TheActualDevil

Why do people always do that? I agree it would be a good move, but because smoking is unhealthy and addictive and it's existence in our society makes it collectively worse. But here I keep seeing people just say they're glad because they think cigarettes are icky.

I suppose that's a good point. I definitely would prefer that to burning to death. I just wish the dead battery noise could be set at a different volume to the "wake the fuck up, you're about to die!" noise.

At 4 AM this morning I learned there was a smoke alarm in my office. Also that the beep it makes when the battery is dead is loud as fuck. Loud enough to wake me from a dead sleep in another room.

It definitely reads like a name in English. You just have to pronounce it Jeen. I know a few old ladies with that exact name.

So I work with a lot of people from a variety of countries. Some of those countries have really bad governments. When we joke about each other's countries, it's about the governments. I remember this guy who used to work with me from the Philippines. It was near the beginning of lockdowns and just after Duterte was elected. He made fun of the shit Trump was saying and doing, and I got to joke that they had their own Trump(maybe worse) coming. Australian co-workers laugh along when we joke about their shit politicians.

What we don't do is joke about the people or the culture. That's shitty. All those people are just as much victims of their own circumstances as we all are of our own. But we're adults who work with each other every day and it's easy to remember that we're all real people. The internet however...

I haven't noticed Americans getting upset when people criticize shitty government policies or decisions. At least not from people who aren't boot-lickers from jump. The problem is when people make fun of American stereotypes. Americans are fat and loud and whatever. Like, if all you heard was people talking about Canadians being stuck up about needing things written in French or topped with poutine, it would probably get old, right? "Go cry at your Tim Horton's and take your polar bear for a walk." (okay, so I had to google Canadian stereotypes and it's a short list.)

I don't like America's gun culture either. And I hate when it comes up there's always someone who comes in and preaches the gospel of the 2nd amendment. It also doesn't feel great when people make that generalization about me. This thread is full of people saying Americans are dumb and racist. That's just shitty behavior that no one bats an eye at because it's normal to make those jokes. If I started making comments about like, French people smelling bad or (insert some other offensive thing. I don't keep track of bad stereotypes and I'm done googling it) then that would also be bad and it's a thing I think we should start calling out across the board.

They said you can't. Your cat can own whatever it wants, and does if you ask them.

But Zoom meetings mean I can - and do - get to message coworkers and shit talk the offender while it's happening.

Pro tip: Make it a common practice after doing this to always make sure the last message sent at least starts with something innocuous in case you need to share your screen later so the preview in Teams shows doesn't say "Jesus Christ, Carla is such a..."

You make a lot of assumptions there though, don't you? You're assuming that you would be motivated to "return the favor," but where does that motivation come from? Humans reciprocal acts are learned traits. There's nothing they get in return for that act alone. The return only comes from the potential impact on the community, which is a social function, not biological.

I used lions as a contrast specifically because they're behavior is different. They are baser creatures who's community does come directly from biology and it's drastically different. I also also gave canines as an example because they are specifically social animals and those behaviors that are similar to ours are derived from the social aspect, not biological since it's community specific, not species.

Sociology studies how humans behave as groups in relation to each other. It's specifically about the things you're describing. Evolution drives us to pass our genes on. That's it. What you're saying can be just as easily used to trace literally everything humans do back to evolution. The argument could just as easily be made that religion is a result of evolution. Humans are curious because looking for answers gave us a cognitive advantage over competition. That trait leads us to searching for answers. If none are available, we find one. And now we have gods. But religion is organized and requires groups, which brings us back to sociology again.

I think it's really more of a sociology thing. Like, it's pretty well accepted that our natural inclination towards fairness is not from a biological drive, but because we would want to be treated that way. The best way of ensuring that is creating a society where that is the norm. Mankind decided that killing others is wrong because we don't want to get killed ourselves. If we think stealing from others is fine, we have no redress if someone steals from us.

