Lol ay! This is how we do things at our house, sleeping arrangements are up to each individual each evening. Might sound really weird for folks who’ve never done that, and it does have some things to watch for (can accidentally drift toward a more roommate like relationship dynamic if we don’t put attention toward avoiding that at times).

But sheesh the freedom to just go get a solo night’s rest at will with no hurt feelings? Took some careful communication (and some accidental hurt feelings along the way, to be clear) to get here but it is GREAT, we both love it. Really reduces friction in other areas of life when better rest is an option.

Oh man, that’s hilarious. “Our business model doesn’t actually even work where we live. But I know what we’ll do about that, we’re going to do it exactly the same in a place we don’t have a clue about!”

The hubris, lol. It’s delicious.

Really wish this point was hammered harder, it’s so unbelievably stupid, the way we’re deliberately handing this opportunity off to anyone else. The US became economically dominant in large part by being well positioned to exploit and develop huge emerging tech scenes / markets, and then doing that by funding R&D, projects, etc.

We’re again positioned to be absolutely dominant in one of the most important, or maybe the most important, tech booms of humanity so far. “Conservatives” should love the idea of getting viable green technologies first, it’s THE way to keep the global order similar to how it’s been.

Not that I personally want things to stay like that per se, but regardless better green tech sooner is generally better for the whole planet. It’s insane to watch these idiots just focus on the near term and literally give away the keys to power for the next century.

You’re right, but I will say the federal govt has a sometimes magic way of greasing certain wheels and getting things done in a hurry, if the right person is pushing on it.

Lol ah yes, the “fork me daddy!” camp weighing in

Oooh, that’s a fun one. I can just barely remember some of my early research projects for school - getting source material at the library was a bear. What a time to be alive.

When did they add blackjack and hookers?! That’s a hell of a feature update

Wait yeah, to echo other commenter is this a tongue-in-cheek comment on how that fairly normal stuff is being perceived as “negative” due to racism/classism, OR is this an actual technique being used because it legitimately tends to have such an effect?

Edit: OOPS. You meant whether the statement about being puzzle like applies to OG Rogue. You said almost exactly that. My bad lol, below remains intact to display my shame (and enthusiasm).

It’s a puzzle in the sense that you have a constrained number of options, both in a given combat scenario and in the general sense of building your character and attacking the dungeon. And usually all those options have some tradeoffs, beyond just the opportunity cost. Skill (and creativity! one of my favorite elements!!) of the player make the difference between a doomed run and a cakewalk. Careful marshaling of resources, knowing when it’s time to spend something rare or take a gamble. Knowing what late game change might solve the weaknesses your character has and help achieve specific goals, knowing what would be folly.

Lot to learn, and then deploy in fun and creative ways. And challenging. Loss is the teacher, lol. So good!

Oh snap! Haha well, musta been something I sensed in your comment. DCSS sure feels like an extra fun puzzle to me. Cheers!

A good rogue like is a super complex puzzle with randomness thrown in! Completely see the similarity.

Only RL I went hard for was DCSS for some reason, and it’s hard to estimate how much time I put into that over the years. At least as much as other heavily played AAA or MMO type games for me. What about you?

I’m becoming more aware of this lately too. Just realizing that Amazon for example has almost negative quality control, in the sense that a counterfeit product from one supplier just gets lumped in with the real ones from other suppliers, and then they sell them having lost the knowledge of who supplied the counterfeit.

And I know no one is checking for flammability of kids’ clothing / items. So I mean, who’s to say stuff made with lead or whatever the fuck else isn’t just getting hucked on down the line too?

Got any rules of thumb or heuristics you’re using? So far all I’ve really got is “nothing for kids from a store without a physical location in my country”. Just basing that on the fact there will at least be someone to sue, which usually encourages better behavior. I also generally avoid the “I can’t believe this is so cheap” products (outside legit sales) because usually something important is getting squeezed somewhere, given the already generally oversquoze situation that is “the market”.

That seems pretty plausible to me, yeah, because it’s being attempted already and we seem to be sliding that direction. Privatizing those public services sounds like precisely the way to usher in a fresh new hell like this, completely agree.

I really wonder what that may look like too and how likely of an outcome it is. I mean we’ve seen versions of it with “banana republics”, but that wasn’t quite the modern era and wasn’t sophisticated tech companies. I also think most tech companies today would not want that responsibility, just the rewards, it’s a bit hard for me to imagine them actually attempting to provide a government. I think what we’ll see is increasingly hollowed out public institutions matched with ascending power and control of the corps, but leaving the govt in place (largely for a target people can point to when they’re mad) and stopping short of overtly seizing power. Best of both worlds for the corps.

For real. The big tech companies are today basically approximating and exceeding what have before been exclusively state-level capabilities. Not all of those capabilities, of course, but enough that the writing’s on the wall. Meta, Google, Amazon (and others) - they truly see themselves as above “petty” things like governments. Just obstacles to work around.

The question is what will we allow them to get away with, not how far will they try to take things. We should be clear on that.

Hmm, yes, you’re onto something. I think we’ve sniffed out a very elaborate DnD campaign…in progress!

Exciting times.

Oh, tbh I was just commenting the sort of “pithy” way to say what commenter above me was saying. I wasn’t actually commenting on the situation, screw McDonalds and Taylor both lol

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the merely good” is one (imo important) way to state it.

It’s funny, I had the opposite reaction, I see this as pretty strong evidence of our decency. It’s really, really hard to get most people to behave this way, and the ones who do wind up fucked up from it (as they should).

The biggest difference is that …

But that’s an enormous difference, and it seems like it may push us to a place of crisis before it gets better. None of the tactics are new, they’re not even new to the modern era. But the reach is new, and it has enabled the creation of a large and broadly distributed group, that is thoroughly detached from and increasingly hostile toward mainstream society. With every indication that they are getting more entrenched, not less.

Aside from how spread out they can be, a group like that’s not new either, and basic intuition and history both point to this being a dangerous situation brewing. We really gotta figure out how to reach one another again.