Eh, the passive aggression didn’t really come in until her answer was described as hobbies, in what seems like an unflattering manner. There were probably better ways to handle it, but this was more entertaining!

Aim for alliances with at least half the top militaries. If one is going to be gunning for us, I want their peers to have our back.

To that end, pick an island location with a strong command of shipping lanes, both to offer access to allies and to boost our economy. The invincible force field will help enforce this while we get set up. Offer temporarily invincible military bases to our allies - give them more reason to back us up, and hopefully jumpstart our military readiness.

Otherwise I’d go utopian like @Tonava said - entice the best and the brightest, and have them play to their strengths, aiming to have a robust, well-educated populace.

I have honestly never heard the term SJW applied to a Karen.

To continue the analogy: He asks her why she fights fires, and in response to her explanation, talks about the benefits of fire-retardant foam over water. She then realizes he smells of gasoline.

The comic is pointing out needlessly divisive behavior on his part - she’s already working on one aspect of the class division, and he’s pushing for her to spread out and weaken her efforts.

Any examples? I mostly remember the term being applied to the Greta Thunbergs of the day.

On the contrary, a skilled orator adjusts the message to suit the audience, and a skilled craftsman chooses the tool best suited to the task.

However, your intent here seems to be primarily to offend, rather than to convince or persuade, as evidenced by both your word choice and the direction of your statements - this is your choice of course, and I will similarly choose to ignore it!

Somehow whenever people bemoaned “social justice warriors”, I always pictured Lex Luthor slandering Superman.

It’s unfair to judge a word that has over 500 years of use on the last 70 years of history.

A bridge that has stood for 500 years can be considered unusable today due to recent developments.

The word clearly isn’t having the effect you say you want. The solution isn’t to bemoan the poor treatment of the word - the solution is to change the word you use.

You have many options - be creative!

We’ve seen that happen with using “gay” as an insult - society has shifted over the years, so that being gay is no longer seen as a bad thing

I don’t remember that “just happening”… I remember prominent members of the homosexual community deciding to reclaim the word “gay”, and then working to bring the more neutral connotations into the mainstream - and that effort is still ongoing.

The people targeted by the slur had to have the resources and ability to change public perception before that could happen, and it took a considerable, concerted effort. It did not just “shift”, and that process is not equally available to every target of a slur.

The problems with deciding things are “equal-ish” have already been well addressed, so I just want to point out - just because the billionaire class might use a topic as a wedge issue against us doesn’t excuse us from working to fix it.

They might be setting fire to houses as a distraction, but the houses are still on fire. The people inside can’t wait for us to find and deal with whoever hired the arsonists.

Nah, Earth’s a giant blob of liquid with a thin skim of crust on the outer layer. If you apply a force that slows a portion of that crust, you’re not going to affect the spin of the blob - you’ll just push that part of the crust around a bit at most.

So apocalyptic earthquakes will shut this down long before you have any real effect on the day’s length. (And that’s a lot easier to recover from!)

…Octarine?

I suspect that before it starts to scale to the whole planet, you’d be stealing angular momentum from the tectonic plate specifically. Picture a sail on an ice floe, you’ll mess with the plate long before you have an impact on the vast body of liquid it’s sitting on.

So, at worst, lots of earthquakes and the like, not screwing up the day/night cycle.

Thanks for this, I hadn’t seen this one!

Ugh, that is a shitty situation - wish I knew better how to help you get out of it! No judgement either - from what I understand, all of this is pretty common in these sorts of relationships. And yeah, depression makes everything far harder than it seems like it should be.

Like others have said, this is absolutely a situation where professional help is warranted. I know it might be tricky to figure out a regular schedule with one, but I think it’d be worth reaching out - I strongly suspect most would be flexible with a situation like yours, especially as it doesn’t sound uncommon (meaning they may well already have a process in place for helping people in your situation).

As for the separation anxiety issue: I wonder if you might be able to adjust your tolerance? Sleep a little farther away in the house and see how that goes, and once that’s feeling comfortable, sleep on the opposite end, then try a little farther again? I have no idea of that would work, but it’s one more thing that might give you some control.

(I’m also here to just vent to, if you need it! Hearing about a situation like yours has me wanting to fix it, but I can also just listen!)

Man, she just sounds parasitic. That really sucks. I don’t know anything about therapy or helping people with bad relationships or anything, but it also sounds like she’s isolated you pretty effectively, which I know is a common tactic for people like this.

You said you don’t have the skills to live independently - are you talking about day to day skills, like laundry and cooking; or are you talking more about being employable away from your family?

As I recall, he also apologized for the slap down, which seems like it often helps with getting cancelled

Ugh, that was the scene I kept thinking of when it all came out

Plenty of people have told you already that she sounds toxic, that you should cut ties, etc. I don’t disagree, but if you do want a rebuttal:

What value does she provide to society now? And what value would she provide if, say, she was injured in such a way that she couldn’t work anymore? What about when she retires? Does she think she should be culled in either of those cases?

Society works better when people know their loved ones are safe, regardless of their ability to contribute. Because when society doesn’t take care of the less able, their loved ones have to; often at the expense of society.

Narcissists and people who struggle with empathy often miss that this is in their own self interest, because they often have trouble seeing that most people won’t participate much in a society that doesn’t help their loved ones.

Nah, it still fits. Shovel vendors get a bit of cash from everyone in the rush, and graders get a bit from each person investing in the hobby.

I would put gold rush purity testers in a similar bracket, though