I think I've always been afraid of "the world ending" or "TEOTWAWKI" (the end of the world as we know it) - and specifically being around to witness and experience it, and see everyone I know die or suffer, along with myself. I've long dreamt of nightmares in which apocalyptic events happen like a gigantic megatsunami, or a collision between Earth and an astral body, asteroids and comets, etc. I know that the way the world eventually ends is unlikely to be so "glamorous" and "epic" - more like a combination of subtle, insidious factors and poor human decisions which collectively bring about human extinction or geocide - going out with a whimper, not a bang. But I think I have some combination of doomsday phobia (why isn't there a proper name seriously?), tsunamiphobia and megalophobia, probably other phobias. The ending of the movie "Melancholia" freaked me out so much - yeah maybe I shouldn't watch stuff like that, but it just resonated with thoughts and dreams I'd already had for a long time.

So before anyone tells me my fears are just irrational and the world won't end - while I truly appreciate the sentiment, and attempt to comfort, that strategy sadly just doesn't work for me anymore. It doesn't make me any less anxious, and can even increase my worry for reasons I'll explain. Sometimes convincing myself of that belief actually calmed me down, but I am increasingly aware that it's a form of self-deception and denial, at least in my view. Especially the often deployed normalcy bias ("it hasn't happened for all this time thus far; therefore it won't happen") - which I know is a logical fallacy.

I know about the scientific facts and I won't pretend they don't exist - and honestly, I think most humans are in denial of what scientists predict will happen in the future if we don't change course immediately (which is unrealistic), as well as even if we do. I think the solution has to be based in honesty, and accepting these facts. The reality is that we don't know what will happen, the future is uncertain, and we could lose everything; and there are even reasons to think that could be quite likely in the near future, as well as definite eventually and inevitably, the denial of which just makes me more worried that humans aren't taking existential threats seriously and doing what we can to prevent them.

Humans are destroying the place we call home, and the only habitable environment we currently have. James Cameron has said that the 3 big threats to humanity and the planet right now are human-caused climate change, nuclear war, and in-development artificial superintelligence. I tend to agree (I'm vegan & plant based for the planet like him), but I'm also aware of other low-risk, high-stakes threats like asteroids and comets, volcanoes (collapses or supereruptions/volcanic winters), and even an alien invasion, as far fetched as it sounds - and I'm a lot less worried about that last one to be fair. I think humans should be doing a lot of things very differently, and I'm worried that the real, documented problem of declining intelligence (reverse Flynn effect), the spread and near-universal acceptability of misinformation and rejection of science, and some kind of more subtle, less-farcical "Idiocracy" or "Don't Look Up" scenario appearing increasingly likely, are going to create the conditions for an utter disaster in one or more ways. I feel like the way humans are right now, we can't stop ourselves and our greedy short-sighted mentalities, and we are headed for complete and utter doom and destruction.

The fact that the new Khamenei of Iran has a belief that he is prophesied to bring about the apocalypse - holding more extreme and radical views than his father and being enraged and vindictive about what the US has recently done - does not give me peace. Nor does the spread and mutation of zoonotic viruses and antibiotic resistance, the fact that scientists predict the consequences of climate and environmental destruction will bring peril to nations and force mass migration and galvanize resource wars, even in the best case scenarios.

And recently I am starting to get super utterly freaked out by AI. Scientists predict the greatest risk of human extinction right now is not even climate change or nuclear war, but it's artificial general intelligence or even superintelligence. And this is at odds with the beliefs of the general public, who generally dismiss it as sci-fi, forgetting that many things that happened in sci-fi or futurist writing later came true, not to mention the reality of what humans are building and what AI researchers and tech leaders are speculating about it. I think the current focus on the problems of narrow AI is a huge distraction. You're worried about job loss and the theft and replacement of human-created art? Give me a break. I understand those are problems, but holy hell, put it into perspective, and please at least ALSO give some focus and attention to the p-doom (probability of a "doomsday scenario") from AI. Muh muh water use - says someone eating a cheeseburger which has many times the resource use and environmental impact of AI. AI is not even bad for the environment overall, while it has higher local impacts - that part is true. The same resistance to new technology was said for Electric Vehicles. It can actually improve efficiency by orders of magnitude and replace far less sustainable physical, manual, legacy systems - potentially helping solve climate change (though I am still generally against its development for ethical and pragmatic reasons) and is already lower impact than most other things people are doing today. Again, not a non-issue, but a massive ironic distraction from what we need to be focusing on - the alignment issue. AIs are increasingly disaligned with human interests and there are potential catastrophic outcomes that can result from that as they become more powerful and intelligent than us. Value lock-in is also an issue - humans' current values are honestly terrible and self-absorbed, and teaching AI to treat other, less-intelligent beings as disposable like we treat other animals can give them moral authority to do the same to us. Everyone's denial around this subject, and others, just makes me less hopeful for the future and more pessimistic and worried/anxious. I'm not trying to start an argument, but when everyone seems to disagree with you about something, it's kind of necessary to put in some disclaimers.... otherwise I just get attacked by everyone. :(

