There’s simply too much centralized power there. You need something more of a union of independent states with very limited “federal” power, much like the EU. Sure, there will never be a clean consensus on anything, but at least there’s no chance a single grifter can seize so much power to wield that they can basically just do whatever to whoever within the federation and beyond.

As long as capital is the foremost concern, sensibility, sustainability and common good will never be. Can never be.

Everything needs to change before that becomes an option. A revolution has to happen, on a large enough scale to change that.

Yeah I wouldn’t work under questionable and actively disingenuous leadership, especially if they’re also ethically clashing with mine, so I get their reaction extremely well.

I couldn’t do it, so I can’t expect others to, but it’s a sad and bitter fact that it just leaves more room for the rot to fester.

But I personally think that the more the rot spreads, the more immediate the threat will seem to most, the more obvious the need for change, then perhaps that’ll encourage more action elsewhere. At best, the rot spreads too fast for its own good and ultimately kills the host. Once the ship goes down, the people can get together to rebuild. With more safeguards and more robust systems.

While I don’t agree, I’ll concede I might be in the minority with this stand. But I don’t really believe in a universal intelligence in the first place. There are several, and not all of them are self-serving or marked by the traditionally associated emotionless calculations. There’s emotional intelligence. Social intelligence. And so on.

I don’t pretend to be a philosopher or a psychologist to say what they all are, what they even are if you get down to it, but I do know there’s intelligence in caring for others. There’s intelligence in many kinds of sacrifice too. They just aren’t the classical kind of universal intelligence, because that is defined by self-serving “cold facts” and a fragile attempt at realizing an objective world and objective stance on it, which one can never truly reach or possess. If something like that even is possible.

I stand by my original comment, and I’ll be a bit sad to learn if I’m the odd one out with that take, but I also think these are the kind of things philosophers ought to talk about and not me. What do I know? Maybe my view is distorted by idealism and good expectations, faith in people and the world, that may well be unsubstantiated and entirely delusional.

Sometimes we don’t value stable career or steady income as highly as other pursuits.

I wouldn’t say it’s not intelligent. Just different priorities.

I admire anyone brave and idealistic enough to commit to academia or culture or any similarly less lucrative and extremely uncertain path. Takes some resilience and big balls. You are almost guaranteed to lose a lot of the comforts available to others with that. And yet, they still do it. And we are all better for it. The world is better for it.

I wish our DM had real-life message to telepathically convey stuff to just one person.

In my group there would be literal zero chance of the others not listening to me if I ever threw a “hmm why is that wire there”, because they would’ve heard the dm either tell me due to passive perception or had me throw a roll and then tell me. So they know it’s a trap no matter if I want to rp it. Every time I get frustrated and question it, there’s this one guy who always has the reasoning and justifying at hand why they would know to do the right thing and to be fair they kind of make sense always, but there’s zero chance he’d come up with that just by my rp line alone without knowing for a fact it’s a trap.

I think that’s the worst kind of meta gaming. They are fully blind to the meta gaming there and just do it by instinct. And when you try and question, they always have a defense ready, even if it’s so wildly specific and unlikely but you can’t really fault it because they’re not stupid, the justifications hold, it’s just that the only way they habitually generate them is because they know what I know despite they couldn’t in-game know.

Like I’ve occasionally just left the thing unsaid in-game out of frustration and just reason to DM that there’s so much going on, my focus instantly switched to another thing and I forgot because I’m not very smart. So we all know there’s a trap but now nobody has told this to the others.

What do they do? The one guy fucking always comes up with some shit like “hmmm be wary, they must’ve laid traps here, hey you with good investigation, please look around and see if there’s one in this specific place for some reason” and the rolls of course often succeed because they always choose to best one to solve that.

But from rp perspective, we’ve walked this path for a while, and this thought only came up now, that it might be trapped? Just right now when you know, outside of the game, that there’s a trap?

I call bullshit and it frustrates me so much, there’s very little chance of anything interesting ever happening in-game because we seldom miss anything or do the wrong things, because “somehow” we always happen to do the right things no matter who notices things in-game or rolls or whatever, no matter how much any of us attempt to rp it, somebody just meta games it without it being explicitly or admittedly meta gaming and gets all defensive when questioned and because they now know everything, can figure out an explanation the DM can do nothing but accept because it makes sense, now that they know to pull the right shit out their ass.

