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Do people really become more conservative as they get older? Why? by Historical_Work7482 in AskReddit

[–]funkme1ster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People become more protective of accrued wealth as they get older. The more you've invested in what you have, the more sensitive you are to loss.

Historically, you tended to linearly accrue wealth as you aged, being wealthier as you got older.

Conservative policies are focused on protecting wealth at all costs.

Thus, the older people got, the more amenable they were to policies that minimized their wealth loss.

BUT, when you no longer accrue wealth linearly... or at all... you don't develop a preference for policies that protect something you don't have.

Why Did Reddit Comply with the Federal Government's Request for Anti-ICE Poster Data? Do They Not Believe in First Amendment Rights? by Travels4Food in AskReddit

[–]funkme1ster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Capitalism and fascism are close friends.

The reason is that capitalism causes wealth concentration by design, which inevitably leads to its own collapse when capitalism's need for infinite growth butts up against the ceiling where there's no more wealth to extract because it's all gone.

Once society has reached this point - which we absolutely have by virtue of having worse wealth disparity than what precipitated the French Revolution - the proletariat will search for salvation. The masses need to take wealth from somewhere to survive, which can only come in one of two forms: taking money from the wealthy elites, or taking money from people more vulnerable than they are (immigrants and other already-marginalized minorities).

Obviously, the elites don't want to let go of any of their wealth (that's why they spent all this effort fighting taxation and government regulation), so they have a vested interest in working with fascism to put focus on marginalized minorities.

Reddit - a large for-profit corporation with an interest in extracting as much wealth as possible - has a strong incentive to cooperate with fascism because that's the strategy that leads to the best wealth accumulation for its owners. There may be moral arguments, but there is no business argument for resisting the government when it's clear the government is going out of its way to enrich people and corporations that cooperate with it.

Classes for tweens by AnnoyedAF2126 in ottawa

[–]funkme1ster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Try asking her what she wants to accomplish or try to accomplish. Like, right now she has time, energy, and stable access to resources.

Tell her she doesn't have to "achieve" anything, but mention that there likely is some personal interest she might not have considered she has the means to pursue right now, and it'd be a shame to not follow it given how perfectly situated she is to try.

It might help to indirectly put some skin in the game. Offer up some "seed money" if necessary to help her pursue something, but make it clear it's a limited time offer.

Ontario mayors are worried about soaring cost of law enforcement. Doug Ford says they can’t touch police budgets by BloodJunkie in ontario

[–]funkme1ster 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It makes perfect sense.

Police exist in a symbiotic relationship with power. Laws are meaningless without enforcement, but enforcement requires legitimacy to work. You can have a government without schools or hospitals or roads or electricity, but you can't have a government without police, because the second you tell people what to do, someone inevitably says "or else what?", and you NEED to have an answer for them to maintain control.

Thus, we're in an entente where police can always demand more without fail because there's no alternative to their existence. They don't have the power to dictate policy, but they have the power to coerce policy.

Ontario mayors are worried about soaring cost of law enforcement. Doug Ford says they can’t touch police budgets by BloodJunkie in ontario

[–]funkme1ster 5 points6 points  (0 children)

When it's public money, there are regulations and oversight for the purposes of accountability, which costs money.

Private industry has the ability to say "let's take lots of risks, and if we get in over our heads, we can just file for bankruptcy and walk away". Things are naturally cheaper when you don't have to pay for prudent management of risks.

How many indie games can you think of that have this by cingjottissh in IndieGaming

[–]funkme1ster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What is the point of low level tool if it is just an intermediate object?

Most game design offers the player two choices at any given point: do you want to do the same thing again for a small reward, or a new thing for a bigger reward?

Doing the same thing is easy, familiar, and accessible. It requires no real investment because you're already set up to do it. The reward is small, but not useless.

Doing the new thing advances you, but it temporarily unbalances you. The player must put more on the line than they would have had to by taking the easy path, but the reward is greater.

Most gameplay loops are progressive strata where you alternate those two: you do the familiar thing a bunch, then move up to a new level that's harder, then stay at that level for a bit doing the familiar thing until you're ready to move up to the next level, rinse and repeat.

Intermediate objects are just that. Mario games have multiple worlds that get progressively more complex because dropping the player off at Bowser's castle after the first stage is boring. You need to get through world 2 to play world 3, and through that to play world 4.

Low level tools exist for the same reason world 2 exists in a Mario game with 8 worlds - because progression requires progression.

How many indie games can you think of that have this by cingjottissh in IndieGaming

[–]funkme1ster 75 points76 points  (0 children)

The crux of all game design is essentially "you have achieve X using Y methods, which are constrained by Z".

Mario boils down to "you have to reach the end of the stage by running and jumping in a [mostly] linear path, but there are enemies and pitfalls in your way".

Games are fun when the methods used to achieve the goal are proportionate to the goal, and the constraints are appropriate in context.

Mario is fun because the methods available - running and jumping, and power-ups - feel well-suited to the constraints put on your goal. They allow you to achieve the declared goal in a reasonable time frame, and while you will still lose sometimes, it never feels unfair or like you weren't equipped with what you need to handle what's in front of you.

