KIGALI – “We have watched your little scuffles, and you guys have some serious work to do,” said Joseph Ntiwiragabo, former Hutu rebel. “It’s like you guys never had even *one* civil war. Your last one was like 160 years ago! You guys are way out of practice. Your riots are about as exciting as watching flies buzz around a rotting mango. I’ve seen old ladies get more rowdy at church. So you have this thing called Black Lives Matter. We had a thing called Interahamwe and we cared about Black lives too… well, some of them anyway. Interahamwe means ‘work together’, which sounds nice until you realize that the work mostly involved machetes and Tutsi necks. And you have this other thing called Antifa, which they say means anti-fascist, but we would call it ‘children when there is no teacher’. You have given us much help and advice, so here is ours: shit or get off the pot, as they say in your country. And remember- tourists are welcome in scenic Rwanda. Come for the bird-watching; stay for the genocide memorials.” Around the globe, other militants offered advice to the US. In Colombia, former FARC rebel Oswaldo Gomez said: “OK, lemme let you in on a little secret. It’s *very* simple to have a civil war. All you need to do is ban something a lot of people use, like a drug. Then, the police have to get really violent to deal with all the new criminals and gangs. Pretty soon, even regular people will start to hate the police and the government until you get a war between the rebels and the government. What? You did all that already for decades and still no civil war? Well, sorry, I got nothing.” Meanwhile, in Syria, president for life Bashar al-Asad said: “The best way to provoke a civil war is for the government to use a crisis as a pretext to take away everyone’s freedom. You could like, deem most businesses non-essential and throw people in jail for giving haircuts. What? You’ve been doing that for 3 months? Wallahi, I only killed a couple of punks for writing anti-me graffiti and I’ve been fighting a civil war for 11 years! You Americans sure are patient.”
Rwanda Offers US Advice On How to Have More Sectarian Violence
About The Author
Derpetologist
The world's foremost authority on the science of stupidity, Professor Emeritus at Derpskatonic University, Editor of the Journal of Pure and Theoretical Derp,
Chancellor of the Royal Derp Society, and Senior Fellow at The Dipshit Doodlebug Institute for Advanced Idiocy
#Save our girls?
The difference between those places and here is here we have Netflix.
The difference between those places and here is the level of violence the opposing forces are willing to go to. I might get jumped for saying it, and I am no fan of most police in the US, but police here are extremely restrained compared to a large part of the world. A man who got caught stealing fuel on a job I was on was beaten and then detained in a hole in the ground barely larger than his body by the local law enforcement (SPLA) . Another job some hoodlums tried to steal payroll and got caught and the cops beat the bottom of their feet with the flat side of machetes until bleeding, took them into the bay and chucked them overboard telling them they were on their own. (BIR) When you have psychos who do shit like that it is either never confront them or fight them to the death.
Nice.
#bringbackourstylists
7 months, no haircut. I am rocking the apocalypse hair.
Hawt.
I cut my hair while looking in the mirror, keep it short, and wear a baseball cap.
The best thing about being bald – haven’t been to a barber in decades, and I look the same now as I did before the COVID.
On the downside, I look the same as I did before the COVID…
I’m about 9 months since the last haircut. Look like an old dude from the ’70s. Never trust anyone over 30.
My barber is 73. He’s been cutting my hair off & on (when I lived in the area) since I was 5 or so. 2 weeks after our governor closed barber shops I called him up- “fuck yeah….Im still cutting hair! Come on over!”
5+ years for me
Dude!
Nah, I was at The Dude stage two years ago.
Maybe 2.5
Yeah, I literally got about 4 haircuts between the ages of 9 and 40. I’ve been a short haired freak for about 14 years now.
Not counting getting my split ends taken care of, it’s been… 7 years? I think? All I know is I’m a disappointment to my parents.
The engineer in the cubicle behind me complimented my Swayze look and I very nearly made a cancer joke before I remembered she’d been out some months last year for radiation therapy.
Y’all need
Jesushaircuts.Four weeks and I start getting antsy with hippie hair.
Haircut today, was sporting the Andrew Jackson look. My wife recognizes me and is willing to let me take her shopping
Same. Once my neck or ears can start feeling hair, I’m overdue
That and how long it takes to shampoo.
