Thanks, that is good factual information to have.

Still, would losing 100 or 200 coins make headlines these days when thousands got lost and stolen in what makes the news (Silkroad, Mt. Gox, etc.) ?

Not a single someone, he's probably mention it. But how about 100,000 individual someones, each of whom mined (on average) 10 or so coins? That's a few thousand bucks these days, not something that would make headlines beyond your Facebook page.

Exactly.

I hate paying taxes as much as everyone, but I'm not super-rich, so I don't have options to avoid it. Once you go above a certain income class, your tax burden drops, in both relative and absolute values, because you can make use of loopholes that normal people can't.

Corporations are the worst of it all. As they can split up, merge and do other trickery that physical humans can't, they can exploit the system to the maximum effect. And since everyone else does it, they almost have a duty to do so, because otherwise their shareholders will grill them about it.

The problem is that the tax systems allow this, which is caused by countries competing against each other to attract corporations. Which, if you are able to see it for a moment from outside the pot in which you're slowly being boiled, is quite insane and perverted.

As long as the countries of the world readily sell out to corporations and super-rich, nothing will change. Only when they realize that (at least yet) they have the tanks and the guns and the corporations don't and maybe the power-relationship should be the other way around, and then work together to fight the parasites, this will stop. All it needs would be a world-wide agreement to, say, leverage a fixed % of revenue from every corporation, no exceptions, no loopholes, no special deals.

I agree in principle, though not in degree. Let's be honest here: All advertisement is psychological warfare, and it is very, very imbalanced. It's millions of dollars in research and design vs. the usually untrained mind.

However, in the game there is also immersion, which is intentionally abused, and a situation that was artificially constructed. It's more like the soda stand in the theme park which is intentionally placed at exactly the distance from the intentionally way-too-salty french fries stand at which you realize that you're quite thirsty.

This is what we all hear all the time when it comes to advertisement, and I'm quite certain the advertisement experts are giggling so much they can hardly catch a breath. This false belief is one of the core reasons advertisement is still legal and not very heavily regulated. It's the Emperor's New Clothes situation - as long as that meme is out there, most people won't admit that they are, in fact, influenced by advertisement.

But you are. More than you believe. And claiming you aren't only proves denial, not freedom.

Uh, no we aren't.

Windows XP was released in October 2001. That's half a year after the initial release of OS X (March 2001). In fact, by the time XP came out, OS X was already on 10.1 (released in September 2001).
MacOS 9 is a full two years older, it was released in October 1999.

No, your example is actually a good example for the evilness of "f2p".

Of course you could just walk away and not drop any money. It's not like they put a gun to your head. Except that psychologically, that's exactly what they are doing. They are putting you into a situation where you are a) drawn in and b) stand more to lose in time and effort than in money.

This is extortion, plain and simple. These games are intentionally designed to put you into these situations so you part with your money.

Or did you drink that Progressive kool-aid about caring?

What can I say? I'm a soft touch when it comes to human beings, like that Palestinian dude with the sandals from 2000 years ago.

You know, the community organizer.

Apparently I need to repeat this fact: companies that make a net positive contribution to the Treasury in no way meet the definition of "subsidized."

Look up "externalities".

Please don't make up your own definition of "subsidy." A subsidy is a payment that allows an unprofitable enterprise to continue operating.

Let me ask you, would you call it a "subsidy" if a state government allows a company to withhold employees state taxes and then let's the company keep them?

The problem is, GTA 5 requires investment, vision, creativity and work. Those things aren't part of the corporate model any more.

Just put up a game engine and call it an "early access", "MMO", "co-op", F2P and charge people for breathing.

Obama can be labeled the *most successful* president ever.

Unless one happens to care about progressive issues, in which case he's a flaming wreck of a president.

And Hillary is in the wings waiting to carry the flaming wreck torch. I almost wish there was a single viable Republican national candidate. Jack Kemp, even, but he'd just get primaried to hell for being a "french Republican". I wouldn't vote for him, but it might bring the debate back from the land of the surreal.

I know it's shooting fish in a barrel... with a shotgun... and they're already dead... but:

Look to OS X on how updates are done right. Why does MS always steal the somewhat-nice parts from Apple and never the really cool ones?

Upgrade OS on the same machine: Insert disc or download image. Click installer. Wait. Reboot. Done. All your data and configuration is intact, down to the desktop background and even the applications you had running will be open again after the reboot.

Move to a new machine: Get new computer. Turn on. It asks if you want to copy your stuff over from an old machine, so say yes. Connect (WLAN, cable, whatever). Wait. Done. New machine looks exactly like the old one, including all your applications, data and configuration.

So, it is technologically possible. Makes you wonder why one of the biggest IT companies on the planet is incapable of doing it this way.

Much of our collapse is due to the States being diminished as political objects.

Well, we did sort of fight a war over that, and your Confederate heroes lost.

Let's be honest: ultimately, the States were diminished as political objects because they just didn't know how to behave like human beings.

Slave patrols, segregation, Jim Crow, etc. And with recent efforts to disenfranchise poor and minority voters, discriminate against women and gays and continue to fly the symbol of treason and treachery in America as part of their state flags and license plates, it appears they still don't know how to behave.

The effort to stop direct elections of senators is just another of Mark Levin's "Republicans Lose Elections" amendments, which many of you believe have become necessary because...Republicans lose elections. Go down the list of the Liberty Amendments and you'll see that it's got little to do with "restoring the Constitution" and everything to do with, "Man, people hate us, so how can we get back in power?"

At some point, developers will realize that there are people like me who will gladly pay full-price for a great game that gives good value.

I do not play F2P games because I find them creepy. Even the best, like Planetside 2, leave a bad taste in my mouth.

No, it isn't. free-to-play is, which is something else entirely. Most F2P games are considerably more expensive then traditional games if you buy the equivalent of what would've been in a box. It's the razor-blades business all over again. It is full of lies and deceit and psychological warfare on the customer who is lured in with "free" and then shaken down for every penny with addictive (instead of fun) gameplay, click-bait and carrot-and-stick tactics.

It is, in two words, distasteful and dishonest.