insidevoice
3mo ago
Essentially every aspect of American sex education is lie from the pull out method not working to heterosexual sex being a reliable vector of HIV transmission. If it came out of your high school health teacher's mouth, it's a psyop.
insidevoice
7mo ago
I agree. Stuff like that always weirds me out. Presumably we all want someone to hang the sheet rock, clean the toilets, or wait our tables. I can completely understand the person saying "Why doesn't this person want more from their life?" but really that question is "why doesn't this person want to do a job that is more exclusive." Well, getting fulfillment from having a job that requires very specific and exclusive skill sets is a huge privilege. There are by definition going to be a lot of people who are kind of average (or kind of below average) at almost everything. They me need a job that is easy (intellectually) or requires micromanagement or direction. Who cares? If you want those jobs to be done you should want the person does them to have a dignified life. Also many of these jobs do benefit from some type of talent which isn't universal. I'm pretty great at building financial models, but I've never made my bathroom sparkle like a professional cleaner can, even if I spend way more time. They do have a skill set and develop techniques, learn the best cleaning products, and know the right tool for the job. Good for them.
Obviously people with the lowest common denominator skill sets will get paid less, but anyone doing productive labor is almost certainly a net benefit to society and 100% worthy of dignity and respect.
insidevoice
7mo ago
One of those things that should have been obvious to me but that I never considered. I want my teeth cleaned 3-4 times a year. I have little interest in seeing a dentist ever. Why the hell do I have to go to a dentist office? I just want a sweet woman who knows the right amount of polite conversation to make, is gentle with the water pick and scraper, and doesn't ask me questions while a utensil is in my mouth. Why does a dentist get a cut of this arrangement.
Also, I've had great hygienists who I would return to their office indefinitely if I knew where to find them. Instead, I go to the dentist and roll the dice with whomever I get. I can't even show customer loyalty to those who excel and allow them to build a clientele.
insidevoice
7mo ago
iPhone resale is great. If you want to buy the asset that depreciates the least rather than the one that costs the least, iPhone will always win.
insidevoice
7mo ago
The picture perfect example of this mindless repetition for me was when it was asserted that Donald Trump said "without evidence," that Kyle Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. The entire interaction of course, was on video, which was publicly available and used as evidence in the court of law which acquitted him.
insidevoice
8mo ago
Do you genuinely think that encouraging diplomatic solutions via tweet genuinely constitutes negotiating on behalf of the US government? What did he offer in these supposed negotiations?
insidevoice
8mo ago
I just don't think those gaps are bad or need to be closed. I think the people have moral value even if they are low agency. They can lead happy lives with close friends and family. They can have low crime rates in their communities if we can muster the political will to police them. They don't have to live like me to have moral worth, they're all God's children.
insidevoice
8mo ago
As I've come to learn later this is even more true of the original Emerald Grove story than I knew as if you take certain acts you learn that the Kagha is actually a... SHADOW DRUID.
So not even a mere nationalist concerned that her sacred grove has been overrun by helpless refugees recalcitrant to contribute, but actually some sort of evil insurgent. There is no situation presented where well-meaning people could be on opposite sides of a dilemma. It's all very fucking gay.
insidevoice
8mo ago
It's interesting and sad. I can't argue with any of the things that you've said. The game is woke in some weird and unnecessary ways. The romances are awkward and don't really land. And the morality is downright stifling.
The last one is especially odd to me as within traditional D&D there was always a lot of complaining about the alignment system and how good and evil aren't so clear cut, but at least you had the lawful and chaotic axis to shade the decision making. Maybe the lawful good Paladin supports the right of the Druids to exile the Tieflings as their lands have been intruded on and trains the tieflings in arms so they can become a law unto themselves? But in this world, no. Immigrants unmitigated good. Druids fascist. Tiefling child who attempted to steal a powerful magical artificated is an underserved minority and the druids are outright wrong for punishing her.
And so on and so forth.
Yet all that said, it's still the best game I've played in a long time. It's a DM who is pleasant and has his shit together even if his ideas are pretty stupid, it's still fun to sit down at the table and play "yes, and".
insidevoice
8mo ago
I think that is a really interesting component of the game as well. Makes all of the movement abilities like psionic jump and mist walk feel rewarding and fun. I also quickly regretted not picking up feather fall thinking there would likely be no opportunity to use it.
insidevoice
8mo ago
I did the Seldarine drow, for reasons that currently escape me.
The Paladin and Warlock spells both benefit from charisma, and pact of the blade will make it my primary attack stat for physical attacks with the pact weapon. I also use the everburning blade from the nautilus, which is carrying me for melee attacks right now because my strength is only 10, and I need another level to take pact.
I've never played 5e before and honestly I find the multiclassing kind of clumsy (but I guess it always is). That said, the benefits of having a high charisma plate wearer who got to hit hard and do fun conversation stuff with intimidate and persuasion was too good to pass up.
insidevoice
8mo ago
Not making much progress as I've had a busy week, but I've been playing a Paladin/Warlock. I'm at 1 level on Ancients Paladin and 2 of Warlock, itching to get the third Warlock level for pact of the blade. I'll take Warlock to 5 and then Paladin to 5 and then decide how to finish from there.
