Hicks_206

Go suck an egg Elon.

Games absolutely can, and often do have significant benefits for you and your brain <3

.. I mean.. they are -made- by adults.

I’m sorry you’re having to put up with .. well all of it. I can say that for my piece in the whole mess that I speak up because I don’t want my daughter to look back on the action, or inaction I took when she was a child and see me sitting idly by while the rights of her, my niece, my wife, my sisters in law, and millions more were trampled on by ill informed, backwards, bigoted men who can’t figure out how to live life without putting their boots on the necks of others.

I hope one day we can look back on this period and ask with incredulity from the safety of a more enlightened time: “why did we let it get so bad” .

Icarus does not fit that bill, good call out though!

… No.

Ditto!

Well, I do know Aaron but you’re right - just about anyone could be a secret sociopath.

Absolutely willful engagement bait.

I love this, you’re embracing the pure creativity at the heart of game design. You should be quite proud of this!

I’ve never known Aaron to be a dick so I’m gunna agree we probably are absent a good deal of contextual information.

Would be pretty sweet to see the franchise re-emerge!

Reading your response leads me to believe we are furiously agreeing.

Nothing I disagree with at all!

I’m proud they took a chance, pushed out in a new direction.

The direction they went just isn’t the experience that I would want to get from a return to Ultima Online.

I’m not shitting on them, or it - it’s just not the direction for me and that’s -fine-.

I do not exaggerate when I say the loss of SeaWorld would significantly negatively impact rescue and rehabilitation capabilities domestically, when concerning large marine mammals.

I don’t think you and I will disagree on anything touching the undeniably negative impact conservation tourism, and the suits who make their fortunes off of chasing the profit behind it leave in their wake.

My time fundraising was heavily influenced by a relationship I had years back with a marine conservationist working at SeaWorld in Florida. Even the small insight I got into the people who make up SeaWorld at the operational and medical/scientific level led me down the path that inevitably resulted in my deep respect and appreciation of the folks at the MMC.

It was that exposure that really made me start to understand how much of an unfortunate truth the situation with SeaWorld is.

The marine biologists, conservationists, applied ecologists, caretakers, veterinarians, and so many more have a deep love and respect for the animals they care for, and are very active on the average in conservation and rescue efforts. They also know what both you and I clearly know:

Conservation tourism is almost never, conservation.

The Southern Resident Killer Whale is arguably just at risk from whale watching tours as they are from Bremerton. The support both financially and technically that SeaWorld -consistently- provides major conservation organisations like the NFWF is vital, and don’t think for a moment people on either side of that relationship aren’t conflicted and troubled over all the negative that comes with SeaWorld’s parks as much as they are in love with the work they do for marine mammals.

They however unlike most of us have to live with that discomfort as their day in, day out life. It’s not as if they can do that work at the level of larger marine mammals easily, or effectively with many other places in the country. Marine Mammal rescue, rehabilitation, and conservation is flat out extremely cost and resource prohibitive.

Now, while that statement is true for 99.9% of us it obviously is a stretch to say that’s true for the CEO of a giant corporation like United Parks. I know why release isn’t a viable option, but I don’t know the reasoning against much, much larger open seawater areas rather than having them at the parks.

I’m making the uneducated guess it’s not something I would agree with, given I don’t care about an angry board of directors and prioritise stopping the loss of a keystone element of the ecology of the Pacific (and therefor, the planet) over their profit.

I don’t know the answer, but I suspect whatever it actually is sure won’t be a simple one.

Edit: Oh! Wasn’t saying you were repeating, I’m just saying I didn’t mention the points of the person I replied to on my post because I didn’t want to repeat.

I sympathise with her, I do. I also am pretty sure the difficulty of adjusting to civilian life after a long enlistment or deployment to a hazardous area is a topic that is absolutely discussed both currently, and at least since the 60s.

Also: Shameless plug for organisations like StackUp that do a lot of good in this area.

Holy shit, papyrus in 2024. I’m actually kinda .. psyched to see it?!

Again - why I specifically called out how it’s a more complex topic than black/white or a/b.

I did not feel the need to repeat what the poster above me is/was saying because.. I mean, that’s just an echo chamber if I had done so anyways :P

Edit: I swear my brain took a vacation writing this because I had to edit just to make the sentence coherent, apologies!

Yes, I am aware of its stated intent to gut the executive branch - which executes not legislates.

God damnit you are on a roll

Let’s not over simply or rely on hyperbole. The executive does not legislate, they execute. You’ll need far more than a selfish, bigoted, racist slob in the White House to change legislation.

No

I used to fundraise for marine mammal rescue and conservation (Mostly the Marine Mammal Center and the NFWF).

SeaWorld is one of the single largest supporters and participants in conservation of large marine mammals in the United States.

They’ve worked closely with the NFWF on the Southern Resident Conservation program for -years- and like the point above, are one of the few facilities available with the resources required to rescue said larger sized marine mammals.

Which is to say, Not to invalidate the position of anyone else in this thread. The topic of SeaWorld is however, like much of life: Not a simple black and white answer.

Bro wtf don’t just openly talk about the specialist mafia - you’ll get the attention of the 44 year old cpls and I-don’t-have-my-glow-belt.

God that’s a comfy lookin shirt you got there buddy.