TSN Open Mic for the week of 2/13/2023
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to Ten Second News.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these on the Sidebar every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
Where are my free speech peeps at?
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/13/1153590012/west-virginia-public-journalist-dismissed-wvpb-political-interferenceReport
Private companies can do whatever they want.Report
West Virginia Public Radio isn’t a private company.
That aside – you are ok with politicians shaping news media by getting people fired?Report
Personally, I believe that we ought to have something like an Enlightenment Culture attitude towards Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, and so on.
An attitude that says that the proper response to Proposition P should be something more like “Proposition P is wrong”. If you find yourself cultivating a culture that finds it easier to say “People who believe Proposition P should be punished”, you’re going to find yourself in a place where appeals to vague attitudes from 100 years ago fall on deaf ears.
All that to say: No, I’m not okay with politicians shaping news media by getting people fired.
But this has been a long time coming.
We’re going to find out that the whole “Freedom of Speech” thing was not, in fact, protecting the powerful from the masses.Report
Does an Enlightenment Culture allow a teacher to tell their class about their same sex spouse?
Asking for a lib on TikTok.Report
Sure. It allows for all kinds of things.
This is why you really have to keep fighting for it even when it’s inconvenient for some temporary advantage.
Because once you give it up here or there, you’re going to find out that a lot of people never liked it in the first place and you’re going to be losing a lot more of it and a lot less temporarily.
And your appeals to it will ring hollow.Report
Uh huh.
But isn’t it a bad look for teachers to do that, and doesn’t it spark an understandable backlash from parents concerned about teachers grooming children for sex?Report
The game is iterated and has been iterated for a while.
I appreciate that you want to start policing defections, though.
Good luck! Be sure to appeal to your own moral authority!Report
Is there anything that’s not game theory to you?
Like do the actual impacts of these decisions mean anything beyond intellectual self pleasure?
“Policing defections” is not the language actual people – especially normies – use to talk about this stuff.Report
I have some bad news:
I’m kinda aspy.Report
If I’m understanding this right, the next iteration of the game will be an understandable backlash to Ron DeSantis resulting in mandatory sex changes to elementary students and white people bowing to their black overlords.
Sorry, I don’t make the rules. Republicans should have thought of this.Report
It’s certainly testable.
You can write it down, see if your predictions come true, then say “well, my predictions were accurate, it’s reality that didn’t understand the way the world is supposed to work!” if it doesn’t happen the way you think.Report
I’m just saying that when college students shout down a conservative speaker, it’s an understandable backlash to conservative illiberalism, and really, conservatives have no one to blame but themselves.
Because, y’know, the game is iterated.Report
Absolutely!Report
“I’m just saying that when college students shout down a conservative speaker, it’s an understandable backlash to conservative illiberalism, and really, conservatives have no one to blame but themselves.”
Chip, the problem with you playing “bet” as a joke is that eventually someone says “call”.Report
“Is there anything that’s not game theory to you?”
lol
“why do you keep going on about gravity? Don’t you understand that the planets are on crystal spheres?“Report
So…it’s NOT a bad look resulting in an understandable backlash?Report
Hey, private companies can do whatever they want.
Eventually private citizens are going to want in on that.Report
Right under the bus where you threw them, dear.
I swear, you’d lose your head if it weren’t screwed on!Report
RIP to David Jolicoeur, aka Trugoy the Dove, aka Plug Two.
Report
In today’s GOP World:
https://mississippitoday.org/2023/02/13/republican-control-black-voting-power/Report
‘
It keeps getting worse.Report
well clearly not worse enough for anyone to actually engage . . . . .Report
That district where they’re increasing police presence because they’re whites and the district where they’re taking voting rights away because they’re blacks, that’s the same district, right?Report
ITs the same city. Its the state capitol.Report
So you’re saying these crazy racists are keeping blacks down by not caring about their vote in a white part of town, and/or that these crazy racists are only trying to protect whites by increasing police in a majority-black part of town? Do you see the internal contradictions?Report
The Mississippi GOP is seeking pass legislation that the GOP governor will sign that expands the district within the city controlled by the Capitol police (who answer to the legislature and not the local authorities) in an all white part of the capitol AND creates a second court system in the same town whose judges will be appointed by white GOP officials, as opposed to the current court system where the judges are elected at all levels and represent the whole county (including the black areas). There are no internal contradictions.
That aside, the GOP has spent two decades gerrymandering blacks into solid districts that give the GOP a supermajority of both legislative houses so that the black members of each house don’t have the ability to block or amend legislation impacting their constituents.Report
Is there one new district or two? I only see one. It has more police and a new court system. It’s majority black. There is no all-white district. The point of the complaint was that they were taking the vote away from blacks, not all whites.Report
The state House District seat encompassing Jackson is held by a black man who is a Democrat. The expanded Capitol police District takes in only the white neighborhoods of Jackson. The new court district is going to have judges appointed by the White elected GOP affiliated Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court. The new court district will be hearing cases that would otherwise have been heard by the elected county and state courts in Hinds County, where Jackson is. Because these judges will be appointed and not elected, they are not answerable to the people they will be sentencing.
