I agree with the mods’ decision, because they have to CYA. Whether a law is right or not is immaterial, they need to protect themselves and Lemmy.world from being taken down by law enforcement, web hosts, or what have you. At the end of the day, “morality” (which we all disagree on) simply doesn’t matter - but material consequences do.

However - piracy is not stealing. Stealing means depriving someone else of something. Cf, “You wouldn’t download a car” - which was hysterical, because of course you would, if it was free and deprived no one of anything.

And is it morally wrong? You assert that like it’s a fact, but obviously many people disagree. What formal system of ethics are you, personally, basing your morals on? Christ? I don’t remember intellectual property mentioned in the Bible. Kant? Maybe - in a world with a categorical imperative to pirate, there might be less incentive to produce piratable content. But I’m not necessarily convinced, because stories, songs, and art all existed prior to the invention of copyright.

Piracy is just copying data around. The moral or ethical implications of that are a matter of personal belief and social norms, which have informed the creation of law (and vice versa). But the history of IP is a lot more complicated than simply “enforcing morality”.

If copyright law had existed contemporaneously with the advent of the printing press,the dissemination of books to the masses would have been much slower and more expensive, and we would likely not have seen the huge jump in literacy across Europe at the time. Once copyrights (called “monopolies”) started to be granted they were not used to protect authors, but were weaponized as tools of censorship, suppressing works seen as subversive. Additionally, they were often granted as privileges to the landed gentry and those in favor with the ruling elite, further consolidating power and control over information and knowledge.

Some people believe that piracy, especially of scientific studies and materials that subvert harmful power structures, is not only moral - but a positive good for society, by democratizing access to information. I think that’s hard to argue with. Of course, not all piracy meets such lofty criteria, but I think it bears more examination than simply dismissing all piracy as “morally wrong”.

I’ve never heard about this drama, but I also intentionally didn’t follow the game too closely so I can go into it relatively blind. This sounds strange to me, though.

As far as I’m concerned, there are many ways to play video games, and many ways to play D&D, and none of them are “wrong” (as long as they don’t harm real life people in some way). If you want to minmax then go for it, that is a valid way to play.

As a “Johnny” in the MtG sense I like to play broken/unintuitive/combo type characters. Not necessarily minmaxing, since it’s not just about efficiency, but…efficient creativity. So I’m looking for a build that’s “fun” in an unusual way, viable, but not necessarily “optimal”.

Before you’re going to launch a tirade about the absolute necessity to be progressive diverse non-fascist

I’m going to regret asking this, but… What?

I’m really not sure how you got that from what I wrote, so I don’t know how to respond.

Oh, I thought you were meming. This is an anti-meat site. I don’t really get it, I don’t have moral compunctions against eating dog and I don’t think most people really do if you press them on it. It’s just a taste thing since we see them as companion animals instead of livestock. Eating dog (for Western non-dog-eating folks) is like using a screwdriver as a hammer, not an immoral act.

I admire the strength of your convictions if you truly believe that not eating animals is going to put you on the “right side of history” akin to anti-slavery activists. I just don’t see that happening on our lifetimes, and don’t much care - unlike slaveholders, the vast majority of human history has consisted of omnivores. If a future generation of man wants to cast judgement on me, I’ll be in the company of most of mankind.

Yes. I am comfortable with that. Do you think most meat eaters don’t know that?

They’re not alive while I do it, and I (along with most of the world’s population) have no ethical concerns about killing animals for food.

Sorry, eating meat brings me too much raw, unbridled ecstasy to do that.

Slashdot has had that (but for upvotes) for like 20 years, haha. It’s…mildly useful.

Valheim took 4 years to make.

I work in gamedev. Even with simple graphics, making a successful game generally takes a lot of time to make. It’s not just graphics. Design, writing, QA, art, console compliance, and a huge amount of engineering effort especially in multiplayer games. It takes time to get right. And we’ve all seen what happens when “AAA” games are released before they’re ready just because a bean counter said they had to.

The blockbuster hits with simple graphics that a solo dev made in a few months are the exception, not the rule.