Bay 12 Games Forum

Eh, that’s a flawed question anyway: actions don’t have morality, it’s the intent behind them that matters.

That's definitely the kind of heuristic folks that beat children like to hold to, heh. If the intent is "good", why, it's okay to break their arm to teach them right and wrong, yeah! All the pain and suffering in the world is a-okay if you're inflicting it with the right mindset... nevermind that sort of behavior's horribly flawed at best and actively detrimental more often. It's the intent that matters, not what you're doing.

Similar sort of canard that gets trotted out about raping someone straight, at times, now that I think about it.

... intent can make a difference in regards to whether or not something is moral, but there's quite a few actions that really do have a morality baked right into them, and no amount of (what someone thinks is) good intent or authority or anything can mitigate it. It's definitely not something I'd recommend holding as an absolute, 'cause it leads to some damn terrible places. Some shit just ain't right, and there ain't no making it right.

I, uh. If you're considering possible fraud in regards to citizenship status, please don't ask about it online, on an unsecured forum? That is 110% my best advice given with a great deal of emphasis.

Practically, don't fuck around with something that could end up with you fined or in jail or with some kind of black mark in your official history. If you're unsure about how your dual citizenship status will interact with the opportunities you're interested in, ask the people administrating them. Don't try to end run that sort of thing, it rarely ends well. If you're considering doing something you're framing as misleading, or worrying about getting caught doing it... stop. Think twice. Then don't do it. Take your steps to make sure there's not a problem instead of trying to figure out how to deceive any organization you're trying to work with.

Let's say I start doing carpentry work on my own, but get too much work to do on my own, so I hire people to help.  Now I have to spend more time finding work to keep everyone employed.  Also, making sure there is enough extra money for parts, tools, insurance, and work vehicles.  Suddenly I'm the enemy because I have employees?

Nah, you're the enemy because you're probably making some major markup over what you're paying them for their labor, heh, far in excess of what effort you're putting into handling logistics (assuming you're actually handling those logistics, anyway, and not just arranging jobs and soaking cash and letting everyone else involved deal with the rest). Good odds there's also some level of abuse thrown in there, too, because there often is and the system we're working in heavily encourages it.

Or in other words, no, at least not until you start treating them like an enemy, and then yes! Unfortunately, the nature of incentives involved means, barring something else stopping you, you're very, very likely to start doing that sooner or later.

Smaller scale operations are... I'unno if less abusive is quiet the right term, because they're absolutely chock full of abuse, but at least it's less likely the head honcho(s) are completely divorced from ground level operations and steadily accruing the literal brainrot that we've found can accompany high wealth/authority positions? It's something. Generally less of a problem than the blighters that are the primary drivers of anti-union sentiment, at the absolute least.

I almost think we don't need labor unions, but we need consumer unions.  Collective bargaining for housing, for instance.  I dunno how you'd swing that, to be honest, but it's an interesting thought.  Make a resident-owned real-estate conglomerate, with the goal not of making money, but of keeping prices down.

Uh, swinging that is what you call price/rent controls? "Consumer union" is ostensibly a, y'know... government. They do things like that sometimes, and oh but does it make certain talking heads howl.

That's also where a universal labor union would be coming from, for that matter. Tighten up labor laws and employee protections to the point you de facto have one, basically. Anything lower level than that and by the time you actually have it, you... have a government built up.

It's not even an impossible thought to think, you'd just need to see a lot of CEOs at a minimum get their back broken, and I'm not sure how metaphorical that condition would be. Then you'd need a persistent effort to keep those backs shattered in perpetuity.

My other concerns are the unions are targeting the employers - which are the entities that generally are actually creating wealth - instead of targeting the industries that are charging people lots of money.  You don't get a functional economy by stressing the entities that actually create wealth.

I mean, you're not entirely wrong on that last sentence, but you're wildly wrong on the first? Employers rarely create much or any wealth, they extract it from employees and anyone else they can manage to squeeze money out of. That's functionally the entire friggin' point of a capitalist system, at the end of the day, folks with money/administrative control shaving wealth off the efforts of workers. It's one of the reasons the greatest type of theft in the US by a pretty bloody long shot is wage theft.

Weird to call that fraud, though. Near as I can tell, the worst it could be is an election law violation that would have seen more, uh. Actual voter's votes counted. Literally ensuring more of the local area's voting population had their franchise recognized. The case found no indication of any malfeasance regarding the ballots themselves, just maybe how they were delivered.

No deception, ballot doctoring, or anything of the sort involved, just (possibly) an end-run done around a state law built to make it harder to vote.

Raw powdered, at least with the potatoes (other seasonings was the curry, parsley, and a bit of cayenne, preseasoned with a smidge of olive oil to help coat prior to air frying). The sorta'-hash it was turned into had a bit of brown sugar (and more curry and rosemary) in the meat, though. Full thing had a bit of butter, some cheese, and a sprinkle of bacon bits, topped with unsalted ketchup (not sure who else sells it but heinz... it's a little sweeter than salted ketchup, and I've gotten where I actually like the taste better).

The glaze stuff I was doing with powdered sugar, iirc... it's been a while, so it's entirely possible I was doing something else and have just forgot, heh. The porkchop actually used unsweetened apple sauce last time I made it -- above and beyond actually preferring the taste, I was cooking for a diabetic as well and just plain apple sauce is plenty on the carbs front.

Had read something in the last few days that noted cinnamon being used as seasoning for stuff like veggies and rice, and did the usual "well hell, let's see what happens". Apparently it's something of a thing in some middle eastern cuisine, or... something like that? Already forgot the details, but at least if some random author is to be trusted it's an existent practice in some real-life cultures.

Worst came to worst it'd just be somewhat funky tasting spud, and it actually turned out pretty good, so...