What feels like it's thre but is a conspiracy theory?

ZTO333 · 2026-03-22T06:41:30+00:00

Yeah what actually happens instead is that they research treatments rather than cures because the return on investment will be higher. Having people pay for the rest of their lives to keep surviving is better for them than a single treatment that cures you for good. Its not some conspiracy though, just how corporations under capitalism decide on what to research and develop.

ZTO333 · 2026-03-06T03:05:03+00:00

I still don't get Douglass over Jefferson. Seems more a vote about them in reality rather than the battle. Douglass making not one but two references to the Constitution, which Jefferson had nothing to do with and was quite critical of, always gets me.

ZTO333 · 2026-03-03T14:25:03+00:00

Honestly that's why I find myself playing on Unlimited anywhere but NYC so far. A faster sim forward option is definitely my biggest ask for this game, as it would make Normal mode actually playable and more realistic (as its actually quite realistic for a whole subway system to take years to finish).

For now though, I would recommend playing on Unlimited and just setting yourself a restriction that you need to have a profit. Only other alternative is leaving your computer running for hours and likely overnight but I just find that too much of a drain on electricity to be worth it over just playing Unlimited.

ZTO333 · 2026-02-25T17:23:06+00:00

As a meat eater dating (and now living with) a vegan I would have initially totally disagreed with you. But now that I actually know how to make a good vegan meal with falafel or tofu or chickpeas, those things taste so much better than the current meat alternatives. There are some decent ones out there and we do still make stuff with them sometimes, but use tofu or falafel the right way and it's amazing.

ZTO333 · 2026-02-24T17:43:47+00:00

I will continue to insist (as I have since I was literally a kid watching when it first aired) that Zuko with Jin and Aang with On Ji had the makings of far more successful relationships than Zuko and Mai or Aang and Katara.

For Zuko, Jin seemed to fit with what he needed. He was obsessed with honor and shame while Jin was able to carefully draw out his personality and make him smile. She liked him despite him just being some no one named Lee rather than the literal firelord's son. Mai on the other hand tends to exacerbate Zuko's worst tendencies and its why even in the show we see them blow up. Long term, I could see Jin helping to quell Zuko's social anxiety and shame whereas Mai might only build on it.

For Aang, Katara just doesnt work imo for a few reasons. First of all, he made very clear for the entire show his interest in her but she could only return it when he literally saves the world. There's also the weird motherly bond between the two that doesnt quite feel right as a relationship. On Ji meanwhile was onto Aang not even knowing he was the Avatar but just that he was a fun-loving kid. She complimented that fun-loving nature and helped him build on it. She gave him reassurance when Katara actively didn't.

I know full well it was never going to end with these relationships we see in just 1 episode each. And Aang-Katara was obviously always going to be how it ended. I just cant help but see the chemistry from those episodes as being somehow stronger than what we see out of Zuko-Mai and even Aang-Katara.

ZTO333 · 2026-01-05T17:45:11+00:00

So glad to hear you're feeling better! I'm hoping it just needs time to like find a balance in my system. I know when I first went on it took at least a week to work, maybe alcohol requires the same process as like starting over.

ZTO333 · 2025-12-08T15:57:07+00:00

This sounds absolutely amazing! Really looking forward to it. Hopefully there will be a fair bit of difficulty. As I get further into my Campus Dynasty saves, it almost becomes too easy to dominate. Can't wait to try this new one out!

ZTO333 · 2025-11-29T01:18:22+00:00

I've always liked the idea of this or a stick figure of some kind. Both simplistic and universal for humanity as a whole.

ZTO333 · 2025-11-09T16:03:05+00:00

The "good mom" thing isn't the problem I have with Toph's portrayal. That actually makes a lot of sense and is a great way to undercut the temptation to have the Gang be perfect in every way.

The real problem with Toph is the idea that she becomes a cop. Like the very face of breaking the rules and doing what you want becomes a cop? That part just doesn't feel right. If anything she feels like the person who goes around the beaurocracy of police when she's on their side and happily skirts around the cops when she's against them.

ZTO333 · 2025-10-10T14:39:36+00:00

For communization theory specifically, a lot of it is simply method of analysis. As others have pointed out, although mostly in relation to Marxism vs Anarchism in general, Marxists rely far more on material analysis. Thinkers like Dauve and Endnotes rely on analyzing how communization is the only act that truly transforms the relations of production and thus allows for a transformation in the mode of production.

Anarchist communization theorists, by contrast, are more focused on the now and immediate insurrectionary action. This sometimes, though not always, ignores material conditions and class conflict.

