It's interesting to me

[6744ce4495dbeKolya]

Es gibt aber noch eine weitere Ebene in Press Reset: Schreier beschreibt auch den Werdegang einiger berühmter Entwickler und einen Teil der Entstehungsgeschichte von Serien. So dreht sich das erste Kapitel fast vollständig um den Stardesigner Warren Spector (Ultima Underworld, Deus Ex).

Noch mehr Raum nimmt die Spieleserie Bioshock ein. Schreier stellt insbesondere die Konflikte zwischen dem offenbar nicht ganz einfachen Entwicklungschef Ken Levine und dem Team vor. Er schildert die Art und Weise, wie unterschiedliche Studios für spätere Serienteile zuständig waren.

[6744ce4495fc8icemann]

Translated -

But there is another level in Press Reset: Schreier also describes the careers of some famous developers and part of the genesis of series. The first chapter revolves almost entirely around the star designer Warren Spector (Ultima Underworld, Deus Ex).

The Bioshock game series takes up even more space. Schreier particularly presents the conflicts between the apparently not very easy development chief Ken Levine and the team. He describes the way in which different studios were responsible for later series parts.

[6744ce4496181fox]

It's about a new book by journalist Jason Schreier. Not sure if I like the guy but I am interested in those Spector/Levine bits so I'm going to listen to the audio book version in the near future.

Ken Levine: "You don't come up with amazing things by being completely normal"

[6744ce44962e7Kolya]

German deep dive docu about the art and philosophy of Blade Runner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77fMI5T1-w

[6744ce449664efox]

It's about a new book by journalist Jason Schreier. Not sure if I like the guy but I am interested in those Spector/Levine bits so I'm going to listen to the audio book version in the near future.

Ken Levine: "You don't come up with amazing things by being completely normal"

I've listened through the first 1 1/2 chapters (Spector/Levine). It provides some interesting overview of their careers so far. Not very much bout the games itself, just a couple of nice tid bits here and there. The general focus of the books is on the rough business practices and poor working conditions found in the games industry. It's all quite well written and the speaker of the english audio book version is doing a great job so it certainly makes for a pleasant and easy to digest read/listen. Just don't go in expecting to learn anything substantial about the specific games.

Will be watching the arte-documentary soon, already had it on my laundry-list.

[6744ce449679aZylonBane]

Apparently someone at Irrational was a fan of cheesy movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ-Ruv4w9ww

[6744ce4496c35Marvin]

German deep dive docu about the art and philosophy of Blade Runner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n77fMI5T1-w

They're releasing a bunch of movie documentaries on their side channel:
* Indiana Jones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3b7IglP1Lg
* John Carpenter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1756Diw6dII
* Milos Forman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wd-ocsbjGc
* Jodie Foster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRZye0bDD1U

... and more. All of them really well made, especially the Blade Runner one, with a bunch of interviews and behind-the-scenes material I've definitely not seen before.

Automatic captions should be good enough in most cases, so watch them even if you don't know any German.

[6744ce4496d4efox]

More deep fakery. If these were the faces of less prominent people and more serious content, I don't think I would be able to tell anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d0-z11Q5H8

[6744ce4496f58Kolya]

Several people in my social circle have separately fallen prey to conspiracy theories, including family members. Mainly it's nonsense about Covid-19 and the vaccines, but with some it goes further than that, down to thoughtless repetition of antisemitic propaganda. The worst part is the general distrust they exhibit about scientific majority opinions and the press, while placing blind faith in Youtube personalities and conspiracy blogs full of extreme outsider opinions or plain bullshit. It's frightening to see that much willful ignorance and stupidity in people you've known for years.

I'm currently listening to an interesting podcast about a former German youth radio host from Berlin who spiralled into conspiracy theories (starting with 9/11) and became something like a German Alex Jones. The podcast traces his career and the rise of a movement, he became a big part of, that prefers alternative facts.

Cui Bono – WTF happened to Ken Jebsen?

[6744ce44970b4icemann]

The catch 22 is that we are often lied to, projected to media based on left or right aligned stuff to influence our opinions, and not advised at all about some things that go on.

The rise of the internet, far better security etc has led to us all becoming far better informed of things, and thus for some that has raised the levels of paranoia. You had that Facebook fiasco several years ago with targeted content towards people to influence their political vote. All the stuff wikileaks brought to light likely added to it as well.

Becoming aware of these things over time has an affect. Whilst I do not AT ALL believe any of the conspiracy theories, putting yourself in the shoes of those people, to see how they got there is important I think, to better understand them.

[6744ce4497420fox]

Very, very difficult topic and I feel a pressing issue for every society that claims to be democratic. Unfortunately I feel the public service broadcasting and politicians don't do nearly enough to counter the overwhelming influence of alt-media and actually damaged their own credbility recently. It makes me angry since this is ultra-toxic in a volatile climate like we have these days.

Not sure how much of it has to do with my age but 9/11 was for me too an event that made me doubt the reliability of mass media. I was interested in intelligence related topics before and that already intersected a lot with classic world conspiracy stories. "Forbidden" books like "Geheimgesellschaften und ihre Macht im 20. Jahrhundert" were capitalizing effectively on semi-secret tidbits like the existence of a global surveillance program by the NSA called "Echelon", which really was not common knowledge back then and almost universally refuted as a most outlandish conspiracy theory, by everyone you talked about it.

There were a couple of these "eye-opening" fact-based but obscure bits, unfortunately they were also woven into the context of a classic overarching world conspiracy, involving the Rothchilds and the Illumanti. Once again padded out with a lot of credible seeming details which could partially be confirmed via more official sources. Much of it was kind of new to me in that era of dial-up modems, when the bulk of my internet-research (and printing) was still done via the network of my school. The Echelon-thing left quite an impression on me and kick-started my interest with all things surveillance and I started to dig into it by surfing on cryptome.org a lot (basically WikiLeaks' father) and later even engaged in a shortlived activism project called 'Stop1984' which was born out of the Telepolis-forums.

