He rants about the FDA suppressing things big pharma can’t patent… Did they not develop and patent these?

A rather astute observation found in an unlikely place, and one of my favorite move lines of all times.

“Cherokee” is a common family legend in the South East, much like having Wyatt Earp’s illegitimate child in the family tree in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

I was always taught that the claim of having a Cherokee princess in the family tree was often used to give nativism and white supremacy more credibility through self-Indigenization, which is what helped it spread and survive to the current day. And as others have pointed out, it was also used as a way to hide race mixing. It’s likely that a lot of people aren’t aware of this, and just think they’re sharing a fun but if family trivia.

And, as I pointed out in another comment, the Cherokee Nation has no requirement for any percentage of native ancestry, so there are a lot of people in Oklahoma and the surrounding area who are more or less white, but are legit members of the Nation under it’s bylaws. Which can add some confusion to the issue.

In Oklahoma, if you can trace your ancestry back to someone who was on the Dawes Rolls, you can apply to be a member of the Cherokee Nation regardless of your percentage of native ancestry. So there are a lot of people who are effectively white, but are part of the Nation and consider themselves part Cherokee.

This is distinct from the “part Cherokee” or “descended form a Cherokee princess” claims that were used to try and legitimize white supremacy in the south.

I switched in 2021 and I thought the same then.

Ishmael

Yup, it’s easier for a user to justify a small purchase and lose track of how much they’re spending and that’s exactly why they do it.

It’s the same with in-app currency, they sell you 100 coins or gems or whatever for $2.99, then charge you 75 for the shortcut to the progression required upgrade. You don’t want to let a quarter of your money go to waste, so you’re more tempted to put another $2.99 down to utilize it and buy the next upgrade. Cue the leveling treadmill.

It’s a sort of weaponization of the study of human behavior IMO.

Yup, and as I said, it’s possible that I’m attributing these design changes to the wrong thing, but it’s hard not see them as greed driven when you consider what’s happening in other parts of our digital lives.

It was more due to the way a lot of the games I liked to play started to make changes to gameplay to try and push players to spend more money. Unnecessarily long grinds with subscription based paid shortcuts, freemium/premium BS, game modes that started to require you to be online for a certain amount of time each week to progress.

Gaming was always more of a social thing for me, and once it started to feel like an unpaid, part time job for me and my friends it stopped being fun.

I do muddle around a little bit with indie games, and I’ve honestly let some of this make me a little too cynical, but it just feels different these days.

True, but I don’t think it’s due to a lack of faculties for most people, it’s just not an area of interest or a primary concern. It should be, because this sort of consumer and media manipulation is being used to enable some very dangerous things at present, but it’s really hard to make headway when you’re telling people how fucked up and unhealthy the one thing that’s providing them with a little escape and joy is.

It might be easier to lead an addiction intervention.

I try to reframe privacy concerns with the idea that if someone was stalking you and recording your every action in physical public spaces that you’d be pretty disturbed. Most people get it, they understand the idea and can view their internet activity through the lense of that metaphor.

But they don’t really feel it, and that’s where the disconnect comes in. How do you get people who don’t feel the Internet is part of “real life” to understand how invasive this is on both and intellectual and emotional level? Because of digital privacy and user rights don’t hold some sort of emotional significance for them, it’s going to stay a back burner issue in their lives.

This may honestly be it for me.

I quit playing games because of all the greed and hype, I went back to piracy when streaming started to fracture and greed set in, I left non-federated social media because of the enshittifaction and invasiveness, and I go to fairly extensive lengths to block ads and protect my privacy as much as possible…

And instead of moving to any number of fair, non-exploitive business models, they’re just going to force ads down my throat like that episode of black mirror.

If this goes through I’ll be sorely tempted to wipe everything I can and start over as best I can. Only interact with the Internet when I need to.

You’ll find me paying cash at the local used bookstore, at least until all the major publishers make that illegal.

EDIT: It’s honestly depressing, I genuinely enjoy technology and the internet, but when companies like Google are able to force garbage like this it just sucks all the joy out of it for me.

It’s like everying is becoming a shitty mobile game. Do the toolsheds that develop Candy Crush clones not think we can understand why in app currencies are sold in bundles of 100 but every thing we purchase with them requires amounts that end with a five? Does Google not think we know the real motivation behind a system that strives to prove ads were delivered to your browser either?

I know a lot of people may not see the real driver here, but I’m tired of being underestimated and infantalized by a bunch of dorks trapped in a corporate echo chamber. I think I’d prefer it if they just straight up said they’re going to sacrifice our privacy and user experience for a quick bump in stock value.