That makes a lot of sense. Katamari Damacy is also an excellent game with such a bizarre story. I’m guess I’m a fan of absurdity.

My favorite game in the series was Super Mario 3. I first played it on the SNES when it was part of the Super Mario All Stars cartridge. I really liked the levels, especially the variety of landscapes and the secrets you could find if you had the right powerup.

Super Mario World is just as good imo. Everything I liked about 3 and more, plus the star road levels, that was a good game.

The most recent game I loved was Yoshi’s Wooly World on the WiiU. Excellent art style and super fun levels, especially the unlockable bonus levels.

Oh and let’s not forget Legend of the Seven Stars. That was a fun and bizarre story.

That being said, does anyone else think the Mario universe is just fucking weird? How did the creators come up with Italian plumbers who can jump really high saving a Princess from an oversized turtle in a fantasy land with walking mushrooms? Who thought that was a good idea? What inspired them? I think the only reason it became popular was because Super Mario on the NES was one of the first decent games, and most players were kids who didn’t care about the game’s universe and narrative beyond saving the princess.

If Mario wasn’t the first popular platformer in the 80s and was instead introduced today, nobody would take it seriously. Since we all grew up with Mario, it’s a thing we accept as is. Of course high jumping Italian plumbers discovered the mushroom kingdom and rescued their princess from Bowser, again and again and again. Of course little dudes with mushroom heads are ruled by a blond haired human. Of course giant pipes are a normal mode of transit. Of course goombas and koopa troopas are the baddies.

Seriously, how did this universe come about?

Civ6 has districts. Instead of having all of a city’s buildings existing in the city center tile, the city builds specialty districts that occupy a hex near the city. For example, a science district placed near some mountains will house the city’s library, university, and research lab.

I think the districts are a fun addition because it exposes a civ’s infrastructure to attack. You can pilliage an opponent’s districts to temporarily cripple them and you get some decent loot in the form of gold, science, culture, or faith.

Water can move freely across the membrane, but the stuff that’s dissolved in the water cannot move across the membrane.

No? Water can’t carry anything across the membrane.

We don’t know what molecular mechanism creates the pressure.

No one really knows how osmosis works.

Evolution and natural selection never stops, we’ve only changed what the selective pressures are.

I really think you should stop arguing and start listening.

I think your worries are misplaced. I work for an employee owned cooperative with about 60 employees. I think half of the employees are also owners. There’s still a CEO, chosen by the board of directors, who are elected by the employee-owners. Day to day operational decisions are made by whoever is in charge of the relevant department, just like a shareholder-owned corporation. Bigger decisions, like long term strategy or how to distribute profits among employees, are voted on by all of the employee owners instead of shareholders. It’s been in business for about 20 years and makes enough money to share profits with all employees regardless of their ownership status. So essentially this business operates like any other, but the profits are shared with the employee-owners and employees instead of going to shareholders or insane CEO salaries (compressed pay structure).

I think one of the best ways to unite people is a common threat or enemy. Since an alien invasion is unlikely, we’re left with a couple less clear scenarios that I can think of:

1. A crazy rogue nation hell bent on plantary destruction would probably get a unified response. Best candidate is a Republican controlled United States or perhaps another petro state ignoring carbon emissions with climate change really getting bad.

2. Climate change just gets really bad and demands a coordinated response.

3. An international revolution that removes power from the currently ruling classes. My thinking here is that international conflict is started by oligarchs and other elites across the world. For example, I doubt the average Russian would even consider invading Ukraine if it weren’t for those at the top running a shit economy and using the media to spread lies. Similar for the Chinese and Taiwan, Americans and the whole world, etc. I just have a hard time believing large human populations would fight over something in this age without being encouraged to do so by those who would benefit.

Huh, I guess I’m a neo-Brandeisian:

The New Brandeis movement opposes the school of thought in modern antitrust law that antitrust should center on customer welfare (as generally advocated by the Chicago school of economics). Instead, the New Brandeis movement advocates a broader antimonopoly approach that is concerned with the structure of the economy and market conditions necessary to promote vigorous competition.

Capitalists hate capitalism. They don’t want to compete with other firms, they want a monopoly. So it’s like you’re saying to the monopolists, fine, you want to do capitalism? Well then we’re going to jam so much capitalism down your throat you’ll shit free market competition.

They’ll probably get here eventually, if they’re not here already. Granted it’ll be harder for them to control a narrative, but they’ll probably try with bots/paid commentors and complicit moderators.

That can still happen, right? Is there something special about the fediverse that prevents those methods from being used to manipulate the user base’s opinions?