I thought it was because videogames toned down the jiggle physics or whatever.

That's a good question. You are right that if we wanted to see the extent of Anne's vapidity we could just read her book. Speaking for myself, I was never going to do that. While I'm sure most here figured her out a long time ago, seeing her talk at length like this was eye-opening to me at least. And probably the same for a lot of people whose only exposure to her is from the odd piece in the FT or whatever. Honestly, if someone wanted a primer on how and why western hegemony is failing, I think an hour of Anne Applebaum discussing her honestly held views is as good an explanation as any. In this respect, I prefer a guest like Anne Applebaum over a Mehdi Hassan if only because the former embodies the actual values of the state rather than the professed values represented by the latter. It really is something to behold the emperor without any clothes.

But, if it's telling you something you already know, it IS pointless and counter-productive. There are people who will watch it and think, "Gosh, she's right, Poland DID do well in its transition to neoliberalism and therefore the system is sound and was implemented with good intentions and Russia is just innately full of bad people who can't succeed". Is it acceptable to allow obvious falsehoods like that to be stated without any pushback? Ehhhh....

Bastani never asks tough questions, he just lets his guests speak at length. That's his style. Applebaum is hard to take at such concentrated doses, but I do think it is an insightful glimpse into the diseased and delusional mind of the imperial elites.

The later entries in the series from the looks of it lean heavy into the Shonen look with weeb fanservice.

Artstyle wise, maybe, especially 2. All three have a lot of Saturday Morning Cartoon nonsense going on, though. Silly schoolyard bully villains hamming it up, lots of "fights" that involve characters standing around and talking about their Special Power or whatever.

3 probably has the least of that, and of the "fanservice" of the type I think you mean, and is possibly the most like Xenogears. But still not the same thing (but maybe if Xenogears was made today it would be like Xenoblade anyway - maybe the real difference is in fidelity and amount of acting etc., I dunno! Some things that work when read don't when heard...). Honestly, I think the biggest similarity between 3 and Gears is that the makers once again tried to do something immense and profound and kind of whiffed. But still totally worth experiencing even though it's compromised. Pretty pro-communist as well. Amusingly so.

On , I saw people clutching their pearls at the chant and explaining that it is a terrorist rallying cry, and that even Wikipedia mentions the connection.

But also, what if he had been a Muslim immigrant? That obviously wouldn't justify anything that had happened. And so the race, religion and nationality of the attacker are entirely irrelevant.

I wonder why the government is having a difficult time signalling to its population that collective punishment is unacceptable...

The British state-run media organisation has been egregiously bad. Look at this shit. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cervv8rz8mzo

An anti-immigration protest began peacefully outside Bolton Town Hall earlier, but within half an hour, about 300 people, who mostly had their faces covered with black face masks or balaclavas, charged towards the building. They began shouting "Allahu Akbar" - a phrase meaning God is greatest - as they arrived at one side of the town hall, where a separate group had gathered waving England flags.

Meanwhile, here is footage of that event https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3QDnJeoYJM&t

I think you're thinking of the one in Rotherham, where the police formed a line in front of the wall of the Holiday Inn, while the fash smashed through the doors and entered it three metres away from them.

A lot of these disgusting gammon emigrate to other countries when they age. They then exist in Little England enclaves where they can eat the horrible British cardboard food and speak English in dimly lit "gastro pubs" for the rest of their lives. This, after lecturing other cultures to adopt "British values" the entire time. Some of them actually have the fucking gall to lecture minorities in the UK from afar.

https://x.com/xQuaintrellex/status/1820132985858842696

I dunno what gave you the idea that the UK was less racist than the USA or France. Race relations are... different here in the UK than in the states. British identity is coded exclusively white. There is an assumption that "British values" are a thing that exists, and that, for example, Islam is incompatible with them. In general, the conception of what makes someone British is very narrow, whereas US identity is necessarily broader. On the other hand, our cops don't generally make exterminating non-white people their primary goal.

I distinctly remember a Labour MP - I think it might have been Yvette Cooper actually - going on BBC Newsnight... This was maybe ten years ago... And saying, point-blank, that multiculturalism had failed. This was in the context of David Cameron banging on about instilling British values in prospective immigrants and the need for "integration" (conformity) and the like. It was the moment Labour lost me and become a for-the-whites party. This was before Corbyn even. Labour saw their record on immigration as something to apologise for.

For the past five years, to distract from the terrible failures of neoliberalism and austerity, both main parties and our entire media establishment have laser-focused on the few thousand "small boat" refugees that arrive on our shores from countries we've bombed and sanctioned. It was, for some reason, the dominant issue of the election, and prior to this, the key benchmark on which the Conservative party was being judged was in their ability to enact a performatively cruel plan to deport refugees to Rwanda while their claim is being processed (keep in mind, for example, that some of these refugees will be turning up because they're gay, and Rwanda does not enshrine their protection against discrimination and public attitudes towards homosexuality are negative). Both parties pledged to "stop the small boats". Keep in mind, the spectacle of small boats only exists because the UK refuses to allow people to claim for asylum from afar. Anyway, on the first day of these riots, what were people chanting? "Stop the small boats". The media's response is to suggest that it's all Russia's fault.

But yes, also as Awoo says, there is a violent subculture that exists within British society that is always itching for a fight regardless, and that might be a key difference as well.