I’ve listened to a few Dungeons and Dragons play-along podcasts (but sadly, still never tried it myself). I’ve definitely gone through my share of video game character creators, tinkering with my character’s strength’s and weaknesses. And I’m always fascinated by how I and others approach doling out points in the game to boost their avatar’s abilities.

Which naturally leads to a few personal, but revealing questions:

If you had, say, 10 points to boost your core skills (as seen in the image above), how would you dole them out?

Possibly more revealing: what do you think your base stats are right now (which, if using D&D starting character rules, would be between min 3 to max 18)?

Guilty of smug wall-leaning, and cliche prison posing, respectively.

So many dangerous things, wrong-but-technically-legal things, democracy-corrupting things, totally-unfair-to-all-but-a-few things, should-have-been-decided-for-good-a-long-time-ago things go on in this world every day. There oughta be a law.

If you were given ultimate global power to make two things illegal what would you choose?

If you prefer, these can apply in certain places, at certain times, for certain people, etc. with good reason.

They can’t compel people to do things that are already illegal. They would override existing rights/laws as applicable.

They’re not wishes, but they are instantly, easily enforced to the point where the illegal things stop right away. The idea isn’t to punish and imprison people, just fix problems.

Above: list of cities where houses “with good schools, but you know, still near cool restaurants” are about to get annoyingly expensive.

This week, Amazon announced its shortlist of cities being considered for “HQ2”, their second giant corporate facility bringing tens of thousands of supposedly good-paying tech jobs.

Plenty can be argued about the vast tax incentives being given away to one of the richest businesses around, the propriety of a private company making municipalities grovel to be blessed with precious new-economy jobs — and we should have those conversations too!

But today I was struck by a more tangential thought about demographics. Several of these cities are in places that young, educated, progressive people (a.k.a. voters) are leaving in order to move to coastal urban centers that are already filled with other young progressive people like them — because that’s where the good jobs are. That migration is what’s throwing off the traditional balance of urban/rural, (a.k.a. progressive/conservative) in the states whose major cultural centers are on the decline due to industries shrinking or consolidating (particularly, say, Indiana or Ohio). One big company keeping more of those people in-state theoretically breeds other off-shoot companies, and helps keep the urban vs rural percentage in a state with only mid-size cities bluer.

Essentially, where Amazon places its second headquarters could literally swing a state, electorally.

Should progressive people be encouraging big companies to move jobs to red-to-purple states to drive more urbanization in smaller US cities?

Does this give more power to corporations, or politicize economic decisions, in ways we should be wary of? Or is this all power and political will corporations have now, that we the people should exert more influence over?

Simpler question: why is this so clip so satisfying?

It’s been almost a year since this fateful incident. Debates around rallies and racism, the alt-right vs antifa, have swirled for all of 2017.

And I still haven’t decided 100% where I stand on punching Nazis.

I’m anti-violence, generally. I’m anti-Nazi, definitely. I essentially subscribe to the view that intolerance is the only thing we can’t tolerate if we want a chance at evolving as a species of thinkers (as illustrated in this little quotation/comic — original here, translated from Spanish below):

So the role of punching in all of this is certainly worth thinking about.

When is it ok to punch someone other than in self defense?

What would make you personally not just want to — but actually punch someone?

Also dinners. If you can’t agree on where to go to dinner, just quit now.

Whenever there is another news story (like this one) about how we’re inching ever closer to discovering the secret of “defeating death” or “reversing aging”, the easy immediate reaction is “whoa, cool, I can be immortal!”.

Leaving aside the fact that I personally think that sounds terrible (discuss!), the follow-up thoughts are a lot more interesting. Even if people don’t stop dying completely, and just lived much, much longer than they already do, there would be tons of repercussions for society. Economic, environmental, social.

For now let’s focus on one: relationships.

Conventional wisdom says that as life has extended, marriage in particular has been forced to change; that when life expectancy was shorter, it was more attainable to have a healthy relationship for twenty to forty years, but as people live much longer, can any one partnership possibly be expected to sustain itself for sixty, or a hundred?

And if we shift expectations that life will almost certainly extend a hundred years (or two hundred, or more!), it seems likely that our expectations on how any one relationship could last that long will have to shift too.

In a world where people live twice as long, how do the parameters of long-term relationships have to change to accommodate?

Would people still try to partner up and stay together “til death do us part”?

Shift into more open ongoing relationships with multiple partners?

Accept that a series of long-term but non-permanent relationships can be satisfying for all involved?

Or do we just give up marriage all together?