Tonight’s shampoo was refreshing, could feel my head
I finally got my haircut today after something like 4 months.
A silver-lining for the CCP Flu is that it forced me through the awkward “growing out” phase; I had a full-on Jew-fro (per my aunt-in-law(?) – I married into the tribe). I looked like Steven Raichlen, for you PBS/Create people.
Way shorter now, albeit much longer on top than I’ve had it in years. My wife never quite believed I had wavey hair. It looks good now, frankly. She can’t stop touching it (“are we not doing ‘phrasing’ anymore?”).
Watching Columbo because dudes rock.
Columbo is interviewing a guy who offers him a thermos of ice tea and a bag of raisins.
What in the fuck were the 70s like?
+1 more thing
Chest hair and butterfly collars.
Good music, easy chicks and lots of rebellion. Very little money.
Oh, and no safety seals on anything. Your doctor would smoke cigarettes while he examined you. No seat belts in most of the cars. DUI was mostly tolerated as was beating your wife and kids. Cults were very popular. Drugs were even more popular. Hitchhiking was mostly safe, skateboarding was brand fucking new. Fake tits were not anywhere to be found and chicks never shaved the important parts.
Oh, yeah, there were a bunch of Marxist org.s that were firebombing places trying to bring about the end of capitalism, rioting in the streets and defacing public property. There were pointless never ending wars and a president that really wasn’t all that bad but everyone hated him still. There were cops brutalizing people of all races and rednecks were the enemy. The news was filled to the brim with this kind of shit and everyone was freaked out about it all. On the other hand, Saturday Night Live was actually funny and comedians could tell actual jokes that made sense and were funny.
The small town I grew up in had ‘Doc Thomas’. Like a barber shop, the waiting room chairs had ashtrays in the arm rests. He smoke unfiltered Pall Mall’s and would tell any patient that smoked to stop smoking.
Cars with 430 CI engines and room for 6 adults.
Columbo was interesting because it wasn’t a “who done it” it was a “how done it”
That is my new favorite 70s show – it’s on twice a week lately. Yesterday I learned that he had a glass eye from childhood.
It’s a great show. I dressed up as columbo one halloween and covered one eye with a giant googlie eye. I’m not sure if people my age got the joke.
From the perspective of this weird dystopian future, the 70s were basically the 50s with a few hippies around. In retrospect, we should probably have shot them all.
Robert Miller wrote at Liberty Unbound on a trip he took through Rwanda. Part one and part two.
I made it this far:
“One of the words I memorized was umwirabura, black person, which I’d lob back at being called a muzungu.The pitch-black African faces would break into broad grins with teeth so uniform and white that we began to wonder how such perfect dental health resulted in this third world country. And it wasn’t just the nearly universal perfect dentition that was noteworthy. Like the inhabitants of Lake Wobegon, Rwandans — men, women, and children — are good-looking and of above average intelligence. “
Subtract bag of raisins, maybe the iced tea too.
Like hell!
I highly doubt your typical vegan, male feminist, SJW, Antifa member is up to the task of going to a rural home to chop the heads off the inhabitants. Before “he” died from a gunshot “his” ears would be bruised by the woman of the household laughing in “hiz” face before telling Ruby Sue or Billy Bob Jr. to get the TV room shotgun.
These little commies absolutely do not understand:
That millions of their potential enemies are proficient with weapons.
That hundreds of thousands of their potential enemies (male and female) are combat veterans from parts of the military that did shoot at people as part of doing their jobs.
That their “urban habitats” are 100% reliant on the food, energy, and things produced in the areas where their potential enemies live.
That millions of their potential enemies also rely on the same food, energy and things- but also know how to survive when those same items are not readily commercially present.
That their potential enemies often have an ideal that they are willing to not just kill for, but to die for.
That millions of their “natural allies” have nothing but contempt for them.
That the government they are counting on to protect their sorry lives when things go south on their revolution have no legal requirement to protect them.
Social media and corporate cowardice have made taking scalps a low risk endeavor. I’m waiting for the first Che to show up.
+ 1 ‘Why do we need those farmers growing soybeans and corn when most people just go to Kroger to get those things.’ (paraphrased)
(I saw that exchange posted in a Tweet this morning but don’t remember by whom)
I remember the writer in a San Francisco paper writing, “Hunting should be abolished because it is cruel. People can just go to the grocery store and buy meat without any animals being hurt.”