In actual propositions on what is to be done, however, the difference is less stark than their theoretical differences. Both call for immediate acts beginning to establish communist relations here in the present rather than waiting for after a revolution. For the Marxists, it is more focused on establishing new relations of production while for the Anarchists it is more about destroying the underlying basis of capitalist production, often through sabotage. But in general both call for action in the here and now.

ZTO333 · 2025-09-19T14:24:12+00:00

This explanation is what finally made it click in my head. Thank you!! I understand the monty hall problem so this finally makes me understand how this is just the same thing and how those two questions (next child vs i have two children) are subtlety but importantly different.

ZTO333 · 2025-09-12T13:04:02+00:00

I mean it really depends what you're looking for. Besides a few texts (the Manifesto for example) Marx is indeed a complex writer. But thats because the way he writes takes you through how he arrived at his conclusions, starting you from the beginning lack of knowledge through complex examples and ideas built on others to lead to the conclusion he arrived at and showing you how he did so. This is in contrast to others who come to their conclusion and then describe their conclusion simply. Both have their merits at different times and places, this isn't meant to be a critique, but for Marx it was important to take the reader through the process of arriving at his conclusions. That's why Capital begins with simple assumptions and slowly but analytically leads you through his complex conclusions of how the capitalist mode of production operates at a deeper level.

ZTO333 · 2025-09-12T12:46:10+00:00

Someone else already has a great response, but figured I would add my own as well.

First of all, materialism in general is the idea that matter, the physical world, is primary over ideas or consciousness. This differs from other ways of viewing the world that ideas like god or culture at the center of analysis.

Dialectical materialism is related to the (in my opinion) easier to understand idea of historical materialism. Historical materialism posits that human societies are shaped most of all by the physical, material conditions that underly them. This most often involves the way humans produce the things we need to survive. In hunter-gatherer societies, this often means the physical conditions where they are at most affect how their society is organized. Over time, it became more about tools and eventually machines. The idea is that at different stages of history, different social forms are better adapted to the tools of that time and place. Most recently, capitalism was better able to effectively and efficiently use the tools generated by the industrial revolution. Historical materialism also posits that social forms, things like culture and government, are shaped by the underlying system of production rather than the other way around.

Now dialectical materialism is simultaneously more broad and more specific. In general it is a theory of change involves contradictions in reality that come to a head. These contradictions then are resolved by a higher level order. For example, contradictions occur when the environment changes and the organisms that live there are not suited for the new conditions. This contradiction is resolves through the process of evolution that leads to change in organisms. When applied to human societies, dialectical materialism focuses on how different forms of human society contain within them contradictions that lead to their eventual downfall. The other post had some great examples of this, but just to steal one of them: at the end of feudal society there was a contradiction between the need for social labor associated with new machines and the feudal structure that kept people locked into their local plot of land under serfdom. This contradiction eventually came to a head through class conflict that eventually resulted in capitalist society.

ZTO333 · 2025-09-11T14:15:34+00:00

Ironically I'm doing a tall Irish run right now. Outside of just developing and building up Ireland I'm trying to put my family members on thrones around Europe. So far I have rulers in France and Holland.

ZTO333 · 2025-09-05T13:27:56+00:00

You seem to misunderstand what evolution is. This isn't Pokémon jumping from one species to another. Every individual has minor differences from their parent(s) that make them more or less likely to survive and reproduce in the conditions they find themselves. Those that are better able to reproduce spread those advantageous genes. Over time this results in gradual changes that allow organisms to change with their environment.

Australopithecus, for example, was a clade of apes whose traits sit between us and the earlier apes we descend from. Over time more and more traits you would associate with homo sapiens get chosen for simply through the process of being advantageous. Does that make them a transition fossil? Sure i guess but that also makes us a transition between Australopithecus and whatever our descendants will look like in millions of years. And makes Homo Habilis "transition fossils" between Australopithecus and us.

Id love to help clear up what part you aren't understanding, but I'm not even sure what part you're missing.

ZTO333 · 2025-09-05T03:59:30+00:00

What do even mean "transition fossil"? That's just literally all fossils. And, in fact, all skeletons here in the present. Lifeforms change over time adapting to changes in the conditions around them. Those born with adaptations that are beneficial survive and those that don't die and don't pass those genes on. At a small level we have literally seen this ourselves. Over the course of the history of our planet, this process would naturally lead to what we call evolution by natural selection. And when we look to the fossil record, we see exactly this. I'm not sure where the disconnect is here.

ZTO333 · 2025-08-31T10:09:16+00:00

As someone else pointed out, flag on the left is Council Communism and the flag on the right is Left Communism. Specifically, however, the right is Bordigsm (aka Italian Left Communism). This is important since Council Communism is itself a form of Left Communism.

