Respectfully, I can easily see a shared workplace at least encouraging screwing over customers. To me its an even more intense instance of the shareholder problem. Shareholders are obsessed with the money they’re getting back with no real work but the risk inherent in the bet they made. The workers are working, for a livelihood, and of course will want to improve their quality of life. They’re even more motivated to do so. And some of the best ways to do that, in the “make monkey brain happy” obvious short-term are the same policies the shareholders are already pushing. Will there be some pushback? Definitely, but you only have to sell a bunch of people on short-term easy money. And the lottery isn’t popular because people are smart about this stuff.

Dirty litter boxes increase the chance of urinary tract infection and can speed up their death if the infection reaches their kidneys, literally one of the weakest parts of cats as they age. So no, not “ok whatever”. You took responsibility for the life of something. Time to own up to the gross part of that. (Like changing a baby’s diaper)

Also, paying close attention to your cat’s feces and urine can warn you about internal issues like kidney stones by the shape of the pee or the appearance of the stool. (Seriously, once a day for cleanout isn’t remotely enough, no wonder its so gross you don’t want to touch it)

I’d say scoop it out, or at least check, every time you see it and dump it out when it gets too stinky, scrub it, dry it, and put in new litter. Even a functional electric one, which according to my brother does work, will need some kind of cleaning at some point so the responsibility is never completely escapable. Seriously though, my brother swears by the electric box he got after his own cat was constantly at the vets from UTIs due to him being the only person ever cleaning her box.

As for the anxiety? This seems like an extreme reaction for a litterbox in comparison to all the other never-ending chores we have to do on the day to day. The litterbox is comparatively easy to work, commute, balancing our bank accounts, or taxes. Are you okay?

Assuming its not hunger or bathroom related, in my experience its because the cat’s bored. He enjoys the walks and has fun, and the walk probably fulfills a need to “patrol” his territory which he finds rewarding, but he can’t go on the walk often enough - or long enough - for his tastes. So he figures if he yells you’ll let him go patrol some more. I’d say redirect him . Play with him in the house for 10-15 minutes, then wrap it up with a kitty treat and he should go take a nap for a bit. You could also hide his food around the house come feeding time to encourage him to patrol his home instead of being focused on doing it outside.

I have no idea if any of that would work, every cat’s different. I can distract mine from wanting in rooms (he refused to wear a leash and so cannot go outside so he’s vocal at closed doors) just by playing with him or giving him attention usually. But its also temporary and he’ll do it again. Alternatively you could do the earplug-ignore thing when he cries at the door/harness but invest additional time to engage him when he’s quiet, that way you aren’t encouraging the behavior if you don’t want to be.

It continues to worsen the longer you try and consider the motivation for the 11 year old. Of which I can think of at least 2, if not more, but I’ll spare us all.

Nah, I loved changing out those disks. Core memory nostalgia material right there. Waste of time for sure, but one I remember fondly in hindsight.

I wonder how long it takes for some of those people to transfer to a more embittered relationship with Bethesda over it? Assuming any of them have that “I’m staring at a title screen realizing I haven’t actually had fun playing the game in weeks but the dopamine loop of the ‘loot, kill, craft’ system had me deluded into thinking I was enjoying myself. Like a social media doom-scroller or something” moment.

I mean, that’s arguably incredibly conservative. “The old ways” and all that.

Thank you, I think that helps parse out where I was unclear. There’s specifics in the language at play. It makes me wonder how often bad actors prevention of even small distinctions being discussed has made it muddier and harder for everyone else.

I guess my question’s always been that since gender is (to my incomplete understanding) a social construct and can change, and transgender people seek to change to a gender that feels more appropriate, how did you (a) know what felt right, (b) that what felt right wasn’t completely appropriate for your gender and the active definition of gender needed to change, and © where does chemical and surgical transition factor in for a gender based thing when attempting to find for comfortable self? Because that seems like a sex (in the clinical terminology) thing as much as a gender one (which of course there’s probably a connection, I guess I’m just not clear where the line really breaks.)

To be clear, I think my questions are entirely too “rationalizing a deep emotional and person thing” so I don’t really expect an answer, I’ve just never been invited to address the question to anyone before.

I mean, your argument is “we can’t ever be perfect so we should never even aspire to be good”, which is sortof putting the cart before the horse. That we can even recognize the distinction of not being special already places in a position where we can try and do a little better. What is better, how much, or how? What even is good or morality? All of those questions are at necessity to even define good, let alone become it. Before even glancing at perfect. Sure it might be an eternal inane treadmill, but just as fish have gills to breathe, we by chance of fate have the organs necessary to think. And that’s just as much in our nature. The fish doesn’t consider how long it has to swim, it just does it towards a target it can see/sense. By the same mechanism that means we aren’t special, why shouldn’t, why wouldn’t, we do the same thing? Just because what we can see/sense may be artificial, imagined, or drempt?

On top of some of the commentary here, I’d like to add that I think there’s a real chance that WoTC’s put some money behind getting it heavily reviewed/boosted, and so more articles about it and wider attention. That is not to undercut its quality, just that I think its layers of support. (I’ll admit there’s more than a little bit of my distrust of WoTC in that. Like after all their other scandals they need a win to try and suck newbies into the game after so much messing up. And I don’t even mean in the last year or something, their release quality for 5e has been abysmal for a long time.)

Additionally Larian played the early access thing very well. Not only did they listen to their ongoing players, and even netted some “tried it didn’t like it” people back, it gave time for everyone who was perhaps too into the older isometric BG1&2 titles (like me) to realize the game didn’t seem quite like it was for them and not pick it up. So you get clear, mostly good(if outdated) information out there for people to use in researching if they wanted to buy it, helping to avoid a lot of the knee-jerk hate that stuff like Fallout 4 and 76 got from misplaced expectations that could dull the release.

I mean the first two parts are definitely true.But then we stayed for 10+ years attempting to rebuild some form of stability, decided to finally pull out after more than a decade, and what was built broke down disappointingly in the face of the first threat. Tmu, the reasons for that are varied, although some of its definitely on us. We approached the entire region’s politics wrong apparently and with a very modern western mindset of a country held together with an idea of some unified identity that doesn’t seem to really hold true for the region (or any region at first probably). I believe station/position abandonment in the fracturing nation was problematically common as people rushed back to their homes/families, or just to generally flee, instead of actually being a larger regional barricade against the threat, as an example.
IIRC, there was a similar problem with even the First Continental Army and Congress early on actually. With regional interests often superseding national goals in the minds of individuals and representatives.

So far as power vacuums go, as I alluded to, they had an elected government (there’s probably some debate on the accuracy of those elections while being occupied by a foreign government of course) and a standing military that was actively deployed. A not insignificant number of them tried to hold out, to not undercut their efforts, but its also true it wasn’t a truly unified defense in the end. Whether or not they would have been a more effective void-filler if we’d stayed longer or left sooner are just huge what-ifs.