Ally. This isn't the first time this issue has come up on the podcast and it always has me shouting at my phone.
As someone who also games almost exclusively on my Steam Deck, I absolutely cannot overstate how well PlayStation Remote Play functions on the device. Yes, it only works when you're at home (which frankly is 90% of my play time on my Steam Deck anyway). Yes, you need to download a special app called Chiaki-ng from the flatpak store in desktop mode. And yes, there is some very minor jiggering you need to do to get it up and running.
But fam, I promise, you will be blown away by how well it runs and looks and how little lag there is. I have played so many recent AAA console games this way and being able to do so away for my TV is a revelation. Highly, HIGHLY recommend.
Got back to these comments crazy late, but just to say I played pretty much the whole of Elden Ring via Chiaki on a Steam Deck. It was really great! Lots of good PC streaming options too, of course, but if you have any PC handheld and a PlayStation, you've got to try Chiaki.
Based on Justin's recomendation a few weeks ago, I've been playing Sunderfolk with my kids (10 & 8 yo). What a blast! The kids really dig it and it is such a great way to get them away from solo screen time and into a shared, family screen hang session. Also the mechanics are simple enough for them to strategize with, and they love the characters, story and upgrade progression. I have a feeling this one will be a favorite for a while.
Curious if Griffin will have any thoughts on the new Fantasy Life next week, since iirc he loved the original. I suspect he’ll be in the same boat as me, which is “wow it’s so good and I’m so glad they made this, imagine if I was still in the part of my life where I had the time needed to really sink into it.” :’)
Justin: the new Monster Train (2) just dropped, and it's fire. Monster Train has long held my top spot for roguelike deckbuilders, and I really like what they've innovated on for the sequel, as well as what they've kept the same. Plus it's a great steam deck game
Unless I misunderstood the conversation, Russ is the first person in history to describe Yes album covers as “Heavy Metal”. Perhaps Iron Maiden would be a better comparison?
Every time I hear it, I try to push back a little bit on the idea that sci-fi and explorations of the human condition are separate from each other. As my sci-fi lit professor used to say, "good sci-fi asks 'what makes us human?'" As a literary genre sci-fi was created as a critique of human interactions; from the psychological and interpersonal (e.g., Frankenstein) to the macro and institutional (e.g., Gulliver's Travels). The way Murderbot is described sounds like it is very much within this exact framing.
Re: Murderbot and pronouns, it definitely uses it/its throughout the books! One character does use it/its in the show in an othering/derogatory way, but the rest seem to be using it/its as just murderbot's pronouns
I think Doom Eternal vs. Dark Ages is less a question of difficulty and more of complexity. Eternal feels like playing Overcooked, where you're managing multiple cooldowns that have specific functions, and fumbling any of it means struggle and death. For folks who managed to master that, it probably feels like Dark Ages is too easy/simplistic regardless of how hard the enemies hit.
Coming in a little late, but with 6 episodes of the Murderbot show out, they have completely butchered the adaptation. SecUnit is fine, but the characterizations and motivations of the humans are wildly inconsistent with the books. They're also just making up terrible new plot points that aren't from the books, and the humor is awful
I dunno. Expecting UK players to pony up £70 for this feels pretty desperate after finishing the 22-24 hour campaign. It is definitely fun, the gameplay loop can be satisfying, but it takes itself way, way too seriously, to the point its a bit boring and not very Doom. There's some nice Zelda-style puzzles, but not enough, and most of the game feels like it repeats itself. Its fine as Game Pass fodder (currently £10 a month on PC) but I don't understand the logic for Microsoft. I've finished it now so I'll probably unsubscribe. What's the point of that?
Clair Obscure, on the other hand, I'll probably actually buy.
What is the point of the weapon system being so varied when the super shotgun is so overpowered. I switched between that and a plasma weapon, and only really used a plasma weapon to deal with those weird little shield men.
No mention of Gaza or BDS and the boycott of Microsoft for helping to fund a genocide. I know you guys mentioned it a couple weeks ago, but it’s disappointing that this isn’t getting coverage alongside reviews of the game. I get that games media and journalism has to cover a new Doom game but it should also cover the call for large scale boycotts of Microsoft. I come to podcasts like The Besties and Into the Aether for stuff like that, and subscribe to both patreons. At least ITA is doing the right and responsible thing, highly recommend it to anyone else disappointed by a lack of commitment to informing listeners here.
