I’m not seeing anything about laws that could cause the imprisonment of LGBT people. Where are you getting this? Like, I wouldn’t be shocked if same sex marriage isn’t legal or if laws for trans people changing their birth certificates aren’t on the books yet but I see nothing that encourages the active imprisonment or disenfranchisement of LGBT people outside of having a somewhat more conservative culture would cause as a matter of expectation. Although I will admit I didn’t look particularly hard at such issues as they have bigger things on their plate at the moment but still. If you have a source on that I’d appreciate it.

They really do infantalize such nations to a massive extent. Definitely plays a role.

They’d probably say something like “only the colonized countries need to be economically developed not the core” or “internal colonization is a myth, read settlers”. These people have the critical thinking skills of a shoelace.

Seriously, I’ve heard people try and argue colonies often have higher standards of living than their colonial masters which is one hell of a deranged statement.

I hate that even socialists make this argument. The amount of people who are like “China is economically developing these regions because imperialists need to do that” when they are obviously doing more than building a few one way train lines to haul goods. People who make that argument also tend to agree the west is imperialist but then don’t ever seem to ask themselves why the west doesn’t economically develop such nations. The simple fact is, the west doesn’t do so because it’s not really necessary for imperialist extraction and China does because they aren’t colonizing the developing world.

The thing about survival games is that the busy work is the point. Participation in it at first and finding ways to get around it as your base gets more complex is part of the fun. You start from nothing and eventually through effort and planning get powerful. The busywork is the obstacle for the player to overcome.

Without the busy work survival games become some kind of BR. Which has its appeal but scratch fundementally different itches. A pizza and a burger are quite different even though both have bread.

I really don’t think Pals are a dogwhistle for humans. Its just a monster collection game where you can make the monsters do stuff. Its legitimately not that deep. Its not like a game is saying slavery is good or anything. Like sure, you can be mean to the digital puppets if you want, but really a lot of stuff is just head cannon. Are they working for you because they are scared or because they live in some communist utopia and work as a choice? Up to you. Really I think its just a way to put them to use for more than just combat. Plus it means you can focus on tasks you find fun instead of some of the busy work of survival games. Seriously, every game has things like this. You can take any idea and if you intentionally read it in a negative light that will be what it looks like. Does pokemon promote dog fighting? Ofcourse not. Even if it really is just digital dogfight simulator. Does Disco Elysium promote drug use because drugs have useful effects in it? Does Skyrim promote capital punishment as a good thing because guards will try to kill you for committing crimes and you can kill bandits for the government? Irl crime is caused by disenfranchisement of the poor, is Skyrim proposing we kill them all? No. Skyrim wanted an easy low level enemy you could deal with to learn the game and make some early money. In fact, any game that involves killing anything can be construed in such a way if you like. Ofcourse this isn’t to say games can’t carry messages, but I don’t think this one really does. I think the devs just saw they could do some edgy marketing and went for it.

Not surprising. People in the military tend to be quite far right and since the US does nothing to slow the spread of fascism and abuses their troops you get a perfect breeding ground for fascism. Especially since anything left is “too political” and “hurts moral” the only arguments for change in the military come from the right. I know people in the military and they very much border on fascism if not are outright fascists that just haven’t told me yet because I shoot down their right wing shit in the few instances they drop it.