Note: I'm playing on PS5.

This game has a few technical problems or strange design choices to do with menu, settings and the save system, but the gameplay (and of course soundtrack) is pretty fantastic imo.

Glad I'm not the only one who experienced this issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/HaloCE/s/LZG3gF4CPi

and beyond that weird phenomenon >!(not the voice over option itself but the confusing way it's implemented, being in sound menu instead of accessibility, and being forced on by default and not giving you the option to turn it on or off right at the start, then coming back on automatically, for me anyway)!<, the menu is just misleadingly and awkwardly designed. for example, in co op at least, you have to press "New Game" and select a difficulty again each time in order to Load Game; the same New Game button that displays when you actually havent played before is displayed permanently. it never says load. ive seen people posting already that they thought it wasnt saving their game for that reason and were afraid to press new game again.

But these obstacles are easily resolved once you understand how.

I have 2 more pertinent problems that I thus far haven't found a solution for.

1. Mission Objective description text size is tiny, thin and white with no outline or background in co op, making it hard to see

Playing on co op mode and the screen is kind of small and far away and the text becomes tiny when the screen is split between 2 players. Using accessibility settings to increase the text size universally or for HUD doesn't seem to change this text, only noticeably the menu text gets bigger. Even adding a black text background and changing text color doesn't seem to work - that changes other text like dialogue subtitles but not this text. This mission objective text is the text that is most important to see arguably. I can't read it so I just work out what the objective is based on following the location markers when they're displayed >!(which I switched to red and increased the size of to maximum to make them more easy to see, and did the same with other-player marker and made that yellow, but it's still not great visibility on light game environments - pro tip: facing Master Chief's camera down at the floor or a dark surface helps to see it more easily)!<, but that's really annoying and makes it hard and frustrating to play. Any ideas on how to fix this? I'm considering trying makeshift solutions like downscaling my PS5 overall console resolution or splitting the screen vertically rather than horizontally. Great work, so much for accessibility features...

EDIT: Found a semi-workaround. When selecting the game difficulty in the co-op "new game" menu (meaning load/resume game because stupid), there is a feature called custom game presets or something. In those settings, you can change the Co-Op HUD, but you can't make the text much bigger. Apparently "Default" is larger than "Medium" (confusing) and there's no Large option. More usefully though, you can increase "background opacity" behind all HUD features on a per-player basis, which essentially adds a black background, including thankfully behind the mission objective text, and combined with "Default" size that makes it slightly easier to see, but it unfortunately also adds black boxes around all the other things on the screen which obstructs your vision. So in order to slightly increase the visibility of the text you need to see, you decrease visibility of the actual game visuals. Not a very ideal solution.

