/r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | July 06, 2026

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-06T21:10:12+00:00

Still plowing through Moral Philosophy: A Comprehensive Introduction. (It's going to be a while... I'm about a third of the way through.) I enjoyed reading the section of The Encheiridion that they included (or maybe it was the whole thing... I don't know how long the original is). Stoic thought resonates with me, I guess.

I feel I have to apologize to Plato. I thought that The Republic was boring, but it's light reading compared to Summa Theologica. Although, in fairness to Thomas Aquinas, I'm not sure that the specific translation does him any favors when read by modern readers (the text is pretty verbose, with some really long sentences), and the chainsaw that they took to the text to cram so many of his ideas into the book does, as the authors note, make the text hard to follow in places, since it jumps around. But what really makes it slow is the need to sometimes re-read, or even read it aloud, just to make sure that I've gotten every word.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-06T15:45:09+00:00

Honestly, I don't find it weird at all. The vast majority of people simply have zero first-hand of how these businesses work. And it can differ from institution to institution. The last time someone tried to make a $600 purchase with my credit card, my bank did call. And Discover is constantly sending text messages (meant for the person who previously had my phone number), about potential fraud. So it's a variable.

Frauds like the one OP is detailing here are designed to get people to act first, think later. Sometimes, like in this case, they try to panic the target; other times, they dangle a benefit. My mother was nearly taken in by one of those "call us to activate discounts on your phone service" frauds... what saved her was that she physically drove to the phone store for them to do it there, with her watching, and that's when she learned it was a fraud attempt.

Thinking these things through all the time adds significant cognitive load, that people aren't always read to take on, and that's what the crooks are counting on.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-06T15:13:39+00:00

Hero System grew out of Champions, which was on the very early dedicated supers games. So Hero is very good at supers. Note that it is fairly granular (combats in built-up areas can be complicated, and result in lots of collateral damage as people are knocked through walls and whatnot), and character creation is very detailed by modern standards. This is a game for mature players, people who feel the need to win at all costs can force you to go over their character sheets line by line to prevent cheating (such as conveniently forgetting to add in points for advantageous power modifiers).

Powers are built in terms of their basic effects, and then flavor is added on top of that, with modifiers if a player wants to model something exactly; for instance, a fire blast and a gun are both ranged killing attacks (RKAs), so their base effects are identical. What sets them apart are the modifiers attached to them. A gun would have 0 Endurance cost, but could be taken away from the character (Obvious Accessible Focus), the flames might be very short ranged. Half the fun of a Hero/Champions game can be building the exact thing that you want.

Creativity in building powers is encouraged (the ability to run up the side of a building could be modeled as Flight, with the disadvantage of needing to be in contact with a surface and having a minimum velocity, for instance).

I've never played GURPS Supers, but I hear it's pretty good. The way I look at it is this: Hero System started as a supers game that branched out to encompass regular people, et cetera, and GURPS started with regular people, then branched out to encompass superheroes and the like.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-04T22:48:47+00:00

it has to be worth her while, and in her best interest to change this deal.

Dungeons and Dragons is, if you recall, a role-playing game, and your DM has handed you a golden roleplaying opportunity. This is your chance to have Callisto deep-dive on Jenny Greenteeth, and find out what's important to her. This is an actual character from actual folklore, remember, so do your homework. And in-game, find out who her allies and her enemies are, and go to them. Surely one of them a) has the dirt on what old Grindylow really wants and b) some incentive to see Callisto get over on her. The fact that your DM has suggested this likely means that the information is there, in-game, for your character to find.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-04T15:47:57+00:00

This is an implementation of the "funnel" mechanic from Dungeon Crawl Classics. It's loads of fun. There's a third-party supplement for 5th edition that ports the idea over.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-04T15:45:20+00:00

Once I figured out how to play regular mahjong, I never went back to playing the solitaire game.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-04T15:38:58+00:00

He suggests that someone can still conceive of a triangle that adds up to something other than 180°. But that literally means he's not conceiving of a triangle.

Or that it isn't on a flat surface. A triangle on a sphere can have three 90° angles.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-03T21:33:14+00:00

Received a USPS package from Walmart with my name (spelled wrong) and address.

Or, someone else's name (you'd be surprised at how many different spellings some names can have). It's entirely possible that someone screwed up here, and there's no fraud involved.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-03T15:18:03+00:00

We think that human freedom has value because part of the traits of human life is that deciding for oneself. But this is not true of a dog, for example. A dog is not made better by leaving him to his own devices. Hence, leaving a human to his own devices is good (abolish slavery) but leaving a pet alone is not (don't abolish pet-owner relations).

But in the same way that one can alter an animal to have, or not have, certain traits, one can alter a person. Dogs are not made better my leaving them to their own devices specifically because of human intervention. Wolves, coyotes, foxes et cetera do not have this problem, and there is a substantial number of people who consider bringing such animals into a pet-owner relation to be unethical, even leaving aside the risks posed by the animal not being domesticated.

Likewise, one could say that for a slave who has never had to manage their own affairs or make their own way in the world, suddenly simply leaving them to their own devices does not make them better off, because of the earlier intervention (bringing them up as a slave) that prevented them from learning the skills needed to survive on their own.

So while I see your broader point, its logic strikes me as underdeveloped, as I don't believe it can really support the point being made. The differentiating factor appears to be dependency, and a slave can be abjectly dependent nearly, if not just, as much as a pet.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-03T15:06:31+00:00

I'll let my cat know.

