Resplendent606

I have been preparing to delete my Google account very soon. I did a final takout request and I’m waiting for that email (it has been 4 days since the request), but there is a lot of stuff since it is a very old account and I was deep in the Google ecosystem. Over the last six months, I have deleted my Microsoft, Reddit, and Facebook accounts and I don’t regret it. Google has always been the big one and it has taken a lot of work to rearrange my life to cut it out.

It is shitty in many ways. First, I view videogames as art (because they are art) and taking out the human element just makes them a product created by a machine. Coding is a form of human expression. I understand the capitalist urge not to pay people, but replacing people with AI is a moral wrong. Microsoft, for example, after purchasing many studios over the past few years, has fired over 15,000 people in 2025 alone, despite making record profits and charging us more for new games.

I would be terrified if I were a full-time coder. Like many other occupations, programming jobs are in jeopardy. I would be considering other fields or specializations because these corporations plan to replace them all. Google already is saying that more 25% of their code is written by ai. That will only increase and bleed over to game development.

Second, by forcing the development timeline by basically any means necessary, you are creating an inferior product. Just throwing a game in early access because it isn’t complete isn’t a good solution and there are hundreds of games currently in that status. Personally, I avoid anything that is early access, with a few exceptions. I get the point in the article about making games with lesser graphics, which I am fine with if the project warrants it, but it feels like these companies don’t care what the product is as long as it sells. They are going to create ai-slop and charge us more for it. This is how the AAA industry dies.

Sources:

https://www.geekwire.com/2025/in-new-memo-microsoft-ceo-addresses-enigma-of-layoffs-amid-record-profits-and-ai-investments/

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/29/24282757/google-new-code-generated-ai-q3-2024

The enshittification of videogames.

Free speech is not all speech. It never has been. People who think everyone should be allowed to say whatever are the same people who just want to say the “N” word and other hateful things without consequences. There should always be consequences for what you say and I don’t care which way it lands ideologically on the subject of free speech, hate speech is wrong, period. It is widely accepted what hate speech is; if you say anything against marginalized groups, you are wrong. If you use religion to justify your hate, you are wrong. If you call for the harm of others, you are wrong. Call it what you want. I am not going to sit here and debate free speech. My point was Odysee is full of the worst kind of people and you should not have to suffer those people because you want an alternative to YouTube.

Odysee’s policies make it unusable. I remember the first video I ever clicked to watch on Odysee was a video titled something like “What I am doing for Pride month.” This video was on the front page at the top. I clicked it and it was some lady preaching about how Pride is evil and perverse and all kinds of hateful rhetoric and how it was ruining our children. I just looked at Odysee again and, months later, I see more of her videos on the front page. Upon exploring Odysee, there is even more of this type of content still freely available to watch. I don’t care which way you lean, hate speech should never be acceptable. It is well known that the platform is a right wing cesspool. Here is a Reddit thread from 5 years ago where people were discussing the same thing, nothing has changed. It is the platform you go to when you are too crazy for YouTube (which is pretty nuts). It is not a viable alternative to YouTube for most people. There doesn’t exist a good alternative, PeerTube being the most promising option at the moment.

Odysee is a nonstarter for me with its lack of moderation, resulting in a lot of right-wing hate filled garbage. Also, their thing with using some virtual currency and paying creators is weird. I want no part of cryptocurrency or “space dollars” or whatever they want to call it. PeerTube is ideal but not enough people are posting to it, which is frustrating. Youtube frontends, like invidious, are our best solution until creators move to something else.

Instead of “the Oregon Trail generation” we should be called the “I read the damn manual” generation.

What you are experiencing is called a learning curve. Don’t let it get you angry, learn from it. NVIDIA is known to be problematic for Linux users (I have had my share of issues with my 2080 Ti) but once it is setup it is problem free. Librewolf is known to be one of the chunkier options, but 3gb really isn’t that much for modern systems (especially if you have 16 or 32gb of memory). I would personally take Librewolf’s privacy features over closed-source Vivaldi any day. Linux overall is much more efficient than Windows and I would bet that your system idle memory usage with nothing open is lower than it was with Windows.