These actions were done in a House that is controlled by a white GOP supermajority None of whom represent Jackson. They are changes opposed by the black Mayor and the Black house member representing Jackson, both of whom are Democrats.
If you really want you can read more about this below. Now that you have all the details – what question are you really trying to ask?
https://mississippitoday.org/2023/02/07/jackson-court-system-house-bill-1020/Report
The proposed Capitol Complex Improvement District is estimated to be 53% black.
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/30916/white-appointed-capitol-courts-in-jackson-step-closer-after-mississippi-house-approvalReport
See, I’m not 100% sure on the details, but it’s clear that neither are you. It looks like your original link was posted out of pure confirmation bias.Report
The details are that an expanded police force not answerable to the local political system will be taking in mostly to all white neighborhoods. An appointed court outside of control of local voters will hear cases from that district and surrounding areas within a County that will have no control over that court. These two changes have been proposed by and approved by a nearly all white House GOP supermajority over the objections of the people living and voting there. None of your links actually refute that.
That’s fascist, and its racist. I am unsurprised that you don’t like it or care, but these are the details on the ground.Report
I provided a link which states that the proposed district is estimated to be 53% black. Can you provide a link that contradicts it? If not, will you acknowledge that?Report
The proposed district is estimated to be 53% black by the white lawmaker who wrote the bill – and does not live in or represent the district.
And your point is?Report
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2023/feb/15/mississippi-jackson-judicial-district-unelected-judges-prosecutorsReport
Well, I wonder which is right.Report
Why does that matter? The issue – which I htink I’ve stated 3 or 4 times now – is that white GOP House members who don’t represent the Cpaitol city or its citizens have voted to expand apolice force thats not under the control of local authorities and impose judges on the local population that will be appointed (again not accountable to locals) by a white GOP supporting Chief Justice. This will be approved by the white majority GOP controlled senate and signed into law by the white GOP governor.
That is fascist authoritarianism – in this case tinged by racism since the local authorities, the local House Member and the local state senator are all black as is the majority of the population in the city. Debating how many black residents will be subject to the new police force – which again is NOT controlled by local authorities or how many people will be subject to this new appointed and unaccountable court is a really fascinating attempt at distraction and bad faith trolling.
SO what does it matter how many black citizens are in what part of the city? Why harp on that and not the larger freedom, law and order and civil rights issues?Report
Because someone once posted this:
“But perhaps no legislation better showcases the unilateral GOP control under the dome better than House Bill 1020, which passed the House late in the evening of Feb. 7.
“Yes, the national headlines you read last week were accurate: A mostly-white House supermajority passed a bill that would create a completely white-appointed judicial district and expand the police force within the whiter areas of Jackson, the Blackest large city in America.”Report
And those are true statements. The Mississippi House has a supermajority of white GOP members. They have passed a bill to create a special judicial district whose judges, prosecutors and public defenders will be appointed by white GOP politicians. The courts will have criminal jurisdiction over an expanded police district for the Capitol police which will encompass all but a few of the city’s white residents – and civil jurisdiction over the whole county. And all this is being imposed on Jackson and Hinds county by white GOP house members who do not represent Jackson or Hinds County in the House. Imposed, not asked for.
So I guess it’s nice to know you want to get the actual statistics correct while white GOP House members impose fascist style outside control on the black population of my state’s capitol.Report
The funny thing is how you shifted in terms. You began with race race race, then when I questioned those numbers you switched to “fascist and racist”, then to “fascist authoritarianism – in this case tinged by racism”. It’s the same results I would expect if you posted the piece without thinking about it because you figured it fit your priors, then started swerving trying to find out why it fit your priors. Race! Not race? Fascism! Fascism with racism!
You don’t seem interested in the issue enough to have learned about it, so I have to assume you posted it to add to the anti-GOP collage. It doesn’t matter what it says as long as it makes the collage bigger. It would have been more interesting if you asked why the district was created. I’m trying to find the party and race breakdowns of the vote, but I haven’t been able to. It looks like it was basically party line. So is this even a racial issue? It means nothing either way that one party would present it as such.Report
Yes its a racial issue. A White super majority legislative body is imposing law enforcement and court changes on a black jurisdiction unilaterally. Just because my words to describe it change a bit post to post doesn’t change the underlying issues. The Party and race breakdowns of the vote are in the articles we have both linked to, so if you can’t find them I can’t help you. From your own article:
Note the white members of the House are all GOP representatives. And as I have repeatedly noted, the black democrat who represents Jackson in the House didn’t author this bill, co-sponsor this bill or vote for this bill. The black democrat who is Jackson’s mayor did not ask for this bill and has repeatedly publicly denounced it. It was IMPOISED on Jackson by people who don’t live there and don’t represent its citizens.
Also do remember this is local news to me. Its in our papers and on our tv nearly nightly. So it is of great interest to me an many other Mississippians.Report
“Note the white members of the House are all GOP representatives.”
