I get what you’re saying, and to a degree I agree with it.

It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I don’t want to care. I don’t want to care about what genders people (in general) go by, and would rather be polite to individuals I come across by referring to them the way they ask (in the same way I refer to people who go by a shortened name or their middle name). I have not cared about high school girls sports and won’t until my daughter reaches high school… or rather, I have wanted not to. It’s a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of the population, and I want their existence to not register with me until I come across them organically (e.g. a trans girl on my daughter’s cross country team). I want to not know about neo-pronouns without either taking a gender studies class or meeting someone who uses them (which I have yet to in 43 years). Or if there is a trans character or one who uses neo-pronouns in a game that just is that without that being their whole character (e.g. Krem from Dragon Age Inquisition). I want those people to just exist in the world without me giving any more concern to their sense of identity or whatever as any other of the 10 billion people on the planet I don’t know and don’t give a shit about except they are humans and I want them to be well.

I WANT to not care, but I’m not being let to because people feel the need to pick on them, make laws against them existing, or deny them equal opportunities for spurious reasons. And every time a conservative type complains about everything trans related and having to deal with pronouns and everything else, I’m like “it’s because of you! You’re doing this! I wouldn’t have to be concerned with them beyond knowing they exist if it weren’t for you!”

I don’t want to sound callous, because I do care about how LGBTQ+ people are treated. And I wish I didn’t because they just existed without me having to care.

Edit: I also think people are misunderstanding your point. Like I said, I never cared about girls high school sports, so when some conservative speaking against trans girls on girls soccer teams offering some hyperbole of The Rock (or comparable AMAB player) on a girls soccer team to suggest the supposed absurdity of having a trans girl on the team, you couldn’t pay me to care (about that argument). Even if it were to be the case, which it never, ever, ever is.

So this probably doesn’t help (except to back other people’s experiences), but there was an asian massage place across from the place I got oil changes and tire swap/rotations (as stud to normal and back). I went there a couple times (first was weird about tipping, but I figured it was a communication issue), got comfortable with it, and the third time the lady put her hand on my junk and just raised her eyebrows. I slowly shook my head, and she went back to a regular massage. That was the last time I went there.

My wife was actually super upset. Not at me, but for me, saying I had been sexually assaulted. I had to explain that while technically that might be true, I was not in a position of vulnerability, she was just doing her thing (and I was clearly in the wrong place), and I get to define my own experience.

I want one to make the normal sound, but whenever you put it in park it moves to the Party Rock Anthem. Only the first little bit until they yell “Party Rock!” And then gets quiet.

Since there’s a long intro, it’s at about 1:38 the song starts, ignore the drums.

I made a compelling argument to a die-hard Republican for UBI, by pointing out enormous job losses on the horizon due to automation. Basically, I said that there will only be so many labor hours available, so either huge numbers of people on unemployment, or less hours worked by each person. So if everyone had a baseline food/shelter/medical, and worked based on anything beyond that they want, there would be enough labor hours available for everyone. And you tax the shit out of automation to pay for it.

Automation should benefit society, not just a handful of people.

Maybe I’m getting old, but given the choice, at this point I’d choose neck and/or shoulders.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d be happy with whatever, but given the choice, I’d say relief over release.

Them and millipedes are allowed if AND ONLY IF they stay either out of sight or up in the corners. If they crawl across my bare foot they’re done.

I went away for two weeks once, and afterwards went to the unfinished portion of my basement at the time to find the aftermath of an absolute warzone. Some yellowjackets (I think) had burrowed their nest through the wall, and there was an epic battle between them and the cave crickets (of which there were WAY more than I had thought). There were dismembered corpses absolutely covering the floors. And from what I could tell, you know who seemed to be the victor?

The millipedes. There was ONE millipede body amongs the masses of cave crickets and yellowjackets. And each of the others weren’t eaten, just ripped in half.

For the next year, we didn’t hear or see a single cave cricket, and that entire nest of yellowjackets was just… gone. But the millipedes… they flourished.

Seriously. There is no reason to believe in something that not only isn’t proven to exist, but can’t. That argument could be applied to nearly anything.

Vampires? Can’t prove they don’t exist, so may as well believe in them.

Fairies? Same.

Flying spaghetti monster? Prove it doesn’t exist.

Like, I don’t want to knock other people’s religions, and I’m not so arrogant as to think I have all the answers, but I just can’t stand the “you can’t prove XXXX doesn’t exist” argument.

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I get what you are saying, but that’s not the way to do it.

