301

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Now Playing (the Video Game Version)

« on: February 24, 2022, 04:55:17 AM »

God of War

More like Dad of War. But this is actually really good. I think the key to this game's quality is just how well they integrate Atreus, the kid hanging out with you, into the gameplay. This stands out especially when you compare it to how most other games would handle the player always being accompanied by an allied NPC. Put simply, Atreus is never a problem. You don't need to worry about waiting for him to catch up if you're leaving the area, because he always appears right next to you, just offscreen so it isn't too jarring. You don't need to worry about babysitting or protecting him during combat, as he can usually dodge attacks just fine by himself, and while he can be incapacitated, it just takes a quick tap of a button to get him back on his feet. And most importantly of all, he's incredibly helpful in battle, especially once you level him up a bit and unlock the special arrows he can use. It really feels as though Santa Monica Studio went above and beyond in systematically removing every element of escort gameplay that tends to drag the experience down while retaining the parts that keep everything fast and fun, like video games are supposed to be.

The other gameplay elements are largely serviceable, if not spectacular. There's some fairly decent exploration and platforming, along with the occasional environmental puzzle. In stark contrast to the button-mashing combo-scoring of previous titles, combat is now a slower, more methodical hack-and-slash affair - nothing about it is particularly groundbreaking, but there's a nice and crunchy feel to it. Being able to switch between your weapons and your fists is a nice touch. I will say that the enemy variety isn't great, as about 90% of the enemies you fight are the same four or five basic monster types, and the minibosses in particular all feel like the same generic troll/ogre you fight right at the beginning of the game. The full bosses are great, but there are only a few of them. Don't let the padded bestiary fool you, either - enemies having slightly different names or categorization doesn't stop them from being pretty much the same old enemies. The puzzles are kind of lame, too, and particularly when it comes to the collectibles. You're almost always just hunting for hidden runes to smash to open a lock, or hitting a few chimes within a short timespan to open a lock.

Despite all the good things God of War has going for it, it would simply be an above-average hack-and-slash game if not for the story. The hokey B-movie dialogue and juvenile sex scenes of the previous games are replaced with a fairly simple story of Kratos and Atreus climbing a mountain to scatter the ashes of Atreus's late mother, while Kratos does his best all the while to teach his son wisdom and maturity, despite the fact that he barely knows him at all and is only too aware of the fact that his own violent nature and dark history make him a less than ideal role model. There are some things going on behind the scenes and some powerful enemies they eventually have to face, but for the most part, they remain focused on their task. This simplicity allows the game to put the focus on character rather than plot, and it's a genuine pleasure to watch Kratos and Atreus slowly grow to appreciate one another and help each other grow as people. There is one little detail at the end of the game I didn't like - the reveal of whom Atreus "really" is in the mythology. There are a couple of real-life mythological details that back it up, to be fair, but I still don't think it's a particularly good fit for him, and I suspect it was decided on more for audience recognition of the name than anything else. But that's a tiny quibble.

This game is great, basically. Can't wait to spend another few years waiting for its sequel to get a PC port.

HITMAN III

A tiny, tiny game in comparison to the two previous titles in this series. The levels are all significantly smaller, the number of unique challenges you can complete in each level have been dramatically reduced, only a small handful of scripted "mission stories" to help you infiltrate a location or get close to a target are available, when the previous games would usually offer seven or eight per level, and so on. It's just smaller in every possible way, and the fact that this game comes bundled with the previous two - something that I really appreciate, to be clear - only makes the comparative lack of content all the more noticeable. Almost all of my time spent with this game has just been playing the content from the two previous games. What a shame.

302

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: February 24, 2022, 02:07:24 AM »

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/nyregion/trump-ny-fraud-investigation.html

The prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, submitted their resignations because the new Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, indicated to them that he had doubts about moving forward with a case against Mr. Trump, the people said.

It's very frustrating how vaguely that's worded. Doubts as to whether the case is strong enough, or doubts about pushing a case against Trump for more personal reasons? Trump has spread so much corruption in his wake that we can't rule the latter out. In any case, he's managed to skate out of serious trouble for approximately the millionth time now.

303

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General

« on: February 19, 2022, 05:35:06 AM »

And in perhaps the most predictable news imaginable, there's this (article contains spoilers), because Snyder fans were emboldened by the release of the Snyder cut and now they will never, ever shut up. Imagine being this fanatically loyal to a grim, cynical, and soulless vision of capeshit dreamed up by a director as dumb as he is pretentious.

