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I did the opposite. Oblivion was a bit before I had really played any RPG's and I put a fair bit of time into Skyrim. I look forward to getting involved in this new release. Hopefully it captures the vibe I felt with Skyrim, whilst bringing things reasonmably up to date.

Haven't watched the final episode yet, but enjoying the formats ability to maintain an emotional context, for lack of better phrasing. Personally, felt like it pulled me right into the chaos. Just flew through the third and fourth season of 'The Boys' after sacking it off since the end of season 2. Good bit of ridiculous entertainment to have on whilst I was working. Need to find something else fairly mindless to have on in the background now.

I was a teenager during the proliferation of mobile phones, but prior to modern smart phones arriving on the market, and even then I can remember some bad material being shared around. It must be an absolute nightmare trying to moderate the negative behaviour this technology has the capacity to facilitate, just based on good faith and a desire to support the development of appropriate behaviour in young lads. It'd be a hell of a job if those doing it had the support of the media and technology companies, but I can imagine a lot more resources go into considering how fringe behaviour might be promoted to increase user-engagement, or how users might be manipulated for the same purposes. I'd say that the technology has quickly outgrown attempts to check its impact on society, but I haven't noticed any significant attempts to alleviate negative impacts. It's all just seems one massive experiment in making money, whilst the average person picks up the pieces. Any attempts to raise it for discussion at this point inevitably touches on the concept of freedom is this context, and when the discussion largely takes place in a space heavily controlled by the same people that would lose out by giving up any self-determination, it feels like a difficult place to start from.

A further concern is that the PIP forms are difficult to complete appropriately, especially with regards to mental health. Those most eligible, often find the application process most difficult. If they don't improve the service significantly, they'll probably find there's a good number of successful claimants that they'd hope would be ineligble, whilst the most vulnerable go without. Beyond being an awful situation for some people, could be a bit of a disaster for the party if it isn't significantly economically beneficial and they run into a bunch of horror stories come the next election. Hard to tell obviously, but I can't imagine them getting in next time around anyway.

'Cool Worlds' do some pretty good content on this topic too, in case it might be of interest. Youtube: Cool Worlds

Binged this the last couple week whilst writing up notes for work. Nice easy watch and very entertaining. Some of the characters are great.

I can appreciate this. Future uncertainties can feel less daunting when things appear to be barrelling along faster than usual. Agree with the advice from Leicsmac. Even if not actively involved in any movements or some such thing, when stuff seems bad in the news media, I can always take comfort from considering the good that humans are doing on the ground. There are people out there that put in some intense good faith work in the world. Personally, I've found that practicing a level of mindfulness has been helpful. Taking a bit of time occasionally, to consider other potentially important things in my life such as close relationships and hobbies. Finding anything to use as a place that is at least somewhat insulated from concerns in other areas of life. These things often allow for a sort of day to day thinking that can give meaning to existing without having to worry about where I or the wider world might be heading in the long-term. With regards to perspective, I also enjoy listening to youtube / podcast content related to philosophy etc. Can be interesting to consider ways of thinking, when we receive a lot of our direction in this respect from the news media in relation to current affairs.

Reading the numbers on these sorts of statements is wild. Although humans generally consider ourselves fairly adaptable, it feels like the sort of cause and effect calculations we use for planning can't possibly match the scale in these figures. Where scientific research is a best approximation for us to plan off of too, it seems like the more research that is completed, the more dire the understanding of our circumstances becomes. I'm not exactly wedded to the concept of perpetual human existence, but I'm imagining a level of untold human suffering that wouldn't be pretty to witness or live through. I had a researcher friend go to a weekend of talks a month or so ago. He just looked defeated. Didn't even fancy pressing him to talk about it.

Severance is a brilliant watch. Considering the end of the first season, it'll be interesting to see where this one ends up. If I don't get a hint of some answers soon, this borderline psychedelic, platonic ****ery is going to give me an existential crisis.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60416058.amp Interesting article regarding a possible issue with biotech. I remember either reading or watching something more long-form a while back, but couldn't find it. I don't know too much about Neuralink, other than it's potential uses and initial failure during human trial, although I understand further trials have been more successful. My immediate concerns based on the technology alone, would be related to failure and upgrades. Regular brain surgery seems like an odd prospect, at least today, but things change quickly I guess. It feels like the success of such technology would come from future technology that might allow for a wearable device to achieve similar results.

