It just seems like there are so many people in the US that are like “we can’t have more mandated vacation days! Chad doesn’t work as hard as I do and if he has something nice, I’ll die! Also my boss said the company is really depending on me- if I put in the extra hours he can buy another sports car this quarter!”

There’s shockingly low class solidarity among labor.

5 weeks is an insult and harmful to the child. Also not something to brag about.

gives you the right to 12 whole fucking unpaid

unpaid

That’s not really something to brag about. But poe’s law is real, and maybe you’re doing a bit?

Many people are just scared all the time. No one’s smart when they’re scared. The body doesn’t let you. They think the police will protect them.

Right wing media is largely to blame. And segregation and under funded education, public spaces. And suburbs + car culture isolating everyone.

Pretty much every right wing idea is bad.

My ‘needs’ include what makes me want to continue living, regardless of what it looks like from your perspective

My parents would fight about this sometimes. They would blur “need” and “want” together, and that caused difficulties. It’s imprecise and, in my opinion, immature, to conflate the two categories. If you’re looking at a budget and you smush everything into “needs”, how are you going to know what to cut? The electric bill by any reasonable metric is more important than another lego death star, assuming you plan to continue living in society.

Furthermore, “I can’t quit my job at [evil megacorp], because then I might not be able to do luxury dining experiences as often” is laughable. Like, sure, there’s no way to live pure in our capitalist hellscape. We all have bills to pay. But highlighting “I like broadway” as the justification for “I help build AI used by ICE to deport people”? Come on. I’d respect it more if they just said out right that they don’t give a shit about other people. At least that’d be honest.

I don’t think most people could live on 65% of their current income. Many people are poor and can’t handle a surprise $500 expense.

I could live happily on the median income of my area (NYC) - $113,400. Even if I got a more expensive apartment, I could make that work.

I do wonder about people’s budgets sometimes. One of my friends has crushing medical, student, and credit card debt so they’re always struggling. But another friend was like “I can’t leave my job at [evil megacorp]! I need the money!” But when pressed slightly, their “needs” included broadway plays, fine dining, and every hot new game on steam (that they don’t even play). Most people are probably between those two extremes.

Have you tried explaining something to someone lately? A lot of people don’t care and don’t understand. About anything

How many of the bosses can you walk in and just wipe the floor with on the first try

A pretty good amount, though that’s confounded by playing lots of similar games over the years. But, like, I see the boss lift his weapon way up and I go “I bet he’s going to swing. I should get out of the way.” Sure, there is an element to “I’ve seen this before - I know if I run behind him after the big butt stomp I can hit him easily”, but that’s hardly unique to fromsoft.

What sort of games don’t have enemies that you learn their moves? Like, you play Baldur’s Gate 3 and you learn “ok, that wizard has Sleep prepared, I should keep my HP up.” Or you play Hades and learn “ok, these guys like to charge but then take a second to recover”. This complaint is not unique to souls-likes but I don’t know if I’ve heard it brought against any other game.

“there must be in-groups for the law to protect but not bind, and out groups for the law to bind but not protect”

“Souls-like” games - memorise attack patterns, the game. Not hard, just tedious.

Are people memorizing attack patterns? This one comes up a lot and I don’t really get it. The boss does a thing and I react, which is how most real time combat games are, I think?

I guess something like Skyrim you mostly just stand there and trade blows.

I know I’m biting bait but I rarely got jumped by the “guy around the corner” traps because I looked before walking in. Counter intuitively, running in will also often avoid the worst of it.

I remember people complaining about the floor traps in the first game and I was like “you mean the raised tiles that are a different color? Yeah I was careful around those”. Player messages also help.

It’s okay the game isn’t for you - but “literally can’t win on the first try” is hyperbole.

Apparently about 40% of adults get insufficient sleep, if the CDC is to be trusted. That’s pretty bad.

I started setting an alarm for myself to go to bed. Now I have better sleep habits. I used to stay up too late, but then I’d be in a brain fog the next day and it sucked. An extra hour of video game isn’t worth the following day and its video games sucking.

When people talk about their income they usually talk about gross, which is pre-tax. When someone says “I make $100k a year” they don’t typically mean they take home net $100k.

Investments are typically also only taxed when you realize the gains, so if you have $3mm and “earn” $300k, you only pay taxes if you sell some of that. Other interest, like from a high yield savings, is taxed as income.

Health insurance is a nightmare, but there are options in this hellscape for buying it. Many poor people are also just uninsured, so you’re not much worse off than them in this scenario.

Did you have any details you wanted to talk about, or did you just want to try to be pithy?

It is kind of fucked up that if you’re even mildly rich, you essentially get basic income.

If you have $1 million, a fairly conservative investment strategy will get you $100k per year. That’s about the median income for NYC. You’ll probably get closer to $150k, since vanguard usually gets about 15% returns. That’s just sticking the money in Vanguard and doing nothing else. Sit at home playing final fantasy and “earn” more than a teacher.

If you’re richer, but not even mega-rich, say $3 million, you can put it in an *insured high yield savings and take home $135,000 a year. Or diversify, put some in vanguard, some in bonds, and some in high yield savings. You’ll “earn” more than many people do at their jobs.

You could then just do what you want with your days. Write a book. Finish your backlog of games. Start a band. Whatever you want. You’d be free.

I want everyone to have basic income, not just the rich.

I also don’t recommend bringing all that technology. The best of road trips I’ve done were from interacting with the other people. You can play elden ring at home. It shouldn’t be a priority.

I had a game boy on several road trips I did with my parents, and I barely remember the trips. I had nothing but a flip phone with one I did with friends, and had a lot more fun with them. Maybe because I was older and they were my friends, though.

Bring some low tech entertainment. Cards. Small board games. Dice. There are light weight pen and paper rpgs and word games you could do on the go (eg: Fate).

I imagine early intervention helps, but right-wing (ie: authoritarian) people don’t want to invest in quality education. Not the kind with a good teacher-student ratio and time spent on social skills.

I take public transit or walk almost everywhere. It’s not very stressful. I’d like to bike more, but there are too many cars and not enough separated bike lanes.

CitiBike, a bike rental service in NYC, is pretty good. You don’t have to worry about locking your bike up or storing it. You just pick one up, ride it, and return it. Unfortunately it’s kind of pricey and run for profit, and sometimes there aren’t enough bikes (or too many bikes, and no docks to return yours to). And the bikes aren’t the highest quality. Also, as always, the cars really sour the whole experience. But I think a public run bike rental service would be good.

Is authoritarianism also cluster b? There are a lot of people who seem to get off on being part of the group. Like, it brings them chemical joy to be screaming in a crowd about how that other group of people need to die. Those people kind of suck, too.

I don’t think every maga hat is a narcissist, but a lot of them are trash humans who value their in-group feelings of solidarity over everything else.

Moderately irritated by having to explain “it’s literally j j j all js like the word all J’s but not this part” all the time

People are emotional creatures. Some people are almost exclusively driven by emotions. Amusingly, it’s usually the right wing saying “facts don’t care about your feelings”, because everything from them is projection