Ed Von Kastner

Men hate hypergamy because it forces them to confront something brutal about reality; women have options. Unlike men, who constantly have to compete against other men just to see which woman will give them attention, women are the ones choosing. This has been true since the beginning of biology. The egg doesn’t chase sperm; sperm race to reach the egg, and only the best one wins. Hypergamy is simply that biological reality expressed in human dating; women choose the best option available. The part that bothers some men is realizing the best option might not be them.

I'm gonna spell this out because this issue is deceptively subtle: 1. The Steam client and infrastructure is somewhere between "not that hard" and "trivial". It's a download service attached to a payment processor with a smattering of services on the side. Cloud providers handle all the infrastructure these days. 2. Steam takes 30% of gross revenue; ostensibly for the privilege of using these services, but in reality it is purely to get access to the massive Steam userbase. 3. Steam users love Steam and having their whole library in one place. It works. It's dependable. It has sales and cards and achievements, oh my! 4. PC developers have no option but to distribute through Steam or lose the vast majority of sales. Not releasing on Steam destroys the business model. 5. Therefore, no amount of competition will ever unseat Steam. People post-hoc rationalize this with memes about how gracious Gabe is. And how brilliant their services are. But realistically, no avid Steam user wants other stores to succeed. The mere existence of other stores risks splintering their precious collection. They are "all in" on Steam. Invested. Even if an alternative were objectively better, by whatever metric you care about, it would still be of no interest to Steam users. They would in fact find it to be a problem and a threat to their investment. Competition in this space is not only uninteresting to most Steam users, it's actively denigrated! The CONSEQUENCE of this situation, is that 30% of all gross revenue is siphoned out of the PC games industry into a black hole. It doesn't recirculate into studios. It doesn't pay any bonuses. It doesn't fund any sequels or DLC. This is a particularly insidious tax because it's well hidden. It's a second order effect. Most Steams users don't know, and the few that do never consider the aggregate effect this has on their favorite hobby. It's undeniable that, at this point in history, Valve could EASILY lower the distribution fee while maintaining healthy margins. But they don't have to. Users are locked into Steam and therefore developers are stuck paying 30% of gross revenue to Valve. The irony is that Steam users, the very ones maintaining this unbreakable stalemate, would benefit the most from a better financed game development ecosystem. I don't think this is fixable. It's just sad.

It's really been a very long time since I heard a woman say something sensible on dating, but here yes she makes very valid points. My compliments.

I already know some people are going to disagree with this, and I get why. Some will say, “If Ed invited Macklemore, he knew exactly who he was inviting. Macklemore shouldn’t have to ask permission to speak about something he believes in.” That’s a fair argument. Others will say that artists have always used stages to speak about politics, injustice and things bigger than entertainment. If we start expecting artists to stay quiet because someone else owns the stage, where does that line end? Also fair. But I think there’s an important distinction being missed.

Correction: I said Duel is halal, not gambling. Which is true, under the Islamic fiqh definition of qimar. Gambling is absolutely haram under Islamic law. However Duel is the first and only casino in the world to offer zero edge, where the house doesn't have an advantage. Gambling is considered bad due to its destructive tendencies caused by negative expected value in the long run. All four Sunni schools would agree that zero edge gambling, when combined with the entertainment factor, generate a net positive return, making it fall under Islamic investing laws rather than gambling. Duel is extremely halal, you just don't know your own religion. The Prophet accepted entertainment and relaxation as a material benefit (rawwiḥū al-qulūb sāʿatan baʿda sāʿah, روحوا القلوب ساعة بعد ساعة), if you bothered reading your own Quran. The Quran forbade a thing that breeds hatred and takes wealth. A fair, bounded game played for enjoyment does neither, and is explicitly halal if a faithful reading of Mohammed's texts is conducted. I wouldn't expect you to understand or know any of this though, you can keep falsely calling people kaffirs and telling people Allah will burn in hell. Christ is King and your hatred will not overpower his Love.

Went to a dark romance(?) bookshop today and I’m so sorry but maybe I am a judgemental bitch. The walls all said like ‘daddy’s good little bitch’ etc. There was a knife that said ‘ride me’ for sale. I think it’s cringe and I can’t continue pretending I don’t

The truth is that a woman does not want a beautiful man with a positive canthal tilt and a peptide stack as long as his forearm, she wants a hideous monster who has been bent and beaten under the weight of all the horrors he's witnessed, uncivilized, holding it together with nothing but the sheer force of his will. That way she can come along and transform him into something beautiful. He doesn't need to be hot if his eyes become soft with wonder and reverence at the sight of her in the weathered crags of his face.

So Kojima has been dropped twice now for the exact same reasons, missing deadlines and going over budget. The reason Chris Nolan is so beloved by film studios is he makes certified hits and he comes in under budget every single time. Kojima does neither of those these days so from a financial standpoint what is the point of bankrolling these massive projects in a mature market where AAA costs are already unsustainable ??? I also think it’s in bad taste for Microsoft to bank roll a guy known for inflated budgets while simultaneously laying off over 1600 people and there are still more layoffs to come!! It’s like “hey devs at ID Software sorry we are laying you off but here ya go Kojima here’s $500 million to make Physint.” 🙄

its uhh.. like the majority of steam from an old exploit that allowed you to download any archive without owning it (the same one that let people visually play games before release) theres uhh... every game on steam* on here from back then inc developer depots...

I'm not one of those guys who likes to argue now that Nickelback is actually a GREAT band (though the memetic hate for them was obviously overblown), but imagine you're at a Nickelback concert for some reason, they break this one out, and tell me you don't suddenly feel your blood pumping.

>new netflix 'cartoon' called ''Lesbian Space Princess'' >the villains are called ''straight white maliens'' Something you would see as a meme in 2016 into a reality

to this day this is some of the best advice i’ve ever heard

Genuinely baffling to me that devs are just making games like theyre fucking subway sandwiches and not like theyre creatives with talent or artistic passion