Does anyone want to buy a NES? I have one sitting on top of my dresser for no reason. It worked last time I turned it on but I had to blow into the cartridges. Oh also it was like 20 years ago.

Gambling is demonstrably beneficial to society. You see it moves capital out of the hands of people who are bad at math, and into the hands of people who are good at it.

Oh that sounds dreadful. I much prefer to gamble when I know the outcome in advance.

Banning things people like has a real and material negative effect on a lot of people’s lives.

Legalize medical gambling

Life is a wager. You’re just betting that not betting is your best bet. You’re almost right.

There is a sure-fire way to win at roulette every time. It is a skill that can take years to hone, but I will tell you one simple behavior which can get you started.

Exactly - we easily mock those people for how short-sighted they were. It is obvious to us now that cinema as a medium has inherent value. To some of us, VR’s value is similarly obvious. There’s still quite a few short-sighted people who’ve never learned their lesson about fighting the future.

Sure, pioneers and early adopters get burned this way. Ask the Lumiere brothers how successful cinema made them. But cinema is obviously here to stay - and VR, as well. It is a matter of when, not if.

It costs as little as a game console? That’s cheaper than VR has ever been before.

People have already been interested in VR. It’s one of the promises of the future — it’s like flying cars or humanoid robots. As soon as someone can produce a reliable model at a price I can afford - not a price I like, just one I can actually pay - they will be successful and a cultural phenomenon.

This must be what it was like at the dawn of cinema. “Why would people pay to see moving pictures of a train? I can see a real train for free!”

Uh, who is being ripped off, exactly? The licensed artist, who was paid to have his music in the game being played?

“Why don't you go pass a law about it” — good point, well said. Brought a lot to the table.

A game is like a very complex musical instrument. By pressing the right buttons, a variety of sights and sounds can be produced. Developers frequently license these sounds so that players can experience them when they push the buttons. The player is necessarily performing, in a sense; unlike a movie, which produces…

You don’t think that listening to music, as if from an MP3 player, should be fair use? ... I’m pretty sure that’s peak Orwellian. Listening to music is it’s primary mode and purpose. It is fun and healthy to do it.

Assuming the game music is licensed (it is) then they were paid. Playing a game is a performance that a streamer, having purchased the game, is (or ought to be) entitled to perform. Performing it is literally the reason we pay for the product. Streamers just do this in front of a larger audience than most.

The license granted to the developers should assume the music will be played in public, when the game is played in public. Video games aren’t a private affair, and through most of their history haven’t been.

Yes you have correctly summarized their position. Non-union musicians are not afforded Union benefits and do not pay dues to the union - they are contributing to worse working conditions for other workers. In union terms, they are ‘scabs’. Unions oppose hiring these people for these reasons.

Ah, the hardware snob - close cousin to the game snob. Different animal, though.