u/AbjectOffice

As the title says, how do you not give in to doomerism in regards to the state of politics? I never thought we'd see how easy it was for leftists, people ostensibly with the same political beliefs as us, engage in bigotry, antisemitism, misogyny, and transphobia so quickly let alone at all. It's genuinely shocking how much Holocaust denial I've seen online leftists engage in, stuff that someone would have had to have been a Kevin MacDonald reader to unironically talk about.

There are online leftists/talking heads/streamers factually doing propaganda for China while they fund a genocide (to say nothing of the cultural genocide they themselves are committing, but we all know how common it has become to defend let alone deny what is being done to the Uyghurs). I mentioned this to someone recently and their response -- after they said that's untrue and I let them know about Myanmar -- was "I don't care about Myanmar." I've never been so close to fully disengaging with political discussion with people in the West because if it's done online (and I currently don't live in the West) it feels like there's a 40% chance it's MAGA/neo-Nazi or 40% chance it's tankie/campist.

There's also other extremely disheartening experiences that are encouraging different doomerism. Namely, I work in international law, specifically human rights in Africa, and the amount of people who do not give a shit about the region is heart breaking. But again, that's a different sort of doomerism.

I've seen countless examples of tankies and campists defending China's use of re-education camps, which I always find more abhorrent than denial. From twitters screenshots to that infamous campist streamer openly praising re-education camps.

How do they reconcile their defense of re-education with certain minorities while acknowledging the horrors of re-education camps for minorities they'd defend? Is this literally just a case of "it's different cause." or "China better" defenses?

Sorry for the incredibly broad question. I've played a few procgen games for quite a long time (Dwarf Fortress first and foremost) but have recently become fascinated with procedural generation itself. I've been very tempted to try and get into it in my down time but I've no idea where to really start. It seems like an incredibly large and deep field. Are there any places you'd recommend someone in my position start with? Any specific books, guides, tutorials? Any roadmaps to follow? I'm admittedly quite worried about the prerequisite knowledge for math and the like as well (I come from a legal background and have not done math in the better part of a decade, unfortunately).

Any guidance or suggestions at all are truly appreciated.

Despite Caesar III being one of my favourite games as a kid, I'm woefully lacking in City Builder knowledge. My City Builder experience is pretty much a shit ton of Caesar III, Sim City 4, Tropico and that's it. I dunno if Dwarf Fortress counts but I played a ton of that as well. I never really explored past those because I guess I just played whatever my older siblings had bought.

I'm currently working abroad with an NGO work provided laptop, but am going to be returning home soon and have been jonesing to play some Caesar III. That got me looking into it on youtube, which got me interested in the genre as a whole.

What are your favourite city builders, and why? What makes a city builder good for you? What mechanics do you love, which do you hate? Are there any favourites of yours that you still feel would be improved in certain ways/with certain additions? What would your ideal city builder entail?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm kind of hankering to get back into it.