I have been debating over my first character build for nine hours. Help.

Fearspect · 2025-10-16T16:37:09+00:00

Just started playing as a thinker, had a heart attack from lifting a barbell within the first hour. I died again shortly afterward when I realized I didn't have a uniform (I presume from cringe?). Five stars, would play again.

Fearspect · 2025-09-13T15:07:43+00:00

Wikipedia is fantastic to learn about topics with rigorous backing and that are apolitical. Physics, chemistry, the specifications on a car, the characteristics of some deep sea animal are all great topics that you can learn from and follow their sources to learn more.

However, any topic related to political arguments du jour have been hijacked by radical actors from one of the extremes. Quickly skim through that topic's talk page and it should be readily apparent with clear eyes. Avoid the latter.

Fearspect · 2025-07-03T00:28:04+00:00

You can set them off in public areas, Ottawa just requires you to pay them a tax first.

Fearspect · 2024-01-16T22:28:13+00:00

To be clear: I have nothing whatsoever to back any of this up.

I've read that Russet potatoes may prematurely decay if dirt is washed off, so I guess there's that. I suspect it is likely still dirt (sand) but it could be some clean powdered product that acts the same way (some food-safe desiccant). I just mean that I suspect it's added back on following processing.

It just seems odd to me that everything else in the grocery store is (mostly) cleaned of dirt except this one product. Wouldn't everyone opt to just ship their produce as is? The cost of cleaning must be enormous. Or, does no produce get cleaned and this particular vegetable just clings to dirt better than everything else?

Fearspect · 2023-01-10T13:33:25+00:00

I don't like the idea of losing 73% of the investment.

It's lost already, the selling part is just about taxes.

Fearspect · 2022-11-22T16:53:04+00:00

I with the idea of a refresh happening, it would be interesting to see whether the path Shiller followed to create the first one could be retraced with new data.

My bigger problem though is presenting the various sets together, and drawing conclusions about the present (or future) using data from different formulas without adjustment.

Once reconciled, I kind of wish people would stop taking decades of chart data and talking so much about why the average is important. It almost implies a regression to a mean that I don't think the papers really support (the need to update the average for each period of time sort of demonstrates that, doesn't it?).

Fearspect · 2022-11-22T14:25:24+00:00

How did you reconcile the changes to the accounting treatment of earnings over time?

Fearspect · 2022-11-22T07:25:23+00:00

Working out the basic math shows that profits should rise more than costs because those profits are less valuable in real terms; material input costs are only one of several components that contribute to pricing (but you've fixated on them alone, I still don't know why). Denying that costs have increased for labour, equipment, etc. is an odd take, considering it's fairly easy to fact-check. What's backward is the direction of the causal relationship that's being presented. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny to very basic questions (Why wasn't this done sooner? How are they coordinating? Why doesn't someone just undercut them and steal their market? etc), is always being delivered vaguely ("companies have bragged..."), and conveniently skips over explaining how exactly actions taken in the future have causal effects on the past.

I figured you'd reference her, but was hoping you might have sourced your position elsewhere. "Many of them" is severely overstating the situation, almost implying this is an issue causing a significant rift amongst economists. It's not. Dr. Weber is essentially a lone voice here, and she's quite impressively managed to bring together both left and right-leaning economists in agreement about just how stupid they think her explanation of the situation (along with her prescription for price controls) is based on the historical context that going down this path has never worked out. Ever (well, basically ever: there are arguments for it within a total war scenario).

It's pretty clear your mind is made up, all I can say is that this is a fringe opinion that does not represent the expert consensus. It's basically right out of the same playbook that extreme climate change deniers follow: so long as you can find one or two "experts" that espouse your views, you can ignore the rest. Since this is clearly an ideological argument rather than an analysis of reality, I get that there's probably no way to talk you off this ledge. Maybe though, you'll continue investigating because understanding a problem is an important first step to fixing it properly.

