Pro tip: don’t ever tell a Thai cook their food isn’t spicy enough. They take their spice seriously, they take pride in it, and they like to dig it in a little if you ask for it spicier.

One of the big problems with communism is that economic prosperity is framed fundamentally as a zero sum game. When that’s a foundational axiom of the system you build you wind up not building systems of growth, only of redistribution. It has rippling effects throughout the culture and the philosophy of a nation that attempts it.

While I’d say altruism is not a virtue the way it is defined in our culture, I will say that who we are is about 50% nature and 50% nurture, and inside we are very different beings for one reason or other. A born sociopath is only human the same as you in visible form, the being is nothing like you. A person who was badly abused and tattoos his face and perpetuates abuse on those around him is completely different from you both. A monk in a monestsry and an Instagram influencer are completely different beings inside, besides some basic neurology that makes them both human. If you could see the being inside every human they’d look as different as Pokémon. That’s my philosophical insight.

You’re not allowed to like it if a fellow member reminds you it is disallowed

I use Koreader. It’s a bit heavy because it has basically any option you can think of, it works on a wide multitude of platforms, and can have weird bugs sometimes but hardly ever. But the way I read, I need some settings that aren’t in very many readers and it has them. Try it out.

So cities then.

The ability to drive on a road and know it will be in front of you is called irresponsibility?

Same. I know I’m not a white supremacist, but I’m with you on the color blindness and all that.

You can’t win with these people. They’re racists. I don’t even play the stupid game anymore.

I drop usernames without a second thought if it suits me. I use different ones I think up on the fly most of the time. The only one that matters to me is one attached to my development activities in the FOSS community, and I might share opinions using it but primarily I use it to engage in discussion related to development so that people who know me in those circles know who they’re talking to.

So apparently the barriers were missing “due to vandalism” and it was raining heavily the night this happened.

I am a bit terrified of this. Sometimes when I’m driving at night I realize, to assume the road doesn’t end right over the next hill is to put full faith in the state. You have to trust your government to am extreme to go 70 mph over a hill you can’t see past. Some people in some places don’t have that luxury, and it won’t be like that forever anywhere.

Traffic… That’s a sticking point for some people. Closures, I find OSM is more up to date than google on that front these days.

I don’t need traffic data. I live somewhere without bad traffic, deliberately. Traffic is one of the top criteria for me when choosing where to live.

Osmand+ doesn’t suck.

So you’re a covert white supremacist?

And is that where these people live? That can’t eat grass because everything is made of concrete?

Those places are called “cities.” And the people in question also have a yard, they’re renting a house in the country.

And I don’t have a yard actually, I just live somewhere that there’s living creatures outside aka not a city.

So if Walmart killed them all, but they’re too far away from a lot of people, then presumably at least those people would’ve kept the general stores in business, no?

Goodness. Yeah I hate to be callous, but that sounds less like just having it hard and more like a lifetime of terrible decision making. Whatever the case is I hope they make it happen with their land plans and are able to make their lives easier.

Why do they live like this? I understand you know, some people are just hard up, but eventually you try to sort it out right? Are they both disabled or something?

Yeah the scurvy thing is weird. It’s like how antivax people don’t think about measles and polio anymore and so don’t see the importance of vaccination.

Oh the indignity! I can hear it now. “Eating only things with a nutrition label on the box is a yuman right!”

I eat weeds. Wild weeds from the yard. For fun. They’re tasty. You should try it. Most of them are harmless and nutritious, shit, dandelions were an imported food crop from Europe. Double check what you’re eating first but they can be really good.

I didn’t blame them for not eating grass I said that you should know a thing or two about nutrition if you intend to, you know, survive. I don’t know about you, but if I was so poor I was living off of scones alone for 3 months, I’d be looking up wild food and learning about vitamin deficiency, and I’d be entirely willing to eat grass to prevent fucking scurvy.

So that sucks, but I just don’t see it being entirely about poverty in this case. There’s not a single neighbor of theirs who they could ask “hey, next time you drive to Walmart let me ride with you”? They hit their diet to save money? There’s no churches around them doing food pantry days?

Scurvy… You can prevent scurvy by eating literally anything uncooked, including meat. You can get vitamin C from grass. Sounds to me like these people are wholly uninterested in understanding anything about nutrition and diet and don’t talk to their neighbors at all.