Apple has put out some great stuff. Personally, I've really enjoyed Silo too, which has been released around the same times. The first season was awesome and I thought the second was even better.

Like said above, the US were happy to adopt a controlling stake in NATO out of the fifties, whilst hamstringing the continent with debt, rather than seeing a newly united Europe step out onto the global stage with the potential to put them on their knees. If the new perspective is for the long-term, it seems like it's going to be a formative period for Europe. As noted in my previous post, I'm worried about the capacity of the financial elite to undermine our democracies and restrict Europes choice in some respects. If unable to consolidate power, I'd imagine the continent would be possibly be somewhat of a battleground for competing superpowers. If the countries involved were to overcome those pitfalls, the latent economic potential of the unified continent would be huge. A population that dwarfs the US and Russia, with great communication infrastructure and massive landmass. Geopolitical blocs and prospective resource scarcity would see more militarisation from all the emerging economically isolated regions I'd imagine. With a shift to more coercive power globally and possibly more authoritative regimes, ignition of new wars will probably be on the cards at some point, and I guess we'd just have to hope that things don't get too hot. Not a great area of knowledge personally. Would happy to hear more positive ideas!

More than hint I'd say. It's hard to find the motivation to converse with someone who states that people were murdered because of decision to emigrate, regardless of their motivations to do so. Not that it matters significantly, but i can't find confirmation that all the victims travelled to Sweden illegally, showing the comment has some of the same sweeping condemnation that the murderer used in their decision. As you have mentioned, the immigration crisis will worsen, and my biggest worry about it beyond peoples concerns about infrastructure, is that grim behaviour like the above will see people agreeing to putting people behind fences before it's dealt with constructively. Just staying we should stop immigration is an egregious oversimplification of the geopolitical barriers that sort of action involves. The sort of thinking that see's us funnel outrageous amounts of power into the hands of wild 'leaders', so that they can ironically fight the tyranny that is the democratic processes that are supposed to safeguard us from them. Cause that's been a great idea historically. It's wild that people look at it as the root cause of destablisisation of western countries too. Say nothing about the management of our economic system, leading to depreciation of wages and rising cost of living over decades. Many industries seeing low or negative wage growth,, with lower-skilled jobs and public sector work being hit especially hard. Rent and mortgage costs rising, along with energy, food and other household goods. Couldn't possibly look at making appropriate changes to taxation to upkeep infrastructure, where the burden is born by middle and lower-income people, whilst greedy tech demagogues like musk undermine our democracies for their personal business goals. Pretending to challenge the system, whilst funding politics and and shaping narratives to serve their own interests in a project of social manipulation on a ridiculous scale. These people would rip every last piece of soul out of your culture for money and influence before any migrant would, as they happily have a bunch of people believing.

The same Trump that couldn't have cared less about peace in Ukraine whilst he was first in office, and it had a less significant capacity for impact on his Presidential campaign. Consistently buddying up with Putin during his first term, whilst undermining NATO and withholding military funding during Putin's increased aggression in the region. That last part, all to bolster his personal political movement against opposition at the potential cost of life elsewhere. He'll take centre stage in the talks, considering he's got not chance of avoiding it this time round, but we can be pretty confident his priorities don't lie with achieving a constructive lasting peace across the "big, beautiful ocean".

Absolutely. If we resign ourselves to thinking that fairness and justice is unnattainable, then we might as well pack up and accept the worst of human nature. Where it's been said before that progress is neither automatic nor inevitible, it seems quite relevant when you consider the recent actions of the US administration. Whilst I can appreciate some subjectivity, it's pretty maddening to consider capitulating to the whims of this fantasising bullshit artist. Should also be considered that unchecked aggression has led to some pretty dark chapters in history.