2. No clear permanent checkpoints

This one is almost game breaking. And to be fair I dont remember whether these problems existed in the previous versions of the games or not, but it sucks anyway. The problem: It doesn't tell you when you reach the next "Rally Point", and there doesn't seem to be any way in the pause menu to determine which Rally Point you're up to either, which appears to be the only time that a checkpoint actually saves permanently, in such a way that it restores when you quit and then reload the same save again. The only options to continue from are the 3 Rally Points per level/etc, depending on which one you've gotten up to. So, most of the "checkpoints" are only semi-permanent and restore you from them while you're still in the gaming session, but will make you lose the progress if you quit. That's misleading enough as it is, but fine, I understand that game mechanic (older Ratchet & Clank games have a similar feature with "continue points"); what makes it really hard to get around is the fact that there's no way of distinguishing these semi-checkpoints (maybe I'd call them "soft checkpoints") from permanent, full, "hard checkpoints" aka Rally Points. The only time it clearly tells you you've reached a permanent checkpoint is when you reach the next level altogether (Rally Point 1) and it displays the name of the level on the screen. That leads to a lot of lost progress and replaying sections of the game if you quit before the next level not knowing if you got to the nearest Rally Point or not, and I'm wondering if I would have to plan ahead by researching or watching let's plays to try to determine where all of the Rally Points actually occur, which seems complex and tedious, and also might spoil the game or story.

Any help is much appreciated. I hope bug fixes come out addressing these issues soon.

Just wondering. I'm sure it will be a great new game. But there was already a fourth and fifth mainline game in the original series (Enter the Dragonfly and A Hero's Tail). Is it just because a lot of people don't like those games very much, or because A Realm Beyond will be made by the same studio (Toys for Bob) that made the Reignited Trilogy, and it's predicted to be a more worthy successor to the original three (like Crash 4)?

And even with Crash 4, I wondered why they went with that name given the existence of A Wrath of Cortex, Twinsanity, Titans and Mind Over Mutant... but it's interesting that unlike Crash, for this upcoming Spyro game it doesn't have the 4 in the name, yet people were calling it Spyro 4 before it got announced and still calling it that now 🐲

Even people ive never talked to before... then as soon as I leave because it becomes dead, I see the chat start picking up again... its so depressing... can they sense that I'm awkward or something? Was gibts? (What gives in German... yeash probably cos i say weird shiyt like that)

Saw a concerning post here and I just want to give vegans some more reasons to be positive. I know this situation is messed up and looks dire. And I won't deny that. But I'll also tell you part of why I'm not thinking as negatively anymore - at least trying not to. And this isn't about one person, it's about truth.

Vystopia is incredibly rough. I think we all go through this process once discovering the truth about humanity's severely broken relationship with other animals, or realizing and reckoning with it. I've followed a lot of vegan creators for quite a while since becoming vegan, coming across the idea of vystopia and resonating with that mindset. While a lot made me feel less hopeless about the state of the world and how animals are treated, it usually wasn't enough to allow me to accept and make peace with this reality. In fact sometimes it just left me feeling even less hopeful and encouraged, especially when vegans have a conversation with someone who appears to entirely lack any sense or sort of empathy, humility, accountability, knowledge or real intelligence, over and over and over again, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. They're all braindead psychopathic robots, you think. No one will ever change - not enough to end these barbaric traditions anyway, although every individual does make a difference. It's all doom and gloom. And the trolls and reactionaries also tell you this. Humans will never stop "eating meat". That's what they want to believe, and what they want us to believe so we stop trying to change the status quo. I think we have good reason to think they're all factually wrong (without beginning to even consider their morality), just like people who said slavery would never be abolished.

Chris Bryant PhD, of his own company Bryant Research, is different (make sure to include the "PhD" or it might not come up). His platform is almost pure "hopium" for vegans - but without the implication that there's anything fantastical, unrealistic, utopian or magical thinking about the genuine reasons to be hopeful and positive about animals and their standing in this world. Honestly, this guy deserves so much more of a following.

Here's his YouTube: https://youtube.com/@chrisbryantphd (I promise I'm not Chris Bryant self-promo'ing, hope these kinds of posts are allowed in the interest of helping other vegans feel more positive about things).

He actually has a few videos on the topic of vystopia incidentally: https://youtu.be/mqfmD4losbM , https://youtu.be/T7EYDBWTi2A .

But while his advice on how to deal with these feelings of despair and righteous indigation (where it applies) about what happens to animals everywhere, and to transmute them into a positive force for helping them is very beneficial, and even backed by research from Clare Mann who coined the term vystopia (doing activism and connecting with other vegans were among the most effective strategies reported to improve the mental wellbeing of those experiencing vystopia), that's actually not what helped me the most in being a lot less "vystopic" after watching his content. Rather, it's largely his highly evidence-based predictions about the future.