“What about male genital mutilation?”

“We should ban all mutilation of genitals of children. It is barbaric. Some more than others, but it’s all bad.”

If all you do is respond with essentially “what about this other thing that this particular article isn’t talking about,” it derails the conversation of the current article. Saying that all aspects of the subject if the article are bad and have no place in society says “I agree with this, and let’s extend it further.”

Swinging with right hand, holding with left (for right-handed people). So you can see what you’ve done so far as you go, just like writing with your right hand from left to right.

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Edit: responded to post instead of comment

I thought she played Bella perfectly:

A blank canvas. Nothing wrong with portraying the character accurately. I mean, I’m not sure all the mouth-breathing was necessary. Literally the only thing I remember about her, character-wise.

Supernatural’s whole story arc was based on this (and it worked for them). Inevitably, to beat this big bad that the brothers have absolutely no business going toe-to-toe with, they must do something that is bound to catch up with them, but it’s either that or the world is fucked. Then the next thing is even worse, and they have to do something that will bite them even worse in order to stop the world from getting fucked. And it just keeps ramping up, they keep losing more and more of themselves and punching so far above their weight class that they end up… well, no spoilers, in case somebody wants to watch (and I don’t know how to do spoiler tags).

There’s a point when Sam has some injury, like a broken arm or gunshot wound or something, and he’s talking to a nurse or doctor who asks him to rate his pain from 0, which is no pain, to 10, which is the worst pain he could imagine. He gets a thousand-yard stare for a second and says “3.”

I appreciate the write-up, thank you! I feel like a lot of this is semantic differences. I’ve always thought of socialism as any public funds used specifically to help citizens (e.g. social security, medicare, unemployment, UBI, etc) and Communism to be the public owning and running the means of production, and distributing goods thereof, and the stateless, classless, moneyless society to be the ideal utopia it aspired to (similar to Star Trek). From your comment, I see that what I call Communism, you call Socialism (which explains a lot of confusion from discussions in the past with self-described Communists I’ve known), and the nameless Star Trek post-scarcity system you would call Communism.

Do you think it is possible to slow-roll the transition peacefully, though? If, for example, instead of the government bailing out industries, they bought out industries on the cheap, slowly growing and monopolizing like Google or Amazon have? Or do you think the rich would simply block that from happening?

So I will admit that I am ignorant of a method of attaining Communism that isn’t at the end of a rifle, and thus authoritarian by nature (and fully accept that, to a degree, Capitalism is also at the end of a gun, but typically less overt, or often directed without instead of within). The only nations I’ve seen flying the red flag have appeared highly authoritarian (and I’m not going to get drawn into a “USSR and PRC aren’t/weren’t authoritarian, and DPRK is actually a utopia!” discussion, so if that’s the direction this is going, let me know and I’ll politely see my way out).

I’ve seen in the lower comments that Socialism would be used as a gateway to Communism, but I am unclear about the transition from “everybody’s basic needs are met via taxation and distribution” to “personal property is abolished” (as I understand Communism to mean, please correct me if I’m wrong). Plenty of European countries have had (for the west), strong seemingly socialist systems, but they don’t seem to be deliberately angling toward Communism, for example.

So I’m curious what this peaceful Capitalist to Communist timeline would look like.

Are we still talking about cars or back to bodies?

Like the mechanic handing you a $15 code reader and saying “just clear it whenever it pops up.”

I actually used this to explain a concern of mine to my wife. We had a Subaru Forester that had some minor but expensive issue that kept the check engine light on, so we ignored it. And because of that missed something else that made the engine 'splode (not literally, just turned the SUV to SCRAP). About 8 hours from our house and two hours from the nearest rental car agency (and no trains). With our daughter in the back and me needing to be at work the next morning.

Anyway, I was talking about how everything hurts a bit, and because of that my general pain tolerance is way higher to the point I don’t notice most of the time I’m hurt. Like the check engine light on the Subaru.

I imagine cancer is going to come along and when I find out at stage four, people will wonder how I possibly could have put up with it up to that point without going to the doctor. And I’ll say I didn’t even notice it.

An old buddy of mine commented once on the amount if minor havoc you could wreak with a handful of chain bike locks. Cheap, wrap around some door handles and lock, walk away. Yeah, somebody can bust out a bolt cutter, but for the amount of challenge to remove it, the low cost per use, and the speed of application, it’s pretty impressive for minor mischief.

Relatively harmless, too, as long as you aren’t doing any additional nefarious shit. Might work for some gated community gates.