Dissenting opinion: perhaps it’s okay for the horrors to not be present in every single facet of our lives forever, perhaps we can just have a nice podcast about video games sometimes. As a treat.
Tell that to the starving skeletal children camped out in tents amongst rubble on my Instagram feed every day. What a shitty comment.
All I’m asking is for a “hey we’re gonna talk about the Doom game, it’s important to note that due to the supply and ongoing use of cloud infrastructure and AI by the IDF, there is a large scale boycott called by BDS against Microsoft, specifically gaming. We were given a code and we’re gonna talk about the game.” People deserve an informed opinion more than treats.
I don’t actually believe that the nice podcast having a Horrors segment is going to help the skeletal children. I think there are some things people can do to substantially help the skeletal children, but being performatively outraged is not one of them. Having informed opinions is great, speaking out about the issue is great, but I truly don’t believe it is a moral imperative or even helpful that every thing be that.
It’s not even talking about the atrocities being committed. We all know about them. It’s informing them the people who published this video game are directly involved in funding them, and you should be aware if you intend on purchasing it.
Literally boycott, divestments, and sanctions help. That was a key factor in ending apartheid. Informing people of a boycott is speaking out and morally imperative. Being snarky and dismissive on the internet isn’t.
Hey, I want to thank you both for giving feedback. I'm going to step in here just because a comments section isn't an effective place for people to reach understanding.
I understand that people would like us to discuss BDS every time a game from Microsoft is mentioned. I hear that feedback and will take it to the group.
I am only speaking for myself, but I have found purpose through other means, whether that be streams I've participated in or the work I've done to platform filmmakers at the movie theater I help to run. But I appreciate that people express their political actions in different ways.
This is a complex and horrifying issue. I absolutely get why emotions are high. We're all trying to do what we feel is right.
I appreciate the response, and I’m sure you’re doing good work in other places, and I genuinely look forward to the Besties every week. I was a day one patron, though now I’m hesitant. It’s just disappointing for the boycott to be a footnote during Oblivion coverage and not even mentioned in this episode. I hope in the future it’s talked about more.
So you just do free marketing for products that directly fund genocide? How much "other means" do you need to do to make that up? What's your internal calculus for the worth of a Palestinian life versus your comfort?
Hey y'all, I'm unsubscribing because of this episode. Microsoft is providing technology to Israel that directly connects to their genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, including data processing for the IDF's assassination program. The Palestinian-led BDS movement has asked for a boycott of Microsoft as much as we are able. Some things are hard to give up, but Doom ain't one of 'em.
Bye.
You should also make sure you don't go to any websites that are hosted on Microsoft servers, or buy anything from anywhere that sell your data to companies owned by Microsoft.
You should probably also stop using technology altogether, because computers only exist because the military wanted the ability to calculate missile attacks more accurately, and putting your money towards anything connected to an entity connected to the murder of people would make you an evil, wicked person.
And don't eat any food that you don't grow yourself, because who knows what company was connected to the farms that grew them, as they could be be abusing their farmers and not paying them enough to provide for their own families.
If you require ethical purity, your best bet is to just not interact or associate with anything, ever, because nothing is perfect except you.
Or MAYBE... Corruption will always be in control at the top of things because "good" people are always enforcing impossible purity tests on their own side and pulling their support for good people trying to do good things the moment they reveal they are human and aren't actually perfect. I wonder if the US election might have turned out different if more people on the left didn't require Kamala to be perfect, and instead simply recognized she would be the best person to move us forward instead of abstaining from voting. The right seems to have figured out they can ultimately move their agenda forward if they just accept that their candidate isn't perfect by their standards. If we require perfection and purity, then we might as well hand the world over to them now, because we will always lose if we keep tearing our own down or cutting ties over every single misstep. And we're definitely going to push those in the middle towards the right if they see us always turning on even the best of us the first time they make a mistake. We're stronger together, even if we aren't all perfect. We have to be willing to accept the occasional step backwards if it gets us two steps forward, because maybe once we're taking our next two steps forward, we'll get our first mistake right this time. But we'll only get that opportunity if we recognize nobody is ever perfect, but that we are aiming towards the same future. We'll never get that chance to take that third or fourth step forward if people refuse to accept any steps backwards.
