“Blow up the damn ship, Picard!”

• First Contact

But really, Viola Davis’ entire performance carries the whole film and makes every important moment land.

Congratulations!

Infinity is effectively just bullshit.

I’m fond of pointing out to my students that there’s a very practical reason to care about “infinity” in math:

While nothing ever reaches “infinity”, things absolutely do reach a point where they violently fly to pieces and catch on fire.

So I teach my students to substitute the phrase “explodes and catches on fire” where they see an equation that “approaches infinity”.

I find it helps them pay attention to a subject that is otherwise bullshit. Infinity itself is bullshit, but it has a place in math: telling us when to quickly duck behind a good solid oak table.

This is a great plan, but it is critical to not be the person to notify each guest. Infinite calls to inconvenience infinite people sounds like hell.

I feel like my odds of avoiding getting my ass kicked are better inconveniencing just one person.

Well said. Particularly

out of a distaste for a harsh and cruel world

I want to respond (with agreement) to:

treat others as you want to be treated,"

• is, indeed silly. It’s meant as an overly simple default to grow from.

Treat others as they ask to be treated is much better.

But I do believe that both benefit from an intentional practice of self-empathy.

I have to constantly remind myself to treat me like I treat others.

I do, as well.

I treat others. I despise myself and have great empathy for others

I said that to myself before, as well.

But I discovered my empathy for others became surprisingly more effective after I started an intentional practice of self-empathy.

but that’s certainly not universal

Certainly. This is what worked for me, and my relationships.

The golden rule does not work. What if I like to be treated like shit?

Agreed. But it is a good default place to we start.

The real skill is empathy - to understand how the other person wants to be treated.

My empathy for others became much more effective after I started practicing empathy for myself.

It was a bit eye opening, to me, to realize how much impact a practice of self-empathy made in my relationships.

Lots of folks replying don’t seem believe in self empathy.

That makes me sad.

Self empathy is the foundation of empathy toward others.

The golden rule - treat others as I want to be treated - only really became effective, for my friends, after I learned to treat myself well.

Is self empathy distinct from self pity?

Absolutely.

Pity is when I wallow in how unfair everything is to me.

Empathy is when I realize I genuinely got dealt a shit hand, then give myself some time to recover, and then get on with life.

I don’t fit into any of these…yet

Can I interest you in Linux Mint, today?

I am joking.

Unless you want to try Linux, in which case let me (or any of us) know…

What language is the CLI written in?

Yes, running a CLI from inside a container can be a pain, but it’s not a big deal for the people asking.

I would just provide a trivial Dockerfile and see if anyone uses it.

This seems like a job for a WordPress blog or GitHub pages.

I’ll be happy to be your evil grand vizier, if you need one.

I’ll be super chill to hang out with in my palace, while my Grand Vizier takes care of day to day business.

This is a delight, and you are correct. That said, in the spirit of this silly thread, I provide solutions, below:

If I buy a house worth 950000, would I only be allowed to save 50000.

Yes. It will be time to get some roommates.

2. what about if the house increase in value so that it is worth 2 million, should I just accept that I loose 1 million?

Yes. Or rather, exactly half of the house. Time to rent a storage unit, and put up some tarps to divide the entryway.

What about stocks?

Better sell some.

Inflation or Deflation, when/how will you update that limit?

Cost of living increases have long been understood and easy enough to calculate.

But - when I’m global leader, COLA for millionaires will only start after exactly as many years as the local minimum wage went without updates.

What do I do if adult tells me they want to play with hot wheels with me? I say yes.

Fuck yeah. Hot wheels are great.

I hate investing

Mutual Funds / Index funds are your best bet. (Look for descriptive words like “broad”, “mix” or “full market” in the description).

If you can, pick out one named “target retirement YYYY” with YYYY being within a few years of whatever year you will turn 67.

It will automatically follow investing best practices based on your current age - agrressive earlier, and very cautious later.

I’m not familiar with all the details of how it works

Perfect recipe to get ripped off. (Most people I know say that insurance/investment combined products suck. I’ve heard some disagreement whether they’re just a bad deal, or such a bad deal they ought to be a crime.)

I can’t prove anything, but:

• There’s evidence that billionaires are taking much more than they earn, and that we (everyone else) would be dramatically better off without them (whether we tax them away or… Come to some other compromise.)
• Billionaires own most media outlets and social media sites, even those these don’t actually make much money compared to everything else the billionaires own. This makes some people ask why they bother…
• There’s a noticable tendency in billionaire owned media to focus daily on divisive topics. The specific topic changes, but the divisiveness continues.
• There is history of powerful authoritarians investing heavily in divisive propaganda, primarily to break apart and distract groups of people who could overthrow them.

What I have laid out is not proof that today’s billionaires are directing their staff to verbally attack minorites at any opportunity.

But it certainly is something to think about next time a vicious rumor about a minority group comes along.

Edit: Yes. I do understand that neither men nor women are minorities. But there’s still enough differences to allow pushing a divisive narrative, which I suspect is enough reason for certain motivated people.

And to the “could just be a shitty set of incentives” argument. Fair enough. It could be. It’s highly suspicious, but it could be.

Would you accept “under-regulated capitalism” or “capitalism treated as an ideal rather than a tool” as a more specific root cause?