It's not a serious comment, again trying to split the topic.

Right.

We're talking about cities razed to the ground, more than a thousand medical facilities destroyed, and of course the systematic and deliberate attempt destruction of a culture - just because they wanted to be a sovereign democracy.

The guys that surrendered their nukes in exchange for security, right?

What I'm saying is that anything that helps prolong this war should be avoided.

It's not a fallacy, it's actually common sense.

You're again trying to dilute the genocide by bringing USA, China, etc.

So why are you trying to normalize one event, by diluting it among other events that have no relationship whatsoever with it?

You don't think the genocide in Ukraine has enough scale of a tragedy, with more than 2 million casualties since 2022? Isn't this enough to flag a product?

The Ukrainians posed no threat to anyone, they didn't have a nuclear program, in fact they surrendered the third largest nuclear stockpile and one of the signatures of the memorandum is trying to delete Ukraine.

Why are you trying to dilute this event which is directly related to the topic?

Is it to try to normalize the crime of genocide in Ukraine?

Isn't the genocide of Ukraine enough of a subject? Because this is a typical pattern.

Stay focused on the subject, the false emotional reply doesn't stick here.

If we count of course the illegal annexation of territory, one of the most egregious crimes against sovereignty, it's been doing it since the occupation of Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine in 2014, you get the idea.

What I don't understand is why you're trying to divert the attention to the US, the topic regarding the current crimes against humanity and war crimes of Russia have enough merits to be a topic on its own.

While there should be a complete sanction of Russian products, cod is cod, it's a consumable that has to follow public health standards.

There's no such thing for information, and for many years the Russian state has been trying hard at it.

Having what others don't. Not only they don't have, but they can't have it, and faking it won't cut it.

Like a lot of luxury brands, fine dining, even traveling are catering to a virtue signaling middle class on social media.

Apparently the ultra wealthy are now going to the stratosphere, having weird meetings, building bunkers, and playing politics.

If this was just a political action to take down just another corrupt official enabled by the government, how is this a good thing?

Well for a lot of countries protecting inventions with patents was a major trigger for development, so much so it became a cornerstone and you can even say an institution. So of course it would be viewed as corruption by any country with such institutions.

And it's not like China says it would never abide by IP, else they would have never got the investment that made them into what they are today.

But look further from IP theft, what about seizing assets from companies, or whole companies?

For example, you're making an effort to try legitimize the regime by framing a factual gross illegal conduct as a overarching policy.

But is it like that when you observe the whole structure?

How wealthy are the ruling elites? Or for example, how has IP theft policy changed?

Or we can reframe this: how do we tell the difference between a genuine tackle on corruption, from a weed out of the system with a public display?

You have plenty of cases in other corrupt regimes when they want to seize assets from someone the regime wants to push away: it's corruption.

Which again, they could be very well be corrupt, but they are corrupt because they're part of the regime.

You'll probably say: "Oh but the USS!!!" Yes, there's some level of systemic corruption there, just not an institution - yet!

It's a lot of misinformation and funding from too many countries, for a long time.

What's impressive is how much this tension had actually been holding on, which goes to show that education actually plays an important role when dealing with misinformation.

Sadly it was successful in the UK.

Putting in another term, I think differently in different languages.

They're just cringe, awkward, and just as damaging - if not more - then the previous elites in modern times.

At least the oil barons, big pharma, banks etc stayed in the shadows - these guys are celebrity divas...

How many iterations are we going to need to end this sort of wealth?

I don't think Valve has high margins with this when you factor in assembly and distribution costs, and I don't think Valve has the business model like some console makers had where they could afford to sell at a loss - it would be sold out anyway.

The way you summed it up as the truth, is spot on.

Like GTA VI is speculated to release at around 90$, and any AAA game that will drop around that time will probably have a bad release.

But regarding the steam machine, it's just yet another example that this product isn't at the reach of "the people", it's yet another luxury item.

Not because Valve wanted to, but because this new standard of scalping, hoarding and squeezing the most out of the market is having repercussions across industries.

The sad thing is that Valve used to be on the other side of the fence, at least for some products, it seemed like it was aimed to be accessible for gamers in a pro-consumer way (not all of course, that would be impossible).

In the end even Valve had to fall in line with the rest, and it's just sad to witness it.

So let people grief, they're not just grieving Valve, but also the last hope of a group that still thought there was a counter culture company in the current state of a greedy world, where shared holders value is more important than customers.