Unfortunately the author has a few paragraphs that miss the mark and strike me as coming from more of a centrist or right-wing “kids these days are too soft” which feels very off-base and disconnected from the issue.
Welcome to The Atlantic. It’s telling they think all these issues are because of phones and not other aspects of society or something like the looming, ever present threat of climate change.
It’s basically The Economist lite at this point.
This is the direction the big companies are looking to move in. This is the direction Microsoft is banking on, too. Even if you like one service more, the end result may be the same. It’s a matter of time before we see subscription exclusives.
GamePass subscribers are the pre-orderers and mtx consumers of yesteryear, normalizing the industry to practices harmful to general consumers.
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Yes, it can.
Exactly.
Imagine thinking it’s wise to ignore the factors that led to the rise of fascism and believe there’s nothing useful to learn from them.
That’s what Al Jazeera’s claim was. Irrelevance and lack of causal link between the two explosions. Previously, the videos were being used to determine a link and to show a “misfire” leading to the explosion at the hospital, such as in this AP analysis. Now the OSINT groups seem to be saying it is unlikely the munition/rocket can be seen on video.
Now, the narrative is pivoting to a lack of munitions material proving Israeli munitions were used, crater analysis, and arguments about whether or not an air burst explosion could have been involved.
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It’s definitely suspicious that there are no munitions remnants available for analysis. You would think there would be something. If there is anything, independent investigators need to be given access. Otherwise, the perception of impropriety will color peoples’ analyses.
But the idea this has been “concluded” doesn’t seem correct either.
As stated in this article, Al Jazeera, Channel 4, and Forensic Architecture reached conclusions that the air explosion shows the rocket was intercepted and destroyed, not misfired, and there is no causal link between the air explosion and ground explosion at the hospital.
The AP analysis argued against this, but did in fact note this was a possibility. I believe the CNN and others use the same arguments and resources as preliminary OSINT analyses.
Now, GeoConfirmed and other OSINT accounts (Oliver Alexander) are backtracking from their early hypotheses and concluding the Al Jazeera claim is in fact the likely scenario, arguing that the intercepted explosion is too far away from the hospital to be connected. They still think a rocket is the “likely” cause, however.
I wonder if we will ever know what happened for sure, but there is definitely more to this story.
The other strikes they point out are not at the hospital but “in the area”. I guess they are listing a chain of events and noting that Israeli strikes were occurring in the area around the time of the incident.
Everything else about their analysis has to do with potential interception.
GeoConfirmed just posted this, arguing that the rocket was intercepted and the mid air explosion too far away to be related to the hospital.
It looks like a lot of the OSINT crowd are now parroting the Al Jazeera claim if I am reading this correctly
From what I saw, Al Jazeera shows multiple explosions from Israeli air strikes “targeting the area near the hospital” around the time before the explosion, rockets being fired from Gaza and then intercepted by the Iron Dome, and then concludes their footage shows the rocket in question being intercepted (due to similarities with the other captured interceptions) and “complete destroyed” based on their analysis and video.
They conclude there is no evidence that the explosion of said rocket is tied to the explosion at the hospital, and in fact, they seem to say that rocket was “completely destroyed” when intercepted.
The only thing I’m seeing from the AP here to contradict that conclusion is one person basically saying “uh typically rockets aren’t intercepted above Gaza” but noting it’s technically not impossible. Otherwise, AP is saying the rocket in question and the explosion are tied.
I guess it depends on whether Al Jazeera actually captured those rockets being intercepted. I’m not sure what else it would be unless now there’s an argument that all those rockets on their video feed also malfunctioned or are something else.
Opposite conclusions drawn from Al Jazeera, Channel 4, and Forensic Architecture, from just what I’ve seen.
An independent investigation must be allowed.
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Ok great. Do it.
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Not exactly new:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/09/11/israel-depth-look-gaza-school-attacks
https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/31/5/927/6375348
I’m sure we can find more.
It’s sad that this type of comment can be and is often spun as “antisemitism”
To believe this is uncommon sentiment would be naive
The idea there are zero well designed AAA games is such a narrow outlook.
Indie has its place, but there are experiences that cannot be replicated in the indie sphere at the moment. Consolidation in the AAA space will not make the medium better.
My Lai was not an isolated incident.
Only one involved was convicted as stated, but then completely let off so who cares? The higher ups that enabled it were completely let off. Others who were involved in the cover up completely let off. The whistleblowers, etc were shunned and ostracized by the military for decades.
Well, many old games were. Arcade games specifically were often designed to get coins from players, with extreme difficulty encouraging grinds and sweaty playthroughs to achieve mastery.
If anything, multiplayer and GaaS brought us back there.
Many new games, especially single player games, are still designed with “fun” in mind, or with even loftier goals and themes, many without exploitative gameplay loops, yet still with distinct, pleasing graphics, art styles, and polished gameplay.