I remember it pretty much that way too, but not recently and not at a department store. Heck, I just browsed through commemorative euro coins (no dice) because I felt it was somehow connected to Europe in the nineties…

Then I am happy for you

“Victim” is an interesting term, but quite accurate. There’s such a an effort and investment into converting people to that cult. I wish you the best with your mother, hopefully the other half of your conversations is more pleasant and eventually overtakes the conspiracy theories.

I don’t. We don’t talk. Relatives of mine, including one of my parents, sank into vaccine conspiracies, then followed that pipeline to Qanon, and then explained to me how they were waiting for Trump to lead his secret army to take down the government of my non-english-speaking, european country.

I gave them their keys back, I got my keys backs, I blocked them everywhere, I nuked my accounts on the social media they use (and where their posts steadily got worse). It’s a hard decision, I still think about it often still (it’s been nearly two years), but I will never talk to them again.

I’m a heartless monster who forgot about my brother so I could sit in my boat and gawk at my surroundings at sunset. Mileage may vary.

It does have moments that stressed me out, but since I spent so much time exploring and taking screenshots, they’re not what left the strongest memory.

I fell in love with Submerged when I played it. It’s an exploration game set in a flooded city, where you play a young girl looking for supplies for her injured brother. Lots of navigating between buildings in a little boat, climbing around, and taking in the scenery. Incredibly relaxing to play.

I think the young feel immune, and that they feel socially progressive news cannot be lies because “that is not what our side does, we have ethics”.

It’s not true in practice, though. Fake news are used to sow division, and making people angry on both sides is part of it. The far-right, boomer fake news are more obvious because they are outlandish, but there’s more than that out there.

It is, and I feel the questions are quite obvious.

That being said… I’m related to conspiracy theorists. I got a first-row seat to their dumbassery on facebook before I deleted my account. And… a significant issue was paywalled articles with clickbait titles, during Covid especially. The title was a doubt-inducing questions, such as “Do vaccines make you magnetic?” and the reasoning disproving that was locked behind the paywall. And my relatives used those as confirmation that their views were true. Because the headlines introduced doubt and the content wasn’t readable. That and satire articles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood

The immediate aim is to entertain, confuse, and overwhelm the audience, and disinterest in or opposition to fact-checking and accurate reporting means the propaganda can be delivered to the public more quickly than better sources.

Honest questions: What worthwhile alternatives exist already? If there are none, what can be done? What can be built to improve discoverability of authors while moderating what is visible?

With my track record at killing even cacti, I am going to suck at this game. It does sound interesting, though (and “great story” is enough to make me face the rice farming).

It definitely sounds unique, which is exactly was I was hoping for when I made the post! Thank you!

Rounding error :)

Oh gosh, it’s so cute. I’ll keep an eye out for it when rummaging for used 3DS games.

Podcast addict is both incredibly customizable and feature rich. Absolutely worth trying.

I just spent ten minutes attempting to remember. I did not remember but, whatever it was, it was “meh”.