Thanks for the link. Some big parties seem to have hundreds of thousands of members. Didn’t see much for 2024 other than:

Zu Beginn des Jahres 2024 meldeten mehrere Parteien einen starken Mitgliederzuwachs. Bündnis 90/Die Grünen berichteten von 8.000 Neumitgliedern in den ersten beiden Monaten des Jahres.

In any case, considering the political context of our times, AfD’s growth is nothing to scoff at.

Since not everyone is expected to become member of a political party, a more apt comparison would be to membership numbers (and changes in those) for other German parties.

I don’t think they’re infogrames either

Ah sure I was afraid I might have forgotten something. Though again a very different category and not the kind of game I’d play. It would be more accurate to say I guess that Black Myth is the first game out of China that seems like it could make it big in the full price AAA single player action market. I can’t recall another Chinese game of this type that has held similar promise.

It’s the most impressive video game to come out of china, the first that seems poised to generate significant buzz internationally. Whether it will be any good I do not know, but early demos had been very impressive. So I’d say it is hotly anticipated, you were just late to the party. It may not be that original in gameplay but how many AAA productions are strikingly original nowadays? None that I can remember.

Turning over to the round side seems to have garnered a lot more views. I wonder whether he would have stayed flat if it were otherwise. After all many more are making content online in the hopes of money and fame than in some quest for truth.

I am disgusted and appalled.

We need to look outside of social media. Doesn’t mean the media we consume don’t play a role in shaping opinions. The short attention spans and highly simplified messaging encouraged by endless scrolling on social media platforms play right into the hands of populists who trade in slogans, scapegoats and easy solutions. The algorithm takes care of the rest. Once you’ve expressed an interest in politically edgy content, you will be served more of that, to the point where your perception of reality will be completely shaped by that.

It is a very good game and makes an admirable job of showing you the branching paths and impact of your decisions. Presumably creating incentives to replay, but personally I was just satisfied to get my own story and knowing how it could have gone different in many ways. Also well written, they tend to get flak for their writing, but compared to most video game writing it’s pretty good.

Although I disagree that the main problem is politicization, a lot of what you said otherwise concurs with my experience. The depth just isn’t there. Maybe it’s a numbers thing. You’d see many simplistic takes left and right on Reddit too, but given the sheer volume of contributors, more often than not someone would have some true insight to share, a well thought out rebuttal, a reasoned argument, or just some humor to lighten up the conversation, and that would rise to the top. So top comments were usually guaranteed to be worthwhile and low effort comments would become easier to ignore. At least in the better subreddits. Not so much the case on Lemmy. A lot of low effort sarcasm, political slogans, and tribalism in the comments. I do like Lemmy on the whole though, so sticking with it for the time being.

So there is no evidence, just speculation. Nothing to see here then.

It’s become more efficient to get basic info on virtually any topic by just asking an LLM like ChatGPT and that could be a serious threat to Google Search. People might form the habit of asking AIs for everything and then go to Google Search only when they want to dig deeper / find relevant articles etc. So I assume they added their own AI right into Search in an effort to continue being the first (and perhaps only) place one goes to for information.

You may be forgetting that Kaliningrad is another Russian harbor in close proximity. Don’t know if there’s any credence to assertion that Gotland is in danger, but just saying.

Easy for China to say, means very little as they are not relevant to the conflict, not even indirectly that I know of. Political posturing more like.

Exactly. As a liberal myself I feel strongly about certain things and am all too aware of that supposition of moral superiority and self righteousness that have been very characteristic of western liberalism. In the meantime, many countries in the “free world” are inching closer to authoritarianism by the day. Sure, Putin bad, but leaving some room for nuance would go a long way. The idea that one need only get rid of “bad actors” is flawed. Especially when at the very same time western powers are enabling what more and more people see as genocide in another part of the world. And the country that has brought a case against that in court is South Africa, The world is changing, the global south is rising, China is rising, Russia is also seeking to extend its influence and global cooperation is needed more than ever.

I honestly don’t know why some on here seem to think that any criticism is a defense of Russia. I did not say anything in defense of Russia but assumptions were made regardless.

Indeed, it was a rhetorical question. And it’s ok, I wasn’t expecting my comment to be well received, I was just hoping that at least some people reading this would ask themselves why Russia triggers Cold War reflexes and what those reflexes mean. I still hope for some diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine and the demonizing of one’s enemies only serves war.

This is part of the problem. That feeling of unexamined moral superiority that I am much afraid will lead to the downfall of western liberalism, its replacement with local fascists and all out war. But not enough people are willing to listen sadly.

Many atrocities have been committed in the name of the free world, but sure you guys keep with the circlejerk if that makes you feel morally superior

“The free world”? Seriously? It would help to not think of the world only in terms of heroes and villains.