It’s fun that one can use games for it, but it shouldn’t be difficult to do the same through AI-generated imagery either, which isn’t much more difficult.

Even though this method is flawed, one shouldn’t really use ID-only verification either imho, as it’s a security risk to upload any official document like that (ref. Tea app leaks).

The whole age verification that the UK wants to impose has been quite the impossible task from the beginning. Creating government-backed education for (future) parents about how to raise a kid and protect them in today’s digital society would be more efficient than this, if we really are thinking of what is best for the kids. But alas, there are zero requirements to become a parent…

I think there are two more questions that need to be answered first, before being able to tell whether we should prioritize the many.

First question is what is the ultimate goal behind prioritizng the many? Happiness of the population? Infinite growth? To conquer the stars? Depending on what the goal is, there are occasions where minorities should be the focus if we want to approach the goal the fastest.
Example is moon landing: The amount of resources that was spent on “simply” building a rocket, space suits & equipment, and send a couple of humans over there was prioritizing the few. Despite a lot of people watching with curious eyes, it did not benefit the many’s needs much. There were several goals here: Being before the USSR, explore the unknown, satisfying shareholders, and more. By the many working hard to send the few, we approached all these goals faster than if we would allocate some of these resources towards the many’s needs, like health (prime days of smoking cigarettes).

The second question is what timeframe are we talking? Is it long-term or short-term success we’re aiming for? Because in many cases, if we want long-term success fast, the many are those who should “suffer”.
Example is where the long-term goal is the glorious evolution of mankind: In one way, we downprioritize the few who are those born with defects, either by culling them or by ensuring they do not make offspring. In another way, we downprioritize the many who are on- or below-average intelligence/capabilities. But then we get the question of how we quantify the few/many; where do we draw the line? And as we get more smart/capable humans, the average constantly shifts - what is the concrete goal?

Suffice to say that this is written without emotion, as that makes this discussion the soup it really is: Ethics, benevolence, discrimination, etc., as you mentioned.

They updated the article to provide further context:

Later, in June 2025, the mod’s original uploader deleted it from Steam entirely. In other words, Valve did not remove the mod from Steam (as our original article suggested).

So Valve only restricted access in South Korea, not the rest of the world.

For such mods, there is pretty much always a very firm emphasis on “this is a work of fiction” when starting the game/mod. Example is the Assassin’s Creed games, where they don’t always have historic accuracy, but that’s okay because they have emphasized that this is a liberty they have taken, and they have already made the user aware of it and agreed to the terms.

This mod however (without having tried it myself) does not make any emphasis on this, and hence uncritically portrays it as part of real events.

I have a slight feeling that they will require “proof” of no existing social media profile: Either you give them something, anything, or they will try and search the web for any account that matches your identity.

And of course, if your cooperation is unsatisfactory, they reserve the right to deny you entry.

I’d say Linux Mint, ZorinOS, and Manjaro Linux are all viable options for Windows users who want an easy transition. Although I don’t think any distro will ever be considered a “plug-and-play” experience. There are varying degrees of user-friendliness, but if one wants user-friendliness like not having to do root/sudo actions even once, I think one might be better off with MacOS…? Though from what I’ve heard, the main reason Windows users are looking towards Linux and not MacOS is exactly because of the ability to customize more than just the wallpaper (and also the entire boycott US movement).

I love the blunt title of “… for Windows 10 Exiles”, though I wonder if it will rub people the right or wrong way when reading it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, but all the hype around the so-called “apocalyptic” October 14 feels a little overblown.

I agree somewhat - the date itself is not that big of a deal, as it’s just a date that Microsoft has set in order to have a spesific time to keep as a reference for when they have their last support push for Windows 10:

Windows 10 will reach the end of support on October 14, 2025. At this point technical assistance, feature updates and security updates will no longer be provided.

This doesn’t mean that it will immediately be defunct or a serious security risk. But from this point on, the more time that passes, the higher is the likelyhood of security holes being found (and used), that will not be patched.

Windows 11 has proven itself to have - a - lot - of - anti-features. Being forced to choose between having to deal with those, or change the entire system which you’ve grown so very used to, can be a rather difficult decision for many. KDE trying to ease the transition I think is appreciated by many who find themselves stuck in this choice. Or at least to give Linux a try.