Those would be the extremely moddable games with a good all around base set for replayability, so for me:

• Rimworld
• Mount&Blade bannerlord
• Crusader Kings 3
• Civ 6
• Luanti (and if have to choose a single game for it, Mineclonia I suppose)

As long as I can also archive some amount and variety of mods for each, of course.

If mods aren’t on the table, I think it would still look pretty much the same, except maybe civ 5 in place of 6, and in place of luanti perhaps Witcher 3, or 4 if it manages to release before this thing.

Edit: Actually hold that a bit: I need Stellaris there, especially if mods are ok. But even without. I’d skip luanti/witcher for that.

Yeah, since we have a long history of having been part of the Russian empire. Sweden and Russia warred over our land for centuries. There are a lot of various Finnic tribes within the borders of modern Russia, such as the Mari, the Ingrians and the Karelians. Just to name a few. Before Russia really ramped up their cultural “genocide” (not sure what the word is where they suffocate the cultures and force the languages and traditions not be practiced at threat of jail or such, and moving native Russians to their lands while forcefully spreading the locals across the other lands to be alone and not among their own culture) there were very colorful and lively Finnic traditions quite far, even into Siberia, and with a shared language roots the communication was easy, and as such, trading. It wasn’t until Russia started snuffing out all these other cultures and their members, that the borders and differences became so stark. Before that, it was almost as if they were Finnic lands, though under Russian rule. Modern day Finland was under the same rule at times, too, so in a sense it was just internal movement at those points of time, not even crossing any borders.

It’s a fairly modern and recent development that the differences have become so stark and deep. We only have to look back a couple of centuries and the Finnic tribes across these lands, deep into modern day Russia even, were strong and alive. What we call Russia today, or Finland today, are very recent things. Even Russia has changed by the way of Russification or just suffocating and killing other cultures from its lands, from just what it was a century ago.

But during the Soviet rule, and after it too for a while, it was very common to travel as tourists between us and them. We were very common tourist location, and in the Eastern Finland all the shops had a lot of extra cheese and stuff because so many Russians just on a normal day came to visit and buy the cheese and whatnot. Same went for Russia. The “Suomettuminen” (something probably like Finnification or similar in English, not sure) was a big part of the post-war Finland and USSR, and that meant close relations, even if not really wanted or equal in balances.

Even in the 2020 you read a lot about big Russian money coming into Finland in the form of them buying up vacation places, even whole islands and whatnot. It’s been a bit chilly between us always, even more so after 2014, but it never stopped the somewhat close exchanges of stuff and people. I think 2022 was the final nail, the turning point there. Not sure we ever get back to that type of relation. And honestly, don’t think many want that either. Our relations have always been about self-preservation and not true will to be friendly.

But that is true for all of Europe, and here I’m just giving some tidbits less known to foreigners, there are similar things in every modern day nation and region, so it’s not really useful to know or to compare.

I was originally just commenting on the present contrast there. Not thinking too deep about it.

Well, not much deep green there outside of Greece, which is a country I love precisely for standing out in the region in a brilliant way. But it is true that despite the border lengths not being comparable in length, they have even tougher relations with the deep red neighbor.

Second, there has been a lot of exchange between our nations. It’s not so long that we gained our independence from them in the first place. I would guess it’s been much more extensive for this very reason. But it’s an apples to oranges kind of comparison, and doesn’t make sense to compare even if it wasn’t.

Finland is among the top 5 greens as far as I can tell with a basic eyedrop on the image. Russia is among the deepest reds. So there is nuance in that vs. the balkans especially, that are mostly in the yellow-orange shades.

But either way, just an observation. Not intended to belittle other countries. It is a stark contrast, which I just found noteworthy enough to bring up.

It’s a little bit illuminating seeing the stark contrast of deep green vs deep red at the Northern Russian border, whereas in the more central Europe, or the rest of it for that matter, sees a gradual tend towards the red across the eastern bloc.

That’s a daring thing to be. Such a progressive, healthy country, with all that border with the deep red orcs. But has to be a little bit lonely, too. Not many deep green countries having such stark contrast to a direct neighbor. Not many will understand the extra pressure or weight it carries.

