walled garden

Facebook control all aspects: you can only do what they want. Mastodon can be hosted and modified by anyone, it's freedom.

A closed platform, walled garden, (...) is a software system wherein the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and/or media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applicants or content. This is in contrast to an open platform, wherein consumers generally have unrestricted access to applications and content. - wikipedia

People can only talk on platforms they're not banned on. If you want to avoid YouTube for other reasons then sadly you have to cope with that sort of thing.

Some sleep is conscious (dreaming) but they're easily forgotten. Perhaps being unconscious still always has a grain of consciousness (but is just forgotten).

It seems there is a grain of reduced experience while sleeping. Copying seems to imply it's always a clone (a different ego, a different person).

I agree and did that for the word "homophobia". Saying it lead to a common response "I'm not afraid" but "having a phobia" wasn't the subject matter (instead I say "aversion to homosexuality", though I don't have that conversation now since leaving Facebook/YouTube years ago).

When something really matters all we have is conversation, or violence. Words do not actually have innate definitions - they have usages that vary between individuals and between peoples over time. If we can understand what the person we're talking to means then maybe we can come to understand each other.

astonishingly thin skin

Could be that, but remember that all skin can be damaged. If you've been badly burned then maybe it's best to keep the environment sterile. "Focus on the engine and not politics" can be the conclusion of people with merely a simple goal of a good game engine but suppose that it can also be argued for with a goal of harming minorities by silencing them.

Preventing others from bringing you to justice via lawsuits implies to me they intend to do something illegal.

You could be charitable and say arbitration is a cost saving mechanism for lawsuits you successfully defend yourself from (the loser doesn't pay your legal fees in some countries).

We promise we won't do anything illegal and worth suing us over, so just waive your right to sue us!

This is a massive oversight in a country's code of law.

These days it's all about the Retroactively Amended Personal Experience: changing the terms after the sale.

I have altered the deal, pray I do not alter it further.

If you paid for it then it's your game - not their game.

(Don't care if you ripped it yourself or not)

I'm sure Nintendo still make great games, but that's not enough anymore.

One day I hope more video game embrace open source/free software values.