Ugh. It’s not even a big deal, our group is fun and the adventuring isn’t bad, these things don’t happen often enough for it to really affect things, but god do I hate it. This ended up being a rant, I didn’t even know how much I get frustrated with it until I just now read this back. Jesus…

For someone who doesn’t have anything to discuss, you do have an awful lot to say and keep repeating. Suit yourself.

Being successful anywhere requires hard work. You can be born into money, but you’ll have to work a lot to be a success yourself, not just a nobody with a lot of money coming from those that were successful. You can be born attractive (and that’s subjective anyway, people have a lot of different tastes and kinks) and without hard work, it’ll not be worth anything.

No idea why you are being so patronizing and dismissive. Either you are bitter and lashing out, or you need a little bit more perspective and general empathy, as in capability to see the world not only from your personal point of view, and the capability to process that, too.

And, what? If there’s a house full of rapists nearby, and the rationale to just roll over and get raped is that if you do not, the rapist will just bring over more of his rapist friends, that’s a fucked up situation that I would assume everyone would agree has to be solved and ended.

The very reason to fight against the rapist is to deter the entire house full of rapists to come over for easy prey. What are you talking about? Just let them do it is what you are suggesting? Even if you do see a car ripe for burning which could save you all from getting constantly raped? Of course you try the car. Doing nothing is just letting them do it and keep doing it, despite there being opportunities to, you know, end the entire rape? You’d want the rape to continue?

I feel stupid having to explain this. You can not be serious, I refuse to accept that. Absurd.

Am I? Please enlighten me.

Edit: Ah, the very last paragraph of yours. Right. I was responding to you as a whole, the entire conversation thus far.

If running to start a fire in the rapists car in their own yard helps your family avoid rape, making the rapists run to save their car, then maybe that just might give you time to organize the defense of your own home and other your neighbors.

At least, for now, some of your family and friends are safe.

In the long run, if you conquer the rapists yard as a whole, you can talk trade with him. Maybe they leave you alone if you return their yard.

Yeah I don’t think you can wrap your head around the idea of defending one’s home, family, friends and/or culture. You talk about hiding as if that’s the default if you can’t bribe someone…? To me that just sounds outlandish.

Most want to do something to protect their sisters from rape and their homes from being pillaged to shit. Not run and hide like you seem to view this.

Those who don’t want to fight always have the option to protest and serve an appropriate length of repercussions in prison. And that’s only if you can’t arrange your service to be something non-violent such as homefront logistics or information technology etc. Often you can. And this is if one has ideological or otherwise good reasons not to hold a gun. If one’s just scared, then unfortunately that is not enough of a reason. Everyone is scared when a murdering horde invades. It’s why you do all the things you never wanted to, even your worst enemy, to do. So that others, who can not, may once feel safe again.

Those who run or hide are saying that there is nothing worth protecting and defending, which is fine. Not everyone views their country as a good place. Let the rats hide, I say. If it feels shameful, then maybe they ought to think why that is? At least show some backbone to stand your ground if you refuse to defend your neighbors. Go to the prison. Make a point. That’s honorful at least. Running or hiding? That’s just not humane. That’s leaving others to die.

Anyway, there’s no dimension where wartime order retains the civility and comfortableness of peace time. If rapists and murderers come rampaging in your home, you either fight or you leave your family to their own devices, to be raped and murdered. Remaining peaceful will only result in you watching the horde rape your mother and sisters and children. You are helping them to, in fact.

Once you fight them off, it takes time before all is rebuilt and safe, comfy again. And during that time, when the murderers break in to kill your siblings, mother, father and your children, you don’t get to choose doing nothing. You fight, or you help them by doing nothing. How many will let the rapists get to their business with their family? Not many. You fight. Because you can’t remain peaceful anymore. They already broke in and are rounding up your family, destroying your home. Conscription is just the organized, civil way of going through this process as a community, rather than everyone having to fight alone separately against the horde. It’s not nice, true, but what else is there to do?