We all say that the world will stop mercilessly dominating other animal species one day and be "vegan" (or whatever it's called if we even use that word anymore, once not using animals as a means of production is just normalized – since no one calls themselves slavery, rape or murder abolitionists today even though it's now normal to not enslave, rape and murder humans). I think some of us believe that via faith or blind hope or even a coping strategy. It's too unbearable to accept the notion that things will never change on a large scale, whether or not we live to see that change. Others may believe it via some sort of well reasoned philosophical idea or political theory or predicated on historical precedents and patterns (e.g. the "Williams Thesis" on how human slavery was actually abolished in most of the world). And these are all entirely understandable and valid thoughts to have. But others prefer to see data in front of them to believe something. Chris Bryant is a numbers person. He wants cold hard facts, and he knows we have them. It's very undeniably clear that the mass exploitation of animals will end, probably sooner than most people in the world think, and possibly even sooner than most vegans think, especially here.

A disclaimer about Chris: Yes, he focuses on factory farming and sees that as the main issue - but not the only one. Yes, he advocates for the passing of welfare laws and restrictions too (I know, that's controversial, even if it actually could massively hurt and shrink industries and the number of victims they're able to create, and compounded with its own unsustainability, help bring about the end of animal farming and exploitation altogether). But he is an abolitionist. He wants people to be vegan. He wants animal exploitation to be abolished. And he thinks it will be – even debating some of the highest-level industry professionals about this topic and constantly "mogging" them on LinkedIn, humbling them with undeniable evidence about the projected future trajectories of our animal industrial complex and its alternatives.

How will animal exploitation come to an end? Well, just listen to him. I can't condense it here. But basically, we have very good evidence technology is going to just blow away animal farming as well as pretty much all other uses of animals in the forseeable future, probably in many of our lifetimes. His own prediction I believe is somewhere around 2040 or 2050 for factory farming specifically - with remaining forms possibly taking longer, although actually engaging with the moral issue of humans' treatment of other animals is much easier when people are already not currently participating in it, which is likely part of why campaigns like Veganuary are so effective, and so many people become ethical vegans after initially trying a plant based diet for health or environmental reasons – or why often people make the switch after simply trying some good vegan food and realizing it can be incredibly tasty, if personal pleasure was actually their main concern or justification for what we do to the animals.

I'm not going to go into all the evidence here, but plant based meat, cellular meat, and precision fermentation products are going to make it as obsolete, impractical and absurd to farm animals as it is to ride horses everywhere today rather than driving vehicles, or to use animal urine for urea and ammonia - essential chemicals used in various domains of civilization - instead of synthetic forms as they almost exclusively are today. They are going to be cheaper, healthier, and even tastier than their animal-derived counterparts, and soon. In some cases, it's already happening. We even have data showing that most people would be willing to switch to those alternatives once they become cheap enough, or close enough to replicating "what" they're used to consuming/using - which they definitely will. Everyone has a "price" - that is, what their criteria is for convincing them to leave animals alone and preserve the environment. What will it take for people to give up animal "products"? Well it's pretty clear. This is what it will take, and luckily, this is happening right now.

Just have hope, vegans. Unless something completely out of left field happens, we will find our way out of this mess. There is a clear path before us. The slaughter age, the era of animal sacrifices and commodification by humanity will be over one day. Let's enjoy watching these hellish industries and delicate cultural ideologies collapse as we celebrate in animal sanctuaries with vegan beverages.

One more inspiring video (not Chris Bryant): Ethan Brown, CEO of Beyond Meat (sounds negative, but it is positive) ‐ https://youtu.be/QrOiZ5HwriY

Cronk and Zephyr were such a cool and likeable pair of robotic allies introduced in Tools of Destru**ction. Spoilers for the Future series: >!However, they sadly both perished in the opening of Into the Nexus, which has got to be the darkest, saddest and most tragic moment of the entire franchise (unless I'm forgetting, please let me know if any other moment has it beat). It almost felt out of place with the tone.!<

Anyway, as great as they were, they weren't the first pair of robotic allies! Merc and Greene were the OGs, who starred in "Gladlocked" (the name I call Gladiator / Deadlocked since both names are cool and more or less familiar to different people depending on their region) as Ratchet's travelling companions and protectors, taking an even bigger role in the single player gameplay (replaced by player 2/Alpha Clank in co-op). Merc was also a wisecracking joker and tease and the banter between them was like old friends who love to rag on each other. Please never kill these guys! But also, can they come back and take a more active role in the series again since Cronk and Zephyr >!FUCKING DIED?!!<

...If you're actually a vegan who does care WHO (animals are sentient beings, not objects) someone's actions affect, and how and why (e.g. exploited & killed for unnecessary products, and not just for 'meat' or other animal-derived foods either, but other things like animal-derived clothing too, or other forms of animal use & entertainment, etc).

