Mixed Messages 8 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
So I suspect there is a deep trove to explore there- but indeed, whatever the reasons and factors, I wouldn’t fault one who enjoys the company of any creature over humans. Not to say that human company is inherently terrible, but for whatever reason we tend to be able to have relationships with animals on realistic terms or not at all, and that cannot be said of human relationships with humans. Animals generally show us who they are and we accept that, humans tend to be more guarded or calculating in revealing themselves to us and regardless if we are shown the true then or not, we tend to impose our expectations and conceptions on other humans in ways we just don’t with animals usually.
Mixed Messages 8 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
If you pet a cat and it doesn’t come back you might feel sad but you probably wouldn’t spiral over why it didn’t return or whether there was anything “real” to it or stew over how the cat used you for its purposes and left.
It’s not that I’d say things are transactional with cats vs. people or vice versa, it’s that people seem to accept reality readily with cats. Perhaps I might say- people who accept cats tend to accept cats as who they are whereas people in general have a habit of accepting people based on who we want them to be.
That sets the cat/human relationship up better in general as you probably aren’t expecting that your adult cat will suddenly take a love to water if it has always hated it or will enjoy your music- in fact you likely don’t care if the cat enjoys the music. If the cat is content to share your company while you enjoy its company and your music- that’s probably enough for you.
It’s not that I’d say things are transactional with cats vs. people or vice versa, it’s that people seem to accept reality readily with cats. Perhaps I might say- people who accept cats tend to accept cats as who they are whereas people in general have a habit of accepting people based on who we want them to be.
That sets the cat/human relationship up better in general as you probably aren’t expecting that your adult cat will suddenly take a love to water if it has always hated it or will enjoy your music- in fact you likely don’t care if the cat enjoys the music. If the cat is content to share your company while you enjoy its company and your music- that’s probably enough for you.
Mixed Messages 8 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
Not something I’d fight you on. Near as we can tell, Id say if cats behave like humans, they are like honest humans. It’s generally simple where you stand with a cat and you only have to worry about that particular moment. They ask for what they want as best they can and it isn’t part of some game or contrived social maneuvering.
Cat wants, cat asks. Cat doesn’t like, cat lets you know. They aren’t apt to sit there and suffer through to try and bank favor and they aren’t likely to think about asking for what they want beyond the fact that they want it. I might speculate that as much of what makes cats enjoyable to so many over people (cuteness asides), is as much internal as it is from the cat. Most people don’t overthink their relationships with cats or second guess everything their cats do. We tend to give cats the benefit of just chalking things up to misunderstanding or inherent nature over malice, and we tend to accept things on a much more face level with cats.
Cat wants, cat asks. Cat doesn’t like, cat lets you know. They aren’t apt to sit there and suffer through to try and bank favor and they aren’t likely to think about asking for what they want beyond the fact that they want it. I might speculate that as much of what makes cats enjoyable to so many over people (cuteness asides), is as much internal as it is from the cat. Most people don’t overthink their relationships with cats or second guess everything their cats do. We tend to give cats the benefit of just chalking things up to misunderstanding or inherent nature over malice, and we tend to accept things on a much more face level with cats.
Day 20 of Community Notes posting 5 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
Faced new stresses and had new opportunities. Of course the older group that stayed put could make all sorts of advancements due to stability and being able to iterate on existing infrastructure and culture and due to familiarity. It all depends, and wars and such could either destabilize the older group and put them at a disadvantage for technological or informational advancement or they could also lead to advancements and social changes too right? Revolutions and new technologies and opportunities created by war and the aftermath. It’s full of variables.
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Day 20 of Community Notes posting 5 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
Those people wouldn’t need to farm. And if our lake dwellers saw their population surge rapidly and taxed their water resources, they might actually reach a point where necessity would lead them to developing water efficient farming before the desert dwellers who through social or other reasons didn’t expand their population and demand for resources beyond the comfortable limits of their environment. That speaks to timing as well- one might assume that an older civilization “should be more ‘advanced’ than a younger one,” that if a tribe begins in the desert and a nomadic group splits off and wanders for 1,000 years before settling, the original tribe who had 1,000 years in place should be better adapted and more “advanced.”