This is a sane take, though I personally do generally tend towards understanding and even valuing the walled garden to some degree. But this is what I’ve always felt underneath it, you found the words.

You make sense, it’s easy to reduce these things into a couple of easy “villains” to point my finger at, but in reality things are always much, much more complex.

For whatever reason, it’s a touchy topic for me and often takes a few steps taken back to see it straight so to say.

Thanks for the perspective!

Fair enough, those are good points.

I might have gotten a little defensive there for no real reason. It’s a thin line to walk, and unfortunately I find myself often approaching the forbidden (and rightly so) lands of some variation or cultural exceptionalism, and even worse, based on nothing actual or concrete, just vague “what-if”s and imagination.

Sorry about all that

I get your sentiment, but I’m talking about Finnic heritage and culture, we have some stuff preserved, though a lot of it warped by Christian stuff bleeding into them, but no real knowledge of what the music around here was like. From the Scandinavians, we have even primary sources and good findings, but I am fairly certain what we had here was much different, just not preserved. A lot of the crusades were from the Scandinavians, former “Vikings”, which means we do have some amount of warped cultural traditions similar to theirs, but that is most likely a result and the outcome of hundred years of crusades, annexation, occupation and conquest. So in a sense it’s true Christianity alone didn’t result in our lost cultural traditions, it was the more powerful cousins we have from the West as well.

But I do not agree that it’s entirely just “grass is greener” kind of situation and that the influence and violence from the faiths and the peoples from the South and the West (and the East!) played no critical part in silencing whatever we used to have around here. If we take your proposal for example, that would mean that we were very alike to the Scandinavians, since those are mostly the “pagan” traditions that remain in some thinned out, distorted ways, here too. But everything, the entirely different language origins, the cultural merging more with the Siberian and Sami peoples on top of our own original foreigness among these Scandinavian neighbors, everything points to it being unlikely our customs were the same. Our religion was entirely different to those of our Western cousins. You would assume the customs, traditions, rites, the music and all, would’ve been entirely different as well, since most of them leaned into those two things: the language (as in the preservation of:) and the all-encompassing nature of faiths of that time as sort of the merged “science”, culture and religion.

But I was vague in my original comment, which probably lead to this tangent. While I’m not an academic in the histories of our culture, I have been interested in it and consuming all kinds of content regarding it (the little we have…) all my life. I feel like I am in line with the current consensus. But maybe not. Take it as you will.

Ah, at more or less frequent time spans I end up searching the internet for all these amazing ritual performances (forgive my ignorance, I am from North Europe so don’t really know what it is exactly or what it should be called) of the Māori.

I get so captured and enchanted by them, it’s so powerful but often also beautiful and somehow extremely sorrowful or whatever emotion the display is intended to signal (or at least ends up signaling to me as a complete ignorant foreigner), I always end up wondering that had Christianity not crusaded our lands and bloodily murdered and genocided our cultures, might we have something equally powerful and captivating to preserve? It’s not a far fetch because we do have a lot of remnants and first party findings on the old Norwegian and Danish and Swedish cultures of around the Northern European Iron Age for example, that had similar sort of rituals or even just musical tastes and conventions. Our peoples neighbored those, though were distinct and entirely different on most fronts, though a lot of people today fancy conflating us with the “Vikings”. We were their looting ground for the most part and any influence from their culture on ours would’ve been likely equally bloodily brought. But I digress.

Had the southerners not crusaded and killed most of us off, snuffed out the light of our culture, forced everyone brutally to follow whatever flavor of Christ each crusade was bringing, maybe I shouldn’t feel so amazed by the amazing cultures far away. But maybe we didn’t have anything as powerful in the first place, who knows at this point…

But these shows of force and unity are always so captivating, I end up bingeing videos of them for hours on end, even if I don’t really know what they are about and what each of them mean.

I love this. It’s so close to my heart somehow, feels so close to home, yet it’s a faraway thing.

I thought you meant the short pants. I love them. I’m so sweaty all the time and long pants feel uncomfortable on my legs even if loose. Only wear them when necessary. Shorts are a godsend.

you might as well flirt with anyone you want at wherever you see them, but do it politely and move on if she says no.

