Discussing the South Park episode on Trump

 So...South park is at it again. They started their newest season, and they came out SWINGING. 

 So...we all know about what happened to Colbert right? Well, Stephen Colbert was cancelled. Literally. Paramount cancelled him under pressure from the Trump administration. However, South park just signed a deal for 5 more years. And they're using them. 

The first episode was all about bashing trump. They brought back saddam hussein and made him trump basically. He's dating satan. He has a tiny...you know. They keep emphasizing that. The whole episode is about south park being sued by trump for bashing him. They agreed to a settlement and they ended up agreeing to do "pro trump messaging."

So they put trump butt naked in a desert (because he loves 'murica) with his tiny...you know hanging out. It was hilarious. Anyway, apparently they're gonna be doing 5 years of this crap every episode. And I'm looking forward to them all.  

 But yeah, this is how you deal with trump. You dont back down, you dial up the criticism and offense to a 10 and you LET HIM HAVE IT. All hail south park! Really, they're doing what needs to be done. Hats off to these guys.  

Should democrats gerrymander blue states?

 So...in response to a plan by Texas republicans to gerrymander texas in a desperate attempt to keep the house in 2026, democrats are thinking of gerrymandering blue states to offset that. The real question here is, is this a good idea, and should we support it?

On the one hand, as someone who has been a victim of gerrymandering for much of my adult life in PA (see the pre 2018 house maps...), I hate gerrymandering, and I generally align with the forward party's stance on having independent redistricting. HOWEVER, we need to consider the situation that we are in. We are in a situation where we have this illiberal GOP that is trying to break democracy and turn us into a dictatorship, and knowing that they can lose the house,  they're trying to stop that by gerrymandering the crap out of everything.

Come to think of it, the GOP has been like this for decades now. They stole a SCOTUS seat from us in 2016 by stalling the process of filling it until trump was elected. They held onto the house in the 2010s mostly by gerrymandering. In 2024, some suggested that voter suppression cost dems the election. The GOP plays by a different set of rules than the rest of us and THEY DON'T CARE. Like the dems keep talking about democratic norms and compromise, but the GOP doesnt give a crap, they care about power, and will do anything to keep and maintain it. This is why I've become as far left as I am in the first place. I remember when the tea party came to power in 2011, and I was like "these guys are playing for keeps, you cant mess around with this." Here's the thing. In 2008, they saw a glimpse into oblivion. The reagan coalition was starting to decline, Obama win in a virtual landslide, and they understood, this could be game over, this could be a realignment. So what did they do? They went scorched earth against Obama, and because the dems were weak, they rolled over us. And during that time frame, I left the GOP, became a democrat, and even in 2016, I was sounding the alarm bells. These guys arent fricking around, dont compromise.

So what did the dems do? Compromise, keep meeting them half way, and act like it was still 1992. It wasn't. It was 24 years later. An entire generation of young americans had been born and could now vote in that time span. And the dems seemed out of sync. And they misread their opponent.

Even I did. Like, I really did think the GOP was done at the time. I figured that the dems were gonna be the emerging majority as time went on, and the GOP would fade away. And I did fight the dems just as I fought the GOP and supported third parties. SOme will say it was a mistake, but it made sense at the time, given the gems were completely useless. But then MAGA awoke something in this country. Now in 2025, we got literal outright nazis saying nazi things, the trump movement has metastasized into an authoritarian fascist movement, and we're at risk of losing our democracy. Whatever future the dems had that seemed almost guaranteed 10 years ago seems gone now. The dems through it away, and MAGA has been successful in a political sense. And now we're losing. And we are at risk for losing democracy.

 Ya know, I took this comparative politics class in college, where I learned how to analyze countries and their political structures, and we had to do these assignments where we used various sources to write short reports about countries, including their political systems. One thing we learned early on...a lot of countries that claim to be democratic, arent. They're one party states. You can vote, but you can only vote for the one party. Other parties are run out of government and forcibly suppressed. There's the illusion of political freedom, but it doesnt exist. And this is why Im so smart in reading between the lines with stuff. I might critique capitalism and understand it's not as voluntary as it seems. or I might look at our two party duopoly and understand that our democracy is flawed and one step away from these kinds of states. Really, we have a two party system where the other parties are kind of actively suppressed via all kinds of legalistic ways. And voters are bullied and cajoled into supporting the two party system. I believe democracy belongs to the voters, and the US is a flawed democracy. We are run by the rich, for the rich.

However, in this era of trump, things are threatening to become so much worse. We might end up becoming a ONE party system. These systems arise out of failed democracies where one party seizes control and then breaks the democracy. It happened in 1933 with the nazis and hitler in Germany. It happened in 2000 when Putin consolidated control over Russia, destroying their fledgling democracy.

And now, the US in 2025 is at risk of going that way. And the republicans control the house, the senate, the courts, and the presidency. They dont own all these things through completely legitimate means. They gerrymander in congress. They try to engage in voter suppression and push "voter ID laws" and complain about fraud to push people they dont like off the ballot. They stole a SCOTUS seat by refusing to fill it while Obama was in office. And now they control everything. They have NO GUARDRAILS. Trump is enacting project 2025, and now texas is talking about gerrymandering to maintain a house majority there. So the question is, should democrats use the power they have to gerrymander blue states?

As much as I hate to admit it, YES, THEY SHOULD. Look, I hate the idea of gerrymandering. I believe the voters should choose the politicians, the politicians shouldnt choose the voters. BUT, if we're playing checkers and the GOP is playing 5D chess 1 move away from checkmate, we better get our heads out of you know where and DO SOMETHING about it, or we risk losing democracy altogether. The GOP has backed us into a corner. Our only move, to avoid being checkmated, is to use the power we have to play by their rules, and push back. I hate to say it, but that's where we're at.