Five bucks says that’s not true.Report
This is the kind of thing I do when I’m bored and I know someone’s wrong on the internet:
Thomas Reynolds II (D)
Tom Miles (D)
Bob Evans (D)
Michael Evans (I)
Shanda Yates (I)Report
If black democrats in another state did this to a white GOP town, would you be nitpicking the details or would you be engaged in the debate around the fascist and racist nature of the action?Report
I wouldn’t think to ask about the skin colors at all, and I’d try to present accurate statements if I posted about it.Report
And you believe Race is no part of this issue? Fascinating.Report
I assume that when Democrats largely support one side and Republicans largely support the other, party affiliation is sufficiently explanatory. I don’t care about the races. You see the racial split and assume that race and belief are correlated, because you’re a racist. I think you think you’re well-intentioned and therefore not racist. There was a time in history when your flavor of racism put you closer to the ideal than the other flavor, and maybe that time still exists in some parts of the country. But it doesn’t mean you’re aiming for the ideal.Report
Whites imposing police and courts on free blacks in a Southern state has never been racist in US history?
Fascinating.Report
Yeah, I didn’t say that or imply that.Report
3 Dems out of 74?
We are pwned. So terribly pwned.Report
Looks like Chip will get an honest to goodness Senate election in a year:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/14/politics/dianne-feinstein-reelection-not-running/index.htmlReport
Nina SImone was correct in 1964 and she is correct todayReport
DiFi is stepping down and not running for reelection in 2024. Currently, Reps. Katie Porter, Adam Schiff, and Barbara Lee have announced their attention to seek the nomination.Report
For Jaybird (and others), on the topic of MrBeast: https://hardcrackers.com/what-is-to-be-hated/Report
TIL about the existence of Dhar Mann. The internet is a vast universe. I don’t see what is horrible about turning a swimming pool into a giant bowl of cereal per se. Maybe a bit wasteful but as pranks/whacky stunts go, it is about as begin as possible. I agree with the left critiques of private charity not being able to help enough people and putting us into camps unnecessarily of deserving and non-deserving.* But there will always be private charity and people who seek to make it a bit about themselves. I think this is just part of the human experience/psyche and it is probably better to use Mr. Beast as a way of getting more attention to other people who need help and how that requires the welfare state.
*When it comes to left visions of aide, I am more about large, centralized, and potentially somewhat impersonal welfare agencies/programs vs. mutual aid. IMO the mutual aid model is more like wishing you can have all the conveniences of NYC with all of the coziness of the Shire. It is just not possible.Report
There seems to be a certain killjoy nature to a lot of these criticisms. The killjoy nature is really obvious and it doesn’t do the people making the arguments any favors. I guess you can make an argument that all fun is the enemy of justice but very few people want that.Report
OH! It’s about *TASTE*!!!!!
Yeah, I agree that he’s tacky AF. Have you seen the video of him dabbing?
Report
Here is an article about how Hogwarts Legacy is also anti-Semitic and not just transphobic https://www.themarysue.com/hogwarts-legacy-players-are-already-finding-more-troubling-antisemitic-references/Report
It always gets worse.Report
That point was touched on in the comments to the controversy post.
Here’s the tweet that went viral:
The criticisms of the point involve how the pogrom was 1614 and not 1612 and how much emphasis to put on that, whether cheese would make the horn unkosher and how much emphasis to put on that, whether Goblins keep kosher and whether that would change the emphasis on the previous point, and so on.
Now, I haven’t gotten to the main Goblin storyline yet (so far, my interactions with the Goblin trying to kill me have me more suspicious that he’s after the same stuff that I’m after) but I will do my best to update with my takes as I encounter stuff that makes me say “holy cow, I can’t believe that got in here!”
The stuff that flies over my head will, sadly, continue to just fly over my head.Report
Note that the games text said that the gorgonzola was put inside to mute it and render it unusable by the Goblins. Also saying that it isn’t really a reference to a pogrom because it happened two years before the 1614 pogrom is a very weak defense.Report
Out of curiosity, I googled “violence against Jews 1658” (a year I pulled out of my butt) and got the Khmelnitzky Uprising. I googled the same thing and swapped out 1673 (another number I pulled from my butt) and got an essay about Piotrków being granted the privilege de non tolerandis Judaeis.
Seriously, I didn’t google stuff and then backfill the year.
There were a lot of bad things that happened that century all over the continent.
But if you picked those two years that I picked at random, you could also find bad stuff happening. Would it have been offensive to pick those two years?Report
As Lee notes, a pedantic counter on getting the dates wrong by two years is a very weak tea argument but it is ever so loved by trolls.
I think there are lots of thin-skinned people who do not want to deal with the idea that something they love could have “problematic” issues and/or they are too cowardly to say “Yes, this game/person might have issues but I am going to stick with their art anyway.”Report
Not exactly my argument. It’s more of a “choose a year in the 1600s that couldn’t be accused of being an antisemitic dogwhistle challenge” argument.
