Oh I’ve seen this joke before, slightly better, but now I don’t know which was the original.
It was like
Bard: I cast vicious mockery
Dm: cool. What do you say to him?
Bard: “You’re none of your best friends’ best friend”
Dm: …
Other players: …
Bard: So do I roll damage or…?
Dm: No… No, he’s dead.
They will accept any negative sum game, they will ruin their own livelihoods and their own lives, if only it helps sad little kings of sad little hills.
I’m reminded of that book about Authoritarian Personality Types. They did like a model UN / Civilization game kind of thing, where the players represented different countries and could make decisions about policy, war, and so on. There were two groups. Unknown to the players, the people running this experiment put all the people who scored high for authoritarian personality in one group, and everyone else in the other group.
The group with low authoritarian personality scores? Basically everything was fine. They solved the ozone layer crisis. They were solving world hunger. One guy tried to be a dick and the rest of the group brought him in line.
The high authoritarian guys? Nuclear apocalypse. They made them sit in the dark for five minutes to think about what they’d done, and let them have a do-over. They still did a shit job. Petty squabbling. Stealing. Out of control climate crisis.
I don’t think there’s an ethical way to do this in real life, but I do think if you just didn’t allow people with that kind of personality to have any real power, we’d all be much better off.
It’s also possible i mangled the story because I rewrote it here from memory, but I believe it was in this book: https://theauthoritarians.org/
It’s all emotions. Facts don’t matter.
One of the bars by me has a DND group in the back.
There’s a “community center” also near me that lets people hang out in the basement, and there are rpg groups that meet there
“”"
16 Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’[a] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
“”"
Don’t see a lot of rich assholes talking about this part of the bible. (Matthew 19:16-22)
Lots of people don’t get anything resembling a speedy trial in the US.
To be right wing is to be ruled by emotions. Humans are all emotional creatures, but for some people it reaches a point where emotion alone creates reality. Facts are there to be picked up or set aside to support feelings. When their guy eats ice cream it’s because he’s a man of the people. When your guy eats ice cream it’s because he’s a baby. Facts don’t matter. It’s feelings.
And most of their feelings seem to be fear. Fear of loss. Fear of humiliation. You can show them stats and history demonstrating how, like, a diverse workforce leads to higher productivity and greater happiness, but that doesn’t matter. They’re not looking at facts. They’re feeling feelings.
Imagine trying to talk to someone who’s drunk. That’s the right wing, except all the time and they can’t really sober up. Honestly, it sounds like hell.
My cat certainly seems to have forgiven me for all the times I made him move, at least.
Ed Zitron wrote a blog post I’ve been thinking about, where he said that a lot of decisions are made by “business idiots” now. People that don’t really use or understand the product, and don’t really understand the users or their needs. It’s an interesting read, even though the guy is rather verbose: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-era-of-the-business-idiot/
dangit i was going to make the same pun. well done.
The other day I woke up to a bunch of text notifications from people, and my first thought was “Did it happen? Did someone shoot him??”
No, it was a bunch of unrelated personal life stuff. But for one dreamy moment…
I see what you did there and I’m not going to fully fall for it.
I read about this concern (for the us) in like 2004 when I took a basic poli sci course in undergrad, and wrote a paper about how climate change is a national security threat. People knew. Most people don’t care or have no power.
My old pandemic D&D group was the best. They cared about everything. But I remember specifically one time they arrived at a large party. I was describing the scene- large tables set with food, small groups of people mingling, and off in the corner you see a man talking to a woman, her back is against the wall and he’s got his arm on the wall so he’s kind of trapping her there. She looks uncomfortable.
The players all beelined to those two to rescue the NPC from the guy. Oh, Pretty Paul. They hated him so much. Such a good villain. (Started as a riff on Handsome Jack, and it worked so well. One of the players wrote a song about how much they hated Paul)
Order of the Stick is so good, and has such surprising emotional depth for a stick figure comic about D&D.
Just be aware that the updates are intermittent.
I feel like trump could completely destroy the economy and cause the US to split apart and fall into ruin, and people would still think the Republicans are “good for the economy”
I guess it’s like the difference between a parasite that doesn’t kill the host, and one that does. The current breed looks like it’s going to kill the host.
I canceled my subscription. In part because fuck using AI to hurt labor, but also unemployment. Capitalists want us to spend spend spend, but they don’t want to give us any money to spend.
Yellow is also in some contexts the color of cowardice, which seems appropriate
I made a rogue bird-guy (aarakroka?) that built for strength. I really wanted to pick someone up with grapple and fly them off a cliff, but i never pulled it off.