There’s a truly great indie beat-em-up RPG with Brian David Gilbert that just released called: INK INSIDE and it’s on sale for $15.

Here’s some advice from someone with a high nat charisma role on birth:

Gaining friends, lovers, or even acquaintances isn’t a goal to be worked towards - rather - the best kinds of these relationships are byproducts of mutual interest and experiences.

If your efforts are only going towards showing up at social events to participate in small talk, then no wonder it feels like you’re coming home from work. Because that’s the same behavior expected at work.

This “social script” we’re expected to follow at work is to maintain social standing to get work done, rather than grow and deepen connections.

Basically, work socialization and personal socialization should be approached differently, and taking the work approach to your private life will likely lead to the same kind of relationships you’re building at work: simple and makes your work easier. (Rather than relationships that are deep, and make your life more colorful.)

Here’s something to try the next time you find a group you want to be a part of:

• 1st: Don’t talk about work itself. Talk about the actions you take at work. Don’t say, “I work in sales” say “I sell shit to those that don’t need it.”

Talk about the specific actions you take, in work or anywhere else, and personalize them.

The fundamentals of any relationship are built on the aligned behaviors of individuals. The easiest way to determine if the way you behave is similar to others is to talk about how you act. And if you can add in your own opinion about those actions, even better. These small things communicate who you are much better than anything else. Actions speak louder than words, so try your best to speak about yourself as the actions you take - use verbs to describe yourself, not nouns.

• 2nd: Don’t talk about yourself unless asked. Instead, engage with others to learn about them. Specially, what actions they like.

If you know someone is interested in something like bikes. Don’t ask what bikes they like, ask if they “like the thrill of downhill mountain biking,” or “prefer a chill bike ride through the park.”

Do they watch movies? Don’t ask “did you like that Movie?” Rather, ask “did you like pacing of that Movie?”

Verbs should also be at the heart of your inquiries into others, as they describe the actions others have that might align with yours.

That is - good relationships are built on mutual action, not mutual interest.

So don’t ask, “How was work?” ask “What projects are you working on?” Then follow that inquiry up with more specifics on their behaviour through that project - “How hard was the project to complete? Who got in your way?”

Basically, socialize as if the people you want to hang around are all the main characters within their own show. They have adventures, villians, love interests, etc - and just spending time learning what those are, will make them feel closer to you. Once you know enough about them, you can begin asking them about the events in their own show. That is, in time, your small talk will grow from, “how was work?” to “did you get your evil manager fired over their bullshit harrasment?”

And that’s the difference between a friend, and someone you know at work.

Eventually, when you learn about these people more, you’ll discover the behaviour they have that aligns with yours. And eventually, you’ll begin doing stuff together with them.

They like casual bike rides? Cool, give it a shot with them! They like seeing matinees on Sunday? Cool join em!

The more you show an interest in how people behave, the more likely it is they will want to include you as part of that behaviour.

• 3rd. Encourage others. Be their hype man.

You know how they act? Great. Encourage it. Sometimes, even encourage it with you included.

They love bike riding? Great. Tell them about the park near your house they should try. Heck. You can even join em.

People often have goals tied to their favorite behaviours. If you know what those goals are, you can encourage them to pursue them. When they succeed, you will now be a part of it they’ll remember.

In time, you keep up the above, you’ll be surrounded by people you know well, and whom you’ve shared a lot of activities with.

And they will without question enjoy you in their lives for it.

At the heart of Fascism is ignorance. Ignorance can be readily defeated, we just haven’t figured out the best way to do so in the information age with social media creating BS faster than facts. Time keeps going, and beyond the coming tide of Fascism, is something else. As long as we can stay informed, and educated, Fascism can be overcome. It’s never taken hold permanantly because it’s built on unstable bullshit and populism. It will come, it will pass, and when it does, whoever left will want to move avawy from the ignorance that caused this rise of Fascism in the first place.

AI to run companies in sustainably profitable ways that benefits their workers instead of rich greedy sociopaths.

Our educations system has been in decline for the last 20 years. Instead foreign money has combine with private interests to blast us with complete made up bullshit propaganda 24/7. Almost all of our major news sources are now owned or operated by MAGA donors, who care more about money than public well being. Basically, half this country is now too stupid to determine if the information they’re viewing is corporate propaganda, or foreign government propaganda. Both are exploitative, and both want Americans sick because it’s profitable to them. So despite having a president that publicly threw out our pandemic response killing more Americans than in all the wars we’ve ever faught in combined - 4 years later we reelected him. That’s how bad the propaganda is here. Combined with poor education, we can no longer agree on how basic cause and effect works.

TL:DR - We’re now too stupid and hopped up on propaganda to understand how preventing diseases works.

It’s because billionaires are pussies. They will get upset over the slightest inconvenience, or insult, because the money they have has insulated them from the consequences of their actions.