“How dare you pick 1630! That was the year that Jewish merchant Moses the Braider was burned alive!”
(1630 was another year I pulled out of my butt, for the record.)
Here’s a wikipedia page dedicated to antisemitism in the 17th Century.
Is there a year in there that you would find acceptable (defined as one that you wouldn’t call “weak tea” for the defense of not being an actual year but being really close to a bad one)?Report
I think to Ken’s point below, as long as we are training people to find something problematic in everything, worlds where ‘races’ of even fictional, non-human creatures are known for particular traits will get a hard time, at least from the twitter crowd.
To me though the weird part of the assertion is the idea that some game developer somewhere knows enough about an incident that is incredibly obscure to modern audiences and somehow intentionally worked it into the game with no one noticing. I mean it’s not impossible but it’s close enough to playground level conspiracy theories I’d expect someone to have some actual evidence before accepting it as likely.
Anyway as a person who does not game it’s all pretty silly to me, but for those that do I would simply take consolation in the fact that if the sales numbers are real no one cares about any of this. It’s best understood as a bunch of crazies screaming into the internet.Report
There’s also a secondary assumption that anti-Trans = anti-Semitic; which, admittedly, is part of the intersectional playbook. But, there’s no particular reason why someone couldn’t be anti-Trans ideology and pro-semitic (Jewish even!). Or vice versa.
Absent actual proof of intentionality, the logical leap/connection isn’t in fact logical or a connection.Report
Yea, not to mention the fact that I suspect Rowling’s connection to this is limited to whatever she gets for licensing of the IP, and that even calling her ‘involved’ is a serious overstatement.
Beyond that this strikes me as being around the same level of turning the Disney movie all the way up or pausing it at just the right frame to get the hidden message. Not really something I’d expect anyone to stake their credibility on.Report
I remember watching the TV show Grimm a few years back. Fantasy, not bad, not great. The show was a modernized version of German fairy tales. The last episode I watched featured a human/vulture creature that stole organs and was named Dr. Levine. Nope.Report
That was either very intentional or an incredibly dumb mistake.Report
As we’ve talked about on other topics here, there’s a kind of mistake that even if it’s one time and unintentional, you’re fired. I mean, German fairy tales, you’ve got to be in top form to avoid anything gross like that, and Dr. Levine? Not a great effort.Report
It’s amazing what people will find when they’re intent on finding something. I always think of a bit from Tom Lehrer’s “Smut” when this kind of thing comes up:
All books can be indecent books
(Though recent books are bolder),
For filth, I’m glad to say, is in
The mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed,
Everything is lewd
(I could tell you things about Peter Pan
And the Wizard of Oz, there’s a dirty old man!)Report
On the other hand, sometime they find something because it really is there. Considering human history, letting people off the hook too easily if something looks and smells suspicious might not be the best idea.Report
So help me understand the thinking here — who exactly would the game writers be communicating to with this 1612 reference? How many people, anti-semites or not, do you think would instantly connect that year with the (checks website) Fettmilch uprising? It’s a silly coincidence (and i saw some tweet somewhere pointing out that it doesn’t even make sense as a connection, the direction of the violence is wrong).
Take any two random things and someone with enough time and motivation can find “hidden connections” — our brains are very creative and flexible. It’s the oxygen of all conspiracy theories.Report
You are focussing too much on the 1612 thing and not enough on the obsessed with money and wanting to use the blood of children thing, i.e. the blood libel. These should be very obviously anti-Semtiic. People noticed issues about the goblins that were problematic since Harry Potter came out but as always plausible deniability and the need to be above it all gets in the way.Report
If we’re talking about the books & movies overall and not specifically the game, I would say that the movie portrayal does combine a couple of “tropes” in an unfortunate way that those who have reason to be sensitive to such things would understandably raise an eyebrow at (as Pinky says). But the majority of people (non-anti-semitic, even liberal) read & watched these and didn’t pick up on it until it was pointed out. If the accusation is that this was done intentionally then it was quite ineffective. Calling the books, movies, or game “anti-semitic” on the basis of this seems pretty silly to me – “unfortunate coincidence” or perhaps “draws on certain fantasy archetypes that are now seen as problematic” would capture it better.
Beyond that, some people are now over-sensitized to the Potterverse and the author and are actively hunting for more connections. These are what my first comment was referring to — once you start looking for something like this, you can always find it. Even your “blood libel” thing seems like a stretch – from even the accusatory tweet, it’s not “the goblins” doing, this, it’s a “goblin-led faction” — so non-goblins are part of this, and (so I read) many goblins are against it. Again, if they were purposely trying to be anti-semitic here then they’re doing a really bad job of it. I guess we can wait for Jaybird to share more details though.Report
So you’re saying the goblins are behind a conspiracy and are manipulating other races to do the dirty work?Report
Damn these anti-semites are clever.Report
It’s not that you can describe the goblins with anti-Semitic tropes, it’s that you can’t describe them without them. That doesn’t constitute proof of ill will, but it’s understandable that people notice it.Report
A lot of things are “understandable” — humans are notoriously poor at rational thinking, and also notoriously poor at recognizing that trait in themselves. I suppose at this point any fantasy writer should just stay away from “goblins” altogether.Report
I reconsidered a bit in the light of morning… I do agree that it’s reasonable that people would call attention especially to the combination of the movie portrayal and the role as bankers. I don’t recall people complaining about the goblins in The Hobbit (I guess in that series it’s the dwarves who get that kind of scrutiny).
