Signtist

Signtist , 4 months ago

If it was realistic to expect people to do that, fast food wouldn't be the enormous moneymaker it is.

Signtist , 4 months ago

It doesn't matter if you're blind or not if you're not going to bother to look. Most people simply don't assess their media for underlying messages. They see Professor X as the good guy and Magneto as a bad guy, and don't think any more about them. They don't ask how or why they can be identified as the protagonist/antagonist, they just identify the general alignment and that's it.

Signtist , 4 months ago

Yeah, we can't hear the tone in their voices, but these little jabs would make me concerned if they weren't clearly joking. I'd feel very insecure if my wife were constantly reminding me that she's ready to bolt at a moment's notice if things get the slightest bit tough. We'd never have made it this far if we weren't willing to work things out when the future looks bleak.

Signtist , 4 months ago

I don't see any sugar. This guy made lemon juice instead of lemonade - no wonder life keeps giving him more lemons.

Signtist , 4 months ago

There's no reason to try any harder than this. Most people who will see this tweet won't look at the handle or the replies - they're read the tweet, then move on. And if they see enough of these tweets, they may just internalize the notion that unions aren't worth it. It's better for Amazon to make more tweets than it is for them to make better tweets. And it's not like they're going to see any repercussions for trying to maliciously influence their employees.

Signtist , 4 months ago

I'd be worried that I couldn't change back. I'd choose flight, since none of the other dragon stuff feels too useful besides just being strong.

Signtist , 4 months ago

I like to focus on my shoulders. If I notice they're scrunched, I lower them, and the rest of my body tends to follow suit.

Signtist , 4 months ago

Don't worry, I was also confused as to why she was wearing a towel in a high-tech laser science lab.

Signtist , 4 months ago

Correct, but you won't know if they think you're gross until you talk to them. If you see that they think you're gross, you stop. It's harassment when you see that they think you're gross but continue talking to them anyway, because at that point you know they aren't going to respond well to you, and you're just continuing on to spite them.

Signtist , 4 months ago

Well, if you're actively trying to hide your disgust from someone, it's because you don't want them to know, at which point you obviously can't expect them to react to it. Ultimately, it's not about you trying to divine someone's real feelings, instead it's about reacting to what they do show you. It's the responsibility of everyone who interacts with others in a public space to be knowledgeable about both verbal and nonverbal cues that someone's not interested, so that they can display and/or recognize them as required.

Signtist , 4 months ago

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.

Signtist , 4 months ago

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.

Signtist , 4 months ago

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.

Signtist , 5 months ago

The issue is that people generally view their situation not by how much they have, but how much more they have than others. It's like a race to these people - who's winning isn't based on how close to the goal they are, it's based on how far ahead of the competitors they are. People who have everything they need often see others getting to that same point as competitors catching up, and, seeing that they are not advancing themselves, they feel that they need to prevent that in order to maintain their lead. It's meant to be everyone working together, but few see it that way, especially among the current "winners."

Signtist , 5 months ago

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."

Signtist , 5 months ago

This study is about the immense magnitude of cat predation, and your takeaway is that we shouldn't limit owned cat predation simply because un-owned cat predation is higher...

We estimate that cats in the contiguous United States annually kill between 1.3 and 4.0 billion birds (median=2.4 billion) (Fig. 1a), with ∼69% of this mortality caused by un-owned cats. The predation estimate for un-owned cats was higher primarily due to predation rates by this group averaging three times greater than rates for owned cats.

This study estimates that annual bird deaths by owned cat predation in the US is around a 750 million median figure, and you're just fine with that?

Signtist , 5 months ago

To be fair, as a democrat, I generally view conservative voters as easily-misled people - essentially "dumb," I view conservative leaders as thugs trying to overthrow America, and I view conservative corporate heads as ruling class elites. When you're using such an overarching term as "Conservative" or "Left" it comes with the unsaid caveat that there are many subgroups that can differ greatly from one another.

Signtist , 5 months ago

The conservative voters I know all stand for one thing: stubbornness. They make a decision to do something, they do it until they die, and they take great pride in doing so.

It's essentially vikings if, instead of needing to die in battle to get to Valhalla, you needed to die of an easily-preventable disease because you never got that weird lump checked out, because if you'd admitted you had a problem you'd be weak, which is worse than death.

Signtist , 5 months ago

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: when a company does something that shows it doesn’t have its customers’ best interests in mind, it's imperative that it be immediately and wholly abandoned.

Companies have long since learned that we'll ignore major red flags for the sake of convenience, and at this point they're not even trying to hide the flags - they're proudly flying them and laughing as we continue to give them business.

Signtist , 6 months ago

I had this issue with my last address, so when I moved to my current house and started seeing mail for the previous owner as well as what I assume to be the owner before him, I immediately wrote 'No longer at this address, return to sender" on all mail that wasn't for me - even spam mail - and made a support ticket on the USPS website. I felt like it was a bit overkill, but I did stop seeing mail for other people pretty quickly.

Dunno how quick Royal Mail would be comparatively, but maybe they'd be just as effective as USPS was for me.

Signtist , 8 months ago

The Best Ways to Stand Up to your Bully

1. Just give him your lunch money. It is one of the easiest ways to stand up to your bully.

Signtist , 10 months ago

Congrats! You don't have fetal alcohol syndrome!