So I missed y’all’s argument, but I really appreciate how you both realized that you’d made thoughtless posts, apologized, and removed them.

It’s a rare thing to see online.

My one true MMO addiction in my younger days was City of Heroes, where I was an Empathy Defender (healer/buffer). I played pure support and never attacked enemies at all, because my attacks weren’t strong enough to be impactful, and enemies would aggro me and kill me off in 1 hit.

When people asked why I didn’t contribute to damage, I explained that staying alive and helping the other 7 people on my team to do 20% more damage and stay in the fight was a much bigger contribution than adding another percent or 2 to damage before I got 1-shot and the team wiped.

A lot of people don’t consider the future even when writing helpful posts. I’m as guilty as anyone.

If you link the correct answer, the person finding your post in 6 years better hope the link is still good. That’s the legitimate reason scholarly papers needs to cite specific book editions and journal page numbers instead of using hyperlinks in a bibliography.

If a copy of the book or journal can ba tracked down, the citation will still work.

It’s also why online-only published journals are still often formatted like a book with static pages instead of websites. If you find a journal article that’s important, you’ll likely still be able to find an achived copy in PDF somewhere even if the journal stops publishing or they change domains or whatever.

The biggest changes have been the social acceptance of homosexuality.

Looking at the question of people’s perception on homosexual relationships in the GSS between 1973 and 2022, the percentage of Americana who view homosexual relationships as being “Not wrong at all” went from 10% to 61%. And for the first 20 years of that period, it pretty much stayed around 10%.

The question of homosexual sex itself has only been included 5 times on the GSS. The earliest in 1991 and the most-recent in 2018. In 1991 is was 11% and in 2018 was 55%.

In 1973, 1/3rd of people believed a gay person shouldn’t even be allowed to speak in public.

The somewhat scarier number is reagrdining homosexual books in public libraries, simply because there’s a slight uptick in banning them between 2020 and 2022, and while more-recent GSS numbers aren’t out, we have been seeing lots of book-bans in the news…

Other fun stuff from the GSS:

40% of white reponsants were in favor of a law banning interracial marriage in the 70s, and - more interestingly - up until they stopped asking the question in 2002 more democrats supported laws prohibiting interracial marriage than Republicans.

Support for abortion “for any reason” didn’t cross the 50% threshold until the Trump Presidency, and it’s pretty much entirely a trend on the Democratic side. The Dem and Rep voters weren’t that far apart until very recently.

1st day availability on Gamepass for all AAA games simply isn’t a sustainable strategy. They can’t give away multiple games with a 9-figure budget along with everything else for the price of the sub.

Interestingly though, on average, gay and lesbian married couples both make more money than heterosexual married couples.

We can and have improved things massively. What we cannot do is fix everything at one time. The most we can realistically hope for is marginal improvement. Demanding perfection or nothing results in us sliding backwards.

But look at 60 years ago. Racial discrimination wasn’t only legal, but state-mandated in much of the country. Interracial marriage was illegal. Being homosexual was illegal. A woman could be fired for not sleeping with her boss or for becoming pregnant. Businesses couldn’t operate on Sundays because it competed with church. Firearms could be purchased by anyone without a background check at any store. Politicians openly ran on the platform that the white race was superior. Poor kids and minorities were drafted and forced to fight in useless wars while rich people could get college deferments.

We’re so, so much better today than we were then. I don’t want to rant forever, so let’s focus on one issue and go even more recent:

30 years ago the general public was so homophobic that a Democratic President signed a law banning openly gay people from serving in the military. Clinton then followed it up by signing the Defense of Marriage Act barring federal recognition of same-sex marriage and allowing states to refuse to recognize marriages granted by another state - even though no states allowed it at the time.

20 years ago gay marriage was still illegal in all 50 states (next Friday is actually the 20th anniversary of gay marriage in Massachusetts!). It wasn’t until 2012 that the first states legalized gay marriage through popular votes.

It’s been less than 10 years since gay marriage was legalized nationwide.

In 2010 the majority of the country was opposed to gay marriage. Today nearly 80 percent supports it. That’s remarkable.

We’ve improved so much very, very quickly. It’s just hard to see when there’s so much more work to be done.

But it took work to make the progress we have. If we’d given up and simply chosen not to vote we’d have empowered those who fought change.

Please vote.

Don’t get me wrong: tech is awesome. I spend way, way too much money on the newest scifi shit. I have a folding phone, at least 10 cameras, a laser cutter, 5 windows systems I use regularly (3 laptops, a desktop, and a handheld), 2 drones, a color e-ink tablet, and even a kayak with a GPS-controlled motor.

I have a diving flashlight that cost more than 2 different cars I’ve bought.

It’s a problem. But I love new tech and all the cool shit I can do with it.