This can go either way. Through travels the nomads could have learned skills and been exposed to things and found resources in types and abundance not available to their older former group mates and as such become “more advanced” in certain measures because they
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This can go either way. Through travels the nomads could have learned skills and been exposed to things and found resources in types and abundance not available to their older former group mates and as such become “more advanced” in certain measures because they
Day 20 of Community Notes posting 5 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
We also must remember that there are various factors from culture to war, conquest, invasion, resources, and more that can make an idea practical one place but not another at a given time. For example, they may have dreamed up waterslides deep in the driest deserts before anyone else- but having enough water in the deep desert to run a water slide at all let alone do so while supplying sufficient water for the needs of a mass population at the same time wouldn’t really be super practical until around the 20th century- so thinking of the idea and implementing it and thusly developing it aren’t the same; and to the reverse, using the extremes as an example, people living in a desert would be more likely to develop means of agriculture that are efficient in water usage than people living near a large source of fresh water- of course that all depends right? If the desert people in the example can reliably get their nutrition from an easier and more abundant source than farming-
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Day 20 of Community Notes posting 5 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
It’s a sort of double edges misunderstanding of history. Europeans were not some enlightened bastion of civilization through history and non Europeans were not either. Neither were “mud dwellers” or such insulting concepts representing lack of development or intelligence. At various points in world history there have been highs and lows in sciences and culture and development or standards of living across the globe and within any society in a given period the actual lived experiences of individuals could vary greatly on status or location or other factors.
It’s one of the dangers of looking at history with a perspective of “who’s a winner” or “who is better” etc.
In most or many cases, ideas tend to be recurring, sometimes groups isolated from each other come up with the same ideas around the same time and other times one might come to a sound concept before another.
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It’s one of the dangers of looking at history with a perspective of “who’s a winner” or “who is better” etc.
In most or many cases, ideas tend to be recurring, sometimes groups isolated from each other come up with the same ideas around the same time and other times one might come to a sound concept before another.
And it's way worse in Europe 3 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
That’s what that is. “My home is my castle” my dude, what slave owns a castle? A kingdom, a home, a city, the size of the territory you’d keep as “yours” to do as you please is just a reflection of your strength to keep control- but that’s literally what a Pharaoh is- a dude who said “this is my land and inside here I make the rules and can live as I please…”
So nope. The mentality that says a man should have the independence to run his little corner of the world he calls life as he pleases free from expectation or obligation does not belong to a person who is a slave under the boot, it belongs to a tyrant who lacks the power to be the ruler that in their heart and mind they want to be.
That man isn’t a slave in that example- he’s the Pharaoh, and even Pharaohs had to tithe to “higher powers.” It’s a bum analogy.
Pay your taxes, vote for lower taxes, or get in office and figure out how to provide the security and prosperity to the people without taking so much tax and do it.
So nope. The mentality that says a man should have the independence to run his little corner of the world he calls life as he pleases free from expectation or obligation does not belong to a person who is a slave under the boot, it belongs to a tyrant who lacks the power to be the ruler that in their heart and mind they want to be.
That man isn’t a slave in that example- he’s the Pharaoh, and even Pharaohs had to tithe to “higher powers.” It’s a bum analogy.
Pay your taxes, vote for lower taxes, or get in office and figure out how to provide the security and prosperity to the people without taking so much tax and do it.
And it's way worse in Europe 3 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
Sometimes the money isn’t used for what we would want- that’s not misuse, that’s democracy. If you want your vote to matter then other people’s votes have to count too, and when more people vote for something different than you want, you need to respect that as much as you’d think it was bullshit if you got your way in a vote but it was overturned by a smaller vote just because those folks didn’t like the results.
And if you believe you should just be left alone to live as you please whenever democracy doesn’t suit you- you aren’t a “slave,” you’re just a Pharaoh that’s too weak to control their kingdom.
And if you believe you should just be left alone to live as you please whenever democracy doesn’t suit you- you aren’t a “slave,” you’re just a Pharaoh that’s too weak to control their kingdom.
And it's way worse in Europe 3 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
You are not required to pay taxes, you are required to pay taxes on your earnings, a key distinction is that if you don’t make money you don’t have to pay. In theory- if you make money, you pay based on the level of benefit you received from the social services, infrastructure, and opportunities provided to you by an organized government. Broken true, in that the people who make the most and benefit the most tend to pay the least on what they make proportionally.
And of course, Pharaoh wouldn’t let the slaves leave Egypt if they didn’t like his rule. You are free to leave as an American if you don’t like the system.
“Why should I have to leave?” Well- you don’t have to. Because unlike the slaves under Pharaoh, you can vote, you can campaign to office, you can influence and change the system.
Unlike the slaves of Egypt, taxes collected are to be used for your benefit, directly or indirectly. That money isn’t always used for the people’s good, that’s where participation comes in.