I know someone made a hyperbolic reply already, but maybe a more measured and educational approach to your comment would help. It seems like you don't understand why people are boycotting Microsoft gaming products specifically, and perhaps are unaware of how the BDS movement operates. Here are a few articles to check out, I highly encourage you to read up about it so you can understand where a lot of us in the comments are coming from.
https://www.bdsmovement.net/news/boycott-microsofts-xbox
https://bdsmovement.net/microsoft#why
https://aftermath.site/microsoft-bds-games-journalism (this one's probably the most relevant to this discussion.)
If it were as simple as "I'm not going to purchase or take part in anything that helps Israel continue their genocidal apartheid regime," then you're right- at a certain point we'd run into some trouble operating our day to day lives. We're not all gonna hop on Linux machines and keep a mental checklist of servers to avoid. Nobody likes an impossible purity test, and no one is advocating for that. You're falling into a pretty serious straw-man fallacy here.
The BDS movement is a decades long tradition of targeted boycotts that have proven to put pressure on Israel through consumer action. This specific one asks folks to avoid purchasing Microsoft's gaming specific products, because it's a bit easier to abstain from them vs the servers and operating systems you mentioned earlier.
Your comment also shows a big problem with the boycott not being mentioned on the show this week. You didn't understand what the boycott was, how deep it went, how it operates, or why it's being called. You deserve to know these things, and responsible journalists are obligated to inform you of them.
The boycott is only tangential to the point I was making, and honestly had nothing to do with what I was talking about. The problem I was pointing out was with the person here saying "You failed to mention this boycott every single time you mention Microsoft, therefore I must unsubscribe from your podcast and renounce you."
Like, we know the quality of character of these hosts (as much as we can know other people) and we know they ultimately desire to do good and bring the social change they are capable of. But also, they're not political activists, and while some of them are journalists, the show itself is not even journalism - it's just a couple friends having fun, talking about games. They do their best to use their platform for social good, but that's not their purpose for the show.
Yes, we can bring the BDS movement to their attention and remind them it's important to mention, even if they don't dwell on it. I'm sure they'll want to do better. But to straight up renounce good people for stumbling once is why we keep losing - we tear down our own as much as our actual opponents, doing our opponents work for them. We don't seem to allow any grace for anyone, especially not people we look up to or see as leaders. We barely even have any leaders anymore because we've renounced them all because they've all committed the sin of imperfection. We only hurt ourselves by demanding perfection - and any therapist will tell you that.
You shouldn’t put things in quotation marks if someone didn’t say it that way. In your comments you keep putting words in peoples mouth to make them sound ridiculous and that’s unfair. I don’t want to argue with you, I just want you to read about the boycott.
Keep putting? You say that like I did it more than once. The first time I did it, I was literally quoting the things he called me. The second time I did it, I figured that 1) it was obvious enough it wasn't a direct quotation, but a summary, seeing as we both read the comment which was two inches above my comment, and 2) it was completely faithful to the essence of what he was saying.
I feel you're being disingenuous as 1) you've twice completely avoided the primary point of my comment, 2) you are trying to gaslight that I "keep putting words in people's mouth" when it barely even happened once, (this was how you avoided responding to my point the second time) and 3) you started off by referring to the person who said I was (and I quote), a " lazy pos", an "absolute idiot", and that I was "killing people with my choices", you said it was simply a mere "hyperbolic reply", when it was excessive, gross, offensive, and they weren't being "hyperbolic" - they were saying exactly what they felt without hyperbole, and that's the disgusting problem.
You shouldn't describe such vicious things as simply hyperbole to make them sound less offensive, that's unfair. I don't want to argue with you, I just want you to understand that we need allies if we actually want to make a difference, and holding everybody to impossible standards is more harmful to the cause than learning to accept that everyone is trying their best.
