I think on most sites this discussion isn't even worth having, knowing the type of people it would attract. But I have faith that Tildes can maintain civil discourse on this.

For those unfamiliar, for threads on r/BPT that receive an influx of racists and trolls the mods have implemented a sort of soft-lock where only verified users are allowed to post. However, the verification process strikes me as toeing the line of what should be acceptable in an online community. Essentially it breaks down to this:

1. Are you black? Give us proof of the color of your skin and you'll be verified and flaired with your race.
2. Are you a "non-white POC"? You can be verified but will receive no flair.
3. Are you white? Talk to the mods to receive further instructions...

I understand the rationale, but subtly race-gating threads feels icky no matter the reason.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Here's the task: pretend you're a professor! You have to do the following:

• Choose a focus for your class on gaming (with a snazzy title if you like)
• Choose the games that you, as a professor, will have your class dive into in order to convey key concepts
• Explain why each game you chose ties into your overarching exploration

Your class can have any focus, broad or specific: level design in first-person shooters; the history of pixel art; the psychology of non-linear narratives; the use of sound effects in mid-2000 platformers; the limitations of turn-based systems in tabletop strategy games, etc. Anything goes, and any forms of gaming are valid!

After choosing your specific focus, choose games that you would put on your syllabus as a sort of "required playing" for students, and talk about why you've chosen each item and what it brings to the table. If you decide to choose, say, NetHack and The Binding of Isaac for your class on "Roguelikes, Roguelites, and the Fallacy of the Berlin Interpretation", discuss how those particular games illustrate some of the key concepts you want to convey to your learners.

While I'm intending this to be serious and straightforward, I also like the idea of people having fun with it, so feel free to come up with some less serious or more entertaining classes. I'd love to see the outline for course that explored, say, the history of exploding barrels or an investigation of taste levels in the fashion of JRPG outfits.

(By the way, I'm a dude.) So I just moved into my college dorm yesterday, and my roommate moves in later. I figured that since I had a night and a morning to myself, I might as well make it worth it. This morning, I was texting a fella on grindr, and eventually he ubered over. I made us some coffee, and we just talked for ten or twenty minutes. No pressure whatsoever. I really appreciated that. After a while, I said, in the most awkward way possible, "uhhhhh, you wanna sit in the bed?" He said sure, we did, and he said "You wanna cuddle?" We did, and eventually it moved on from there. But every step of the way, he asked permission, and asked if I was comfortable. He also taught me how to do some... things, patiently.

When we started, I was incredibly nervous, but by the time he left, I felt very comfortable. Overall, excellent experience.

For the past 20 years, I thought about my own demise about once a day. Bipolar depression can do that to you. I was always prone to bouts of melancholia. Someone once wrote that the problem with melancholia is that it kinda feels good. It's addictive. Abandoning all hope is equivalent to abandoning all failure. You're suddenly in power. Eventually came the desire to die. My girlfriend lived in a high apartment and the thought of jumping from the window became a secret obsession. Every time I felt any kind of insecurity, during fights big and small, the window was always there, a reminder of a perfect solution. That's how some call suicide: a perfect solution. Something that cannot be rectified. The ultimate fantasy.

This girlfriend eventually dumped me, and then came another. She was going to another state and I had difficulties relocating. She was a doctor, I was a freelance professional. Two very distinct economic situations. When the move proved impossible, I took a box of pills and threw myself in the pool. Happily, I soon realized that breathing was grossly underestimated, and quickly swam to the surface. That day I decided to live.

This doesn't mean death is not a part of every single one of my days. It's like an addiction for the brain, an automatic response of the unpleasant kind. Lost a job or a relationship? Your brain suggests suicide. Is your Playstation 4 no working? Maybe you should not be living at all. Unemployed? Don't waste time and resources on a futile pursuit! For every single minor frustration that might ruin your day, I may be fighting with the thought of throwing myself in front of a train.

I could, of course, talk to people, but how many people do you know that are able to deal with the fact that their friend/relative/partner/coworker can envision their own death multiple times a day, and for the most mundane reasons?

No, I am not gonna kill myself, this is not a suicide watch. Living is awesome. I like eating, fucking and watching TV shows. I also think a lot about suicide. And it sucks.

One of the most notable aspects of political discourse today is how many of the problems we have seem to have relatively simple solutions for how consequential they are:

To reduce wealth inequality, we can use progressive taxation, antitrust, support of unionization so that poor people/workers have a large stake in their wages.

To give poorer people equal opportunity, we can use welfare initiatives like free (as in paid by taxes/free at the point of use) college, better pay for teachers and more equitable resource (as in textbooks, tables, chalk distribution for schools so poor people get more equitable education to rich people.

To reduce crime, violence and repeat sentencing we can reduce poverty (see the top question), encourage mental health initiatives and do not have cops take thatand have jail be rehabilitative rather than punitive.

To make make software less centralized and invasive, we can require Internet companies give you full, immediate disclosure of all the forms your data will be used and let people opt out of all of them, delete all their data, and also enforce antitrust when it comes to social media platforms (I.E Facebook should not own Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and their new TikTok analogue and the first thing you should see when logging into any of them is a list of ways these companies will collect your data and let you opt out of all of them and be as anonymous as you please)

To make sure democracy is indeed representative of the people and works well, we can introduce a parliamentary system or multi-winner congressional seats and institute STV or RCV or just approval voting if you really can't have more than 1 representative for an area (the US senate is cucked)

To make more progress in stopping COVID, we can have mass testing by the government, people must take social distancing seriously and wear masks, medics need to be taken seriously and properly supplied with PPE and all that.

Given these solutions, what are large problems we have/will have that we genuinely don't have an answer to instead of just not wanting to do something about it?

A few examples that come to my mind are:

How do we get corrupion out of a government? Since the vast majority of stuff I have mentioned in this post would be done by governments and governments under extensive corruption cannot be trusted to regulate anything.

How do we regulate news outlets to be fair and objective? We can get news outlets to be publically/popularly funded instead of ad(large-corporate)-funded and enforce antitrust, but that doesn't stop bias, outright lying and sensationalism.

How do we get peple to change their minds? Evidence of everything I've mentioned in this post is more than around, but that hasn't convinced Republicans/conservatives. For some people groups, acceptance has literally been a decades-long political campaign to be recognized as normal or ok.

EDIT: 3 4 more.

How do we get people to befriend eachother and be social and tell apart those who genuinely don't want to do this and those who do but don't know how to or don't like to/aren't good at doing it in the ways usually available?

If we choose to let the population decline (see the climate change question), are we fully prepared for the consequences of having a society that will be growing older and older, perhaps indefinitely?

If we choose to not let the population decline and seek to keep birthrates at replacement level, how do we convince people to do so? If we don't/can't and start using things like artificial wombs to have children, who will take care of them? Do we make orphanages socially acceptable/valued and well-funded? Do we turn kindergartens and schools into a 24/7 institution and add in non-study things like housing and video games, and make teachers basically parents, but with many children to take care of?

If electoralism fails, what can we do to still have a voice in the world? Can we do anything?

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.