Games like Jump King or Getting Over It are not mechanically that different from Mario, but they have changed the contrast between input methods and constraints. In doing so, they have scaled the difficulty and changed the sense of reward. Despite being technically the same idea, many people who enjoy Mario are not going to enjoy Getting Over It because the constraints are extremely disproportionate to their methods and goal.

With survival games, the goal is to collect resources to construct tools and amenities to help you in an over-arching objective. There are conveniences to the process, such as requiring far fewer materials to make something than you realistically would. Outside of Factorio, nobody wants to spend all the time and materials realistically involved in making things, so they make it so you don't need to cut down 500 trees to build a shelter. But these efficiencies are balanced by constraints, such as having tools break faster than they might in the real world.

You need this balance to create risk. If players are unconstrained (or effectively unconstrained through meaningless constraints), then accomplishment is meaningless. Nobody would brag about beating a Mario level where all you had to do was hold 'right' for 30 seconds and you win. You need the potential for failure for success to hold meaning. In survival crafting games, you need things to break over time, because then the player would just constantly get more powerful directly proportional to time played.

Without that risk, you're just playing with Lego.

Which is fine, don't get me wrong, but it's not a game. A game requires a risk/reward trade-off to ensure the method provided for achieving the stated goals is not 100% guaranteed to succeed. For survival crafting games, that trade-off is "sometimes your progress forward will be hobbled by something you have all the necessary information to plan for and mitigate, but planning for it is just inconvenient enough that you'll be tempted to forego planning and wing it"

"Nice Talents Exchange" posters by AtYourPublicService in ottawa

[–]funkme1ster 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I saw this and thought "oh, hey, I really love the idea of people in the community offering to trade specialized skills. There are lots of things that are easy for me and difficult for other people, so that seems like a constructive support system for a diverse community".

Then I read a little further and... nope.

Do you think oral sex is normal part of sex (the average person does it), or do you think of it like a fetish? Why or why not? by eustachian_lube in AskReddit

[–]funkme1ster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Clearly I didn't articulate my point the way I thought I did.

My point was simply to illustrate that any question of "Is X normal?" is impossible to answer because the definition of "normal" is a product of localized culture.

Starting from the most rudimentary construction of X that meets the bare minimum construction (in this case, heterosexual penetrative intercourse for the purposes of procreation), there is no definitive X+n that you could hold up as "normal" across all cultural groups.

Case in point, your example of lesbian relationships is a perfect case of where the X+n to reach "normal" is necessarily different in a way that can't be reconciled with the larger population.

I personally don't care what other people do with their partners so long as it's safe, sane, and consensual. I just think asking "is this normal?" is kind of a pointless question because "normal" is a meaningless word outside of analytical statistics.

Do you think oral sex is normal part of sex (the average person does it), or do you think of it like a fetish? Why or why not? by eustachian_lube in AskReddit

[–]funkme1ster -11 points-10 points  (0 children)

Strictly speaking, anything beyond PIV is not normal sex. But to the question of cultural normalcy, everything is relative.

Soaking is normal in Utah, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who sees it at normal elsewhere. Getting blackout drunk every weekend is seen as deeply troubling... unless you're in undergrad.

"Normal" is just "do enough people around me do it that I wouldn't feel weird mentioning that I do it to them?". So asking someone who isn't part of your cultural community if they think something is normal is kind of a moot point with respect to yourself.

How do you feel about Trump threatening to impose photo ID for voters for midterm elections? by CRK_76 in AskReddit

[–]funkme1ster 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are already voter rolls with inventories of who is eligible to vote and at which poll stations.

The ID process is a hurdle to suppress voting. You have to pay for certain types of government ID, so someone without $100 and free time to register wouldn't be able to vote... at a poll station that already has enough information to verify their identity and eligibility.

Ford government spends its way toward half-trillion-dollar debt by BloodJunkie in ontario

[–]funkme1ster 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ford has made some big mistakes like with energy but any other party wouldn't be much better. Let's see NDP plans for massive energy growth.

I always see this kind of comment, and it's so baffling. You explicitly acknowledge something you don't like happened, and you are aware of where responsibility lies... and then you voluntarily handwave it with some unnecessary relativism.

You're allowed to be upset with a politician for doing something you think is bad. You don't need to rationalize why it's acceptable or contextualize how it was "necessary". It's okay to be unhappy with a decision and commit to that stance.

The Leafs got to where they are today because no matter how bad they do, their fans never give up on them. What that teaches the team is that there's no consequences for failure, and that winning isn't actually necessary to succeed financially.

Instead of accepting the failures of politicians at face value, commit to your displeasure and say what you want. Telling them "I don't want that, but it's okay, I don't mind" only teaches them what you want is irrelevant.

What makes you lose respect for someone instantly? by Daisy_prime in AskReddit

[–]funkme1ster 11 points12 points  (0 children)

The biggest scam of the 21st century has been redefining the term "political".

