Ehh if you are on a reputable tracker that has scene releases it’s generally downloading a torrent, copying a crack into the game directory or running some crack software, and play. It’s not in the least bit difficult.

Realistically most people don’t care about things like automatic updates enough to justify spending money on it.

Many games are trivially easy to pirate and this has been the case for decades. It’s literally as easy as downloading it from Place B.

People still buy the games.

That’s when we find out the player’s wizard character, Ehariel, has a long lost brother named Aharial with a suspiciously identical set of stats and backstory

He also has been looking for his brother for years only to conveniently find the party minutes after his brother dies

A geas is a magically enforced taboo against something. Following the requirements brings power but violation comes with grave punishment, often resulting in a character’s death or undoing.

If you think we are materially worse off now than we were before the introduction of automation you are either pushing hardcore propaganda or absolutely delusional.

Real median middle class income has stayed effectively constant since the 1980s. However, with automation the variety of goods available at that income level have dramatically improved. This is the benefit that the consumer sees and pretending it’s not a real benefit is disingenuous at best.

Maybe if you shill for billionaires a bit harder they’ll give you one of their yachts.

You really think so? That would be amazing

You said “now we have billionaires” like it’s a new phenomena. The graph I posted tracks the total wealth share of the top 1% wealthiest people, which is a much better picture of income inequality than the “average CEO”. Notice that the total wealth share went from 30% to 35% since its low in 1970, which is a much smaller change than the 200+x difference that people like to quote.

While inequality is growing, it’s not nearly as dramatic as people make it out to be and in 2023 we are far closer to that 1970s low than we were a century ago

In a world where we’ve so much automation and wealth in the world that we could care for everyone why do people still have to work 40+ hours a week just to get by?

I don’t disagree with you. Most people in white collar jobs realistically don’t get more than 5 hours a day of real productive work done to begin with. Why do we need to be at the office for 8 hours?

I just think it’s important to look at the data in an objective way. Instead of posting inflammatory comments on Lemmy that exaggerate the situation, you could try lobbying your representatives for better worker protections.

Funny you should say “we” and “American History” though :) Maybe the American model is the problem here.

Well, I’m American lol. But the trends are similar in almost every developed country so I don’t think this is an American problem.

In many ways, we have been. The average person has casual access to goods and services that would have been immensely inaccessible without industrialization. Consider the average car for example. The engine alone has hundreds of tightly toleranced parts working in a mechanical dance to harness thousands of controlled explosions per second. That doesn’t even touch on the complex support systems required for engine management or chassis/suspension. I can buy a well running used car for less than the cost of a month’s rent.

Compare that to the pre-industrial era, when a simple shirt would have taken a single person 500-600 hours in manual labor to make starting from raw wool. That’s more than three months’ work with a 40 hour work week.

It’s truly amazing that any minimum wage worker in the USA can buy multiple used cars, a monumentally complex piece of machinery by any historical standard, for less labor than it would take to get a new shirt a few hundred years ago.

That said, I do believe we have the capacity to get these benefits PLUS reduced work hours. We will see that when we demand better worker protections from lawmakers and stop equating a human’s value to society with the number of hours they work each week.

We have had ultra-rich people and major wealth inequality for most of American history. Rockefeller (1838-1937) amassed a fortune in the 1800s in excess of $400B inflation adjusted dollars. By most measures, he was the richest American of all time.

The second richest American of all time is up for debate but contenders include Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877), Henry Ford (1863-1947), or Bill Gates (1955-present).

Wealth inequality has obviously grown over the past 50 years but it’s worth noting that wealth inequality in general is not a uniquely modern problem. It is also exaggerated by comparing to the 1970s, where wealth inequality was at a historical low point (see graph below)

I mean, it’s not really a matter of debate TBH. There are a number of peer reviewed journal articles documenting the temperature stratification. Here is one source, where the authors attempt to create a special cup to heat the water more evenly.

Convection currents don’t stir water in a microwave because the heat source isn’t on the bottom. That’s the difference. You get temperature stratified water where the surface is hotter than the bottom of the cup and they don’t naturally mix.

Of course, here in America, we have this incredible technology called a spoon. Pull that bad boy out, give a little stir, problem solved.

Yes of course there are limits in the same way that no character can lift a mountain regardless of their strength score.

However, I don’t think it’s appropriate to base the success of my persuasion on my real-life ability to come up with a convincing argument. That’s the whole point of DND, characters can do things that people IRL could never accomplish. If my character is remarkably persuasive, they could come up with arguments more persuasive than my own.

As seen in OPs meme, you don’t base the success of a strength check on the real life player’s ability to lift a big rock or whatever. It’s unreasonable to treat charisma any differently. Personally, I just stopped trying to act out scenarios and saying, “I want to persuade them of this let me roll for it”, because the success rate was much higher.

IMO, if you want players to act out the scenario you need to give a very large fudge factor to the success of arguments based on a charisma roll.

My complaint is when I have a PC with an insane charisma score and the DM wants me act out the conversation, then I fail in my persuasion without rolling. “The NPC would not be convinced by that”

Maybe I am not being very charismatic, but my PC is! Let me roll for it! You don’t make a mage fail in their spells because they can’t do magic in real life, do you?

I am an engineer and used to struggle pretty hard with mechanic things because my instincts say that if something isn’t doing what I want that means I’m doing it wrong and forcing it will break it.

The thing that broke that block was a coworker at a startup who was both an engineer and our aircraft mechanic. He told me, “in my experience the best aircraft mechanics are basically just big dumb apes that wail on airplanes with hammers until they do what they want.” Sometimes I would help him do aircraft maintenance and would balk at a task worrying that I’d break a $2M airplane. We had another tech that would say, “who cares? I promise you can’t break it bad enough that we can’t fix it after”

Those things have stuck with me for years and I am no longer afraid of pulling out the big boy breaker bar when I need it.

Have you guys not had the salty “cheese foam” you can get on boba? It’s like stabilized whipped cream.

This doesn’t sound bad at all.

Prices for an equivalent model car really haven’t changed much after adjusting for inflation.

Hondas aren’t the best example because they have steadily been moving more upmarket as a brand. However, in 1991 a base model civic cost an inflation adjusted $15,600. A 2023 base model civic costs $23,750.

Another example that comes to mind is the Mazda Miata since people often complain about how sports cars have gotten too expensive and it’s the archetypal affordable sports car. A 1991 Miata cost an inflation adjusted $35,600. A 2023 Miata starts at $28,000.

I dunno, when I was in high school there were a number of Ayn Rand essay contests with prize money.

I won’t say they’re good books but I did make good money from reading them.

I grew up in California

I’m not surprised about your experience though. I have also lived in the south and many of the southern states are still feeling the effects of decades of extensive lobbying on education by the Daughters of the Confederacy.

They DoC has historically pushed a narrative about slaves being happy and content overall, cared for by empathetic masters who valued their well-being. There are many monuments still standing glorifying the wartime deeds done by “loyal” and happy slaves. It’s really insidious.

I know there is regional variation on how the slave trade is taught, but when I was in school we had numerous, extended, and graphic discussions on the horrors of the slave trade starting from elementary school and extending into college.