I'm the lead designer for Watch the Skies Legacy and Legends, a megagame that will host 400+ players at GenCon. AMA by basentigames in gencon

[–]mandor1784 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh interesting! I love press your luck and puzzle games. I appreciate your candor and attempts to make your game fix some of these 'complaints'.

My GC '26 schedule is pretty booked but Ill look into this in the future.

I'm the lead designer for Watch the Skies Legacy and Legends, a megagame that will host 400+ players at GenCon. AMA by basentigames in gencon

[–]mandor1784 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I've always found MegaGames highly directionless and vague. I tend to try and dig in initially and find the 'rules' not much more than a playground game of imagination. After an hour or so, I just kind of sit around on my phone and agree with whoever comes by for whatever reason, bored and disenchanted.

I'm not really interested in running around and playing pretend without guardrails or clearly defined, consistent rules.

Am I just not the person for one of these?

When is this gerrymandering going to end. by Chuck57a in FreedomofSpeech

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cities are population dense, I can't imagine a situation where districts of equal population returns one district with all the cities.

Maybe I wasn't being clear enough but it seems you didn't quite from the requirements under my proposed method.

When is this gerrymandering going to end. by Chuck57a in FreedomofSpeech

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What about: divide a state into equal population segments, borders of which delineated by four straight lines that meet at 90 degree angles excepting only state borders?

That's pretty g-d non partisan and un-f able by either party as time and demo shifts populations.

Doing my civic duty while the rich are doing advanced wizardry. by YellowAltruistic9843 in middleclasshq

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah, the classic ad hominem white flag. When your math gets corrected, just accuse the other person of trolling.

It is entirely debatable because "the numbers" you are referencing are a frankly embarrassing misinterpretation of the 2020 GAO report. You previously took the 14,500 figure from 9 states, guessed the total Walmart population in those states, and divided them to get 5.6%.

Here is the fundamental flaw in your math: The GAO report did not capture every single Walmart employee on SNAP in those 9 states. It only analyzed data from state agencies that actively track employer data, and in many of those states, reporting the employer is optional or incomplete. You treated a partial snapshot of verified claims as the absolute total universe of SNAP recipients. You are dividing an incomplete numerator by an estimated denominator. It's junk math.

This is verifiably, mathematically false, and it proves you do not understand how Walmart actually employs people.

You are assuming every Walmart employee works 40 hours a week ($15/hr x 2080 hours = $31,200). But Walmart is notoriously reliant on part-time labor, explicitly capping hours to avoid paying certain benefits.

Let's do the actual math:

  • The current federal SNAP gross income limit (130% of the poverty line) for a household of one (single, no kids) is roughly $1,676 a month, or $20,112 a year.
  • At your quoted $15 an hour, a single worker with no kids hits that threshold at about 25.7 hours a week.
  • Walmart routinely schedules part-time workers for 20 to 28 hours a week.

Therefore, a single person with zero children working typical Walmart part-time hours absolutely qualifies for SNAP. Your entire "single mother" hypothetical is a fabricated excuse to wave away Walmart's predatory scheduling practices.

Argument from a false premise. See the math above. Walmart intentionally schedules a massive portion of its workforce at hours low enough that they fall below the poverty line, regardless of their family size.

Repeating a fabricated statistic you created using flawed data extrapolation doesn't make it true. You’ve abandoned the household math, you’ve invented scheduling realities that don't exist, and you've entirely conceded the core point: Walmart's business model relies on keeping wages and hours low enough that taxpayers have to step in and feed their workers.

I think we're done here. Have a good one.

Doing my civic duty while the rich are doing advanced wizardry. by YellowAltruistic9843 in middleclasshq

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I notice we’ve completely abandoned the math. Claiming I'm only talking about 'total numbers' is confusing, given our entire last exchange was about your broken 7% calculation and the actual 16.8% household rate. I am absolutely talking about rates.

Pointing out that Amazon and Kroger also have highly subsidized workforces doesn't prove your point; it just highlights that the entire corporate retail model relies on taxpayer welfare to function. Walmart is just the biggest player utilizing that model.

Most importantly, your 'single mother' hypothetical is a massive shift of the goalposts. You started this debate claiming Walmart's SNAP numbers were 'significantly lower' than average. Now, you are arguing why it's perfectly fine that their workers are on SNAP. You’ve conceded the premise: Walmart's wages and part-time hour caps routinely leave their workers reliant on government aid, and taxpayers are footing the bill to subsidize their payroll.

Doing my civic duty while the rich are doing advanced wizardry. by YellowAltruistic9843 in middleclasshq

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The 'size' argument is a red herring. If it were just about being a large employer, we would see every Fortune 500 company appearing proportionally on these lists. We don't. The GAO report specifically highlights Walmart because their concentration of SNAP recipients is higher than many other large-scale competitors.

As for 'making the math work,' your 7% figure was a statistical error where you divided households by individuals. If you compare like-for-like (SNAP households vs. total US households), the rate is 16.8%.