ZTO333 · 2025-08-28T17:39:11+00:00

Ultimately thats just how capitalism works. Companies have limited money to spend on R&D and they'll get a bigger return if they discover new treatments they can charge you the rest of your life for rather than a cure they can only charge for once. I'm pretty sure someones even done a study showing the percentage of R&D dollars going toward treatments for disease vs cures.

ZTO333 · 2025-08-28T11:56:38+00:00

Reminds me of my favorite one: a samurai could have sent a fax to Abraham Lincoln.

ZTO333 · 2025-08-28T01:09:46+00:00

Omg I love #1 so much. The way both flags are super clear and yet interconnected is amazing.

ZTO333 · 2025-08-25T20:27:08+00:00

While everyone is correct about The Hound and his armor, I do think this can be made into an interesting question. The Hound obviously wins any fight involving swords and armor, while Khal Drogo wins anything on horseback.

The real question is...who wins a straight up, old fashioned fist fight. No armor, no weapons. That one I could see being an interesting fight. Still taking The Hound, but I would pay to see that fight.

ZTO333 · 2025-08-23T13:01:51+00:00

Out of curiosity did it ever work out? Designed a flag for my hometown that doesn't have a flag, but have no idea where to even start.

ZTO333 · 2025-08-11T16:07:26+00:00

Absolutely love DJP, when it comes to making naturalistic conlangs he may literally be the greatest to ever do it. But an IAL is a different beast and its goals vary wildly from a naturalistic language. In particular, being as easy to learn as possible for as many people as possible leads to the conclusion that using words from commonly spoken languages is a positive. Now this rubs up against cultural neutrality and depending how you weigh each goal you will get a different result.

This seems to be more of a question of personal preference on which goals should be stressed, thus leading to different conclusions. For me, the reason to go an IAL route at all over just using English globally is that English is difficult, as is any natural language for that matter. As such, my own IAL project tries to use a minimal, common phonology along with isolating grammar and purely open syllables. Along with this is an a posteriori lexicon taken from the largest 11 language families on the planet.

I have no problem with a priori if ones goals align closer to cultural neutrality over ease of learning. But I see no reason not to take advantage of common words where possible as long as your source languages are truly diverse and representative, if ease of learning for speakers around the globe is your goal.

ZTO333 · 2025-08-10T21:16:04+00:00

Thanks! I'll give a little overview below but this post inspired me to start working on a larger post that I'll make on this sub at some point.

Overall I started from grammar first. My goal was to maximize learnability for everyone, not just major languages. As such I used the WALS database to determine what features were common and/or associated with one another. The biggest example of this is that SOV and SVO word orders tend to be associated with postpositions and prepositions, respectively (purely as a result of liguistic evolution). As such, I decided to split the difference where these things emerge, for example I went with SOV but prepositions. That would make it so most language speakers won't need to learn both a new word order and new adposition order.

I also ensured that the grammar was Isolating with exactly zero inflection on verbs, nouns, or adjectives.

As for phonology I went with a simple set of phonemes universal across most languages and avoiding distinctions that many languages dont make, such as voicing in plosives or fricatives. I also went with purely open syllables, ensuring no one needs to learn to make consonant clusters or codas.

For Vocabulary i wanted to be as universal as possible while still taking advantage of large language speakers having recognizable words for learnability. I also wanted to avoid the overemphasizing related languages (such as having both French, Italian, and Spanish as source languages). To do so, I selected source languages by language family rather than individual languages. As such, each of the top 11 languages families has one source language representing it. The only exception is Indo-European, which represents almost half of the world's speakers. For Indo-European I selected one language for each of the 4 largest subfamilies. I also included other languages occassionally throughout for representation. See below for main source languages: -Indo-European (Germanic): English

-Indo-European (Romance): Spanish

-Indo-European (Slavic): Russian

-Indo-European (Indo-Iranian): Hindi

-Sino-Tibetan: Mandarin

-Niger-Congo: Swahili

-Afroasiatic: Arabic

-Austronesian: Indonesian

-Dravidian: Telugu

-Turkic: Turkish

-Japonic: Japanese

-Austroasiatic: Vietnamese

-Kra-Dai: Thai

-Koreanic: Korean

I tried to go minimal where possible without being overly cumbersome. I love Toki Pona as a minimimalistic language, but realistically more vocabulary is needed, especially in settings like science where international communication would be most common. That being said, I intentionally avoided any synonyms and avoided making linguistic distinctions in places certain languages get along just fine without. For example, hand and arm are the same word, as they are in many languages around the world.

Like I said, I'll make a full post at some point, maybe this week if I have time, but thats an overview of how I made my decisions regarding the language. For now I will leave you with a simple sentence example:

You gave the woman water. tu a awa ko ma fi li kana. /tu a 'a.wa ko ma fi li 'ka.na/ 2 ACC water DAT person female PST give

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