At some point I started to obsess about it a little too much, became a bit paranoid and ultimately felt that I needed to concentrate on my personal life more. Had I not, I feel like I might have ended up like Ken Jebsen. I think I have managed to grow out of it quite well and started to see the world much more realistic (who knows) but still with what I deem to be a healthy distrust. Thinking that there are no manipulation attempts and no backdoor politics going on in the world all the time and without the mass media addressing it, would be utterly naive, which is why investigative journalism and the freedom of media is essential for a society.

It's not very hard to fall into rabbit holes (the first time) and people tend to snap into the opposite direction (instead of nuancing), once they start feeling systematically being lied about or manipulated. There are many spin doctors just waiting and welcoming them with open arms. In that regard, I feel the public broadcasting services made many mistakes in recent years.

[6744ce44975f1Kolya]

Which mistakes are you referring to? Just interested in the details.

Of course established public media are not without some bias depending on the subject. Generally though they try to be impartial. And if you read more than one, you're usually well informed in Germany. The bias of conspiracy sites like kenfm.de or uncutnews.ch though goes much further, they frequently push political agendas with selective or false facts, very obviously.

What bothers me is this false equalization: Just because PBS and established newspapers sometimes have a political slant they are not the same as any blog dropping unconfirmed theories on the net. One is journalism, the other is disinformation.

I understand that the difference can be hard to tell from a cursory look over those websites. Some conspiracy websites are more professionally done than some real newspaper sites. The internet has levelled the playing field in terms of presentation. And it has cut the profits to be made with costly journalistic work dramatically. Which also degrades the quality of actual newspapers.

But even with all that the difference in the content of PBS/newspapers vs. conspiracy websites is still obvious. And you need willing suspension of disbelief to take the latter seriously. Which may come as an agenda that suits you, I guess.

[6744ce4497928fox]

In terms of ARD/ZDF, I'm thinking of stuff like the "framing manual", using differently colored maps for 7-day-incidences, the ridiculous public "execution" of Eva Herman (who subsequently DID go down the Jebsen rabbit hole but that shouldn't matter for this embarrassing moment of German TV), the silence about the imminent flood catastrophy and manipulation of numbers or quotes. By far the worst, is the overboarding political correctness for which there are countless examples all across the mass media landscape all the time.

Don't get me wrong, in theory I'm very much pro public service broadcasting and I'm not at all supporting the likes of Jebsen, Hildmann and Naidoo. It's just that I find that way too much time and money is wasted on meaningless bullshit, that there is too much and increasing self censoring and that the occasions of spin doctoring are happening too frequently. Even if, isolated, they are relatively small missteps, these public services are supposed (and paid) to be this beacon of truth and everytime they are not, people are immediately starting to foam up and second guess everything, with the spin doctors and their troll armies once again welcoming them with open arms on their alt-media sites. Trust is everything and very hard to restore.

Autobahn.

[6744ce4497aacicemann]

Wikileaks brought to light A LOT of stuff that we were not told about, then was HEAVILY attacked by politicians who attempted to silence it on national security grounds. And then you have some TV programs which show the true version of events of a story vs how the media portrayed it.

For example, we have a show over here called "Media Watch" which shows evidence of media bias, editing of footage to support an agenda, the leaving out of key evidence or one sided angle of topics etc etc. I can see why many are paranoid. I just stick to my interests, and look after my family, but there is a growing consensus that we're all not being told the whole truth.

Police wise, you have many turning their cameras off during key moments of arrests, getting aggressive towards the public attempting to film them etc etc.

[6744ce4497bc2Kolya]

Wikileaks also worked with international newspapers like Guardian, Spiegel, etc to analyse and filter the data they released to not endanger anyone and just find the interesting stuff. So I don't see Wikileaks as a counterpoint to the importance of journalistic work.

[6744ce4497d77icemann]

Oh no that wasn't what I meant. Purely just speaking on why some are becoming more paranoid nowadays.

[6744ce44981c8sarge945]

Police wise, you have many turning their cameras off during key moments of arrests, getting aggressive towards the public attempting to film them etc etc.

At least we don't have the anti-terror squad down here arresting comedians for pointing out government corruption.

Wait nevermind

[6744ce449834aJDoran]

I would have thought it would be illegal for a copper to turn off his body camera during an arrest? If so, then surely it would follow that any copper who does so, no matter what his stated reason, would automatically face some sort of investigation.

[6744ce449844aicemann]

I know that in the US that happens often. Been known to happen here in Aus as well. Quite common for cops to turn their cameras off even though their not supposed to.

[6744ce449876bKolya]

This article describes the birth of the American high school system leading to the teen age as a segregated social realm, adolescent attitudes consequently seeping into adulthood and ultimately transforming society towards a permanent teen age, with its ups like open mindedness and creativity but also downs like narcicissm and disregard for the common good.

It made for slightly uncomfortable reading. Regardless whether it's the whole truth, the author nonetheless creates a convincing connection between a social transformation I have only ever seen as positive and the undeniable inner problems modern western societies are facing.

How US high school culture brought teen values to the world | Aeon Essays
Adolescence isn’t a time of life so much as a frame of mind. Liberating yet damaging, it’s transformed the US and the world

[6744ce4498896Kolya]

I couldn't find a source for this image but it clearly belongs here.

[6744ce44989d3fox]

It's the "One World Trade Center", I think.

[6744ce4498d2cchuckles n chestnuts]

Kolya
Devs reacting to speedrunners   

[6744ce4498e34fox]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y