FYI you have a typo in your last screenshot (This sign m[a]y not…):

Sittenhaft

*Sippenhaft

Sippe = kin/clan Sitte = morals/tradition

[…] a public institution is really not a great example of the general population […]

Which I touched upon in my disclaimer, but in some ways it is a great example. Public institutions are defined by the general population, indirectly through their representatives creating the rules that govern them, and directly through contact with the public at large. Now if all our institutions still use this very outdated technology, and you can have trouble convincing them - during a global pandemic mind you - that using email is just as safe as using fax (so not safe at all basically), then that speaks to a larger mindset in the general population.

Many in the general public are also a lot quicker, some might even say careless, with adopting new technology of course. But as a society we are rather slow, and there are surprisingly many individuals who are hesitant or entirely resistant to adopting new technology. The fediverse usage is a bubble in a bubble here.

The internet infrastructure is another good example for this on the societal level, as there were plans in the 1980ies [!] to lay out a glass fibre network between every publicly used building in the country, which would have gotten us a good part of the way towards adopting this new material at scale. But in the end it was deemed unnecessary and too expensive and the project got canned (mixed in with rumours of “close friendship” between the chancellor and a major copper producer). Instead now we have people running around thirty years later and collecting signatures at the door for last-mile fibre network projects that seldom make quorum and thus almost never materialise public funding.

2. […] But also how are Germans technologically behind regarding common personal life?

I bet you wherever in Germany you are, if you go to the website of your local city government right now they will have a still active fax number in their contact information. I guarantee it. Well if they have a website that is.

Which is a bit silly as an example but highlights the central problem, which is that adoption of new technology happens at a glacial pace, especially in public institutions. There are many reasons for that of course, some good, like the aforementioned inclination towards privacy, some bad like whatever allows fax machines to still be around.

And don’t get me started on internet infrastructure… In an international comparison we certainly aren’t leading the field regarding adoption of new technologies.

That it was offered is nigh impossible to prove if the offer is only made verbally though. And conversely, if they make the offer an “official act” they are immune again.

Yeah but like I said, if you promise some other form of compensation on the level or above what they lose in benefits, you will still find people willing to follow these illegal orders. Hell you could find people willing to follow illegal orders even before this ruling, but now that the presidents right to give illegal orders is explicitly enshrined in constitutional jurisprudence this pre-existing problem is much worse. I doubt those people will care about a dishonourable discharge, on the contrary it will make them martyrs to “the cause” and they will be worshipped for it. And it remains to be seen how all this would play out in court, I guess it’s quite possible for the defence to argue that if the president has immunity for giving orders, their subordinates have immunity for following those orders.

The number of littered bottles, with or without a cap, is greater than the number of loose caps,

That smells like survivorship bias. Your dataset is skewed by loose caps being way harder to find due to being smaller. It stands to reason that all those bottles without a cap you find will have also had their cap littered in the vast majority of cases.

All good points if true. However I will say that to my limited understanding a crime under a specific law having been pardoned, that same law can then not be used to prosecute this crime anymore. Meaning states would have to find a different (preferably state) law under which the same offence is punishable.

And that is all disregarding other issues like packed courts, republican controlled states, the vagueness of double-jeopardy in this regard, and the general chilling effect a presidential pardon would have on prosecutors to even press charges in the first place.

The loss of benefits is easily circumvented by promising a golden parachute along with the pardon, so I could still see a lot of fanatics doing the crime “for country and freedom” or whatever they tell themselves.

Overall this seems like a potentially dangerous erosion of checks and balances that is easily abused when put in the wrong hands. As the dissenting opinions in the ruling openly state.

Ok yeah fair enough, that sounds reasonable. But to my knowledge the UMCJ is a federal law, not a state law, so how does that line of argument factor in there? You cited that as an example of checks and balances that would prevent people from following illegal orders, but it being a federal law still means the president could circumvent it with the official order plus pardon combo, at least if my understanding of this new supreme court ruling is correct.

IANAL, but there is the presidential power to pardon. So the president could in theory give an illegal order (as long as it is an official act they have immunity) and promise a presidential pardon once the order is fulfilled (therefore extending immunity to the perpetrator). Meaning the president can entirely circumvent the UCMJ.

So, I think it’s pretty stupid to argue whether “convicted felon” should be in his opening lede line for Wikipedia.

True though that may be, I don’t think it’s surprising that this would happen, and since making the post I have been falling down a rabbit hole of finding out how Wikipedia is handling situations like this, partly through taking more than a glancing look at the talk pages for the first time ever, and it’s fascinating.

Currently my deepest point of descent is this sub-thread on the Admin board about the “consensus” boxes on top of talk pages being an undocumented and unapproved feature.

In Germany, Mein Kampf is banned except for educational purposes, eg in history class.