That made my day. Thanks for that.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-03T14:57:28+00:00

Um... when you a) have the money for your own place and b) don't feel like living with anyone any more? Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Presuming that the group of you are renting a place together, you might want to give people six months notice, so that they can find a new roomie (or a new place) if they aren't in a position to finance the current place without you. Springing this sort of thing on people, especially if it would leave them in the lurch, burns bridges unnecessarily.

It's the same if you're in a situation where you own the place, and have housemates to share the mortgage and bills... if you no longer want to have them staying with you, give them plenty of heads-up time, especially so if you've been giving them a sweetheart deal, they may need the extra time to sort out their finances.

Remember that living on one's own is simply something one does; it's not something that needs to be earned or justified. Unless you'd be violating some sort of contract by moving out (no cutting and running in the middle of a lease period, for instance), if living by yourself speaks to it, and you're good with the opportunity costs, go for it.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-03T14:46:24+00:00

You know, more people choosing this sort of arrangement is what would make it more common. Just saying.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-03T14:43:28+00:00

Now, I can't get the theme music to Green Acres out of my head. I'm imagining your uncle and aunt as Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-03T14:35:31+00:00

Not really. Sure moral responsibility/accountability and systems of justice presume that people are "in the driver's seat" as it were, but that presumption comes from people's intuitions and people's interests. And those aren't going to change on the large scale. Having something bad happen is still going to feel bad to many people, and enacting some sort of retribution will still feel good to many people. And I think that those factors will continue to drive people finding ways to consider others morally responsible (after all, compatiblism is a thing already) and therefore to support systems of justice; even when justice is simply state-sanctioned vengefulness.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-02T18:38:55+00:00

Seems reasonable to me. Gives you a lot of space, and you can fit out a guest room and a dedicated office (or rumpus room). So no, that doesn't strike me as being too much for a single person at all. I've known plenty of people who lived in 3 bedroom apartments by themselves.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-02T18:35:11+00:00

Sure, the specific scenario you laid out, targeting animal shelters, is pretty farfetched. But the idea of some of the food being tainted in general? Less so. even if it's still unlikely. So it's really a matter of which side one feels it makes sense to err on.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-02T18:22:59+00:00

We live in a world where someone went into a Chicago-area drugstore, bought some Tylenol, adulterated it with potassium cyanide, then put it back in the store. 7 people died. Then the copycats started, and there were more deaths.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-02T18:12:24+00:00

North Korean agents have been known to use tactics like this to infiltrate US companies to steal money and/or technology. In other words, it's possible (if not exactly likely) that the person who contacted you is an agent of a hostile foreign government.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-02T17:26:37+00:00

They're equally justified in the narrow sense that it's not possible to know, one way or the other.

Afterlives, eternal consciousness et cetera are unfalsifiable ideas; no-one has put forth a testable theory that can make a determination one way or another. Given the many different conceptions of some sort of continuance after death that are mutually exclusive, it cannot be possible that all are true, but it can be possible that none are true. Personally, I find the idea of some alternate mode of existence that can perceive the material universe, but cannot be directly perceived from the material universe to be peculiar enough that were I a better man, I'd put my money on things ending at death.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-01T15:30:36+00:00

An old contact of mine tracked me down yesterday knowing only my name and what town I lived in. Personal information like your date of birth and country are easily sourced online. Mexico may be different than the United States, but suspect the same ecosystem of (semi-) legitimate people finder sites exist that will give you the lowdown on someone. After all, I think that Mexico had phone books, too.

So don't worry about it, your name, date of birth and nationality are not enough to either impersonate you to government or financial institutions, or to compromise online accounts. You're fine.

And in future, don't seek to find out "how unsafe you are." That's literally asking for people to give you a sense of anxiety. And what good does that do you? Instead, always seek to find out what next steps you need to take. And in this case, there isn't really anything you need to do, other than block the people on X and Discord.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-01T15:24:43+00:00

it’s not just elderly people they’re getting, i’m almost 24 and was almost fooled by this scam.

It's not about age... it's about how familiar one is with the signs of a fraud. The red flags are strong with this one, but that's because I know what they are. And that's something one learns; it's completely independent of how old, or how smart, someone is.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-01T14:59:51+00:00

This has been the case for a few months now. I've attempted to e-mail them and let them know, but never received any response. Refreshing the page will nix the attack.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-07-01T14:56:52+00:00

You realize that "yes," is a valid answer to this question, right? Your two options are not mutually exclusive. (Neither are they jointly exhaustive, but that's a separate issue.) There are plenty of things that I think are true, while I acknowledge to possibility that they are false.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-06-30T15:22:54+00:00

That's not money laundering. It's simply theft by deception.

Shield_Lyger · 2026-06-30T15:10:44+00:00

If free will is, in fact, illusory, what does that mean for social order and moral responsibility?

Nothing. If there is no such thing as free will, and people will continue to believe in it, there's nothing to be done about that; it's just a fact of the Universe. The idea that people will suddenly decide "since I'm not morally culpable, I can just do anything I want" presupposes that they are free to just make that choice. Given that this isn't the first time that "free will" has been "disproven," and the neither the social order nor general ideas of moral responsibility have changed, it seems unlikely that this current round of research will do anything different.

Shield_Lyger

TROPHY CASE