I hate that it's come here. I really do. And...Im not gonna lie, between this, the Medhi Hassan debate yesterday, and everything I've watched all year with where our country is going, I feel like maybe I am changing. I'm changing my views somewhat to adapt to the times, and I am being a bit more hard line and authoritarian on this fascist movement. I am getting to the point where no, we can't tolerate the intolerant. No, we can't just let the right run all over us, because they're trying to do some really dark and evil crap. We have LITERAL CONCENTRATION CAMPS NOW. I'm not being hyperbolic even. That's the scary thing. We are in our germany 1933 movement, and if we don't wanna lose democracy altogether, we gotta do what we gotta do to take it back.

It's like fighting cancer. Chemotherapy sucks, it's technically poison itself, but when dealing with metastasized cancer, all you can really do is poison yourself and hope the poison kills the cancer before it kills you. That's where we're at when dealing with the far right. So...yeah. Let's gerrymander away. I do fear the long term consequences of such an action. Remember, I dont trust the democrats as far as I can throw them. They can easily misuse their power too. But what choice do we have when we're basically literally descending into fascism? It's our only move. So yes, democrats, do whatever you have to, within reason of course, let's not escalate the erosion of democratic norms more than absolutely necessary, to combat the fascists. Gerrymander deep blue states to counteract the effects of the GOP gerrymandering red states. Get the fascists out of government, and pass some legislation to secure our democracy the next time you have a majority. Pass crap like HR1. Expand voting rights. Maybe find a way to ban gerrymandering on a national level. Kick them out of government, and then LOCK THE DOORS BEHIND THEM so they can't get back in. That's where I'm at with this. Again, no more mr nice guy. We can't be nice guys with fascists. We gotta be mean machiavellian thinkers when dealing with them. Hate to say it, but that's where society is at.  

Discussing Medhi Hasan debating 20 far righters

 So, I just finished watching Medhi Hassan debate 20 far righters in one of those debates, and it was cringe. Not in the Jordan peterson way, he didnt fall apart, but my gosh, let's just say, if this is what the average red hat thinks in this country, we are SCREWED. 

 Like, I feel like America has stage 4 metastasized cancer. We always had these strains of beliefs in our society, but seeing so many people openly embrace fascist, theocratic, and anti democratic ideals is disturbing. These guys dont care about the constitution. They dont care about human rights. Freedom. Like, some of them are straight up nazis. others are straight up christian nationalists. They long for dictatorship, but only on their terms. They are EXTREMELY racist and anti immigrant. 

I mean, one thing I'll ironically agree with these guys on is that as a nation, we are supposed to have a coherent set of values. However, I thought we did. Dedication to freedom, democracy, tolerance toward others. I thought we were the country where it's like, we all dont see eye to eye with each other, but we can like tolerate each other and get along, right? But watching these guys? Im starting to get to the point of the "we can't tolerate the intolerant" people. Like these MFers really stretch my tolerance toward people with different views. It's basically because they're authoritarian fascists who wanna force their ideas on me and others.

 Like, my ideals are based on enlightenment values. Why enlightenment values? because from a secular humanist point of view, morality is a matter of trial and error and those ideas are THE ideas because they produce the best results. We dont wanna live under authoritarianism and theocracy and those who want to control others. Because that's bad for everyone except for the tiny minority doing the oppressing. We literally developed these ideas to get away from that and move on as a species toward something better.

 But these "dark enlightenment" types, or anti enlightenment types, they wanna go back. They wanna go back to the age where kings and religion controlled everything. They act like life is so much better under those principles. It wasn't. We fought revolutions and had centuries, LITERAL, CENTURIES of progress to get away from these and make society better, and these dumb fricks wanna throw it all away and go back to like the 1100s. Like we're talking pre magna carta here. 

And on immigration. Like, there was one moderate guy I could kinda sorta find common ground on. Yes, we shouldnt be open borders. my own ideas on immigration are complex, nuanced, and TLDR, I was fine with Obama and Biden. They deported people, they just did it HUMANELY. Well, at least relatively humanely. Point is, we were addressing the problem, and doing it far better than what trump is doing. We dont need to throw people into a concentration camp in the middle of the FRICKING FLORIDA EVERGLADES in order to make a point. These guys are just cruel, they're evil. I mean, this crap is EVIL. 

But yeah. If you want to stop people from coming in and having kids in the US who we call citizens when their parents came here illegally, fine. Even on trump's first day, I said, I'm not opposed to ending birthright citizenship for those people specifically. I wouldnt end it for everyone. I wouldnt want to go to some blood based system based on some insane racial hierarchy (because we all know thats code for white nationalism). But like...if your parents were here legally and you were born here, you should be an american citizen. Period. 

And I certainly wouldnt be telling Medhi Hassan to gtfo because he's of indian descent to his face. That's insane. Again, these people are insane. I lost even more faith in humanity watching this.

Let me put it this way. if these guys were immigrants wanting to come into the country, these are the kinds of people who would make me agree with the right and say no. Because we dont need reactionary people here who dont respect democracy, the rule of law, the constitution, and are intolerant frickwits. Like when we talk assimilation, I want people who can at the very least have some civic respect for the US here as a free country with equality and justice for all. Like really. I feel like, after watching this, WE are the "craphole country" now. I'm dead serious. We are the craphole country. We are the ones full of illiberal, intolerant people who dont understand or respect basic customs essential to our way of life. They talk such a big game about our way of life, but they dont understand crap. I mean, what exactly are they for here? Christian theocracy? White ethnonationalism? They're fascists. let's just call them fascists. Nazis or nazi adjacent.  F these people. If anyone is a fundamental threat to our democracy and way of life, it's these people. Sorry, not sorry. 

Like really, these guys are pushing me toward that paradox of intolerance mindset where we can't tolerate the intolerant. Because we are literally losing our country. Our free country, to this fascist movement. And it scares me. I fear for the future of America here. I dont even recognize us any more.

I used to be conservative, but I was never this bad. Like, I was that moderate wing of the GOP that was opposing trump that lost to the Trump movement. And while that movement deserved to die out itself, what has replaced it is far worse. 

