The attack on CRT is just the start

A point I have addressed before. Engineering a more survivable, more comfortable humanity? Yes. Better people? No.

Who was better?
Conan?

That's good to hear.

For what purpose?

Unless someone commits an act that merits literally executing them, how can we withhold even the most basic support if they're in need?

I'm imagining a system where every city has a bunch of tiny shipping container homes, or the Western equivalent of those Japanese sleeping pods. If you've got nowhere else to go, you can have a container or a pod, no questions asked. If you've got no food, there would be places where you can walk in and ask for a free basic meal, no questions asked. Not steak or caviar or McDonald's, but something that meets standard nutritional requirements.

No matter how you fuck up in life (short of capital crimes), you're not going to die of starvation or exposure. But if you want more than that, you'll need to get a job and work for it, or upgrade your education and maintain passing grades to get some basic welfare.

This is another one of those "they've done studies" things. Getting the worst and most disruptive homeless people into housing has been shown to save society assloads of money, even if that housing is given to them free of charge. Fewer ER visits that they were never going to pay for, fewer incidents that require a costly police response. Even if you hate the homeless, it's still a solid investment. The only "legitimate" reason not to house the homeless is spite.

I've never been able to wrap logic around why people who hate the unemployed and homeless for "being lazy" don't also hate the idle rich with equal froth.

There seems to be this deep instinct beneath conscious thought that the idle rich "earned it" somehow even if they had it handed to them by their daddy, who had it handed to them by grandpappy, and so on going back 4-6 generations.

What the fuck is that?
I get religious idiots who think it was a blessing bestowed by Gawd, but I don't get how atheists get there.

Is it a eugenics thing like Trump?
Like, even though he's a fat moronic piece of shit, he comes from "good blood"?

Until you appreciate the fact that evolving the ability to think and choose necessarily includes the ability to make choices that lead to your own suffering. Necessity is then irrelevant.

It's not a purpose. It's an ideal. You don't get to choose unless you are bound to the outcome of that choice.

If you have to look your benefactor in the eye and justify your claim, that's how.

Feel free to pool your resources and build that, but factor into your budget a secure border around it, because what you are constructing is a den of addicts, thieves and rapist who believe they can do as they please without consequence.

You don't get to sashay back and forth between pragmatism and compassion. The ultimate cost-saving measure would be to execute everyone who fails to get their shit together when they clearly are able. The ultimate compassionate measure would be "free everything for everyone". If you are compromising then it's a contest over who gets to decide, and as I have said before, I have no use for people who refuse to make an effort, and I will not apologize for that.

Binary to the bitter end.

Y'know, they invented the dimmer switch in 1959.

There's also already a computer that works on dimmer switches instead of on/off.
It's called the human brain.
Might try using one sometime.

But you'll sure whine like a motherfucker.

Have you considered Prozac?

What good are fixing a car and growing a garden to the average urban resident? I'm passing on "maintain a home" because you wrote "home" instead of "house."

ETA, this sort of falls under equity of necessary skills rather than equity of opportunities, I guess. I'm not arguing against teaching people troubleshooting and how to solve problems, using auto repair and gardening as examples, but I'm also not the one arguing that only absolutely necessary skills be taught in schools.

What I was trying to tease out with these questions, is does responsibility increase with power levels?
Because if you don't believe "with great power comes great responsibility" stop watching Marvel movies, and cancel your Disney +.
You freeloading muthafucka.

If you believe "I'm not my brother's keeper" and that holds no matter how powerful you get, even powerful enough to kill everyone else on the planet, boy, hope you know how to do absolutely everything for yourself.
You think Jeff Bezos knows how to reassemble a broken toilet?
Grow tomatoes?
Cure olives?
Slaughter an animal?
Sew?

Technology has shrunken the Earth to a pea.
On pea-Earth, you are your brother's keeper.
Don't like it?
Tough shit.
Get over it, bitch-tits.

Most of the home and car repair stuff is one quick Google search away, and plenty of big stores around here sell fruit and vegetable container plants suitable for a balcony if you've got the space. I knew fuck all about fixing toilets until the day mine broke, but fifteen minutes later I was on my way to Home Depot to grab the correct $3 part and save myself an expensive call to the plumber.

I don't think teaching kids specific skills is as important as the helping kids develop the ability to think and strategize and research problems as they arise.

I can do three of those, four if you count one I'm just not comfortable doing.

Probably should be at least a deputy PM somewhere.

What disease do the olives have?

Nothing that they couldn't have avoided by making better life choices and knuckling down.

Sadly, voluntary military service wasn't a career option.

All olives are pressed.

Took me a moment....

I lived in an olive orchard in provence for a few years. Ask me about olives.

Please tell us about olives.

Some are really cat turds. When we collected the olives from the nets to take to the co-op, we always left a few in.

How is an olive orchard different from the Olive Garden? Am I still family in an orchard?

First press is best.

Yes.

I seem to only ever get those ones.

This was my bedroom window. Olives are on the other side...

https://www.google.com/maps/place/G...2!3m1!1s0x12cc25fe3958edfb:0x117727988cf82e2d

I'd be surprised if they were on the inside.

Salade Nicoise is best on a warm summer day at a tree lined country road restaurant with a cold 1664.

The old lady who lived on the other side of the alley used to leave warm baggettes on our back door knob after she walked to the boulangerie in the mornings

Salad is never best on any day. Get a bacon sarnie instead. No fucking lettuce or tomato either.

Canard.

https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/14/summer-salad-in-a-loaf-recipe

Don't lure me in with the promise of duck meat and then link me to a fucking salad. Not cool, dude, not cool.

The same old lady used to tell my wife she preferred préservatifs rose....