When I was young, I noticed that the some of the Hammurabic Codes shared a lot in common with Christian teachings. I brought this up to my dad and he said "Yeah, where do you think Hammurabi got the idea?" Now, obviously, he's got his timeline confused, and even as a small child I could do that math and knew the royal edicts pre-dated the 10 commandments and are of a completely non-religious nature. Groups living together need fairness to prosper.

Evolution, however, tends to lean more towards the strongest surviving. Evolutionarily, we need our genes passed on. Sure, we might manage to procreate before we die, but then we're not around to protect that lineage. Lions are a good example of that problem. If a rival male takes over your pride after killing you, they will also kill all the cubs. Presumably so only their genes are the ones moving on. That is the evolutionary drive. Wolves, however, are much more social creatures. They function as a group that doesn't necessarily need to be related and they make decisions similar to how we would expect our own group behaviors. If one of the pack is hurt, they don't leave it behind to die, they protect it and even leave them behind with the pups to heal when they go out on hunts. But this only extends to their pack. Anything outside the pack does not get that consideration. It's only in groups where being grateful and kind is an advantage.

Sociology is still a science though! A very good reason to follow those precepts.

Oh man, and that other poster thought they were rambling... I get real wordy when the Adderall kicks in first thing in the morning.

Good news! It is illegal!

Political campaign-related autodialed or prerecorded voice calls, including autodialed live calls, autodialed texts, and prerecorded voice messages, are prohibited to cell phones, pagers or other mobile devices without the called party's prior express consent.

If you think you’ve received a political robocall or text that does not comply with the FCC’s rules, you can file an informal complaint with the FCC at fcc.gov/complaints. If you are receiving texts that you didn’t ask for, report the sender by forwarding the texts to 7726 (or "SPAM"). Campaigns should also honor opt-out requests if you reply "STOP."

I file a complaint for single one I get.

While it's true that the writers made a point to learn nothing about the franchise before writing it, there's an argument to be made that at that point there wasn't really much lore from the games. It came out in 93. If today they made a game where Mario and Luigi from our world follow Princess peach through a portal to save her from being kidnapped by Goombas, only to find Dinosaur New York and get jump powers from technology, then you find out Bowser has usurped the Mushroom Kingdom power structure by de-evolving the king to the point of him now being a fungus who spends the entire game gently helping Mario occasionally... That would be an amazing modern day Mario game. Forget Galaxy, that would be the most complex and interesting game in the franchise.

Plus, it's got the funniest joke I've heard in any movie.

Desk Sergeant: Name?

Mario: Mario.

Desk Sergeant: Last name?

Mario: Mario.

Desk Sergeant: (rolls eyes) Okay, what's your name?

Luigi: Luigi.

Desk Sergeant: (exasperated) Luigi Luigi?

Luigi: No. Luigi Mario.

The whole movie is a masterpiece and the twist that the king was the fungus that's been choking the city is great, and on re-watches you notice all the times the Marios are saved or helped by the fungus. It also implies that the convergent evolution of this parallel world includes both dinosaurs and fungus turning into basically identical people, and the mushroom people managed to become the ruling class.

I mean, on a molecular level there is no difference. I feel like they even did the whole ship of Theseus thing several times. And the obvious one is the 2nd Riker. Enterprise (the series, not the ship) saw the addition of transporters to starships and they talked about it a lot in that episode. Bones in the original refused to use them because he understood the science of it and knew people were essentially being killed and reassembled every time they were transported.

I always got the impressions that people who said non-replicated food tasted better were either deluding themselves or that extra flavor they attribute to the food is like, non food things in it. Leftover dirt, mold starting to grow.... Kind of like how completely filtered water is tasteless when the minerals and other fine particulates are removed. Transporters, as a side effect of how they work, remove illnesses from the body (Except when it needs to not for plot reasons. And don't get me started on the billions of bacteria that exist in our body all the time that are necessary for life that wouldn't count as "you"). So presumably, they would remove all those tiny things in food if transported, and obviously wouldn't create them in the first place if replicated.