Also, just as a disclaimer. I don't really have intolerance toward anyone. Like, say christianity. I dont like christianity as a religion, as an ex christian myself, but I believe people should be FREE to be christian. people should be FREE under our constitution to practice their religion in peace. I just dont want that stuff in government telling ME what I should be doing my life, or anyone else for that matter. And those ideas shouldn't destroy liberal democracy. Ya know what I mean? 

Would you date a robot?

 So...apparently Grok is going full anime waifu mode and the internet is losing his mind. Of course, the left is screaming that this is "demon tech" and going full Futurama mode on the matter. It's weird because we're supposed to be the open minded ones and yet we're the ones sounding like some 1950s conservatives screaming it's the downfall of civilization. But then I see the likes of Asmongold going on about how we dont need women any more. Idk, I just feel like the social dynamics are backwards. But that's what happens when you get the most luddite leftists who hate AI mixed with the most 4chan degenerate types on the right who are anti woke and actually have that sort of streak going for them. 

Honestly, I'm in the middle. My honest opinion, people can do what they want. I don't care. I wouldnt wanna date an AI myself, i think the concept is kinda weird, and even if I am basically a forever alone type in my 30s, I'm not THAT desperate. Idk. But if other people want to, well, let them. 

On the social commentary types with what this means with actual dating and the future. Well...honestly, I think that society has been going in the wrong direction with wokeism. Far leftist radfem ideas have poisoned the well with dating to some extent, ya know, women make like WAAAAAY too many demands from men at times to the point it's left a lot of us wondering wtf we're even supposed to do. It's like we're darned if we do and darned if we don't. And a lot of men, especially younger men, like younger than me, are checking out in their teens and 20s from this crap. I guess I was 15-20 years ahead of the curve there. 

To be fair, the alt right has the same effect on women. Why would you wanna date in the era of "your body my choice?" and crazy alt right crap like that. Like, for as much as i rip on radfems going too far, remember that the other side literally wants a 1950s leave it to beaver style sexual fantasy here, and that's not great either. Like, women are people, they should have rights too. Let's not forget that. 

But yeah. That's kind of the hellishness of the modern era on social issues. I keep saying it, it's both sides to some extent. Hate to sound like an enlightened centrist, but yeah. And I know I saw someone today saying that millennials are acting like the 1990s were the greatest time ever, and admittedly, they werent, even though I have fond memories of the 1990s, but on like social issues and crap I almost feel like the 1990s were better than now. Like, while racism still existed underneath it all, yeah, race relations were a lot better. We had a lot better balance on gender issues. Sure, radfems existed back then but no one took them seriously. And we still had some decent amount of social cohesion that no longer existed.

As I see it, the arc of social issues is thus. 1950s before sucked. 1960s and 1970s saw major positive shifts in terms of womens' rights and civil rights for minorities. The 1990s-mid 2010s or so was the peak of human civilization on social issues and it seemed like we were really going in the right direction. it seemed like actual conservatism was dying, liberalism was succeeding, everyone was getting equality, and then in 2016 everyone lost their fricking minds. The left, not satisfied at actually winning the culture war and feeling the need to start another one to distract people from the economic issues (the economic arc of history has regressed from that 1960s-1970s period onwards), ended up leaning into wokeism, whereas the right morphed into the alt right, which is just a disgusting regression to all of those ideas we thought were dead and dying wrapped all up in one, and here we are. Our social fabric is falling apart at its seams and we're descending into fascism because the left ended up biting off more than it can chew. 

And yeah. It's like the old liberal "center" is actually just massively overlooked, even though it's where the action is really at. Both the left and the right are regressive and reactionary against each other, and yeah. So...maybe in some ways the 1990s WERE better? Sure, they had problems, every decade did, but I feel like progress peaked with the Obama era and we've been backsliding since. 

Again, totally different view on other issues, economically we've been going downhill since the 1970s. On foreign policy I tend to think democrats get it right and republicans are horrible (clinton era = okay, bush era = bad, obama era = okay, biden era = okay, trump era = bad. 

But yeah given this is a post about social issues, yeah. 

As such, to go back to AI waifus, I feel like the fact that society is going this way represents a huge problem on our part to some extent. Mostly in terms of deteriorated social fabric and modern culture war causing men and women to hate and fear each other where dating has become dysfunctional, and now men would rather date AI than actual women. Like, I dont see the problem with the technology. A lot of leftists hate the technology. They hate AI, they hate what it represents, but honestly, AI isn't the problem. It's the social and economic conditions of the times, and people are taking out their anger on this tech simply because rich billionaire jerks like Elon Musk are creating it, when the tech itself is largely neutral, it's more a matter of how it's used. The left can be regressive and reactionary about it, but I don't think that's actually particularly helpful. I'd rather blame the social and economic conditions that lead to life being dysfunctional over the tech. Because that's where our problems REALLY are.  

Discussing the Jeffrey Epstein thing

 So...do we really need to discuss this? Anyone who really cared to know, knows that he has been implicated in some pretty serious crap in regard to that for a while now. Like, the Katie Johnson thing happened in 2016. ya know, the girl who accused Trump of raping her at one of Epstein's sex parties when she was 13? There was even tons of court testimony and everything and it was only retracted since she started getting death threats. Btw, above link might be sensitive for some audiences so, just a heads up there. 

 And now there's a letter that came out that seemed to heavily imply that they were in on some secretive...something. And given what secretive somethings Epstein peddled in, we all know what that's implying.  Honestly? I think he's guilty AF. 

I mean, honestly, the more I look at this, not only do I think that he was a client of Epstein's, but that it's highly likely that he was a major player. I mean, the dude was known for having beauty pageants. He's gone into dressing rooms of underaged girls before. He owns all of these properties that could possibly be used for wild sex parties. I mean, I've kind of inferred this just from watching some of the above Katie Johnson testimonies. Even Kyle Kulinski is getting a whiff of this and realizing, oh crap, maybe Mar A Lago was used for this stuff.  

