Probably not real, but if real, the graphic designer was probably 20 years old.

On one hand, bio power armor gives you an edge in mass and possibly strength. On the other hand, if the skeleton is moving, it’s animated by magic, and who knows what the limits of its magic are.

Also, while skin is “armor” of a sort, it’s pretty pathetic armor. What were some of the earliest knives used for? Cutting flesh, a.k.a. bio armor. What were some of those early knives made from? Bone.

And your bio armor: what is it protecting? Vulnerable blood vessels and organs inside the body. What vulnerabilities does a skeleton have? Probably none?

Then there’s tendons. Your knee bone’s connected to your thigh bone, as the song goes. How? Tendons. A skeleton lacks tendons, so theoretically it’s a lot easier to disconnect a skeleton’s bones from each-other. But, then again, magic.

True, it is bones.

Punches mostly hurt because of the mass of the fist and arm. If you’ve ever been punched by a kid you probably weren’t hurt. A skeleton weighs less than a 6-year-old, so there wouldn’t be much mass behind the punch.

But, then again, magic.

Hardly. Historically there has been a lot of cheating in elections. Look at Chicago up to the 1970s. Election fraud was common there.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/1973/05/08/how-the-chicago-tribune-exposed-city-vote-fraud-in-1972-and-won-a-pulitzer-prize/

Nobody can prove that there’s less cheating in Chicago elections today than in the 1970s, but people trust that it’s more honest.

Can you prove that your vote was counted and that the number of votes for your candidate went up by one as a result? If you can’t prove it, then it’s based on trust.

Right, but no way to verify who you voted for.

And, you have to trust that the website is telling you the truth. You have no way of verifying that it always gives the same answer to everybody. I guess someone could test that there’s some connection to their real ballot by intentionally screwing up their ballot. But, that doesn’t mean that there’s any way to prove that when it’s counted that the actual tally for the person / people you voted for are going up not down.

First, I’m writing about a person who’s watching and doesn’t know if they can trust the system. My point is that there’s no alternative to trust in the system, the system is built on trust.

Second, if you’re inside the system, if you’re an election worker or a government authority, you can tell who voted. But, you can’t tell who that voter cast their votes for – at least in a functional democracy.

The authorities can, and should, have all kinds of checks and balances to make sure that all the votes are being handled safely and counted correctly. But, if the public doesn’t trust the authorities, there’s nothing that the authorities can realistically do to convince the public that everything is above board. You can’t “prove” that the system isn’t rigged.

Yes, and again, it’s all based on trust.

The scary thing about elections is that, by design, nobody can ever “prove” they won.

Votes are designed to be anonymous. They have to be. If they’re not, they’re very vulnerable to manipulation. If someone can prove how they voted, then they can either be bribed to vote a certain way, or threatened to vote a certain way. If you can check that your vote was counted successfully for the candidate you chose, then someone else can check that you voted for the candidate they chose.

That means that, by design, the only security that elections can have is in the process. In a small election, like 1000ish votes or fewer, someone could supervise the whole thing. They could cast their vote, then stand there and watch. They could watch as other people voted, making sure that nobody voted twice, or dropped more than one sheet into the box. They could watch as the box was emptied. Then, they could watch as each vote was tallied. Barring some sleight-of-hand, in a small election like that, you could theoretically supervise the entire process, and convince yourself that the vote was fair.

But, that is impossible to scale. Even for 1000 votes, not every voter could supervise the entire process, and for more than 1000 votes, or votes involving more than one voting location, it’s just not possible for one person to watch the entire thing. So, at some point you need to trust other people. If you’re talking say 10,000 votes, maybe you have 10 people you trust beyond a shadow of a doubt, and each one of you could supervise one process. But, the bigger the election, the more impossible it is to have actual people you know and trust supervising everything.

In a huge country-wide election, there’s simply no alternative to trust. You have to trust poll workers you’ve never met, and/or election monitors you’ve never met. And, since you’re not likely to hear directly from poll workers or election monitors, you have to instead trust the news source you’re using that reports on the election. In a big, complex election, a statistician may be able to spot fraud based on all the information available. But, if you’re not that statistician, you have to trust them, and even if you are that statistician, you have to trust that your model is correct and that the data you’re feeding it is correct.

Society is built on trust, and voting is no different. Unfortunately, in the US, trust is breaking down, and without trust, it’s just a matter of which narrative seems the most “truthy” to you.

It is. It’s that plus an important process for living organisms rather than just burning something.

What makes you think there’s a threshold?

