QuietCupcake

I was the same way. I fucking despise the "git gud" attitude and decided that I would never be able to enjoy the genre that gave rise to that phrase. But I ended up playing a game I didn't even realize was a soulslike until after I became addicted to it. Ever since I've been fascinated by the way that kind of game with that set of mechanics can really hook a person in to the world and into learning and developing the strategy needed to further uncover it.

The first soulslike I played was Salt and Sacrifice and it won me over to the genre which beforehand I had decided would be too frustrating. Unlike most soulslikes, Salt & Sanctuary is 2D, so maybe consider giving that one a try if 2D games tend to be more along the lines of what you like. I'm guessing that might be the case considering you made one! Also for that reason, it might be worth noting that Salt & Sanctuary was a labor of love made entirely by only 2 people. Make sure it's Salt & Sanctuary you're getting because they did end up putting out a sequel, which I haven't played yet but understand it to be more like Monster Hunter than a soulslike, called Salt & Sacrifice.

This discussion shows one of the main reasons why it's such a good game though. It has a depth that very few other games have achieved, not just in terms of the world and lore, but as a genuinely human kind of story that also manages not to turn all its social commentary into tepid, lib-friendly clichés.

However I don't know why people in this thread keep calling the loan shark character "Muller." His name is Strauss.

I don't know, I kind of get why they are going hard about it. When a website is a community that takes up a significant part of your day, attention, and thought, it's almost impossible not to have strong feelings about how it's ran and how you're allowed to use it, even in principle. I don't have really strong feelings about it myself, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't irk me quite a bit, especially when it seems like all the time I'm either seeing posts not getting removed that the rule definitely applies to, and simultaneously good posts with quality commentary getting removed just because the initial dunk was on some nobody reddit dork.

but why don't you or another person upset with rule 8 just request a comm

If I remember correctly, when this issue has come up before, which it has several times, mods said that no comm requests for rule 8 posts would be granted. I even suggested a weekly megathread where people could post and talk about all the low-hanging fruit they wanted, but it would be contained to a single, easily-ignored if chosen, thread. But no one seemed to like that idea.

Not the person you're replying to (looks like they got banned for what they said in this thread) but I fit the same bill, being someone who hasn't posted there while still thinking rule 8 is just a bad rule that doesn't improve the site but detracts from it. I like to read the things posted in the dunk tank, including posts that I have seen removed for rule 8. I also like to read the modlog and it's the only reason I know about some threads that got removed, threads with lots of comments, none of which were complaining about the source of the dunk, and that I really enjoyed reading and would have liked to have seen continued to be discussed.

In addition to threads I only knew about because of the modlog, there have been a bunch of times now where I was reading a dunk_tank thread and went to respond but couldn't because the post got removed between the time I opened it, read through it, and tried to comment. There have also been a couple times where I was considering making an actual post there but didn't because I didn't want one of the only times that I do make a post to end up getting removed. There was even a time when someone else (a mod at that!) ended up posting the very thing I had been considering posting.

Oh! One more thing to add. Back when the hexbear code made it so comments and upvotes updated in real time without needing a manual refresh, I would sometimes upvote and de-upvote a comment multiple times over like 10 or 20 seconds right after it appeared. If the comment was freshly made as I was reading the thread, I knew the person who made it was probably still looking at their screen with the comment they just made. I always hoped they'd see their upvote count flashing up and down repeatedly, and it would be like my way of saying "hi! I see you there! I'm here rn too. Nice comment." I kinda miss that.

Only on the news megathread, really.

Here's my breakdown as one who mostly lurks, for whatever it's worth: Aside from the news mega, I would guess maybe around 70% of threads I only give a once-over, or maybe twice, so there is really no point or need for a "read/unread" mark.

Some interesting ones, maybe 20% I'll come back to to refresh and see what's new, but usually not more than a few times and I can remember at first glance what I've read. Also there will still be lots of upbears on the stuff that was good or that I agreed with (I hand out upbears pretty uh... sigh... "liberally") so it's not hard to tell if I've read through a thread. I don't usually sort by "new" so when I see the thread for the first time, it's usually already been up for a bit.

On maybe 9% that are very interesting or are struggle sessions and whathaveyou will I keep refreshing. On those, using upbears as an "already read" marker would be helpful, but I still don't want to just give them out totally freely, especially in struggle sessions for obvious reasons. And the very last 1% are ones I comment in which I will also refresh a lot but will depend on the context, where sometimes I will upbear nearly everyone especially if they respond to me, or in other cases if it's argumentative, commenters definitely gotta earn it.

But the newsmega, when I read it, I almost want to be a completionist about it and will do exactly what you describe. When shit is going down, I will scroll through multiple times a day, even several times an hour if it's hopping. I will upbear everything simply to know if I've already read it so I can scroll through it fast for anything new without having to even re-read at all. Only comments I really don't like and would feel angry or dirty if I did, don't actually get one. But I also go through phases where I don't read the newsmega, or much of any news, just as a mental health break. And sometimes those breaks last longer than they should, and I feel bad for not keeping track of what's happening, but that's a different topic.