I had that bit or newsprint in a folder for decades.
Add to that they are mostly people who nobody likes. Even on their own team, they don’t really like each other.
Now libertarians on the other hand…
😉
Libertarians aren’t quite as likely to fuck each other over for social credit.
Depends… what can this social credit be used to buy?
When a libertarian revolution goes south you end up with a room full of people furiously social distancing.
Only because we don’t consider the person we fuck over a true libertarian
According to my observations, such a creature cannot exist.
And therefore libertarians cannot fuck each other over, anymore than rainbow unicorns can.
While we are greatly concerned about the riots, blah, blah. Wait ’til the election is over, someone will win, doesn’t matter who, and all the fiscal impropriety settles in. Life is going to be bleak. Black lives will not matter, white lives will not matter. Only your life will be important (and that of your family) Social niceties like welfare programs and free lunches and worrying about the homeless will be far down the list. Getting through the day, getting food to eat from stores that look like rural Russia 30 years ago and staffed by the same people will be enough of a challenge. WE’ve already had some of that recently
“Son, I remember when we had electricity all the time” “Really, Dad, wow!”
The government has lost control and respect, the churches have lost control. If Black Lives Mattered why weren’t the black churches/preachers leading instead of haranguing. The debt will destroy the life we all could be enjoying into the future. Crime will escalate, hungry people want to eat, unemployed people want to work and eat.
During the VN War draft it was the white people, middle class, that were leading the resistance, even though black soldiers were dying at a disproportionate rate, LBJ came on TV one night to announce that it was necessary to raise taxes to pay for the war, a 10% surtax on your tax bill, necessary to maintain both Guns and Butter. We didn’t like it
Now those questions aren’t even raised. They won’t be raised either because the problem can’t be solved by printing more paper, more welfare, cop defunding or any other cute and trite slogan. When that happens we’ll all think “Who’s in Charge?” and a strongman will arise that promises our glory days still lie ahead.
“Dear men: STOP CALLING WOMEN “THICC”!
We can’t CONTROL our curves. Why would you compliment us over something we have NO CONTROL over?
Do you even realize what HARM it causes to women?”
https://twitter.com/EmillySwaven/status/1252464737142616064
I think her account is parody.
Are you saying she’s laying it on thicc?
No problem. How about ‘lard-ass?’
If her account is parody she is a master. I don’t think it is.
Parody
“I’m pregnant! having a scan soon to find out if it’s a girl or an abortion ?❤️”
That is what I mean, I can very much believe a hardcore feminist would say that.
Just a hair too provocative. Just some slight moderation and it would be impossible to tell.
Abolishfascism.com?
If they had a clue what fascism is…
Stop eating at the buffet, then!
I need pretty eyes and thicc thighs…..
Imagine explaining that system of social credit to a WWI soldier, the “dust bowl” migrant in the famous photo, or an actual slave.
Just not quite in the same ballpark.
Best one yet, Derp.
It was good. Brings perspective.
https://twitter.com/MattsIdeaShop/status/1271910816225169408
LOL
HA!
Well done.
Leftists can’t compete with actual humor.
“Leftists can’t compete with
actual humoranything.”FIFY
That was great:) lol. That’s how we all feel.
Also from the 1990s, FXX is running old Simpsons episodes (1994, Season 5).
“Unemployment isn’t just for philosophy majors any more. Useful people are feeling the pinch.”
You know who else wanted to assert his authority over the Jews?
NYC welds shut gate to Williamsburg playground amid coronavirus
Stealing this from OMWC on Twitter- “When they were done, they welded an adorable “Arbeit Macht Frei” wrought iron piece to the top of the gates.”
That’s great!
And vandalized a cross by bending each of its arms 90 degrees to show those damn Christians.
We need to bring back tarring and feathering.
There is a account (Twitter?) of a crowd of (((them))) reopening the park with bolt cutters.
(((they))) need to get more like the Mennonites. Those guys would just get a bulldozer and knock the entire wall down, gate and all, make then build it back and then knock it down again 10 minutes later.
Killdozer did nothing wrong.