304

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General

« on: February 18, 2022, 06:48:02 AM »

Peacemaker is a delight from start to finish. Nobody but John Cena could have captured this character's perfect blend of overblown machismo and heart the way he does, Gunn tells an engaging story with both humor and sincerity, the glam rock/hair metal soundtrack is just the right level of kitsch to work (They even play Steel Panther at one point!), and while I'm sure this element of the show will be controversial in certain geek circles, I loved how explicitly political it turned out to be. It never quite preaches or scolds, but the show makes a point of consistently pushing back on characters who make bigoted remarks or embody toxic behaviors, relentlessly skewers racists while showing them to be as pathetic as are they reprehensible, and openly embraces a progressive, wholesome vision of the future. We can undoubtedly thank the alt-right political commentators who tried to end Gunn's career back in 2018 for convincing him to make this show as political as he did, just as we can thank those same people for Gunn being able to work for DC at all. Good job, guys!

The show does have flaws. The CGI as a whole is pretty bad. A few effects look decent, but most of it looks very unconvincing, and unfortunately, the effect we see the most is Peacemaker's pet eagle. I love the eagle as a character, and his bond with Peacemaker is really nice, but he looks fake as hell every second he's on screen. A more serious issue is the fact that Gunn wrote every episode by himself, and by the end of the show, his writing style begins to drag. He's a great writer, but eight episodes of him and only him is simply too much. I've talked about this before, and I stand by it - there is no TV show in the world that benefits from having only one writer who writes every episode alone. Television simply is not a form of storytelling suited to auteurs. After hours and hours spent with one writer, you start to notice their repetitions. You start to notice their storytelling tics. You start to notice little flaws in their writing that might have been fixed if a fresh perspective had been allowed a pass at the script, or even a co-writer to push back on poor ideas and convince the main writer to do better. I'm convinced that premium channels and streaming services encourage the shows they order to be written by one person because it lets them market the supposed prestige of auteur theory to the media. "Look at this TV show! The pure, uncompromised artistic vision of one ambitious dreamer! This isn't a generic corporate product; it's a very personal statement and work of art!"

As far as Gunn goes, there's this one very distinctive joke format that he likes to use. Some characters are having a discussion, someone uses a certain phrase, aphorism, or joke, another character suddenly calls attention to what they just said, and then for the next thirty or forty seconds the original topic is essentially forgotten as the characters argue about the logic of the phrase that was just used, its hidden implications, or its literal meaning. Gunn can use this format once or twice in a two-hour movie and it's all good. But in this show, he uses it at least once an episode, and sometimes more. By the end of the season, I was rolling my eyes whenever I could see the setup rearing its head once again. I imagine it's even more annoying if you binge the show. And that's exactly the kind of thing that could have been avoided if Gunn had let other people write or even co-write a few of these episodes. There are other little tics and repetitions that would have been softened too, but that's easily the biggest thing that jumped out at me about his writing every episode.

Don't get me wrong - this show is still great, and I couldn't be happier about it getting another season. I just would really like to see at least one more writer come aboard and balance out some of Gunn's ideas next time.

305

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: February 17, 2022, 04:14:40 AM »

You're right, Pete, I should have read your most recent posts, and then I would have understood what you were getting at earlier. I didn't interpret Tom's initial post the same way you did. Rather than see it as something along the lines of "Hey, here's an excellent argument indicating that The Hill has a liberal bias. I found it on Conservapedia, so here's the link," I saw it as "Check out this article making a comprehensive case for The Hill having a liberal bias. Here's just one example of what they have to say!" I can't prove that was what he meant, but it does seem like that was the case from how he responded to us - not by directing our attention towards the specific argument, but by defending Conservapedia and arguing that its conservative stance doesn't make it wrong or unreliable. Rama seemed to also have interpreted the post this way, which would explain why he chose to debunk every argument the article provided, not just the one Tom screenshotted, as well as why your back-and-forth with him went on as long as it did - he was talking about the article as a whole, while you were talking about one specific claim.

I fully agree with you that criticizing the original source of an argument when the merits of the argument are what's being discussed isn't very productive. But if the source itself essentially is the argument, and is just linked in its entirety to argue a certain position, then I think it's entirely fair to point and laugh when the source is a meme on the level of Conservapedia. Not the most productive thing to say, but still something that's entirely relevant. If you don't agree with me on that, then I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, because I can't see myself changing my opinion.

