This seems like a really smart thing to do. Meet people where they are.
I also enjoy the fact that things like this probably make these massive corporate platforms sweat a little. People always find ways to subvert and I’m here for it.
Mustering the will to get out of bed in the morning doesn’t in itself immediately achieve the things I need to do that day, but it’s a first step in the process of getting there. Awareness and convincing people problems are real issues is a step toward potential solutions, even though on their own they don’t immediately solve the problem.
I wouldn’t call this “protest” per se, more like “informing others about causes they should fight for.” And educating people is the first step in those journeys of 1000 miles. Also props for innovating to things people would already be watching anyways without it feeling too shoehorned in
I say this respectfully, but has making negative comments about people trying to do good and educate others ever improved the situation?
I think it’s easy to be jaded right now, I struggle with it myself, but remember that this kind of knee jerk criticism is very deflating for some people to read. You might feel like it’s an outlet for you, but it can cause others to feel hopeless and depressed.
I don’t believe you want that, so I would encourage you to be more supportive of attempts at change, not just results. Changing hearts and minds is a long and imperfect process.
Speaking as an activist, nothing brings my piss to a boil quicker than people essentially doing nothing and hiding behind the excuse that they were “just trying to raise awareness”. Holding a pro-Palestine candlelight vigil in Roblox, for example, whilst there are still Palestinian civilians being murdered is a woefully inadequate use of time and effort if you actually want to help.
If people read this criticism and feel hopeless or depressed, there are direct actions they can take for any cause to help which should make them feel better. It’s more difficult than changing your social media banner but doing the right thing to help is rarely, if ever, easy.
I can understand that perspective, but I also think you’re making a lot of assumptions about whether this was effective or not. Based on your original comment you don’t know, so I’m just encouraging benefit of the doubt instead of shitting on things for not being perfect.
Maybe as an activist yourself you could get in touch with this organization in the post and suggest some more effective methods for what they’re trying to achieve? That would be practicing what you’re preaching instead of just leaving comments online. Just my 2 cents, and I wish you well.
That would be practicing what you’re preaching instead of just leaving comments online.
I mostly leave comments online whilst taking breaks from things like transporting donations to local secular food banks, volunteering at an initiative for rehousing displaced Ukranian people, and my day job; your magnanimous faux concern about how I spend my free time when not making a direct difference to important causes isn’t appreciated.
How could i know what you do in your spare time? You haven’t shared it until now. I can only go off of what you’ve said on this thread, and I do not retract my criticism of it. This will be the last response, so I hope you have a good day and thank you for making a difference in the world.
Holding a pro-Palestine candlelight vigil in Roblox, for example, whilst there are still Palestinian civilians being murdered is a woefully inadequate use of time and effort if you actually want to help.
the people holding a vigil like this are probably literal children, because Roblox is a game for and overwhelmingly played by children, so i don’t understand the criticism here–it’s unlikely they can help in any material way you could as an adult, but they can be politicized into understanding who deserves their sympathy and who is perpetrating harm that must be ended, which such a rally helps affirm
Whilst children may not be able to help in the same way as adults, I believe that children absolutely can help in material ways. Children can still protest, fundraise, and engage in other forms of direct action. Children are not helpless or incapable.
Children can still protest, fundraise, and engage in other forms of direct action. Children are not helpless or incapable.
you are shadowboxing with things i didn’t say and are the only person inserting the terms “helpless” or “incapable” here, but also once again: this is a game marketed at literal children. i stopped playing Roblox at 14 and doing some research i’m led to believe that would be quite old for a Roblox player. probably half or more of the player-base is 13 or younger. do you honestly expect the average 13-year-old (or younger) to be capable of anything other than performative activism relating to the genocide in Palestine?
do you honestly expect the average 13-year-old (or younger) to be capable of anything other than performative activism relating to the genocide in Palestine?
Children can still protest, fundraise, and engage in other forms of direct action. Children are not helpless or incapable.
In this specific instance, it sounds like education on how to safely communicate and interact with ICE, or at least best available practices, was shared to people who may not have otherwise gotten any info at all. That seems like something to me.
Creating awareness through outreach is one of the most important bits about protests. There needs to be a critical mass of people that are fed up in order to create a smaller bunch of people that will move in action.
That’s how grass roots campainging works. People with such a huge amount of followers are critical to mobilize more people. For every one person to actively join a protest many more must be reached.
The planetary alignment is a celestial event that occurs periodically within the solar system where Gaia and the other five planet gods known as the Astra Planeta align. The event was prophesied by the Fates to occur again 18 years after Hercules’ birth and would allow Hades to conduct a “hostile takeover” against Mt. Olympus with the help of the Titans.
Energy released by the planets lining up created a vortex that moved the water away from the place in the ocean where the Titans had been imprisoned by Zeus back when the Earth was new. Hades then broke the energy gate covering their prison and the Titans climbed free to begin an assault on the home of the gods. However, in their anger, they initially headed in the wrong direction until Hades got them turned around.