Your initial post was an entire straw man argument putting words in peoples mouths, and you continue to do so. I’m not gonna argue with you, I hope you have a better day than the bad one you’re clearly having.
yeah because if there is ANYTHING you can't do you should do NOTHING instead of what you can. absolute idiot making excuses for living a life of comfort while your choices are killing people in the real world. disgusting. you can't even do the bare minimum but you'll rant for paragraphs about why YOU'RE in the right for being a lazy POS instead of just biting the bullet and taking on a CRUMB of discomfort to try to make the world a better place.
At what point did I say I was doing nothing, or to do nothing? I literally volunteered to give out free produce yesterday morning to people that can't afford to buy it in my community. But I guess that's not as important as being performatively angry to strangers online. Keep up the good fight, hero.
You COMPLETELY proved my point - because you equated me not doing everything, not being PERFECT (in your opinion) with me apparently doing NOTHING. I volunteer, I fight for change, I do what I can in my community, and I have to tell you, the people that hurt the liberal cause the most are people like you who demand perfection and will call someone (a complete stranger, no less) an "absolute idiot", "disgusting", or a "lazy pos" and tell you you're "killing people with your choices", for saying something as benign as "hey, maybe we shouldn't torch people to ground the moment they make a single mistake."
Did I tell them not to give af about what Microsoft was doing? Did I say not to do anything and just live comfortably? No - I simply said that we are all human and fall short of perfection, and the examples I have showed that being perfect is impossible. Unless we can accept that it is impossible to be perfect, that it is impossible to be personally on top of every current global atrocity, unless we can allow our allies to do what is within their capabilities without jumping to saying vicious and gross things like you said to me, then we will find ourselves without the allies we need when we can actually make a difference. If perfection is all that is acceptable to you, then the only person good enough to stand for what you believe will be yourself, and even that will be a delusion.
I hope you learn and grow a little from this encounter, because even though you're clearly not perfect, I know you're working towards the same things I am. Please stop shooting yourself in the foot with this way of thinking.
does "doing what I can in my community" include scolding others for simply asking people with a platform to acknowledge and ongoing genocide? Does it include shouting down anyone who makes you uncomfortable playing one of thousands of available games and using genAI fueled rants to make yourself feel smart?
No, but it does include helping people get to voting centers, making phone calls for Democrat campaigns, donating clothes and food, spending time to respectfully convince those on the other side that we are all stronger together no matter what our background is, and - like this post - try to convince those on OUR side that we do more damage to ourselves in the long run by expecting perfection from our allies.
Did you perhaps read a different post? The original comment didn't "simply ask them to acknowledge genocide", they said ""you failed to acknowledge it this week, so I am cutting ties with you and unsubscribing"".
Please don't misrepresent their comment to make your attack seem more justified.
Also, please don't misrepresent my comments saying I was "shouting everyone down". I have been calm and respectful to everyone. Perhaps a little hyperbolic in my first post to highlight a point, but go back and read it - I never once directly insulted them like you insulted me multiple times, but I can see how they could feel attacked and defensive over being called out, so I guess I could have been kinder about how I pointed out their mistake, but everyone else, including yourself, has been proving my point about being immediately vicious towards anyone you perceive as "imperfect".
They did something wrong, so I called them out on it. If you want to call that scolding, then fine. When a child does something wrong that will hurt both themselves and others in the long run, what else should one do but make them aware of it? It's my cause that this behavior hurts, so I'm not going to just ignore it.
I'm sure you've dealt with a lot of crap online, so I forgive you for jumping to conclusions about the points you thought I was trying to make, but I'm tired of pointing out to you all that you've completely missed my point. You can read my other responses because I'm not going to keep repeating myself. Best of luck to you, and I hope you learn that "unsubscribing" (ie, cutting people out) from overall good people because they made a single unintentional mistake is going to hurt yourself and your cause more than the good you think you're doing by requiring people to be perfect.
I'm not reading all that. hope you get better at emotional regulation and start typing your own arguments instead of asking chatgpt.
Talking about a Microsoft game and a Disney Plus program when both are covered by the BDS boycott makes this a rough listen.
I feel like there are plenty of other things you could be covering, but if you insist on covering boycotted stuff, it feels like you should at least continue to talk about BDS as well.
no harry potter episode because of JKR's transphobia, but I guess you just don't care about GENOCIDE nearly as much.
In this episode, Griffin laments not being able to play D:TDA because it won't run on his Steam Deck or ROG Ally. This isn't the first time this issue has come up on the podcast and it always has me shouting at my phone.
