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Cake day: December 11th, 2023

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  • roscoe@startrek.websitetoRisa@startrek.websiteBait
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    2 years ago

    The thing I love about this, the thing I always find funny whenever this comes up, is that these midwits are just too dumb to make the obvious argument. The argument that is “in their face” and “being shoved down their throats.”

    There is a rational, coherent argument to make their point. It’s one I disagree with. It’s one that, in my opinion, can only be made in bad faith with no purpose other than to be a concern troll, but it’s there.

    They always bring up Adira, Gray, Jett, Stamets, Culber, and anything else that’s gone up their ass but never any of the actual social commentary because they’re so thick it went over their heads and they didn’t even notice it. You can see it in this thread. They mention the characters and people respond with “but they’re just existing, how does that bother you?” They just bring up the characters again to a response of “yeah, we heard you the first time, what are they doing that bothers you other than existing?” And it just goes in a circle.

    There was never an episode of ToS where Uhura talked about how hard it was to be a black woman as a bridge officer, because it wasn’t. That’s the whole point. In the future Star Trek wants us to imagine, a black female officer is completely unremarkable. Whenever they wanted to engage in social commentary about race relations in the 60s they had to invent an allegorical race, time travel, or use some other device to make their point.

    The same thing is happening in the newer series. All those characters are just existing. Their sexuality and gender identity is completely unremarkable in the future Star Trek shows us. If those dipshits had two brain cells to rub together they would see the new series are full of allegories about not just tolerance, or even acceptance, but appreciation for beings with non-conforming expressions of self. If any of that did manage to trickle through their thick skulls they probably just twisted it into “yeah, people shouldn’t make fun of me for having a relationship with a waifu pillow.”

    If they weren’t so stupid they could easily give a half dozen examples and say “it’s too much,” “I got it the first time,” “focus on something else for a change,” or whatever other bullshit justification they came up with to oppose these themes. It would be a bad faith argument that I would disagree with but at least they could pretend they’re not bigots, instead of their current position which seems to be “I’ve got no problem with these people, I just don’t want to see them.”


  • roscoe@startrek.websitetoRisa@startrek.websiteBait
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    2 years ago

    I saw Starship Troopers shortly after it came out. Other than knowing his name and that he was a well known sci-fi author, I wasn’t familiar with Heinlein so I assumed he was a satirist. I picked up one of his other books and read half of it thinking I just wasn’t getting it before I suddenly realized “oh shit, this guy is being sincere.”



  • Vote and volunteer in local elections. I think most people would be surprised how few resources campaigns for state legislature have. You and a few friends can make a huge difference. Volunteer for the Dem (out of necessity) primary candidate that wants to replace ftp voting with ranked choice or another similar system, and show up to meetings regardless of election cycle to give input. It wouldn’t take much to get their resources up to the level of establishment candidates.

    If a few good sized states could get this the others would get jealous about them having real choice and I believe it would start a snowball effect. It has to come from state legislatures though.



  • If you want to know how bad we’re being fucked, search for the PPI, the producer price index. CPI, the one we always hear about, is the measure of inflation to us, the consumer. The PPI is the measure of inflation to producers, what they pay for goods and services to produce the goods and services we buy.

    The PPI has been back to “normal” for a while now. Pretty much as soon as the post COVID logistics issues were mostly ironed out. The difference between PPI and CPI changes is pure profit.

    We don’t get daily articles on the PPI though, I wonder why.

    Edit: tell people about PPI whenever you can, online or off, the more people know, the better. It’s easy enough to say inflation is just down to greed but being able to back it up by comparing two simple charts will help people really understand.



  • You can’t get it in the boonies. I live in a city and my insurance, with an earthquake rider, is only a few hundred a month. My coworker lives in sparsely populated area (by the standards of this metro area) and his insurance costs a little over 7x as much, and continues to rise.

    And it’s deserved too. These people move out there because they’re the type that want to “own land,” but then none of them maintain it. I’ll go over to his house for a party and be in the backyard and everywhere I look, his property and every property it touches, as soon as you go beyond the area immediately around the house that is actually used, the entire ground is covered by kindling. One dropped cigarette and his entire neighborhood is gone.


  • The Clone Wars might have started out for a younger audience (I would say more all ages, it wasn’t too kiddy) but it started to have episodes that were pretty heavy after a while. Also, the transformation from “snips” to who Ahsoka is now is one of the best examples of character growth I can think of. Back when it came out if you had told me that annoying little shit would become one of my favorite characters in the entire eu, I never would have believed it.

    And on a general note, the eu has always had better stories than the movies anyway.



  • He got the details wrong, but the important part right. They live off of loans and either let the interest ride or only sell enough assets to pay the interest. When they die, their heirs can sell as much as is needed to pay the loan tax free because the basis is reset to the current value of the assets when they are inherited.

    This isn’t the only thing they do, but it is one part of it




  • No they’re not the same. The multinational conglomerate is far better.

    Chores for the neighbors and the paper route paid peanuts. Once I was old enough to work for the conglomerate (where I received food safety training) my pay after taxes more than doubled (a little more than minimum wage, which did, and does, exist), I started contributing to my future social security check, I received paid breaks, and there was a maximum amount of hours I was legally allowed to work.

    Flipping burgers beats the hell out of lugging Sunday papers around the neighborhood or knocking on doors to mow lawns in the summer heat or shovel driveways in the freezing cold. Back then I counted the days until I was old enough for a “real” job.


  • Right?

    Learning things a little at a time, when the stakes are low/non-existent is the way to go. From early teens to partway through college when you get an off campus apartment you can learn how to apply for a job, how to interview, responsibility, managing your money, responsible credit use, professionalism, bill paying. All this over the course of years, with a support system when you make mistakes (hopefully).

    I guess some people think you should just have all that dropped on you like a ton of bricks the day after you get a diploma.


  • I had a paper route when I was 12.

    The work itself wasn’t important but learning responsibility and the value of money was important.

    It was the first time I did anything completely on my own without being directed in some way by a parent, teacher, coach, etc. Without that job and after-school/summer jobs I had when I was older there is a good chance I would have made poor financial decisions in early adulthood.

    With 18 year-olds getting credit cards shoved in their face the day they show up for orientation, after probably signing up for student loans, it’s probably a good idea for them to have earned money on their own for a while.


  • The footprints of chargers and gas stations aren’t the same though. A lot of places I go have a row of 8-10 spots with chargers. No added footprint really, just installed at the front of the spot. Compare that to an 8-10 pump gas station, even without a convenience store. If you removed a gas station and replaced it with rows of spaces with chargers I think you’d get more cars through over a given period of time.