noob

Ah yes, world famous anti-imperialist country Russia, which never invades other countries. What are the nukes for, you may ask? Scientific purposes only of course.

So decades ago I worked at a bike shop and some college students came in. One of them was black, everyone else in the shop was white. She sat down on a bike, that was all black with dark grey lettering. And I said “this bike looks great, I love the black on black look.” Everyone looked at me funny, she immediately got off the bike, and i literally died inside and froze up.

20 years later and i still think about this.

Also I should note that it was not the first time I used that phrase for that bike - when you work sales you end up with little automatic narratives that you barely think about.

“Security” connotes more than military defense. It’s often a concern of economy, which is secured through trade and partnership and international alliance.

But tell me specifically the difference between becoming more independent vs isolationist. Are you simply advocating for stronger European militaries? Ironically, MAGA has also been asking for that - they want Europe to spend more on their militaries.

My position is that the stronger and more prolific the alliances are among nations of the world, the less each individual country will need to spend on militarization (a complete waste of resources). That’s not suggesting that Europe shouldn’t be spending more on their militaries in light of recent events. That’s just an unfortunate consequence of a shitty disposition of US isolationism.

Independence rhetoric does closely align with the rise of right wing nationalism we see throughout the world. I’m curious how you distance yourself from that movement.

This sentiment is a major part of the MAGA platform - just swap “European” for “American.”

Why become isolationist? It’s a weak position. What about countries like Canada, Japan, India, Mexico, etc? Just because the US sucks right now doesn’t mean the rest of the world shouldn’t work together.

The game’s story is in media res and you don’t just get spoon fed major themes. I’d say the most salient emergent theme is the foils of ambition. We see various characters struggle with the consequences of extreme ambition and power grabs, resulting in both the physical corruption of themselves and the world around them. Cyclical stagnation is also a major theme. We see that the world is stuck in a repeating loop of power struggles. Our player character witnesses this through fragmented interactions with other characters, the environment, and found items. Ultimately, we are asked to make choices that would involve the player character in the same corruption and cyclical fate that we witness throughout the game, or to choose alternative futures (all fairly bleak).

Capitalists - consumers guide the market by making informed ethical purchasing decisions.

Also capitalists - labeling requirements? Absolutely not.

In order to eliminate the traffic I had to become the traffic.

Easy fix: We’ll call them New America, New America, and New America Patriots, respectively.

Fun fact, Oaxaca is named after that bean.