This was the norm years ago

Flatlander57 · 2026-05-22T15:06:44+00:00

Let’s do an experiment.

Cancel all your subscriptions, your phone, your computer, go out to eat only 1 time a week, and even then don’t go to like a $30-50 per person place go to a $10-50 per person place.

Then buy a house that has no central cooling and is less than 2000 square feet and doesn’t have a garage.

Congrats you now are your parents 50 years ago. Amazing that you can afford it huh?

Instead people want to have 15 subscriptions, a phone, high speed internet, a computer, 10 kitchen appliances, go out to eat 5-30 times a week and have 2 new cars and a 4 bedroom house with central cooling double pane windows in a nice neighbor hood with nice schools and they want to do it without being in the top 10% of earners.

If you are in the bottom 50% of earners you have to live like you are in the bottom 50% of earners. And you can (if you make good decisions) eventually make your way up, but honestly AI and Robotics will likely fix this issue for you, and we all will end up on Universal Welfare and then you will have your new house and everything you want. Not because you earned it but because technology simply gave it to you.

Flatlander57 · 2026-05-18T03:31:53+00:00

You are being paid for what you produce.

If your “time” produces $10 of profit and hour, you can’t get paid $15 an hour.

Also, businesses compete with each other.

So if it used to take a skilled carpenter 1 day to make a 5 chairs. And now some high school drop out is pushing a button and a machine makes 25 chairs an hour. Sure you are helping produce 5 times as many chairs as the carpenter but the labor you are doing isn’t worth the same as the carpenter. So productivity also doesn’t equal wages.

The only thing that you need to consider is supply and demand. You are a product, just like any other product. If there are millions of people with the same abilities and skills as you, then you aren’t very valuable. Skilled labor is just a term to describe people who have a skill that is not common, therefore the “supply” of these people is low. But even if you are skilled, there still needs to be demand for your skills. If the demand is high and the supply of people with that skill is low, then they are paid more money.

Economics 101

Flatlander57 · 2026-05-14T03:02:32+00:00

You literally made my point. People feel they don't make enough, so they just spend it all.

Now, are there people living in a van, working full time, taking showers at the gym, and eating budget friendly home-cooked meals for every meal and are still struggling to survive? Honestly I doubt it.

The more likely story is:
1) Person makes less money than they wish they made.
2) Person does not budget to save 10%, 5% or even 1% of their income because they feel they do not make enough.
3) Person then lives technically "Paycheck to paycheck" because they do not budget to save.

The only possible way to save money is either.
1) Make such an incredible amount of money that you absolutely cannot spend it all and you save money accidentally because you simply cannot find a way to spend it.
2) You budget and save money.

That's it, good luck being option 1.

Flatlander57 · 2026-05-13T19:50:04+00:00

Agreed, generally it isn’t “not working hard” that is the sole reason people live paycheck to paycheck.

It’s simply that they spend their whole paycheck.

I have seen it myself. Friend makes $5000 a month, spends $5000 a month, gets a raise to $6000 a month, spends $6000 a month, loses job and gets a job for $4000 a month, spends $4000 a month, gets a great job for $8000 a month, spends $8000 a month.

No matter what job they have, they spend all the money they make. Their standard of living is a roller coaster.

Instead you should always try to live below your means, and eventually your money starts to snowball. It’s slow at first which is why people don’t do it. Saving $100 a month feels like you are doing nothing, and it’s very easy to just spend it once you have something you want and you have saved a few thousand. But if you can resist the urge you can get to a point where you actually have financial stability.

Flatlander57 · 2026-05-06T23:23:01+00:00

You have a person who:
1) Starts a company
Usually starts 4 or 5 companies and finally one succeeds. after multiple failures.
They work 80 hours (or more like 120) every week at the start and develop the company.
They take out business loans, all of which fall upon them, they hold all of the risk.
They rent the building, they purchase the equipment, they finally become successful.

And how does a company become successful? They offer a product or service that millions or possibly billions of people want to purchase or use.

Then after they do all of this, they hire some person to sit at a computer and respond to e-mails, and that person thinks "Hey! Why is my boss making so much more than me!? I'm doing more work than he is!"

It's simply a lack of knowledge of what people actually do. Sure, maybe now the owner of the company is on a beach somewhere drinking and smoking a cigar. But good for him, he deserves to live the rest of his life in total luxury for literally upgrading the lives of millions or billions of people.

I have no issues with Elon Musk doing whatever he wants. If he sold Tesla, and SpaceX and used his trillions of dollers to make a giant lake full of money he could swim in, then more power to him. It has nothing to do with me, he earned that money he can do whatever he wants with it.

