As I understand it, there was one timeline in the nineties where he came in a “birthing pod”, just so he’d be born in the US. That’s been changed again since; aside from that weirdness, he’s always been an immigrant.
Which makes sense - wasn’t his concept conceived by two Jewish immigrants who wanted to give their spin on what an actual Übermensch would be like, as opposed to what Nazi Germany was putting out? Pretty sure that’s how he got his name…
Same! I ended up with a kinda stock answer (“all over the state!”), but that still leads to a story. Which is the point of the question, I guess.
(I’m a preacher’s kid, hence the moving!)
I think the wording is crucial on this point, yes. I’m open to terms like “earned”, or “justifies”.
“Deserves” has moral connotations to it. As we see now in the US, it’s extremely dangerous to associate moral qualities with economic outcomes.
Also, my original objection was to the question, “Is every human equal?” There, I have no semantic qualifiers - all humans are created equal, and deserve equal rights. Full stop.
My main disagreement with your point is the word “deserve”. I don’t actually have a problem with an economic system that rewards some activities more than others, as long as there’s a humane baseline for everyone. But I think that’s absolutely an economic choice, and not the only reasonable one.
“Deserve” implies to me that there’s a moral system judging one activity as more worthy, or better, than another; rather than simply being more valuable to a particular economic model. It seems like a short step from that to deciding some people are more worthy than others.
Can’t find it now, but I remember seeing an interview where George Lucas said it was very deliberate.
Nah, most of humanity at least is either living idyllic lives, or chose to live on a frontier world or research station or something. Starfleet’s just the exploratory arm of the Federation; but that’s where most of the fun stories are!
“No, what I’m doing is different!”
let me also ask this: is every single human equal?
Yes. Why is this even a question?
A lot of people know kids are expensive, but very few non-parents really grasp just how expensive - the nickels and dimes turn into fifties and hundreds pretty fast.
And that’s before you run into things like medical complications!
You’re not wrong, and I feel like it was a developing problem even before AI - everybody wanted someone with experience, even if the technology was brand new.
That said, even if you and I will be fine, it’s still bad for the industry. And even if we weren’t the ones pulling up the ladder behind us, I’d still like to find a way to start throwing ropes back down for the newbies…
No, but that’s the only way you get senior engineers!
Yeah, it sounds like the “escort an immigrant” drives have been pretty effective so far - it sounds like they’re pretty conflict avoidant when they don’t have overwhelming force. So far, at least.
My fear for the software industry is that we’ll end up replacing junior devs with AI assistance, and then in a decade or two, we’ll see a lack of mid-level and senior devs, because they never had a chance to enter the industry.
The difference being junior engineers eventually grow up into senior engineers.
Okay, I’m not a huge griller, but wouldn’t it be better just to build in a thermostat? Let it maintain its own temperature?
Ironsworn was my first exposure to a fiction-first game! I didn’t really gel with the setting, but still really like the mechanics. Ended up backing Starforged (and later Sundered Isles), that seems like a much better fit for me!
Crispy and juicy, now you’re havin’ a snack
Mine would crack up and switch to that
GURPS is my go-to system. It’s incredibly flexible, both in what it allows you to do as a player, and what kind of game you can run as a GM.
It’s an older system, and by default is rather simulationist - it grew out of the same tabletop wargaming that D&D did, and tends to take a more realistic approach to what players can do than more narrative systems. I like some of the more narrative systems as well - Starforged is my other go-to system - but the characters always feel a little more loosely defined to me. GURPS is perfectly happy saying “okay, you can fly, you can turn invisible, and you can’t be killed” - but if you want to make your character more nuanced, it’s not only possible, but encouraged!
On the other hand, if you just want to throw something together and go, you can do that too! One of my players has a character sheet that consists of their racial abilities, 5 or 6 regular skills, and a high level “Security!” wildcard skill. And 3 guns. They’re a nightmare in combat, because “Security!” is their all-in-one skill with pistols and melee combat, along with anything else a person with a security background would be expected to know - it’s been rolled against to evaluate patrol schedules, reading a foe’s body language, and shadowing a mark, among other things. That character plays alongside someone with three different templates (classes), a mount, a bevy of different equipment options, and something like 55 different skills - because that player -wanted- that kind of detail. And they’re both very effective in their domains, and play off of each other well.
That’s the thing that really sticks out to me about GURPS - it’s very playable with a very minimal ruleset (GURPS Ultra-Lite is free, and 2 pages - http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/ultra-lite/), and can seamlessly expand when you want more detail. And not only are there a lot of options for that detail, they also show their work - so if you’re still missing something, you can generally still come up with reasonable rules. It just gets a reputation for being super complicated because the people who discover it tend to get excited and throw everything in…
And in six weeks… It’s time to change your password! No repeats.