The problem is, nothing short of NA and EU governmental intervention will force Google to stop being such a nefarious, monopolistic, antitrust piece of shit. They’re just so utterly ubiquitous for Western businesses. You cannot have a small business* and hope to be successful without partaking in either Google or Facebook/Meta’s ad services. TikTok was becoming a huge threat to both those companies and look how viciously they were attacked.

The whole thing is beyond fucked, man. Kudos to you for trying to break free for your business, but I feel like you’ll just be fucking yourself in the long run.

Edit in advance: I should clarify that there will of course be exceptions where a small business can be successful just fine without advertising, but for those that rely on being discovered on a larger scale versus purely local, it is essential.

Munchausen, oof… brutal, sorry you had to endure that as a kid. My wife is a children’s therapist, specializing in play therapy for traumatized kids. It’s definitely opened my eyes to how much misery in society could be dramatically reduced by simple early intervention in young children. So many problems in adulthood are rooted in untreated trauma. Anyway, I hope you’re doing well now, despite having to go through that gauntlet of a mentally unwell parent as a kid.

Also, very much agree that these places should absolutely be nationally outlawed.

Some states absolutely have cracked down on these types of places, as they were notoriously used for conversion therapy, among other terrible purposes. I definitely went to one of these places when I was a rebellious teenager, but I was fortunate in only having to go on the weekends during the day. I was also fortunate that the place had some oversight by my state, as I quickly learned that all their “punishments” could easily be defeated by simply refusing to participate (e.g. refusing to run laps, clean the gym floor with a toothbrush, etc). I lasted maybe 3 weekends there before they kicked me out of their “program.”

That was 20+ years ago, and it still kind of blows my mind that those places exist. Therapy and supportive parents will “correct” rebellious behaviors 90+% of the time.

I mean, I agree with the rage and intent. But, under your system, there’s no balance of power, heh. That system would be corrupted in a few years vs the couple hundred it took to fully corrupt the current setup.

But I 100% agree that the time for being delicate to these extremists is long fucking past and their leaders all deserve the firing squad.

Certainly, but overpopulation in a small area that isn’t able to support it is also true.

Something that had practically been eliminated from developed countries… The disinformation wars have gotten beyond out of hand, I can’t imagine how bad it’ll get before it gets better.

Something that had practically been eliminated from developed countries… The disinformation wars have gotten beyond out of hand, I can’t imagine how bad it’ll get before it gets better.

Oh for sure, and I did enjoy some of the side content and thought some of the optional quest stories were good. When I say smaller scale, I think a game like Expedition 33 nailed the balance of having plenty of side/extra content that’s fun to do while also ensuring that completionists don’t go mad from trying to hunt down everything.

Regardless, I agree with you on everything you said; it all boils down to preferences :)

I thought the core of GW: Tokyo was pretty good, but it suffered from far too much open world bloat. I’d love to see them revisit that world, but it’d be great if they made it focused on a smaller scale. Just my two cents, anyway.

*Be a school music teacher that has a YouTube channel dedicated to help kids learn words, colors, being kind to others, how to speak, etc.

*See an atrocious genocide going on where children are being mass murdered.

*Speak against this horrible violence against innocent children

*Get labeled as a terrorist for defending said children

I know it’s on the “other” site, but this post from a few months ago has several people saying they got it working quite nicely: https://www.reddit.com/r/cavesofqud/comments/1dcqyym/regarding_qud_on_the_steam_deck/