Thank you for reading my dissertation on my upbear habits, I'm sure you found it deeply enthralling.

As far as relating fascism specifically to the Neoliberalism of the US, here is an insightful comment by @Droplet@hexbear.net:

Fascism is fundamentally characterized by 1) mass privatization and 2) vicious anti-communism.

The fascist counter-revolution first saw its success in 1920 Italy when the post-WWI nationalized economy gave rise to a strong socialist movement that nearly overthrew the bourgeois government.

WWI ended laissez faire capitalism when it found itself unable to ramp up war production and suffered from inefficient output, and this was a disadvantaged position during inter-imperialist warfare. Instead, state run capitalism became the norm as the imperialist powers were dragged into a protracted Great War during which vast resources and war production could only possibly be organized efficiently with state intervention. Such dramatic changes shifted the leverage to the working class, whom the ruling class became dependent on to win the war. The consequence of this was the explosion of labor and socialist movements throughout Europe, and culminated in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia that subsequently ended WWI.

As they found themselves unable to resist against the tidal wave of workers movement, inspired by the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Europe, the liberal capitalist class turned to fascism with the hopes that such extreme brutality could crush the seemingly unstoppable socialist movements. They succeeded, first in Italy in 1922, and then subsequently in Germany in the early 1930s.

One of the first signs of a fascist regime was the mass privatization of the previously nationalized industries:

Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister in October 1922. Nazis rose to power in 1933 in Germany. Mussolini convened a meeting of his cabinet and immediately decided to privatize all the public enterprises. On December 3, 1922, they passed a law where they promised to reduce the size and function of the government, reform tax laws and also reduce spending. This was followed by mass privatization. He privatized the post office, railroads, telephone companies, and even the state life insurance companies. Afterward, the two firms that had lobbied the hardest: Assicurazioni Generali (AG) and Adriatica di Sicurtà (AS), became a de-facto oligopoly. They became for-profit enterprises. The premiums increased, and poor people had their coverage removed.

After the trains were privatized, the services became slower and more irregular, contrary to the popular myth.

In January 1923, Mussolini eliminated rent-control laws. His reasoning ought to be familiar since that is the same reasoning used in many contemporary editorials against rent control laws. He claimed rent control laws prevent landlords from building new housing. When tenants protested, he eliminated tenants' unions. As a result, rent prices increased wildly in Rome, and many families became homeless. Some went to live in caves.

Once more, these policies allowed landlords to increase their profit and holdings while they severely hurt the poor.

To remove "government waste," Mussolini removed the federal government from remote areas in Italy. This meant that rural farmers, peasants, and workers no longer had the protection of the federal government against abuse from agribusiness. Instead, they were entirely under the mercy of big businesses.

The austere economic policies in fascist Italy were studied closely by the British marginalists, who were the precursors to the neoclassical economists that eventually found the Chicago school and brought neoliberalism to the forefront of economics.

As such, there is a direct connection where fascism and their austerity economics directly contributed to the development of neoliberalism. Combined with a vicious anti-labor and anti-communist thrust, the models of fascism being replicated in Indonesia in the 1960s, Chile in the 1970s and Russia in the 1990s (Russia being a special case because they didn’t go all the way, as Putin re-nationalized a lot of the key industries since in the early 2000s) under the guise of neoliberalism, during which hundreds of thousands if not millions of communists and left wing activists were brutally murdered.

Within Europe itself, mass privatization began in the UK as early as the 1960s, and began to become part of the European center left/social democratic platforms in the 1970s. Interestingly, most historical account of privatization in Europe conveniently left out the earliest forms of mass privatization that took place under the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.

In other words, neoliberalism is simply fascism rebranded. By all accounts, the neoliberal model of the United States is as close as you can get to fascism - what is missing here is that violence against communists, labor activists, minorities aren’t becoming prevalent yet due to the relatively high living standards of the US being sustained by its foreign imperialist policies.

But don’t let that fool you, just like in the 1920s, they really can turn to fascism in an instant when the situation becomes dire enough to call for it. It took no effort at all in convincing an entire class of liberals in Italy and Germany to support Mussolini and Hitler.

Variations on this question get brought up every once in a while, which is good, I think it's important to rehash these kinds of discussions even for people who have seen them come up before. But if anyone is interested in skimming over some past hexbear conversation on exactly this topic, here are a couple threads that I think had some good responses too:

I want materialist definitions of fascism please - 1 year ago

What is your definition of fascism? - 2 years ago

edit: Just came across another post from 2 years ago asking specifically what Stalin's definition was, and @Alaskaball@hexbear.net turned up an answer, found in a 1941 Speech Stalin gave.

I know. But what I said above is true regardless, ftr.

Definitely not. If there is actual talk of instance wide defederation over this then something has gone horribly, hilariously wrong. No, I'm just saying how funny the language and framing of this has been, and that they already defederated from the dunk tank.