• 3 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 6th, 2023

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  • If you’re the one paying for internet access, you should also have the right to determine the content that you’re paying to have access to. While something like pi hole could be used to metaphorically take down most of the billboards without impacting the ground below it, even everyday users should be informed about the data advertisers are getting from them, whether it is anonymized or not. Hiding an important setting about data sharing near the bottom of a page in settings doesn’t help anyone but the advertisers.










  • The problem is that anything less than unwavering support for Israel would be spun by well-funded propagandists as left-wing at best and antisemitic at worst. Regardless of how unjustified those claims are, and how detrimental they are to the wellbeing of oppressed Palestinians, a switch in foreign policy tactics now just for Netanyahu to wait for Trump to be elected is not worth it, as any short term benefits for the Palestinians would be undone tenfold should Trump be elected. Beyond that, a similar or worse fate would await Ukraine should that occur, so it’s ultimately better to wait until the election is over to consider major policy changes.


  • While it would be great if the US weren’t unilaterally supporting the actions of the Israeli government, unfortunately a major shift from that foreign policy position would likely only receive substantial support from the people already likely to vote Democrat, or anti-Trump at the very least. It would likely be spun by media outlets that are either generally conservative or simply biased in favor of the Israel government in such a way that would push moderates towards Trump. As Trump would only increase the country’s support of the Israeli military, it’s more important to avoid him being elected to avoid a worse situation in the long run.


  • Valve could still operate as it currently does, including having sufficient profits to account for R&D and long-term costs, at a lower cut of platform sales (as another commenter mentioned, Gabe Newell’s billion dollar yacht collection is demonstrative of the platform’s profitability, especially when one considers how much it costs to maintain ships). Products such as the Steam Deck make money for Valve too, as Steam Deck users (myself included) statistically buy more games on Steam as a result. I don’t support profiteering efforts by game publishers either, such as the Factorio price increase attributed to inflation, $70 game releases attributed to inflation when digital releases have reduced their costs, and micro transactions in general. In any case, however, given that cost increases are always the consumer’s responsibility, cost decreases should not simply be a means for companies to bolster their profit margins.