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Given how many people shared Onion stories without knowing it's "satire" and the article mentioning "It was always some kind of dry, subtle joke"-

I think The Onion is bad for society.

It spawned numerous knockoff websites that would mislead people "because it's funny!".

If you are scrolling through a website, do you click on every article? Read every detail? And research the root website?

Or do you skim, read mostly headlines and occasionally deep dive?

How many "satire" website headlines do you subconsciously believe?

All for "humor", which is rarely found tbh.


I think people who fall for The Onion articles are bad for society.

For example: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/congres...


The Onion is Baby's First Satire. I want it exposed to as many people as possible so when they fail to get the joke we can relentlessly mock them and know who to exclude from serious conversations.

Imagine someone who can't even handle the Onion trying to process challenging satire. The kind that might get you to change your mind, rather than the Onion/Daily Show brand of pats on the head for agreeing with established orthodoxy.


> The Onion is Baby's First Satire.

ITYM MAD Magazine, at least after the 80s.

It was hilarious when I was 12; these days, not so much.


The Onion's satire is generally pretty obvious. The truth is that some people just aren't very bright, and/or have a habit of reading and sharing news articles very uncritically.


I don't believe any satire websites. Because I understand what satire is. The idea that satire is bad because people are lazy/dumb is much worse than satire itself, I assure you.


You wouldn't know. That's the issue.

You read a seemingly innocent headline, and move on with your day.


Someone who can't figure out an Onion headline is dangerous. They'll uncritically believe just about anything; it's what gets us "FW: FW: FW: FW: OBAMA IS KENYAN" shit.


No, I would and do. I have common sense. And I understand what I'm reading. Most people do. Based on your comments here, you should probably stay away from satire websites since it seems you're easily mislead, but most of the rest of us can apply some basic critical thinking skills.


Would you say that it is worth teaching media studies and literacy in schools?


You're getting downvoted but there's a quote I read about a community based on satire that basically said; in the beginning it's great; everyone is in on the joke and understands it's satire. After a while, the people being satirized join, thinking they're in good company.

I butchered that, but I believe it was sourced from Reddit, maybe a mod or administrator.


A lot of the crazier conspiracy theories probably started out like that. Think chemtrails, flat earthers, 5G, that kind of thing.


This seems to just be something that's going to happen when you have satire of any substance.

A similar thing happened with the 1970s TV show "All In The Family". Its main character, Archie Bunker, is uneducated, chauvinistic, bigoted, and selfish. Many people got the joke, but I think plenty of people saw Archie and their main thought was, "This guy is just like me." They did a good job of portraying him as a real human being. (If he had been a one-dimensional punching bag character, the show would not have worked as well.) He was a working class guy whose frustrations with his situation were rooted in reality, so you couldn't fault him for that part. He just responded to those problems in all the wrong ways. But seeing the right ways to respond requires a certain kind of enlightenment, so this part went over some people's heads.


I'm disgusted at the thought that it is The Onion's fault when people don't bother to read beyond a headline or understand the context of what they just read.


[flagged]


I read the article for every headline I believe.

"...“But,” says one, “I am a busy man; I have no time for the long course of study which would be necessary to make me in any degree a competent judge of certain questions, or even able to understand the nature of the arguments.”

Then he should have no time to believe."


Satire is an important and effective tool for getting people to think critically about mundane things we often accept at face value. It lets us challenge the status quo in a non-threatening way because who doesn’t love to laugh? Satire makes people think and that should always be encouraged.


That's fine if it's obvious.

It's not always obvious.


I'm choosing to interpret your comment as satire ;)


..Is this satire?


"It just works" - Apple Marketing

I remember when I believed it. Then I actually got an iPhone and it killed that idea.

Cool box and fun signup, but it never felt quite intuitive.


"It just works" is absolutely still a thing; it's just that not everything "just works". And with Feedback Assistant being as bad as it is, shouting on Hacker News is the best I can do to get things fixed :(


> "It just works" is absolutely still a thing; it's just that not everything "just works".

What could that possibly mean?


“Most things just work” or alternatively “it just works (the way most users want it to work)”

There is not and can never be “it just works for everyone and every use case with no configuration”.


But that's true for everything, not just iphone. So "just works" loses it's meaning.


Have you ever used an Oracle product?


Yup.


Specialization sure, but science is universal.

Unless agriculture is built on trade secrets or art, you can contribute.

This is one of my criticisms of Medical. It's not a science or the barrier to entry would be significantly lower, and as a result cost would be lower.

Degrees are good, but not necessary if you can do math and get experience.


So, in my grad program in ag, we had a Bay-area ML startup come in to give a seminar on how they were revolutionizing agriculture. The presented their findings on how to increase yields (which they claimed could only be understood from their algorithm).

The problem they were diving into was well understood, and has been researched to death for the last 100+ years. And they had the relationship backwards, not understanding their "input" to increase yields was actually a response to low yields. They were the opposite of helpful, but rather a waste of our time.

