"Chance mechanics" are now everywhere. Coffeezilla has covered this topic extensively as of late, enough to realize that the battle has been fully lost in the US.

Gaben should be taken to task for this. It is his company, he has been a key voice in its direction, this is his responsibility to fix.

We have a decade of gambling infrastructure directly pointing back to Valve and the TF2 Crate System. CS:GO/CS2's skins, DOTA 2's skins, and doubtlessly whatever the fuck the new Valve hero shooter's skins will be; those all could have been simple direct purchases.

Instead, it had to be gambling.

At what point does directly profiting knowingly from an epidemic of gambling does one's contributions validate their wealth?

Right now, Gabe's Yacht allegedly has some research systems attached to assist in water-based monitoring of certain diseases. If that system goes anywhere, it's not enough.

I think it was 2018 when then Jim Sterling had reported on Valve revenue figures from microtransactions outpacing their game sales and platform fees, it was so much that it didn't make sense to even make games anymore.

Valve's directionlessness resolved with the VR systems, they do Hardware... BUT-

Like, distasteful and deeply fucked while also being the literal optics of the white christian nationalist cult. That it's a patent violation of any ethos or 'sanctity of marriage' rhetoric is irrelevant because these people do not have a value system, except capital, and the power to cause pain.

Cash Stipends and Decriminalization are the start of broader societal reform. Reform which necessarily includes a complete change to tax code to account for wealth, asset flight to foreign harbor, and of course labor and immigration reform.

These are not popular with the ultra-wealthy, you know.

I wanna note something specific here: The defense is that "no one is doing anything about homelessness and addiction". We actually know how to work on these problems, but they're not directly profitable.

Rehabilitation is not an easy to measure benefit to society, highly variable but necessary.

There's literally thousands of local and state elections this year in November.

Show up to vote if you can, if anything, because failure to do so will mean allowing the pain to proceed uninterrupted.

But I doubt the DNC can actually pull it together even if somehow the balance of power changes.

We know that from COVID, over 1 Million unplanned, preventable Deaths and scores millions more wounded permanently by COVID has not moved the American public.

We also know that clusters of preventable diseases have not returned the public to the MMR Vaccine. If our countrymen are this stupid, idk.

I don't think, genuinely, there is much more room for peaceful resistance. How much mass death will it take in the US for the average person to put down their duties and actually stand up for their fucking neighbors?

It seems like all of the conditions are ripe, but it's still not enough for us.

Death is indeed coming, for the health compromised and the poor, for the people who were barely hanging on as it was.

The cruelty is going to start many fires, those fires will validate the militarism Trump desires for his emergency, and then ICE will use the missiles they bought on US Citizens.

Everything is about to become dire in the US, just in time for the holidays, just in time for the cold, people will be picking food over rent.

What the fuck do you even do, as a victim, when no one is willing to open their hearts, doors, or wallets to your struggle? MAGA wants death, after all.

It will take much more for people like my parents to actually understand. When the collapse of living standards becomes bad enough that their wealthy, gentrified, loosely fortified isolated communities of what passes as 'middle America' becomes the only place materials exist, it'll be their problem.

A troubling trend is that the ultrawealthy of the US have enjoyed total insulation from material conditions within the territory of the US, its contracting economy, and its utterly rotting interior culture and society.

They extracted the wealth and offshored it, ready to flee the ship when it sinks

Why is it not enough?

Because no matter the way you slice it, more Americans will be cozy and safe. Relatively secure in housing, insulated from substantial trade offs. Even with Medicade stalling out and the ACA failing, even with the shut down, and the tarrifs, and everything else, wealthy enough