That brings back up a question I can’t stop asking. Why do (((they))) keep voting for democrats? I’m not even saying they should vote for Republicans or anyone else. I’m just saying that democrats have been openly anti-Semitic for as long as I can remember now. What is even up with that?
In NYC – the Hasidim aren’t a guaranteed Team Blue vote, but they are pragmatic and frequently do.
OTH, secular Jews are basically a lock for Team Blue and I don’t get the loyalty.
Yeah, they voted for Trump by 80% or more.
As far as I can tell they are (generalizing here) split into two groups: a large majority that is religiously liberal and also overwhelmingly politically liberal, and a sizeable minority that is religiously conservative and predominantly politically conservative. These two groups generally vote as would be expected based on their political leanings. The people whose park was closed are, I would guess based on their attire, part of the second group, and therefor already outside of de Blasio’s coalition.
Posted in last thread
https://twitter.com/CalebJHull/status/1272669507778207744?s=19
How did they get inside the park to cut the lock?
They’re Ninja Jews
Ninjews!
They made a route from dried foreskins.
A rope, not a route.
They should have marked the entrance with
blooda Black Lives Matter Banner so the plague passed over it.No, they still would’ve had to sacrifice a Bamn.
So weld the gate for a park where the lock has been cut 25 times? It’s a chain link fence. The only reason it wasn’t cut open like a tin can was they chose not to do so. What did the park dept think was being used to bust the locks?
Good question. It seems like they haven’t thought this through.
If a wombat dresses as a woman are goats eating ice cream?
When did you have time to go to law school?
During my second Carona Virus lay-off.
Constructive Writing Law 231
The interesting thing about the whole Rwanda situation is that the minority Tutsis tended to hold power for most of the last few hundred years, disadvantaging the majority Hutus whose resentment built up until democracy became a thing and they played the reverse card, leading to a series of civil wars and genocides that ended with the Tutsis taking back control, which they hold to this day. I wonder if there’s still animosity boiling beneath the surface or if the two sides have collectively decided that they’re even now and moved past it.
My limited time on that continent leads me to believe animosity is always held. Never been to Rwanda though so I might be stereotyping.
Yeah, they couldn’t possibly be as bad as the Irish.
They do that shit every one or two generations and have been since the dawn of time. I think they are about due again.
Just to get something written, I turned my attention back to my pulp-ish story, but by first inclination with regards to the narrator makes him read as hopelessly naive. Realistically, there’s no way he doesn’t know he’s fallen in with criminals. While I can see him rationalizing his association as the only way to survive in the country he’s stuck in, the instinct is to write him as if he’s shocked that his comanions would knife a guard during a very dangerous raid on a rival stronghold. He can’t be that clueless.
My second thought is some dissonance because it’s the first time he’s seen someone killed, but that doesn’t account for his later active and lethal involvement in the firefights less than an hour later.
I had my character practice dedicated willful ignorance in service of her goal. She told herself X till she was forced to stop lying to herself.
Crime and Punishment.
You could have him be persuaded by a leader of the criminal group that all of the evil acts were actually in service of a ‘greater good’. So he sees the truth, but discounts it (with some moral doubts) until the evidence becomes too much for him.
Best I got for ya.
And I just realized I kind of copied Mojeaux’s argument. Sorry, Mo.
No worries! Humans are thematic. Willful ignorance is one of ’em.
The story’s way too short for that theme. Besides, I don’t want to go back and re-write the first half to set it up.
“What’s this?”
https://twitter.com/ObamaMalik/status/1272621685859127297
No idea, but still LOL
http://archive.li/niPxX/b713adda87c382b5f980706efe1f15a504fc1f13.jpg
NSFW.
http://archive.li/sORFM/31e0bc82abf7b1756bbe4e912f0b4a2456b8b2e6.webp
NSFW.
http://archive.li/ykTNB/1bf96f7a573b7971f2d8b504b7b5d1a10ebc5bc0.webp
NSFW.
http://archive.li/a5CtZ/f043a55b2d7f14983babf9edde5de059b8dabf82.jpg
NSFW.
I knew if I stayed up just a little bit longer, I would be rewarded:)
Yow. Skinny (and flexible) with a tremendous rack.
That’s some combo.
