I Can't Believe It's Not An Index CCXXXIII - Jasdoif's Random Banter #233

[Rater202]

So, changing subjects.

You live your life, for good or for bad, and die at the end of it... Then you get reborn.

Or rather, you just sort of... Come into existence, at the appropriate age, during the time and place of a fictional story of your choice, and you get involved in the narrative, so to speak, with it changing due to your involvement.

You have whatever is appropriate for your involvement in the narrative.

If you get to choose where you go, where do you go?

[Peelee]

With a train of thought, yes I do consider that. I know that poverty and homelessness are still an issue today and people are trying to survive as best as possible. But there are some shelters and programs can help them get home and jobs.

Those shelters and programs fill up quick. There is a large demand and low supply. Not to mention the people who couldn't get jobs even if there were magically enough programs available.

You have a very rose-colored view with very simplistic solutions to a very complex problem.

[Anonymouswizard]

Those shelters and programs fill up quick. There is a large demand and low supply. Not to mention the people who couldn't get jobs even if there were magically enough programs available.

You have a very rose-colored view with very simplistic solutions to a very complex problem.

I have a very simple solution. It just costs roughly one crapload of monies.

Oh sure, it doesn't magically make them employable, but my solution would at least give them the free time to gain knowledge, skills, or qualifications as suited them.

[Bartmanhomer]

Those shelters and programs fill up quick. There is a large demand and low supply. Not to mention the people who couldn't get jobs even if there were magically enough programs available.

You have a very rose-colored view with very simplistic solutions to a very complex problem.

I'm low on answers so yeah. I'm sure you have a better solution than mine.

[Peelee]

I have a very simple solution. It just costs roughly one crapload of monies.

Oh sure, it doesn't magically make them employable, but my solution would at least give them the free time to gain knowledge, skills, or qualifications as suited them.

I like solution. It would also allow care for those who could not really gain knowledge, skills, or qualifications.

[Lord Raziere]

So, changing subjects.

You live your life, for good or for bad, and die at the end of it... Then you get reborn.

Or rather, you just sort of... Come into existence, at the appropriate age, during the time and place of a fictional story of your choice, and you get involved in the narrative, so to speak, with it changing due to your involvement.

You have whatever is appropriate for your involvement in the narrative.

If you get to choose where you go, where do you go?

.....I wake up in El Goonish Shive. Whenever is fine. Just as long as its in El Goonish Shive.

[Mystic Muse]

.....I wake up in El Goonish Shive. Whenever is fine. Just as long as its in El Goonish Shive.

I concur. Seems like one of the better universes to wake up in.

[Jasdoif]

I have a very simple solution. It just costs roughly one crapload of monies.

Oh sure, it doesn't magically make them employable, but my solution would at least give them the free time to gain knowledge, skills, or qualifications as suited them.

Well if we're into quasi-solutions that call for a crapload of monies....Mine would be heavy research/development/infrastructure for food production, particularly crop yield and long-term viability/storage; until the point where tracking older-but-still-edible food costs more than can be recovered selling it, is high enough that it could cover everyone unable (or unwilling) to buy fresher food. Attacking the poverty level itself, in other words; Once charity is more profitable than sales, and there's enough charity to go around, we're that much closer to food being as accessible as air.

A series of pipe dreams, I admit; but beating down the base level will outlast a one-time injection over of the top of it.

[Keltest]

So, changing subjects.

You live your life, for good or for bad, and die at the end of it... Then you get reborn.

Or rather, you just sort of... Come into existence, at the appropriate age, during the time and place of a fictional story of your choice, and you get involved in the narrative, so to speak, with it changing due to your involvement.

You have whatever is appropriate for your involvement in the narrative.

If you get to choose where you go, where do you go?

Do we remember our old lives at all?

[Rater202]

Do we remember our old lives at all?

Yes, but things will change to account for your presence and things like chaos theory and multiverse theory can be a bitch.

[Keltest]

Yes, but things will change to account for your presence and things like chaos theory and multiverse theory can be a bitch.

Cool. I reincarnate as myself, at about age 17, after having memorized the winning powerball numbers.

