That makes a lot of sense. Katamari Damacy is also an excellent game with such a bizarre story. I’m guess I’m a fan of absurdity.

My favorite game in the series was Super Mario 3. I first played it on the SNES when it was part of the Super Mario All Stars cartridge. I really liked the levels, especially the variety of landscapes and the secrets you could find if you had the right powerup.

Super Mario World is just as good imo. Everything I liked about 3 and more, plus the star road levels, that was a good game.

The most recent game I loved was Yoshi’s Wooly World on the WiiU. Excellent art style and super fun levels, especially the unlockable bonus levels.

Oh and let’s not forget Legend of the Seven Stars. That was a fun and bizarre story.

That being said, does anyone else think the Mario universe is just fucking weird? How did the creators come up with Italian plumbers who can jump really high saving a Princess from an oversized turtle in a fantasy land with walking mushrooms? Who thought that was a good idea? What inspired them? I think the only reason it became popular was because Super Mario on the NES was one of the first decent games, and most players were kids who didn’t care about the game’s universe and narrative beyond saving the princess.

If Mario wasn’t the first popular platformer in the 80s and was instead introduced today, nobody would take it seriously. Since we all grew up with Mario, it’s a thing we accept as is. Of course high jumping Italian plumbers discovered the mushroom kingdom and rescued their princess from Bowser, again and again and again. Of course little dudes with mushroom heads are ruled by a blond haired human. Of course giant pipes are a normal mode of transit. Of course goombas and koopa troopas are the baddies.

Seriously, how did this universe come about?

I bet an AI could do it

Bah, the data is on their websites, figure out how to collect it.

Why is there not an app that tells you which grocery stores have the best prices? I should be able to give it a list and it’ll tell me where to buy each item.

Why are you doing this?

Evolution and natural selection never stops, we’ve only changed what the selective pressures are.

I’d argue a housecat and a bobcat share a similar ecological niche. Haven’t the housecats simply replaced the bobcats that were largely removed by humans?

Wild Cats Of North America:

Bobcat

Canada Lynx

Puma / Mountain Lion / Cougar

Ocelot

Jaguarundi

Jaguar

Margay

Nah I asked first and looked later. I was so overcome by the need to pop someone’s little righteous justice boner I couldn’t help but comment first.

First sentence says where they deployed them, dingus.

Thank you

1. I don’t care how they feel about the source. I think we’re all grown-ups here and are capable of seeing through any propaganda the source may have added to the facts. I’m here to discuss the factual content of the article, which is rather interesting. I haven’t been following the drama of northwestern Africa’s territorial disputes.

2. Don’t guess, because you’re just wrong. 1st sentence. “The received tanks were immediately deployed to the southern part of the country, specifically to the disputed Western Sahara region.” Some other commentors added more relevant info, so nice of them.

3. “has received” is indeed misleading, if you’re in high school. No one receives weapons for free, not even Ukraine or Israel. Obviously Morocco paid for them.

How about we engage with the content? They didn’t make up the numbers, so why is Morocco getting more tanks than Ukraine and why do they need so many?

I really think you should stop arguing and start listening.

I think your worries are misplaced. I work for an employee owned cooperative with about 60 employees. I think half of the employees are also owners. There’s still a CEO, chosen by the board of directors, who are elected by the employee-owners. Day to day operational decisions are made by whoever is in charge of the relevant department, just like a shareholder-owned corporation. Bigger decisions, like long term strategy or how to distribute profits among employees, are voted on by all of the employee owners instead of shareholders. It’s been in business for about 20 years and makes enough money to share profits with all employees regardless of their ownership status. So essentially this business operates like any other, but the profits are shared with the employee-owners and employees instead of going to shareholders or insane CEO salaries (compressed pay structure).

Huh, I guess I’m a neo-Brandeisian:

The New Brandeis movement opposes the school of thought in modern antitrust law that antitrust should center on customer welfare (as generally advocated by the Chicago school of economics). Instead, the New Brandeis movement advocates a broader antimonopoly approach that is concerned with the structure of the economy and market conditions necessary to promote vigorous competition.

Capitalists hate capitalism. They don’t want to compete with other firms, they want a monopoly. So it’s like you’re saying to the monopolists, fine, you want to do capitalism? Well then we’re going to jam so much capitalism down your throat you’ll shit free market competition.

They’ll probably get here eventually, if they’re not here already. Granted it’ll be harder for them to control a narrative, but they’ll probably try with bots/paid commentors and complicit moderators.

That can still happen, right? Is there something special about the fediverse that prevents those methods from being used to manipulate the user base’s opinions?