And an obsequious "dissent" from that, too. As a treat.

Beep boop, this is your browser speaking. You have stated that you need a browser that spies on you more one (1) times.

Atlas Shrugged changed my political beliefs entirely when I read it as a teenager. Real life experience and empathy changed it back again a few years later, thankfully. It's tough when you're young, recognizing that the world is flawed and searching for something that might be an answer.

It's not quite the same because I was never any kind of ardent "pro-nuke" activist, but the movie Threads took me from a position of resigned ambivalence regarding the existence of nuclear weapons to a strong believer in global disarmament. If anyone is neutral on the topic of nuclear weapons, I'd suggest they give it a watch.

There is a social cost to abandoning your shopping cart; it's just not borne by the abandoner. Carts left in the parking lot can block parking spots or damage cars if moved by wind or gravity. Additionally, if no one returns their cart, there will be none available at the storefront for use by the next customer. That's part of the "test" as I understand it - there's no one grading you individually on whether you fulfill your communal responsibility to return the cart, but that doesn't mean there's no impact from your failure to do so.

Feels like we might be talking past each other or conceptualizing the shopping cart theory differently?

I like a cover letter. Not to get my ass kissed, but so I can see you draw the lines between your work experience and the job posting. My field is niche enough that there are few applicants with directly related experience, but there are many ways to gain the basic skills required. I can make all sorts of inferences based on a resume, but I don't want to guess when choosing who to interview. Just tell me how you match up and what you think you'll bring to the table. This helps me separate people who are applying for any job they can vs those who know (at least kind of) what they're getting into.

This assumes that a hiring manager would choose not to call a favored candidate just because they didn't get a thank you. That would be insane to me. None of my top performers sent me thank yous, and if I passed on them for that reason alone, I would deserve the dregs who would take their place.

If someone gets an offer that meets their needs better (pay, interest, whatever), I just go to the next viable candidate from my pool. That's hardly an imposition or a personal slight, and the potential for this to occur doesn't change any of my behavior when hiring (other than, perhaps, trying to make a quicker offer for highly-talented candidates so I don't lose them to a different opportunity).

It's not a shopping cart test. There's no social cost to not getting a thank you email, and the candidate likely already provided thanks verbally. It's redundancy, and as a hiring manager I do not care for it.

For shopping carts, I even take back those that are not mine if they are nearby.

I've hired (low) dozens of people in public sector environments, and neither myself nor anyone on my hiring panels has ever cared if we receive a post-interview thank you. Maybe private sector is different, but I'd just as soon not have you clog up my inbox with thanks or make a post-interview pitch about your skills/excitement.

If you say thanks in the room, we're square. Likewise, I always thank people for their interest and time in the role.

Being calm doesn't make you correct any more than being angry makes someone else wrong.

Look, everyone, this guy labelled himself as logical and reasonable, and his opponent as ignorant!

Apply the So What principle: So what if I, as a private citizen, make a judgement about people who work for a government office? What's the practical impact for this oh-so-unfairly-maligned hypothetical person you constructed? Nothing.

Now, what's the practical impact when a government agency denies due process to people when it unlawfully detains them? Oh, yeah, that does seem like a real and substantive impact, doesn't it?

I haven't denied anyone's rights to their life or their liberty, so you can take your false equivalency and shove it.

If you currently work for ICE and you haven't quit, you've demonstrated you're okay with going along with illegal and immoral actions. That makes you a bad person.

There might be an argument to say that not everyone who has ever worked for ICE is a bad person, but that argument holds little water in 2025.

Due process is required for legal judgements, not moral ones, FYI.

You should probably just stop watching, no? Consolidating Forsaken, killing off less important POVs to trim from a large cast that Jordan could only barely manage across 14 books and 4 million words - these are things that fundamentally make sense to do when you have, at most, 64 hours to adapt 4.4 million words.

To be clear, season 1 and 2 changes really irked me, but at the end of season 3 I am starting to feel like they're making something that will approximate Wheel of Time in vibe and characterization. It's not the 1:1 series of my dreams (imagine something animated in the style of Avatar: The Last Airbender!), but I think they've come around to doing a reasonably good job given the restrictions of time. Rand is Rand, Mat is Mat, etc.

If you aren't willing to just go with it, why torture yourself?

I just watched and really enjoyed it!

I hope these spoilers tags work:

I made the adjustment, but it hurt. I'm still slower at things than I used to be.

Leaked pictures / more confirmation. It's "real" now, or at least a more solid rumor than before.

It's hypocrisy in the name of saving a buck. Should we not want intellectual consistency from religious affiliates that seek to dictate the terms of our laws and our lives?

You're absolutely right - the article did this no justice. The text is quite cringey on its own, but this is... Even more yikes.

I've been enjoying it, although it is still unpolished. I think ultimately whether you like the new direction (changes to the age system/picking new civs mid game) is going to be a matter of personal taste. To me, I now feel like my unique civ bonuses are always relevant, instead of just in whatever specific era. I also find myself more engaged in mid to late game.

But I've also read a number of comments where people prioritize other aspects of the Civ experience, and those folks do NOT like the changes to game flow. Your mileage may vary.