Itch.io is currently saying the problem is Stripe, and maybe Visa.

Historically (ex: https://otakuusamagazine.com/visa-and-mastercard-refuse-to-work-with-another-doujinshi-retailer/), I’d say Mastercard and Visa are both to blame. But the jury is still out on wtf is going on here.

I’m not sure who pressured Steam. But Itch.io (https://aftermath.site/steam-itch-porn-censorship-collective-shout-visa-mastercard-paypal) is claiming Stripe and Visa are pressuring them.

(Speaking with Aftermath, Itch’s founder, Leaf Corcoran, specifically cited a notice from Visa as an incident that led to the sudden deindexing of so many games).

While Hercules is impressively wrong, I knew Aladdin was a fun original read when it began with ‘In the Far East Kingdom of China…’

Hercules, for all of its faults, actually takes place in Greece. Which is kinda sorta close to Rome (Hercules is his Roman name lol. Heracles is his Greek name).

On the other hand, Aladdin might be a fake story all together. As in, some French Guy may have made up Aladdin as part of his translation of 1001 Arabian Nights. IIRC, Arabs don’t know wtf that story is doing in the (French) book.

So Aladdin might be an entirely fake addition to the 1001 Arabian Nights novel. Canonically fake. So it’s in the true spirit of Aladdin (and 1001 Arabian Nights) to screw with the story anyway.

Btw: the original Aladdin story had no three wishes rule.

Aladdin just spammed the heck out of wishes. Got everything he ever wanted.

The only part of the Disney movie that’s accurate is when the sorcerer returns, teleports the Sultan (of China) palace to Africa, and Aladdin needs to use the weaker Genie of the Ring to steal the Genie of the Lamp back through trickery.

The princess of China (yeahhhhhh) helps Aladdin out a bit IIRC.

But yes, palace teleportation, sorcerer wishing to be Sultan, that’s the legitimate part lol

Remember that Discover is self-banked (unlike Visa/Mastercard that banks sign up with). This means that every credit line needs to be backed by… well … A bank.

Bigger banks mean more credit opportunities, better interest rates (etc. etc). Deeper credit lines.

Discover seems to be the best bet to me so far.

Discover is on the JCB, UnionPay, Troy and RuPay. (japan, China, turkey, and India respectively). Probably many more.

Similarly, a JCB card should work wherever Discover is. It’s a billateral alliance.

Oh, and all Discover cards work on Diners Club International because those two networks completely merged.

Alliance members are not 100% acceptance. It seems like 95%+ acceptance though (most JCB will accept most Discover cards and vice versa, though you will get confused looks from the locals). It sounds like there’s a lot of old equipment around the countries that break compatibility but cities and other urban areas with new equipment shouldn’t have any problems.

I’ll probably get a Discover card and start testing this out. I already have Visa and Mastercard but this new censorship issue seems serious enough to make me start supporting a 3rd place competitor.

Between Discover vs AmEx, it seems like AmEx is about elite club / customer service / returns etc. etc. nice features but I’m not sure if it’s worth the price.

Discover is free of annual fees, reasonable cash back, mediocre costs for the merchants (better than AmEx anyway and comparable vs Visa) and a surprisingly huge offering of international compatibility (RuPay, JCB, UnionPay, etc Etc). It seems like the winner to me as a 3rd card to experiment with.

What’s wrong with Capital One? I feel like Discover/Capital One / Diner’s Club network is a good thing for Discover customers.

Discover and Diners Club merged a few years ago btw. Discover also has an alliance with JCB.

So Discover network is actually really, really big.

Discover has an alliance with JCB. So that’s just Discover in the USA.

Ummmm.

ACH is how you get your paycheck, and it’s being updated to FedNow.

Zelle is an independent network as well.

And of course, there is Discover and AmEx.

There is also cash, check, money order. They still work today, just people largely forgot how to use them.

IIRC some Brazilian network was getting very popular off of this. If you want to look at non-US options.

There are plenty of competitors to Visa/Mastercard/Paypal.

I was an active subscriber who regularly read WashPo.

Ruth Marcus, Alexandra Petri and a whole slew of other liberals have left the post after the 2024 election and various tampering by Jeff Bezos. Or have you not noticed the change of writers yourself??

The ones who remained are hardly NeoLiberal, but overall have shifted farther and farther right. Jeff Bezos killing a few key OpEds have made it clear to the liberals that they are no longer welcome at the Washington Post.

Or what? You gonna try to convince me that Hugh Hewitt is a liberal or some shit?

You youngsters will blame the next generation as well. You just aren’t old enough to see the pattern yet.

Washington Post is Murdoch connected as of December 2023 (new leader and Bezos began to flex his muscles at the paper). I hesitate to call it neoliberal. It’s moved right of that.

Now AI can sort through the hours of traffick camera footage

No it can’t, not without major hallucinations and/or basic errors (ex: Black People tend to be misidentified).

That’s the big thing about this AI push, it’s subtle mistakes are fucking people over right now. If AI actually worked reliably that’s another thing. But right now, people are mostly pretending that AI works and/or ignorant of its flaws.