They just assumed you don't care about any of that stuff because you never spoke out about it - contrary to the "preachy" stereotype seemingly used to effectively silence animal advocacy - because you know if you did you would get an onslaught of toxic energy your way.

It feels like a backhanded compliment. On one hand, I want to say thank you for calling me a "cool vegan", I guess. But on the other hand, it feels like by validating that sentiment (that a vegan is only "cool" if they basically stay quiet and don't talk about the real issues everyone ignores and reasons that they actually became vegan, and plant based, e.g. animals & the environment) it's throwing the people under the bus whom I actually support passionately, the activists and advocates who are braver than I am and put themselves out there to defend animals in spite of resistance and ridicule.

Kind of a toughie. what would you say?

Anyone ever consider how nursery rhymes promote animal exploitation? Kinda like a form of propaganda and social conditioning. It makes sense given how children are conditioned into a system where using other animals and treating them as resources is normalized. Still kind of jarring to reconcile this with our own upbringing.

Baa Baa black sheep have you any wool? "yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.." one for this person, one for that person, a sheep's role is to use their body to serve all the humans - presenting as consentual the one-sided relationship where humans forcefully dominate sheep and farm them for their wool, despite many of the practices being things they would never agree to or want to happen to them, and the fact they only produce excess wool because we deliberately breed them to overgrow their skin, causing them infections and resulting in painful procedures, before they eventually get killed and sold to the meat industry to remain profitable. yeah, great... I guess the reality is not very child friendly, yet its dressed up as something purely harmonious and innocuous

Mary had a little lamb little lamb little lamb - why does she "have" the lamb? what is she doing with the lamb? is she or are her parents perhaps raising the lamb to be slaughtered for lamb meat or mutton, possibly after being mutilated and repeatedly restrained and shorn for wool, and having their babies, parents, friends and families all taken from them? So wholesome and innocent... (I will note this one maybe expresses a kind of affection for the animals, despite also most likely being in the context of using them as a means of production, as caring for animals and treating them as a resource all get mixed up together in childrens' naive minds - it's contradictory and confusing to compartmentalize harm and kindness to the same beings like that - but it does remind you that people do usually have some positive values in relation to animals, it just gets distorted and corrupted when adhering to the norms of the exploitative reality of humans' relationship with other animals).

Old macdonald had a farm... here an oink, there an oink, everywhere an oink oink... everywhere he goes there are vast numbers of animals being farmed in captivity, unable to engage in a free life, manipulated and used, treated as a commodity/property and a unit of production, and destined for a slaughterhouse (probably in a gas chamber after a long arduous journey in a truck, at the end of which activists will run to give them a few drops of water through small cracks of light in their last day of life) because humans, including you and your parents, want to consume unnecessary products that not only are implicated in severe animal cruelty but also the destruction of the natural world, and the degradation of our own health. now THAT's a good nursery rhyme... not

Does anyone wish that the "drop" or "crescendo" in the theme song still happened at the moment during the opening sequence visuals when the apple hits the ground?

The way that the song reaches its most powerful, expressive point as complemented by the visuals was very effective. BOOM! APPLE!

That was the case for the first 2 seasons, and while I enjoy the new opening sequence and remix of the music for season 3, it seems like it takes a little longer to get to that point in the song now, so it reaches and passes the apple hitting the ground (which is also symbolically rotten) before the music peaks and while it's still building, in a way that sounds disappointing and anticlimactic for a delay of a few extra bars before the drop comes in at a later moment, and feels less earned and even a little confusing/jarring...

Now it's like "apple falling... and...!!!–nothing. oh... uh... wait for it... wait for it... BOOM! wait what?"