Strictly speaking this is incorrect, although the situation is somewhat complicated. There are laws that can be and were used to limit its redistribution (mainly the rule against anti-constitutional propaganda), but there are dissenting judgements saying original prints from before the end of WW2 cannot fall under this, since they are pre-constitutional. One particular reprint from 2018 has been classified as “liable to corrupt the young”, but to my knowledge this only means it cannot be publicly advertised.

What is interesting though is how distribution and reprinting was prevented historically, which is copyright. As Hitlers legal heir the state of Bavaria held the copyright until it expired in 2015 and simply didn’t grant license to anything except versions with scholarly commentary. But technically since then anybody can print and distribute new copies of the book. If this violates any law will then be determined on a case-by-case basis after the fact.

(not actually everything, but I get your hyperbole)

How is it hyperbole? All artificial neural networks have “hallucinations”, no matter their size. What’s your magic way of knowing when that happens?

What the fuck kind of argument is this? Courts aren’t supposed to play politics, they are supposed to enforce the law. And if you want to do that in a genocide case you have to prove intent. Gallant made several public statements that can interpreted in that way.

That’s not really contrary to the point, but orthogonal to it.

What? According to the article based on which we are discussing this news that is the point (allegedly). And it is unrelated to your point yes. I’m not entirely sure where you even came up with your point to be honest.

Your argument is the same kind of “consumer rights” argument that I’ve seen everywhere on the internet, because you are implying that there is material harm to the people of Vietnam caused by Steam’s banning. Which is a fairly specious argument. It’s the loss of a luxury item. No one is materially harmed by it.

I guess the consumers, i.e. the people of Vietnam in possession of this luxury item, would disagree with that assessment. Especially if they have sunk significant finances and/or time into their Steam account.

It’s not like Vietnam banned insulin.

Nobody said it is?

And while you may not use the same language, you are effectively saying that every consumer on the planet should have free access to the best products available for whatever “thing” they want. In this case, video games.

Again, what? I’m saying people will want to keep access to something they already paid for, their games on Steam and the according metadata like savegames, multiplayer access, and such. Not sure how you managed to pull this interpretation out of what I said, but be assured it’s incorrect.

It’s a de facto argument for free market economic policies.

Since the whole logic chain that led you to this conclusion was already riddled with errors from the very beginning this is simply a non sequitur.

But if the Vietnamese video game industry is actively harmed by Steam, an American company, using its vast resources to outcompete Vietnamese publishers, then what is your opposition to this that doesn’t encompass a de facto defense of free market capitalism?

Not GP but the article didn’t say that Steam outcompeted local developers by “using its vast resources”. On the contrary, it alleged that local developers cannot compete on Steam with international developers, because those do not have to apply the local regulations:

Citing it as “an injustice to domestic publishers”, Vietnamese studios reportedly say that local game development “will die” if Steam is able to keep releasing games without the same government scrutiny as domestic games.

A somewhat shaky argument considering that the same is true for many other countries applying their own local regulations, which Vietnamese developers do not have to follow.

But anyway, what is my opposition that doesn’t encompass a de facto defence of free market capitalism? The damage to the users. What about all the Vietnamese people losing access to Steam’s online features, which are arguably necessary nowadays for many games, especially multiplayer ones. And for what? To benefit Vietnamese businesses? Not very socialist of you comrade Vietnam. *smh*

In any case, this is all pure speculation at this point, since both parties have yet to make a statement about the situation:

At the time of writing, there’s been no formal word from Vietnamese authorities or Steam about the “ban”, […]

That said, my current head cannon goes something like this:

Vietnamese devs: Dude, these regulations on games are killing us. We can’t compete on Steam with games like these.
The Party: Okay we hear you. *bans Steam*
Vietnamese devs: Wait, what? (← we are here)

Edit: formatting

I’m involved in the development of an addon for the Classic WoW versions (Questie), and the thing I do there is such a convoluted process that not doing it feels like letting my fellow devs and the users down. But you can do development on the PTRs and beta servers, so I haven’t given money to Blizzard in a long time. Now you could argue that this is even worse in regards to supporting Blizzard than just paying for a game, but I rationalise it to myself with the fact that the newer clients will inevitably be used for private servers just like the old ones were (some already are actually).

Neither. Battle.net is Blizzards game launcher and store. They also own that domain, but the name usually refers to the binary.

The WINE_SIMULATE_WRITECOPY=1 %command% is the Steam launch option you set, with %command% meaning roughly “what Steam would do without any launch options set”.

The whole process was a bit finicky and I did it a few month ago, but from what I remember it went something like this:

• Download battle.net installer
• Add it as non-Steam game to run it
• Locate the newly created prefix in Steam directory
• Add the Battle.net.exe in it as a non-Steam game, then remove the installer (not the other way around or the prefix will be deleted)

Oh so that’s what you meant. Thought you meant don’t use Lutris at first because of how you worded it. That makes much more sense.