You know, I don’t even disagree with that sentiment in principle, but expecting people to suffer when they could benefit from a technology because they only see the threats and dangers makes them no different than antivaxxers.

It is possible and logically consistent to urge caution and condemn the worst abuses of technology without throwing the baby out with the bath water.

But no… I guess because the awful aspects of the technology as far as IP theft are - rightfully - the biggest focus, sorry, poor people, you just have to keep sucking it up and powering through! You want empathy, fork over the $100 an hour!

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Look, if you can afford therapy, really, fantastic for you. But the fact is, it’s an extremely expensive luxury, even at poor quality, and sharing or unloading your mental strain with your friends or family, particularly when it is ongoing, is extremely taxing on relationships. Sure, your friends want to be there for you when they can, but it can put a major strain depending on how much support you need. If someone can alleviate that pressure and that stress even a little bit by talking to a machine, it’s in extremely poor taste and shortsighted to shame them for it. Yes, they’re willfully giving up their privacy, and yes, it’s awful that they have to do that, but this isn’t like sharing memes… in the hierarchy of needs, getting the pressure of those those pent up feelings out is important enough to possibly be worth the trade-off. Is it ideal? Absolutely not. Would it be better if these systems were anonymized? Absolutely. But humans are natural anthropomorphizers. They develop attachments and build relationships with inanimate objects all the time. And a really good therapist is more a reflection for you to work through things yourself anyway, mostly just guiding your thoughts towards better patterns of thinking. There’s no reason the machine can’t do that, and while it’s not as good as a human, it’s a HUGE improvement on average over nothing at all.

I don’t mean the REBOOT is awkward.

I mean her WORDING is awkward.

She could’ve gone with something like “I want to find a way to get everyone we can back on the show.”

ssɐqɯnᗡ is likely referring to the fact that Michelle Trachtenberg is ACTUALLY dead in real life. That takes it from awkward to REALLY awkward.

I think we already have a term for leasing a girlfriend…

We’ve got a term for the middle-man gatekeepers who collect the money too.

I also don’t like how things are legally speaking with DMCA, but the main takeaway is - the creation and distribution of an emulator, without DRM protections, is unequivocally protected and legal. ROM backup is certainly in most cases not, but if you are making your own copies for your own use, even while illegally breaking encryption, it would be difficult to prove and prosecute on an individual basis.

The right we must continually remind people is NOT even REMOTELY in question is the right to create and distribute emulators. This is by far the more important one, because people cannot reasonably develop their own emulators - it requires an open, collaborative community to ensure future preservation, and it’s a constant battle to keep people from actively trying to cede this right because they have nebulous loyalties to soulless companies that return no such feelings.

Not to be a stickler, but this does not say making copies is illegal - it makes circumvention of drm methods illegal. You can make drm’d copies as you like as long as you don’t circumvent the drm method. If your game isn’t encrypted, and the emulator doesn’t implement the drm, you haven’t circumvented drm - you are playing your legal copy on a device that does not implement the drm. It’s distinct from removing the drm from a device that implements it.

I do get that most consoles encrypt their software these days, but let’s be clear - it’s not as simple as “DRM means you have no rights.”

I hope everyone learns the lesson from the Japanese dude who married his hologram just to watch her die when the service was shut down…

If your girlfriend isn’t running on your air-gapped hardware offline, she’s not your girlfriend.

Copying your own game and materials for backup purposes is no grey area, and neither is development or use of emulators, and panicky, uninformed spewing of gut feelings are how public knowledge of your actual rights gets muddled into people with zero knowledge waxing poetic about how they THINK it works because they like games and think that makes their ramblings valuable.

Absolutely. I want to skim the important parts at my own pace. Not dedicate multiple minutes of attention to a video.

Now do Half-life 3.

I get the intent, but that’s an AWFUL lot of “what ifs”.

In this case you happen to be right on both counts.

Separating the message from the messenger is a key skill. A right answer doesn’t become wrong because it comes from a jerk.

"I will never, ever, EVER explicitly make a claim for a course of action, because then you’ll be able to refute my decision as stupid.

Instead I just want to hold my nose in the air over all of you sheeple and criticize and shame you for EVERY action, shaking my head and smirking like some kind of disingenous gaslighting machine. Happy Election Day!"

Found GLORY in your kids’ Skittles.

Ftfy

Wait… what is a pedometer counting???