CerebralHawks

Yeah, same. It sounded cool in concept. Like something in a video game. But like, what happens if you drown? Seems a real possibility. You would not be able to get insurance on your place if they knew you had that. I feel like secret tunnels in general would make liability insurance very hard to come by, or very expensive.

More water.

My dream house when I was a kid had one. I didn’t have the whole floor plan laid out, but this was a feature I wanted.

There would be a standard above-ground pool, except there would be a waterfall, built into a rock structure. Pumps would take the pool water to the top and send it back down. However, the rock structure would extend back into a hill or something, and if you swam to the bottom of the pool, there would be a sliding door. You would swim down, slide the door back, flooding the chamber inside, and pull the door shut. The water would then drain (and maybe be fed back into the pool somehow?) and then you’d crawl into a hidden cave under the rocks/hill that would have a secret area, possibly including a pool. Though, that would be more of an “underground” pool rather than an “underwater” one. There would also be another entrance to the bunker… which would totally not be a fallout shelter, just a hidden lounge type area. There would be a “cargo entrance” to back a truck up into to bring furniture in, as well. But the idea is, after moving furniture/other big stuff in, you could close a door and seal it back up with dirt to hide that entrance.

Well, a couple days ago there was a post about how Hitler may have had a micropenis and only one testicle. I don’t think it made anyone more sympathetic toward him.

I don’t think it would matter one bit if Trump’s sexuality was anything but hetero. He’s still a fascist and will be judged accordingly.

Don’t say AC to gamers without first spelling it out (or it being obvious which one you mean).

Depending on the age/skill level, it’s most likely either gonna be Animal Crossing or Assassin’s Creed, but the Armoured Core guys hate being left out, and IIRC there were a couple others.

I was actually kinda thinking how interesting it would be to have to take a body of the opposite sex. That’s actually how I play Cyberpunk — a game in which you play a mercenary who gets possessed by Johnny Silverhand, a rock star turned terrorist whose mind was stored on a chip that you steal from the company that did it to him. And he’s played by Keanu Reeves. (For the two people who don’t know.) So you can be a guy, or you can be a girl. For the guy, they got this new guy, he’s a good voice actor, but he sounds New York and the character is in California, so there’s a bit of a disconnect there. But he does sound like a street tough, so it works. The girl is played by Cherami Leigh, a relatively well known voice actor, at least in anime. So as a nerd, I mean, I’m drawn to Cyberpunk because Keanu Reeves was Neo, because Idris Elba was Roland (Deschain from The Dark Tower; also Luther from the BBC series of the same name)… and because Cherami Leigh was Asuna in Sword Art Online. It’s a total geek fest. Or I could play this guy who’s… pretty much just done this. Nah, I’m playing Asuna but bad.

Anyway, a finer point of the game people don’t get is, it’s presented as Johnny is taking over V via the chip. But — and the game slaps you across the face with this multiple times — V was killed in the prologue. Johnny is on the chip (in her head), Johnny is the reason you’re alive. It’s Johnny’s body now, but the remnants of V are clinging to existence, and slowly fading. The whole point of the chip is that the person whose mind is on it gets the body. That’s why it exists. To allow Saboru Arasaka — the patriarch of the company — to try to live forever. They were just gonna put it in some younger person’s head and let him take over that body, but it didn’t play out that way. Whole lotta details, ins and outs, it’s weird… point is, the way the game seems meant to be played, it’s about an older guy taking over a younger lady’s body. (Or a guy if that weirds you out, that is an option, but IMO it’s the lesser option.) And the game makes frequent reference to it. In one ending, a guy says “but you’re a chick,” and you play it off. It doesn’t really matter to him, he’s just reacting based on what he sees. (It’s not a spoiler without context.) There’s also the time when Johnny says “you remind me of me when I was younger, minus the charisma — and the impressive cock.” The line technically works if you chose to play a guy (it’s more of an insult, implying Johnny’s new equipment is smaller), but it works better if you pick the girl.

Anyway, that’s my take — I mean, that I kinda had that in mind based on my current favourite game.