At this point, any fantasy world that combines consistently different appearances with consistently different characteristics is just asking for trouble.Report
…any fantasy world that combines consistently different appearances with consistently different characteristics is just asking for trouble.
This is because fiction writing, character development and world building are very difficult things to do from scratch.
So writers tend to use pre-existing worlds and familiar characters, stereotypes that we are already familiar with.
E.g., do you want to indicate that a fantasy character is complex and dynamic?
Give him an Oxbridge accent.
Want his companion to be a simple and static character?
He speaks Cockney.
We’re already primed by real world bigotry to accept these caricatures which relieves the writer of the tedious task of creating them anew.Report
I think this is true, but I don’t totally agree with the suggestion that it’s due to authorly laziness — drawing on familiar patterns and stereotypes will make it easier to tell the actual story you want to tell and will save you and your readers from a lot of taxing exposition.
I recall Isaac Asimov saying much the same about jokes — something like, if your joke relies on the fact that someone is very cheap, you can call this person “Bob Smith, who was notoriously cheap”, or you can call him “Sandy MacTavish” and let the audience’s association of Scots with cheapness handle the necessary background. Though I don’t know how widespread that particular stereotype is anymore.Report
funny how all of a suddenly they care about jewsReport
When they tell you who they are, believe them:
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/14/1156642544/more-than-half-of-republicans-support-christian-nationalism-according-to-a-new-sReport
Hey, I’m a Christian nationalist skeptic!Report
Today in “Rule or Ruin”:
DeSantis threatens to rid Florida of Advanced Placement classes
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened Tuesday to withdraw state support for Advanced Placement programs and expand other methods of awarding college credit to high school students, escalating a highly unusual clash that burst into public last month when his administration rejected plans for a new AP African American studies course.
DeSantis will put the state to the torch before sharing power with black folks.Report
This is one move that might actually piss off suburban voters. Especially if colleges outside of FL openly say they won’t accept FL’s alternativeReport
Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.Report
IB is well known nationally, so if that’s where Florida lands it won’t hurt the kids. Except if DeSantis thinks IB is less “woke” as he defines it, he may be in for a surprise.Report
The New York State Senate voted 39-20 to reject La Salle for the chief justice position on the NY Court of Appeals. This is the highest court in New York.
For those who were not following, Governor Hochul had a chance to nominate the Chief Judge because on an ongoing scandal that caused the previous chief judge to resign. La Salle was the one person on a list of potential nominees where supporters who helped her in the 2022 election stated “we have some issues with this guy.” Hochul in true New York governor fashion, refused to back down. La Salle was originally rejected in the judiciary committee. Hochul threatened suit over this. Well shots were fired.Report
This will moot the lawsuit contending that the committee rejection was insufficient and a vote of the full Senate was required. I assume the Senate leadership knew it had the votes in hand before it pulled this move. In a way, this is unfortunate. I had no views on what the right answer to the legal question is and no particularly strong policy preferences, but I did think it would have been useful to have some clear answer, which I thought more important than any particular answer.
As for the pick itself, I wouldn’t have picked the guy, especially if multiple constituencies said he was the only one they had a problem with. (So what was Gov. Hochul thinking?) I’m not sure I would have voted against him, though.Report
We have been debating this a lot on LGM. The best answers that we can come up with are a combination of:
1. She is not very smart;
2. She is very stubborn;
3. This is a throwback to the dying vestiges of NYC Machine politics (Tammany Hall is dead, long live Tammany Hall). La Salle is a product of the Brooklyn machine. Hochul wanted to reward the New York machine for helping with her 2022 reelection campaign. There was an extra cherry on top that the Bronx Borough President liked the idea of a Hispanic judge getting the top judge role and endorsed La Salle. Progressive groups do not like and/or do not understand that the old machines still matter a lot in NY. Things are changing but the transition will be long.Report
Looks like VR was a flash in the pan.
Report
A friend who works for Microsoft says they’re closing down HoloLens as well.
The issue, I think, is that manufacturers just figured it was going to be enough to make the hardware; their plan was to treat it like PCs and let the users figure out what to do with the things. And the commercial and industrial users said “if this isn’t a turnkey solution, then we don’t have the budget for it,” and that was how it went.Report
I wanna say that this goes back to the nausea issue. Fallout VR was *GORGEOUS*. Seeing the bomb go off right before you entered the vault was terrifying and awesome. Exploring the wasteland was visceral in a way that just playing it on a monitor couldn’t replicate.