306

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: February 16, 2022, 05:06:45 AM »

At this point, I'm less interested in the argument itself and more in responding to the circlejerk from you and Rama about how obviously I was dumb and off-base to simply mock a Conservapedia article being linked to in an Internet discussion, and that even if one were to dispute Tom's point, that of course shouldn't be interpreted as support for the stupid thing I said! I'm not going to let the notion that mockingly expressing disbelief that someone is linking a Conservapedia article in an Internet discussion is a dumb thing to say stand unchallenged, because I know that it's not. You could say that it's an incomplete response, or one that isn't particularly productive, because it doesn't explain why each of the article's specific arguments fail to hold up. But that doesn't mean that it's dumb or wrong. Conservapedia is a bullshit website, and so I called bullshit when it was cited. No logical fallacy, no breakdown in reasoning, just an entirely justified ad hominem attack.

307

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: February 13, 2022, 04:29:29 PM »

I don't have to read a specific article from them to know that the article is almost certainly going to be crap.

OK. Well, two of us have read it and we agree that this specific claim was factually correct, if possibly misused. If you're gonna take the "well I don't HAVE TO read it" route, then I'll just assume you have no meaningful response and move on.

If there's a good argument to be made that The Hill is in fact politically liberal, then you and/or Tom would have been better off posting that argument rather than just a link to Conservapedia. Like I said, it's simply disingenuous to pretend that website's reputation means nothing and shouldn't be taken into account. I can't stop you from pompously declaring victory and "moving on," but you're the one who's arguing that a link to Conservapedia should apparently be taken seriously, and no pithy remarks from you are going to change how silly that is.

308

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: February 13, 2022, 04:21:54 AM »

Again, the Department of Justice weren't the ones who took the documents from Trump, the National Archives were. They have confirmed this. There is no ambiguity about that fact, and Trump isn't disputing it, so I don't see why you are. And I'm not jumping to conclusions. Like I said, it's entirely possible that despite his long history of laziness as to his duties and his responsibilities, carelessness about protecting sensitive information, and general indifference to the law, Trump really was doing things the right way this time. But I highly doubt it, and anyone who's still willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt by now is in too deep to be reasoned with.

309

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: February 12, 2022, 06:41:24 AM »

Then elsewhere in the article it said the documents at Mar-a-Lago were being stored in a SCIF:

"The files were being stored in a sensitive compartmented information facility, also known as an SCIF"

And actually the full sentence deceptively implied that the Justice Dept went there and moved the files:

"The files were being stored in a sensitive compartmented information facility, also known as an SCIF, while Justice Department officials debated how to proceed, the two people familiar with the matter said."

But the rest of the article doesn't actually state that they went to Mar-a-Lago and removed files. There is a SCIF at Mar-a-Lago where the files were probably always stored. This is likely a carefully crafted deceptive comment like the implication that Trump wasn't supposed to have classified documents.

This is all wrong. Everything you've said is wrong. No, the article is not saying that the documents were stored in a SCIF in Mar-a-Lago. It's saying that they were stored in a SCIF while Justice Department officials debated how to proceed, meaning that after - not during, but after - the time they were in Trump's possession, they were placed in a SCIF, hence them being there while Justice Department officials debated how to proceed. They wouldn't have been debating how to proceed before they even had possession of the documents, after all. That wouldn't make any sense. There's nothing about the article's phrasing deceptively implying that the Department of Justice were the ones who moved the documents, because the article makes it clear that it was the National Archives that did it:

The Post later reported that officials had recovered 15 boxes of presidential records from Mar-a-Lago, and that they suspected Trump had possibly violated laws concerning the handling of government documents — including those that might be considered classified.

This links to another article entitled "National Archives had to retrieve Trump White House records from Mar-a-Lago", which the Archives have confirmed as having happened. So your argument relies on pretending that an event already firmly established as having happened hadn't really happened, and taking it for granted that a slight ambiguity of wording means the exact opposite of what the article is claiming happened. The latter point could theoretically be true, I'll admit. It's possible that Trump could have been keeping the documents in Mar-a-Lago in a SCIF and meticulously paying close attention to the legal requirements of proper document storage. But to just assume that's probably what happened, given the many, many stories over the course of Trump's presidency of his regular use of unsecured equipment and email servers, holding important discussions at public parties, whipping out classified information to brag to foreign nationals, and my personal favorite, that time he casually tweeted a surveillance photo of Iran, is insane. And to a degree, Trump's cavalier attitude towards national security and classified information was legally covered when he was the president, given how the president has ultimate authority over the classification of information. But he's not the president anymore, and he can't just do whatever he wants anymore either.

