For a USian liberal, voting for Harris is like receiving absolution from your sins, like going to a confessional on Sunday then continuing to sin on Monday. You cannot remove this absolution from them or they will be forced to confront their unearned privilege of existing in an evil neocolonial empire.

"slightly leaning into that" is a very relatable phrase

This generally lines up with capitalist profit-seeking making everything worse, more vapid and bland. I agree with him largely. Mainstream shit is dumber and dumber. Doesn't mean great stuff stops getting made, it's just not part of the equation in these hollywood juggernaut board meetings.

Anecdotally I've had young adults burnt out by work and stress explicitly state they want easy brain dead shit to consume. Hard to argue with that honest perspective.

Good points. Mass Effect felt dated pretty quickly imo, it's a great reflection of it's time/society in that way, though. Very chauvinistic and individualistic.

I've always felt that stories with more limited scope are far better than grand scale stories, and I think the difficulty of writing materialism in an engaging way is likely related. The grand scale stories feel hollow when the story format demands to be told through a handful of characters (low key why I felt the ending of the Dune Part 2 movie was sorta hollow)

I've never engaged in fan discussions, but I enjoy how you've utilized them to back the assertion that Dragon Age is overall better based on the greater depth and nuance of its debates.

Have you considered once swords but now guns?

Scanning through the article I sincerely do not know what they mean by "expressions".

My first assumption was maybe trying to use less Japanese culture specific human expressions of emotion, but I don't know, the article is super vague.

Are people here assuming this actually means less high school aged fan service bs?

Drake sucks Kendrick is GOATed

I mean... this is a food source. not something useless and dumb like videogames

I've met men who bite and eat popsicles like one would eat a banana specifically in order to avoid any unintentional blowjob innuendo crossover.

I've heard the idea that if men were more like women the world would be a better place (frankly still not totally unconvinced of this assertion), but her point that this particular type of submissive/docile woman that is being referenced in the aforementioned hypothetical is in fact manufactured in part by patriarchy is a great point.

In general though, feminism without class consciousness is very pernicious and from my US POV is pretty widespread among middle/upper class groups. It can be difficult to criticize because blatant misogyny is still such a common perspective here, so offering nuanced views on feminism to a bourgeois feminist can be difficult and often seen as hostile.

This is so so widespread that I am very curious about it.

One hypothesis I have is that people believe their sexual inclinations are completely separate from social and cultural influence. That the sexual preferences are somehow innate or beyond influence--even though they clearly are heavily influenced.

At the very least fucking keep it to yourself that you don't date black women or prefer dating east asian women you weirdo agghhh

For real, sitting here flabbergasted by this claim. I think it is interesting though, it highlights a very specific isolated Western dominated historical worldview to assume capitalism is naturally occurring. I demand more anthropology in school!