And of course, Pharaoh wouldn’t let the slaves leave Egypt if they didn’t like his rule. You are free to leave as an American if you don’t like the system.
“Why should I have to leave?” Well- you don’t have to. Because unlike the slaves under Pharaoh, you can vote, you can campaign to office, you can influence and change the system.
Unlike the slaves of Egypt, taxes collected are to be used for your benefit, directly or indirectly. That money isn’t always used for the people’s good, that’s where participation comes in.
Mixed Messages 8 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
.. if you tell most people “I’ll give you an Oreo if you roll on your back…” they’d likely say no or just give you a look and walk away no? Exceptions exist of course with people, but many cats don’t behave like stereotypical cats either. The point is that on the whole, when you stop and analyze it, cats tend to react more like your average person than dogs.
Am I saying cats are smarter or better? Lord no. Of course intelligence and measuring it, let alone how we tend to equate intelligence in all life to how it compares to human intuition and culture is tricky- but don’t take this as an attack on dogs or saying cats are better, it is just if you view cats more as another human than a “pet” on certain broad levels concerning their behavior, cat behaviors actually can start to make a lot of sense, or as much sense as humans anyway.
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Am I saying cats are smarter or better? Lord no. Of course intelligence and measuring it, let alone how we tend to equate intelligence in all life to how it compares to human intuition and culture is tricky- but don’t take this as an attack on dogs or saying cats are better, it is just if you view cats more as another human than a “pet” on certain broad levels concerning their behavior, cat behaviors actually can start to make a lot of sense, or as much sense as humans anyway.
Mixed Messages 8 comments
guest_
· 20 weeks ago
Many people do not like cats because of their behavioral generalizations, or observe the seeming oddity of them. What if I told you that humans are closer genetic relatives to cats than dogs..?
That’s fact, but here is my personal opinion- cat behavior often stumps or upsets us because cats behave more like humans than dogs?
Think about it. On the average, cats are much more protective of their personal space and autonomy. How many adult humans would just run up to strangers and act like best buds? How many humans are ok with strangers or acquaintances, even friends or lovers just touching them wherever whenever how ever?
Most people I know, if they are relaxing or napping and you started petting their bellies- your odds of a negative reaction are generally better than positive. Most people don’t run readily to you whenever you call their name for just any reason, especially when that reason doesn’t interest them or they see no direct benefit. Most people won’t just perform a trick..
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That’s fact, but here is my personal opinion- cat behavior often stumps or upsets us because cats behave more like humans than dogs?
Think about it. On the average, cats are much more protective of their personal space and autonomy. How many adult humans would just run up to strangers and act like best buds? How many humans are ok with strangers or acquaintances, even friends or lovers just touching them wherever whenever how ever?
Most people I know, if they are relaxing or napping and you started petting their bellies- your odds of a negative reaction are generally better than positive. Most people don’t run readily to you whenever you call their name for just any reason, especially when that reason doesn’t interest them or they see no direct benefit. Most people won’t just perform a trick..
Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
The world is full of disguised unemployment. The US military is the world’s largest employer. Healthcare, housing, salary, etc. and speak to many folks who have been in the military and hear them talk of people and entire jobs or departments that are “wastes.” Duh. Because not everyone is going to be ok on their own. It’s all disguised unemployment. A way to help legitimize a form of social welfare.
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Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
Because we keep adding more people. Resources get consumed and can’t be reused, so if the amount of wealth stays “the same” then we have to divide it among a larger amount of people competing for resources that are being reduced while demand for them is increasing.
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Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
This is generally how this works over time. Most or all jobs get “dumbed down” and as we scale up the economy, we need more workers and it becomes impractical to pay those workers higher wages because you need more workers than your profits support at those wages.
To keep status and pay you either need a “hook,” a union, guild, regulatory protection, internal and often informal rules of conduct etc. to preserve your place against the march of time.
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To keep status and pay you either need a “hook,” a union, guild, regulatory protection, internal and often informal rules of conduct etc. to preserve your place against the march of time.
Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
It made sense economically- to make more money required more workers doing more work. Having more workers makes it harder to find and afford to pay skilled and reliable workers.
Having your retail staff focussed on the everyday simple tasks required to make money takes away the need for them to be relied on for more complex tasks and means they can be paid less but produce more work. You add managers- instead of relying on the employees to ensure tills are correct and accounting is done and inventory is managed- you move those specific tasks to managers and specialists you need fewer of.
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Having your retail staff focussed on the everyday simple tasks required to make money takes away the need for them to be relied on for more complex tasks and means they can be paid less but produce more work. You add managers- instead of relying on the employees to ensure tills are correct and accounting is done and inventory is managed- you move those specific tasks to managers and specialists you need fewer of.
Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
Math was once a bit obscure. Not even that long ago. An employee akin to a cashier was once a specialist- someone who was trusted to keep track of money and exercise honesty. Let’s examine that through the scenarios I presented above.
As more people became able to do math and the process of shop keeping was simplified, cashiers became less valuable. Where shops often had one employee or so, more employees with the same role were added to divide the work.
Improvements to systems like policies as well as technologies for making sure that math was done correctly improved. Systems to help calculate change abd to mitigate or remove the need for cashiers to know or determine fair prices. Price books and eventually registers you could input the type of good and they did the pricing and then databases with scanners that only require you to find a bar code and scan and a machine does the rest.
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As more people became able to do math and the process of shop keeping was simplified, cashiers became less valuable. Where shops often had one employee or so, more employees with the same role were added to divide the work.
Improvements to systems like policies as well as technologies for making sure that math was done correctly improved. Systems to help calculate change abd to mitigate or remove the need for cashiers to know or determine fair prices. Price books and eventually registers you could input the type of good and they did the pricing and then databases with scanners that only require you to find a bar code and scan and a machine does the rest.
Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
The knowledge of basic computer usage, even using email- not even talking about programming- it’s so common now that what was once a one person highly paid job is now done by teams who often make relatively little, or is expected for free.
Many jobs won’t send a specialist out to install a program or update something- even minimum wage employees are often expected to have the technical knowledge to do what are seen as simple tasks. And it isn’t just that the knowledge is no longer held by few specialists- it’s that technology has created ways for people with little or no knowledge or skill to do things with ease.
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Many jobs won’t send a specialist out to install a program or update something- even minimum wage employees are often expected to have the technical knowledge to do what are seen as simple tasks. And it isn’t just that the knowledge is no longer held by few specialists- it’s that technology has created ways for people with little or no knowledge or skill to do things with ease.
Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
That is its own subject.
But if you doubt the preceding simply look at history. Once upon a time the bar for high paying work was as low as being able to read or write- poorly. Look at where the bar was set, look back to history where simply being intimidating or skilled in violence could easily make you wealthy and powerful on your own.
Look at the modern age. Violence is rarely a profitable long term career option or path to social standing. Reading too old? Computers. Simply being able to set up a local network, a simple local network of a few computers, within a lifetime ago one job could pay $10,000 at a time when a new car was $10,000 or less.
Can you imagine someone paying you $10,000 today to hook a couple computers together?
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But if you doubt the preceding simply look at history. Once upon a time the bar for high paying work was as low as being able to read or write- poorly. Look at where the bar was set, look back to history where simply being intimidating or skilled in violence could easily make you wealthy and powerful on your own.
Look at the modern age. Violence is rarely a profitable long term career option or path to social standing. Reading too old? Computers. Simply being able to set up a local network, a simple local network of a few computers, within a lifetime ago one job could pay $10,000 at a time when a new car was $10,000 or less.
Can you imagine someone paying you $10,000 today to hook a couple computers together?
Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
Tens of thousands of dollars. To many that would initially be either quite a boon or could literally change their lives, at least temporarily. Because it doesn’t necessarily change circumstances and when we take the mindset that people in the worst economic and developmental conditions- ones who live in places where a couple thousand dollars can be more than a family lives on for a year- would be “saved” we can compare that to economic reality and realize that a sudden influx of personal wealth isn’t likely to alleviate the systemic issues that create those problems and with inflation and other factors you are likely to end up perhaps worse off.
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Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
And this is where things get a bit sad.
There are around 7.5 billion people on earth. That means for every billion dollars you take from say- some wealthy billionaire- you can give each person… let’s make it rough numbers- but you’re talking about like 10 cents for each person on earth.
The loss of a billion dollars would theoretically impact someone like Elon Musk very little in real and practical terms but 10 cents would be even more minimal to most people on earth.
If we took 100 billion- there’d be enough for rough numbers $10 for everyone on earth. Again- meaningful to a small percentage but not likely as transformative in their lives as any single person or small group losing $100 billion.
We can scale that down and it becomes more stark.
People making $200k a year, the amounts get smaller.
If we add up the wealth of the worlds richest people and leave them a small portion- we end up with a not insignificant but also to many not transformative amount in the
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There are around 7.5 billion people on earth. That means for every billion dollars you take from say- some wealthy billionaire- you can give each person… let’s make it rough numbers- but you’re talking about like 10 cents for each person on earth.