Brain transplants are purely science fiction for now, but while it might be called a brain transplant, it’s more of a body transplant. Assuming you’re taking a useless body with a useful brain and a useful body with a useless brain, and swapping, the person, being in the brain, is getting a new body. The owner of the brain-dead body wouldn’t get a new brain. Their family would get the useless brain and useless body to bury.

If that sounds grim, it’s because it is, and the potential for abuse would be so great. Imagine a random wealthy, 79-year-old pederast dictator who would demand that some family give up their ten-year-old child to receive his brain. Maybe they get compensated for their child, maybe they just get to keep living. Is that something medical science should allow? Would there be any condition in which it’s ethically or morally okay? And what if, with healthy body replacements, a brain can only live 150 years? After the second or third transplant, what would be the ethics or morality of taking a good mind (say, one that might cure cancer) and giving that brain 10 more years of life, versus giving a 10-year-old only 10 more years before that body just drops dead at 20 (maybe to be a recipient of another brain with a dying body, but to make things fun, let’s say a body can only get a new brain once: remove the second brain, and a third one cannot be successfully transplanted in)?

Yeah, but in the communist bubble people like OP live in, you don’t need a schedule because nobody has to be anywhere at any specific time, you can walk to the bus stop, and that TV you just bought is OUR TV, so, thank you! /s

I’ve said similar things in anti-car communities, and I have never gotten (or seen) a good answer. They just dogpile on the downvotes hoping it gets pushed to the bottom and that too many people aren’t hiding vote counts/weights and just sorting by all/new.

You’d think a person would want to address the most logical challenges to the argument, but that’s not how the Internet works. I don’t think it’s ever worked that way. If you find a place where it does, drop me a line.

Is he not doing to the brown people and the gays what she voted for him for, though?

I heard someone say that Trump is the most honest (or the first honest) president and at first it made me mad, but then I realised he is doing exactly what he said he’d do. He went after brown people and he’s attacking what he calls “woke” culture (which is really just civil rights). He is also striving to make America great again — for rich white men. He never said he’d make it great again for the working class. Just for guys like him and Epstein and the like.

I’m saying it’s bad when anyone does it. If you think rape is okay for countries X, Y, and Z, but you draw the line at Israel doing it, you don’t have a problem with rape, you have a problem with Israel. And that’s fine. They’re certainly doing bad shit. I’m saying I have a problem with rape and anyone doing it.

I don’t mean to excuse Israel with whataboutism, but I feel like most militaries do this? Americans have done it, the Israeli have done it, others as well… I’m sure a few like the Candians and Swiss don’t, but I would assume them to be the exception more than the rule.

It’s never excusable when anyone does it and it should absolutely be called out.

They mean an NSFW tag (standard practice for social media) or CW (content warning) (standard practice for Lemmy).

I wholeheartedly agree though, it shouldn’t be hidden. I’m also not opposed to warning people about triggering content on a social network where people who have such trauma tend to flock because their concerns are addressed better.

Most of the ones most affected by Trump’s cruelty would get something back on their federal tax return, not owe.

And the government would not be able to pay tax refunds during a shutdown.

The people who owe are less affected by Trump’s cruel policies, if they are at all. They will most likely pay to avoid the penalties. (Which ironically won’t fund tax refunds for the poor.)

If you mean like sales tax? So you’re saying you buy an item that is $20, pay with a $20, and refuse to pay the sales tax? That’s stealing. The store still has to pay the sales tax, so, just to use nice round numbers, say the tax is $1. You’ve paid the tax and $19 of the $20 item, so you’ve stolen a dollar from the store. Not the government. It’s a bit more complicated than that. They pay the tax regardless of whether the item sells. Even if the item is straight up stolen. Stores account for this (it’s called “shrink”) in their pricing, actually. So some shoplifting/theft is subsidized by paying customers. But in any case, the tax is paid regardless. Now if the store were to just not pay the tax… well, they wouldn’t. They have more to lose, and again, aren’t affected by Trump’s cruelty.

Now if you mean like states not sending money back to the feds? That’s been threatened, but the federal government also funds a lot of state level stuff, so they’d just withhold more, so there’d be no point to doing so.