Will Protestant churches have to fold because Martin Luther wasn’t fond of the Jewish people?
Hating Jooz is perfectly acceptable.
Catholic churches too, remember the inquisition! In fact eventually everything will have to fold because every single person, nation, institution and even concept existing has some ancestor who was problematic or some nexus with oppression of someone. Maybe the Sentinel Islanders can stay, but the rest of us have bumped into each other too many times and not been saints. We have to go.
What will the last guy left do? Look around and go “SUCKERS!” Or will he nobly fall on his sword?
Oh, hey, Hayek, I talked to my shrink today and she wants to test and possibly treat me for narcolepsy. I outlined many of my symptoms and she felt it was more likely narcolepsy than epilepsy, so we shall see.
Good! I hope you find a good course of action, if any is needed.
I watched the HBO remake of Fahrenheit 451. Man, it was bad. They had no idea what message to focus on and stripped compelling character dynamics out of the story. I was surprised though they had dialogue about why books were banned that mentioned appeasing feminism and race worriers.
This one?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0360556/
It was crap.
The 1966 one is OK.
General Butt Naked approves.
BTW, if you have not seen The Book Of Mormon, it is well worth the cost. I really enjoyed it.
Oh, and you left off his middle name.
I once had a life, or rather
Life had me
I was one among many
Or at least I seemed to be
Well, I read an old quotation
In a book just yesterday
Said, “Gonna reap just what you sow
The debts you make you have to pay”
Can you get to that?
Pet Semetary?
I am really disappointed in my country right now. They are far too easily lead around by the nose.
NBC has had the “family attorney” for Brooks on every day. They clearly are hoping for more racial violence. I vacillate between thoughts of banal partisan indifference to the consequences, general reporting incompetence combined with ideological blind spots and the definite impression that I’m watching people who are steeped in evil to the point that they would gladly see lives destroyed in the cause of their team winning more power.
When I stray from that last interpretation, I remember Savannah Guthrie’s interview with Sandmann, or the hit-job on Kavanaugh. Yeah.. Intentional and with full knowledge of the consequences. Hence, evil.
But the average Joe who just goes with the flow… he disappoints me. Even the Joe of the far left should see these gross abuses and denounce them. But he doesn’t. And middle of the road Joe apparently just sticks his head in the sand so he doesn’t have to see it.
We certainly don’t seem to be the nation that produced Crockett, Houston, Patton, Washington, etc.
The average Joe has been brow beaten, taught in prisons known as “public schools” that he is wrong simply based on his race/sex, been taught that they very thoughts in his own head are crimes.
All this is why the internet can never be surrendered to the censors: as long as dissenting voices can gather somewhere, there is hope.
This is a huge point, and why they are so urgently worried about culling “fake news” from the internet.
It is the same urgency that drove them in pursuing AM talk radio in the 90’s. The lone dissenting voices were all chased there.
Everything that has happened this year appears to be an elaborate scheme to get Colin Kaepernick a QB job in the NFL.
And the sports talk people are all onboard that hiring a guy who in his prime threw ducks to wide open receivers or ran will heal the racial divide. He wasn’t a guy who lost his job and used a gimmick to get publicity, NO! He was a visionary ahead of his time!
I told my husband this evening that George Floyd was the best thing that ever happened to Colin Kaepernick.
2020 has been flippin’ unreal.
The football coach at my Alma mater was.spotted off campus in his own time wearing a OANN shirt, for One America News Network.
Star runningback Chuba Hubbard, a Black nan from Canada, has said he won’t participate or play if the coach (Mike Gundy) doesn’t denounce it blah blah. Now other athletes are joining in against Coach Gundy (sane coach whose impassioned defense of a player against critics made the news 15 years ago).
If I were an NFL scout, I’d be noting all these guys’ names for the Do Not Draft—Diva pile.
Are you kidding?? They are the perfect ‘woke’ recruits that the modern, forward-thinking football fan is expecting in their fave NFL team.
I would love it if someone decided they were gonna sit shit out after Gundy bent the knee. Say they can’t respect a coach that doesn’t actually run/manage his college players–many of whom are there for free, so long as they play ball.
The NFL recognizing Juneteenth and the media proclaiming that it celebrates ‘the day slavery was abolished’; shows how ignorant all involved are, willfully or passively.
