It’s been a while but I remember enjoying filling out the Assassins Creed 4 map and doing all of the side quests.

I like when I can unlock the fast travel towers for a region and it will tell me where all of the side stuff is. Also love LotR: Shadow of War for similar reasons.

Blast Corp 64

Folks. We got him.

Hardspace: Shipbreaker is super fun and plays well on the deck

Great class consciousness

The Bass break-in 100% reads like some CIA mind control gone mad.

This CNN article makes sure to include shit like this to keep my conspiracy brain on full blast:

The break-in happened on the morning of April 21, during the security officers’ morning shift change when there was a “short gap” of time when an officer was not on the property, Los Angeles Police Chief Dominic Choi said Tuesday. Police have remedied the scheduling gap with an overlap in shifts, he said.

I would never use a on a fourth grader

Check out Oxygen Not Included

–I’m leftofthat. 😊

I got a couple of friends into Baldurs Gate 3 and we’ve had a regular weekly game night going for over a month now it’s been super fun

Healthcare costs are significant and for the wealthy, paying for something with pre-tax money is like 40% savings. That’s significant to anyone, especially given the cost of receiving the benefit (next to nothing).

Its because health insurance is also a huge scam. So it makes economic sense to ditch insurance once you can pay cash for everything.

HSAs are just tax breaks for wealthy people who are already paying cash for medical treatment

Loyalty cards are free

To be clear you don’t need to have money invested/growing in order to retire. You just need money. Putting $50 in a jar is still $50 you’ll have in retirement to spend on something. Nothing unethical about that.

But to counter inflation and sometimes just for the sake of wanting more, you can take an additional step of investing your money so that it makes more money. That passive income needs to come from somewhere.

If you invest in stocks, it’s coming from the company’s exploitation of its workers to generate profits (in addition to other rent seeking behavior; many companies own sizable real estate investments).

If you invest in real estate, it’s coming from rents.

If you invest in funds, it probably owns stocks or real estate.

What you’re really asking for is a way to generate passive income without exploiting anyone. But this is a solved problem. The answer is a government entitlement program that folks can pay into (i.e. Social Security). It’s just been gutted by Congress. Did they remove the only general ethical option for investing for retirement? Maybe.

This isn’t to say there aren’t places where each of us feel we could put our money and have it grow without feeling part of something unethical. Maybe a local business could use an investment and be happy to pay back interest. Some folks are morally opposed to government bonds but I think they’re fine as an option.

And thinking of investments outside of the box a bit can help too. Spending money today to upgrade or buy better things can itself have a future return on investment and be equally good of an investment strategy than putting money in a savings account.

They usually say that too eventually. Have a good one.

Damn those are some bleak options, yeah. Almost like the US is a capitalist hellscape or something.

“Join us or perish” is what they seem to be signaling, yeah.

Apparently you see that as only having two choices and are going with “join them,” which is fine I’m not your morality coach. I’m certainly not asking you to sit down and die.

You can rationalize it all you want. That you have no choice but to participate. I hear it all the time from people telling me to vote for Biden.

I addressed pensions in my initial comment.

Most pension funds have a similar issue in that they are investing in rent seeking etc. But unlike 401ks, pensions carry with them significant political power than can influence where the money is going. This is (imo) why they are being gutted in favor of individual 401k accounts.

Unions and pensions can be powerful tools. They’re being replaced by Independent Contractors and 401ks.

If a pension fund looks identical to a 401k index fund then yeah I’d have the same opinion.

Just to clarify: a 401k is just a savings account that is tax deferred. By itself that doesn’t make any money or interest. Most people then take that money and have it invested. That’s what I’m commenting on.

The return in a 401k is from (typically) a managed fund or an index fund. It’s a good return, as you note. That’s because it’s largely from rent extraction.

It’s a great deal if you are ok with functionally owning a small apartment in some other state where a family pays half their paycheck so that you get your 5% return on investment. But know that is what is happening.

The whole “I have no other choice” position is past any point I’m trying to make. I don’t know anyone’s specific situation.