But appliances? If the device’s function is simply to make something hot, cold, wet, dry, or clean it’s pretty much a solved problem from a tech standpoint. Not really any significant innovations since the Microwave.

When the circuit board failed in my parent’s 3yo dryer the part was $700. I have a 50yo dryer that’s basically a glorified egg timer attached to a motor and it works great. Last time it broke I replaced a switch in the door for 50 cents, and that was over a decade ago.

They probably didn’t feel a goddamned thing. There was no hopelessness or dread. They just suddenly died, which is probably a decent way to go.

Living within 30 minutes of my job in the city costs $3,000/month in rent for a 800sf apartment. Living within walking distance would cost $4,000 if I could even find anything to rent.

Living an hour away costs $750/month in rent for a 1200sf trailer. My car note is $450/month and I spend about $300/month on gasoline on average. All in my rent, vehicle, and gas is half the cost of just the rent in the city.

Yeah - there’s an extra hour lost every day to the drive, but the savings comes out to around $75/hr for that commute. And I have the freedom to travel anywhere I want with my vehicle on top of that.

So yeah, I live suburban and fuck anyone who criticizes me for making that sensible economic decision.

It’s important to understand the difference between sex and gender. Even within the trans community very few people understand the difference.

Gender is about societal roles, whereas sex is about biology. You can reject your societal gender role without wanting to change your body, and you can want to change your body while embracing your gender role.

I had a relative tell me that the problem with trans and homosexuality is that it’s a mental illness. Instead of fighting those ideas, my response was “so what?” I decided to follow that line of argument to its conclusion.

Even if it were a mental illness, it would be one that causes no harm. I asked that relative what they would do if they found out they had a mental illness, and that the only thing that treatment would accomplish would be to make them no longer love their spouse. Of course they’d refuse treatment and go on loving who they love.

That should be the end of the conversation. If someone is doing something that harms nobody, why should they be forced to change who they are to please someone unaffected by the outcome?

That game had one of my favorite evil moments ever when you can force a certain character to do summering horrible. Even though it’s old I won’t spoil it because it’s getting a remake and a lot of people will get to play for the first time.

But those who know what I’m talking about will remember that moment.

He’s saying that they would be a good value if it weren’t for the price.

Which applies to most things. If a HP printer used $2 ink refills it would also be a good value.

Yeah, but as of July 2022 the credit bureaus don’t report medical debt. After I got a surprise $5,000 bill in the mail after my copay for an ER visit where the doctor spent 5 minutes misdiagnksing me and sending me to to wrong specialist, I was able to tell them to go to hell.

Exactly. When it’s more difficult to enter and exit a position you need to take a longer-term view.

Yes, but they chase it in different ways.

A shareholder in a private company that’s profitable well isn’t losing money on the investment. A shareholder in a profitable publicly-held company might be losing money depending on when they bought in.

Additionally, the shareholders in the private company have to consider the future because they can’t dump their shares as easily. That promotes sustainable business practices instead of chasing short-term gains at the cost of long-term viability.

The thing about privately-held companies with not intention to go publoc is that the long-term viability of the company is more important than ever-increasing share value.

A public company can be the most profitable company in the world but still lose stock value if it isn’t more profitable than last quarter.

Hydrogen hydroxide is both and acid AND a base, and it’s served to students at school!

I used to sell guns at a major gun store, but I’m also not a traditional gun salesman, as I’m super liberal.

We had a trans woman come in to buy a gun, and a bunch of the other guys at the gun counter were snickering at her.

I went up to her and talked to her about guns, where she could get training, etc. She was a former marine who had been discharged when she transitioned and was really cool. She found out that I was a trustee of a church that was super progressive and that we hosted the annual transgender day of remembrance, and she and I both had a great experience.

Turned out she’d been shunned by her church, and she was super excited to learn that there were prone who shared her faith and hobbies that weren’t bigots, and we both had a great time.

She ended up telling others about her experience, and I ended up becoming the regional gun sales guy for the transgender community, and that kinda spread into the queer community in general.

The coolest part though was how it affected the other sales guys. When she first arrived, they said they were dirty I had to deal with the freak. Then when they realized I was fine with it they’d joke about “Chilie’s new girlfriend” any time a trans person would come in.

But sometimes I’d be busy with another customer, and another salesman would end up helping them. Eventually, some of them became more open and realized that people are people.

I’d say of the 30 gun line guys, 10-12 changed his they treated queer customers throughout my time there, and a few were fine before. When I moved on, probably 3/4 were fine with it.

While those numbers aren’t amazing overall, it was a huge improvement from the 10% early on. I don’t think I’d go back to gun sales. I have a career job now and make more than triple the money with great benefits and predictable hours. But I like to think that my time behind the counter made the gun-buying experience better for customers of all kinds at that particular mega-store.