Walmart employees desperately need union representation. Unfortunately Walmart goes at great lengths to demonize unions with their "Protect your Signature" training videos. It's part of orientation for every employee and the propaganda unfortunately is quite effective.

The healthiest way to go about it is to just have a conversation with your partner if its a concern at all. For some, one's answer could be a deal breaker, and for others it's not a problem. Communication is key here.

I would add that dehumanizing rhetoric of any kind can become a gateway drug to justifying atrocity. No matter what side you stand on. It can contribute to the radicalization of any group. Nobody is immune to becoming a monster.

I'm fat and lazy and still love hiking. I'd pull on my hiking boots and join in a heartbeat.

Grammar is funny that way it could be interpreted your way or it could be interpreted as "fascist who murders"

Yep, that's the one. When I really needed a job fast, Walmart was practically the only option I had in the small town I used to live in when I was a student. Hated every moment, not because the job itself was bad, but I recognized all the attempts at brainwashing and I was so disgusted by it.

Unrelated question: is it pronounced go-DOT as in polkadot, or go-DOH, like the actress Gal Gadot?

I'm kinda horrified that the poor girl didn't get help until she was able to pinpoint herself what might be going on. Like if I see someone pass out and fall to the floor, my immediate reaction would be to call an ambulance. If she did go to the doctor how did they not find this first? Why did it take her realizing, "I think I might be diabetic?" Before something got done about it?

I realize you had complex IRL situations surrounding all of this, but the fact that warlock was openly and rudely questioning your system rather than just rolling with it, would have been enough for me to question them privately about their manners and whether this was the right game for them. It is YOUR game after all and during session it's very frustrating and disrespectful to the other players' time to relentlessly belabor the point. I'm surprised you put up with it as long as you did despite attendance from Warlock.

Same :(

I hope it's not for a long time. I grew up seeing my great grandmother age gracefully and finally pass in peace in her favorite chair reading John Grisham novels. I admired that woman so much, despite the fact that she lived alone, her life partner long gone, she enjoyed her humble life in her cozy home.

I hope to do the same, for my heart to just stop beating in my advanced age. I've told my family that I don't think I'll mind even if I'm the last to go, I want to see how it all ends. I want to see the good and the bad of everything. I want to live as long as I possibly can.

There's plenty of reasons to be fearful or suspicious: corporations who develop all the new tech we use today have shown already they don't respect our privacy. Our smartphones, computers, and other Internet connected devices are always harvesting data to advertise to us, so it follows that any brain-implanted device could be used to harvest data for similar purposes. Not everyone gives a shit about this one, but there are plenty who would at least like to be paid for the data that is collected from them and used for profit; barring that we should have the right to forbid data collection without consent.

There are, of course, more sinister applications for brain-implanted devices that can interface with the Internet (and if they don't now, they surely will in the future). I think a lot of us immediately think of the science fiction book and movie, "Minority Report" wherein law enforcement has access to the private thoughts of citizens and arrests and convicts those who have contemplated crime but have not yet perpetrated the crime. Any sane person would never allow the police access to one's private thoughts, let alone a corporation.

Elon Musk has said his ultimate goal with Neuralink goes beyond merely restoring function to injured parts of the body; he wants to make it possible to save and load memories and with those two functions we may also be able to delete memories too. Imagine someone hacking your memories, it could fundamentally alter your perception of yourself and your reality. You could become a prisoner in your own brain, subjected to the censorship of a corporation or government.

These are worst case scenarios and I'm not saying we are there yet, maybe not even close to that level of technology, but we should be aware of what kind of control we may be giving away to a company or authority by allowing such implants to be installed. I hope that we will use it as a means of improving people's lives, but I'm very cautiously optimistic as well.

Going to work can be a complicated prospect for some members of society. Not everyone has equal opportunity for education and not everyone can find the support for psychological or mental health problems. We should have compassion for those that have a hard time functioning in society and I suspect that someone who is stealing food has been dealt a shitty hand in life and cannot manage to find the resources to manage normal life on their own.

Thank you for reminding me to call me out on my own bullshit :D

I've experienced LSD a few times and Mushrooms once. They are subtly different but I like to lean into the difficulty of the experience (when or if it starts to go that way). I feel like I'm being taught something important and doing so has been beneficial. To me it feels like a death and rebirth experience. I'm not foolish enough to think it's the answer to my problems, but boy does it ever shine a light on things! For me, they bring me back to being a kid, experiencing everything with wonder and curiosity. It's a breath of fresh air because I spent my young adult life trying to "grow up" by trying to fit into everyone else's expectation if what adult means. It made me realize I am individual as well as connected to the human race and I should enjoy and embrace that.

I too wish academics, and those at least pretending, would do away with the rhetorical peacocking. Nobody learns from it and it makes the writing inaccessible. It's deliberate gatekeeping confused for professional writing.

I made a reddit account 7 years ago and used rif most of that time. It was the only thing keeping me on reddit because I was never satisfied with the official app. With rif gone, reddit will only be used as a means of finding answers to questions I search Google with. I hope that I won't have to depend on reddit for long in that regard either.

It's really a nasty habit too. It precludes any kind of reasonable, honest discussion. Criticism is too often conflated with insult.

I suppose we will have to agree to disagree on that one. If you aren't concerned about the information that others collect on you and you don't care to imagine how it could be used against you then I'll stop there