ProdigalFrog

What 50 years?

Ah, typo in the title, cheers for mentioning it.

I didn't notice the link to Fritts at the bottom. He certainly does appear to beaten Cove.

Huh?

In another comment below, I briefly describe the sort of political content the game has in it. It's not something a random leftist is projecting onto it, it's explicitly political content in the game itself, which is what is being discussed.

It's not really any different from discussing the themes or political content of Metal Gear Solid, Disco Elysium, or Planescape: Torment.

If that's not something you're interested, fair enough my friend! But surely it's not an inconvenience for others to discuss it? The title makes it clear what this is, which makes it pretty easy to avoid and scroll on to the next post.

The first part seems to be for people who are unfamiliar with the games. The political analysis begins at 19 minutes.

The games go into:

• Discussion of monopolies, how they are used to exploit, and how they use state force to maintain their position to prevent competition
• The Carrot character is an anarchist in the first game, who infiltrates the weather factory of the second game to document the exploitation of its workers. He then gives the player a quiz about US economics so that you can infiltrate a board of directors, but when he becomes a member of the board himself, becomes a liberal reformist.
• In the third game, the devs put an easter egg only accessible by editing a config file with an obscure code, which adds police branded riot gear to the marching fascist candy soldiers, in a reference to the 1999 Seattle WTO Protests.

The first part seems to be for people who are unfamiliar with the games. The political analysis begins at 19 minutes.

The games go into:

• Discussion of monopolies, how they are used to exploit, and how they use state force to maintain their position to prevent competition
• The Carrot character is an anarchist in the first game, who infiltrates the weather factory of the second game to document the exploitation of its workers. He then gives the player a quiz about US economics so that you can infiltrate a board of directors, but when he becomes a member of the board himself, becomes a liberal reformist.
• In the third game, the devs put an easter egg only accessible by editing a config file with an obscure code, which adds police branded riot gear to the marching fascist candy soldiers, in a reference to the 1999 Seattle WTO Protests, which occurred 3 months before the release of the game.

It's pretty solid, and reveals things I never could've imagined the devs would put into the game. Loved it as a kid growing up, but I have a whole new appreciation for it now.

Book transfers are supported by the device itself, no extra software required. It genuinely acts as a USB thumb drive once permission to give access to the PC is allowed on the device, similar to an Android phone. Once a book is put onto it and it's unplugged, it will automatically find the book and add it to the library screen.

The h2o model is also waterproof, which was a unique feature at the time, while the new Kobo models are all waterproof.

Should be, yes.

I use a Kobo Libera h2o (which I think is discontinued now), and I've been extremely pleased with it. Kobo doesn't lock down the device, so transferring books to it is as simple as plugging into a PC and pressing a prompt that allows it to be opened like a thumb drive.

Personally I would recommend any of the Kobo devices, which appear to all be waterproof now as well.

ePubs are generally a bit smaller than PDF's, and more critically, allow the text to reflow to fit the screen of any device, or to your personal preference (such as spacing, font size, ragged edge vs full justification, etc). It's the best open-source format for reading on a device, IMHO.

The best option is to form an effective grassroots resistance, as it's unlikely the system itself will be able to self-correct at this point.

What that actually looks like:

1. Joining and organizing within your local community to create connections with others is incredibly powerful, and will lay the groundwork for effective resistance.
2. We can effect things drastically with a general strike. This would massively impact their income streams, and can bring a fascist government to its knees if done on a large enough scale.
3. Join the IWW and attempt to unionize your workplace, so that the general strike is even more effective (plus you'll get better pay and benefits!)
4. Continuing to participate in publicly visible resistance demonstrations like 50501 to encourage others to also stand up and prove that there are hundreds of thousands of others who will join them in the fight. A large part of Nazi Germany's success in taking over the country was a lack of massive public demonstrations against the new regime, making people feel helpless and afraid to take a stand.

If we put in the work, we can resist this and we can win. Join up with allies while we still can easily! (As an aside, the Nazi regime had a much higher approval rate of 60 to 80% even towards to the end of the war, compared to only 40% for Trump currently, meaning we have dramatically higher chances of successfully resisting)

I suppose it's ambiguous as to what exactly to do, since each situation and area could need a solution unique or catered to it, but I share your desire for a more concrete set of steps.

I've been tossing around some ideas in my head, and I suppose if I were to write out an action-plan, it'd be something like:

1. Find enough like-minded individuals to pool resources into creating a worker owned cooperative (with all the planning and market viability that comes with).
2. Convince your fellow worker owners to put aside a portion of the profits to be used to kick-start another cooperative that will eventually replaces a particular need that is currently being fulfilled by an outside private business. As an example; if your cooperative contracts with a shipping/trucking company to distribute your goods, use the money set aside to fund the creation of a worker owned shipping company, which can then ship your goods, or goods from any other worker coop at reduced rates in solidarity, while charging market rates to non-cooperative businesses. This would allow you to better compete against private corporations, as they would not have that ability without completely buying out and owning those other services (In a nutshell, do a spin of what Ford did by eventually creating and owning their entire production chain, but instead it's made up of mutually beneficial and cooperating worker owned cooperatives). I believe Mondragon has already successfully implemented this step, it just needs to be replicated worldwide.
3. As part of a multi-pronged approach, also implore your fellow worker owners to set aside funds to help unionize the workers of competing private businesses (AFAIK, there's no laws against this, though please correct me if I'm wrong). This not only helps benefit the lives of those workers, it would (hopefully) make it easier to compete against those corporations, which may choose to raise prices to maintain their shareholder's profit margin.
4. Continue steps 2 & 3 until revenue increases to the point where you can then seriously fund other useful activities, such as mutual aid organizations (ex. food not bombs, ferrer schools, etc), as well as fund the creation of co-ops completely unrelated to your industry, but will displace an existing exploitative private corporation.

Of course, the first step of actually getting a successful cooperative off the ground that can then focus on the next steps is likely the hardest part.