My 14 year old cat has ckd and my biggest fear is that I won’t be there when she eventually passes. Since I’ve adopted her when she was 8, she hasn’t been too friendly with other people or animals besides me, so I don’t know who else would be able to give her comfort when she has to go (knowing of course, that’s not usually cat behavior when they get close to death).

And I just want to make sure she feels loved until the very end.

So bit of a stretch recommendation but I can never turn down a chance to recommend this author.

If you like the general idea of an author exploring what-if premise of people living (like how the Fallout vaults are given specific scenarios to live in), you might like Ted Chiang’s short stories. For example, “Hell is the Absence of God” explores what life might be like if angels (heaven and hell) were real but come into societies like tornadoes or hurricanes due to their supernatural power (think tornado chasers). There’s world building in it to realistically support the premise of the story (e.g. support groups for those affected) and is generally really thoughtful.

Again, very much a stretch to Fallout vaults, but really deserving of a read if you are more interested into exploring the realism in a world built around certain premises.

Yeah, I’m agreeing with you on that. I’m moreso stating this because it feels like people are talking past each other is all. An extra $5k for someone making $30k affects much more than someone making $80k regardless of top percenters.

I mean you’re right on that, it’s not like someone having a Netflix account or not heavily affects the impoverished to the same extent Netflix the company has. But I meant moreso to hold so as a general mindset/expectation. Like owning a cottage is something doable, or at least was doable, for someone with a upper-mid income. Maybe a mid income with some time. But generally, but it’s an expense that really only benefits a few that could be used for something else. Not to say don’t enjoy things, but put your purchases in perspective with some deliberation.

No entirely on topic, but this mindset would also benefit environmentalism. Being in Canada, I can’t count the number of times people have complained about the end of plastic bags. But really, the trouble of keeping a couple cloth bags on you at all times or even purchasing something later is a bare minimum hassle that outweighs the additional trash. Sure, consumers’ impact is more negligible than industry waste, and industry waste should be the main focus. But from an individuals’ perspective, you need to be slightly more mindful of your own responsibility if you care about your impact because you’re the only person that can keep yourself accountable all times. And it adds up with each person, etc.

I think it comes down to your level of analysis, or how you define relations. Having been living off $30-40k income for most of my life, I can definitely get the sentiment of the large differences between that and someone making $100k (even $60k), or at least someone living a working class vs middle class lifestyle. But that also goes for someone making $0-10k to $30-40k. Either way, the salience of financial insecurity hits a lot harder for someone with less existing cash.

That said, I also get the sentiment of the nil difference between working and middle class versus the ultra rich who generate huge swaths of passive income and can basically can dictate whether or not the lower classes have enough for rent. Why bother fight against each other when there’s a much larger and casual target.

In a more nuanced answer, for solidarity sake we do need to recognize our similarities to work together for a better system. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore our differences and privileges either. We should work towards achieving core necessities for all even at the cost of our own privileges (i.e. an opposite tragedy of the commons: those with some threshold excess contribute to the pond). Determining that threshold is another question, with both absolute and relative poverty thresholds with their own criticisms. And not to say that no class hierarchies will form either, technically skilled and heavily laborious jobs should be rewarded, and people will always try to skim a little off the top to get ahead of their own benefit. But in recognizing our differences, we recognize a need to monitor ourselves for the benefit of everyone.

Genuinely one of my favourite games of the year. A really nice mishmash of what are essentially mini games and systems. Kinda refreshing almost to what games are like now tbh, almost like the old Fable games

https://youtu.be/ZNn-tNe0s2A?si=ZTeSMnMIo7BiOsWk

So not exactly a full game or released just yet, but Bloodborne Kart has that retro look and is based on a modern series. Seems like a cool and funny concept and wanted people to know about it.

Controversial opinion but I actually am kinda sad to hear this. I remember really liking the OG Factions multiplayer games in TLOU 1. It was really refreshing at the time for multiplayer shooters, since you needed a lot of tactics and teamwork to get resources in order to craft tools and take out their other team. Really nerve-wracking, engaging gameplay at the time. And since you had one life per round, you couldn’t just run and gun like in CoD/BF.

I know that the multiplayer game they were coming out with wasn’t like this, but I would’ve been happy to play Factions again and relive the old days. Probably one of the last games that I’ve really enjoyed a multiplayer shooter.

“I don’t care who the IRS sends, I’M NOT PAYING TAXES”

I always get a little sad to see a dead animal, but this is really well preserved. I don’t know if you could do much with it, but it feels like a waste to just trash it.