Opinions of the guy aside, I recall it was Neil DeGrasse Tyson who made the argument that it simply is cheaper and easier to go to the moon than to fake it and maintain the coverup.

Like, we can’t keep secrets for shit, but that’s the one that stays kept?

I had a friend in college who wrote a paper that religion was started by the original nerds who needed to classify and rank which level of angel and spirit.

I believe he argued the term “Angel of Death +2” is as equally valid as one name to the next across cultures and history.

I still think he was right.

First they came for the minions…

Dante’s Inferno is also effectively fanfiction of a socialite without any real ecclesiastical value. He wrote in the vernacular, instead of Latin, which was what made it accessible and popular.

Last week the Trump admin added a bunch of companies to the list of those accused of using forced Uyghur labor.

Sure enough all week there’s been renewed talk about Xinjiang. They’re trying to get ahead of the midterms, and they got nothing else.

I feel like responding to BadEmpanada is just a trap and anyone who doesn’t know it by now is just feeding into it. He’s just going to keep trying to sow and reap controversy.

https://www.8newsnow.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/2026/08/Austin-Abdelnabi-LVMPD.png

Definitely just the name too.

“Have you condemned Hamas today?”

Push it to the limit. (Crash the gates!)

This reminded me of how into RTS games I was when MOBAs really hit. I was deep into Company of Heroes, even involved with official patches and mapmaking. Definitely some bitter jealously at the mobas after that whole effort crashed and burned for us, in retrospect.

The equivalent of the prostate gland in female bodies, the name escapes me at the moment, secretes into the bladder when stimulated.

The only moba mode I thought was consistently fun was Ability Draft. It was so categorically broken and silly, but DotA 2 killed it off I think.

Oh I get that. That was kind of a disappointing part of ER. They established this sort of sanctuary effect, gave an example of it being revoked, and then never revisted it.

I thought it was like callback to ds1 firekeeper sorta thing, which it wasn’t. Same thing with the Radahn fight and the giant desert arena. I thought it was a callback to Bed of Chaos or Seath with some hidden immortality gem to break and you had to feed phantoms to distract him until you did. Nope.

But in that way ER is truly DS2:2 with the one-off mechanics.

I played DotA when it was a custom WC3 map (and Aoens of Strife in SC). Seeing it become this whole genre and esports phenomena was weird. I feel like I could never take any of them seriously.

the “tutorial” pop ups lie

If you mean the messages you find throughout the game, almost all of those are written by other players. You can leave them behind too.

Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office

Uh huh, I thought so.

But hey, I don’t actually eat hot sauce.

Then it was probably a poor analogy to use.

Best I can say is you mentioned people being ‘conditioned’ to eat hot sauce or not. The experience of extreme hot sauces is largely about how each person react to the same sauce. Each experience is different because the conditioning is different for everyone, which is the whole point.

Fromsoft games are the same way. They don’t have any calibration for conditioning because it’s all about how well (or if) you can condition yourself to able to experience it.

I’m just going to have to restate the exact same analogy and hope you get it this time.

I am just trying to engage with the context of your points. I used Hot Ones to build on it and offer a counterpoint: the games are about how you tackle the spicy mountain, which by design is the same as everyone else’s spicy mountain.

Giving me access to mild hot sauce does not reduce your access to the extra spicy stuff. Letting me reduce the Guardian Ape’s health by half in my save file does not reduce the Guardian Ape’s health in yours.

All true and fine.

It just ensures that we both have an equivalent experience to each other.

Fundamentally we have not. An ‘extra mild’ The Bomb Beyond Insanity, that is an actual palatable smoke flavor, is just not the equivalent experience as suffering through the real deal.

But, for the record, it’s 100% appropriate to clown on people who suffer those million scoville hot sauces on their food like it is an enjoyable culinary experience. Don’t play the game if you don’t have fun, and no one should suffer the fools who think you should.

So with the Hot Ones analogy. The show is about interviewing guest tackling the challenge of hot sauces.

People tap out, and that’s a part of the show. There’s challenges within the show as well: (no milk, etc.)

If guests just ate the first wing 10 times, or it was just Sean Evans eating the wings and asking questions it’d just be a different show. (And there are shows where the guests just eat nornsl chicken wings, which is fine. They just sren’t Hot Ones.)

If Sean Evans weren’t eating the wings, however, the premise of the show is still there. Him joining in just helps the guest keep trying.

You can quit, you can not even play at all. If you’re not having fun you shouldn’t feel forced either way. Tap out, drink the milk, eat the ice cream.

At a certain point there’s going to be a “Challenge Mode: The Game” that is not conducive to an Easy Mode.

Well, “soulslike” is a pretty garbage category, honestly. I have played a lot of games that call themselvea soulslikes, and I pretty much only trust Miyazaki with that genre.

Miyazaki’s quote is wrong for what the gaming industry labels ‘soulslikes’, but not necessarily the games he has designed and created. Because a lot of soulslikes don’t do what Miyazaki tries to do.

And I get what you mean about the game being easier as relative. But there’s also the fact that people do challenge runs in all kinds of games. It’s that drive to be challenged and do something harder, so it is not easier, is at the root of what draws people.