You did that ’cause I’m Texan, didn’t you?
SMDH…
The woke crowd hates the violence in football so they’ve tried to make it less and less appealing to the viewer, in hopes its influence will lessen and eventually be irrelevant.
Female sideline reporters, gay wardrobes for the analysts, wear a ribbon or special color to raise awareness of death. Remember Obama saying he wouldn’t want his son playing football (yes, the left has been making football political for at least 10 years. Kneeling for the anthem, Kostas going on an anti gun rant on air mid game.
Hey, they can courteously tackle their opponents, you know.
?
According ti WIKI:
Those seem contradictory to me, as Trump is center left at best.
He doesn’t espouse marxism so he’s far right. That’s where we are.
Have you noticed that every olive branch (short of complete capitulation) the right offers the left is treated as a bigger affront than even outright hostility?
It’s all gaslighting. Whatever the fuck that means.
Speaking of which. The Dixie Chicks are staging a comeback. Trying to ride a woke wave back to their heights. Sorry suckers, not going to happen.
Seems they now have to contend with ‘Lady A’ while being 20 years older than the New Woke On The Block. At least Lady A might inadvertently lead to people discovering Mr. A.
Reconciliation and compromise are not the goal. Conquest is.
True. Why compromise when you think you’re winning?
Examples:
All Lives Matter
It’s OK to be White
Reform not Defund the Police
States Rights*
*In the sense the right has given up trying to tell California what to do.
https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/06/group-of-oregon-lawmakers-press-governor-to-release-nearly-2000-inmates-early-over-coronavirus-risk.html
Oh, well as long as it’s only unserious person crimes.
Well, to be sure, people convicted of goofy person crimes shouldn’t be jailed to begin with.
Sure CHAZ/CHOP will take them.
Gotta make those quotas of inclusion.
Not knowing what “measure 11” is, I looked to the article expecting to learn that measure 11 was some hate speech law. That’s how low my expectations have become.
Guess who’s up against the wall next, Mayor.
Truly hilarious.
Earlier.
The schadenboner is strong with these.
“I’m really trying to process this,” the mayor said Saturday to The Olympian. “It’s like domestic terrorism. It’s unfair.”
Of course it is…they werent supposed to tear apart YOUR shit.
Justified on all counts.
You’re not my supervisor!
WHAT?!? A WHITE MAYOR??? How in the world did that happen??
Whiteomancy of Thomas Jefferson Davies in 1619.
19th anniversary today. Taken some heated arguments over the years, but we’ve managed to find some kind of equilibrium. Her mom was a housewife (never had a job outside the home) and so my wife learned from her how to treat a husband. Problem is that we both take care of the housework and the kid so she doesn’t get the dictatorial power her mom had over her father in the home. To the wife’s credit, she let it go over the years even though it was ingrained in her from childhood. Still pops up once in a while, but I quash it quickly.
Congrats, man! Rolling up on my 3rd on Wednesday.
Congrats to too then!
*to you too
“Rolling up on my 3rd on Wednesday.“
Wife, or anniversary?
Pffft–lucky.
She hangs out the laundry in the morning, I take it in and fold it when I get home.
I cook, she does the dishes or vice versa.
That kinda stuff. Why are you doing it all?
It often feels like it. Do you do it all, and set the tone, going forward, that you are the one who’s going to do it all; or, put your foot down, let it pile up, and hope for a change of heart?
/no–not all, but I seem to be the one bothered by the stuff not getting done
Huh. That’s a different problem than mine. Dunno how you get someone who doesn’t clean to make them do it. Especially an adult
I don’t suppose it helps that we’re both armed, either.
Dunno how you get someone who doesn’t clean to make them do it. Especially an adult
The answer is you don’t. Unless they’re a hoarder or unhygienic, it’s not like they’ll let a mess sit around forever.
The peril is coming off as sayigg “you will do it to my preferences, right now”.
Congratulations! May you have many more years of getting locked out of the house Flintstone style.
Fucking Dino left me on the porch for the last time.
What the ever-loving cuss, ebay???
Lemme guess, EBay is a woke company?
The bitch that wrecked that place with massive over-regulation took a run for Gov here in over-regulation central. She lost. Apparently she was way too libertarian for this state, LOL.
