The ones encouraging ineffective but irritating eco vandalism- it doesn’t do much to help, but makes others less likely to support them, further splintering the non-evil voting bloc

Yeah, it’s luck all the way down.

*bajorans, but yes

They originally appeared like that so as to be immediately identifiable as Odos people, then just stuck with the forms solids had seen them in so as to be recognized- whenever they didn’t want to be recognized, they weren’t.

This might have been hilarious

Pretty close- maybe I should have mentioned being bitter about our anachronistic coal usage in the spoiler. I didn’t include BSW, so it goes afd, cdu, spd, greens, die linke, and volt, though I would also put BSW in that category with the greens

Yes, lots of people let life pass them by. I’m in full agreement with that, but a lot of people do not have the flexibility to do much about their situations. It’s not a lack of agency, it’s a lack of freedom and safety to make changes.

I understand your point to be this: everyone could have had a good life if they had correctly applied themselves and gone after what they wanted, so people who haven’t meaningfully changed their circumstances and are unhappy with their lives are themselves to blame. My point is this: many people could enjoy their lives more if they took control of their own choices, but not everyone can. Sometimes people just get dealt a shitty hand.

Have I misunderstood your point?

Yeah, it’s a choice among:

all out evil

Definitely evil, but still pretending to be good. (Weirdly,they’re the only capable party, and though at least half of the stuff they champion is awful, the amount of things they get done that aren’t evil is somehow still larger than whatever good any less evil party can get done. It’s still not worth it, to be clear, it’s just a shitty quirk of this political climate.)

Doesn’t yet realize they’re evil, but they are

Half good hearted but misguided, half foreign agents trying to sow discord

Great except for one issue, will never get a high portion of the vote

Great all around, will really never get a high portion of the vote

Guess the country and guess the parties for a sense of being quick on the uptake and in on the joke.

Is that a good idea for a non tech person* with no Linux experience who absolutely needs to send documents successfully to others the first time without delay or should I just wait until my degree is finished and I am less dependent on document interoperability and have fewer absolute deadlines?

• My level of technical knowledge is here: if a program or usb device isn’t functioning, I know to check the driver, but I always have to look up what the device manager is called. On the other hand, I am capable of looking things up and following simple instructions, which has to count for something.

Iulia?

Swing and a miss. I decided to leave my home country because it’s broken, so after a decade of working and saving my own money, I did what I want to do. I went to a state school that gave me a full ride instead of a private school that I’d have to take loans out for, so I didn’t have any student loans holding me back and I could go back to school and get a masters in my new country. I actually just started teaching full time after training for the last couple of years.

I just have the empathy (and vicarious experience) to understand that not everyone is as fortunate as I am. It took a lot of hard work and diligence, but also a lot of luck. I wouldn’t assume that anyone who isn’t able to immigrate to a new country and begin teaching other new immigrants the language is lazy, likely to settle, or a failure. It’s difficult and like everything worthwhile in life, requires some luck to meet a lot of preparation at the right moment.

I’m glad for you. It sounds like you were smart or skilled enough to be presented with opportunities to leave and had the foresight to take them and the dedication to fully benefit from them. Not everyone is or has those qualities and that’s not a moral failing.

You overcame difficult circumstances, but that’s due to you being an exception, and whether that’s because of qualities inherent to you or luck is impossible to determine. The idea of it being luck is scary, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who doesn’t behave exactly as you did is to blame for their circumstances.

Surely you know people from your hometown who earnestly tried, but were just too dumb to really keep up in school or with complicated conversations among friends. Do you think they would be able to achieve what you have? What about the smart kids with severe ADHD who were flaky due to no fault of their own? If so, what use is your intelligence or dedication?

Many people live in towns with fewer than five companies, with poor internet access. Many people have to keep odd schedules because of family care obligations. Many people are functionally illiterate. Many people have criminal convictions. There are a lot of things that can limit your ability to leave a job you already have.

Many people do accept work conditions worse than they have to, but not every worker is flexible enough to choose their work.

That’s because there are more than a few commonalities between the two. They’re not the same, but horrible lighting, little privacy, contradictory instructions/suddenly changing expectations are frequently used in both

That is not a choice that everyone can make.

Torture isn’t effective for getting information out of people, but if your goal is to psychologically debilitate people, it’s totally effective

This kills the cancer. Not as quickly as it kills the host, but still pretty soon.

When I’m stressed out and need to calm myself, I run through the layouts of old buildings I used to work, live, or go to school in.

Based on the letters, yes.

You’re not wrong, but the only thing there that’s not arguably correct is calling hegseth little and I guess misspelling his name.

That’s why I was a vegetarian for decades and that’s why I went vegan (plant based, if you want to quibble that it’s only veganism if it’s derived from morality, I don’t care). Somewhere along the line, I started caring about animals more. They’re not my primary political concern, but thinking about their treatment now makes me actively sad.