As someone who also games almost exclusively on my Steam Deck, I absolutely cannot overstate how well PlayStation Remote Play functions on the device. Yes, it only works when you're at home (which frankly is 90% of my play time on my Steam Deck anyway). Yes, you need to download a special app called Chiaki-ng from the flatpak store in desktop mode. And yes, there is some very minor jiggering you need to do to get it up and running.
But fam, I promise, you will be blown away by how well it runs and looks and how little lag there is. I have played so many recent AAA console games this way and being able to do so away for my TV is a revelation. Highly, HIGHLY recommend.
Got back to these comments crazy late, but just to say I played pretty much the whole of Elden Ring via Chiaki on a Steam Deck. It was really great! Lots of good PC streaming options too, of course, but if you have any PC handheld and a PlayStation, you've got to try Chiaki.
Based on Justin's recomendation a few weeks ago, I've been playing Sunderfolk with my kids (10 & 8 yo). What a blast! The kids really dig it and it is such a great way to get them away from solo screen time and into a shared, family screen hang session. Also the mechanics are simple enough for them to strategize with, and they love the characters, story and upgrade progression. I have a feeling this one will be a favorite for a while.
Curious if Griffin will have any thoughts on the new Fantasy Life next week, since iirc he loved the original. I suspect he’ll be in the same boat as me, which is “wow it’s so good and I’m so glad they made this, imagine if I was still in the part of my life where I had the time needed to really sink into it.” :’)
Yeah I'd love to hear their thoughts on both that and the new Monster Train. Two sequels this week to games I've loved in the past!
I use the wishlist on PS5 on games I find to expensive right now. you get a notification when something on your wishlist is on sale.
Need another parry game? You should check out Nine Sols! A tough search action game with a parrying mechanic that helped prepare me for Expedition 33.
Justin: the new Monster Train (2) just dropped, and it's fire. Monster Train has long held my top spot for roguelike deckbuilders, and I really like what they've innovated on for the sequel, as well as what they've kept the same. Plus it's a great steam deck game
Unless I misunderstood the conversation, Russ is the first person in history to describe Yes album covers as “Heavy Metal”. Perhaps Iron Maiden would be a better comparison?
Every time I hear it, I try to push back a little bit on the idea that sci-fi and explorations of the human condition are separate from each other. As my sci-fi lit professor used to say, "good sci-fi asks 'what makes us human?'" As a literary genre sci-fi was created as a critique of human interactions; from the psychological and interpersonal (e.g., Frankenstein) to the macro and institutional (e.g., Gulliver's Travels). The way Murderbot is described sounds like it is very much within this exact framing.
Re: Murderbot and pronouns, it definitely uses it/its throughout the books! One character does use it/its in the show in an othering/derogatory way, but the rest seem to be using it/its as just murderbot's pronouns
I think Doom Eternal vs. Dark Ages is less a question of difficulty and more of complexity. Eternal feels like playing Overcooked, where you're managing multiple cooldowns that have specific functions, and fumbling any of it means struggle and death. For folks who managed to master that, it probably feels like Dark Ages is too easy/simplistic regardless of how hard the enemies hit.
Coming in a little late, but with 6 episodes of the Murderbot show out, they have completely butchered the adaptation. SecUnit is fine, but the characterizations and motivations of the humans are wildly inconsistent with the books. They're also just making up terrible new plot points that aren't from the books, and the humor is awful
So finished Dark Ages...
I dunno. Expecting UK players to pony up £70 for this feels pretty desperate after finishing the 22-24 hour campaign. It is definitely fun, the gameplay loop can be satisfying, but it takes itself way, way too seriously, to the point its a bit boring and not very Doom. There's some nice Zelda-style puzzles, but not enough, and most of the game feels like it repeats itself. Its fine as Game Pass fodder (currently £10 a month on PC) but I don't understand the logic for Microsoft. I've finished it now so I'll probably unsubscribe. What's the point of that?
Clair Obscure, on the other hand, I'll probably actually buy.
One last point
What is the point of the weapon system being so varied when the super shotgun is so overpowered. I switched between that and a plasma weapon, and only really used a plasma weapon to deal with those weird little shield men.