[Beeftank]

I guess I’d do Harry Potter, get sorted into Hufflepuff and tell Professor Lupin and Dumbledore everything day one of Harry’s third year. Everything sorts itself out and I spend the rest of the time getting Os in muggle studies and annoying the other Hogwarts students with my obsession with American Muggle sports.

[Rater202]

Cool. I reincarnate as myself, at about age 17, after having memorized the winning powerball numbers.

I did specify fictional story, so unless you're claiming t be a work of fiction that's not really an option.

[halfeye]

Those shelters and programs fill up quick. There is a large demand and low supply. Not to mention the people who couldn't get jobs even if there were magically enough programs available.

You have a very rose-colored view with very simplistic solutions to a very complex problem.

In the UK welfare is actually a thing.

Housing is still an issue, but survival generally isn't.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well if we're into quasi-solutions that call for a crapload of monies....Mine would be heavy research/development/infrastructure for food production, particularly crop yield and long-term viability/storage; until the point where tracking older-but-still-edible food costs more than can be recovered selling it, is high enough that it could cover everyone unable (or unwilling) to buy fresher food. Attacking the poverty level itself, in other words; Once charity is more profitable than sales, and there's enough charity to go around, we're that much closer to food being as accessible as air.

A series of pipe dreams, I admit; but beating down the base level will outlast a one-time injection over of the top of it.

Eh, given we already produce enough food to feed the world the issue is with period who can't what's already there. Therefore e need to increase the resources of those in poverty until everybody has enough to rest and a dog over their head.

However the way I'd do this would be controversial, and I'd want to ruin it but an economist before implementing it.

In the UK welfare is actually a thing.

Housing is still an issue, but survival generally isn't.

Also this. Sadly it has to be used when companies won't pay their employees a decent wage (which is even worse in London, where rent is so much higher). It's not nice, but It works for what it's intended (keep people alive and looking for better jobs

[Rater202]

Eh, given we already produce enough food to feed the world the issue is with period who can't what's already there. Therefore e need to increase the resources of those in poverty until everybody has enough to rest and a dog over their head.

Yeah.

I'm not gonna link it because it has a lot of board forbidden language, but I recommend the Dorkly video "If Thanos had an assistant" because it manages to quickly and concisely explain why the "overpopulation theory" and "scarcity" theories of starvation and poverty just... Just doesn't make sense.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah.

I'm not gonna link it because it has a lot of board forbidden language, but I recommend the Dorkly video "If Thanos had an assistant" because it manages to quickly and concisely explain why the "overpopulation theory" and "scarcity" theories of starvation and poverty just... Just doesn't make sense.

I'm sure I'm aware of most of it already, I've been very careful to not actually describe what I'd do and the problems with it for similar reasons.

I hate to say it, but trying to seduce death was the more logical motivation. Not that I've seen Infinityb War or read the comic, but it feels to me like reducing the population by half isn't going to stop the problem, and any issues it does done will be back within a fairly insignificant couple of centuries.

[Tarmor]

Eh, given we already produce enough food to feed the world the issue is with period who can't what's already there. Therefore e need to increase the resources of those in poverty until everybody has enough to rest and a dog over their head.

Can't see that working for most people... unless I can trade the dog for a cat?

[Anonymouswizard]

Can't see that working for most people... unless I can trade the dog for a cat?

There is a typo, dog is of course supposed to be bagel. Or roof I suppose.

There may be other types as well, I hadn't had breakfast.

[Keltest]

I did specify fictional story, so unless you're claiming t be a work of fiction that's not really an option.

Unfortunately, a version of my life where i have lots and lots of money seems to be destined to remain fictional.

[Rater202]

I'm sure I'm aware of most of it already, I've been very careful to not actually describe what I'd do and the problems with it for similar reasons.

That was a general recommendation, not to you specifically.

The video doesn't really go into the politics of it. I'm not linking it because "Kevin the Supervillain assistant" cusses up a storm in the video and his swears of choice are centered by the forum.

