I grew up with FPS games and I am genuinely at "everyone who called all this stuff fascist propaganda was 100% right and I was making excuses for it when I downplayed that stuff to myself and others"

i'm not even saying "people shouldn't play violent video games" but there is a broad unwillingness to grapple with the role they might play in warping lots of people's brains and making our society less safe

Because the US has always hid behind the fig leaf that violence is a personal failure, never a societal one.

Like them or hate them, there is no denying that video games desensitized people to violence in the same way that the internet has.

the depth of emotion others feel for one another is alien to me. my own embers, cozy as they were, failed to ignite into an appropriate flame and were swept aside with little fanfare.
but they were there. I do feel *something*, even if it isn't enough to be called romantic.

I wish I understood.

even though I was satisfied, he obviously wanted more.
more than I could give him?
maybe if I'd tried a little harder, communicated a little more...
but I had never wanted to. even as the relationship disintegrated, I didn't feel anything. it wasn't worth that much to me, I suppose.

in the end, even after almost a year, our relationship didn't go much further than the close friendship we already had at the start. I didn't really want anything more from it, though. I was content with it just being an excuse to spend more time with him. is that... romantic? I'm not so sure.

one of those people proclaimed his love for me, and we started dating for a while. But nothing really changed. I loved him back, I think. being around him made me happy, moreso than my other friends.

but my affection for him was small and quiet, and his affection for me moved me little.

obviously if something big has happened I make a show of interest even if I don't care that much, but my coworkers sometimes criticise me for not asking how they're doing every morning even though they only ever say some variation on "I'm doing alright." it's just a social ritual.

asking questions you don't actually care about the answer to has gotta be one of my least favourite things. I don't like when people do it to me or when I'm expected to do it to others because not asking would be considered rude.

it's better than if they'd stayed GGers, I guess, but sometimes I feel like they get a bit too much goodwill to excuse their more problematic tendencies.

like I feel like blaming women who suffered harassment for not smiling more *should* be a bridge too far for someone claiming to be progressive.

tbh I've always had a bad feeling about the so-called 'dirtbag left'. oftentimes just feels like a bunch of former gamergaters who moved onto socialism but didn't want to examine many of their other beliefs.

indeed, we should curb the far right by giving them exactly what they want, after which they will surely back off. this is serious politics, adults back in the room etc etc.

if starmer isn't far right then he must be perhaps the single biggest fool who ever lived.

the racism is somewhat new, I'll grant you that, but there's nothing more quintessentially centrist than sacrificing people on the altar of capitalism and pretending it's a fair and just system.

because the majority of the time when people say this they are saying that trans people are being entitled by wanting to be treated like human beings