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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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I think this is true, but becoming less true over time. /r/switchpirates is a decent niche sub for hacking the Nintendo switch. It was perhaps decent at one time, and while there is a wealth of information there, it’s become incredibly autistic. Some users created a guide that has a very specific workflow and is pinned. Anyone asking any questions is immediately pointed to the guide and offered no help. Anyone who has a problem is met with “start over and redo the guide” or “you didn’t follow the guide properly, try again”. The user base is profoundly unhelpful. It’s some autistic nerd (for lack of a better term) mentality that they have discovered the right way to do something, all other approaches are inferior and need to eliminated.

It’s quite shocking this place even exists given that it vaguely promotes piracy.

The last time I saw a Reddit thread on the ethics of piracy, about 80% were strongly opposed to it. Contrast this to the median online opinion on piracy 10 years ago. And 20 years ago. I suspect it’s a combination of different people and changing opinions. But it’s clear that TPTB have corrected the population.

Some users created a guide that has a very specific workflow and is pinned. Anyone asking any questions is immediately pointed to the guide and offered no help. Anyone who has a problem is met with “start over and redo the guide” or “you didn’t follow the guide properly, try again”. The user base is profoundly unhelpful. It’s some autistic nerd (for lack of a better term) mentality that they have discovered the right way to do something, all other approaches are inferior and need to eliminated.

That's the natural path of any forum centered around any autistic hobby.

It’s quite shocking this place even exists given that it vaguely promotes piracy.

Based.