I would agree if we stopped making marriage the end goal of relationships.

I remember a Freakonomics episode that described an experimental alternative to traffic cops: a “good driver” lottery.

If you’re “caught” driving the speed limit, you get entered into a lottery. Less adversarial relationship with traffic cops and more drivers would be incentivized to drive safe more often.

Edit: It was apparently an article, not a podcast.

I see a lot of well-meaning support for this. I can’t help but think there has to be a way to implement these kinds of controls without taking power away from the user.

Like the Fediverse implementing better mod tools rather than expecting Twitter to effectively moderate the internet.

What movie is this from?

If I were to check him out, what book should I start with?

If they actually made that work… respect.

To who?

Why would you torrent Wikipedia?

A beta build of Android 16 contains an early version of Google’s new Android Desktop Mode that, in the future, could let users simply plug their smartphone into a monitor and use it like a laptop or desktop computer.

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Well that’s a rude thing to say to your… girlfriend?

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness. (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)

Culturally sensitive depiction of… what exactly? Knowing nothing, I see a person with a laser sword and a gargoyle.

Fair enough. I get overwhelmed by all the ethical questions that come with being in the real world.

My partner outsourced most of that mental work and focused on trying to be a good person from moment to moment. I think she would’ve broadly agreed with you from a karma standpoint.

As long as they punch down and kiss up to the right people, assholes can usually reduce “tit for tat” to “tit for slap-on-the-wrist”.

I agree you that they are more likely than not to produce a suboptimal future.

I just disagree with the premise that “winning less” is the same as tit for tat.

Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think tit for tat was written from the perspective of nation vs nation decision-making.

It assumes you have roughly equivalent power, i.e. person vs person or business vs business.

I don’t think it applies in person vs boss, or mom 'n pop shop vs international conglomerate.

I was going to say The Matrix was ackshually a closeted trans allegory, but it turns out it’s both (but also, whatever you want it to be, kinda).