Absolutely, this was one of the things that came up in the recording that I didn't talk too much about. It's not even just political targeting, either, there were a lot of engineering problems that have been simmering in the community for a long time, and this may have been the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of people (which is a phrase I think they use in the Space).

There almost certainly are some anti-woke people masquerading as apoliticals in the moment. There are, of course, even some openly anti-woke people supporting the project. Coalitions of this sort are unavoidable. I was initially worried that Redot would be more overtly political but their initial presentation suggests they're trying to avoid that kind of factionalism altogether. It will bear watching to see whether Redot manages to thread the needle of maintaining an apolitical stance or becomes captured by another faction. Certainly you and others are free to ignore the drama, and I agree that shrieking on social media is often so hyperbolic (and frequently bot-driven) as to be meaningless. However, if certain statements lead people to believe that, for instance, code contributions or pull requests from "certain people" will be ignored or badmouthed because of their political positions, then I also think it would be reasonable for those "certain people" to jump ship at that point, especially in an open source environment. Breaking away and trying to go in another direction is an extremely valuable option, made especially easy in FOSS. There are deep logical and philosophical problems with the perspective that "everything is political," and even with the softer version that "everything affects politics/politics is a part of everything," that I won't try to get into here. Suffice it to say that I think those perspectives lead to extremely destructive chains of logic and incentive structures.

@@RudolphKohn That has to be one of the most sane takes that I don't agree with 100% I've seen on this whole situation. Thank you for being reasonable and you raise some really valid points!

You're right, so far we're still deep in the "hurt feelings" period where people are speaking more emotionally than normal, so it will take time to see if the Redot project actually maintains a consistent base of support. It also is still an open question whether Redot can and will deliver on its promises. So far, they seem to be coming from a good direction, but time will tell.

Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you found something interesting or useful in the video! Since I was going through the books fairly quickly, is there any part where you'd like me to go into more depth? I could do more detailed looks at some of the books I mentioned here, or talk about other books I've used to help me learn Japanese.

@@kusog3 Right! And they could have handled it so much better but instead they had to go ban-happy and their "apology" was really messed up. Imagine if their next message had been something like, "Oh, and we're open source, so our engine is whatever YOU want it to be. We have non-woke games on our engine, too! Shout your favorite out below!" But of course it had to be all one-sided.

I agree 100% about having friends along for the adventure. I guess Dragon Wing's schizophrenic POV kind of traumatized me (but, like, in a comedic way, where I'm just really painfully aware of it when I read now). The first three chapters were very good (Ragoth was a really interesting, compelling character from the start) except that they made me worry that you were going to keep them separate. Thankfully, you dispelled that fear quickly, and the rest of the book is excellent. Looking forward to Lionheart. Just give that glossary a little more thought if you decide to add it. One thing I'll note here that I forgot to mention in the video: the Factions/Ages glossaries were fine. It's just most of the other vocab seemed way too obvious, or it was something that should just be explained in the story's context.

Thank you for the kind words, and the comment! I agree it's unfortunate! Thankfully, the fact that it is open source gives people a lot of options, which hopefully we'll see blossom in the next few weeks and months. If we're lucky, this will be a fun time with a lot of really good improvements to the functionality of the engine AND its forks, which is one thing I'm hoping for.

@@RudolphKohn You're welcome, happy Friday. I'll be keeping an eye on redot but we shall see what happens.

Yeah, they tried that weird pricing change a year or two ago, but retracted it and have done a good job of steering clear of crazy political drama. I've played quite a few really good games based in Unity.

@@grbenway Wow.... 5k per month is insane. How many reasonable community managers could they hire with that money?!