They’re so used to being praised, and getting their way with everything, that the thought of people not like liking them upsets them greatly.

And the dislike is warranted because most billionaires use their money to buy social credit instead of earning it. They don’t add anything to society, they just pay as much as they can to get artificial praise from it.

For example, Musk bought X, and used it to promote his own BS to make himself popular.

Alternatively, the idiot could have simply rented a blimp and thrown the same 44 billion out of it all across America.

That would without question make him more popular than X has, to the point where people would likely build statues of him.

Instead, he cowers in fear of the word CIS on Twitter because it hurts his feelings.

Now, since he can’t remove the word CIS from reality, he gets scared people will hate him for expressing that desire. And they should hate him, because that opinion can only be formed in a bubble where you don’t experience reality. Aka extreme wealth.

Billionaires use their money to remove themselves from the consequences of their actions.

Free speech is the easiest way to express what those consequences would be in a more natural order.

They fear the violence their greed and behavior has created. They’re just too stupid to understand how one leads to the other.

Reddit is proof of how sensitive they are to this fear. The simplest gesture of protest can go a long way to upset them. Because they’re huge cowards.

I’m surprised I had to scroll this far to see Jinjer! Seriously impressive vocals, and absolutley one of my favorite female metal vocalists.

Agreed!

Reddit brain drain has been happening for years, and it’s already embarrassing how much the quality of posts has dropped. Now it’s about to get so much worse.

Let me explain this simply so you understand the point I am making:

What would you have Ukraine do? Slow down their conscription? Stop it entirely?

Alright, heres the game theory results on how changing their conscription rates will effect this war and it’s consequences:

Outcome 1: No changes to conscription, Ukraine wins the war. Russia leaves their territory.

Result: hundreds of thousands of dead, you get to complain about how many died from conscription. Most importantly, this war doesn’t reach Europe.

Because once it does, all those images of war you’ve seen will get much much worse, and the body count much much higher.

This is the likely outcome of all our other options.

Outcome 2: Ukraine changes their conscription laws. Less are forced to enroll to defend their country. Their population is MAGNITUDES smaller than Russias, so without the broader conscription laws, they no longer have a fighting force large enough to withstand the endless wall of North Korean and Russian meat being thrown at them.

Result 2: Russia steam rolls Ukraine. Gets a foot hold on Europe. Declares war on NATO. Starts WW3 and likely the end of peace and modern civilization as we know it. Death toll in the millions, and lots of worse war pictures for you to clutch your pearls about.

But hey, Ukraine no longer exists, so you don’t have to be critical of their rough conscription laws anymore!

Outcome 3: Ukraine loses the war anyway. The above happens anyway.

Result 3: Again. No reason to be critical of their conscription laws, because they don’t exist as a country now.

Sure, it would have been nice if they had a fighting force large enough to stop Russia’s push into NATO and Europe. Especially considering the force that has historically stood up to this bullshit on the world stage, the US, has now broke bad and aligns with Russia.

Ukraine is not just defending themselves. They are defending the entirety of Europe and NATO, which is why there’s so many emergency meetings being held to by both to help them.

Point being. Ukraine conscription is a necessary evil to prevent the worst outcome of Russias actions. If you want to be critical about death and war, then maybe understand how worse WW3 would make all of this, and how Ukrainian conscription is literally the biggest thing holding it back.

Because that’s how NATO and the Ukraine see it. And that’s how you should see it too. Thinking otherwise, that this isn’t a very likely threat, is to ignore all the images of war you want me to look at.

Ukraine conscription is to prevent those images from being all across Europe.

My dude. So you understand what a war is and how it works?

Do you understand how Russia has done the same?

Do you understand how 500,000 Russians are now dead because of that?

Do you understand that those 500,000 dead Russians are invading a country they promised peace with in 1995?

Do you ultimately understand the point you are making is about how the citizens of the Ukraine are being forced by Russia to either fight for their country or die?

Because that is the policy you are defending despite it clearly being the reason there’s 500,000 dead Russians and not the other way around.

If you want to decry military enlistment as “evil” then you are by far picking the worst example. Russia is far worse in their policies, with a far higher body count, and they are the reason anyone is dying at all.

Which means you are either making your arguments out of bad faith or pure stupidity.

If your argument was made in WW2 it would be about how evil the US is for defending Pearl Harbor.

I wonder what the Ukrainian people want.

Especially the ones misplaced to the US by a war Russia started, and now have to return to a war zone because the USA is now politically aligned with Russia, and willing to break international treaties, law, and ethics if it gets them Putins favor.

You’re an absolute idiot it you can’t comprehend the international seppuku the USA has just committed by failing to help displaced war refugees, and instead now helps their aggressors.

Anyone with a shred of humanity would see this as the evil bullshit it is.

Instead, you’re pointing out that a country at war needs to conscript troops. No shit. Check out how Russia is doing it, if you want a real comparison to call inhumane.