Then she wrecked what was left of Bill & Dave’s onetime company that Bill Hurd and Carly Fuckuparena shit all over.
Noooooo!
https://imgur.com/MArf3b8
No pleasure for you as long as viruses exist.
Maybe the CHAZ CHOP will annex it.
Anyone around who is also interested in discussing “micro transactions” in video games? Namely, why they bad (morally so, I take it)?
Sure. What is a micro transaction in a video game?
In video games, there are sometimes items to buy (with actual currency), that can also be earned with lots of play. Or, expert-level play. They are usually high-end items–the best whatever (weapons, armor….umm, whatever things help you kick ass).
There was enough push-back by gamers that Congress got involved, with all the grace and nuance we’ve come to expect from them. Anyway, I don’t get why they are so bad. If you don’t want to buy, don’t buy. If you do, and the makers are OK with having them, go for it.
Markets, and all that.
Hammer and nail. If something is unregulated, someone somewhere wants to regulated it.
I’ll add that there were a couple other issues. I’m not sure what Congress dealt with, but I know one of the problems overseas with some ‘freemium’ games is that the problem transaction was considered gambling and therefore illegal. The player was spending actual money to buy a chance at an item in some kind of loot crate but the weighting was a secret, so no one could know if the Ultra Best Prize was 1 in 12 or 1 in 12 million. So games then had to post the weighting of any game of chance so at least the player could know their odds.
Another different issue is microtransactions in premium titles. This was part of the huge blowback against Star Wars Battlefront. it was felt –cheap? for the game to want even more money when the title was already expensive. I don’t know how necessary the items really were to progress in the game, so there might have been some of that but it was mostly iIrc the perceived double-charging that annoyed gamers. The game eventually eliminated the extra transactions.
The BF2 was what got this started, for me. If the items were already in-game….then don’t pay for the crap! That really is a less money, more effort/more money, less effort situation. If the game presents the opportunity to go up $75 bucks, as opposed to the usual $60, and no one wants to pay that, EA (and the others) will most likely figure it out pretty quickly. Otherwise, it’s just an option that people can access, if they so choose.
As far as the chance to get an item, and not straight out buying it when you pay; that’s bs. But, it doesn’t necessarily require government intervention (as we all know, around here). If they lied, I would think a lawsuit is in order, not taking into consideration whether it’s a foreign company. Then again, this is all a good lesson for getting informed, or, eschewing the pleasure–presuming you don’t want to chance it.
It appears to be an issue for multi-player games; but, even then, I don’t get it. If you pay to get these items, as opposed to earning them, I would think the chances are you probably haven’t played the game as much, and don’t have a skill level commensurate with those who ‘earned’ the items. So, it would seem to balance out.
Okay, I play a farming game that has “micro transactions.” Some people may see it as cheating because you pay for items rather than earning them. Or it could be seen as taking advantage of people because gameplay is “addictive” and people/addicts pay to play more/more quickly.
I just don’t get the “cheating” aspect–why do you give one flip about how I obtained it? How is that any of your business?
And the nanny-ism? Puh-lease. I could understand worrying about someone spending $ they don’t have. Otherwise, this idea that the addiction criticism comes from people who play. “Oh, I am perfectly fine; I have self-control. But the addicts? Well, it’s the game, not them. Even though the game doesn’t actually introduce any outside substance into the body…”
/Just my take based on what I see being the arguments, btw.
Regarding cheating think about steroids in sports. If they see the game as a competition, the purchase gives an unfair advantage. Or jealousy. Or they cannot accept that life is unfair.
I think of it as paying for NetFlix or going to a movie, it’s entertainment. If spending a few dollars on a game makes the game more enjoyable then why not.
Right? I think of it as either taking care of your lawn yourself, vs paying for a lawn service. It’s a matter of priorities (time and effort or cash). The competitive aspect is one thing, but, video games aren’t competitive for me, as I don’t do multi-player.
There is also the seen and the unseen. It’s like what someone else mentioned earlier today, the food just shows up on the shelf. No one had to work to produce it and no animal had to die so you could have ground beef.
You’d let another man mow your lawn?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD25SvVzkFs
I use an all-female service.