310

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Allow Markjo Lounge access

« on: February 06, 2022, 02:50:20 PM »

I think we should do it too.

311

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: February 06, 2022, 12:42:41 AM »

I don't think you can draw any meaningful conclusions from how quickly Trump filed to run for reelection. It was already a given that he would be running for reelection, as virtually all presidents run for reelection - although Biden might end up bucking the trend due to his age. My guess is that Trump filed so quickly simply as a show of bravado, to demonstrate that he was so confident that he'd be a great president that he was already ready for another four years. For 2024, with Trump not being the incumbent, it doesn't make much sense for him to jump the gun and file particularly early. Why distract from the midterms? Why give the Democrats and his Republican rivals advance notice that they'll definitely be facing him in 2024?

In any case, Trump's political career is going strong and will continue to regardless of whether or not he runs in 2024. He's making speeches, holding rallies, endorsing or speaking out against candidates as he chooses, and he's still overwhelmingly popular among Republicans. If he chooses not to run, it won't be so he can quietly retire, it'll be so he can play the role of a powerful kingmaker behind the scenes.

312

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: February 05, 2022, 07:39:28 PM »

?? Whose talking about Covid here?

Sorry about that. I kind of lost track of what was being discussed.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/592878-pence-breaks-with-trump-i-had-no-right-to-overturn-the-election

I’m happy Pence is willing to call out Trump. Now Ya’ll Qaeda is going to be real pissed.

Does he really have a choice, though? Pence has already made an enemy of Trump and his fans for life. No amount of groveling will get him back in their good graces. Sticking to his guns isn't an act of courage or a demonstration of his principles; it's him simply doing the only thing he can do if he wants to eke out a political future in whatever small corner of the GOP hopefully won't be dominated by Trump. I would go so far as to suggest that Pence, who stood loyally by a man who every day seemed to revel in what a horrible person he was, not even offering the occasional rebuke like what we saw from Republican members of Congress, doesn't really have any principles at all - or at least that they've been entirely drowned out by his grim ends-justify-the-means partisanship. There's no way to prove this, of course, but I'd be willing to bet that Pence bitterly regrets not playing along with Trump's scheme and refusing to certify the election. He probably assumed - along with plenty of other people at the time, including Republicans - that the Capitol attack spelled the end of Trump's political career and dominance of the GOP.

313

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: February 04, 2022, 02:56:46 AM »

Actually, you do. How is it possible to know that this Conservapedia article about the game of chess is going to be full of falsities without reading and assessing it?

Because Conservapedia is notorious for both its factual inaccuracies and its ludicrous, comical attempts to put a stereotypical right-wing spin on literally everything. It is technically possible, like I said, for there to be to be a sensible Conservapedia article with plenty of reasonable and logical points, but I know it's not going to happen, just like I know that I'm not going to go into work tomorrow and see my co-workers wearing powdered wigs and performing one of Shakespeare's plays, despite that also being technically possible. I would be astonished if you or anyone else here could show me many Conservapedia articles of reasonable length that don't have the wild exaggerations, absurd right-wing spin, and willful misinformation that are the hallmarks of the website.

That's why a rebuttal to the well-accepted claim that The Hill isn't liberal can be safely dismissed when it solely consists of a link to Conservapedia. Again, I'm not saying that a position being argued on Conservapedia automatically means that the opposite is true, only that Conservapedia's arguments can safely be ignored as meritless.

314

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: February 03, 2022, 10:18:28 PM »

Conservapedia is notorious for being a ridiculous meme of right-wing nonsense almost indistinguishable from parody. Nothing they have to say is reliable or sensible. I don't have to read a specific article from them to know that the article is almost certainly going to be crap. Is it theoretically possible, is it within the laws of physics that such an article might actually make logical sense and be full of good points? Sure. It's also technically possible that if I go outside and call a cab, there might be a chimpanzee behind the wheel instead of a person. But just like it's a very safe assumption that my cab driver will be a human being and not a chimpanzee, it's also a very safe assumption that any given Conservapedia article will be full of horseshit. It's simply disingenuous to act like that website's well-earned reputation counts for nothing and that an article from them really deserves to be taken seriously.