I would even go so far that if I were investing Epstein's murder, er, I mean, "suicide", Trump would be at the top of my suspect list. I mean, we all know that footage the FBI released was doctored, right? It was literally missing a minute of footage. 

This is what happens when the justice system is full of Trump cronies. They're covering it up. And Trump is trying to get his base to move on, but they don't seem to wanna move on. They're pissed. I mean, this is like Pizzagate, but actually a real conspiracy. I mean, we should've known about this back in 2016 during the Katie Johnson thing. And he's been accused quite a bit since then as well. I think everyone knows Trump and Epstein are in with each other. It's really just a matter of how deep the rabbit hole goes. I just gave my own speculation, honestly, I'm to the point that not only is Trump likely a client, but probably was facilitating the stuff himself. Again, this is just speculation based on what I've seen, I have no proof (putting that here for legal reasons given how sue happy Trump is), but honestly, it's not much of a stretch given the evidence.

I said it before and I said it again, this guy shouldn't have been elected again. he shouldnt have even been allowed to run again. Quite frankly, he should be behind bars. He already got nailed on 34 felonies of a less serious nature, but yeah, he should be nailed for whatever role he played with this, and let's not forget, after January 6th, this guy never should've been allowed to run again. These aren't minor crimes. These are serious. And yet somehow we elected him. Well, enjoy pedo Hitler, America, you earned it.  Don't say we didn't warn you. Hate to sound like an arrogant craplib but uh, yeah, when you're dealing with, well, that, kinda hard not to be. Even I voted for Harris and I was one of the original bernie bros!

Why I single out nintendo for criticism in gaming

 So...nintendrones, ya know, hardcore nintendo fanboys, keep accusing me of having a double standard for nintendo that I dont have for other console manufacturers. And...I wanted to actually set the record straight and explain why I've focused so much on nintendo here.

1) They released a new console and discussing it is an autistic interest of mine

I mean, the switch 2 is gaming news. PS5 and Xbox Series X have been around for 5 years now. If anything we're probably closer to their successors than their launches given modern consoles are on a 7-8 year life cycle. And I admit i'm a little obsessed with it, but that's just me with my autism baby. I cant control what im obsessed with, I'm just obsessed with it. 

2) I'm a PC gamer...

Who says that I give micro$oft and $ony a pass for their behavior? The dollar signs as Ss in their name should sum up my disdain for those companies too. Either way, I hate the console market in general. I think all consoles are scams compared to PC gaming. You got these closed systems or "walled gardens" where you gotta deal with their eco system when in reality, their consoles are just....PCs with custom operating systems. Let's face it, consoles are computers. Except everything is configured for them already. It makes for an easier user experience, and given consoles are often sold at a loss they're cheaper than PCs up front, BUT....they also get a lot of extra money from more expensive games, paying for online services (the thing that made me gtfo of the console market), accessories, etc. 

3) Nintendo hasn't competed with the other consoles in almost 20 years now...

Let's face it, back in the day, console wars were actually interesting. And nintendo competed directly with the likes of the sega genesis, the playstation 1, the dreamcast, the ps2, the xbox, etc. But....sony beat them. Twice. Overwhelmingly. I dont even know why. Quite frankly i think sony's game library, while the biggest on paper, is the most boring and least appealing to me. 

I've stated before that my opinion on gaming during 6th gen was blah, but it was blah because i bought the wrong console, the PS2. Why did I buy the PS2? Peer pressure. Everyone in my school at the time went PS2 and it was the "cool kids console". But it didnt have a great library IMO, and xbox and game cube in retrospect appeal to me more. I guess people really wanted the DVD player and thought GTA was the edgy cool thing in middle school at the time, idk. Quite frankly, going back I wish I got gamecube. Their library was way better. And it was cheaper. But it sold like crap. Because of the dvd player thing? Idk. 

Either way, nintendo stopped competing and went in a huge change in direction after that. And that's when...I stopped caring about anything nintendo did. Ever. Their DS was the last console i bought at the time. It was underwhelming. Hyped up as a handheld N64 but then it was mostly shovelware and 2D games. The Wii did motion controls. Everything with nintendo became gimmicks and they stopped competing with other consoles.

Since then, they've run weak consoles a generation behind their competition, they relied on gimmicks like motion controls, but one thing I had to give them credit for? They were cheap and kinda set a low bar. Very accessible for children, casual gamers, etc. And they still had good games at the time. But yeah. PS3 and Xbox 360 just shifted toward the becoming more generic and like gaming PCs. And I just...bought a gaming PC after that. 

And quite frankly, i had no reason to ever touch $ony or micro$oft's crap. But nintendo? THey still offered something different on paper, and given they never released their stuff on PC, i was always tempted to get their consoles. And sometimes i got stuff second hand from friends getting rid of old consoles and stuff. Playstation and xbox were just competing directly with PC, I was a PC gamer, and the nintendo was off doing its own thing.

4) Nintendo price increases impact the industry as a whole

The 2020s are an era of greedflation. Prices are going up in general, and for the most part, it's not even for any legit reason. It's corporate greed. Yeah, we had some supply chain issues after COVID, but those are quickly resolved and corporations just decide to raise prices for no reason, just because they can. And they get higher profit margins as a result. 

When I see nintendo upping their prices, i see a domino effect in the rest of the industry. If nintendo charges $450, i can see sony making $700-800 their new bar for consoles. I mean, and let's not forget PC. We got our own problem with nvidia raising the prices of GPUs by insane amounts. Other PC parts are relatively affordable, but GPU prices have been INSANE. And these other console manufacturers, not nintendo, often push limits, making these consoles relatively affordable and selling them at a loss to bring in consumers and then making it up later through the predatory walled garden crap. PC is more expensive up front with hardware, but cheaper long term due to not putting up with the downsides of being locked into a console's ecosystem. 

But thats the thing. If nintendo charges $450 for last gen PS4/Xbox one era hardware, what are microsoft and sony gonna charge? Again, microsoft is already angling for $700. Oh, and they bumped game prices too to $80 right after nintendo did, what a coincidence!

