I think most people have no understanding of taxes.
I remember a coworker some years ago fully believed we had a flat tax rate. That they just take 20% of your money. I had to explain progressive taxation to him.
We should be investing a lot more in public education.
We could lower taxes on the lower brackets, maybe, but we should be raising taxes that target the wealthy. Fix the “buy borrow die” strategy, too.
Ask them out. “You seem cool. Want to go on a date to see if we click?”. I recommend using the word date explicitly because several of my friends have “gone out for drinks” and then been uncertain if it was a date
On the date, if things are going well, just ask if you can kiss them. Some people have ideas about how you should just go for it but the error rate there is high, and most people prefer consent.
If that goes well, you can ask about what other things they like. The context and mood will be appropriate.
Don’t be a pen pal on the dating apps. Just ask them out.
The other day in a video game public chat, someone said something like “these zombies are so fast in the cave. They keep killing me!”
Someone replied “skill issue”
I looked at this interaction and was like, huh, why? Why say that? It’s kind of trite but I guess very mildly funny in the “I understood that reference” kind of way. But also it would’ve taken about the same amount of effort to be like “I hear you bro. those zombies are assholes.” Just, like, be nice.
So I asked the guy why he chose to be unkind rather than supportive. He was confused, but after I elaborated he responded by saying I’m “soft”
I think about this sometimes, now. He could’ve been nice. But he decided not to. Because he views being nice as being “soft”, and that’s bad.
That’s not a set of norms I really want to live under.
There was a meme the other day about how Aragorn from lotr is the kind of male role model men need. Kind, shows his emotions, strong without being cruel.
I was thinking the other day there’s probably a pretty straight line between Match group owning so many dating apps, men’s unhappiness, and violence.
Like the apps create the illusion that you can meet someone and be happy, but their primary goal is to make money. They don’t try very hard to introduce you to good matches. They also haven’t solved the experience from the woman’s point of view. So men feel like they’re just shouting into the void, that people don’t like them, etc etc. Some of those people likely go on to become incels or do violence.
This isn’t to say that violent men are not culpable. They are. They retain agency. But Match group (that’s tinder, okcupid, hinge, match, plenty of fish, and more) is making the problem worse.
It’s like if there was a food shortage, and someone bought up all the grocery stores. Then they made all of them mazes and had half the cereal boxes empty.
I was fully prepared to be like “why on earth would you convert werewolf to D&D 5th edition”, but then I realized thankfully this is not that.
Some actual feedback: That font is real hard for me to read.
My lawyer told me I shouldn’t smash up cars that are parked in the bike lane.
One of the offices I worked in the HVAC was bizarre. The thermostat was by sales, but the cold air came out of a vent by eng on the other side of the building. Sales was hot, so they’d set a lower temperature. Eng would then get blasted by cold air, and sales would still be hot.
“Nothing to be done about it. Wear a hoodie” said management. Fuck that.
Someone’s going to channel Luigi and shoot some of these corrupt justices dead, and I’m not going to be mad about it at all.
I don’t really find “I fuck off more at home” especially compelling. That sounds like a problem for you and your manager to deal with, and not something that everyone else needs to suffer for.
I mean, that’s the trolley problem. Someone would pull the lever to kill the billionaire even if it meant hurting a child. Sucks, but musk’s continued existence is probably going to harm millions of children.
pretty much every office I’ve had to work in was either too cold or too hot. Hoodies in the summer and t-shirts in the winter. I don’t have that problem at home.
The Return-To-Office push is not rational.
Like most stupid things in our world, it’s about emotions.
This topic is funny to me because I worked for a place that was all about data. Data driven decisions. They had tshirts made that said like “Data > Feelings”.
And yet when people brought up to the CEO stuff like studies showing WFH or 4-day-workweeks were effective, he just said “Nah, we’re not doing that.”. No discussion. No looking at the data. Just no.
To his credit, that CEO did run a profitable startup with barely any funding, so he wasn’t a total fool. But on that kind of stuff he was a total gutfeel asshole.
Can Musk please, please, please, just fucking die already? Preferably burnt to death while trapped in a cybertruck. He’s just so stupid and has too much power, and I’m tired of people treating him like he’s worth more than utter contempt.
Ramaswamy can go, too. Conspiracy theory peddling sycophant.
I mean really it’s that some people’s interface with the world is backwards.
Instead of it being like
“Facts” -> “Emotions”
for many people it’s
“Emotions” -> “Facts”
They don’t like Obama. Therefore, whatever he did is bad. That’s it. They’re like the common clay of the new west.
I think Seth Meyers did a thing about how the right wing was freaking out about Biden having ice cream and saying that’s unpresidential and for old people, but like literally the same week Trump had ice cream and it was not a problem.
They emotionally select things that seem directly beneficial to themselves. And then lie about their beliefs because they know they’re selfish and indefensible.
This is the most infuriating part. We all do it to some extent, but some people really turn it up to 11.
The old racial bonuses aren’t entirely based on inherent ability, but also on culture and upbringing. Dwarves don’t only have high constitution because they’re born sturdy, their culture is based around mining and building.
So de-couple that from species and move it into background. There are easy solutions.
The old system was restrictive and kind of boring. Playing off-type meant mechanical penalties, so you didn’t see a lot of orc wizards or paladins.
I don’t disagree with anything here, really. As we both said, some responsibility remains on the user.
I do think Match is aggravating the situation. Men aren’t getting traction so they search for why. They find right wing MRA stuff saying that it’s women’s fault blah blah blah, but really part of why they’re not getting hits is because Match is hiding them unless you pay (and even then maybe).
Part of why may also be they’re creeps or bad at dating. It is not wholly the apps’ fault. But I do think they’re making it harder for people to connect, and that can be the top of the funnel for far right ideas.
And I do think a lot of people are on the apps when they aren’t really ready. People of all genders. But that’s a separate topic, probably.
Anyway. Good talk. Amusingly , I’m heading out to meet someone from a dating app. Here’s hoping they don’t think I’m a creep!