True. I guess the distinction, though semantically redundant, seems to be contextually necessary nowadays…

I have to disagree with the idea that the world has always been a terrible place. Actually building upon what you’ve said subsequently, the world itself isn’t terrible, it’s just a rock with some moss and critters on it, the systems we’ve created for ourselves are terrible. That’s exactly the nuance to which I was referring in my initial comment, Antinatalism isn’t universally applicable to all existing and potential existential contexts.

The world as it is now, yes. But this is far from the only option, thus the world is not an inevitable soup of suffering. So, no.

This is an overgeneralisation which completely misses the nuance. Antinatalism does not postulate that it’s morally wrong to procreate, only that it is morally wrong to bring another human consciousness into a soup of suffering, which… yeah, kinda’! I mean, is the world not presently a soup of suffering, with extra helpings on the way?

Personally, I doubt most people who subscribe to Antinatalism would do so if society weren’t literally a hell hole right now.

I… I don’t even know what to say anymore.

Eeexactly! That ‘dynasty’s’ been going on for so long, it’s narratively ridiculous and boring.

Don’t get me wrong, despite what my initial comment may indicate, I would LOVE to see something which goes in depth into The Force’s philosophy, its spirituality, but that foregoes Skywalker Lightsaber Fight™ by its very nature… Actually, no, acceptable Skywalker Lightsaber Fight™ in the original episodes, because those moments were used to punctuate.

Honestly, I always thought Star Wars would work as a Tales From the Crypt-style anthology, just pump out interesting happenings from across the galaxy as self-contained, 40-minute long episodes and put the meat on them massive bones! I bet one could pull off at least 3-4 12-episode series without even touching The Force.

“Twist-o Eyeball-o!”

I knew it! That kitchen table’s ruining my life! And my hips!!!

FEAST ON THEIR IDEOLOGICAL FLESH!!!

My loaf is bigger than your loaf, We take more drugs than a touring funk band.

SING IT!

My loaf is bigger than your loaf.

SING IT!

My loaf is bigger than your loaf.

SING IT!

Picard, hands on face

Oh, yeah?! What’ your DPS (depressions per semester)?

Can only give you my personal example:

I have a career in software QA, and I got into it because I personally believed in QA and its significance to generating good software for people to use. Hell, I even worked relatively low-paying jobs because it was compensated by job satisfaction.

Then enshittification took hold of absolutely everything, QA started being flushed down the turlet in the interest of cutting costs (and, I suspect, out of management incompetence and lack of perspective), and now it feels as though my passion got stabbed.

I still thoroughly believe in QA as an essential part of software development, I still try to do the best I can not out of dedication to a job, but to my principle-based belief that QA does more good than it does harm when properly performed. But I seldom have the context to be able to do that, instead being stuck with menial shit and/or rushed projects which don’t allow for a lot of testing.

Test your stuff, eat the rich.

“The Children of Asuryan haven’t received any new models since the 90s, y’know…”

Honestly, the most painful part of this is the dichotomy between the internet’s potential to become an evolutionary point for us and help us develop as a species, and the way we’re using it… We have the entirety of human existence digitised for our convenience and available at the push of a button and we just use it to terrorise and hurt eachother…

This must be the most 90s thing I’ve seen in a decade.

Terrifying concept!

While I understand your point, I still tend to disagree. I’ve had ten years of experience working in QA, both on games and on misc. software, and the amount of bugs with which games are shipped as of late shifts the discussion from severity and prioritisation to volume - it isn’t a question of what should have been fixed first when basically everything is busted. As such, it becomes a business problem entirely.

Another aspect which underlines this is the fact that, taking Baldur’s Gate 3 as an example since we started with it, it’s usually the latter half which is most affected. These trends taken together indicate a front-loading with QA in order to sell, then (hopefully) stealth-fixing the latter half before people get to it. Which doesn’t work, because you get maniacs like me who spend 200 hours in-game during the first two weeks after launch. Same goes for Rogue Trader, for example. Game’s all there, technically, first two Chapters are pretty much sterling, but how is one supposed to appreciate the creativity behind it considering half of the game may be inaccessible due to bugs (talking about soft-locking quests, busted progression triggers, busted scripting, and even more mechanical aspects which require trial-and-error with repeated reloads in the hopes that you stumble upon the right combination of actions which bypasses the bug).

In my perspective, creativity, while it is to be appreciated, becomes sort of moot in this case - it’d be like ignoring the fact that half of the painting is drafted on napkins with a big TODO stapled to it, or being sold a partly assembled phone with the promise that they’ll send you the rest of the components later on down the line.

No, the industry needs to stop selling half-baked goods because they know they can get away with it. Having to patch a game for months, non-stop, after launch day, after it’s been, as you’ve said, a century in Early Access, is not a misunderstanding of bug severity, it’s focusing on profit more than on the product. Not taking away the games’ ‘goodness,’ but just as an underbaked cake, you still have to swallow a lotta raw eggs with that goodness.