The fact is, the first one to do this stuff was gonna get flak for it. Because then the others will say "we can do it too", and honestly, it is gonna impact me in the PC gaming market as well through higher game prices and and hardware costs. Since consoles are PCs, I need a PC on par with a console to play games at a similar level. It's still hard to match a PS5/Xbox series X for the money, even 5 years later, which is INSANE. Again, it's mainly GPUs. The consoles use an RX 6700 and a RX 7700 XT in their respective iterations of consoles (normal and pro versions). My 6650 XT comes close to the base model, but most cheaper GPUs only have 8 GB VRAM. The 7700 XT has 12, but that's matched by...the 5060...which has 8 GB. And the 9060 XT, which has 16 but only at $350. Again, we're being squeezed too in the PC market by ngreedia and AMD. 

Nintendo's pricing strategy is shaking up the market, and not in a good way here. If they sell $450 for some last gen console, it raises the bar and the expectations for sony and microsoft (tired of using the $ but i made my point), and they're gonna make even more expensive consoles too while passing on costs to the consumer. Everything is getting more expensive and as I've discussed previously, it's pricing more price sensitive people out of the market or at least making them buy less than they used to. 

5) I just can't get over how predatory nintendo has become

The switch 2's business model feels dystopian. $450 for a console, $80 for games, $10 just for the introduction, aggressive anti piracy measures bricking peoples' consoles just for playing used games that someone else copied, the whole key card thing, paying for online, paying for chat, it's weird. Like, they got you paying for everything and then bricking the entire consoles of people who didnt do anything wrong in the name of anti piracy. It's dystopian. Maybe its the fact that online is built into this stuff, something that was never a thing in previous eras, but i remember the old days. I remember the days before DLC, and season passes, and live service, and online accounts that you gotta pay for. And I just look at what nintendo people put up with and I'm like youre insane. I used to buy most of my games used back in the day. Now I got steam sales and im aware online has changed things, but at least on PC, its very good for the consumer as gaming is relatively cheap on PC. Whatever extra costs you pay for hardware you tend to make up on not paying for online or game sales or cheaper peripherals.

Heck, what inspired this post was me criticizing nintendo selling like $95 for a controller. The nintendrones brigading the anti nintendo sub I'm on by pointing out how some controllers for playstation and xbox are $150. but again, i dont care. Wanna know what controller I use on PC? The logitech F310, aka, the titanic submarine disaster special. I spent $13 on it. If I wanted an xbox type controller of higher quality, I could spend up to $60 for one. I didnt do that because even that's insane.

I game on like $25 keyboards and $45 mice. The mouse I spend a lot on because you need a good and reliable mouse for precision. Cheap mice have poor precision and break often. BUt yeah, I wouldnt pay $95 for a controller. Much less one that is known to get stick drift. You realize I pay $13 for my controllers because yeah, they might be cheap and break, but if they do, I can just buy a new one for $13? For $95, the thing better be nigh indestructible. But it's not. And that's the real cost you get by going console.

6) Nintendo's whole business model just seems antiquated to me

In a sense, Nintendo is the last true console manufacturer. They're the last one that does something different. If I wanna get a playstation or xbox game these days, I get it on PC. I play on my roughly console equivalent PC, and I get the same experience as a console gamer. I get crossplay in multiplayer with console gamers. I get similar graphics, similar frame rates, it's the same experience. And on PC, I get xbox exclusives AND PS exclusives recently. Honestly, theres talk microsoft might be pulling a sega and getting out of the console business and focusing on game pass. Their new "rog ally x" handheld seems to imply this too. I mean, the rog ally is a handheld PC. Their new handheld xbox is...a handheld PC? Like it's just a PC called an xbox. That's the direction microsoft is going. 

In all fairness, xbox started as a consolized PC. Like the whole thing was to bring PC gaming to consoles. In a sense, because PC gaming is better, xbox is just turning into PC. Sony, I could see going the same way over time. Because again, these consoles...are just....PCs. 

Nintendo, they're the ones who wont play ball. They refuse to put their games on PC. No, you need to buy a special box just to play their games. And then they charge more for games, and never discount stuff much any more, and yeah, they just do their own thing. And...uh...it's not 2005 any more. As a PC gamer, nintendo's biggest turnoff for me is this walled garden stuff. Exclusivity is a thing of the past for the rest of the industry. Doing something different is a thing of the past. We dont do things like this any more. 

And honestly? Just to enjoy nintendo products, you need their console, their eco system, etc., and it just feels....no to me.

Like, since getting out of consoles 15 years ago, I've been PC/android with my setup. My main device is a PC capable of gaming, and my secondary device is a tablet. Now I got a razer edge which came with a kishi controller so I can use that as a handheld. And I like things far better that way. Heck, I'd even like a steam deck or a rog ally if it were cheaper and I could get over the downsides of the darned things. Which brings me to my last point.

7) The switch 2 is trying to compete directly with handheld gaming PCs

For as much as nintendo tends to do their own thing, they still somewhat wrapped back around to this console/handheld hybrid model, with the switch 2 being more an underpowered console and an ovespecced handheld. It's too weak to compete directly with the PS5 and the Xbox series X, but it's too strong to compete with say, the android handheld space. THe first switch WAS an android handheld. It was an nvidia shield tablet with extra RAM. THis new switch 2...it's more competing with the steam deck and rog ally. And I see those products as niche. They're very expensive for a handheld, very underpowered compared to actual gaming PCs or laptops, the battery life is awful. Keep in mind nintendo's big thing is normally being cheap and not as good, but very accessible. The game gear was superior to the game boy in specs, but the high cost, large size, and how power usage made it unappealing compared to the smaller, cheaper, and more efficient game boy.

