Donald Trump surprises again. Following a conversation with Vladimir Putin, the American delegation was scheduled to visit Lukashenko. According to media reports, the U.S. intends to ease sanctions on Belarus.

According to ISW, any relaxation of sanctions against Belarus would have a positive effect on the Russian economy

Sorry, but where’s the surprise? Trump is doing more work to help Russia than the States, which has been on par for the course for some time.

Also, he ignored talking to Canada’s Prime Minister for weeks, but seems to be on calls with Putin on a daily basis. How is any of this OK?

Really? Thank the gods if that’s true. 😂👍

Canadian here. Our taxes pay for Catholic schools, so the comparison (even from them), is pretty valid.

I don’t want this to become about me, since I’m no longer a dedicated gamer.

But if you look at the gaming industry as a whole, mobile gaming overshadows both console and PC, and collectively, free-to-play games make up the bulk of all games played across any platform.

Those “free-to-play” games rely on dark patterns as a business model, and that’s pretty toxic.

Much of what I played on PC were from indie developers, early access, etc. Those games weren’t enshittified (at least, no while I was playing them), but other games became enshittified, so I no longer play them. Rocket League is one example. Once it went free-to-play, it went downhill in the experience.

Then you get a game franchise like GTA, where it was totally cool. You start it up, you play. Now, it’s pretty much only about keeping you grinding, data collection, “prizes”, microtransactions, and other garbage to manipulate gamers into staying in the game as if it was a social media platform. And that’s a PAID game. The free-to-play games are much worse, because the incentive to make money in these “free” games becomes over the top.

Again, this isn’t all games, and I’m glad that there are devs out there who still play by old-school rules. I became tired of where the industry was going, so I moved on.

Nice list! While I don’t play those genres, I’ll re-confirm that this problem doesn’t affect all games.

That said, find me an FPS on mobile that isn’t enshittified, or compare any modern FPS to something like Modern Combat 3 or old school Call of Duty, then you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

Look at the top 25 games on any mobile platform, and they are nearly all using dark patterns and have been enshittified.

If quality of life can’t be factored into “productivity”, then it’s a failed system designed only to benefit a minority of people who are becoming excessively wealthy off the work of others.

From an employer’s perspective, the main factor influencing productivity is the number of hours worked.

This isn’t the 1800s. When you look at the studies, where people are given a human-focused work schedule (i.e. fewer hours) with ample time to rest and recover (i.e. more time off), their productivity goes up.

The fact that we’re seeing productivity go down is a symptom of how workers are treated, their lack of compensation for the time they take away from their family, and the burden on their health that working non-stop causes.

stop requiring an account for every game.

Yeah, this is annoying, and so many companies do this. I don’t mind if they want me to log in to save progress, especially in cross-platform games, but we know damn well they use “the account” as another way to track, data-harvest, and invade someone’s privacy.

No, because i’m not going to share names of orgs that collectively could dox me.

But we’re talking about a huge range of small businesses, municipalities, local groups (i.e. bike clubs), and advocacy events.

My regional police department issues important information about road closures, missing persons, etc. through twitter, as an example.

Another example of one that I’ve seen happening too often are health-related support groups are very often in “private” facebook groups, which are often joined by people who use their real name/real accounts. This opens them up to family members or employers finding out about health-related issues they did not want to disclose, or worse, insurance companies who purchase the data from these data scraping websites.

Even local businesses will post discount codes and coupons on these platforms, rather than through their website or newsletter.

There are hundreds of examples of people being “locked out” of information unless they join these horrible platforms, and that’s not cool.

If they’re too shitty to enjoy, why are you playing them?

Well, I don’t. And if I do, it’s like 98% less time spent playing them because it’s a frustratingly annoying experience.

If you’re not playing them, how do you know they’re shitty?

I’ve played them enough to know that I’m not a fan of the dark patterns they are based on.

And regardless, how would you know that it’s not you who changed?

Because I still enjoy games that predate enshittification.

It may seem strange, but there was a time when you could load a game, not see ads, pop ups, loot drop screens, “seasons”, various coin and other casino-style minigames, and within a click or two, you’d be in multiplayer match or a single player (offline) experience.

When a match was done, you could click “play again” and not have to go through anything else.

Weapons or items were either given to you without endless grinding, or they were there to discover through natural, organic gameplay… Not programmed “carrot on a stick” gimmicks.

I’m serious when I say I feel lucky to have experienced gaming before the industry turned to crap.

That’s not to say that 100% of current games are awful, but they genuinely feel more like a waste of time and not something you can enjoy finishing at your leisure.

LOL. oops. Corrected!

We more than fulfilled Trump’s demands, and he pushes through anyway.

Stop trusting this guy. The next time he demands something, we need to firmly say “NO.”

When I did game more, I gravitated towards Ubisoft games like Wildlands, the Division, Farcry, etc. Not sure if it was the aesthetic or gameplay, but I’ve got a lot of ubisoft games. Lol

Granted, these games are developed by either the Canadian Studios or NotAmerican™ studios (Ubisoft Paris, etc.).

Games in general have lost their innovation and have just become too enshittified to enjoy these days. I’m glad I was a gamer before all that.

Oh man, how did I forget The Long Dark?? I was a very early access player of the game! One of the coolest survival games around. TLD 2 is also coming.

Go fuck a bottle of maple syrup!

https://www.chillymoose.ca/ is Canadian, but I don’t think they make their bottles here.

…why not?

Anecdotally, some orgs refuse to use other platforms and gate their content behind a facebook group. It’s maddening to say the least, but a fake account can come in handy sometimes (behind an iron shield of ad and tracker blockers!).

It should be pretty simple: real news that affect people’s lives should always be free, since that’s a journalist’s duty to society.

Entertainment, sports, and the other stuff can be behind a paywall because people do pay for stuff like that. Plus, sensationalized stories about celebrities to get views would be far less damaging to society than sensationalized (often fake) stories about politicians to get the same views.

Bravo! This is why Canada is loved by other nations.

It’s also a HUGE “fuck you” to Trump and Putin.

Slava Ukraini!

The petition is purely symbolic, and I don’t think his citizenship will ever be stripped (any time soon).

“We don’t have time to put people on trial” is not a take I’m prepared to get behind.

To that point, what’s happening in the States, specifically as it relates to wanting to annex Canada and robbing other countries of their resources through means of extortion, we really are running out of time to get things under control.

The Nazis dismantled Germany’s democracy in under 2 months, and Trump/Musk are speed running their way there. Once all guardrails are removed, there really is little to stop them from moving forward with their plans to hurt Canada in whatever way they like.

In that light, Musk is a current threat to our national interests and security, so a multi-year trial would be as effective as all those felony trials Trump basically ran the clock on.

This law site (updated Nov 2024) also lists treason, so there should be grounds to revoke his citizenship.

I mean, he wouldn’t be allowed to become a citizen with his current behaviour, so why keep him as one?

I’m not optimistic at all that anything will be done, but it sends a message that this fucker is not wanted here. And if Trump does end up pushing for war with Canada, Musk should face criminal charges here as being part of team 51st State.