But you couldn’t play it for more than 20 minutes without wanting to barf.
Skyrim VR? You didn’t even mind that you bought it again. Walking around and seeing these buildings around you! You’d prepare a spell like lightning bolt and you’d see static dance around your hand. Prepare fireball? You were holding a baseball-sized fireball ready to throw wherever (or at whatever) you pointed.
But walking made you want to barf.
There were a handful of pretty decent VR games, I guess… Moss. Space Pirate Trainer. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. These games all involved sitting or standing in one place and manipulating the virtual space in front of you.
There was no killer app.
(There is, of course, the… erm… content provided by adult content providers. But I understand that that’s got one of those pareto distribution things going on. “80% of sales are from 20% of clients.”)
I was talking about the Hogwarts game with a co-worker in the breakroom and another co-worker ran up and started talking excitedly about how he got it too and we talked about the various missions for a few moments. Both of the co-workers in that conversation told me that they bought a PS5 just for this game. (One bought a PS5 for his wife who didn’t have a warhorse computer like he had. The other bought one for the household based on the strength of the game.)
I know people who bought a PS2 just to play Grand Theft Auto III.
VR had nothing that did the same.Report
I think it’s vital to distinguish the different potential audiences. Most of the discussion I’ve seen is by gamers in the context of gaming — and here the most popular opinion seems to be “eh, it’s a cool trick but it has problems (motion sickness being only one of them) and traditional pc/console gaming is better”. Then there’s VR in the workplace — here it just seems like no one’s found a good use case that justifies wearing a headset for 8 hours/day. Zoom meetings and multiple monitors are fine, 3d avatars and floating virtual screens are unnecessary.
To me the most promising area is in the casual space. E.g. I’ve had a great time in winter months playing some VR mini golf with folks from work, and it captures some of the most important bits of the IRL experience while also adding its own charms. Cubism is a really neat 3-d puzzle that’s accessible to just about anyone. And every headset is also your own personal movie theater. They just need to figure out how to make the units smaller and more comfortable (while keeping affordable) and then convince non-gamers that this really is something for them.Report
It’s an *AMAZING* game night for the group. Get two VR headsets and you can do stuff like play Star Trek: Bridge Crew. Put multiple people on Keep Talking and watch everybody squeal in delight when the bomb goes off. It is a really awesome way to entertain 6-8 people for 4ish hours on a Saturday night.
And people will pay for a board game that does that. Even normies.
But the Oculus is $350.
Ain’t nobody gonna pay $350 for a board game unless they’re board gamers.Report
Just checked the price of Twilight Imperium. $120 from Amazon.Report
People pay $350 and more for a TV, then pay more to watch specific things on it. I wouldn’t necessarily put money on the proposition but I can easily imagine a VR headset eventually becoming a typical part of a household’s entertainment device inventory. Especially if they can make it more comfortable to wear for extended periods of time.Report
The design/ construction industry is exploring VR.
We no longer make 2D drawings of buildings, but build 3D buildings in virtual space and the ability to walk thru spaces offers possibilities for coordination of parts superior to older ways.
But the market just isn’t nearly as large as the entertainment world so the R&D funding is always just a spillover from gaming.Report
That makes sense. Clearly there are plenty of industry-specific uses, so no need to think that VR/AR itself is going away — I guess it’s more about how widespread and “ordinary” it would become, and also figuring out what the hell the “metaverse” is so we can decide how close/far/impossible it is. Certainly it seems hard right now to imagine VR becoming a regular part of the day for the average office worker.Report
My son works at a VR start-up… you would think VR would have a consumer focus, but all they work on are commercial applications.
They seem to be getting the most traction in ‘situational awareness’ training applications where the situation is dangerous and awareness is critical – which would make actual training dangerous.
They also have a good emerging market helping commercial enterprises sell augmented experiences to consumers. Not, like, extended rides or anything… think more like personalized group pictures with the team that you buy.
Less world-building and more immersive augmentation.Report
Yeah, I could see this making a lot of money for people who can jump up and get a piece of some state’s Police Training Budget (or, to a lesser extent, hospitals or First Aid Courses at the expensive library downtown).Report
Even bigger… think Risk Management for, say, Timber Companies. Simulate dangerous situations and have some giant trees ‘kill’ your workers when they take the wrong approach on a cut.
Or, say, Railroad companies…
You and I have to complete white collar risk compliance about ‘malicious’ email. Imagine if everything you did involved malicious trees.Report
There’s an article in The Dispatch today about Meta losing $13.7 billion on their VR division and questioning the strategy — this quote seemed relevant to the discussion here:
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I think that VR would be useful for stuff like advocacy.
TheBlu is a VR experience (less a game, more a short movie) where you have a whale encounter under water, go to the deepest part of the ocean and explore a whalefall, and see a migration of jellyfish through a coral reef.
That last one could be used by coral reef preservationists to get donations. “This is what we’re trying to save.” Make people watch a 3 minute movie. Ask for money. Watch it roll in.Report
NextGen Disney ‘If you had wings’ ride.
