Looking over the Saturday morning cartoons I grew up with:

The Batman

Xiaolin Showdown (this I remember the most fondly)

Johnny Test (It’s the epitome of Saturday morning cartoons, most engraved in my brain, probably bad actually)

Spider Riders (just for the opening song)

¯_(ツ)_/¯ I don’t know about others, but that’s not how I roll.

To add onto this, an ideology is an ideal to be strived toward, not a goal to be jumped to.

The first thing I remember learning in philosophy 101 is the principle of charity, which has been eternally useful during discussion:

1. Assume the other person has something worth saying
2. Questions of meaning come before questions of truth

I was fortunate enough to grow up firmly middle class. My dad sold car chemicals for a pretty good income. He and my stepmom (who also made good money in project management) explained the concept of golden handcuffs to me in high school, that when you start making a lot of money and get used to that lifestyle it’s tough to take a pay cut that takes it away. They didn’t seem especially happy or content to me so having a lot of money has never been a priority for me. I just want enough to get by and save for the future.

When I was scraping by on 28k a year slinging pizzas and delivering for the post office on Amazon Sundays I told my project manager uncle that if I made twice what I did at the time I would be fine. Now I do make 60k working IT for a school district where I can sometimes do some good, and like I had told my uncle I’m doing fine now. I have a pension, I can max out my Roth IRA, have a good down payment for my next car when mine kicks the bucket, and I’m lucky enough to rent a couple rooms relatively cheap from a friend who was lucky enough for their farmer parents to buy them most of a house, all owing me to save a few hundred a month for a house of my own. And I can still buy nice stuff for myself every now and then.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to have an extra 10 or 20k for extra breathing room, but moving back to the private sector would suck, and I would probably just end up like my mother whose financial advisor literally tells her to spend more money. I feel very privileged to say this, but I just don’t think I could be bought at this point.

I really like them almost entirely brown, mashed up with butter and mixed with some flour, sugar, an egg or two and a hint of vanilla extract, all baked in the oven for like an hour.

I get rather annoyed when someone says “I have a problem” without any further thought shown toward it.

Sure, you don’t need to always have the solution, but if you have something worth complaining about then it’s something worth putting at least a little time and effort into thinking about solving before complaining. That reflection will often come through in how the problem gets put forward such that it’s easier for everyone to help find a solution.

I am really glad I went to college far enough away from home my folks wouldn’t visit on a whim, but close enough to drive back for holidays easily. And after I moved back home I have had a much greater appreciation for everyone and everything I had been away from.

It feels a little generic, but video games. I’ve been playing them since my dad got a Gamecube around launch, and I’ve been reading about them since ~2011 when I discovered Steam and graphics cards. I learned within a year of watching the store that sales on Steam generally update Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I’ve checked what goes on sale for at least 90% of the Tuesdays and Thursdays since then.

I used to read a lot of IGN, then Kotaku, then r/games to keep up on everything. Now I mostly listen to a couple gaming podcasts (Minnmaxx and Triple Click) and that covers enough big and small games for me.

I like to say that I have a near encyclopedic knowledge of gaming from about 2007 onward, meaning for a given game I can give you a general idea of the genre, reception, notable influence on or from the industry, and I can usually recall at least 5 seconds of gameplay. The most exciting thing for me in conversation is when someone brings up a game I haven’t heard of or know nothing about.

This might be a stretch but my mind dredged up memories of the first two American Tail movies recently. Are/were you a fan? It sounds up your alley based on your comment here.

Chidi is a main character from the show The Good Place. If you have any interest in ethical philosophy, it’s a great and accessible show. And if you’re not interested in ethical philosophy, it’s still a great show!

Not specific enough, what if the next $500 million dollar equivalent payout is in another country and you miss it? Maybe specify the next US Powerball over $500 million?

Why not “what specifically should scientists focus on to develop functional near or faster than light space travel?” Then people can just go check where the aliens are or are not!

why or why not do all non-trivial roots of the Riemann zeta function have the form 0.5+xi?

Presumably because they aren’t “one of the best ways to get rid of a rodent invasion.”

Maybe, but that doesn’t sound like corporatism, and I made this post and another because it bugs me when the two words are used interchangeably.

Are you quoting someone?

This is a messy but interesting question to sort my thoughts on. First, I did date a non-binary person for a couple years and ended things on good terms. I’m AMAB, they’re AFAB on testosterone. I’ll admit I felt a little weird as their transition took effect over time with thicker leg hair and a peach fuzz mustache.

Second, I’ve considered myself a sex-positive asexual person since I learned the term, so I’m not certain I should be answering this. I’ve always been confused when someone is called hot, but I like the mental/emotional intimacy and physical touch of sex. I’ve come to realize recently that I’d probably be okay being intimate with a woman or feminine partner with a dick, but since I would like to have kids some day it wouldn’t really work for a romantic relationship.

Third, that partner has half-jokingly said that you have to be a little gay to date them, so I don’t know that any person that would date a non-binary person can call themself 100% straight, which means technically nobody should be answering this question at all :P

I’m a big fan of Smooth Video Project (SVP) for video interpolation: https://www.svp-team.com/

Say what you will about high frame rate video/animation, I paid like $10 for it in 2014 and it’s still getting updates!

Corporatism has been employed in nefarious ways many times, but it’s also the basis for the Nordic model used by Sweden, where labor unions and business owners meet to form policy that benefits both groups.

I think this idea of corporate groups informs how I view power in the US, where businesses hold significantly more clout than labor unions. But that used to not be the case. A while back I was trying to understand what changed in the late 60’s or early 70’s that led to the stagnation of wages we have seen since, and found an article from the time that talked about the largest union potentially striking over Nixon’s move away from the Bretton-Woods system: https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/21/archives/nixon-and-the-unions-president-pins-hopes-on-rankandfile-as-the.html

The thing that struck me was that it may be the first time I’ve read about the leaders of a union being invited to meet at the White House, the way an Elon Musk or other CEO would today. It leads me to believe that the most realistic peaceful path toward fixing the many issues facing the people of the US today is to empower unions such that they have the clout to challenge that of corporations again.

All this to say that corporatism as a concept can enable good or bad, but I would like to see it considered more. And I’d like to see it confused with corporatocracy less.

I could do with more depth to my knowledge though. Do you have any recommendations on books or articles to do more reading?