I’m aware but worth pointing out. It’s easy to forget. Also to forget that our personal experience is not universal.

I had really bad anxiety in my youth. I’d get nauseous. Staying inside alone made it worse. So much worse. Taking the plunge and actually going out, talking to people, engaging, regularly, that lead to progress. Even if it meant throwing up in the bathroom sometimes. But that probably won’t work for everyone.

But I guess some part of me has a visceral reaction that’s just like “you’re making it worse! You’re just hiding from the problem and it’s never going to get better this way! Just go outside and nothing bad will happen, and you’ll stop freaking out eventually!”. But that’s not everyone.

But yes, to your point, a lot of the time it seems like they’re not even trying, and I can’t know their inner world. Sometimes they’re not, sometimes they are.

I don’t think it’s an accurate assessment to say “everyone is doing their best” though because some people certainly are not.

This was a useful perspective for me. Thanks.

No, it’s “I don’t think you’re doing enough to deal with your problems” first.

Because a lot of people I know and see are like “lol I’m a mess” without seeming to do anything to address the situation.

Though that’s aggravated by the capitalist hellscape that makes getting health care difficult.

But also I’m less generous about this because it’s frustrating to be on the receiving end of someone’s crippling anxiety.

And this comic is a cutesy, romanticized if you will, representation of it.

…why though?

Reminds me of a favorite line from a song, “I don’t want you to romanticize falling the fuck apart”

I don’t get it. Are they afraid of possibly having a brief interaction with a neighbor?

At one of my jobs there would be like Important Requirements because someone said something to someone, but if you actually skipped the layers and just asked “is it important this be like this?” they usually didn’t care.

If there’s going to be fantasies about murder, can his whole posse go out?

We should break up match group. With hammers, if needed.

But I do think a lot of people self sabotage on the apps. They’ll be like “no one has an interesting conversation with me” but their profile is like 3 bland photos and “I like to have fun”. My guy, you need to give people something to work with.

But also I don’t trust that the app is actually showing profiles to anyone with a reasonable algorithm. They probably could actually show me people I’d be compatible with. They chose not to.

There’s probably some blood on their hands, thinking about it. Lying to people that this app will lead to relationships when they intentionally sabotage that for profit means people are unhappier, more frustrated, and some of them probably go on to do violence. It’s probably producing incels.

If we’re waving magic wands around, change the tax laws to limit how much you can inherit.

Changing the step up basis thing is actually pretty low hanging fruit.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stepupinbasis.asp

https://smartasset.com/investing/buy-borrow-die-how-the-rich-avoid-taxes

Where would you lay the blame?

And how is that hypothetical response “intellectually dishonest”?

Ebooks on my phone from the library has reduced friction a lot for me. Don’t even have to get off the couch.

I thought we had all reached consensus that style is more important than realism. And you can do style without mega hardware.

On the other hand, the fidelity in bg3 I think added something to it. I don’t think it would have been the same experience if they were simple sprites like the original games. Is it worth all the hardware? Maybe.

I WANT SHORTER GAMES

Can I have my cake and eat it too? I want games with a short critical path, but satisfying ways to spend more time with it if it’s fun.

So like interesting NG+ stuff, boss rush modes, different builds, whatever.

They can be killed in their homes, too.

I don’t want to be a goat farmer but I do find people that work hard to make management richer are insufferable.

“”" A man is walking into the office when he sees his boss pull into the parking lot in a brand new sports car. “Wow! Nice car! How’d you afford that?” he says.

The boss smiles at him and says, “Listen. If you work hard, hit all your numbers this quarter, put in some overtime, then I can buy another one next quarter.” “”"

I had a shower thought the other day that if more CEOs were shot dead, there’d probably be less Return to Office.

People are sometimes like “oh but violence is bad!” but ignore all the casual harms inflicted on people by capitalism and friends.

I’m an outlier in that I buy music on Bandcamp. Renting music feels like a bad deal to me, but for some people it might work out.

I think I repeat listen to albums a lot more than I repeat watch stuff.

Still, I’d consider a service that was like “pay $10 for this movie and it’s yours, drm free, forever”. A quick search shows WandaVision on DVD is like $50, and you’d have to like rip and self host yourself to stream it.

I think the subscription model is often user hostile, but it’s very lucrative

People just want all their shit in one place for a reasonable fee.

One problem with this is that monopolies are bad.

I’m not sure what the ideal solution is. It’s not “12 different services each charging $12/month” though.

I don’t think regular capitalism can really solve this.

In my pandemic game, goblins were described as sort of perpetual teenagers. Some of them could be really smart, but a lot of them were impulsive, prone to going along with the group, and being kind of cruel.

They found a pack of goblins that had robbed some travelers… to steal their concert tickets. Most of them scattered, but they caught up with one. The monk decided not to punch this small humanoid in the face and instead asked “wtf are you all doing?”

The goblin told them they wanted to go to the show. the show! everyone’s going to the show! (The show turned out to be put on by an evil warlock, and the players had to intervene to stop the bands from summoning a lord of pandemonium into the world. Everyone loves a battle of the bands)

The players essentially adopted this goblin, Windy, for the rest of the campaign. Windy learned to play drums and flute, and I think they eventually got them enrolled in wizard school.