"He" could be Christopher Hitchens. You don't know!

Politics used to be something people engaged in. Now politics is the core to a lot of people's identities, which means disagreement or debate is perceived as a personal attack and people will embrace a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance to avoid being wrong.

Lemmunists!

I've been working from home for about ten years, so when COVID happened, it was no real change for me.

Generally, I love it, but I've always worked on and with geographically separate teams, so even when I have an office nearby, I'd only be going to it to be on Zoom/Teams meetings anyway.

Financially, it's great! It's wonderful not having a commute, saves a ton on gas, vehicle wear and tear, and the habit of spending money on lunch. I also don't have to maintain and upkeep as many "professional" sets of clothing.

It's also great for keeping up with house chores, when I take a break to stretch, I can throw in some laundry or fill up the dish washer.

Downsides- work life balance. Work is always there. My work set up is right next to my personal PC set up and when an email comes in after hours, it can be tough to not address right there.

undefined> But if someone left a turd, send that stank to the bottom!

This is the crux of it though, where is the distinction between opposing viewpoint and absurdist argument? How would you combat people trolling, i.e. intentionally posting inflammatory things to cause disruption/argument?

Am I trolling you right now? Or am I arguing in good faith? :-)

"YOU" are not your argument. Disagreement is not an attack on you as an individual and should not be taken as such.

I recall reading somewhere that while "not privately owned" the people who own Packers "stock" don't have any of the same rights as people who old stock in normal companies, e.g. they have no actually equity, the stocks don't pay a dividend, and they can't trade their stock with anyone else.

So I guess it's more of a quirk than anything else.

And the whole OST is available on Spotify too.

First time around, Troll Mage. Played from release in 2004 until the day after the guild downed Yogg for the first time in WotLK, was just burnt out from playing/raiding. Was AFK for 10 years, came back to retail a couple months before classic started, didn't recognize the game. It's an MMO you can ignore other people in. You can get all the best gear without much effort or work. Hated it.

But playing Classic again, was super nostalgic and really brought back my love of the game. It IS still different this time around.

The game is "solved" in a sense: there is information out there for the mathematically optimal gear you want, talents to use, ability rotations, etc and if you stray too far from optimal, people will react negativity.

There's no "unknown" anymore, to discover how raid boss mechanics worked, to invent and try new strategies, to theory craft, etc and as a result, there is a VERY low tolerance for most players for failure or even adversity. People want to watch videos that tell them exactly what to do to beat a boss and then just do it. Everything must be fast. I've seen some dungeon groups refusing to bring mana users, because they don't want to have to wait the 10 seconds for them to drink every few pulls.

People refuse to even read quest text, preferring to reply on mods now that mark your map and tell you exactly where to go and what to do. I've had several interactions with people complaining that a quest was "broken" because their mod was wrong and when I suggested reading the quest to see what they were supposed to be doing, they acted like it was a ridiculous thing to suggest. READING. Imagine.

Right at the very beginning, first few months of Classic in 2019, it was very obvious to tell who played MMOs from that era before vs those who were younger and/or only played the newer versions of the game. The people who never played before did not quite understand that at its core, WoW used to be a SOCIAL game. You had to make friends and work with others to win. There was no "auto put me in a group of strangers, where I never have to talk to them and we all get personal loot" There were a lot of people who had to quit/server transfer/reroll because they treated others poorly, abusive language, griefing, ninja looting, etc and didn't quite understand that getting that sort of reputation means no one wants to play with you!

I think the main reason WoW was so popular back in the day, was because at its core, it was really just a giant chat room. In the early 2000s, things like AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, IRC were still prevalent. Lots of folks would login to the game, stand around in a city and just talk to people. Or go run the same dungeon, for the 1000th time, because one of your buds wanted some silly rare drop hat for cosmetic purposes. A lot of the social/people aspect that used to be the backbone of the game is gone and people are only willing to help out with stuff if there is a tangible benefit to them as well.

That's how it's played!

Hello! Played WoW from release through killing Yogg in Ulduar, went AFK ten years and have been deep into Classic since.

I don't know, but I feel like it involves the Noid.

Part of the Digg exodus and on Reddit for ~14 years, Old.Reddit + Reddit Enhancement Suite for PC and Reddit is Fun on Android are the only reason I lasted so long.

Been about a year, but thinking about starting another Satisfactory play through.