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Oh :laugh:. It looks like one of those games that's constantly spammed on other apps advertising slots... not really much to say there Zizu - maybe lesson learned, you should never download these apps they're always terrible!

If you are looking for a horribly addictive phone game to pass the time I recommend "Two Dots". Looks deceptively simple, gets frustratingly difficult after a few hundred levels :joker:.

No mincing pirates.

Olympian Sharron Davies says trans activists have targeted her children's school over
her views on who can participate in women's sports

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...1ydwg&usqp=CAU

Speaking of the abuse she received, she told the Off Air podcast: 'Just activists ringing
every single job I have, ringing every single charity, ringing my children's schools,
abusing my kids, calling me every name under the sun.


'[They say] I am a bigot, I'm a homophobe, obviously a transphobe (:rolleyes:) I'm even a racist which I find hilarious because I have got mixed-race kids.

'They use these terms not to actually mean it, they use it to bully. They use it to shut
you up and to stop you trying to debate and present the science.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ns-sports.html

sounds like a TiBB thread

BBC News Text:
[The health secretary is facing "pressure"
to scrap "rules that mean patients who
only occasionally identify as women
can share female-only hospital wards".]

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cp...e1-nc.png.webp

Well yeah, that transgenderism usually has co-morbidities with other mental health issues or general difficulties or a troubled past (often involving abuse) is sadly overlooked.

The whole thing is daft, these are private businesses and if trans women who still look like men and have male genitals are in them... lots of women will simply stop going. No one is going to subsidise them and they'll simply shut down.

You won't end up with women's saunas that are only for biological females, OR women's saunas that are inclusive of trans women... there will just be no sauna at all for anyone.

Some people even get accused of having dodgy, transphobic views for maintaining that 7-year-olds (take Sarah’s badly-acted son, Harry, on Corrie now) shouldn’t be overly sexualised and have storylines revolving around them socially transitioning. It’s utter madness at that point. And I’m not even joking when I say madness.

People VASTLY underestimate the power of social contagion I think... there's a belief that if so many otherwise-levelheaded people are on board with it then it can't be objectively completely off the rails. But there are literally countless historical examples of that.

It's frustrating because to me it's so insanely off the rails I can't fathom how people think it's right or anywhere near OK. It feels like I'm living in an alternate reality some times.

I guess this is the thread to mention this; something really sad IMO but also indicative of how the whole thing is moving along, and a microcosm of the effect I was talking about above:

As of last year, my daughter's school no longer has an LGBTQ club, after having one for nearly 15 years. By my daughter's explanation, the following is what happened:

- LGBTQ club was created for inclusivity years ago, was growing in popularity, was really effective at helping gay kids to feel like they had back-up, was great for general awareness in the school community. Went on with no issues for over a decade.

- A couple of years ago, it started to become less LGB and all about TQ, gender non-binaryness, the pronouns games etc.

- LGB felt that it wasn't their space any more, started drifting away

- All that was left was the "TQ"

- Most of the "T" was biologically females identifying as trans boys. More accurately, troubled young girls (frankly) looking for attention.

- Most of them hit their mid teens and just went back to identifying as girls.

- All that was left was the "Q" - the gender identity nonsense.

- They are let's face it, mainly in it for the "specialness" and attention. They didn't want to be in a group that was just them. THat's not unique or special. So they stopped going too.

- Now there is no group for anyone.

I mean he's a little ( :umm2: ) overly wound up but at the core of what he's saying, entertainment media has suffered untold damage at the hands of the naval-gazing shoehorning of current social and political "hot potatoes". That's not really a debate point, "Go Woke Go Broke" is a daft phrase but it's not one without roots. The numbers are there and they don't have an opinion... they just are what they are and show what they show. Rightly or wrongly - people don't like it, and are "voting with their feet" (and wallets).

Pronouns. That's it. Pronouns.

How about this for an alternative explanation; instead of it being naval gazing shoehorning, maybe, and I know this might appear radical, but maybe it's a bit of inclusivity that isn't signalling that the world is about to end, and doesn't really have any effect on the people crying and whining?

Pretty sure you've bemoaned cancel culture in the past, but now you seem to be indifferent to it. Rightly or wrongly, so which is it?

I haven't played the game as it's not actually out yet - I imagine that similarly to Cyberpunk and BG3 (where you could have a willy on your female character if you wanted) and Hogwarts Legacy (where your male wizard could live in the witch dorm if you wanted) it probably doesn't affect the game at all beyond the character creation screen, and if he just cracked on and made himself a burly male character, he would indeed get to role-play as a burly male character so I agree his response is over the top -- but his response is what it is.