Yeah that’s about all you can do in reality.

Just remember not to be persistent if it feels off immediately, do not violate anyone’s space more than necessary (do not go for physical contact as a rule of thumb, strike up a conversation instead, if unsure of social rules) and most importantly, listen to them and try your best to take the hint if they can’t find a way to be direct and instead attempt to politely fend you off.

But there are a lot of social rules and cues everyone should be aware of, which definitely makes it hard for those unable to feel them. It doesn’t mean you can’t try your darnest though. Intent is important, so as long as you mean no harm, and do not break the obvious rules of personal space and no is no, nothing irreversible will happen.

It is and will be awkward, but it often is for us too who can sense and understand (at least most of) the “rules”. That’s just being human.

The worst is if you overthink it. Just figure if it’s appropriate and follow some sensible rules of thumb if it’s hard to sense the appropriateness, and then be the awkward clumsy you that most of everyone is in context like this.

Even if you radiate charm, are a natural with words and gestures, are in perfect harmony with the ambiguous rules of social interactions etc, you’re bound to misread people and situations sooner rather than later, and that’s just something that happens.

Being human is… very human. That is, awkward and clumsy and often disappointing. The upside is that it’s also surprising, exciting, invigorating and so full of possibilities and such joy, if you just manage to get past the also very human aversion to any potential awkwardness or disappointments.

This became a weird rant. But as someone with adhd and some weird natural drive for other humans that I haven’t been able to understand myself, I do often fail to think things through and approach people without much thinking. I have the benefit of naturally not overthinking it until after the fact. The world has never ended and I’ve lived a colorful, socially rich life, and for whatever it’s worth, I’ve not ended up being perceived as a creep or a threat or whatever, at least not widely so. So that tells me it’s pretty hard to cause any real damage to yourself or others as long as you’re respectful, aware of the dynamic and even if not fully aware of the social cues and rules, follow a set of your own rules of thumb that you find result in socially acceptable behaviour.

Don’t let the fear of unknown or being ridiculed or whatever block you from having meaningful social interactions. Even the most charismatic or naturally social and talkative of us end up in awkward situations and sometimes end up disappointed or ashamed for reading the cues wrong. Stuff happens. That’s life. For everyone.

But just try and be mindful of the place, the time, the surroundings, and do not violate anyone’s personal space more than necessary, and take no as an answer immediately if even hinted at. Might sound like even that’s a lot, but in time, with practice, as with just about everything else we do, these things will start coming naturally and built in in our everyday goings on.

Trust in yourself if you mean no harm. That’s about it. No one can fault someone with good intentions and respectful manners, if they keep their space and don’t persist when told or hinted no. You might get ashamed or even shocked for how wrong you read stuff, but again, that happens to everyone, even if rarely. We are all humans, and there’s a baseline level of awkwardness and inability to really read anyone’s mind that comes with the territory. So just try and trust yourself in that.

Well initially it was. Later down this thread in my second reply I was just trying to point out why it got the reception it got. As I said initially, I agree with the sentiment, it was just not well put at first, even I misread it. I get you now.

You should’ve probably responded with something like this from the start, but I’m glad it was my misunderstanding your message, not you advocating for what I, along with some others apparently, interpreted from it.

Sorry about the tone in my first reply. I hope you see it came from a well meaning place in defense of safety in terms of staying alive and unharmed, not in opposition to being bold, as the inverse of “safe”.

We lose a lot in the translation when our only medium is text, and we are all from across the globe, trying to communicate in a language that is foreign to me and many others, I bet. But c’est la vie.

Please stay safe, AOC

No, don’t.

That is a direct quote from you.

What would you yourself deem “not being safe” to mean in context of people in general? Now what would you take it to mean when the commenter you quoted there said that the opposition is dangerous and deranged, hoping AOC stay safe, and you responding hoping AOC not to stay safe. In the same context where the clear danger and derangement is stated? In fact, quoting the very comment doing just that?

