The world actually did end in 2012.
This is hell.
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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"This is the best timeline" joke? Anyone?
Nuclear energy is currently the best way to achieve energetic independence until we find out how to maintain a fusion core running for more than 20 minute.
Energetic independence
Speaking as an American? Energetic Independence From who? The United States and Canada have big fossil fuel reserves. The US is even the biggest exporter of them. And I guess the rest of the West can count on Australian and Canadian fossil fuel exports. If anyone needs fossil fuel independence its China. And the west would profit from a slower transition to nuclear power there, as this allows to apply more external pressure by increasing oil prices.
Solar started to beat out nuclear in terms of LCOE a few years ago. We should continue to operate all of our current nuclear reactors as long as it is safe to do so, but planning new builds today given how cheap solar is just doesnt make sense.
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You mean fission, but yeah
Fission is the one we already do where unstable atoms come apart. Fusion is the one still in experimental stages.
First-past-the-post voting should be replaced so people can vote outside the two party system with no spoiler effect.
Electoral Reform Videos
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems
DND is not a good universal game system. It's pretty good at being DND, but that's a particular beast that's mostly about resource management.
You can definitely use it for a game about social intrigue, or horror, or modern day anything, but it's not really good at any of that. Like using a hammer to put screws in, you'll probably get something done, and if you're hanging with your friends you'll probably have a good time. But it's a weird tool to reach for.
Personally, I don't think the core of the rules system is very good at all. Flat probability feels weird. Armor as all-or-nothing is weird. Hit and damage being split into two rolls is slow and weird. In the latest edition, making very few choices about your character often feels bad. Levels are a very coarse unit of growth. The magic system somehow manages to make magic not feel like magic- no wonder, no mystery, it's just safe and standardized. I could go on.
But it's mega popular and people are emotionally invested, so there's not much to be done about it. There are dozens of people playing the thousands of other games out there.
Also a lot of people have never played anything else, so their analysis and defense of it is often lacking. Like if I've only ever played baseball, and never even watched any other sports, I wouldn't feel qualified to talk about bowling. But you get people saying like "no you need to wear cleats that's a universal property of sports" when bowling comes up. Like, not every game has six stats. Not every game has attributes like that at all.
And again, if you're having fun with dnd then that's the primary goal achieved. We don't need to maximize fun and efficiency in all things all times. I just think that it would be a good experience to branch out more, even if it's scary, because that will lead to a richer experience overall.
Completely agree, D&D is overly crunchy and I have no interest in a tedious minis wargame in the middle of my roleplaying. The Basic system that Call of Cthulhu was based on is much easier for newcomers to understand with everything being simple percentages, and the system is open-ended enough to make combat as simple or crunchy as you would like - but either way, it's such a better way to facilitate a roleplay gaming session. It's just sad that the only people I know who play tabletop RPGs are so extremely invested in the D&D intellectual property that they won't even consider anything outside of it. I could give a shit less about D&D's worldbuilding and lore, it's not what I love about roleplaying - it's about the collective story we tell and the fun we had along the way.
100%
Also, it is much less fun with really experienced players that genuinely focus on min-maxing.
Also also, the rules could be much clearer and concise. 3 (expensive) books for a brand new party of noobs is a needless barrier.
I love d&d because I grew up with it, but absolutely agree with you. I think that with new players, involving them in the world for roleplay is the most critical part, and character creation with Fate is the best I've seen for someone to pick up and use in 10 minutes.
I love Fate and think it's much more intuitive. DND tends to crush player creativity with a lot of "sorry that's just flavor", and guides players towards "just move and attack".
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Blessing someone for a sneeze is the most useless human interaction I know of and we should do away with it.
Bless you
Listen here you little shit lol
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Modern flip phones (e.g. Samsung Fold) are stupid and tacky and will never be as good as previous gen flip phones. Just won't. Sorry not sorry.
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The "phones are bad and suck your life away" crowd has gotten way too big. Yes, it's easy to waste time on them, but that's just something you gotta learn, like not watching TV series all night. You're a grown up, deal with it. Also maybe you feel bad for spending all that time on your phone just because feeling bad for that feels cool? It's actually your life you can spend it however you want. You don't need to be productive or successful to be a worthy human. Be a lazy shit that plays stupid phone games while on a train to work.
The really steep one that'll give me a heart attack.
The contemporary disdain for postmodernism was a Psy op designed to completely destroy philosophy from the inside. And the supposed replacements for post modernism (metamodernism or whatever) were just pop culture millennial distractions that just took attention away from the philosophical issues of the inadequacies of language and crisis of our communications systems. We became stuck in limbo. Cultural conversation dumbed down by useless culture wars articulated in low attention span pop culture commentary and therapy speak.
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Techno killing all the other music genres + its not underground anymore! It's not combining techno with house or trance, but making techno tracks with some house/trance elements in it. Not to mention that since it was played in big festivals, it lost its label underground.
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That exclusive content in physical games is a cruel disservice to late discoverers. "Exclusive" content should just be delayed public release content instead - something for the early adopters, but not unavailable to people years later.
Even just the normal game, if they're discontinuing production, should be made available as a digital purchase (including STL and print-ready files) for people coming along years later. We have the technology to not screw over potential future fans, and it's not that expensive to keep a small website running - especially if they're still going as a company. Looking at you, CMON Games.
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