Descent

It was a multi player net work game we used to play at work over lunch or occasionally on weekends.

We did it for four years. Washington state in the Seattle are is very nice. We met a lot of great people and we have fond memories.

Having said that it was clear early on this was not going to be permanent. Imagine taking your kids to the local park and seeing a sign that said no guns allowed in this park. Wait, guns are allowed in some parks? WTF. That was just a head scratcher. I found it genuinely hard to be in a place where I was decidedly middle class and so many people were so poor and with no benefits at all.

I remember once chatting with a cashier at the grocery store over the weeks as she was pregnant. One day I stopped seeing her and figured she had her baby. Two weeks later she was back. No maternity leave. She took her full two weeks of vacation and that was it. Shit.

Or the conversation I had with a cab driver who talked about still being in debt because his FIL was sick and avoided getting medical attention because none of the family had medical coverage until he had to be admitted.

The medical system is a confusing shambles of insanity. That’s if you have good coverage. Once our daughter was sick and the childrens hospital directed us to a closer clinic. We went. There was a discussion about possibly admitting her but in the end she went home. A few days later she was worse so we ended up going to the children’s hospital and she was admitted. Turns out the near by clinic was not in our medical coverage group and it cost us nearly $1000 out of pocket. Not fun but doable. The thing is, she was two nights in the hospital where we were covered. If we had admitted her the first day at the wrong hospital it would have cost us at least $10 000.

The whole system is a fucking nightmare of land mines and no one has any clue what any particular thing will cost you.

I just couldn’t be happy under those conditions. Side note I’m not happy with the slide in equality here in Canada either BTW.

My job is in high tech and they pay was no better, just even. We lost money on selling buying houses, but that’s just timing. I kept track of taxes paid. After medical expenses it was only a 5 percent savings and one medical emergency would too that the other way. Yes, I had great medical coverage.

Agreed. It’s a good show. My wife re-watches it every summer. I enjoy watching it with her too.

the bakery wouldn’t make a pride specific cake

LOL in other words they would not serve them.

Hate the belief not the believer.

:-)

work in a context where the person exercising their speech feels some necessity to use it responsibly

Nice phrasing

However there are people with legitimate ( beliefs and ideas honestly held that they wish to discuss ) views that I worry are going to be silenced and further marginalized.

Sounds kind and charitable. It is not clear to me how universal this is given your opening paragraphs. I would agree that is they way it should be but I don’t think that reflects how it is. We need to react based on the actual reality we live in.

However if these are honestly held beliefs that they are willing to engage in civil discourse around I don’t think it’s right to actually block them.

But what if there is a significant number of people who are just awful humans, or don’t have a thought for learning, or are not being open or honest etc.

I support the idea of engagement and discussion but let’s be honest there are people who aren’t interested in that. There are people who are racist. There are people who really do think you and I are going to hell and they are happy to know that. Sorry there is a reason I don’t associate with people like that in real life and I don’t want to on line either.

It is not my mission to discuss this kind of thing with all those people. Trolls and awful humans sometimes do need to be ignored. Otherwise we cannot have interesting or productive conversations with anyone.

I say, let those that want to engage and learn find a server or community with standards that we can tolerate. Any community that doesn’t have standards to keep reasonable order we should block.