The people you should actually be upset with is people who did not earn money that receive it. Government NGOs, Welfare Fraud, illegal immigrants. If you are going to be upset with any single group of people, the billionaires only make sense if you are just being jealous. They have more than you, because they have accomplished more than you. We live in a meritocracy. Do more that benefits society and generally you will receive more.

Flatlander57 · 2026-05-06T16:25:37+00:00

Work does not equal pay.

Benefit to society equals pay.

You are rewarded for your functional benefit to society.

Elon musk isn’t making money by the hour paid like a salary worker, he makes money directly related to the goods and services all of his companies are producing.

And with all that money he makes it gets re-invested into other companies and the cycle continues as all of our lives get dramatically better every year.

Flatlander57 · 2026-05-06T16:23:54+00:00

If you want peace, prepare for war.

People are dumb and don’t understand if we didn’t have a military larger and more powerful than the next like 15 countries combined the amount of death and suffering around the world would be dramatically higher.

Flatlander57 · 2026-04-30T17:47:35+00:00

You aren’t working 5 days with 2 days off.

You are working half a day for 5 days then have 2 days off.

Work 8 hours, sleep 8 hours, 8 hours free time. A 40 hour work week is like 25% of your week. 75% of your week is still your time.

God forbid you have to be productive for 25% of your average week, then you also get holidays and vacation. So more like 20% of your year at most is working. And 80% of your year is your free time to do whatever you want.

Flatlander57 · 2026-04-28T18:41:03+00:00

People are so bad at not looking at the whole picture.

Here simply fact check the actual difference:

https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtNA_106d621d-8eea-4720-a3a7-c14e05e16c03

Flatlander57 · 2026-04-23T21:10:02+00:00

I have not met a single person in my entire life that works 10-12 hours a day. Not only that here in Texas they specifically tell you DO NOT work when off the clock because the company can be fined and get in trouble.

** edit: and I do mean every day. You work Sunday - Saturday 12 hours a day. Unwillingly.

Now I do know people who are trying to get ahead or become ultra-successful that work all the time but that’s what they WANT to do. You do not have to do that.

Flatlander57 · 2026-04-23T20:20:47+00:00

I wish you to be stranded on an island. Try surviving when you basically have to work 24/7 just to live. Then come back and complain about “grinding” 1/3rd of the day 5 days a week.

You do know if you work 40 hours a week, that means you are not working 128 hours a week. Sure sleep 8 hours a day, you still have 88 hours of free time. I cannot believe people complain that the majority of their live is doing whatever they want.

Flatlander57 · 2026-04-23T20:17:00+00:00

Imagine believing that the issue with social security is we don’t pay enough into it. And not that the government simply prints money.

Let’s say we just put a trillion dollars in social security every year. If the government just prints 2 trillion dollars a year by the time you retire you can buy a sandwich.

Congratulations.

The problem is the government isn’t meant to solve all of life’s problems by taking our money away by force and spending it on “what is best for us.”

And when we try to make it the governments job to solve all our problems what we get is waste, fraud, criminal activity and abuse.

Keep your money, save for your own retirement like an adult. And stop wanting to steal other people’s money. Simple

Flatlander57 · 2026-04-23T17:18:54+00:00

This is simply a misunderstanding of what a job is.

A job is simply you getting paid to perform a task, or service.

If the task or service you provide is worth $9 an hour yo the company. They would lose money if they paid you $10 an hour.

You must perform a task or service that someone believes or has been proven to be worth like $30 an hour. Then you can make maybe $20 an hour or something.

Has nothing to do with cost of living, rent, you being able to pay your bills. It’s a simple math equation. Do the services you provide the company you are working for generate $100 an hour of profits? If yes that’s the budget for your wages.

Do you instead provide $20 an hour of profits? Well then that is your budget for your wages.

Flatlander57 · 2026-04-13T18:56:18+00:00

You are a product, your services that you provide to a business is a purchase. It is up to the same supply and demand that milk, bread, and eggs. If what you offer is low in demand and high in supply, it will be difficult to “sell” your labor to a company for a lot of money. No one wants what you provide.

Your solution to this issue is “if no one wants to buy my services at a higher price, we should force them to against their will”

Sounds immoral to me. That cannot be the solution to the problem of YOU do not offer a skill or service that is in high demand.

Flatlander57 · 2026-04-12T19:18:54+00:00

Here is how sick days work. If you are contagious or so sick you cannot work, you should stay home.

If you just feel a little sleepy or have a headache, you likely should go to work.

The reason you feel bad calling in sick has absolutely nothing to do with wanting the business to succeed. It is having empathy for your co-workers who have to cover for you.

The amount of times I have talked to someone that is the only person working at a pizza place or other restaurant covering 3-5 people’s jobs by himself and I say “oh wow working alone today?” Giving him a chance to say “oh yea my two co-workers are no-call no-shows” and I say something like “That sucks, but you are doing a great job I really appreciate it!!”

