SwingingTheLamp

FWIW, I know several developers at Epic who are happy with the job, the work/life balance, and have been there for years. OTOH, I know several people, too, who were project managers, and that's 110% true. Epic is big on academic performance. It wants people who can put their heads down and grind, without asking questions or sticking up for themselves.

Until they burn out...

Article 5 and Catch 22, which in this case would be formulated as, "They can do anything that we can't stop them from doing." One could make that argument, but who'd be listening?

Of course, I drive (I kind of have to because of the way our landscape is designed to mandate it), so I have to include myself in this. It's well-established by psychological research that drivers have very little empathy for other drivers, but especially little empathy for bicyclists and pedestrians, viewing them as less-than-human annoyances. Add in that driving in a city requires that one subject other people to the noise, the pollution, the danger, and the arrogation of space by one's vehicle, and you pretty much have to suppress any empathy for the people who live there, otherwise it'd be unbearable to do. That lack of empathy is textbook sociopathy, induced by the activity of driving. It just happens to be widely normalized, but we still see posts even here on Lemmy from new drivers who are struggling to suppress those thoughts.

What does it say on his birth certificate?

Putting the shoe on and loudly announcing that it fits?

I feel like this objection makes the most sense in a particular context, like a culture that views beef as some sort of prize, or a marker of being ahead in the competition for social status with one's neighbors. (U.S. culture very much views it that way.)

If Person A eats only 1 unit of beef per month, what would make dropping to zero "unfair" is if we assume that they are too poor to afford more ("losing"), or engaging in asceticism, but holding on to that one unit as a vital connection to the status game, or a special treat that they covet.

But what if it's just food? Person A may just not be that into beef, and probably not even miss it, just like Person B probably also wouldn't notice a difference between 100 units and 99 units. In the sense that neither A or B really would notice a small change all that much, it's fair

Anyway, random thoughts from somebody who thinks steak is just kind of meh.

I think it's a spoof on the Western movie action sequence in which the hero leaps from the coach onto the backs of the horses, in order to rein them in.

Getting trapped in a building with a mass shooter is something very, very unlikely. On the other hand, I face the danger of death by automobile at least twice a day, on my ride to work, and my ride home. More, if I go other places. It may seem not that bad because it's so normalized. Dying in or under the wheels of a car is something that happens to people every single day, and it barely rates a mention in the local news. Sometimes the victim doesn't get even get a name. By contrast, the stochastic nature of mass shootings makes them scary, like plane crashes or terrorist attacks, the natural order of things is upended. Death is death, though, and I wouldn't be less dead if it were a texting driver rather than a gunman.

And the texting driver is a whole hell a of a lot more likely. So, yes, it's entirely logical that I'm afraid of that. Not being able to understand and denying that fear is exactly the kind of car-induced sociopathy that I'm talking about.

Throwing insults is not a discussion, by the way.

You're surprised that something that's not good enough is... not good enough?

You don't understand what fear is like?

They're not the same. This is privilege speaking, I know, but gun violence mostly occurs between people who know each other. I'm not in those circles or neighborhoods, so only the occasional mass shooting might affect me.

But cars? They're omnipresent. There's a steady stream of them in front of my home, so I can't avoid the danger. My life is threatened by cars every damn day, and my quality of life degraded by them. And you can't tell me that driving a car around a city is anything but sociopathic disregard for the well-being of others, because that's what it amounts to.

Cars as bad as guns? No, they're worse.

An automobile, at the end of the day, is a luxury item. A toy. Humanity existed for most of its history without cars, and even today, you can get to work or the grocery store without one. (Granted, often not easily, but that's only because we've made it difficult to get there any other way. But making it difficult was a deliberate policy choice designed to exclude poor people.) One could argue that the automobile is an anti-tool, as its use is making our lives materially worse (traffic violence, health impacts, pollution, ecosystem destruction, climate change, the burden on government and personal budgets), but that ignores a car's major function as a cultural identity marker, and for wealth signaling. We humans value that a lot. Consider, as but one common example, the enormous pickup truck used as a commuter vehicle, known as a pavement princess, bro-dozer, or gender-affirming vehicle.

In that way, they're exactly the same as firearms, which are most often today used as a cultural identity marker. (Often by the same people who drive a pavement princess, and in support of the same cultural identity.) Firearms are also also luxury toys in that people enjoy going to the firing range and blasting away hundreds of dollars for the enjoyment of it. But beyond that, the gun people have a pretty legit argument, too, that their firearms are tools used for hunting and self-defense. They are undeniably useful in certain contexts, and no substitute will do. One certainly wouldn't send mounted cavalry with sabers into war today.