If there were a serious threat to the tax system, the IRS would just fix it. That’s all we’ve ever wanted for years. For taxes to make sense, and for there to be no need to file every year because they already know what we make and what we owe — and tax our checks accordingly. Nothing over, nothing under. Maybe slightly over to account for errors, and any runoff goes back into the community. That’s the ideal, anyway.

People are conditioned that way by society, though.

More violent society conditions more violent individuals who just see it as the way things are.

Feral humans (e.g. feral children who grew up) are not peaceful.

In theory, maybe.

In practice, it has the same result. If everyone who did not vote for Trump, voted for Harris, we would not be where we are.

Most people who voted for Trump stand by their vote, for one reason or another. You can ask them to apologise but they won’t. It’s the ones who didn’t vote for Harris and hedged their bet and are now saying “not my fault! I didn’t vote for him!” who are the real problem. Because they didn’t want Trump but they also laid down and let Trump have the victory, for some reason or another.

Look, for fucking decades my mother would not vote. She saw Kennedy killed (and/or heard about it) when she was 9 and she swears he was the last good president. (I didn’t like Kennedy all that much. My “last good American president” was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.) Anyway, after Trump’s first term, she voted in both the last elections. For Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024. She wanted Clinton to win in 2016 but did not go vote, she figured enough people would vote for her over Trump. When Trump won, she stopped sitting on the fence and started getting out and voting. And she’s like 70-something. Granted she’s retired. But if you have the legal right to vote, you should. I strongly believe that. And if you don’t vote, I absolutely believe you don’t get to sit there and say “well I didn’t vote for the guy who won.”

Thanks. Crazy that “only” 2 million over means a Republican can win, but “only” 3 million over means a Democrat doesn’t have enough to win.

It’s too easy to blame those who voted for Trump. Instead blame the millions who didn’t vote against him. Those who sat by and did nothing hoping the collective good would win. And then when it didn’t, they wash their hands and say “you can’t blame me, I didn’t vote for that monster.” Thing is, they were hedging their bet. They didn’t care who won. They figured, no matter who won, any time anything bad happened, they could say “well I didn’t vote for the president, don’t blame me.”

Blame those who didn’t vote. Blame those who were fooled into voting for a third party, dividing the progressive and human rights voters. There are two kinds of people: those who voted against Trump (cast a vote for Harris) and those who voted for Trump (everyone else). They all own an equal share of the blame. And if their benefits are cut, or those of people they care about, I can’t muster a lick of sympathy for them. This is what they voted for.

And sure, the president isn’t voted by the people but rather appointed by the powerful, but I’m pretty sure if the people voted 2:1 or some other overwhelming amount, they would have appointed the winner of that vote. Only when it’s close do they pick the one they actually want, even if he loses the popular vote (George W. Bush, Trump the first time).

He didn’t win the popular vote the first time. He lost by 3 million votes, but a Democrat has to win by a lot more than that because of the handicap set up by Republicans to favour Republicans. He lost by 8 million to Biden and that was enough for a Democrat to be appointed by the “Electoral College”.

George W. Bush also lost the popular vote in 2000, but was appointed.

I don’t know if Trump actually won the popular vote in 2024. At this point it doesn’t really matter. The rich and powerful are just going to appoint who they want, they don’t give a fuck what the people vote for. The popular vote is an opinion at best, and it’s not considered. Americans don’t elect presidents, the ruling elite does.

Speak for yourself; I am a VERY violent gamer! There’s a mission in Cyberpunk that really gets my blood boiling. These two guys are into human trafficking and shooting pornography of their sexual exploits. The father of a little boy they abused and filmed themselves abusing and murdering hires you to find them and kill them. Well, they don’t just shoot porn, they shoot brain dances, which are like interactive VR videos where you play a role. And they “shoot” while “in” the brain dance… so when you find them, they’re in their rigs and unaware you’re there. You can shoot them. You can wake them up and shoot them. You can shoot one and listen to the other mourn the one you shot (they’re father and son). Or you can leave them for the police. I always wake them up, shoot the son, let the father mourn him for a few minutes, then pull out a sword and take his head off. Can’t do anything about the people who do that for real, so I do it in a video game.