The character is a lot of fun because I'm pretty strong in both melee and ranged. Reasonably tanky, especially with the incredible Warlock spell buffs. And, killer at conversation from high charisma. It feels strong enough to be fun without being so strong as to be broken.
insidevoice
8mo ago
I'm actually not being utilitarian. I think that the hiring manager is employed to make a good faith effort to attract the best talent that he can within certain ethical guidelines and spousal hires fall within those guidelines. Even if the hiring manager had some move that fell outside of those ethical guidelines to create higher utility or even if the hiring manager decided that he could create higher global utility by ignoring his task for the university, I would think that he should do what he promised to do when he took the job and hire the best candidate that he can get with the tools at his disposal to do so, and it would be dishonorable to do otherwise.
insidevoice
8mo ago
I genuinely wish the biggest problem we had with the university system was too many undergrads getting knocked up by 140 IQ college professors. That would be an incredible blessing.
insidevoice
8mo ago
Yeah, but it's all fake anyway. The correct way to deal with academia's fakery is to end the student loan program. The rest is just window dressing. This is like, the least offensive thing about academia. In fact it's somewhat endearing.
insidevoice
8mo ago
Okay, I guess I'll spell it out for you. A manager promoting someone they are fucking (assuming it is not because they are the best candidate for the job) is presumably doing it as quid pro quo for the ass, to improve their own economic situation as they are sharing an income with the person they're fucking, and/or as a sign to future potential romantic partners that putting out pays out.
A manager negotiating a spousal hire as part of a compensation package is attempting to secure a business relationship that is in the best interest of the university and utilizing the various tools at their disposal to do so, including potentially that spousal hire. They aren't benefiting themselves except insofar as performing highly at their job (securing top talent) benefits them, which is precisely the purpose of their relationship with the university.
It not only isn't the same thing it is exactly the opposite.
insidevoice
8mo ago
You're entirely within your rights to demand that and if your market value is sufficient to command it then they will acquiesce. What's stopping you?
insidevoice
8mo ago
This isn't a manager hiring someone he's fucking. It's an employer hiring the spouse of someone they're pursuing as part of a compensation package. I don't think he difference is particularly subtle.
insidevoice
8mo ago
Maybe? Difficult-to-impossible to model this. It's basically an intuition or supposition. I'd rather top talent (insofar as it exists in academia, which I mostly find doubtful) get rewarded. Not all that worried if a mediocre psychology adjunct gets displaced by the wife of a brilliant researcher, even if that's her only qualification.
When I look through your drawbacks there is only one that I find slightly compelling and it is that the hire could reduce the quality of researchers, but you've already admitted that to offer a spousal hire the university is at least landing one researcher who is above the caliber they would normally hire. What are the odds that their partner is sufficiently below average to drag the level of the university down?
The others such as someone feeling like it's unfair... well, whoever you hire that will be side effect so it hardly matters. Drama? Once more, drama will make itself. I doubt spousal hires move it much off of baseline.
At the end of the day, the university is trying to win in a market and spousal hires are what the marketplace demands. Most research is fake anyway, so why does it matter if research money is going to a superstar liar or a mediocre one?
The puzzles you offer to sharpen our intuition just further demonstrate that it's just a market problem. The answer to almost all of them is "is the demand for the candidate sufficient to justify this expense". That expense of course also includes setting a new norm and injuring the feelings of those to whom one would not offer these various forms of compensation. As norms can be slow to change, I doubt that these would happen quickly, but if they do I'm not concerned. If the researcher is getting his daughter hired at a university it just demonstrates he's being a protective father who puts his family first, and I'd like to see us back in a place where this is normalized and celebrated anyway.
insidevoice
9mo ago
The Kosher meals are superior and valued in prisons. They can be traded for other goods.
That said, prisons shouldn't be doing custom diets. Prisoners can eat what they're given. If they're given the choice to do that or starve, their clergy can direct them on the proper course of action including providing them alternatives paid for by their ministry.
insidevoice
9mo ago
This is a great option. Don't build an alcohol tolerance, for the love of all that is holy.
insidevoice
9mo ago
I think that any religion where the material world is just a present state and we are operating with limited information basically gets you there. I believe that death isn't the end and that a human life is just a part of an ongoing process, but from my limited vantage point I can't see the shape of the whole thing. From within that perspective it would be silly to assume that any given difficulty is "evil" even very sad difficulties like people being mean to me or loved ones dying. It's even questionable whether bad or evil things happen at all or they're just a trick of perspective. It's like how you could do a ton of burpees and then lay on the floor breathless in exquisite pain, but because it's part of a larger story about how you are doing something healthy and beneficial for yourself you find it good. But if you were just to be in that gasping state with your muscles aching but not knowing the whole story you would be terrified. Inhabiting the material world implies the limitations of matter which means our knowledge and perspective are finite, so we don't know the whole story which leaves room for fear, but that doesn't mean there's actually anything to be afraid of.
insidevoice
9mo ago
I can imagine a world where American cities are ruled like Singapore, and in such a world there is dramatically more appeal to moving into a city than exists for me now. I would love to think that I feel cities are safe enough and clean enough that I would actually like to be in them much more frequently. But, even if that were the case, I just don't have any problems living in my cute little suburb that moving to a city would solve. My commute is 20 minutes each way and the traffic isn't bad at all. My neighborhood is friendly, and there are kids who ride there around the cul-de-sac and play basketball in their driveways. I'm right by a bunch of nature trails, so I can run my measly ten miles/week somewhere with birds, squirrels, the sound of running water, and the occasional snake. And sure, I take a three minute drive to get to the entrance. Sure, I need a car, but I don't mind owning a vehicle. I enjoy the freedom of being able to on long roadtrips or little weekend getaways with my wife at the drop of a hat. I like that I can visit neighboring cities including the little town where I went to college to catch a football game.
None of this is to say that dense cities are bad or that I hate them, I definitely don't. But, I just don't know what problem I supposedly have that the obsessive city-posters think they are trying to solve for me. There's no problem. Suburbs are great. I live in one and my life is great. My friends all live in them and their lives are great. Even if American cities were cleaned up and the guy who shits on public transportation got a bullet and a shallow hole instead of free drugs and a hotel room, it wouldn't make me want to leave.
Same, and basically everyone bought this story wholesale in the U.S. No shame in it, it's a very human condition.
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