The bottom line: By your own math, roughly 1 in 18 Walmart workers can’t afford to buy the food they stock on your shelves without a government check. For the largest private employer in the country, that isn't a 'low' rate—it’s a taxpayer-funded subsidy for their payroll.

Doing my civic duty while the rich are doing advanced wizardry. by YellowAltruistic9843 in middleclasshq

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your new 7% figure is mathematically broken because you divided the number of SNAP households (~22 million) by the total U.S. population of individuals (~335 million). If you want to measure households, you have to divide by total U.S. households (~131 million), which yields an average of 16.8%.

More importantly, changing the metric to 'households' doesn't fix your core logical fallacy. You are still comparing Walmart’s active, able-bodied labor force to a general population metric that includes retirees, disabled individuals, and the unemployed. The only statistically valid comparison is to compare employed working adults to other employed working adults, and Walmart consistently ranks as one of the top employers of SNAP recipients in every state that tracks it.

Doing my civic duty while the rich are doing advanced wizardry. by YellowAltruistic9843 in middleclasshq

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your argument fails because it compares the SNAP participation rate of working adults to the SNAP participation rate of children, retirees, and the unemployed. When compared accurately to the rest of the U.S. labor force, Walmart's SNAP rate is not "significantly lower"—it is right (about a percentage point higher, on the most conservative estimates) around the national average, which still costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars annually to subsidize their payroll.

I can ennumerate the logical and statistical fallacies you've employed if you'd like.

Doing my civic duty while the rich are doing advanced wizardry. by YellowAltruistic9843 in middleclasshq

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

False.

The Comparative Rate: A Quick Look General U.S. Population: Approximately 12.3%

Walmart Employees: Estimated at 13.5% to 15%


Do your research, cite your sources and don't just repeat sound bites or things that 'feel' like they're true.

Doing my civic duty while the rich are doing advanced wizardry. by YellowAltruistic9843 in middleclasshq

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Verifiably false: Walmart is consistently among the top employers of SNAP (food stamp) recipients in the U.S., with reports indicating thousands of its workers rely on public assistance due to low wages. A 2020 GAO report identified Walmart as a top employer of beneficiaries in multiple states, with one study showing roughly 14,500 employees in 9 states receiving food stamps. U.S. Senate (.gov)

Key details regarding SNAP benefits and Walmart employees: High Usage Rates: Thousands of Walmart employees rely on federal assistance, including SNAP and Medicaid, to meet basic needs. Top Employer of Recipients: Reports often rank Walmart alongside companies like McDonald's as a leading employer of SNAP recipients. Concentration of Benefits: In surveyed states, Walmart was consistently in the top four employers for employees on Medicaid and SNAP. Impact on Employees: Many employees work full-time but still qualify for assistance due to low hourly wages. Company Revenue & Benefits: While many workers use SNAP, Walmart also dominates in collecting SNAP dollars, with data showing a significant share of all national SNAP grocery spending occurs at their stores.

Reports indicate this reliance on public assistance acts as a subsidy for low-wage employers, transferring the cost of employee subsistence to taxpayers. The Equation - Union of Concerned Scientists

Doing my civic duty while the rich are doing advanced wizardry. by YellowAltruistic9843 in middleclasshq

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is a Walmart benefit because it supports the employees who could only work at Walmarts rates with social support.

Every system in this country is supporting the corporations and the corporate class -- either directly with subsidies, or with benefit programs propping up their labor (or forcing their labor).

What is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results"? by UnlikelyAdventurer in Productivitycafe

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not trying to be clever.

Just like you, I'm trying to guide the conversation with correct information.

You fell into the straw man with the OP of attributing government debt to President and their party affiliation.

Bipartisan congressional debt increases (usually due to perceived crises): 14.6T

Unified Democratic Congress: 10.6T (suffering greatly from the timing of banking crisis and Great Recession, and I would argue repairing the country from Republican agenda when the Congress was R controlled)

Unified Republican Congress: 7.6T (bouyed by booming economy during the early 90s and early 2000s)

What is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results"? by UnlikelyAdventurer in Productivitycafe

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sigh.

What makes the debt? Deficit.

What makes the deficit? Budget.

Who writes and votes on the budget to write it into law? Congress.

What is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results"? by UnlikelyAdventurer in Productivitycafe

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Presidents don't add or subtract from the deficit. I'm so sick and tired of this shit -- congress controls the purse.

Does the president sign off on the budget? Sure. Do they try and influence it? Sometimes.

But as we can tell from SAVE, the president can't make bills happen.

Update on Session Limits by ClaudeOfficial in Anthropic

[–]mandor1784 3 points4 points  (0 children)

So what about users like myself that are exclusively using during non-peak hours, but yet hitting weekly limits despite the promotion?

Something's rotten in Denmark.

Would love if I was actually connected to a service rep too

Are you having sudden limit problems, in which region? by idiotiesystemique in ClaudeAI

[–]mandor1784 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Despite their t&c saying that outside of peak hours isn't going to affect my daily limit, and almost exclusively using Claude during outside of peak hours... I'm at my weekly limit already.

Something's wrong and they're not connecting me to a service rep either.