This is a very minor thing to not make a big deal of, but it affects the experience of the intro and the hype effect of it (imagine if a clown noise played instead of the peak of Game of Thrones theme or whatever). If only someone made an edit of the new intro that re-times the clips so that the visual and audio climaxes are lined up and occur at the same time...

Yes, the play will be best to experience live, but it's quite impossible for many people to travel, acquire a ticket and see the production firsthand. It also apparently will only be shown for a few months without much travel notice, further limiting the window of opportunity for a large number of (free)folks. For accessibility to the general public and greater worldwide success, it would require an alternative distribution method.

With this in mind, what is your plan, and broadly what do you think is the franchise's plan for allowing international fans to experience at least the story (if not the play, but ideally the play itself)?

It seems like there would be 4 main avenues:

● There could be other productions of the same play - but they would need to be almost all over the world in major locations to allow even just the majority of people a chance to see it, as if it was like a movie in theatres everywhere (kind of like the planned *Aegon's* *Conques**t* film).

● There could be an adaptation of the play - such as a movie - and also for the whole history leading up to it and Robert's Rebellion (which is apparently detailed in the as-yet unpublished *Fire & Blood* volume 2 book), if it doesn't already get covered in flashforwards of the *House of the Dragon* (which is primarily adapting parts of volume 1) or *A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms* TV shows.

● There could be an official, professionally filmed digital release of the play - whether or not they adapt the story in cinematic form, this might be the best way for a global audience to experience the original play production and with the original actors.

● There could be unofficial, audience-filmed digital recordings of the play that end up shared online - I understand we probably can't talk much about that, but it's a reality to acknowledge, and especially if those aforementioned routes aren't taken, it seems inevitable provided an audience interest to see it, especially if it performs well critically.

What would be your preferred option, and what do you think is most likely to happen?

just wondering. this is one of those things where its like if you like one thing, you'll most likely like the other as well because it's the same type of thing, so I just wonder what the rationale is behind depriving yourself of something you would probably like.

all jokes aside, From is a TV show by some of the same creators as Lost, and while there have been a number of other shows by Lost creators, this one seems the most similar in its genre and intention, being a "mystery box" or "puzzle box" show like Lost, even having Harold Perrineau (Michael from Lost) as the main character, soundtraack being similar, and the creators deliberately aiming to avoid some complaints people made about the ending of Lost not answering enough questions or whatever (who said that, really? i never said that.), anywho.

I get that its not exactly the same as Lost, maybe not as great, but, it has a huge following, 4 seasons in, season 5 will be the final one, if it's got good reception and its kind of similar to Lost then what are you waiting for?

Do we get Croc 2

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did big boy do well enough

Guessing for a sub dedicated to the film some have probably seen it 10 or 20 times. Who's seen it the most times??! Be honest.

Currently watching it for "only" the third time (first time with my dad, who's a musician and loved the sequence where it blends the whole history of Black music together), but it made me think how almost endlessly rewatchable this film is. I'm still noticing more details and paying more attention to certain scenes I wasn't as focused on the first 2 times.

First 2 times I'll confess, were almost back to back (second time the next morning), and the first time I had taken a whole heap of hallucinogenic mushrooms by accident. I wasn't tripping too hard, but damn that was a powerful experience. When the movie ended I felt like my life was over because I invested so heavily in it, and it felt like I had been watching for way longer than the actual length. Understandably, I just needed to watch it again ASAP. And it hit pretty much the same. Side question, anyone else watched while tripping/high and have any interesting stories?😆

Y'all remember this right? When Always Sunny Season 17's poster was immediately accused of being AI by almost everyone because it uses a hyperreal digital art style that AI is often associated with, but then people realized the artist has a long history of the same art style predating the existence of AI 😂

https://www.reddit.com/r/IASIP/comments/1kxmlo8/s17_poster_is_not_ai_btw/

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The same just happened with The Walking Dead spin off, which is actually made by the same artist as the comic book-y Stranger Things digital art posters (which weren't accused of AI... because AI didn't exist when they started making them)

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https://www.reddit.com/r/thewalkingdead/comments/1u9mf8u/new_poster_for_dead_city/