Yeah - I just jump in and wing it.

At the risk of inviting the internet's wrath, when people talk about the difference between serious gamers and casuals, this is the sort of thing they're talking about.

"Serious" gaming involves a particular set of skills and interests, such that the person is willing and able to just jump into some complicated new game and figure it out. And it's not just that "serious" gamers can do that - the point is that they want to. They enjoy it. They enjoy being lost, then slowly putting the pieces together and figuring out how things work and getting better because they've figured it out. And they enjoy the details - learning which skills do what and which items do what, and how it all interrelates. All that stuff isn't some chore to be avoided - it's a lot of the point - a lot of the reason that they (we) play games.

You talk about your inventory filling up and then just selling everything, and I can't even imagine doing that. To me, that's not just obviously bad strategy, but entirely missing the point - like buying ingredients to make delicious food, then bringing them home and throwing them in the garbage.

The implication here is that anarchists are relatively common on the fediverse, and if so, it wouldn't be the first time I've seen this idea expressed.

But the thing is that I am an anarchist, and I've been keeping my eyes open, and I haven't seen any other anarchists here. LOTS of authoritarian leftists, ranging from naive social democrats to full-blown "submit or die" tankies, but not one single other anarchist.

So are you actually trying to say that anarchists are common here? And if so, where are they?

This manga just impresses the hell out of me.

It was already good when it was self-published, but all we really saw then were scenes between Urumin and Kimiya at and after concerts. But then when it got serialized, instead of just redoing the existing chapters, the mangaka took the opportunity to basically start all over and flesh it out, and it's so much better.

It's especially neat that we've learned why and how it is that the rest of the group tolerates her clumsiness. And it's made it so that instead of Kimiya being inexplicably obsessed with this idol with no apparent redeeming qualities, it's Kimiya recognizing, just as her friends, fellow idols and family do, how adorable she really is underneath that awkward exterior.

Good stuff.

Actually, the people who would only bother with the fediverse if it had more content are exactly the people I don't want here.

Philosophy can't have "a scientific basis.

If an idea has a legitimate scientific basis, then it's not philosophy - it's science. Philosophy explicitly addresses ideas for which there is not, and in most cases there can't be, a legitimate scientific basis.

Conveniently enough, I just wrote another response to the thread, since there was more I wanted to say on the topic, and it addresses this.

It's not a matter of not having the tools to test theories of consciousness - it's more fundamental than that. We are consciousness. When we theorize on consciousness, we are engaging in consciousness. It's inescapable - it's the very thing that makes it possible to theorize. And it's entirely experiential - you necessarily experience your own consciousness and cannot possibly observe anyone else's. We are each and all, and necessarily, behind a veil of perception. It's literally impossible for it to be otherwise - to somehow step outside of consciousness and observe it, since the only thing that can meaningfully observe it is that same consciousness.

Yes - we can concevably at least make some good guesses regarding the physical processes that correspond with our experiences of consciousness, but that's necessarily the extent of it. Again, it's not simply that we don't have the tools to do more than that, but that it's inherently impossible for it to be otherwise.

Hmm...

I have pretty low expectations for shounen yakuza anything, but that was kinda promising.

I would assume that first and foremost it's that, as the old saying goes, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And disabled people and their advocates aren't squeaky enough.

Cynically, I think there's another explanation...

I think a lot of activism doesn't actually generate meaningful results. To some significant degree, it just serves as something for people to fight over and politicians to fundraise and campaign on.

To serve those purposes though, it has to be controversial - there has to be a basis on which one party can take a stance in favor and the other a stance opposed. And another handy feature of that sort of activism is that it doesn't have to actually be enacted, and in fact, it's better for the politicians if it's not. That means that the ones who supported it can fundraise and run merely on having supported it and on the need to counter the evil other party who opposed it, while those who opposed it can fundraise and run merely on having opposed it and on the need to counter the evil other party who proposed it. And since no money was spent on any program, that's that much more money the politicians can funnel to their cronies. It's basically free publicity with a bit of "Let's you and them fight" mixed in.

And LGBT might as well have been tailor-made for that exact purpose.

But with something like advocacy for the disabled, there's no basis on which either party could dare oppose it, so there's nothing to fight over, and worse yet, if it's proposed, there's no excuse for not passing it, which means they'd have to pay for it, and that's money that they'd rather be funneling to their cronies.

So politicians mostly just ignore it.

IMO, it's always wrong.

At heart, I believe that the claimed authority by which governments draft people is illegitimate - that all nominal justifications for it are necessarily insufficient, self-contradictory or self-defeating.

But that's a more fundamental point, and one about governance as a whole.

Even if I pretend that such authority is legitimate, I still oppose conscription.

A volunteer army serves as a check on militaristic excess. If a war is both legitimate and necessary, then people will willingly fight it. If people will not willingly fight it, then it's almost certainly the case that it's not necessary or justified.

And if it is indeed the case that a war is necessary and justified and there's still insufficient support to provide for a volunteer army, then frankly, the nation is too sick to be worth saving anyway.

Happiness - Todd Solondz

It's the dark, seedy, perverted underbelly of the American dream, equal parts funny and creepy, and brilliantly cast and acted.

i have never once in all my years seen one single thing made better by being discovered by the masses.

Well... no and yes.

No - I don't feel like I've wasted my life. I feel like I'm supposed to feel that way, and I know that many (most?) people looking from the outside in would believe that I have, but I just don't feel that way. I'm content, and as far as i can tell, that's the only thing that matters.

Ah, but there's the rub - I'm content. It sounds as if you're not.

Unfortunately, the only thing I can definitely recommend is to try to assess your own feelings and figure out if you really are discontented or if you're just going along with the idea that you should be.

But if you really are discontented... I guess I could say to try to look at what it is that you really value (which is likely not coincidentally what you've mostly done with your time) and try to actually feel the value in it.

But I have no idea how that's done, since its apparently just something that I do naturally.

Sorry if that doesn't heip...