Though I just finished my third run through Night City, this time on the Xbox. I think I’m done for a while (it is a VERY long game and I insist on doing ALL the quests… my game time was something like 250 hours). I recently bought it on Mac (it was just ported) so I will go through it again on my computer with the keyboard and mouse. Sure, it looks like ass on the Mac (the whole computer, storage and all is one chip, there’s no dedicated graphics card) but it plays!

I’m gonna do the Mass Effect trilogy next. Just got the remastered trilogy for $6 on Xbox. I’ve started the first one a couple times but never finished it. I keep hearing it’s a masterpiece. This time I’m gonna get through the first one, and then do the second one. I expect them to take a long time.

I also play Animal Crossing. As of last year, that’s my main game. I’ve got everything unlocked, I’m just trying to finish the museum (without cheating). I got both the tarantula and the scorpion, so I never need to run around at night with my net out (which is what makes them attack, the only “scary” thing in Animal Crossing). They do sell for 8,000 Bells (the in-game currency) each, which is nice, but I make so much more than that every day, and I could make ~130,000 every 3 days harvesting all my fruit. Wasps is 15k (5 x 3,000 each), the money rock is 16.1k, I don’t need the hassle of catching the high value bugs (plus they’re rare). I’ve paid off all my loans to Tom Nook. The new update coming out in January will add two more storage upgrades, but I have 5.5M Bells banked, so I think I’m good and I don’t need more storage anyway (but buying it might unlock more fun stuff). They showed us more than they told us about, so there’s probably features they didn’t even show. Definitely a good time to book a deserted island getaway!

Ha. Not even close. Maybe within comic books or some other bubble, but even then, not so. Because manga counts as comic books, though while a chapter might be equivalent to an issue, manga tends to come out in paperback volumes with a dozen chapters. Comics are sold this way after a while, too, so the difference comes down to reading direction, which is just down to the difference between East Asian and western writing conventions. The format can be converted but most people don’t bother because it’s simple enough to swap.

Anyway, Eri from My Hero Academia has entered the chat.

This child, a 7 year old girl, has developed the super power to “rewind” anyone she touches. It’s not an on-demand power, and the power queues up in a singular horn on the right side of her forehead. Once the horn is “full,” the power stops stockpiling, and once it’s spent, she’s powerless until the horn fills up to some degree. Since her power is involuntary, and since these powers manifest around age 5, she unwittingly killed her parents by them just holding her and her power activated on them. They were rewound until infancy and then they died (or were literally unalived in the most literal sense). Her father was in the Yakuza (Japanese mafia), so the Yakuza leadership saw potential in her power and thought they could weaponise it.

So they placed her in the care of a villain called Overhaul who worked for them, whose power is basically that of Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist. He can unmake any matter and reassemble it. He’s also batshit crazy and evil. If you ever watched FMA (or read it) and thought “what would this guy look like as a villain?” Overhaul is your answer. There are evil alchemists in FMA (Shou Tucker comes to mind, the guy who merged his daughter and her dog for more government funding into creating new life) but Overhaul has them all beat. So he keeps Eri wearing nothing but an off-white T-shirt that is a few sizes too big, he straps her into a chair modified for the purpose, and he slashes her arteries in her arms and legs wide open and bleeds her out until she’s almost dead… and then he rebuilds her. Wraps up her arms and legs in bandages (mostly for shock value to the reader since his power would allow him to fully repair her) and then does this every single day, until the heroes bust up his crib and rescue her. Which they only did because of a chance encounter where she got away and asked a hero for help, but he showed up and corralled her back to the Yakuza base. (He was also wanted by the authorities.)

This child had never smiled in her entire life, and had no memories of being happy, even after her escape. She does smile at the end of the season she’s in (the anime series’ fourth season) and it’s a big deal.

I’m not saying Eri is the most abused child in fiction, either, but she’s up there.

Psst… turn off votes/vote weights. ;) I still see the arrows and I can vote, but I don’t see any numbers. Takes the power away from people who would manipulate votes.

Also, OP’s reputation. Which I don’t care about. I actually recognise OP’s name and yes, they have posted stupid things before that I did not agree with. I will still answer them earnestly because it’s not entirely a bad faith statement (though it’s clearly wrong).