315

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: February 03, 2022, 09:30:12 PM »

Saddam's response of "Conservapedia? Is this a joke?" is dumb, because it fails to address the claim, and merely dismisses it based on who the claimant is.

When the claimant is Conservapedia, then yes, the claim can be safely dismissed based on who the claimant is. That doesn't necessarily mean that the opposite of the claim is automatically true, but an article from Conservapedia is never any good evidence of anything, ever.

316

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: February 03, 2022, 06:08:07 AM »

Conservapedia? Is this a joke?

317

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: February 03, 2022, 05:22:31 AM »

Yes, I'm sure that the openly conservative Rasmussen Reports conducted a perfectly fair and unbiased

So Rasmussen is out, but you raise no complaint about the liberal media outlet The Hill giving out opposite polling results in the post immediately prior to mine. How blatantly hypocritical and partisan of you.

The Hill is widely regarded as generally centrist, and its association with pro-Trump grifter John Solomon alone should cast major doubt on any accusation of liberal bias. A media outlet not praising Trump and Republicans at all times is not indicative of a liberal bias. And it wasn't even The Hill that did the survey in the first place, they just wrote a story on it. Marquette Law School did the survey, like the article says. In any case, while I'm sure their methodology was far more honest than Rasmussen's, I'm not taking their results much more seriously. Neither Trump nor DeSantis have truly started campaigning yet, Bernie is probably going to run and split the Democratic vote yet again, and the media will be quick to soften the Republicans' anti-democratic positions with frantic both-sides equivocation.

I know Rasmussen tends to be pretty reliable

In previous elections, yes. But years have passed since then, and I would argue that them advocating that the vice-president should overturn the results of the election and keep Trump in power is very strong evidence that they are no longer reliable.

318

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: President Joe Biden

« on: February 03, 2022, 02:48:05 AM »

Yes, I'm sure that the openly conservative Rasmussen Reports conducted a perfectly fair and unbiased survey in a very professional manner and aren't simply telling their conservative audience what they want to hear, especially during a time when conservative audiences have been angrily lashing out at conservative sources that aren't telling them what they want to hear. Remember that time they quoted Stalin and claimed Pence could (and totally should, they heavily implied) overturn the election?

Biden probably is very unpopular in reality, and the way things are going, I don't see him or any other Democrat winning in 2024. But I wouldn't take Rasmussen's word for it.

319

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: February 01, 2022, 06:21:17 PM »

Holy shit, are two threads about covid not enough? This one has to be about covid too? Let's talk about Trump.

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-torn-up-records-national-archives-jan-6-committee-164716852.html

what in the fuck

320

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Superhero Movies & Comics General

« on: January 30, 2022, 05:36:27 AM »

If anyone's interested, Joss Whedon recently had an interview where he was given a chance to present his side of the story over the allegations that have dogged his career over the past couple of years. Instead of doing that, he apparently decided to triple down on reinforcing what a horrible person he seems to be. The parts about JL are the most interesting to me. Whedon didn't have much of a defense to the accusations of toxic behavior or making threats, but a lot of what he had to cut from JL was mandated by the studio beforehand. Regarding the charges of racism, instead of pointlessly throwing stones by calling Ray Fisher a bad actor, Whedon could have very easily and accurately pointed out that he had to reduce the film's runtime dramatically, and it wasn't his fault that so many of the people of color in the supporting cast were limited to lengthy character introductions and extraneous subplots. Zheng Kai's only real role in the Snyder cut was to hint that he'd one day be the Atom. Harry Lennix's only real role was to reveal himself as Martian Manhunter - and like I said when I reviewed the movie, to very unnecessarily undermine a nice scene between Martha and Lois by turning out to be one of them in disguise. Kiersey Clemons's only real role was to hint that she'd be Barry's love interest in an upcoming movie. These roles were all easy cuts for a director whose job it was to make the movie shorter.

Snyder fans, presumably because they have poor reading comprehension (which might in part explain why they think his movies are well-written), interpreted this article as a pro-Whedon puff piece and took to Twitter to complain, Ray Fisher himself among them. Or maybe it's because of this amusing line in particular:

While Whedon’s superhero epics were leavened by irony and wordplay, Snyder’s were brooding and self-important, with a visual style that combined the artificiality of a video game with the fascist aesthetic of a Leni Riefenstahl production.

It's inflammatory, but it's true!