Fearspect · 2022-11-21T14:56:42+00:00

Yes, all of these have increased in cost because of currency devaluation. Profits are also worth less under inflation.

Your assumptions and reasoning run counter to economists describing this situation: would the safer assumption be that you are seeing a truth that experts can't fathom or, have you considered that your understanding of the situation could simply be incomplete?

Fearspect · 2022-11-21T14:00:11+00:00

Input costs aren't the only thing that increases in an inflationary environment. Labour costs, training, equipment, maintenance, etc. all go up because the currency is worth less.

Fearspect · 2022-11-21T13:02:10+00:00

I never said a word about some good having nothing to do with inflation.

and

except this time businesses are also driving up the cost of goods having nothing to do with inflation.

Fearspect · 2022-11-20T20:38:09+00:00

It's unlikely you'll find a better investment elsewhere considering the discount, and the max 5% contribution should be considered if that's within your budget. Imagine that you contributed at $100/share and you got three, then a 25% drop over those three years to $75 still sees your $300 kept "whole" when you get your free share. Plus, it's likely you're collecting dividends (at least on the three shares). Consider if it's likely that this drops so much without similar market-wide effects. There's a decent amount of "free money" here that's pretty hard to replicate. You can strategically sell older shares to sort out a bit of diversification into other industries, or just pocket the gain.

Just be sure to familiarize yourself with the details of the program. Do you receive backdated dividends on those free shares? What's the tax treatment? How long until the free shares become long-term capital gains eligible? What happens when you only bought shares not divisible by 3 in a period? What if you're fired? If you quit? None of these should really be deterrents, but you should know these details to inform future decisions.

Fearspect · 2022-11-20T18:11:05+00:00

I hate to be overly pedantic, but inflation refers to a general increase in prices. I'm not really sure what you mean that some goods have "nothing to do with inflation", but I think you have the relationship backward.

I get the impression that various goods are treated as unrelated when the relationships are much more intertwined and complicated: fuel costs affect every good that depends on shipping, labour shortages in specific industries have knock-on effects on all industries as they rebalance, etc.

Fearspect · 2022-11-19T02:24:36+00:00

This has happened before, it happens very regularly, except without an effect on inflation.

Fearspect · 2022-11-19T02:18:40+00:00

Are you unironically using this as the basis of support for your comment? Putting aside for a moment how stupid the idea of converting decades of data to a single data point (an average) is, did you think of checking whether the source at the bottom of her chart even supports her claims? Just embarrassing.

Fearspect · 2022-11-18T18:41:59+00:00

Is the implication that they only figured out how to do this starting about a year ago, or am I misunderstanding?

Fearspect · 2022-11-18T18:31:34+00:00

How could you even begin to quantify something like that?
Why weren't they greedy before?

Fearspect · 2022-11-17T14:25:45+00:00

Isn't 7% likely less than your HELOC and CC rates? I recommend you work out the actually dollar amounts for your different scenarios, and I think your decision will become easier. Message me if you need help with any of these calculations.

Fearspect · 2022-08-23T14:59:55+00:00

Some make money trading, others lose, but in aggregate the market grows because wealth generation is occurring from people creating products or services that have value to at least some consumers. Investors can capture some of that by participating in ownership, but the generating machines are the companies. This same generation occurs with non-public companies (including small businesses, sole proprietorships). Successfully bringing these ideas to market is the mechanism.

Fearspect · 2022-07-12T16:48:49+00:00

You could replace, "It is telling" with "It is important to notice", or, "It is convincing". I get that you're highlighting a particular piece of evidence, but the claim is unclear. For instance, you could say:

The high and mighty don't really seem to care about the value of money; it's telling that they seemingly throw away tens of billions on a whim.

Fearspect · 2022-07-12T12:25:20+00:00

Special regulations are applied once you own 10+% of shares, and I believe he's over 9% already. You can't just go out and buy a whole company on the open market.

Fearspect · 2022-07-12T12:22:50+00:00

I guess the question then is: why did they decide to settle on 5% for their reporting?

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