“A thing of beauty will never fade away” said Kerry Eurodyne, of Keanu Reeves

Guess I’ll add Nvidia drivers to the list of things holding me back lol

Maybe I’ll dual boot and keep all my HDR, Anti-cheat-riddled, and VR games on Windows and put everything else on Linux

Wow I never even thought to ask - does SteamVR work on Linux? Like the Valve Index in particular? I’ve been meaning to switch but Windows’ HDR support has been holding me back. If there isn’t a good distro for VR that could be another factor

Look, I love the idea of Linux but unless you have your head in the sand it’s obvious that Linux takes a good deal of technoliteracy to use.

When I first saw HDR on an OLED monitor, it wasn’t everything I thought people were making it out to be but over time it really grew on me. DOOM Eternal, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Cyberpunk 2077 have so much color, and the way the light pops makes it all just pure eye candy.

“New to Linux? Where the most daunting thing about switching to it is how many choices you have in configuration? Well, good news! You have more choices than you think!”

I got this game a week or 2 after it came out in 2008. There’s literally a whole open city to explore but I remember the first 30-45 minutes I played were spent literally driving up and down the same quarter mile road because I found a split ramp built for barrel rolls but I just wanted to see all the ways I could squish the top of my car with a failed barrel roll and still drive away lol.

15.5 years later it’s still just as satisfying

Burnout Paradise

There are few games where winning and losing are equally fun, but Burnout Paradise pulls it off flawlessly.

You hit that turn with the perfect drift? Hell yeah. Oh shit, there was a car waiting for you at that intersection and now you have to watch your car and their car get smashed, crumpled, and tossed like a bag of moldy tangerines in slow motion? Hell yeah.

Oh yeah? Name three of their songs.

But I think the fact that the definition of self defense is up for debate calls into question whether violent self defense is ever justified.

Maybe I am, but I don’t think I am, avoiding answering the question. I think there is no universal answer. Having been raised protestant and pushed away from organized religion by the obstinate idiocy that is the way so many people believe in steadfast rules of morality that have no room for exceptions (i.e. abortion is ALWAYS bad), I have come to realize there are things and concepts of value to humanity that are constantly at odds with each other. Regardless, the value of those things cannot be quantified by scalar values, and therefore cannot be directly compared. For example, human life is valuable, but what about when human lives are directly at odds with one another, like a fetus in the womb of a person who doesn’t have access to enough resources to take care of a baby? The correct course of action to take depends on an infinite number of factors, and those factors are undeniably affected by whichever person perceives them. I believe this to be the reason that the Bible itself contains directions for how, and describes at least one situation in which, to perform an abortion.

I don’t believe that morality is relative, I believe there are things and concepts that will always have value and importance to humanity, but I believe that the value of those things and concepts is relative given each scenario.

Putting it this way, the answer to my question about justifying violence becomes a question of the way the situation that could lead to violence is perceived by each person in the situation. So there is no objective way to determine the answer. And I hate that, but it does bring me some peace. We have to do the best we can with what we have. If our best is bad, then so be it, but we can prepare ourselves for certain situations so our best can be better than it would be otherwise.

I have no idea if any of what I just said made any sense, but it helped me clarify my thoughts. Maybe it’ll help someone else.

I know this lies at the core of the question, simply because “justification” is such a complex concept on its own. I asked the question because I can’t for the life of me get even remotely close to an answer because the different theories of morality and justice all are founded in sound logic, even though they contradict one another.

I want to hear what other people think, if they’ve made up their mind, and why they think what they think.

Is it possible to pursue a righteous cause through violence? What if every alternative to violence has been exhausted, if that’s even possible.