and only old people and the extremely rich go to bars,

What? That is not a factual statement without some extremely non standard definitions of old and rich.

Yes those currently working will suffer like those they push out of the industry for being too black or too ugly, but they can always model or strip or learn a different skill.

And I gather that’s a sacrifice you’re willing to let them make. Do you work for tips? Do any of your friends? Do you have any personal skin in this game?

I think there’s some small amount of common ground between us, but there’s also a hefty divide.

If everyone stopped tipping, the people who rely on those tips for food/shelter/medicine would suffer. There is no guarantee that reform would follow.

If a small subset of people stopped tipping, then the people who rely on it will sometimes come up short, and reform is extremely unlikely to follow.

“Just stop going to bars and restaurants, one of the oldest human activities” is a pretty tall order.

Edit: I don’t think any of the myriad bars and restaurants I’ve been to in NYC have had anti-tipping policies.

The problems you describe are real. Your solution is somewhere between ineffective and counter productive.

Folks should organize and demand fair wages or shared ownership or similar.

That was an interesting read. I’m not sure how it justifies stiffing the bartender , though? I’m not going to notice $10 more or less if I’m rich, but they will.

The system should change but between then and now , what?

I know plenty of guys who get by on tips, and they’re not exceptionally hot.

People who make more in daily interest than the worker does from the shift , I don’t think have the moral high ground on tipping.

Guy taking home $250k salary with health care griping about $10 extra. Really.

Sure, income and the economy should be different. The worker can’t pay for housing with idealism.

I accidentally made a rom-com subplot in one of my games… Twice… And the players loved it both times.

The first time there was a divorced smith lady who sort of had a death wish, and the timid tavern owner who had a massive crush on her. Of course the players wanted to set them up.

The second time, the players had to infiltrate a masquerade ball. Sadly I’m starting to forget the details. I think there was tension around meeting them while masked and, like a rom com, trying to figure out what they thought about the PC. And then they tried to get the NPC involved in their heist, because they just happened to have a skill they needed. And of course it wasn’t a clean heist, and the NPC had some trauma.

Mergers and acquisitions should be a lot harder than they are. Maybe even prohibited in nearly all cases.

What constitutes a hobby?

I was encouraged from a young age to read books. I still do. I enjoy it. Are books a hobby?

My parents are both music fans. Had a big music collection, went to a lot of concerts. I’m the same. I enjoy it.

It’s a short leap from books (eg: lotr) and some music (eg: some metal, some prog rock) to DND and similar games. It looked cool so I got into it.

Bikes are pretty ecologically friendly and the exercise is good. I’ve only dipped my toes into biking but it wouldn’t be a big leap to buy my own bike, find s meetup, or whatever.

A friend of mine learned about weaving… somewhere. I don’t know where actually. But they said "that looks cool’ and looked into it. Now they weave and knit and such. Read about it online, watched some videos, signed up for a class.

A guy I know saw some photos online and went “that’s cool. I could do that” and I think took a beginner class in it. Bought an entry level camera and just has fun taking pictures of stuff.

The common thread here is it’s all stuff people enjoy.

Maybe delete more of your social media. That stuff is bad for you. A friend of mine started tracking how much time they spent on it, and realized it was like 4 hours a day doing nothing on Instagram. It’s mostly trash. You don’t need it.

Some guys at work are getting into chess. Not sure where it started but now they’re playing and reading about strategy and stuff.

Don’t beat yourself up over being bad at things.

Those people aren’t a good match for you (or maybe anyone).

Meanwhile Canada is removing bike lanes for more car support, and the US elected a deeply anti-environment party.

My work uses python and it hasn’t been bad for new code that has tests and types. Old code we inherited from contractors and “yolo startup” types is less good, but we’ve generally be improving that as we touch it.

Their first pathfinder game was so excruciatingly guide dang it I never finished it, and never even considered this game. I kind of assumed it was the same way, where there’s stuff like “Ah, you didn’t return to this unmarked forest on day 7, so now you never get a wizard”

Oh, now I remember having an argument on here with some asshole who insisted I just have “fomo” over this. Sign posting and foreshadowing are only to appease fomo, I guess.

A warrant was issued for Brackin’s arrest on Tuesday and he was charged with seven counts of aggravated cruelty to animals and eight counts of reckless endangerment. He turned himself in and has since been released on bond.

Maybe he’ll actually be punished.

This is like a monkey’s paw wish of “We shouldn’t send people with drug problems to jail”

…what? The idea of federation, as I understand it, is there’s not a single person or org in charge. The different instances talk to each other, and I can leave or block one server without leaving the whole thing. On Reddit or Twitter or bluesky, you play by their rules or you get nothing.

I don’t want to use another privately owned social media platform. There’s no reason to believe it won’t enshittify.

Some people probably know them in real life. Like, you might have a friend who’s like “Yeah this [slur] wouldn’t update her mod so i posted [hateful thing] on her insta”. You could talk to them. People listen to their in-group more than randoms online.

But then again, the worst sort of people probably mostly have the worst sort of friends, and reinforce their bad behavior.

My favorite is “I knew a poly couple and they broke up (but nevermind all the monogamous people who broke up)”

Monogamy vs non-monogamy is another axis of this, where people often find their unexamined assumptions challenged.

Video Games are a broad medium, akin to reading. Asking “should I get into books?” would be similarly difficult to answer.

Also, be mindful of sturgeon’s law. 90% of everything is crap. For every “Taylor Swift” that was widely popular and successful, there’s 9 meh bands no one remembers.

All of that said, it’s a wide and deep medium with a lot of experiences.

If you like card games, there’re related genres. Deck builders are popular. Slay the Spire is popular. Cobalt Core is fun and not as hard. Monster Train is pretty good.

Those are all also “rogue lites”, so you could make the leap from there to something like FTL.

Lots of options.

Probably don’t spend a lot of money up front. Stuff goes on sale on Steam pretty often.

Probably avoid “gacha” games that are free to play or have “loot box” stuff. Those tend to be exploitive and bad.