What’s interesting is that historically a lot of people never had children. But, by definition, none of your ancestors were among them.

So, even if being a childless femboy slut was incredibly common historically, that’s the one thing none of your ancestors would be able to understand.

It makes a radically beneficial structural change, while still being easily understood by anyone that’s used to capitalism.

Yeah, that’s important. It also doesn’t require a revolution to attain, just reforms of the current system. Admittedly, reforming the current system would be hard, but theoretically it wouldn’t have to be bloody. I think some people who have never questioned the economic and political system in which they grew up can’t even conceive of anything other than capitalism. Other people who have thought about it would worry that any attempted revolution might fail and we’d fall backwards into something much more like feudalism if not outright tyranny.

it’s important for everyone to have somewhere they can exist without having to get permission

Yeah, as bad as Feudalism was, at least serfs couldn’t be kicked off “their” land. They were tied to the land, so they weren’t allowed to leave, but the manor lord also couldn’t kick them out.

As for all land being owned, it is, and it isn’t. In commonwealth countries there’s a lot of crown land. In the US there’s a lot of government owned land. In cities there are a lot of city parks. In a sense all that land is owned. But, in another sense, it isn’t. It’s land that nobody’s allowed to build anything on, unless we collectively (via our reps) decide they are. In practice it’s not that simple, but in theory it’s effectively land that isn’t owned, at least by individuals. I’ve often wondered what effect it would have on homelessness if there were land in cities where everybody was allowed to live if they wanted. I imagine it would basically end up as a favela. Not great, but probably better than homelessness.

It still sounds like capitalism to me. It’s just more traditional capitalism. I’m pretty sure that the first mechanical looms were in factories where the owner was actually present in the factory, trying to make sure the machines kept working.

I’d even argue that ownership of land isn’t really capitalism anyhow, it’s more similar to feudalism. Capitalism involves buying capital and using that to transform raw materials into a finished product that can be sold at a profit. Feudalism involves charging someone rent for occupying land you own. Capitalism involves competing with other capitalists for more efficient processes, more cost-effective machines, and so-on. Landlords can’t have “more efficient” land. A capitalist has to use their machines to generate profits. If the machines are idle, they don’t make money. A landlord does nothing at all, then collects rent money.

So yeah, ban rent, or severely limit it. Require that a capitalist owner is actually physically present and involved in day-to-day operations, and you’ll completely eliminate billionaires, probably even centi-millionaires.

If you just want better, why not just aim for well regulated capitalism? That’s better than badly regulated capitalism, and it’s much easier to achieve than a brand new political and economic system that has yet to be tried.

If capitalism is abolished, we’re most likely going to be forced back to Feudalism. Mondays in Feudalism last 12+ hours and the work week continues until Saturday night.

In a politically and economically egalitarian society

So, in a fantasy? It’s nice in theory, but such a society has never existed, and probably will never exist until humans are no longer recognizable as humans.

Also, it’s the job you hate, not the economic system. People living in a feudal society also hated Mondays, the difference being that they hated Saturdays too because they worked 6 days a week, 12+ hours a day. They even worked on Sundays, but it was just a lighter form of work – mending garments instead of plowing fields.

Until the Replicator makes the world post-scarcity, some work is going to be inevitable, so there will be days of working, and days of no work. The first day back after a break will always be annoying.

It’s not just one generation receiving an education vs. another one that didn’t. It’s that the platforms the generations used are fundamentally different.

Gen X / Millennials grew up with Macs and PCs, computers that were fundamentally not locked down. You could install any software you wanted. You could modify the OS in many ways. DRM wasn’t really a thing in general, and there were almost always easy ways around it.

Gen Z / Gen Alpha grew up mostly with cell phones. The phones they had are much more powerful than the PCs from 20-30 years ago, but they’re incredibly locked down. The only applications you’re allowed to use are the ones that Apple / Google allow on their app stores, unless you root your phone which is a major risk. It’s very hard to even load up your own audio files, movies or images let alone “dodgy” ones. DRM is everywhere, and the DMCA means you risk serious prison time if you bypass access controls.

Gen X / Millennials grew up at a time when there were still more than 5 tech companies in the world, and the companies out there competed with each-other. There were plenty of real standards, and lots of other de-facto standards that allowed programs to interoperate. Now you’re lucky if you can even use an app via its website vs. using a required app.

It’s not just a difference in education. It’s that companies have gained a lot more power, and the lack of antitrust enforcement has made for plenty of walled gardens and “look but don’t touch” experiences.