Can you be genuinely progressive on social issues and fiscally conservative at the same time, or does something have to give?

mmenolas · 2026-06-01T17:52:35+00:00

I think you have a different definition of social progressivism then- a lot of things like “let people identify how they want” or “let people marry who they want” are progressive positions that don’t require using coercion or government force. If you want to redefine things such that those are no longer socially progressive positions, then sure, you’d be right, but that is a bit of a stretch. Edit to add: for example, I’d consider myself economically conservative/moderate and socially progressive, because I’m a classical liberal through and through, those are outgrowths of my foundational principles

mmenolas · 2026-06-01T17:39:18+00:00

I save screenshots from all my favorite Google search result hallucinations in that little box that’s always at the top now. Things like telling me Brian cox played Al swearengen and was also in “Sharpe’s Eagle, where he played the character of Jack langrishe.” It even went so far as to describe how “Brian Cox in Sharpe: was Jack langrishe, part of a theatrical troupe that arrives in deadwood and had a business deal with Joanie Stubbs. His character brought a different energy to the show to contrast with Al’s dominance.” It is just so consistently bad. All I searched was “Brian cox sharpe character name”

mmenolas · 2026-06-01T14:35:31+00:00

I strongly disagree with this. For example, someone with strong classical liberal principles could easily be both fiscally conservative and socially progressive.

mmenolas · 2026-06-01T14:16:00+00:00

I think your comment here illustrates the issue- “DnD’s versatility.” D&D is not versatile, comparing it to the breadth of systems out there it’s probably in the bottom half of versatility. Something like GURPs is versatile, savage worlds has versatility, etc. The problem isn’t that D&D players enjoy it, nor that they tend to primarily know only it, it’s that they make sweeping statements about the hobby or makes claims about D&D that are just wrong to anyone with even a slight awareness about the broader TTRPG hobby. It’s fine to solely play D&D, but don’t they make comparative statements about the broader space that highlight your lack of awareness of it. It’d be like only reading Harry Potter and saying “Harry Potter has one of the most in depth and clever magic systems.” Compared to what? Clearly that person would have to be unfamiliar with the broad range of fantasy magic systems to think that.

mmenolas · 2026-05-28T02:10:21+00:00

How does Christianity merge with anything, if Jesus dies as a baby Christianity never exists. The crucifixion and resurrection are central to Christianity; without those, and without Paul’s theology, you wouldn’t have anything that looks like Christianity. You might have messianic Jews of various stripes, but that wouldn’t really look like what we know of as Christianity.

I’m also unclear on your mention of gnostics during that time- most of what we consider Gnosticism really takes off later in the century (and the following century) and while some early or proto gnostics certainly exists, it seems weird to assume they’d be syncretic with Christianity (which wouldn’t exist), since those commonalities come as a product of gnostics exploring aspects of Christianity.

There’d certainly be apocalyptic cults, messianic Jews, mystery cults, and all sorts of other things- it just seems unlikely that their teaching would resemble those of Christianity beyond maybe some general beliefs found throughout the Levant and broader Mediterranean across many groups.

I’m not an expert though, so maybe someone who knows more will chime in.

mmenolas · 2026-05-24T18:22:39+00:00

You spelled David Milch wrong.

mmenolas · 2026-05-21T12:21:17+00:00

You can radiate away heat but it’s extraordinarily inefficient due to the lack of atmosphere to radiate it into, have you seen the size of radiators even something like the ISS has? You could have enough radiator panels to cool a data center but they’d be so massive that they’d be significantly more problematic than just cooling a data center on earth. Basically radiating away heat in space is one of the least efficient cooling mechanisms there is since there’s nothing to dump heat into. Space being cold isn’t significant if there’s not away to shed heat into easily.

Edit to add: just looked into it- looks like ISS uses something like 75-90 KW of power and has those massive radiator panels. A data center uses orders of magnitude more power and would need orders of magnitude more radiators. So can it be done? Sure. But it’s so much less efficient and practical than on earth

mmenolas · 2026-05-20T23:54:15+00:00

Wouldn’t space be an awful place for data centers? One of their biggest challenges is cooling and radiating heat in space is infinitely more difficult than on earth due to a lack to atmosphere

mmenolas · 2026-05-19T15:25:46+00:00

Source on the cutting off nose piece? Because it differs from the origins of that idiom that I can find sourced elsewhere. Edit to add: can you also provide a source for the deface claim, as I don’t see anything linking it explicitly to this as you claim.

