This is just anecdotal, but I visited southern China in 2019. I don’t have broad knowledge of Chinese society, but I went to a bunch of DIY style punk shows around Shenzhen and there were tons of cool queer folk there. I ended up talking with a trans man for a while with my broken Mandarin and his broken English. Told him I’m an American who greatly admires China and he thought that was cool.

Yeah, there are a bunch of very open trans and gay folk in China, but maybe that depends on where you go and what strata the people belong to, I guess? It’s not at all like what westerners claim, where they say it’s completely illegal to be trans and all trans media is censored. I didn’t see that at all. I met a bunch of trans people who seemed to have very ordinary, normal lives.

There’s probably room for improvement, but that’s everywhere in the world. I don’t live in China though so I don’t fully know what struggles there are

Listening to people younger than yourself also keeps you grounded in the present. Too many people get stuck in the past, or get isolated from wider society. I really don’t want to become a detached old person, that’s one of my greatest fear. I don’t ever want to have the feeling that time has passed me by and I’ll never understand the world.

I haven’t had that feeling so far, thankfully. You’re right about younger people needing mentors and stuff, I hadn’t seen it much from that angle. I think older people need to listen to younger folk as well, to keep them grounded in reality. Younger people aren’t aliens out to ruin society and they’re not naive confused toddlers either. They’re people sharing the present and we don’t need to have such a generational gulf or apprehension if we’re all on Earth and alive at the same time.

Is this like a personal defense sword someone might carry around the countryside?

I don’t think it’s a calvary sword. It’s got fancy engravings but I don’t know how common that was on swords in the 18th century. I think it was It was kind of uncommon on personal defense swords in the 17th century unless you were some rich dude

I tend to like the young folk and identify with them way more than people my age, not in a creepy way I hope. Probably because I don’t have kids and am terminally online. I’m optimistic about everything. I don’t think there’s anything about younger people I fundamentally don’t understand.

I don’t get sending huge amounts of money to streamers, but I also don’t have huge piles of money to throw around.

I actually like how younger people are going more minimalist in their fashion taste. Lots of reappropriation of stereotypical work clothes, like Dickies pants, overalls, stuff like that. That’s a neat trend I’ve noticed.

Also, a lot of people are saying that Gen z are a lot cooler than our predecessor politically.

This is what’s said about every young generation. I don’t mean to rain on your parade or anything, but young people being more progressive than previous generations has been a staple of the US since at least the 1950s. Boomers were at one point considered radicals who threatened to overthrow all of society. It’s what got said about Gen X too and Millennials.

Progressive young people tend to either acclimate or die off, but we still gotta have hope. I really hope younger folk can get it together and decide on a better future.

Communism is when no iPhone

Wait, communism is when slightly less good iPhone

The elements that made New Vegas good were the team, the near infinite money they had, and how everyone seemed to enjoy the project. From interviews I’ve read with Josh Sawyer and Tess Treadwell, it seems like everything went as smooth as game production could have gone. They were never worried about deadlines or anything, despite the 18 month production time. They wanted to have more Legion territory, but otherwise the game is how they wanted it to be. So I don’t know how those elements would get replicated.

Pentiment is really good though. Outer Worlds is…ok. I guess we’ll see.

I get the crosses, barbed wire, and swastikas, but what are those brown symbols on Porky’s coat? Bear traps? Crocodile mouths?

You’re going to find a lot of punk bands that would fit your preferences. Try checking out smaller punk bands on Bandcamp.

One of my favorites is G.L.O.S.S.

Their music was great although they’ve all moved on to other projects. Good anti-capitalist, anti-fascist punk rock made by trans women. Truly punk music in that they made only two albums that add up to less than 20 minutes, got contacted by a big record label, then decided to break up instead of compromising their own values.

I refuse to use any gaming guides that don’t have cool ASCII art at the top

The canteen item’s description in that game says it has a bunch of filters that turn water into Monster. I’ve always found that funny, like you stand in a river full of perfectly good water and your scifi thingie turns it into green bro-juice

Yeah Beto has also been vocally anti-Israel lately as well, but he’s also not had any hope of a legitimate political career lately. That can’t be making him friends with Democrats. He kept losing every race he was involved in, so the donors dried up.

Also in the 2020 primary there were so many candidates he had to pigeon-hole himself to one particular issue to be notable, he tried being the anti-gun guy. He did the thing Democrats aren’t supposed to do which is confirm what Republicans think of them. Democrats are usually more submissive and conciliatory to Republicans. When accused of being anti-gun Democrats are supposed to be like “oh well uh, well, yeah you’re right mr. republican we should still protect the blah blah.” Instead Beto was outright saying “yeah we are coming for your guns, no one needs an assault rifle” and that probably didn’t make him friends among the rich donor class who actually control everything

They went with Biden because they simply don’t have anyone left

yeah the average person looks at Pete and visibly recoils in disgust. He’d be a Democrat version of DeSantis. He does well to his specific crowd, white comfortable nerds who work at Deloitte, but everyone else just sees a robotic weird rat man. Horrendous vibes emanate from him.

I mean I wouldn’t put it past the democrats to put their chips behind him, but normal people see his entire vibe as fake corporate mandatory fun overly sentimental nothingness. He’s a physical manifestation of Patrick Bateman. People don’t look at Pete and see themselves, they look at Pete and see their weirdest supervisor at work. They see debate club nerds who they used to bully. They see a guy who would have worn a bow tie to elementary school

Silent Hill has a small child who will bully you and call you a fartface. Also apparently it manifests pizza and hotter versions of your dead wife. So that’s cool.

This is such a sweet manga.

Yeah the guy who was personal bodyguard to Oda Nobunaga and was allowed to carry swords when it was illegal for anyone to carry swords except for samurai or royalty, that guy wasn’t a samurai. Ok.

You tankie scum may believe you’re leftist but us soul-wizards can see through your facade

How can you hex-tankies claim to be leftists when you don’t even have a tower full of ancient grimoires in forbidden languages?

I really respect the area of Kerala and its commitment to their public. Very robust educational system, healthcare, and a focus on access to clean water. That’s just from stuff I’ve seen and read though, I’ve never been to India, I’m American.

I hope the best for India’s future, but it seems worrying from what I hear. I would hope for greater collaboration with China and an easing of tensions with Pakistan. India is a massively diverse place though, with multiple languages and even multiple writing scripts, so sometimes it’s amazing it’s a functional country at all.

Most of what I hear though is about India dominated by very right wing movements, but there’s a strong history of Indian working class movements as well. I’ll try to be optimistic about the future. Also as an American I am fully aware of my country’s horrifying exploitation of the Indian people. The Union Carbide disaster is still the worst industrial accident in history and its impact should never be forgotten

We’ve been living in WW3 since at least the mid 90s

Oh I actually grew up near there lol, in the big thicket area (don’t care if I get doxxed, I’m a known local trans commie person anyway )