I disagree that it never has an effect on the quality of the media itself and would say that when it's done in a clearly agenda-driven way and doesn't feel naturally part of the media being presented, it does simply make for bad material. Netflix is especially guilty of that at times.

This isn't exactly cancel culture though, cancel culture would be people saying "boycott this/don't watch this, for [reasons]" - it's not the same as people being genuinely put off of things because of a change in content. Disney being the prime example of this right now. Netflix is another. It's also not about celebrating, bemoaning or being indifferent to it - it exists, that much is clear. The dropping revenue is clear. I'm just observing in that sense. For example, I am of course TiBB's biggest feminist but that doesn't mean that I don't recognise that "clear efforts" (what I would call shoehorning) of feminist concepts into things where the audience isn't going to be receptive is going to result in a financial flop. Conversely, the feminist concepts in "Barbie" for example have contributed to it being an absolute box-office runaway smash hit.

These companies do (or should) know their audience and trying to introduce elements that their own audiences don't want in everything is rightly or wrongly in moral terms absolutely tanking the entertainment industry at the moment.

My personal thoughts are that there's a way to be inclusive that's more naturally story-driven and less overtly political, and that makes for ... well ... things that are just more engaging and fun to watch.

NO ONE is going to watch something just because it's inclusive, is worth remembering. Even the people it's trying to include are going to tune out when it starts to affect quality. That's just the facts.

I can actually use a narrative example here of something that was really jarring:

The actual trans character in Hogwarts Legacy has a male voice. The character, who was born male and is a trans woman, and is shown in narrative to be a powerful witch to the extent that baddies are scared of her, in a well-established fictional world where people can make themselves look and sound exactly like any other person they want to look and sound like... or turn into a cat... doesn't have a female voice.

It's done for inclusion and it doesn't make any sense in-universe, so it's immersion breaking, which makes it (IMO) the wrong kind of inclusion. Again I think the guy in the video is way over the top because I'd argue that a character creation screen is inherently "outwith immersion" and 4th wall breaking and the game doesn't actually start until you've made those choices... but I think in spirit that's what he's getting at.

You don't think bud light was cancel culture? Just the phrase go woke, go broke more than gives the cancel culture game away. Do what we like, or we'll hurt you financially. It's a threat. I don't actually have a problem with that, because it's the capitalist system we live in, so I'm actually all for people voting with their wallets/feet/eyes.

I don't think offering choice is a bad thing, and TV companies will ultimately reign themselves in, because at the end of the day they value profits more than people. i think where we may disagree, is the fact that pandering has always happened for all groups, but only now has it become a problem. That's what I don't understand.

Action films are geared towards dudes, and rom coms are aimed at women. Obviously that's an oversimplification as I'm sure people from both groups cross, but I'm just pointing out that this has always happened, but unfortunately these programmes/films have been made political by the people protesting/crying about them by waging campaigns, they're not inherently political because they've been made.

Is this about the pub landlady (can't remember her name)? Because this is a massive reach imo. I plat'd the game and put 90hrs in and don't really understand what you're getting at.

Fan made trailer for Starfield :hehe:

Actually looks like a pretty good game tbh, but im always weary of new releases on steam, will see how it plays first by watching and asking others on twitch.

Supposed to be a great game.

I've got NBA 2k24 coming out Friday, then AC Mirage and Spiderman 2, so it's going to have to wait a while before I eventually get round to playing it. Pretty sure it's first person, too, so I might not even give it a whizz.

I'm not saying it ruined the game or should be a reason for anyone not to get it, I similarly spend an inordinate amount of time searching for "landing platforms", but I do think the character was immersion-breaking because she didn't make sense. But I am a stickler for the internal consistency of fictional worlds. Basically, it doesn't make sense that a trans witch would still have their male voice. It makes sense for muggles, because it's not always easy to change. In Universe a trans witch would just say "Voicio higherio!" or drink a potion or something, and have a higher voice. Thus, the inclusion of a male-sounding trans female character was for the benefit of the "viewer" at the expense of narrative consistency. That's the sort of shoe-horning I'm not a fan of. But again, I'm slightly OCD about fictional narrative. She was only featured in a couple of scenes so it was hardly game-breaking.

It's on GamePass so personally I'd say just pay the £7.99 or whatever for a month's sub and play it on that rather than forking out on Steam.

It's Bethesda though so it will inevitably be a 10x better game in a year when the modding community has torn it apart and rebuilt it, and I doubt you can mod the GamePass version fully (script extenders probably violate the EULA) so I'll be buying a copy eventually. But on release I'd try it out on GamePass. It's only a few £.

i took out a pc game pass for £1, and its sitting ready on my pc for the official release