To your point, though, the advocacy team would have to invest in all the VR infrastructure then offer it to people as a cost of doing business. But sure… could provide a visceral emotional response that will lead to funding (or barfing).Report
A million years ago, back in the early oughts, we went to a Dave & Busters Wannabe place where they had VR helmets and you and three friends could have a VR flying mech war.
They were set up on a little treadmill kinda thing so you could move around and take small steps and, most importantly, SLOSH AROUND THE FLUID IN YOUR INNER EAR.
A nextgen “if you had wings” ride could have you lay down on your tummy (preferably at a bit of an angle) and put on the helmet and, this is important, jiggle you pleasantly as you flew around.
No nausea.
The video portion of the ride? That would cost $X. The haptic feedback portion of the ride? $100X. If you were lucky.Report
I think that kind of thing has been happening for a while now on a small scale. I recall my daughter telling me about some activists who came to her campus 6-7 years ago with a VR experience of life in a refugee camp someplace.Report
Yeah, that makes intuitive sense to me and squares with the sorts of projects that are getting actual commercial funding. Versus Zuck’s dream of colonizing VR first – sort of facebook 2.0. It wasn’t really addressing a need, it was trying to create a want.
Once VR solves some useful problems and becomes somewhat familiar, I anticipate we’ll see practical enhancements and development into new areas probably as augmented reality first.
If I put my fake futurist hat on, I’d predict that Disembodied VR won’t become a thing until Robotics can be connected to VR at which point its more of, well, a ‘Surrogate’ thing a’la the movie. Intermediate step might be a remote war/worker mech as the next evolution up from remote drones.Report
Yes. Those stupid ads with “you could be learning in a classroom while sitting in your home”. We can do that already, without wearing a wraparound helmet.Report
Good News! Persons arrested for silently praying (individually) in the vicinity of an abortion clinic had the charges dropped. Of course, we had to arrest them according to the law that specifically forbids praying in the vicinity of an abortion clinic. Technically more of a local ordinance.
In fairness, one is *also* prohibited from contemplating in an approving manner things going on in the facility.
The Activities prohibited by the Order are:
i Protesting, namely engaging in any act of approval or disapproval or attempted act of
approval or disapproval, with respect to issues related to abortion services, by any means.
This includes but is not limited to graphic, verbal or written means, prayer or counselling,
The CSP declined to elaborate on why they dropped the charges, but one suspects they did not want to create a test case in whatever manner the English legal system handles test cases.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11758387/Catholic-woman-prosecuted-silently-praying-outside-abortion-clinic-CLEARED.htmlReport
Persecution of Christians is like Fetch.
It’s just not going to be a Thing.Report
Especially in the UKReport
Strange rebuttal to a law that prohibits the approval or disapproval of a thing by ‘any means’.
I suppose you’re saying that the general idea is good, but, unfortunately won’t be applied as it ought because… something, something… Christians?
And if there’s one thing we all know, England never persecutes Christians. Not Dissenters, not Catholics, not no one.Report
And if there’s one thing we all know, England never persecutes Christians. Not Dissenters, not Catholics, not no one.
This is true.Report
I see, good laws, poorly enforced. Good chat.Report
Oh look, another moderate reasonable totally not creepy panty sniffing Republican governor:
Virginia governor blocks bill banning police from seeking menstrual histories
The Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, appears to have thwarted an attempt to stop law enforcement obtaining menstrual histories of women in the state.
A bill passed in the Democratic-led state senate, and supported by half the chamber’s Republicans, would have banned search warrants for menstrual data stored in tracking apps on mobile phones or other electronic devices.
Advocates feared private health information could be used in prosecutions for abortion law violations, after a US supreme court ruling last summer overturned federal protections for the procedure.
But Youngkin, who has pushed for a 15-week abortion ban to mirror similar measures in several Republican-controlled states, essentially killed the bill through a procedural move in a subcommittee of the Republican-controlled HouseReport
“For me and many fans like me, any new Harry Potter content can only be a source of deep distress. People who choose to buy the new video game inevitably send a message that they care more about the Harry Potter universe than they do about the real-world fans Rowling has hurt — and especially the real-world harm that comes from bankrolling her transphobia.”
https://www.vox.com/culture/22254435/harry-potter-tv-series-hbo-jk-rowling-transphobicReport
From eight days ago:
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That’s a fun article to read and pretend the author is angry that Rowling doesn’t wear a hijab.Report
Remember the Sonmez thing? Weigel getting suspended for a month?
That might have been the high water mark.
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High water mark of…what?Report
Journalists telling editors and publishers what for instead of the other way around.Report
A challenger appears!
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Fox News stars had doubts about the election fraud narrative: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/business/media/fox-dominion-lawsuit.html
This is your daily dose of unsurprising news.Report
This is why I refuse to engage with Republicans as good faith actors because, while some are true believers, most are liars, plain and simple.