As with anything, it helps to know the current state of knowledge before you jump into contribute. An understanding of math doesn't get you there.


The difficulty with medicine lies in attempting to control the death count involved in gaining the experience. Some supervision required.


There are lots of not-fully-understood processes in the world that only work because we lucked into some way of doing them. If you come at these problems with a scientific mindset but with no real experience, you are going to have a bad time.


There is a lot more to medicine than just math and science. That is not a sound basis for criticizing the field. You'll have to do better than that.


>There is a lot more to medicine than just math and science

This is the problem.


That is not a problem. It's simply a fact that you'll have to accept.


I've thrown in the towel on some of my favorite games, anything from Blizzard, Nintendo (Zelda), and obviously EA.

I think it "Clicked" when someone said 'none of the programmers that made Old_Game even work there anymore'

These companies are selling IP, not a sequel. When you buy modern Zelda, you don't get Majora's Mask, you get a 2015 action game skinned with Link.

Blizzard is a corporation that owns the characters and names. However you can play Diablo clones that are significantly better in 2020. You just need to be okay without Cain.

Nolstagia is a hella drug.


I think it's fair to say that Blizzard is a shadow of its former self. No argument there.

But there are (IMHO) at least two companies that still put out outstanding games.

1. Nintendo. I can't speak for the Zelda remasters that have come out. I never played the originals so had no nostalgia to draw me in. But Breath of the Wild... that was simply amazing. I bought a Switch just to play it and don't regret it at all; and

2. Rockstar. This one is a little more difficult for me because GTA3 and 4 blew me away at the time. Like they're actually satire. I think they lost that soul with GTA5, which people rave about for some reason. For me, it was a massive disappointment I never went back to after finishing the story missions. Sure it looked pretty but the writing was lazy, the characters were absolutely two-dimensional and off-putting (eg I almost stopped playing entirely when it came to Trevor) and all the humour/satire was just... gone. Plus it became less "slapstick". Like I drove a bus the wrong way down the ring road to see how far I could get before blowing up. I actually did a complete loop. There's no way that'd happen in GTA4. Your car would blow up long before then. In San Andreas you could cause massive car pileups that would chain explosion and I'd sometimes do that for giggles. I'd gotten >20 cars to blow up that way. I really do hope GTA6 finds its way back.

But Red Dead 2... that's both a massive technical achievement and a great game.

I'm also not opposed to reskins of old games. But they have to be right in exactly the way Warcraft III (Refunded) wasn't. It's too easy to lose the magic and the feel by carelessly updating graphics. Oh and Blizzard's IP grab on player maps (aka we're not going to let Dota 2 happen again) is downright disgusting.

But these franchises and companies are (unfortunately) exceptions. Too many games now fall into two buckets: player-generated content (ie PvP) or pay-to-win (ie mobile games). Neither particularly interest me.


I doubt if Nintendo really deserves that appraisal. Breath of the Wild was hardly revolutionary, having come just a couple years after Witcher 3. Rather even Sega has been more innovative pouring money into places like Amplitude, Relic and Creative Assembly.

Perhaps Obsidian is one studio/producer that keeps turning out outstanding experiences for so many years.


The only real point of comparison between Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild is that they’re both open world games that reward exploration. Witcher 3 executed that beautifully, but hardly invented it. Breath of the Wild is not only a very different experience, but took a big risk by breaking with the old school Zelda formula. It may not be to your taste, but the Witcher comparison misses the mark.


Flare RPG and Nethack are both better than Diablo.

When I discovered libre games thanks to Linux/BSD and some source ports with total conversions, I was sold.

There was 2000 times better quality on a lot IF and now called "indies" than most games since 2002.


Isn't Nethack a completely different game though?

Nethack is a turn-based roguelike. Diablo is an action-oriented dungeon crawl (the original at least; I never played Diablo 2 or 3). To me they don't "feel" the same enough to compare which one is better.

I'm a fan of roguelikes too, by the way. If you want to try a somewhat different roguelike for Linux, I recommend Teleglitch (commercial, scifi, quirky graphics, real-time, brutal gameplay).

edit: and Duskers! How could I forget Duskers! For a really different scifi roguelike: http://duskers.misfits-attic.com/



Sorry, to me a roguelike must be top down and turn based.

I have a good list here. Nethack, DCSS, the old TOME 2.x releases, SCrap...

I avoid CDDA because I hate games with no clear ending or objectives ingame.


I respect your purism! But do try Duskers, regardless of classification. It's a cool game and shares some traits with roguelikes: autogenerated world, stuff to find and equip, permadeath, and high difficulty as the game progresses (though it's deceptively easy when starting).

Teleglitch is punishingly difficult from the start, and pretty fast paced too, so maybe give that one a pass.