Cities: Skylines II Found a Solution for High Rents: Get Rid of Landlords
For months, players have been complaining about the high rents in the city-building sim. This week, developer Colossal Order fixed the problem by doing something real cities can’t: removing landlords.
The rent is too damn high, even in video games. For months, players of Colossal Order’s 2023 city-building sim, Cities: Skylines II, have been battling with exorbitant housing costs. Subreddits filled with users frustrated that the cost of living was too high in their burgeoning metropolises and complained there was no way to fix it. This week, the developer finally announced a solution: tossing the game’s landlords to the curb.
“First of all, we removed the virtual landlord so a building’s upkeep is now paid equally by all renters,” the developer posted in a blog on the game’s Steam page. “Second, we changed the way rent is calculated.” Now, Colossal Order says, it will be based on a household’s income: “Even if they currently don’t have enough money in their balance to pay rent, they won’t complain and will instead spend less money on resource consumption.”
The rent problem in the city sim is almost a little too on the nose. Over the last few years real-world rents have skyrocketed—in some cases, rising faster than wages. In cities like New York, advocates and tenants alike are fighting against the fees making housing less and less affordable; in the UK, rent is almost 10 percent higher than it was a year ago. From Hawaii to Berlin the cost of living is exorbitant. Landlords aren’t always to blame, but for renters they’re often the easiest targets.
From this perspective, perhaps Cities’ simulator is too good. Prior to this week’s fix, players found themselves getting tripped up on some of the same problems government officials and city planners are facing. “For the love of god I can not fix high rent,” wrote one player in April. “Anything I do re-zone, de-zone, more jobs, less jobs, taxes high or low, wait time in game. Increased education, decreased education. City services does nothing. It seems anything I try does nothing.”
On the game’s subreddit, players have also criticised “how the game’s logic around ‘high rent’ contrasts reality,” with one player conceding that centralized locations with amenities will inevitably have higher land values. “But this game makes the assumption of a hyper-capitalist hellscape where all land is owned by speculative rent-seeking landlord classes who automatically make every effort to make people homeless over provisioning housing as it is needed,” the player continued. “In the real world, socialised housing can exist centrally.”
This is true. It exists in Vienna, which the New York Times last year dubbed “a renters’ utopia.” Except, in Vienna the landlord is the city itself (it owns about 220,000 apartments). In Cities: Skylines II, the devs just got rid of landlords completely.
The change in-game will have “a transition period as the simulation adapts to the changes,” and the developer “can’t make any guarantees” with how it will impact games with mods. Although the update aims to fix most of the problems at hand, that doesn’t mean players should never expect to see rent complaints again. When household incomes are too low to pay, tenants will be loud about it. “Only when their income is too low to be able to pay rent will they complain about ‘High Rent’ and look for cheaper housing or move out of the city.” Maybe it’s time players had a few in-game tenant groups of their own.
In real life, Qaddafi got rid of landlords in Libya. It resulted in a lot of housing problems.
Some people don’t have wealthy parents that can buy them a place to live outright. There is a need to have housing available that doesn’t require someone to have wealthy parents or get out a large loan. The ability to rent a place is important.
The real problem is the high cost to own a place to live which results in people having to rent when they’d rather own a home.
For clarity, my understanding is that landlords in the game basically live rent free. Some of the buildings spawn with low numbers of apartments, so if you had a building with two apartments, 1 would be a landlord and the other tenet would pay x2 the rent.
So effectively they’re changing from having local landlords to instead paying rent to a distant landlord.
Part of me feels like it ended up similar to the situation Ark is in now where the player base is split. I’ve honestly not heard anything much about CS2 recently which is curious. It was a shame it was such a let down on release after how much love CS got.
That could mean that the already content players are still happy with their game, and the vocal haters don’t have enough to hate on that doesn’t sound petty.
I say that as someone who has not played CS2 and plays 1 heavily modded… So the fuck do I know
I do enjoy builders and management games, so I was hoping it had improved.
I’ve got my fingers crossed that they pull a No Man’s Sky and actually strive to make a playable game, but the longer it takes, the less likely it seems.
“First of all, we removed the virtual landlord so a building’s upkeep is now paid equally by all renters,” the developer posted in a blog on the game’s Steam page. “Second, we changed the way rent is calculated.” Now, Colossal Order says, it will be based on a household’s income: “Even if they currently don’t have enough money in their balance to pay rent, they won’t complain and will instead spend less money on resource consumption.”
There’s a difference between “we removed landlords and prices went down” and “we allowed anyone to pay as much as they can, especially if they’re poor, and somehow now the average rent is lower”.
Clickbait title, but lemmy swallows as usual, cuz it fits the narrative.
“Drinnen saßen stehend Leute, schweigend ins Gespräch vertieft”
There’s a whole bunch of such surrealist art, and while me being a rather lazy student for most things art history means I have no idea whether there’s a better name for it, or how connected the artists behind them are, I still tend to find them rather fascinating.
Also, I’m not saying that surrealist art must necessarily miss a narrative throughline, though it’s true here.
It’s a very good idea and much better than the stupidity of the current real estate market where all over the world entire generations cannot ever afford housing.
wired.com
Gorące