I’m not sure why people are down voting this. I agree 100%. The most techie people I have ever known are part of what you called “the Oregon Trail generation” (I love this term).

As one of the older Millennials (1982), I can say that there is a lot of truth to this meme.

That is an older laptop. I run an even older HP laptop on Arch that still feels zippy, even compared to my gaming desktop pc. One thing to remember is POP_OS! is designed for newer computers as it is built by a company who sells them. There are known issues with POP_OS! and Mesa drivers. The Mesa driver might not be efficiently handling the graphical demands of the default POP_OS! desktop. I’m not suggesting to switch your distro, just keep in mind going forward that it is made for newer systems.

Some further troubleshooting you can try:

• Check for Driver Updates: Ensure the system is fully up-to-date by running sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade in the terminal .
• Use a system monitor tool like htop, btop or the built-in system monitor to see if the CPU or RAM is maxing out when opening a program.
• Check for Overheating: Check if the laptop feels unusually warm. This could indicate a need to clean the cooling vents and fan.

Welcome to the GNU/Linux family! Your desktop setup is lovely! I highly approve of the use of Librewolf. Pop_OS! is a great choice choice for a new GNU/Linux user. As for your system feeling slower, you might be missing something. Can you share some of the basic specs, like cpu/ram and/or brand/model of the laptop? What feels slow, the internet or the actual loading/power of the system?

Thunderbird on Linux and FairEmail on Android. I don’t like Thunderbird’s opt-out telemetry, I just haven’t found something that works better for me at the moment on Linux. I have zero complaints about FairEmail. I like Thunderbird’s fast and frequent updates, FairEmail’s respect for privacy. I think both have the features I want. I just check my email on either when it is most convenient.

Yes, several times. The first one that comes to mind is The Last of Us Part 2.

It has never been about who will win. It has always been about doing what is right. I will continue to support Ukraine regardless of their ability to “win.”

That be ok. Me crew sails the ‘igh seas an’ we don’t 'ave to share passwords.

I could see several forms of human genetic engineering becoming legal. For instance, three-parent children, also known as mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) is illegal in most western countries, though it was legalized in the UK, Spain, and Italy. The FDA banned in it in the US in 2015 because it involves human subjects research without prior approval from an institutional review board.

While I get what you’re saying, it is technically legal in the United States under an exception in the 13th amendment as punishment for a crime.

See more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States

I bought a used Pixel 6 (for about $120 on Swappa) and installed GrapheneOS. I understand the irony of deGoogling and using a Pixel phone. From what I understand, the core reason GrapheneOS relies on Pixel phones is because they offer hardware security features (like the Titan M chip), an unlockable and re-lockable bootloader, and guaranteed long-term updates.

My favorite part of my phone (besides the ultimate security and privacy) is that my only “app store” (besides the GrapheneOS store) is Obtainium. There is nothing on F-Droid or Google Play that I can’t find (that I use/need) with Obtainium and IronFox. If I absolutely need to access something that requires proprietary or unwanted applications, I use IronFox to browse the website (my bank for instance). I have complete control over what my phone does and I only have FOSS software installed. It is a lot more work than I think most people would be willing to do, but it is important to me, and I think it is the only way (for me, this is subjective) to be truly free of Google or Apple and still use a smart phone.

Other “privacy” ROMS still communicate with Google in some way. The other ROMS are moving in the right direction, though. /e/OS, for instance, switched to AOSP instead of LineageOS, but it uses microG. By its very nature, microG communicates with Google, so that is not something I am interested in using. Some of the GNU/Linux mobile projects are showing promise (check out postmarketOS ), but they are a ways away from actually being reasonably usable on a newer everyday main device.

In conclusion, yes, just end it all. The best I can come up with is to deGoogle and reject all big-tech.

I want to be excited for this. However, they keep creating unfinished slop with features half-baked and no one wants. Dice/EA are incredibly tone deaf to their audience. I hope it is good, but based on the past few games, it likely will not be.