The switch is the successor of both the game boy and previous nintendo consoles. Its underspeccedness becomes an advantage in a way. Because it allows them to make their console ALSO a handheld, thus merging the two markets into one unified platform. With switch 1 they had a decent balance. They took the strongest gaming tablet the market had to offer at the time at a reasonable price point, and turned it into a console. THis time around, they went more in the direction of PC handhelds, with the steam deck being directly compared to the switch 2. And to me, it's just the worst of all worlds. It seems very....not nintendo for me. It's one of the reasons the thing costs so much, and the flaws are obvious. The thing is huge. It has poor battery life. Sure it can run cyberpunk, but it does so at 30-40 FPS on like minimum settings. It's just in that awkward "game gear" zone of handhelds that I generally would try to avoid. 

Conclusion

While I have a lot of gripes against nintendo, keep in mind my perspective isn't just mindlessly anti nintendo. I've gotten out of consoles and console fanboyism like 15 years ago, and I'm a PC gamer. Quite frankly, I dont like gaming consoles. I'd rather game on an open platform like PC or android or whatever tf the steam deck does, than be locked into some walled garden where I gotta pay for their services (where PC equivalents are free), buy their stuff on their terms, pay insane amounts for peripherals, etc.

I dont even dislike nintendo in some ways. I think they have strong IPs and lots of decent games. If anything Id like to play their games on non nintendo platforms. Imagine buying mario kart world on steam. That would be amazing (although not for $80). But thats the thing. Their costs, their business model, I dont like the way the company operates. And dont think I just give sony and microsoft a pass. The difference is I largely just laugh in their face when they try to do predatory stuff and then buy their games on PC instead, ON SALE, when I wanna play them. 

The thing is, if I wanna play sony and microsoft games, I can. Without paying for online services (since its free on PC). Or spending $95 or $150 for controllers. And also, steam sales. WHile I have to admit sales are lackluster as these guys are taking longer to put games on sale and charging more for them, that's becoming an industry wide problem.

But what singles out nintendo for me is the fact that they do the walled garden stuff, they've historically been the cheaper option but their greed is opening pandora's box in the industry as a whole, and quite frankly, because the switch 2 is new. I aint actually giving the other guys a pass. I praise good deals when I see them and I bash bad deals. And sadly, in the 2020s, gaming as a whole has been going in a direction of more bad deals than good ones. If anything, me dogpiling on nintendo is them dogpiling on the industry in bringing it down even further than it's already gone.

Keep in mind, I'm not a fan of the modern industry at all. I'm the "peak gaming" guy and how we're getting to a point where costs are going up, quality is doing down, and I'm quite frankly in favor of the gaming market just crashing 1983 style at this point, so that it can correct itself, and we get a new normal that hopefully sucks less than this one. The current business model is going in an unsustainable direction, and without course correction, the problems in the industry are just gonna get worse, and not better. 

If anything, nintendo's switch 2 is another nail in the coffin as far as im concerned, and then succeeding bodes poorly for the market as a whole, from a consumer point of view at least.

Discussing Elon Musk starting a third party, and Andrew Yang supporting him

 So, Elon Musk is starting a third party. Obviously, I am not supportive of this endeavor, other than the infighting it creates on the right. Which we should stay out of. Let them fight and destroy each other. But, for some reason, Andrew Yang seems to be pivoting toward supporting Musk. 

Look, Andrew. I liked your 2020 run. You basically ran on my ideas more or less. I liked your mayoral run. I thought the forward party started out right, but then you went full on compromise mode with appealing to centrists at the expense of your OG base. You gave up on UBI, at least insofar as the party's activism goes, because you believed we needed to go all in with ending the duopoly. I get the temptation, but have long since criticized this move, believing we need to stand firm in our humanist principles in advocating for ideas like UBI. RCV and the like are a means to an end. They are not the end. We shouldnt lose sight on the end, but you have lost sight of that end.

And now you seem to be pivoting toward getting in bed with Musk. NO! Andrew, NO! BAD!

Look, I know once upon a time, Musk was a UBI stan too. He even talked about it recently as being inevitable, although he doesn't seem happy about it. And let's go into that. 

Musk....is a capitalist. And I dont mean just ideologically. I mean, in terms of class. He's part of the elite, the employer class, the bourgeoisie. And yes, I think it's good to speak in marxist terms here because I believe we need class analysis here. UBI, for me, is about liberating the working class. But...Musk is of the employer class. And he's a bit of a butthole in that regard. He has this insane work ethic and expects his employees to work like 80 hours a week. And let me tell you this, people like this are not REALLY pro UBI. This is because they want a desperate and subservient workforce that they can push around. THey dont want an empowered workforce with the ability to say no to jobs. And look at musk's actions in the trump administration. His goal was to cut government. He wanted to cut medicaid. He even was trying to undermine social security, which is currently the closest thing to UBI in this country. It's only for seniors and only if they worked over their lives, but still, he was pushing this myth of 150 year olds on social security to undercut social security. Let's not forget this stuff. 

He's not our ally. He's not our friend. He's our enemy. He speaks out of one side of his mouth on UBI and then he goes on and acts like every other right wing jerk ever when it counts. 

And let's be honest, lets look at his exact recent statements. he isn't pro UBI really. he just sees it as an inevitability because AI will revolutionize the workforce. He doesnt think that abolishing jobs is a good thing. He is repeating protestant work ethic nonsense in his argumentation for why it's a bad thing. 

So this guy is not ideologically our friend. Again, at best, he virtue signals in the direction of a UBI and even then it's a really half baked virtue signal full of "i dont really want this." And you know what? He doesnt. He's a workaholic who expects his employees to be workaholics. And again, DOGE. You cant trust the DOGE guy to give you a UBI.

So...wtf Yang is thinking trying to fluff up elon is just....wtf. No. HELL NO! He's not an ally to the movement. We shouldn't support him. Screw him. He made his bed with trump, let him sleep in it, and given he stabbed trump in the back too, well, he can live with that. Aint up to us to bail him out or back him up. Again, he made his bed, let him sleep in it. 

