SatanicNotMessianic

That kind of egregious lying should lead to an investigation of professional misconduct.

If there’s any counter-incentive to lying on the stand for money, if you’re able to allege that it’s your “opinion” as an expert.

John Yoo, Bush’s torture memo lawyer who gave the administrative legal advice backing every illegal thing they did, holds a chaired position at Berkeley, ffs.

Holy crap, that’s awesome.

That person may have one of the worst jobs on earth, and I saw the Dirty Jobs geoduck episode.

Nothing against you, but as someone from the rural southwest, I cannot see any level of compatibility between your gripes and rural life. It’s like some from NYC complaining about too many people around.

As a data scientist, this is my favorite answer.

I think we’re very much on the same page.

Yes you can. First result = 0, second = 1 to 9. You either roll two different color dice, or you roll one and then the other, but one is used for the tens place and the other for the ones.

0 and 0 means 100.

I think I might have DMed for you or your clone.

I literally explained why that’s an unreasonable expectation. Posting a headline-only news article is one thing - it’s at least something I can read in just about any context and I’m reading anyway - but even that’s not as good as posting an article with a summary or some sample paragraphs. Posting a video with some clickbait or one liner description is all but useless.

You need a group that’s small enough to allow for personal interaction, but large enough that there’s enough people that you’re more likely to find ones you click with. It’s easy enough to do online - a lot of people meet in games like MMOs and on social media sites. You already share a common interest, and if you click you can expand your friendship outside of that immediate context. Even within the context, you get friends and community.

Real world kinds of places can include things like a men’s choir or a community theater group if that’s your demographic. Those can lead to Saturday brunches and such. There’s also places like dog parks where you can hang out with other dog owners, and sports groups like bowling and ultimate that have various levels of serious vs fun. There’s also a lot of volunteering opportunities.

Some groups can be cliques that can make it harder to get into at first, and just like in dating you can’t let a negative experience turn you off from the whole scene.

I had someone argue that their cherished d100 gave a different probability than 2d10.

So, a significant chunk of the founders were very skeptical of democracy and saw the risks of demagoguery. Their answer unfortunately tended to be to let the rich run things, because rich people (like themselves) would be more likely to be public minded and not selfish. That’s also, one might say, why the president has as much power as is allocated to that office independent of the legislature - initially, some wanted a king - and why the senate has more power than the house, and senators were not originally determined by popular election. The 17th amendment was passed in 1913.

They made a few other mistakes, too. Although some people (notably including Washington) saw the threat of political parties (which might in fact be an inevitable aspect of democracy), they also thought that the self interest of office holders would be to their office - president vs house vs senate vs judiciary, federal vs state governments - and did not foresee that people would instead find their self interest in their party, which would coordinate across all of those boundaries.

They also carried the enlightenment ideal of people being rational self interested actors who could deliberate and put aside self interest for the good of the country. Adam Smith himself said as much.

It comes down to selfishness versus tribalism versus what David Singer calls the expanding circle of inclusion (family, tribe, city, nation, humanity, ecosystem).

You might be projecting a bit there. Most of the people who get involved with those communities are looking to help people learn, not to have interesting conversations with people who already speak their language. There’s plenty of opportunities for that.

Second, consider giving back (or paying it forward) by spending your own time helping people practice English as a second language. I did that while learning Spanish, and it was both helpful and rewarding. It’s been a few years (like 10) so I’m completely out of practice, but I got pretty close to being conversational enough that I could at least have a discussion about basic topics and be understood.

Can’t wait to get in line for that Elon Misk brain chip!