A stretch, yes. But it’s an interesting model for understanding what communication is. By telling you this, I am manipulating you into understanding my point of view and hopefully getting you to agree with me.

It’s important to note that not all manipulation is negative. I should hope parents manipulate their children into being aware of safety.

Even chit-chat could be seen as manipulating each other into “being social” but even I would say that’s a long shot.

The Dutch system does have fractional representation and multi-party coalition governments, and still the far-right is on the rise.

This is a complex situation, not simply fixed with a magic bullet of voting reform.

You’d think that euronews, a European news org, would know the difference.

Nothing about Lapland in this article 🤷

I believe some websites say “fuck it, fuck them” and block European IPs rather than put in the work to become GDPR compliant

Of course someone else’s response isn’t your fault. I’m not saying that you are wrong for disliking it, either. The unfortunate truth is that in every community, you will find people who just don’t know how to argue. That group gets bigger if the community grows. Being angry about it doesn’t help anyone though.

What I meant with the “hwell acktually” comment is maybe the same as you just said but in different words: people who like to be right all the time and feel good bout it.

Even if you limit it by range, like only recolouring things within 1 meter of where you touch… It’d still be a great power! Imagine the money you’d make, flawlessly painting whole rooms in seconds.

I agree that Reddit has more unknowing “Hwell Acktually” types than is good for anyone’s mental health. It doesn’t make discussion any better. But if you proclaim your hate and call people morons you might be part of the problem. If someone is wrong on the internet you could just be doing them a favour by acting like that.

DM: “How do you want to do this?” Player: “ I slice the dragon’s cockles with my long and shiny blade” DM: changes song, plays even more intense battle music Player: “What the-“ DM: “Now it’s time to fight the horde! Roll initiative”

What’s a treasure horde? A tribal society based on loot? I think you mean hoard

What are the titles of those books? I think there are six in the original series by Frank Herbert and there are many other books by his son Brian. I haven’t read all of those.

Yeah! The first sequel, Foundation’s Edge, was excellent! It was written with as much if not more depth as the original series. The second sequel, Foundation and Earth, however seemed like a pulp novel by comparison. The story was simplistic and the conclusion pretty disappointing, although it did bring up an interesting quandary about the future of the galaxy.

What slowed me down a lot with Dune were the many different, unfamiliar names. Once that clicked, the story started unfolding by itself and I could not stop myself reading. It’s been a long time since I first read the original books, but I think I finished all six of them in less than a month. I hope it clicks for you too!

I totally agree. This series, along with the original Dune novels, is the bedrock of my love for sci-fi.