The loss of a billion dollars would theoretically impact someone like Elon Musk very little in real and practical terms but 10 cents would be even more minimal to most people on earth.
If we took 100 billion- there’d be enough for rough numbers $10 for everyone on earth. Again- meaningful to a small percentage but not likely as transformative in their lives as any single person or small group losing $100 billion.
We can scale that down and it becomes more stark.
People making $200k a year, the amounts get smaller.
If we add up the wealth of the worlds richest people and leave them a small portion- we end up with a not insignificant but also to many not transformative amount in the
Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
go from $40k to $45k over years.
So you are fighting two forces. The first is the force where those in power want to keep paths open for their friends and loved ones and those with similar values, and the people in those jobs who obviously have a vested interest in keeping their jobs. Think of it like a union.
You have a group of workers who want to keep the money and benefits they have and gain more over to time keep up with growing needs and wants as they age and fight inflation- I’m a system they’ve created that meets this goal but largely does so by making it hard for just anyone to walk in and take their jobs or do it for less.
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So you are fighting two forces. The first is the force where those in power want to keep paths open for their friends and loved ones and those with similar values, and the people in those jobs who obviously have a vested interest in keeping their jobs. Think of it like a union.
You have a group of workers who want to keep the money and benefits they have and gain more over to time keep up with growing needs and wants as they age and fight inflation- I’m a system they’ve created that meets this goal but largely does so by making it hard for just anyone to walk in and take their jobs or do it for less.
Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
3. While this is all happening, as you increase the numbers doing a particular job, the need for team level management tends to rise. You go from reporting to a VP or C level exec etc. to having a director or team lead- whatever your direct report level is- a level of management will be created or levels of management between you and that previous level as your role grows in numbers.
Generally these managers will need to make less than the management above them and are subject to the same “the more there are the less each makes” rule. And you will generally need to make less than the managers above you if your labor isn’t particularly skilled. So now your path to $200k or $250k etc. in your career isn’t just harder because you’re starting from a lower number- it’s harder because before the next logical career step would take you to the level above $200k but now your career next step is generally either to pursue experience and credentials in business/management to make a leap or to
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Generally these managers will need to make less than the management above them and are subject to the same “the more there are the less each makes” rule. And you will generally need to make less than the managers above you if your labor isn’t particularly skilled. So now your path to $200k or $250k etc. in your career isn’t just harder because you’re starting from a lower number- it’s harder because before the next logical career step would take you to the level above $200k but now your career next step is generally either to pursue experience and credentials in business/management to make a leap or to
Accurate admired cuddly 15 comments
guest_
· 21 weeks ago
.. little training or the rights tools such as sophisticated AI. To be clear- much of what doctors do is very difficult and good doctors exist and can’t simply be replaced like that.
So anyway- if we suddenly replaced the “general care” provider or specialists who don’t do specific skilled tasks with lesser professionals- the pay drops, the number of workers increase, the work decreases for each one, each one is seen as less valuable. If “most people” or “anyone” or “lots of people” can do it- you aren’t very valuable usually.
And doctors have the benefit of life and death stakes but if your work isn’t life or death or directly responsible for large sums of money etc… then not having “the best” and just “good enough” are usually fine. Good enough is usually much cheaper and once they discover “good enough” is good enough- they role is devalued.
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So anyway- if we suddenly replaced the “general care” provider or specialists who don’t do specific skilled tasks with lesser professionals- the pay drops, the number of workers increase, the work decreases for each one, each one is seen as less valuable. If “most people” or “anyone” or “lots of people” can do it- you aren’t very valuable usually.
And doctors have the benefit of life and death stakes but if your work isn’t life or death or directly responsible for large sums of money etc… then not having “the best” and just “good enough” are usually fine. Good enough is usually much cheaper and once they discover “good enough” is good enough- they role is devalued.
99.999% of the time in illustrations as well as real clothing, a bra or bikini style top in an “American flag pattern” is not an American flag. To include all the Stars and Stripes would be both visually cluttered or unappealing as well as complex, so usually there are both fewer Stars and Stripes than are required for it to be an American flag. Also, an American flag is a single rectangle, so something like a bra or bikini top would need to either be made of an actual flag and sewn into a top OR have an entire individual flag print on each breast. Printing the flag across the cups without the missing pieces wouldn’t be a flag under the flag code.
As mentioned, the flag code doesn’t explicitly ban American flag print clothing or items unless those items are made from a pre existing flag. Then that is a violation. So taking down a flag and cutting and sewing it into a shirt is a violation but having a shirt printed with a “flag design” or inmate of a flag is not.