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mango7283on More than 100k people in Japan are now aged 100 or older

To be fair you'd need to consider how the percentage of young people looked in 1930 for that to be a meaningful comparison to today

mango7283on Mamdani bans AI in NYC schools

An apt analogy to me was the one I read that using AI to write is like using a forklift to lift weights at the gym - the point isn't that the weights need to be moved, it's to exercise your body.

mango7283on Bank of America Vice President Fatally Stabbed in Times Square

The title is mentioned to bait people who don't know that everyone and thier grandmother is a VP at banks into thinking she was a senior executive rather than a senior IC/lead/middle manager.

mango7283on Novartis former CEO joins Anthropic BoD

He's still the CEO of Novartis

mango7283on Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is killed in Israeli strike, ending 36-year rule

The Americans had to occupy and place both Japan and West Germany under their military rule afterwards to make it stick, that's not a comparison

mango7283on United MAX Hit by Falling Object at 36,000 Feet

Be that as it may, the workhorse combat aircraft of most NATO air forces and the USAF itself is the F-16, a single-engine fighter, and its nominal replacement, the F-35 is also single engine. You can try to make your point by comparing those vs the numbers of F-15s, F/A-18s, F-Fs, Rafales, Eurofighters and so on in service vs the F-16 and F-35, but bringing C130s and C17s into it is irrelevant, those are not "combat aircraft".

edit: ah but they are "military aircraft", sure. fine.

mango7283on Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_v._Texas

Lest we forget.

Sure in the end people rallied to him but it sure must have sucked.

But yeah. Texas.

mango7283on Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

Because it's a critically acclaimed movie that will draw defenders if it's banned now. If the activists went all in right away they'll lose and they know it

Same deal with GTA and GOT

mango7283on Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption

I think a practical problem with this is that even if you offer this tech you will inevitably get groups of parents insisting the government use this power enforce their values on the other parents as a matter of course. We see this already with the erosion of cultural norms for free speech.

mango7283on Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

Yeah, but not yet from Steam. Anyway the point is, people keep bringing up "why don't they go after GTA and GOT instead of fringe eroge" so, yeah, one - they have but it was a partial success at best - they aren't ready or able to make that leap YET.

mango7283on Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

"It was a worldwide phenomenon and hundreds of millions of people probably watched it." - this is what explains why GOT is not the one getting taken down. Collective Shout is picking battles it can win.

mango7283on Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

I think what that tells you is that there are still limits to what collective shout is able to do, hence why GTA is still for sale but the fringe porn games aren't

mango7283on Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

You answered your own question - if you go after shows with the popularity of game of thrones or games with the popularity of grand theft auto you will fail.

They have picked their battle.

mango7283on Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

I said this on the other thread, it's obvious they don't yet have the clout to go after big titles like GoT or GTA yet, and it would be a losing strategy for them to do so. Hence why they are going after battles they can win first.

mango7283on Tell HN: Online Safety Act to be enforced in the UK on July 25th

Half the time I see parents on HN crow about how they've blocked their kids access to social media and screens. I'm not sure where they will stand on porn. Would be interesting to see

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

If you think they should delist it then by all means, raise a petition or bring it to their attention. Perhaps the activist group simply has not had the resources to target this particular title yet.

You already know VISA and/or Mastercard will respond if an activist group raises enough of a concern so what's stopping you?

Ah right, you think if they got one game removed on a petition, they should somehow also be able to remove every single other game that may or may not meet the same criteria even though it probably took them significant effort to the the first game removed and this is some sort of "gotcha" on their moral inconsistency rather than a simple limitation of resources to try to get their will done all at once?

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

Replying here since we hit the nesting limit.

Thanks for understanding.

I'm still looking at the thread and see people bringing up other titles that haven't been banned as if that's a gotcha and it just baffles me. Like what do they think the activists would respond if they were called out on it?

"Oh we don't care about that we only had a grudge on this game in particular"

Or more likely

"Thank you for bringing this title to our attention, we will certainly try to have it taken down as well as it too is against the values we are fighting for"

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

Well this is exactly how it should work for any cause.