You can keep acting shocked and mistreated as though everyone around you is stupid or malicious or both… or, you know, you could maybe consider that maybe whatever way other people interpret your words might just be reasonable and you could perhaps stand to benefit from admitting that, then elaborating what you meant, instead of lashing out on everyone and playing a victim with overly dramatized tone that is pretty much guaranteed to get people confused and vocal about your behavior.

Just saying.

You can tell yourself what you want, but I agree with your view, and still had to downvote just to reduce the toxicity hogging space from up top. I use the votes as signal boosters / signal dampeners. Lower voted, for most people, end up in the bottom, where most don’t reach them.

Some people don’t want to hear it, because they know it by heart already. Some because it’s not productive and only serves to lower morale. Some, because that’s just defeatist and/or escalatory. Whatever the reason, I’m certain most people do not need to hear that shit. What purpose would it even serve? Things are not as dire as that and you know it too, you are just being sensational for whatever reason you’ve conjured yourself. I even agree that things have to hurt before meaningful action starts to happen at a meaningful level, but hoping specifically someone to get hurt and/or not stay safe is just you being a prick. Nobody needs to be exposed to that.

That is naive and reduces the entire argument to black and white.

The world is not black and white. Its not even shades of gray. It can not be simplified like that, even less the way you attempt to.

Paradox of tolerance and whatnot… It’s not ironic. Not only is it compatible, it is essential to its existence.

Knowing humans, this is probably the best way to ensure someone goes experimenting like that.

Future people find warning signs and a sealed container. You think they would not open it just to sate their curiosity alone, and once they find human remains there… you know they are at most some hours away from inhaling the sweet air of experiments and discovery.

Now. Especially if I’d upgrade to a life of an average person! I have adhd and recurring clinical depression that cause all sorts of problems, and have done so for all my life. I assume the average would be not to have those, at least not together, I hope. (Edit: but on the other hand the average person would have significantly worse situation, forgot to check my privilege in that regard, so thought I’d explicitly state my acknowledgement here)

But even if I continued as myself, I would 100% choose what I have over a circa 1500 monarch. That’s not even tough a choice to make.

The only reason I can see anyone would choose the monarch life is if they enjoyed (undeserved and unwarranted) authority and power over others. I loathe the concept to begin with, so it’s really not even a choice.

Would I be dead rather than a monarch at that time? Now that one is tougher. I’d probably rather check out the world at that point of time, maybe attempt some sort of progressive rule, but I’d be dead before I can get anything meaningful done, I bet. If not by rivals desiring the crown, then just the lack of antibiotics and whatnot. And if I retain my adhd and depression, yeah, I’m fairly likely to just off myself before soon…

Edit: Continuing from the initial edit above; While I’d probably be mentally more stable and healthy, I’d probably have a lot of other problems that I would rather not deal with. So all in all, I would hope there would be an option for things to stay as they are. I am privileged, living in a privileged situation, healthy other than mentally, so I believe I have it better than any average at any point of history, and furthermore, better than even the richest monarchs back in the time. It is sad that this is the reality, but then again, I did not choose this life, and I suppose the appropriate response to being forced to it, is acknowledge the privileges and try and make the world just a little bit better with what little resources I have as an individual and a member of several social circles and hierarchies.

Rain. Or, rather, the sweet earthy smell of wet moss or grass and decomposition and the rest of it that is far beyond any human descriptions and impossible to even approach with words 🥹

Combined with the sound, it’s the most divine state a world can exist in, period.

That would be entirely normal and unavoidable sounds of life that just about anyone ought to be able to live with and sleep with. How did they manage when they lived with their parents? Roommates? Wherever else before you? I can’t think of a single way to live without minor sounds of bumps and such, unless they lived all their life in the woods, alone, far from everyone else (and even then the nature is full of sounds…).

But then again I am not saying it necessarily has to be malicious or unhealthy like that, it might just be lacking context for me here. But it just doesn’t add up, does it? How do they sleep when it storms outside? Are there no traffic or neighbors close by? I can’t imagine you could be so clumsy as to be more noisy than the general “silence” pretty much anywhere I can think of, every time you are awake past him. That sounds like internalized (and unreasonable or outright false) blame to me. But then again I don’t know you or them or the situation.

Stay safe friend.