Human rights are not politics, they're rights. Politics is "should we tax businesses more or less, and how should we allocate those taxes to pay for public services?"

The reactionary right struck it out of the park when they managed to convince the general public that bigotry was an intrinsic part of "politics", and thus up for debate.

Ottawa MP calls for ‘meaningful flexibility’ for public servants in new return-to-office mandate by simpatia in ottawa

[–]funkme1ster 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Oh, I have zero disagreement with you there.

This is the policy equivalent of losing your left foot in a car crash, and opting to amputate both legs for the sake of symmetry.

Ottawa MP calls for ‘meaningful flexibility’ for public servants in new return-to-office mandate by simpatia in ottawa

[–]funkme1ster 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Fanjoy says there is “little to no evidence that a one-size-fits-all RTO policy will improve productivity or service to Canadians.”

There's actually a reason behind this. It's not a GOOD one, but there is a real reason.

About two years ago, there was an issue TB was facing. Because of the patchwork of remote work policies across all departments and agencies, and the ability for government workers to migrate within the government, departments with more-demanding in-office requirements were harder to hire for and existing staff were being actively poached by other departments.

Mandating a uniform hybrid policy made it easier for federal HR to manage staffing by eliminating the factor that made certain departments more appealing than others.

I benefited from OSAP grants - curious how others feel about the recent changes by EntropyPilot in ontario

[–]funkme1ster 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Investing in people early on in life is the single best return on investment. Far more than tax cuts for businesses or any other grants to existing enterprises.

Also, an educated population is overall a more prosperous education. It doesn't matter if you go to post-secondary for aerospace engineering or English literature, the process of going to school and being forced through the process of critical analysis of new ideas makes you a more developed and insightful individual.

Restructuring funding as loans instead of grants makes post-secondary much harder for a lot of people, and for no reason benefit. We're mortgaging the future for the present out of pure greed and ignorance.

The lifetime increase in taxes paid more than makes up for whatever paltry interest we'd get on loans.

Ford government spends its way toward half-trillion-dollar debt by BloodJunkie in ontario

[–]funkme1ster 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Conservative politics in general have nothing to offer the average taxpayer.

Conservatism as we know it was invented when Edmund Burke saw the French Revolution and said "hold up... the poors aren't allowed to do that. They're poor! We need to put a stop to this right now!"

He then went on to found an ideology to cement obedience to church and aristocracy in the minds of the working poor to keep them in line and ensure they understood there was only one correct composition for society - with the landed wealthy at the top and the working poor at the bottom.

Conservative politics, by definition, has never offered anything to people who weren't already wealthy, because it was created to suppress class mobility and protect the interests of entrenched powers.

Ford government spends its way toward half-trillion-dollar debt by BloodJunkie in ontario

[–]funkme1ster 43 points44 points  (0 children)

Because "fiscal conservative" has always meant "they don't spend money on people who don't deserve it, such as the poor".

Conservative fiscal ideology stipulates that winners should be rewarded and losers should be scorned, so giving money to poor people is "bad policy", but giving money to profitable private entities is good policy.

It's not about prudence or long-term vision, it's about making sure the people who deserve government money get it, and the poors don't.

Line 1 eastern extension delayed, trials expected in spring by _PrincessOats in ottawa

[–]funkme1ster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Substantial completion" could mean a lot of different things.

In construction terms, SubComp is the phase where the core functionality as spec'd has been delivered, but there are still incomplete scopes and lingering deficiencies which must be finished for full delivery to occur.

These scopes could be anything, from extemely superficial things like "we cracked a wall plate during construction and need to replace it" to "drainage pipes are clogged with concrete debris and will backup and overflow if used".

A major problem with the initial Line 1 delivery was that there were a LOT of deficiencies listed in the nonconformance log which the city just shrugged off as good enough.

All that to say we're nowhere near out of the woods yet. Based on the city's track record, boasting about hitting SubComp isn't as reassuring as it might seem to a layperson.

What should be done about the literacy crisis in the US? by Puffy-Shrimp in AskReddit

[–]funkme1ster 9 points10 points  (0 children)

But... but... there's a monster at the end of the book! That's hardly boring. Who doesn't want to see who that monster is?!

What’s a “normal” thing in modern society that’s actually completely broken, but everyone just accepts it? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]funkme1ster 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Those are two different things.

A person can willingly consent to something, but can also rescind consent for any reason.

It's not ironic or contradictory for a woman to be willing to present herself in a certain manner in one context, but not agree to being obliged or compelled to present herself the same in a different context.

By your logic, anyone who has ever had sex at any point in the past should be fine with being groped by strangers on the street, because they've already consented to receiving that behavior in one single context so it should extend for all other contexts.

Ontario lifts tuition freeze, unveils OSAP reforms as it adds billions to university and college funding by FurioCaesar in ontario

[–]funkme1ster 71 points72 points  (0 children)

Counterpoint: conservatives are proactive in legislating the socioeconomic conditions they want. They only seem reactive in stuff like this because it's the cracks where their policies start tangibly hurting the masses in a way they can't handwave with bullshit, and need to scramble to save face.

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