Perhaps there was a misunderstanding. I'm saying the fact that they've succeeded in getting some games removed while others of the same type still exist or that other similar things still exist is not because they are morally inconsistent but because they can't do this all at once

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

They're saying that if things have come to the point that activists can successfully pressure a AAA title like BG3 to be delisted from steam, then they'll worry.

What do BG3 and the title in question have in common? "incest" (though, not non-con, I don't think BG3 has such)

What does BG3 have that the other title doesn't? Critical acclaim and the support of the mainstream. THis is the same issue with GOT.

Why does BH3 have critical acclaim and mainstream support and the other title doesn't? Is this a difficult topic to grasp?

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

1) Why haven't they banned porn game X when they banned porn game Y? -> it's just a matter of time, they've already established that they can pressure to get game x banned, they'll get to game y eventually - also, note that it should be obvious it's much easier to rally support to ban "niche incest/non-con game X" than to rally support to ban "borderline mainstream harem game Y". This is what I was referring to specifically.

2) Why haven't they banned all porn games then they banned porn game X? -> it takes a lot more effort to move the needle here. It's not for lack of trying or lack of will, it's that it's obviously much harder to get traction when you've expanded now to an entire category that includes borderline mainstream titles that will finally get defenders willing to put in the same effort as them.

3) Why haven't they banned GTA when they've banned porn game X? -> First, they've tried!. 2nd, again, same principle -> activists aren't stupid, they know they can win the battle one game at a time, and that they can't win it in one gigantic decisive swoop (conveniently enough though, you can leverage this as well to ensure you have a nice long runway to continue to do your activism and keep it as a wedge issue to push at for a nice long time)

4) Why not ban true crime podcasts when they've banned porn game X? -> see again, look, many. many people listen to true crime podcasts, and many people have also objected to them as exploitative. but why does porn game x get banned and true crime podcast Z not? because, well, duh, again, the amount of effort needed to move the needle on something many people enjoy is that much more! i don't think they don't want to, mind you, but again, it's going to take a lot more effort to get to true crime podcasts when they have a thousand other porn game XYZ's they can to work on

And lets not pretend people aren't also trying to get books banned, again, it's being done at a more selective pace, book by book, not category by category. Why is <random niche hentai> banned and not <50 shades of grey>? well, who is published by a mainstream big publishier and who is published by a niche publisher that doesn;t want to get the whole hammer on them?

Repeat at nauseam.

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

Sure, but GTA is still on steam.

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Steam-Payment-providers-force-V...

Please explain.

"In 2020, following a complaint from the Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein Media Authority, Valve blocked all titles that were labeled as “adult” and did not have an age rating. To be able to offer them, the US company would have to integrate a reliable age verification system into Steam in Germany. Because Valve has not yet implemented such a system, sex games remain blocked in Germany. "

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

From heise

So, I hear Europe doesn't have these problems about puritanical censorship in games......

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

Ah sorry I meant elsewhere in the thread

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

As I pointed out earlier, it's also valid that they are savvy enough to pick their battles and divide and conquer - you can't take down a critical mainstream success like GOT or GTA, but you can go after fringe games with content most people would be uncomfortable publicly defending.

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

It's possible he means people saying steam should not delist anything due to pressure from activists are tacitly condoning sketchy lolicon games.

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

The fact of the matter is you will find more people willing to publicly bat for GOT than you will find people willing to bat for an "indie incest non-con game". And it's not like GOT has not received criticism for its content or that people haven't tried.

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

I think the matter here is the activists are being strategic now and chipping away by targeting very specific content to get delisted. As you rightly said, most people are not going to sign their name to defend a incest/non-con fringe game specifically, so the counter petition is necessarily going to be on a broad ideal and therefore diffuse

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

I looked this up, they still accept visa. So not quite the same

mango7283on Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

You say this like they haven't already tried.