@eribosot@germany@folklore I dunno - "groom" in this tale stands for "caretaker for the horses", and this doesn't strike me as a high-income profession.
A reminder to my fellow men for the #ManOrBear discussion:
This is not whether you, personally, are safer to be around than a bear. It's about the safety calculations women have to do around unknown men from a young age onwards. Most men simply don't have to worry about their personal safety to the same degree as women.
And if you do take this personally, you are doing it wrong.
I mean, if I were to encounter a lone woman in a forest, am I owed her trust that I am safe to be around? I don't see why - she is the one who has to worry about her safety, and if she errs on the side of caution, then this is her right.
@ben I've often thought that a #Fediverse -based alternative to Quora would be very useful. It seems a Stack Overflow alternative would likely be a good opportunity.
I'm developing a fantasy setting which has a magical industrial revolution largely based around enchanted, animated, self-moving gears.
For the most part, these should be of standardized sizes (because any industrial revolution worth its salt should have lots of standardization). But what I am still struggling with is their casing. There should be some external, mechanical way of setting rotation speed and direction, and I don't have any good ideas on how to visualize that.
I also need a good name for these enchanted gears. Any suggestions?
@ljwrites The problem with this approach is that I want non-magical users to be easily able to control these gears, so the control mechanism should ideally be purely mechanical. Magical control interfaces sound too high-tech for the "industrial Age" vibe I am going for.
It would be a bit tricky to justify Greek-sounding names in this setting, but maybe "Prime Gears" has potential.
#PennedPossibilities 306 — Are there any characters that you WISH you killed off in a series or standalone story?
No.
I try to make even my bad characters personal, with understandable motivations and decisions. Even if they go insane, basically.
That in turn means I don't hate them. I often feel pity or compassion for them. I give them chances to change. But often enough, they dig their own grave - and that matters for their story. I don't waste those moments.
To me, one of the major signs of a country ruled by fear is the presence of gated communities.
If the affluent feel the need to isolate themselves from the rest of the population like that, then something has gone very, very wrong in that society.
@NilaJones I've never come across any, and there's no real physical separation between the rich parts of towns and everywhere else - they have the same sidewalks.
It's essential to look at the extreme dangers of a second Trump administration. If Trump does win, it’s important to realize that even the best-case scenarios are very bad — for Democrats and the left, certainly, but also for democracy.
@chrisgeidner And this is why I hope that people will vote for Biden en masse, no matter how personally (and justifiably) disappointed they might be with him.
With fascists, things can and will always get worse.
@mattyroses@chrisgeidner I blame the horrible, horrible American election system which usually devolves into "bad candidate" vs. "horrible candidate".
I think the only way to change this system is via a massive political movement that seeks to reform the individual states from the ground up - the Republicans have certainly had a lot of success on the state level in the other direction.
But a second Trump term will be the end of even that possibility.
The conclusion is correct (graduate degree holding white men believe the most 'taboo' conspiracy theories), but the reasons it suggests why, are sociology-babble garbage. The real reason is:
Racism is a lie. To believe in racism, you must believe a set of easily debunkable lies.
Richer, whiter, maler, more educated populations are not less racist, despite attempts to twist stats to say this. They're more racist.
@williampietri@mekkaokereke I've had similar experiences. And this is one of the major reasons why Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter was such a tragedy, and why white people should realize that there are actually legitimate reasons for some people to remain there.