I mean, in philosophy, Diablo and Moria were related. The initial plan was to release Diablo as a modern Moria, and yes, turn based, but they switched into real time and they simplified the game for the more casual generation.

If any, Flare RPG has anything the first Diablo offers with a longish campaign and a good set of skills.


I know that was the plan, but the end result is quite different!


I know, but I can't stop comparing it to Moria/Angband.

I know the timing changes everything (and Nethack is more like a text adventure lore made into a top-down RPG), but the environment and tasks ingame aren't so that different both in Diablo and Moria.


No idea why you are comparing Nethack with Diablo. Two completely different games, but if I had to choose I would 100% pick Diablo so strongly disagree.


Go down levels in mostly randomly generated dungeons and do a thing. There are many differences - turn based is the biggest, graphics is significant, level of complexity (partly enabled by lack of need for graphics) - but they are very far from "completely different". Diablo II even had "hardcore mode" for permadeath.


If procedurally generated is the only prerequisite I guess Nethack is not "completely different" from No Man's Sky then.


Procedurally generated dungeon levels which comprise the bulk of the game, made up of rooms, corridors, and the occasional set pieces. An identification mechanic. Books to learn a spell, scrolls for single use. I can go on.

There are absolutely differences, some significant. But they have a lot in common.


Still, the differences are in the core mechanics which make them very different games. I would be surprised if there's much overlap between the player bases at all, so I still see no point in saying that Nethack is a better game since it appeals to totally different players.


> I would be surprised if there's much overlap between the player bases at all

I would be pretty surprised if, of those who played Nethack around the release of Diablo who also made a habit of purchasing Windows games, there wasn't a majority that also played Diablo.

> I still see no point in saying that Nethack is a better game since it appeals to totally different players.

I agree that the two are sufficiently different, and sufficiently well executed examples of their species, that personal preference between the two is likely to be dominated by the differences that cannot be reasonably labeled "quality".

FWIW, I loved both.


Diablo was based on Moria/Nethack. First it would be turn based, but they switched into a real time gameplay.


> You just need to be okay without Cain.

Just play Youtube clips of Bane from The Dark Night Rises. I swear he is voiced by Deckard Cain.


Thanks, random internet stranger.

I'll never be able to un-hear this. •__•


You merely adopted Tristam. I was born into it, molded by it.


Anyone have a link to this?

I want to post this Everytime someone claims Apple is best for security. We need logic to fight marketing.


You can still be the best and have security vulnerabilities. That proves absolutely nothing. I don’t know what kind of logic you are using. Are you implying that the best at security should never have had security vulnerabilities? If yes, what platform would that be?


Can you prove any options are "best"? If not, then marketing that way is dishonest at best.


There was an NYT article saying ventilators only give a 12% additional survival rate. This is the service hospitals provide.

Sure oxygen can be given at a hospital, but if we are overwhelmed, you can easily do oxygen at home.

Anyone have a different understanding?


I'm not sure what you're arguing for here.

There's a very short period of time between when a patient starts drowning in their own fluids and when they die. So you need to be oxygenating in a clinical setting because you need people immediately available to intubate in case your oxygenated patient starts drowning in their own fluids, which they do often. That's why it confers a 12% survival rate. If you've progressed to the point where supplemental oxygen doesn't work then you're pretty close to dying. I'll take 12% over 0% any day of the week.

As always you should look past the statistics to what actually needs to happen in those situations. Statistics provide very little assistance in determining whether an individual patient needs to be hospitalized or not. You can't look at someone and go "oh this guy is one of the X% that will eventually need a ventilator." You have to assume that any one patient that needs supplemental oxygen may be one of that X%.

So sending people home with supplemental oxygen should be a last-ditch effort if the hospitals become completely overwhelmed, not a routine activity. And to facilitate that, we should absolutely be trying to keep people from getting sick so our hospitals remain open for the unavoidable cases.


Lots of strokes and other complications that can only be treated in a hospital. I haven't seen data on successful intervention there though (or maybe that it overlaps largely with the already low survivability).


There are many more therapies than just oxygen that hospitalized patients receive. Lots of monitoring of e.g., blood values that indicate stress on one organ or another, or danger of crisis due to many different processes. Drug therapy and supportive treatments are varied in response to those.

It's not as simple as "welcome to Wendy's, would you like the oxygen today, or can we supersize you to a ventilator?"


Cardiac arrest is a significant "side effect" of COVID-19, leading to death. Hospitals are better equipped for that.

Kidney problems are popping up in some folks post-infection; that's also better dealt with in a hospital.


My understanding is that just the most severe cases are put on ventilation, and understandably alas a lot of those people die. But the overall effectiveness of intensive care and general hospitalization is likely much higher, but I haven't seen a chart about this.


the stat that I read was that 86% of people put on ventilators die

as for those that survive - most have serious breathing problems for the rest of their lives -

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200415/ventilators-helping...


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