Some items are just slow to earn. This is on purpose to encourage paying for items. I think this is okay. A lot of games are free to play, one way to generate revenue (to pay employees and run the company) is to allow for the purchase of these items. Some types of games do not lend themselves to selling ads, so revenue must be generated another way.
The problem is the perception of deception, especially when the game is deliberately slowed down and made extra grindy to encourage the purchase of microtransactions. As a rule of thumb, “Free to Play” games are more expensive for the player than one and done purchases. So, I don’t play them.
In addition to what you guys have discussed, there’s the kids to talk about.
Fortnite probably brought this to the surface the most. The model is actually genius. A free game designed for elementary/middle school kids. It is multiplayer and highly social, with chat and friend functions, games to play with “squads” of your buddies, etc.
You can buy a “battle pass” for a “season” of Fortnite. The battle pass allows you to earn gear – special skins for your character and weapons. It doesn’t actually change the gameplay, just your appearance. There is a market and a menu for switching out skins for the character, backpack, pickaxe, weapons, etc. There are also “emotes” that can be purchased. These are dances that the character does and “stickers” that the character can place in the game.
What this does is create a way to have social status in the game. Exactly the same as having a member’s only jacket in 1980.
There are also packages of “vbucks” and special skins available for purchase with vbucks.
This means the kids end up spending a huge amount of money for a free game. Because every week there is another “super cool skin that I just have to get!!”. And the transactions are reasonably small. Ten bucks for a few items. Five bucks even…
So they get a battle pass. And blow all the money pretty quick. Then grandma finds out that he wants Vbucks for his birthday – so he gets $25 for his account. And aunti gives him some…
Next thing you know, the kids are playing a game that has cost them $150 and counting.
All for a completely free to play game in which none of the purchased stuff confers any advantage at all, other than social credit.
Worse, it’s not even a good game.
I dunno about micro-transactions but there’s a SitCity knockoff I bought when it first came out a few years ago, played a few times, and lost interest. Fast forward to today and now it has around $200 worth of DLC. Many of these are fundamental game features. And then for good measure they bolted on a separate client you have to run it on. Fuck that.
Morning, Glibbies.
The news headlines are kinda creeping me out even more than usual today – a shooting at an Albuquerque protest, new tension between North and South Korea, and a fatal confrontation between Indian and Chinese soldiers at their border. Anybody got some happy news to keep me from going back to bed and hiding under the covers?
Remember, the business of the news is not to keep you informed, but to keep you scared so your eyes are on their ads while waiting for updates.
Good point. Come to think of it, the only time I’m tempted to get on Twitter (other than following links from here) is when there’s some urgent, fast-breaking news event going on and the news sites aren’t updating quickly enough for my taste.
Maybe I should take up video gaming.
Avoid “free to play” games, they more expensive than one and done.
Speaking of, I’m oddly excited for this to enter early access* today.
*means it’s not done but you can buy it anyway.
Impressive graphics! I bet it could crash my laptop in no time!
It’s actually pretty lightweight as far as games go.
Though I’m going to guess you’re not using a bleeding edge gaming rig.
Morning!
Happy news? I got nothing.
Morning, Sean. I guess I have a little good news of my own – we finally got some long-needed chimney repair done yesterday, thanks in part to our Trumpbucks.
Yay…. now what?
Now we hire somebody to repair the plaster around the fireplace in the living room that’s been damaged by the leaky chimney. And then…
No “And then!”
The best news I have is that I have bacon… I just haven’t cooked any.
Bacon is worth living for. Yesterday at the grocery I managed to snag the last two of these frozen breakfast thingies for my breakfast-at-work.
Huh, sounds interesting.
I’ll try one today and report back.
Hah, those commercials caught my eye.
Another day above ground?
There is that. We haven’t had to retreat to our underground bunker yet. ; )
Wait- I was supposed to build that underground?
Guess you’re going to need another pair of digging gloves now.
Screw it, I’ll just don my supervillain gloves, hyjack and orbital space laser and burn out the cavity with the clensing light of a thousand suns.
***SIGH!!!*** You built it as a treehouse, didn’t you?!
While it has limited reach for extension, it does have an excellent observation platform.
But does it have a “No
girlsslavers allowed” sign out front?