There is no longer a third world since the fall of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. The term is now officially meaningless. I wonder what they mean by “third world.” Hmmmmmmmmm.

Haha, yeah. The courier probably has the biggest turnaround of any bethesda game protagonist. They go from a completely anonymous average person delivering packages to being essentially a demigod capable of pretty much anything. No fate, no destiny, no special heritage, just you and your choices.

In New Vegas, it will make sense for your character to look any way they want. In the game’s story, nice clean things are available but restricted to the rich and powerful. The player, however, is the most powerful and the most influential as to who ends up getting what by the end of the game.

To be honest, this is what kept me from playing it at first as well. It’s a pretty old game, but mods can help a lot toward making it easier on the eyes. With Vortex through Nexus modding is super easy nowadays.

Since New Vegas isn’t on your list it has to be my top recommendation. Of all games I’ve ever played, New Vegas is the most reactive to and acknowledging of the insane and unbelievable things the player does. The actions the player takes have permanent effects in the game, and everyone affected will know that the player is responsible for whatever happened and say so. You personally control the fate of every community in the Mojave. In other games, you are powerful on behalf of the story, but in New Vegas you personally are all the power in the entire game.

Tinder is an app where you look at pictures of people and on that basis alone decide whether to go out. It’s even easier to lie about height than to take a misleading picture. I’m really not sure if this would make any difference at all. Everyone frustrated on tinder will continue to be exactly as frustrated on tinder while tinder squeezes them all.

Sometimes the “love” a parent feels for their child is because they view their child as an extension of themselves. This is why they get really upset if their child ever says or does something they wouldn’t. Also, not taking accountability for their own behavior and pushing the burden of the consequences onto their children is a form of exploitation, emotional neglect, and abusive. These behaviors are characteristic of emotionally immature parents. I can relate to your experiences, unfortunately for the both of us. I highly recommend “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents” by Lindsay C. Gibson to make sense of a lot of nonsense that some parents do like what you described.

One thing that I’ve learned recently is that there’s always going to be a degree of misunderstanding but if someone is chronically misunderstanding you and demeaning you, their problem isn’t that they don’t understand. They simply don’t like you. Do not waste your time engaging with such people and take every measure to distance yourself from them.

I’m British.

And I’m American. Funny how neither of us knows how bad our home countries are. As you mentioned though, our cultures share a lot of problems. In terms of housing, nutrition, street safety, class issues, social stratification, and wealth inequality I don’t think it’s a one to one comparison. We have issues of a different nature on these things which is why I think it’s arguable which is better. I personally would not be able to live in the UK and I know that from experience. While I was living there it was not apparent to me in any way that it was better (other than healthcare, which is obviously better), but it was different.

I don’t think you understand how bad the UK is. I’m only saying that it’s arguable which is better on most issues. On the issue of healthcare however, it is strictly better in the UK though their system is deteriorating in its own way as their political situation also devolves.

True, and it’s rapidly getting worse. It’s still strictly better than our predatory system.

They could be having that effect. Scams that look obvious are to attract people who fall for obvious scams, such as people with dementia. They are designed to be transparent to most people because they don’t need anybody clicking that has the faculties to know better than to fall for the rest of the scam.

I wouldn’t say “definitely” on anything other than healthcare.

You can only get so excited about making someone else rich.

And hawks. There have been posters all over my neighborhood for a missing cat and they keep putting them up. I’ve seen those hawks in action and nothing they can catch stands a chance.

1930s style superheros where they stood with the people against the corrupt establishment rather than the other way around.

I think a lot of people are neglecting to think of Biden’s lifetime record in public office. The United States is the nation on Earth with the greatest proportion of its own citizens imprisoned and we have Biden’s 1994 crime bill in large part to thank for that. Unfortunately it wasn’t terribly shocking when he went on to be more supportive of the Palestinian genocide than any other president in US history other than Trump.

Empiricism. We need to acknowledge that not everyone considers evidence when determining truth and encourage it way more than we do.

There is a vast difference between a leader and a ruler. Thomas Hobbes was not an historian, he just said that stuff to justify the authority that already existed. Check in to how hunter gatherers live today and what we know about how we used to live.

Anarchy doesn’t mean no rules or no organization, it means no rulers.