Inheritance is an interesting aspect: if my grandfather stole and passed it to my father who passed it to me, I can acquire it by doing nothing.

This is not a counter-argument - it highlights that doing nothing is complicity in injustice.

It is liberalist ideology to assume humanity is defined by morals, empathy, care, collective aid and other social values that we need to survive. Humanity is material.

The reality is that these atrocities are well within the bounds of humanity. Billionaires are anti-social, as in against a functioning society (not merely against civilization). Incompatible with long-term life. The horrifying truth is that they’re human.

What are you talking about?

• The comment they are responding to says “Why do some people think dehumanizing anyone is fundamentally OK?” [I agree btw]

• They reply with an extreme example of “anyone”: literal flag-waving Nazis.

At no point are “all wealthy people” mentioned in that statement.

They’re human, and should be destroyed mercilessly by any means necessary. There’s no contradiction in recognizing the humanity of people who will unfortunately need to be killed to stop them killing the rest of us indiscriminately.

Dehumanization is pointless, and leads to dangerous misanalysis (like underestimating them). Honestly, it’s also just a cowardly coping mechanism to avoid the harsh realities behind the idealistic moral frameworks we’re brought up with.

Because everyone here already knows that other recent US presidents like Bush and Trump were horrible. But many people mistakenly believe Obama was a morally good president simply because they’re the best of a bad bunch. It’s important to understand that even Obama presided over large-scale, avoidable atrocities.

The problem I have with it is that we didn’t get rid of kings.

Moreso that we replaced kings with a new form of ownership, and therefore new owners. And, in every era, the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas - the idea of the divine right of kings seems to have been replaced with the divine right to profit, and to use “earned” money however one wants, with no regard for society.

I know others have already replied with counterarguments, but as a simple partial counterpoint, the fact that everyone alive are decedents of those who survived the hunter-gatherer stages of their society, for a long long time, is evidence that we’re generally capable of learning to be caring, smart and sane, it’s not some utopian advanced stage beyond our grasp. Prior to our technological developments like food preservation, individualistic societies were not viable.

• The most meaningful reforms, like large-scale climate action, won’t happen until citizens present a credible threat to the owning class’s dominance, making reform the appealing compromise.
• The owning class, at least a large section of it, along with loyal reactionaries will wage violent open war before ceding power leftward. They have the option to decide if a peaceful road forward exists, and historically, then tend to mass murder citizens instead.

What’s your most cynical opinion about the world?

The Earth will, eventually, long after we’re all gone, be incinerated by the sun. If life co-exists elsewhere in the universe, I suspect it will be too distant to have much impact on us nor them. So I believe that humanity will inevitably have no meaningful legacy in the long term. And I also believe there is no objective meaning to existence, it’s just a neat little quirk of chaos.

That doesn’t imply I think nothing is meaningful, it doesn’t take long to notice I care deeply about people and what we do. But, ultimately, meaning is temporary and subjective. (I haven’t explored much of formal philosophy but I’ve heard my perspective aligns with absurdism or existentialism)

edit: I didn’t realize this isn’t actually cynicism (a prudent distrust), but more nihlism (a distrust upon belief in meaning)

I believed the first one when I was, idk, 6 years old. No idea if I assumed it myself or was told it from someone.

Some options:

• Hypothetically, […]
• Theoretically, […]
• It’s hypothetically possible
• It’s theoretically possible
• It could be possible
• It’s not impossible

• It’s not mandatory
• It’s optional (only applies to the first example)
• You don’t always need to
• It’s not always necessary
• It might not be necessary

I’m not thinking too hard on this, but since you say each of the words convey distinct meanings, maybe try and find a synonym for each meaning of that word. That could work.

Like some already said, how long ago is “a few years ago”? Because last year my installation had an annoying issue which is now fixed. And maybe five years back, some (newer or rarer) hardware/devices needed a fix through the terminal, but now work perfectly by default.

I haven’t tried Bazzite, but I’ve heard good things about it and what I know about it so far sounds good. Although @jlow mentioned some alternatives which I wonder if they’re even more suitable since you didn’t mention gaming. Out of habit, I still recommend Mint to former Windows users. But I haven’t needed to input a password for web, graphics tools or office apps, only have to type a password when updating, installing new apps or doing special terminal stuff (which I do by choice!)

On one hand, Mint’s default experience (Cinnamon desktop environment) generally resembles Windows which can make the switch smoother. On the other hand, some other ones fix a lot of defaults Windows chose wrong. Even little things, like moving the taskbar to the top (closer to other options) or to the side (takes up less space), so even if you pick a smaller leap to start with, it’s good to casually look around once you’re comfortable.

I’m picturing “Affirmative. Dollar 1299 now proceeding to window, over.”

­

Hold the wealthy accountable and stop letting people get that rich.

Governance is one of the tools we can use to hold the wealthy accountable and stop letting them get that rich. Not the only tool we have, but a powerful one.

It’s also interesting to see how many game creators and tools (material creation) are being made in Godot.

Pingbert’s Snow Ride

I’m a little surprised to see old Tux Racer wasn’t listed as an influence.

I play sport near-daily but I don’t follow professional sports, and I honestly think ideally it should be abolished. It’s exploitative entertainment.

• Athletes often end up with horrible overwork injuries. I remember an interview where a range of former Olympians were asked “Was it worth it?” and the overwhelming answer was no, they now had life-long injury from training.
• Sport doesn’t need to be professional to be enjoyable to play and watch at a high-level.
• Like OP has said, it’s a business. They are parasocial and don’t care to truly involve you. They will platform advertisers who foster addiction, to make money. And I feel disgust every time I see a stadium absolutely covered with ads and uniforms covered in sponsorships. It might as well be a billboard with a patch of grass on it.

I’m obviously not against either sports or high-level competition, but as a profession? No way.

While many existing sports develop some useful life skills (physical skills, communication, decision making, strategy, … ) I have an interest in alternative games that emphasise these. Two of my favorites at the moment are Firefigher’s Olympics and Three-Sided Football.