Absolutely.

Bad, rushed software that wires together 200 different giant libraries just to use a fraction of them and then run it in a sandboxed container with three daemons it needs for some reason doesn’t mean “8 Gb isn’t enough”, it means write tighter, better software.

I hope for everyone’s sake you’re right, but if that does come to pass it will come as a surprise to me.

I agree with your conclusion, but I don’t agree that it’s feasible. Any tax solutions will involve legislation by a government owned by those same interests. And even if you managed it in major economies, you’d just force the climate issues into places with fewer qualms about their fuel usage. I’d love to see this problem solved, but my faith in our ability to resolve it is far less than yours.

Okay, I can see how you got that from my post. I was a bit hyperbolic in my original post, and I apologize.

I’m not REALLY making a moral equivalence argument or saying anything about comparing the horrors of slavery to work… I’m saying getting rid of slavery was easier to enact because there was an alternative system that happened to be ultimately profitable for the rich at the same time. Yes, wars have been fought to stop abolition, but at the end of the day, after slavery was abolished, the rich found a way to stay rich almost everywhere - abolition came at very little real change to the wealth structure of society. They had a supply of labor to exploit for profit during slavery, and they had one after. The fact is that the moral and financial interests both aligned on making abolition happen - it wasn’t caused by pure strength of willpower. And yes, the system we have now is MUCH MUCH better than true slavery, but it’s still a stretch to use the current system as a beacon of hope.

On climate change the moral and financial interests are NOT aligned in a clear way. There are always still going to be financial incentives to screw the climate for extra money. By comparison, if slavery were somehow legal again TODAY, it’s not clear it would be profitable for anybody to actually do it. That difference will make climate goals harder to enact.

Not to be defeatist, but…

We didn’t abolish slavery… we just replaced it with wage slavery. Sure, the workers are free to leave - and try to survive with no other job opportunities and no money. In fact, for the employers, this is actually preferable to real slavery, because there are lower upfront costs for your slaves, they don’t try to run away or rebel, you don’t have to pay for their healthcare or long term care, and in many places government tax dollars will subsidize their living expenses. Employers have it WAY better with wage slaves than real slaves.

Child labour is still alive and well in many countries, and even there the ball is rolling on rolling THAT back in the US at least.

I admire your positivity, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Possibly. But it’s also pretty common in many instances of technology adoption that as more users come, the quality gets worse, and while open source doesn’t have to worry about a shareholder-driven profit motive driving it, it’s still easy to wind up with a muddled focus. I wouldn’t expect that Linux and all of the associated software projects that make the functional desktop are going to be an exception overall. If you’re an open source developer working on a project now, basically any user is some form of power user, and it’s easier to find consensus of what to prioritize on a project not only because Linux users tend to be better about understanding how their software works and are actually helpful in further development, they’re also likely to direct development towards features that make software more open, compatible, and useful.

Now fast forward to a future where Linux is the majority desktop OS, those power users are maybe 5% of the software’s user base, and every major project’s forum is inundated with thousands of users screaming about how hard the software is to use and, when bug reports and feature requests are actually coherent, they mostly boil down to demands for simpler, easier to understand UIs. I can easily imagine the noise alone could lead to an exodus of frustrated developers.

Some things are better for NOT trying to be the answer for everyone.

But hey, at least they’re compatible with Windows 11, right?

/s

deleted by creator

This is Sony’s decision. It is a material change to the product that was sold. It is not the same as a patch or a nerf. It has rendered the product unplayable. Yes, you can make the argument that it was listed on the page from the beginning that an account was required, but it is also the case that EULAs are actually not legally binding contracts. Sony has made a unilateral decision, and as a result it does not matter whether a person is finished with the game or not. This is a change to the actual contract, which was the purchase of a game to use in perpetuity for the length of time that it is available on steam. Sony has made this decision, customers don’t have to justify the reason that they don’t like the change. It is a change. They are counting on people letting it slide, because most of the time that is how businesses do business.

Also, you should really stop standing up for giant corporations. Sony doesn’t need your help. They have teams of lawyers whose job it is to argue with valve over whether they need to give refunds. They may also end up having to deal with class action lawsuits, and potential legal issues with 177 countries which may have completely different laws of consumer protection than the US. That is not your responsibility.

Besides, one of the pillars of capitalism is rational self-interest, and that goes both ways, not just in the business side. If you can get a refund for something because a company has made a bad decision about how they do their business, why do you care about whether it’s fair or not to the company? They sure don’t care about whether it’s fair to you. Are you a Sony lawyer? Are you the “be nice to big companies police”? Let Sony and Valve, and possibly the court system, worry about what their legal obligations are, and you worry about your personal decision of whether you are going to take advantage of your legal rights. Don’t start judging whether others should or shouldn’t do the same.

You are applying a standard to the game that applies to YOU. Other players who are currently playing a game do not care that you are finished playing the game. They are not. The game did not ship with a 3 month subscription plan. It shipped as a sold product. Your analogy is like an all-you-can-eat buffet where after twenty minutes they close it down and make everyone stop eating, and your argument is, “Well, I’M full. It’s fine.”

Maybe the Saudi investors who own him have finally called in the favor and told him it’s time to put an end to the EV transition…

Delightfully devilishly hot, Seymour.