I did it for almost 10 years. Most of the work we did was fine, but some was utterly opposed to my personal values. I started making donations to my favorite charities (mostly Planned Parenthood and ACLU) every time I had a new work project that I felt was working against their goals.
When my husband and I were financially stable enough, I noped out of that job and found something that paid less but was affirming instead of soul-crushing.
My uncle was a factory worker and a daily regular at his favorite local bar for more than 30 years.
My mom wouldn’t allow me to go inside the bar (because drinking alcohol is a sin, you know). But in the '80s and '90s, before cell phones, I knew exactly where to find him after school if I needed anything.
Unfortunately, 30+ years of excessive drinking caused a lot of really serious health problems that caught up to him when he was in his 50s. The owners and staff sent a huge flower arrangement and all came to his funeral.
Agree. This is part of the shared lexicon in our home.
I also always access .world through my VPN.
I’m still here at .world because every time I think I’ve identified a better instance to go to where people seem to like it, I see someone else who recommends blocking it.
I definitely see the appeal of (and need for) blocking individuals, but I think that instances are too big and varied to neatly paint everyone with the same brush.
Rigging elections is terrible.
But one party has quietly been working for decades to ensure that they can retain control of Congress with or without a majority of the votes in the country or even in a state.
And now it looks like that won’t be enough, so they’re actively trying to change election maps by any means possible before the midterms.
Democrats can’t sit on their hands and wait for this to happen. If they don’t fight back now, they might not get another opportunity.
Gerrymandering has been a problem for decades, and it’s only getting worse.
It’s possible that the only way to get fair election maps is to min/max the system to the extreme. And once everyone sees how horrible it is, maybe they’ll be willing to actually work together to fix the system.
If we wait for a perfect solution that causes no friction, we’ll be waiting forever. We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
As people age, they start to think about what comes next, and the idea of an afterlife is a lot more appealing than nothingness. I think a lot of non-religious older folks go all in on Pascal’s Wager when they are faced with their own mortality.
Thank you for this suggestion. I hadn’t heard of this, but I’ll try to remember it the next time I get a bout of tinnitus. Mine is pretty intermittent for now.
Especially if the hanging occurred in a public or outdoor place. That feels like an unusual choice of venue for suicide but a very common choice for a lynching.
Yes, but the price of that temporary earthly magic is your immortal soul!
So, theoretically, it’s not worth it.
According to the story, if your character dies in-game, by that point you’re so addicted to the black magic that you ultimately can’t go on living without it.
This is fair.
It’s exhausting to try to have a conversation with someone who isn’t engaging in good faith.
It’s perfectly understandable if you don’t want to spend your time and energy in that way. And (as I argued at length here) it isn’t your responsibility.
I call bullshit on this. Education does not, in fact, “go both ways.”
Generally, in western society, we accept the idea that adults should be responsible for themselves, with exceptions for those who are physically or mentally unable to do so. We value principles of autonomy and personal responsibility, so we’re generally expected to do the work of educating ourselves (or paying someone for their help) in adulthood.
When a person has a child, they make a choice to be a parent and to take on the responsibility to raise that child. Of course, we know that not everyone follows through on that responsibility.
That person’s child has not been given any choice. They should not be required to take responsibility for their parent(s) just because of the accident of their birth. Many children choose to care for their parents in their old age for various reasons, usually for love or money.
As a society, we agree that we owe protection, education, and the fulfillment of needs to our children … because we choose to bring those children into the world and because we need them to perpetuate the social order we rely on.
Those children do not, when they become adults, automatically owe the same things back to the full-grown adults who raised them. Generally, we expect them to provide stability for their elders by contributing to the social and economic order, mostly by paying taxes and keeping infrastructure functional.
Parents are able to control aspects of their children’s lives in order to raise them in what they deem to be appropriate ways. Children don’t get “a turn” to control all of the same aspects of their parents’ lives. My mother kept me from playing video games and watching MTV as a teen because she thought it would “rot your brain.” But as much as I’d love to, I can’t keep her from watching Fox (or NewsMax, or OAN, or TBN, or whatever she’s on this week).
Some people might choose to try to reverse the effects of 20+ years of a 24-hour propaganda machine brainwashing their parents out of love or a sense of familial duty, or whatever. And that’s admirable.
But I absolutely reject the idea that it’s somehow “my turn” to “educate” 20+ years of Fox News programming out of my aging conservative parents.
This is correct. They’ve “moderated” their views so many times over the years that they are only distinguishable from Reagan Republicans because of their stance on abortion.
And people are even calling for Dems to be more “pro-life” in order to further appeal to “moderates.” It’s absurd.
Also, Somalia is not a “necessary” element of the Christian apocalypse.
I’m curious what will happen when this year’s harvest withers on the vine (because of a lack of farm workers, thanks to new immigration policies) and food prices skyrocket.
I would like all future headlines referring to Trump to specify his age.
Let’s be real; C-suite positions are rarely filled by anyone who brings actual value to the company. They’re figureheads, but they’re also largely interchangeable.
And with so many CEOs, CTOs, etc., doing so much of their jobs with LLMs, that basically proves that you don’t need actual intelligence in those positions.