Or someone who has been deep enough down the depression hole to truly appreciate being out of it.

Presumably because they aren’t “one of the best ways to get rid of a rodent invasion.”

Maybe I spoiled it for myself by playing as many city builders as I have, but I didn’t feel it was too hard the one time I played it, just really slow to get things rolling.

Maybe, but that doesn’t sound like corporatism, and I made this post and another because it bugs me when the two words are used interchangeably.

Are you quoting someone?

Oh sure, the stuff he argued after doesn’t really hold up, but I’ve always had the sense that it would have been dangerous for him to suggest that God isn’t real at the time, and he maybe wouldn’t have made such arguments had he born in modern times.

This is a messy but interesting question to sort my thoughts on. First, I did date a non-binary person for a couple years and ended things on good terms. I’m AMAB, they’re AFAB on testosterone. I’ll admit I felt a little weird as their transition took effect over time with thicker leg hair and a peach fuzz mustache.

Second, I’ve considered myself a sex-positive asexual person since I learned the term, so I’m not certain I should be answering this. I’ve always been confused when someone is called hot, but I like the mental/emotional intimacy and physical touch of sex. I’ve come to realize recently that I’d probably be okay being intimate with a woman or feminine partner with a dick, but since I would like to have kids some day it wouldn’t really work for a romantic relationship.

Third, that partner has half-jokingly said that you have to be a little gay to date them, so I don’t know that any person that would date a non-binary person can call themself 100% straight, which means technically nobody should be answering this question at all :P

I’m a big fan of Smooth Video Project (SVP) for video interpolation: https://www.svp-team.com/

Say what you will about high frame rate video/animation, I paid like $10 for it in 2014 and it’s still getting updates!

Corporatism has been employed in nefarious ways many times, but it’s also the basis for the Nordic model used by Sweden, where labor unions and business owners meet to form policy that benefits both groups.

I think this idea of corporate groups informs how I view power in the US, where businesses hold significantly more clout than labor unions. But that used to not be the case. A while back I was trying to understand what changed in the late 60’s or early 70’s that led to the stagnation of wages we have seen since, and found an article from the time that talked about the largest union potentially striking over Nixon’s move away from the Bretton-Woods system: https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/21/archives/nixon-and-the-unions-president-pins-hopes-on-rankandfile-as-the.html

The thing that struck me was that it may be the first time I’ve read about the leaders of a union being invited to meet at the White House, the way an Elon Musk or other CEO would today. It leads me to believe that the most realistic peaceful path toward fixing the many issues facing the people of the US today is to empower unions such that they have the clout to challenge that of corporations again.

All this to say that corporatism as a concept can enable good or bad, but I would like to see it considered more. And I’d like to see it confused with corporatocracy less.

I could do with more depth to my knowledge though. Do you have any recommendations on books or articles to do more reading?

Kind of a tangent, but the tailend of college I shared a house with four other guys, which meant street parking in a college neighborhood where the streets were often mostly full. Our next door neighbor had a car and a half length of curb between him and the next house, and once asked me to park a little further back to leave space for his trash can so he could use his driveway without being blocked by his trash can. It just so happened trash day was Monday and I delivered Amazon packages through the post office Sundays, so I often got off work at a time other folk were away from home and the space in front of his house was open. I always felt pretty good pulling in to maximize space for his bin, effectively reserving the space for him.

How? It has always encouraged solipsism within me because being absolutely certain that I exist very quickly casts doubt upon the existence of anything else since I cannot be as certain of it.

I don’t understand. The opposite of saying “I exist” is “I don’t exist.” Doubting one’s existence, as in the first half of the first sentence, means asking “Do I really exist?” And he very quickly answers that by extrapolating that in order to ask that there must be some thinking thing to ask it, and that thinking thing is the self, therefore regardless of anything else, the self exists. What am I missing here?

That also sucks. I hope you find some work to do.

Wow, my brain had a tough time processing that image. Turn it about 20 degrees counter clockwise and it looked like a hallway with several red carts with netting blocking the way. I literally thought the morgue was at the other end.

That sucks. What’s something that to you would feel valuable to do?

Thanks for reminding me, that’s a good point.

As an American, there’s a chain of instinctive thoughts that pass through my mind when I see another news article about the US losing another piece of world dominance:

Oh no, this could hurt me! Wait, I don’t make money from these companies.

My country will lose tax revenue! Wait, massive corporations pay minimal taxes anyway, this doesn’t affect the ability for my government to function.

The Visa/Mastercard employees working internationally will lose their jobs! Corporations have mass layoffs willy nilly anyway, this isn’t different.

The executives and corporate owners will lose revenue! Wait, they’re the ones who can afford to lose income the most out of anybody.

They’ve really done a good job dismantling any reason for me to give a shit about US corporations losing money.

When I was a freshman in college over a decade ago, I was given this link to a youtube video basically asserting that all agnostic people are atheist. At the time I was fairly agnostic, and being told this felt wrong, like my thoughts were being miscategorized, but I didn’t have a great way to explain that feeling at the time. The framework above is ultimately how I parsed through that feeling to better understand myself and others. That’s why I started thinking about it.

I think a person’s belief (or lack thereof) is a reflection of how they think, so adding clarity to what and how one believes or doesn’t believe something can grant a better understanding of how they think. And I like understanding other people and how they think.

I don’t really understand how this is othering, could you elaborate on that?

I generally agree with the exception of sandbox games intended to be played through multiple times, like grand strategy games. In those cases they can be a fun way to find absurd goals to try out, like in Victoria 3 when I made the US a monarchy or made Paraguay really big!

I think the issue I consistently see in discussions surrounding theism and atheism is the definition of what it means to be agnostic vs atheist. The way I see it, there are generally five “buckets” of belief most people fit into; theist, agnostic theist, agnostic, agnostic atheist, and atheist.

In the most technical sense atheist means “a lack of belief.” But some people use it to mean a disbelief in a god, or in other words a belief there is no god. Other people use it in the technical sense, but rarely does someone clarify which use they actually mean.

So for clarity and ease of communication, I think it would make sense to use the fives states of belief above as follows:

Theist: believes there is a god.

Agnostic theist: does not hold a belief in a god, but lives as though there is one.

Agnostic: does not hold a belief or disbelief in a god.

Agnostic atheist: does not hold a belief in a god, and lives as though there is not one.

Atheist/antitheist: believes that there is no god.

Obviously I don’t expect others to enter a conversation already using that framework, and it will probably never become a common framework, but when I read comments online and someone says they are an atheist, the first thing I try to do is determine if they are an agnostic or antitheist atheist.