I hate to say it, but trying to seduce death was the more logical motivation. Not that I've seen Infinity War or read the comic, but it feels to me like reducing the population by half isn't going to stop the problem, and any issues it does done will be back within a fairly insignificant couple of centuries.

Both takes of Thanos are equally insane, but MCU Thanos is also kind of stupid.

Like, in the comics, Thanos had a valid reason to think his plan would work: After getting a glimpse of Death and falling in love with her, she approached him and said "there are too many beings alive in the universe. Gather the infinity stones and use them to kill half of all life to balance the scales and we can be together."

Granted, later depciions of Death as a neutral or even benevolent force and Thanos as her creepy stalker suggest that she never actually thought he'd be able to pull it off and was just trying to get rid of him, but the point stands.

[Keltest]

I mean, my read was that Thanos not actually fixing anything was the whole point. He's a madman sulking about how nobody listened to him, not a genuine altruist.

[Fyraltari]

I mean, my read was that Thanos not actually fixing anything was the whole point. He's a madman sulking about how nobody listened to him, not a genuine altruist.

Thing is, in neither film does someone point out how stupid a plan it is, leaving many with the impression that acxording to the movies Thanos' plan would work.

[Keltest]

Thing is, in neither film does someone point out how stupid a plan it is, leaving many with the impression that acxording to the movies Thanos' plan would work.

I mean, his own kids call him a madman and at no point does anybody even entertain the idea that maybe Thanos has a point. Its one of those things where it doesnt really need to be called out as horrible, because it is visibly so.

[Anonymouswizard]

And yet people miss the point...

[Fyraltari]

I mean, his own kids call him a madman and at no point does anybody even entertain the idea that maybe Thanos has a point. Its one of those things where it doesnt really need to be called out as horrible, because it is visibly so.

The thing is because it's never adressed people assume that the heroes think Thanos is a madman and oppose his plan solely out of moral outrage (as in "killing 1/2 of the universe is monstruous even if it works") rather than moral outrage AND because it's a stupid plan that would never work anyway.

[Keltest]

The thing is because it's never adressed people assume that the heroes think Thanos is a madman and oppose his plan solely out of moral outrage (as in "killing 1/2 of the universe is monstruous even if it works") rather than moral outrage AND because it's a stupid plan that would never work anyway.

Whether it would work or not isnt really the focus of the movie, and its certainly not an important topic in the context of them trying to stop him from doing it.

[Tvtyrant]

The thing is because it's never adressed people assume that the heroes think Thanos is a madman and oppose his plan solely out of moral outrage (as in "killing 1/2 of the universe is monstruous even if it works") rather than moral outrage AND because it's a stupid plan that would never work anyway.

Probably that is because it is unimportant? Thanos never convinces anyone to switch sides or even tries to, it is irrelevant whether the giant evil alien is right in committing universal mass murder from a practical standpoint.

It is kind of like if a movie had a corporation that released a virus that they had already made a vaccine for, and the main character went "Actually a precipitous decline in population would lead to hyperinflation so your stock value will fall even with record sales." That is not actually the point.

[Anonymouswizard]

'This plan wouldn't work, he's attacking the symptoms and not the cause.'

Insert that line into a event where his plans are discussed, boom, done.

Sadly because his goals aren't as selfish as, for example, Father's (FMA) many people don't think about them being the most surface level, where maybe it seems like he might have a point? I mean, Father's atrocities pale in comparison (except for maybe one act), but because it's clear he's not doing this out of one silver of altruism it doesn't seem like he has a point at all.

[Keltest]

'This plan wouldn't work, he's attacking the symptoms and not the cause.'

Insert that line into a event where his plans are discussed, boom, done.

Sadly because his goals aren't as selfish as, for example, Father's (FMA) many people don't think about them being the most surface level, where maybe it seems like he might have a point? I mean, Father's atrocities pale in comparison (except for maybe one act), but because it's clear he's not doing this out of one silver of altruism it doesn't seem like he has a point at all.

Its already such a big story that they split it into two movies. And you want them to add a scene where they just sit around complaining about Thanos without advancing the plot or the action?