Here's the thing there are a lot of people like this who speak of UBI like this. Joe Rogan is one. And Kyle Kulinski talked about this today on his program. pre 2020 he seemed open and receptive to Yang, but then he basically went full chud after covid going full on board with the "nobody wants to work any more" people. Again, these people arent allies. When it actually matters, they'll stab you in the back. 

And thats the thing about musk. He's not a serious guy on UBI. When push comes to shove, he will betray you. Hes not a serious person. We shouldn't take him seriously. Scre Elon Musk. 

No, fiscal conservatives didn't betray their principles, they never had them in the first place

 ...first time?

 So yeah, the "big beautiful bill" passed the house and the left is riling themselves up in a frenzy about how the house freedom caucus and tea party conservatives who care about the deficit and fiscal responsibility betrayed their principles by voting for this horrible bill.

*sigh*

 Let me try to reframe this. They never had principles. While many voters have principles, the people in power do not. The republican party exists at the behest of big business. Modern conservatism is a sham ideology created to justify the will of this business class. What this business class wants is more for them and less for everything else. They want to pay no taxes. They dont want any regulations on them. They dont want unions. They dont want welfare. In their worldview, the end justifies the means. 

When the right talks about economic freedom, they dont mean freedom for you. That's just the line they sell you to justify that stuff to you. Their right to work laws are about stripping workers of any power or bargaining rights that they have, and stripping the government of their power to regulate, so the businesses can do what they want. When they talk about personal responsibility, they're echoing the protestant work ethic and this idea that if you're not wealthy, it's your fault, git gud scrub. Work harder and make better decisions. But ya know what? They F the economy up? They get bail outs and loans that are then forgiven. When they talk about the national debt and the budget deficit, they're really talking about cutting welfare and social programs while giving tax cuts to the rich. They don't actually care about the deficit. Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt. Bush senior was at least honest in betraying his "no new taxes" pledge and he didn't last long. Bush Jr doubled it by getting us into unnecessary wars and cutting taxes on the rich. Trump raised the national debt in his first term with his tax cuts, and he did it again just now. This bill is more austerity for us, and more tax breaks for the wealthy. Oh, and let's not forget, like $40 billion or something for ICE, because of course the fascist would buff up his gestapo to round people up and put them in literal concentration camps. That's the priorities of this administration.

This has been all conservatism has been for the past hundred years. They opposed Theodore Roosevelt when he used the power for the people. They opposed the New Deal and spent decades working to roll it back. Reagan was their baby, and every administration since these guys scream about the national debt, but at the end of the day, they'll increase it while giving more giveaways for the ultra wealthy because that's what they care about. The end justifies their means. Conservative ideology is just a pretext to give stuff to rich people. They don't actually care about that stuff. The only people who care about it are the chumps who vote republican. 

And yes, if you vote republican and you believe in this stuff, I'm calling you a chump. You are doing their bidding. You're their useful idiot. They love people like you. They love the uneducated. It's why they love religion. All the religious stuff is wedded with the party because it brainwashes people into authoritarianism and it makes them skeptical of educated people and becoming educated. They dont want people to go to college and get degrees. They love stupid and ignorant people. Because they vote for them and do their bidding. 

I know that will ruffle some feathers as I'm being really insulting, but as an educated person, I just want the world to learn. It's why I do this blog. I want people to become educated. To understand logical fallacies. To understand that wealthy and powerful people use tools like religion and conservatism to brainwash the masses to do their bidding. Hell, that's why my blog is named what it's named. That is the nature of the cave. To believe in the illusory reality that THEY want you to believe in. I want you to to actually exercise well educated thought to be able to see through their lies. 

Much like them, I'm very direct and to the point. The end justifies the means. The difference is, because I'm autistic AF, I dont like lying, or using false doctrines or dogmas as pretext. I could frame my views a lot better if I tried to do so in a way that meets a lot of people where they are ideologically. I could speak the language of the cave. But why would I? I want people to leave the cave. And in doing so, I understand that I gotta take on the cave and its logic head on. So I'm not gonna try to use ideas like fiscal conservatism to try to frame my ideas. I'm going to actually challenge those ideas. Because I want to create a new ideology with a new framing, and to be frank, why should you support my ideas? Because for about 80% of you, my ideas would actually HELP you. Everything in politics actually comes down to who benefits. Let's do more conflict theory, more realpolitik, and actually come up with ideas that benefit most Americans. UBI, it benefits people. Universal healthcare benefits people. Free college benefits people. More affordable housing benefits people. The entire system and its ideology is literally constructed to justify all kinds of injustices and inequalities. It exists to justify to the masses why they have so little, while others have so much. That is all. And that's why you shouldn't be surprised when they pass bills like this. And it's why you should wake up and start thinking like me.

Now, people may wonder where democrats fit into all of this. Well, they could be an agent for good, but I see them as controlled opposition. it's quite clear, after witnessing how they behave for the past decade, that they're feckless and useless. And they're so by design. They dont want people to wake up and advocate for real change. So they go on about how we need to be incremental, and focus on electability, and how we can't do anything, and blah blah blah. The right can do whatever they want. They can pass ghoulish bills like this and the party falls in line. Any time Biden tried to do even the tiniest amount of good for the people, you'd have sell outs like Joe Manchin sounding like republicans and going on about "entitlement societies." Why? Because they dont want you to have nice things. They exist at the behest of the billionaires too. They're just a lot softer about it. That's why before Trump went full fascist, I was basically fully on board with going third party. Now, Trump is dangerous on a level we havent seen in this country before, but we've seen how these types act in other countries. And uh....yeah. Regardless what issues I have with the dems, we gotta back them up to stop literal fascism from taking root. Because if that happens we lose any and all hope of ever changing this place for the better. We lost. Forever. So...as cringey as dems are, we gotta tolerate them for now or we're gonna descend into something far darker than what we currently have. 