I spent $5 dollars cash buying a hotdog from the Street Vendor last night during the fireworks. Was this written down somewhere or otherwise can this be traced back to me?

And yeah, street vendors raise prices around festivals lol. But I needed a snack so I paid up.

Hopefully next time Democrats can give a better strategy than pretending that immigrants stand together.

Ex: Kamala is Indian and Black. Guess who is coming from a deeply segregated country where they believe certain castes to be racially superior to other castes?

You ain’t gonna get kumbaya togetherness as a message and get the Indian vote. You’ll be seen as naive.

Democrats are shit at understanding politics or how groups think. Republicans have outplayed you on this political point and it’s why the racial politics are more 50/50 than you expect.

Real question: if we just parked our cars in the streets during these events and blocked the road, what could they do about it?

Yes I get that my license plate is on there and that maybe I’ll get a ticket. But think about how many of those people actually have options beyond recording on their phones that is also nonviolent.

Don’t drive aggressively into their cars or whatever but it shouldn’t be too hard to organize a blockade down the road a bit.

One car is a hassle and needs a towing. 20 cars would be very difficult to remove. Of course it depends on territory (they might just drive off road and around) but consider your local geography and with some planning surely there’s a bottleneck that can be a real headache to them.

I feel like there isn’t an assertion that the police would act out from ignorance of the law, but just how they operate. If anything the enhanced legal awareness may embolden them to know how far they can push the line and get away with it.

More importantly, their enhanced legal training means that in say, 80% of cases, I’d expect an Officer to win in most legal fights vs a typical layperson (ex: typical protesters).

Yes we have some incredible abuses out there and it’s important to bring up Police Abuse to raise awareness. But there’s also the pragmatic truth that we cannot expect for protesters to truly match up well in a legal fight vs Officers.

There’s some dumbass advice out there about knowing your rights and asking the officers badge number and stuff. I think for most laypeople, this is bad advice because the typical protesters or layperson will mess up in the interaction. The proper recommendation when dealing with officers is to remain quiet and call your lawyer, and then have your lawyer always speak for you.

Policemen have more experience with the law than you.

It is a liberal fantasy to think that spouting a few words here and there could pin these guys in an ethical or legal dilemma. The officer has likely heard the argument before whatever you think you are pinning them on.

I’m not saying that means Officers are ethical people. But I’m trying to make sure everyone understands the threat here.

The protesters will fuck up first. We need to be ready for this. It only takes one protester to step out of line while the officers here are politically savvy and know what they can (and do) get away with.

The smart aren’t planning for how to escalate these protests. The smart are planning for the inevitable crackdown after a building is looted and the arson starts, and the police use that as an excuse to crack skulls with legal backing.

Our move after that, I dunno. But that’s happened in 2018, 2019, even 2012 with Occupy Wall Street. Building our coalition vs Trump will be harder but I get it, protesters need to strike back in anger after aggressions at this level. Just know we are getting actively outplayed by Trump as these predictable events happen.

You will be unfairly demonized. Republicans will get law and order propaganda on Fox News. Your Boomer grandparents will fall for the propaganda.

But where’s the silver lining here? What can we do to turn the tide in our favor despite this? I think we can start pointing out the overreach of the President here taking over States authority. We can use January 6th and Trump’s pardons against him. We need to start preparing these arguments moving forward.

The soldier vs officer discussion is important because I do think the soldiers are more ignorant of these matters, in a good way. Soldiers didn’t sign up to be riot squad or crack down on protesters. The National Guard do want to save the country from Wildfires and Floods (under normal circumstances).

Police easily will side with ICE. National Guard probably sides but there is a Hail Mary argument we can make to them (National Guard shouldn’t be riot squad) that could get them to flip.

I expect that if National Guard has a higher chance of fucking up and shooting a protester than a Police Officer. They know this however, but that’s the fear we can actually take as an argument point.

The idea that conservatives are unthinking dumbasses or ignorant people who can be convinced of a greater truth is a horrible, horrible liberal lie. Conservatives think deeply about these things and have already preplanned how they should act and react to various news. You liberals need to start thinking at least as deeply as they do on these subjects if you hope to win this coming political battle.

Doomerism on the correct contexts is correct.

We shouldn’t expect a military coup on this issue. The vast majority of soldiers will take the side of Police and ICE on this issue and proudly stand by them.

Doomerism here allows us to focus our efforts elsewhere, where it’d be more fruitful to strike back vs Trump.

I’m not saying it’s what we want them to receive.

But Police are constantly surrounded by lawyers, criminologists and judges. You ain’t convincing them of anything, they have higher trusted authorities on the issue of law and a single officer likely have stood inside of courtrooms longer than you and me and everyone else in this thread combined. (Unless we have a lawyer in the peanut gallery??)

So this idea that you can just call them ignorant of law (and consequently, capable of learning or changing their opinions on these issues give. Am online debate) is… grossly optimistic.

You have to see them as legal professionals. Not necessarily legal authorities (like a judge or lawyer). But as a legal professional, cops almost certainly know more about law then the typical person. Enough to be dangerous.

Trained enough to be stubborn.