When we hear them use high minded terms like “election integrity” or “academic freedom” or “parental control” the majority of them are just lying. It always sounds harsh or like a casual slur, but it is just simply a fact that most of the claims being made by the conservative faction are just lies and bullsh!t
So its like being in one of Hannah Arendt’s or Sartre’s essays about a post-truth world where words are just wielded as weapons of war and have no actual meaning.
How many of them actually believe that the 2020 election was stolen?
Doesn’t matter, because they behave as if they believe it.
How many of them think that teachers are actually grooming children for sex?
How any of them actually think that clinics are performing sex change operations on children against their parent’s wishes?
None of it matters because they don’t have any concern for truth or lies but merely what gains them power or doesn’t.Report
Republicans Pounce:
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Much of the initial response was led by local and state agencies under the direction of Mike DeWine, a GOP governor. While the EPA has been monitoring the air since day 2 (I believe) and the NTSB has a full investigation open (as they are required to do), a lot of this rests on the state’s shoulders.
Which makes this another case of the GOP trying to eat its own in a way that owns the libs.Report
They’re really making unfair attacks against the Democrats too.
Stuff like “do you think that this chemical spill is more dangerous than gas stoves?” and asking why FEMA isn’t seeing this as an emergency when they *KNOW* that FEMA only helps with stuff like hurricanes and tornadoes.Report
FEMA can’t come in and help without a formal request from the Governor, and he only yesterday asked for the CDC to ramp up.Report
Mike DeWine is being really dishonest, then.
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They aren’t eligible until there’s a federal disaster declaration. So far as I have seen DeWine hasn’t asked for one. FEMA doesn’t ride in on a white pony unilaterally.Report
Your working theory is that DeWine has asked for help but didn’t think to ask for a declaration of federal disaster? It’s possible; some political rats would do that kind of thing to make the other side look bad. But if you found out he had asked, would it change your appraisal of the state and federal actors?Report
If he had asked I would wonder why he isn’t saying so, and why FEMA would reject his request.Report
I’m waiting for Fox & Friends to declare that the most wonderful nine words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.Report
you know I’m so disappointed that the quality of trolling down here has gone this far down. You guys really need to up your game.
The EPA arrived on site day 2. There are numerous photos from the scene with NTSB and EPA folks in bring blue jackets with yellow lettering. They are there for a reason. You may not like the monitoring and the levels they report, and I suspect there will be long run health consequences. But to say they aren’t monitoring and reporting would be to lie.
And about that lung capacity issue – I grew up at the top end of Cancer Alley. Statistically I should be dead already. I’m not the guy you want to challenge over stuff like this.Report
Sen. Rick Scott seems to have had an “ah ha” moment about Social Security’s relationship to his constituents:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/17/politics/rick-scott-medicare-social-security-plan/index.htmlReport
There was a new Dolezal drop earlier.
Freddie wrote a post about it.Report
Most of that post is behind the subscribers only paywall.
But the part that isn’t is so . . . disappointing . . . cringeworthy . . . . disquieting . . . Though as Freddie hints at, until the incentives change these things may keep coming up.Report
This one isn’t as funny as the Jessica Krug one.
But the incentives! I’m not sure that the incentives are changeable without some serious collateral damage.Report
This time, it’s someone I have followed for years on Twitter (though I don’t remember exactly how I came to follow her). I also know some people who work in that organization (or associated organizations). Very weird. I always thought the Twitter name was just that, and not a name she was actually going by.Report
A handful of people are pointing her name out as an obvious giveaway and it does strike me as likely that a bunch of people just assumed that she was adopting a persona rather than, like, *ADOPTING* a *PERSONA*.
“Um, of course I knew she was white. Did you not know that she was white? Her name was Raquel Evita Saraswati! That’s three different parts of the world right there!”Report
Salman Rushdie on the Dahl Affair:
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I agree, it’s terrible when capitalism’s control allowing insanely long copyright claims gives dumb family members claims over the work of their parents or grandparents.Report
At least you aim your fire at the real enemy.Report
The consequence of voting Republican, part umpteenth in a continuing series:
Why does the South have such ugly credit scores?
The answer will surprise no one:
Of the 11 states that have yet to expand Medicaid, eight sit in the South, according to KFF, a San Francisco health-policy nonprofit. Southerners were more likely to be behind on medical debt even before the ACA, but the reluctance among the region’s mostly Republican governors to participate in the Medicaid expansion has increased the gaps between the South and the rest of the country.
In states that immediately expanded Medicaid, medical debt was slashed nearly in half between 2013 and 2020. In states that didn’t expand Medicaid, medical debt fell just 10 percent, the JAMA team found. And in low-income communities in those states, debt levels actually rose.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/02/17/bad-southern-credit-scores/
“My question for the candidate is why are you shafting us working class people by refusing to expand Medicaid?”
“Uh, er., ummm..Hey look over there- A Drag Queen!!”Report
Spot on. Mississippi is one of those states. Where shafting the White Working Class to keep from spending money on the Black working class has become REQUIRED for state office holders.Report