 But yeah. I guess I'm just writing this to say that, no, we shouldnt be surprised of this behavior from the republicans. To be a republican in 2025, you must truly be devoid of principles, and you must use raw power to achieve your ends. The end justifies the means. They dont care about fiscal responsibility, or freedom, and blah blah blah. Any arguments they use to that effect are dishonest, and will be discarded as convenient. At the end of the day, these guys see society as their playground, us as their servants, and they lobby to ensure that society works for them, and not for us. We shouldnt be surprised by ANYTHING they do. The mask is slipping, it has been for a while. You best start believing in cyberpunk dystopias, because you're in one. 

Discussing Alligator Alcatraz and Kilmar Abrego Garcia's treatment in El Salvador

 So...yeah. I think it's pretty undeniable that this administration is fascist. And quite frankly, if you actively support what Trump is doing, congrats, you're the people who allowed Nazi Germany to be a thing in the 1930s. 

Seriously. I thought this was a joke when it was floated last week. It's not uncommon for conservative circles to joke about like putting alligator moats on the southern border and crap. but to actually MAKE it? That's psychotic. And they built it in like a week. To be fair it's a bunch of tents, chainlink fences, and beds. It looks like a concentration camp. Like literally. Some people I know have been calling it "Alligator Auschwitz", which i think is more accurate. 

Seriously. Alex Jones types talked about Obama making FEMA death camps or something, and now we got people constructing literal concentration camps, like LITERALLY. Where are these guys? Oh wait, they only attack dems for no reason. But yeah, this is messed up. Again, this is evil. EVIL. The GOP is EVIL.

Speaking of evil, time to discuss the other topic I wanna discuss. Some legal documents of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's case came out and discussed his actual treatment. And it's messed up. This is inhumane. This should not be happening in the united states, and people from the US shouldnt be shipped to these kinds of places. And even if Kilmar isn't from the US, well, he was a legal resident. Heck, even illegal immigrants shouldnt be treated this way. This is F-ed up. Again, if you're okay with this stuff, congrats, youre the kind of people who let the nazis get as bad as they did in the 1930s and 1940s. This is messed up. Why are we doing this to people? THis is EVIL. 

I keep saying it. The modern GOP is evil. And remember, Trump has talked about wanting to do this to US citizens too. So this could escalate where he does this to legal residents, legal citizens, political enemies, even you. You think you're safe? Remember the phrase from nazi germany. First they came for the socialists but because i wasnt a socialist, I didnt speak out blah blah blah, then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me. These violations of human rights should be taken seriously and nipped in the bud early because otherwise, it will escalate and we will be seeing our fellow citizens deported to literal concentration camps simply because trump doesn't like them. This is messed up. I just wanted to talk about it. 

Dogpiling on the Cuomos

 So, Kyle Kulinski had a segment recently talking about Chris Cuomo melting down over AOC, saying she's not really a democrat because she's a socialist and she should gtfo of the democratic party.

 And...as someone who has been watching this intraparty feud for a decade now, I just have one thing to say. SHUT THE F UP! 

 Like, seriously. There has been a segment of people on the left, in this two party system, who want change. And for a decade, they've been suppressed. Every election, these centrist hacks like Andrew Cuomo win primaries, and then the party tells us that we have to fall in line or we get the republican. They tell us that even a flawed democrat is better than a republican and that we live in a two party system and we have to choose. And god forbid if you dont go along with them like I did. They'll just blame you when they lose and harp on you with all this stupid lesser evilism crap.

But...when Andrew Cuomo loses a primary, all of the sudden, these same people start whining and moaning about how this isn't the democratic party they recognize and how we gotta gtfo and do our own thing. You guys kept telling us we had to work within your party and when we win, suddenly you want us to leave or you guys threaten to take your toys and go home? F U from the bottom of my heart. 

If centrists like Chris and Andrew Cuomo can't accept the direction the party is going in after they spent the past decade running it into the ground because they're a bunch of out of touch oligarchs, then they have no business asking us for votes. I've known all along that all this 'blue no matter who" crap was just propaganda to bully the left into supporting the center, but now when the left wins, suddenly its like they dont recognize the party any more and they're screaming over socialists and losing their minds. 

DEAL WITH IT! And remember, you gotta vote blue no matter who, right? RIGHT?! Yeah, if you dont do it for people like AOC or Zohran Mamdani, you have no business EVER asking people like me for my vote again.

And btw, as someone who isnt a socialist, I dont necessarily like the socialists either. While I agree we need policies and systemic change, I believe their solutions are flawed and inefficient. I'll give the center that one. I do think we should think a bit smarter and that socialists get too obsessed with...well...socialism. But at the same time, the reason these guys start to win is because the system is failing people, and it's failing people because liberals fail to provide solutions to modern problems.

The centrist wing of the democratic party is useless. Beyond useless. They're the personification of weaponized incompetence. They literally exist only to hold back progress and run interference at the behest of the billionaire class. They exist to water us down. And honestly, while a little moderation is fine relative to socialism, when literal socialism starts catching on, it's because the liberals arent doing their jobs of actually proposing useful solutions. We live in a new populist era where what we need is a second new deal and because the dems dont wanna give it, the pitchforks are coming out. We're seeing MAGA threaten to drag the country down into fascism on the right, and we're seeing the left become increasingly LITERALLY socialistic. Obviously, I agree, people like AOC and Mamdani sometimes go too far with the socialism stuff. I'm not a full blown socialist. But I understand how the liberals arent up for the moment. THis is a moment that requires systemic change and the dems just want tweaks around edges that dont do anything. And after losing to donald trump twice, people are tired of hearing how electable you are and how we gotta settle for you. You're not even doing anything. So just get the hell out of the way, and let someone who actually has ideas given instead. And if that means a socialist, well, so be it. better than a worthless centrist craplib like the Cuomos. 

Btw, Kyle is right. Mario Cuomo, their father, he was more aligned with AOC. He was an actual new deal democrat. The sons are basically 90s era third wayers who dont seem to realize that era of politics is over and they need to get out and hand over the reins to people who can actually meet the moment.