Narrator: it could

In the 80s and 90s it was possible to have faith in the country. That the current administration was just a bad actor and we’d get it right next time. That we all kinda wanted the same thing, a functioning government and to lead our lives happily and privately.

Maybe it was true then. Maybe Fox News actually did poison the well, and people who once were rational are no longer so. Fear and hate blight rationality and the media cycle feeds on it. The more angry we are, the more we engage with social media. The more ads we’re served.

It’s wild that we’ll have to explain around campfires and cook stoves in the aftermath to whatever generation follows us that this was all in pursuit of ad revenue.

Children are sex objects or racial slurs to Republicans. There is no in between and quite a bit of overlap.

When it’s actual news, I’ll hear about it regardless.

I’m not going to perseverate over every headline, I have a life to live. The media is actively trying to piss us off, they’ll skew and distort and all but fabricate to keep us angry and engaged.

I’m not doing it. I can’t recall a single time in my life that keeping up to date up to the hour has actually improved anything for me. Sitting around just knowing stuff is happening isn’t going to change my life for the better.

I live in a safe republican state and a leans Republican district. I could send a letter to my senator, call my representative, spend hours of my time just worried about something, and still, they’ll vote how the party wants them to. Being informed and doing the things I’m supposed to do won’t change anything.

Isn’t there an “actually infuriating” community somewhere? Or maybe a “sounds like this will be used as evidence in the divorce but ok” type thing?

Reduces by one 1/8th. Not TO one eighth. A 12 pound ball would weigh 10.5 pounds and be one size category smaller. The wizard would have to cast it several times to get musket ball sized ammunition.

Though I would throw this under ‘rule of cool.’ Maybe the reduced cannonballs are a little more dense and ignore a little armor or something. Treat them like magic animation. Wizard did spend a bunch of spells to make it happen. Give them the actual magic weapon if they do a little quest to make it happen. Regular old glue isn’t going to hold a piece of jewelry to the end of a musket. You need a master armsmith who can work magic items to do that for you.

That just means they can handle a higher CR creature, and combat might actually prove challenging for once. Since that guy is only shooting his magic cannon every other round at best.

Enlarge Reduce specifically says the weight changes by 1/8th every time you go down a size category.

Prove it.

The first writings we have are accounts, receipts, and famously, a complaint about the quality of copper. The first named person in recorded history appears on a tablet accounting for a number of slaves.

Records were literally invented to document trades.

Basically oscillating the tool up and down while rotating the workpiece back and forth, while spinning the tool very, very slowly.

Laughs in G code S1 g54 x0y0 g0 g90. F50 M3; z-.5 a45 z0 a0 z-.5 a45 z0 a0 z-.5 a45 z0 a0 z-.5 a45 z0 a0

I found this in my app list, it hadn’t asked for any permissions. If it’s looking at every image I get, it’s doing so extremely discreetly.

Sus. Very sus.

What the fuck did I just read?

Am I having a stroke?

Only if they live above the rules

That’s really just a company store but worse somehow.

You’re going to have a market. If you make markets illegal you’ll just have black markets. You need to contend with that, failing to realize that literally killed the Soviet Union. It got so bad, and was such a core part of daily life that they just kinda made it legal, and the union collapsed shortly after.

You can’t fix homelessness by making it illegal, you can destroy markets by making them illegal. These things have been tried and failed in practice.

I’ve read The Expanse lol. I was describing the system on Earth in that series.

The thing is, markets predate the written word. Some form of trading is literally one of the first things humans did. It could even be a prehuman invention. Eliminating markets is like trying to eliminate prostitution, or drugs.

Markets, much like life, uhh… Find a way.

Instead of turning up your nose, make them work for you, in a way you want. We don’t want the markets to spread, unrestrained, like kudsu. We want Bonsai markets.

Heavily regulated socialist democracy.

Provide basic needs, food, clothing, healthcare, childcare, and education. Hell even a phone and Internet access.

Emphasis on the basic.

Allow for those who do not wish to, or are unable to work to live with all basic needs covered. Those who wish to work are incentivized to do so, with access to luxuries. Better housing, better clothing, better technology. Allow a place for the market, but don’t make people depend on the market.

No reason to work a job you hate, no reason to employ people you don’t need. Everybody wins.

Sounds like Kellogg’s.

Guys sleep at the plant. They have showers and beds. They’ll spend a week there, rake in an ass load of overtime, and go home for a few hours a week. Rinse, repeat. To what end I have no idea, not like you can do that forever

Deal.

Your assignment in the Union Carbide operated Hawks Nest tunnel begins in the morning.

There’s better places out there my guy. Fuck em, they don’t care about you, make every job a gap filler until you find someone you’re happy to work for

We also didn’t make the model T suggest replacing the engine when the oil light comes on. Cars, as it happens, aren’t that great at self diagnosis, despite that technology being far simpler and further along than generative models are. I don’t trust the model to tell me what temperature to bake a cake at, I’m sure at hell not going to trust it with medical information. Googling symptoms was risky at best before. It’s a horror show now.