It's one good thing to have on a resume, sure, but another is the skillset itself. For example, I work with a highly specialized software, so I frequently get messaged with interview offers on LinkedIn because I show up every time employers search for that specific software.

Ah, I get what you're saying now. Yeah, we definitely need more people thinking about how we interact as a community, especially considering how well-connected we are these days. Whether or not any individual would really be able to have a significant impact on society as a whole is unclear, but at the very least having ideas for how we can process all of the information that we're now being bombarded with would be good for combating our ongoing mental health crisis.

We're simply never going to codify the social contract. Not only is it incredibly complex and situational, it's also constantly changing - something that's acceptable today might very well be seen as unacceptable in just a few years. The contract isn't - nor should it be - pinned down; it's just made up of any given community's current feelings of what's acceptable and what's not. People's feelings toward social interactions shift far too quickly for bureaucracy to keep up. It's disappointing that it means some people will constantly be playing catch-up if they're not able to easily and inherently understand the current contract, but even if we wrote out some "rules" that people were meant to follow, they wouldn't.

That's the thing about the current social contract - people only generally follow the rules now because they make inherent sense that comes naturally to them, which is why we have the problem of people not following them if they personally feel like they don't make sense. However, if we tried to force it, all we'd get is even fewer people following the contract - unless you wanted to put actual laws in place to punish those who don't, but then you're getting into some shady governmental practices. It's generally better to let society itself deal with those ne'er-do-wells, shunning them into either compliance or exile, like this comic is helping to do.

Our current social contract isn't great, but I don't honestly believe there is a better way of getting 8 billion people to functionally interact with one another.

We have similar points, but I'm saying that it's already the current social contract. Both parties are expected to respectfully respond to the others' cues. Different people have an easier or harder time learning these cues, but there's not really an excuse - we all have to work hard enough to get to the point where we can function socially in the community. Now, as is the case with any contract, there are going to be people who ignore it for their own benefit, not caring about how that affects others; such behavior generally qualifies as harassment.

I considered putting a "some" in there, but honestly, I feel like it's sadly the default state, at least in the US. Even fellow politically-left people I meet rarely demand resources for underprivileged people that actually elevate them to their own station. It usually feels like "They deserve more! But still less than me."

It's possible that something else would've gotten in the way if religion hadn't, but I guess we can leave that immeasurable thing up to faith as well. I'm glad we came to an agreement in the end.

The only way the scientific approach could be used to measure the existence of a deity would be to measure the deity itself, at which point the measurement would only be a formality - its existence would already be verified. That's why it's the opposite of science. You can learn of a black hole before ever observing one by simply understanding the basic fundamentals of physics, but a deity would exist even outside of that. No amount of measuring nature would be able to prove or disprove something that exists outside of that. You still haven't made a single argument against that cornerstone of my argument. You can call it a fallacy all you want, but ultimately that's just a word you're using in place of actually arguing against my point. Faith is the belief that something is true without needing data. Science is the act of gathering data to form a belief. They are opposites.

Nobody's ever heard of it; I've been singing its praises since 2006, and I've never met another person in real life who's heard of it. It's an amazing game set in a slightly-steampunk world where cars have only recently been invented, but giant steam-powered mechs were invented around the same time as well. The story's interesting, but the real fun comes from how much freedom the game gives in how you want to play it:

You can customize your character's clothes, you can be a good guy, you can be a jerk who charges his friends for every little favor, you can just straight-up be a villain, you can hustle pool, you can play in a band with a bunch of different instruments, each with their own mini game associated with playing them, you can extort or save an orphanage, you can buy and decorate an apartment, then play a dating sim with some of the characters, and that's all before you factor in the giant mech, which you can customize with a bunch of different pieces and use to fight in a colosseum, explore ruins for treasure, excavate fossils to save a museum, fight giant bosses, transport goods and passengers, and even turn it into an airplane to fly around in.

And that's all in a PS2 game! Sure, all of the features are limited by both the hardware and the inclusion of so many other features, but they're all fun, and the graphics look great. I rarely play any game more than once, and I've played this game well over a dozen times. It's helped by the different endings depending on how you play your character, but even the parts that are the same between playthroughs are still fun every time. It's my favorite game of all time by a huge margin.

I've heard of it! I just started my latest playthrough, and I was wondering if it ever got any love on Lemmy.

That's fair, though I can certainly empathize with an exacerbated voice of reason desperately crying out to deaf ears.

That depends heavily on who she is, and what your relationship looks like; a lighthearted response might work best for one person, while launching into a serious discussion about body image might be best for another.

My go-to response when my wife says something bad about her body is to just respond with "You're beautiful." and leave it at that. Sometimes I throw in a "Hey, don't talk about my wife like that!" for good measure.

Yeah, it's tough. Some genetic counselors are finding success in private practices, or at hospitals with a younger group of doctors who aren't already accustomed to doing all the genetics work themselves, but I'm already well integrated in my new career, and don't want to try going back. It's good to see things are getting better, but non-MD hospital workers will always get pushed around by the doctors if they don't like what you're there to do.