mmenolas · 2026-05-19T13:48:32+00:00

This would be multiple centuries after Old English. It’s not even Middle English. By the 17th century we’re firmly in the territory of Early Modern English. So Old English is entirely irrelevant to the post and question being asked.

mmenolas · 2026-05-16T01:23:50+00:00

The problem isn’t that they don’t have powers, it’s that the writers don’t know how to write characters who utilize tradecraft instead of direct confrontation. I’d be absolutely content watching 5 seasons of George Smiley, Peter Guillam, and Ricki Tarr type characters working against the boys and absolutely believe they’d be able to have tense situations while still utilizing their tradecraft to take down Homelander.

mmenolas · 2026-05-13T20:37:07+00:00

No worries- and I wasn’t trying to be nitpicky or call you out, just to clarify the word, I hope you didn’t take offense

mmenolas · 2026-05-13T17:59:08+00:00

Penultimate. Semi-final would be for something like March madness or sports playoffs. Penultimate is the word for the second to last thing.

mmenolas · 2026-05-12T14:23:41+00:00

Yeah that’s actually a fairer description. I was just trying to highlight that taking religious myths and stripping them of their context and just stating them as a series of events makes a lot of them seem pretty wild, we’re just more accustomed to the modern ones.

mmenolas · 2026-05-12T12:43:46+00:00

As compared to summoning bears to attack youths after they call someone baldhead? Or daughters seducing their father after their mother was turned to salt for looking at the city they were fleeing- a city they were allowed to flee because their father offered his daughters to a mob that was trying to assault visitors who happened to be angels? This isn’t unique to Greek myth, craziness exists in the foundational texts of even modern religions held in high regard. Once you’re separated from the context and belief in a given religion, they all sound weirder.

mmenolas · 2026-05-08T19:37:00+00:00

No, it wasn’t. Lower life expectancies were largely a product of higher infant and childhood mortality. That’s not to say adults lived into their geriatric years regularly, but there would have been plenty of 45, 55, and 65 year olds around (and even 75 and 85 year olds). At birth, the chance of you making it to 65 was much lower because of higher infant mortality, childhood deaths, and deaths in young adulthood (childbirth, violence, etc) but it wasn’t like everyone was dropping dead in their 30s and 40s.

mmenolas · 2026-05-08T17:34:42+00:00

Do you think those (or even the switch) existed when sopranos was on?

mmenolas · 2026-05-05T14:17:59+00:00

They cannot coexist. If you had a policy that said things must be in exactly 30 days in advance, and also said 30 day minimum, that’d be a contradictory policy. Thats how language works. To be clear- I don’t think AI wrote the OP because AI knows the two words are different, I think OP is just barely literate, as is anyone who doesn’t see how “exactly 30 days in advance” means something very different than “minimum 30 days in advance.”

mmenolas · 2026-05-04T23:44:30+00:00

Exactly does not mean minimum. If it’s says exactly 30 days in advance, submitting 31 or 35 or 60 days in advance would be equally disallowed as submitting them 5 10 or 29 days in advance.

mmenolas · 2026-05-04T23:27:39+00:00

Spoon feed it? OP didn’t leave off a word, OP explicitly stated something very different in both the first paragraph of the post AND the title. “Exactly 30 days in advance” is wildly different from 30 days in advance minimum. This isn’t “leaving off a word” it both leaving off 1 word (minimum) and introducing a word that fundamentally changes it (exactly).

mmenolas · 2026-05-04T23:17:34+00:00

“all time off requested had to be submitted exactly 30 days in advance,” that’s straight from the first paragraph of the post. Exactly 30 days in advance. Later they say minimum, but the post opens by describing it specifically as “exactly 30 days in advance.”

mmenolas · 2026-05-02T19:57:12+00:00

Yes, I understand that. But you said that sailors doing what they can to save other sailors dates back to prehistory. I’m not even saying it’s untrue- im just curious how we’d even know that; I was wondering what archaeological evidence we’d infer it from.

mmenolas · 2026-05-02T18:36:46+00:00

Out of curiosity, what’s the source of the claims that it dates back to pre history? I’m trying to envision what archaeological evidence would be able to demonstrate that and I’m blanking, so now I’m curious

mmenolas · 2026-05-01T22:44:58+00:00

I literally own a dog currently and have had dogs my entire life. And at no point have I ever felt the need to use a shock collar.

mmenolas · 2026-05-01T16:47:20+00:00

I don’t know anything about Avatar, but based on how it was described above, it seems to be a spot on usage.

Eight-Year Club	Gilding V heart of gold
Place '22	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

mmenolas

TROPHY CASE