You didn’t read them in the car on the way home?

You’re taking the utterings of keyboard warriors as reflective of reality?

That’s not what I’ve seen. The stories I’m familiar with usually involve defending those things where they already exist, not establishing them. Even in cases where that needs established, as often as not, they’re usually protecting someone else who embodies that ideal.

I’m sure there are stories similar to what you’ve described, but I don’t see that in the stories I’m familiar with.

It’s always seemed strange to me that earth never made any sort of meaningfull technological progress despite having access to a galaxy full of new tech.

This actually seemed reasonable to me - if alien tech is anything like ours, we lack the parts to make the parts to make the parts to make the tech, so we can’t mass produce any of it yet. And we’re a bit of a backwater - what resources we do have of galactic interest (vibranium, maybe?) isn’t for sale. So we make do with what scraps do find their way to earth.

Stories don’t need to be told, humans need to tell stories. That’s what makes us human, and is how we spread ideas like honor, justice, and even civilization itself.

Hero stories reinforce all of these ideas, and others besides.

I’ve been trying to avoid soap labelled antibacterial for this reason, and it’s tricky to even find any that’s not labelled antibacterial.

Been wondering if they don’t just slap the label on any soap, because it could be considered antibacterial by its nature. Apparently not?

Dragon’s not completely gone; she’s just attending to other stuff while the characters are handling their slice of things. She does show up more towards the end, IIRC. I think she also had some plot resolution; though my memory is fuzzy here.

And some of my other favorites feature in Ward!

But not the stem!

From the article, Sansan Chicken, Sansan Ramen, and Yaso Kitchen, all in NY. (Since nobody has said it yet)

I do think some of this is just fatigue. The usual way to deal with this is to either pick one or a few things to try to actively address, or just buckle down and wait for things to improve. Both lead naturally to a situation where it’s hard to get a critical mass of people to respond on any one subject.

Pretty sure they’re talking about the anti-universal healthcare propaganda in the States. Downplaying the wealth gap happens here plenty, too.

As a 41 year old, when I call someone in their early-mid 20s a kid, there’s no derision intended. Think about how you relate to someone who’s 12 or 16 when you’re 20 or so - they might be quite capable, even fun to hang out with; but their life experiences also give them a clearly different outlook. And, like as not, you feel a little more interest in making sure they’re getting along all right (at least I do!)

As you age, that doesn’t really change - but the “target age” where that comes into play follows you up! So at 26, you feel that way about people just coming into high school; at 30-35, about people getting out of college and starting their careers. My oldest kid is 6; and I feel this way now about most of the parents of my kids’ classmates! Makes for a fun juxtaposition, when they have older kids and know more about what we’re in for than I do :p

It can turn into something condescending, depending on the person; but I think it’s usually more of a statement that “I remember being where you were!”

I’ve got the cheaper commercial driven subscription, but I only see commercials on my Roku - if I browse to the Web site, it’s still commercial free!

Paramount+ still feels pretty buggy in general.

This was exactly where my mind went! I’m still trying to remember which novel it was.

Leaving aside for the moment the free speech issues inherent here… if you want to control what someone does with a book after you sell it? You can’t sell it. Lend it, rent it, whatever; but if it’s sold, you’ve given up all right to determine what happens with it.

Don’t want to invest in the infrastructure to do that? Then is it really that important to you?

I laughed here as well; but I just cracked up when the Enterprise posed over Riker, Worf, and Picard and Jack!

Mandalorian didn’t really click for me until several episodes in. I feel like Pedro Pascal took a typical, surface-level Star Wars script and made the character amazing, though - I watch mostly for him, rather than the writing.