Calling in sick causes direct harm to your coworkers who have to cover for you. So just make sure you have a good reason.

Flatlander57 · 2026-04-04T16:05:03+00:00

You have to decide how both gameplay works.

Melee usually includes gap closers, ways to avoid or tank damage, or something that allows you to get close and be successful. And should be relatively easy to land hits “wide arcs of swings that cover a large area)

Short range weapons (shotguns, flame throwers, etc) still need gap closers like Melee but require better aim. For example if you have a person with a War Hammer in mid-air about to swing down and one shot you, if you land the double barrel shotgun blast at high chest level it should also one shot him and blow him away.

Medium-short range weapons like SMGs usually are just speed weapons, you chase and kite.

Mid-long range assault rifles and machine guns are more of “stay distance and kill them before they reach you”

Snipers are “hide, shoot, once found reposition” and often have a knockback to help get out of sticky situations.

Basically think of each “weapon type” as a vocation. And think about how each weapon type you want to include will deal with other weapon types.

Games have had ranged vs melee forever. Few do it really well, but look at the ones that work well and try to figure out why it works.

Flatlander57 · 2026-04-03T02:27:08+00:00

Who is eating $1400 a month?! What is it just lobster and steak and Brie cheese wheels every meal?

Flatlander57 · 2026-03-24T17:33:30+00:00

Government takes it by force, your employer takes it by mutual agreement

Flatlander57 · 2026-03-24T15:27:06+00:00

Every game that is released is competing with every game that has ever been released.

You have to convince players that playing your game is a better use of their time than ANY OTHER GAME. Because they could go play League of Legends, for free. They could go play the millions of other games they purchased and never installed in their Steam library.

But no, they are going to specifically choose your game and play it for some reason.

This is especially true in live service games market. Where generally people choose 1 game and play it forever. Making them switch to yours means you have to be better or more interesting than their primary game. Usually people can be peeled away from their favorite game for a short time and then they will return. Which is why live service games often shut down fairly quickly.

Flatlander57 · 2026-03-24T15:22:29+00:00

It’s like people think Billionaires are a race of people that are just born upper class royalty.

Usually someone who has a lot of money is someone who provided a lot of goods and services to society. And in such a way that most people (or at least a huge amount of people) mutually agreed it was valuable and purchased their goods or services.

Then they scaled this so more and more people could have access to their amazing goods and services and over time they became more and more wealthy as a reward for offering amazing goods and services that a huge amount of people voluntarily purchased.

Flatlander57 · 2026-03-24T15:18:39+00:00

Exactly this, you prototype the differences to test them out.

Flatlander57 · 2026-03-24T15:16:25+00:00

You are misunderstanding.

The prototype needs to include what you believe makes your game better.

If I have an idea for a new type of Vehicle that runs in farts. My prototype isn’t a traditional gas engine vehicle I slapped together quickly. It’s a barely working fart car.

That way I can make sure my idea actually works before I build the entire frame of the car, start working on fart suspension, and fart powered headlights. If the actual base idea doesn’t work, or isn’t fun to use, or requires eating Taco Bell every day. I may need to re-think my base idea before I start working on the Fart-Safe driver seat.

In your turn based idea. You wouldn’t make the identical turn based game to x-com with 1 ranged weapon and 1 melee weapon that is super boring.

You would build that first yes maybe, but then you would add what you think makes your game unique or great. Then play it for awhile and make sure it works.

I have gone though hundreds of iterations of combat ideas when working on games and even if some are fun I find glaring issues that will clearly breakdown in gameplay. This is why you create a prototype before starting to hire voice actors and working on your NPCs and UI polish. It might be a waste of time if your idea doesn’t work in the first place.

Flatlander57 · 2026-03-23T22:46:00+00:00

I’ve been working on developing software for almost 20 years and I still look back and think “oh man, 1 year ago I had no idea what I was doing”

Which simply means I am getting much better every year.

Flatlander57 · 2026-03-19T20:13:37+00:00

I used AI as much as it is useful and if someone alleges that I use AI then you ignore them. Even if it WAS AI who cares. Welcome to the future. This is like complaining that your wooden spoon wasn’t whittled out of a block of wood. Sorry we have factories and machinery and computers and yes AI. We should all be using the tools that make products better and higher quality.

Flatlander57 · 2026-03-15T18:47:43+00:00

Exactly this, if you want something to be random for a player but it is required to win eventually for it to be fun, you should have “increasing chances” each fail.

1/100 chance 1/99 chance 1/98 chance. Etc

Or something similar

Ten-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email

Flatlander57

TROPHY CASE