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We’re trying to decide which of these is a better option:

or

Every other major discipline has an ethics review board. If you're a doctor and prescribe a patient a lethal dose of the wrong medicine, you get disciplined. If you're a biologist and commit animal cruelty, you get disciplined. If you're a psychologist and conduct an unethical study, you get disciplined. If you're an engineer and neglect safety standards when building a bridge, you get disciplined.

But if you're an economist and your policies actively harm people in a demonstrable way, nothing happens. It's all just a 'matter of opinion'

American and other western economists advised the Russian government on how to run the country following the end of the ussr and its estimated that the economic policies they recommended directly lead to the deaths of millions of people. And not a single economist so much as even lost their job.

during the pandemic, we invented something we call "astronaut time."

when it's astronaut time, it's like we are two astronauts wearing the big helmets, moving around the station on totally separate tasks. one of us is outside the space station and one of us is inside the space station. our radios do not work and we have no way of communicating with each other. we might see each other through the lil porthole windows, but we ignore each other because we both have different things to do.

"astronaut time" is how we get total privacy when we live in the same apartment. I will pretend you don't exist. You will pretend I don't exist. we have a nonverbal, zero-contact signal for when astronaut time is over (usually "I'll draw a smiley-face on the whiteboard in the kitchen when I'm done"). No talking, stay out of each other's line of sight, we are actively avoiding each other, unless you are currently experiencing a medical emergency goodbye.

it has been. a godsend. imagine living with your partner and being able to close every single tab in your brain related to social interaction. no fear of being interrupted by a "hey, quick question--" or "sorry to bother you, but do you know where the scissors are?" or "did you want something to eat, too?" Once or twice a month, we look at each other lovingly, hold hands, and say "baby I think I need some astronaut time tonight," and the other person goes "okay cool. bye! have a nice night!" and nobody's feelings are hurt and we both go and have a lovely evening completely by ourselves.

Unstoppable force meets immovable object 2 (wip)

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I spent almost an entire work shift drawing this tooth-rotting fluff

the city of los angeles

the city of new york

sex

how drinking alcohol works

how getting high works

how a child of any age speaks

how nuclear physics work

how [my job] works

how debilitating being shot in the shoulder is

how hypothermia works

things I have never before seen someone fake their way through writing about, until today:

SHRIMP COCKTAIL:

banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol

generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is

#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro

And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!

POMEGRANATES:

zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple

thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute

sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.

FRUIT TREES:

zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''

salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE

baander: #cranberry trees

DOUGH/BATTER:

maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre

livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles

lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY

Some other topics:

2021:

2018:

2016:

2012:

2010:

I haven’t pissed people off lately by reminding them that ALL types of physical punishment of kids has been proven beyond ANY reasonable doubt to have only negative long term outcomes.

So let me scream it from the hilltops:

Stop hitting kids. End of sentence.

2022:

2023:

2024:

2025:

For example, being exposed to corporal punishment as a kid makes it more likely for a person to commit domestic violence against a partner. In places where corporal punishment is normal, people are more likely to think that rape and intimate partner violence are normal. Kids who are spanked are more likely to be violent with and to bully other kids.

Spanking is literally teaching a kid that violence is okay and normal and it affects the whole society.

For example: I can't read any ABO AUs set in England or France because while I can suspend my disbelief far enough for a gender trinary set up, I can't suspend it enough to believe those two countries would still be distinct entities in a alternate history where Richard the Lionheart could have impregnated Philip II.

If there was a viable dynastic future with Richard, Philip would have climbed him like an oak and dragged him to the altar if he had to. It's a match that makes perfect sense from both their points of view: Philip gets Aquitaine back under French rule, the best general in Europe on his council, and a powerful check on the Angevins... then unexpectedly (after Henry the Young bites it) the entire Kingdom of England for his Capetian dynasty. Richard meanwhile gets to stick it to his father, secure Aquitaine's prosperity, and gets the leverage to start pushing for his mother's release. Then when Henry kicks the bucket Richard doesn't actually have to be King of England in anything but name: Philip can run the countries and unify the Crowns and what not while Richard runs off to go Crusading.

Plus they also like, loved each other and stuff and being able to get to be together long term instead of being torn apart by politics would have been cool. But I'm mainly obsessed with the historical and dynastic implications.

In this AU, it’s unlikely that an Anglo-Frank union could last due to differences in succession laws between the two realms. What would happen if an Alpha died without an heir? Would Betas be treated similarly to Alphas for succession purposes? Could succession pass through Beta or even Omega lines? Succession laws were quite difficult to change, with modifications to royal succession often resulting in civil and/or international wars.

Let's contemplate this little summarization of–

A Template for the World-Building of a Historically-based Terran Omegaverse AU

· Ask yourself these questions on legality wrt establishing succession and inheritance:

How would the socioeconomic and geopolitical implications of Omegaverse settings be influenced by, let's say, prehistoric anthropology, which in layman's terms = how far back was the Geological Age that saw the rise of the Omegaverse, i.e. the premise of when the biology of the ternary Alpha/Beta/Omega sexual castes first developed—perhaps the binary sexes began to show obsolescence during the late Pleistocene Epoch, similar to the gradual degeneration of the appendix—let's say the Holocene Epoch: so, would it be before the Ice Age when the earliest humans appeared, or at the beginning of modern human history after the Ice Age ended when humans rose to dominance who then joined together to form the first hunting bands, then clans/societies and started establishing rank and/or assigning duties? Keep in mind that the earliest lineages were based on maternal bloodlines, since paternity tests didn't exist in those days; however, that changed when male priests and kings who practiced early animistic religions realized that without a man's seed, women could not bring forth children, which eventually led to entry to the priesthood being barred to women, due to the rising belief that wombs were only empty gestational chambers where microscopic people that came from men's seed were deposited to grow until viability, even though women were attuned to the very first figures of worship; the rites honoring the natural cycles of earth and sky crossing paths with the sun and moon were increasingly conducted by men, who did not have a moon cycle their bodies were attuned to, and so they either created new figures of worship that made a better case for male attunement, or destroyed/denigrated references to female deities. In the Omegaverse, that likely translates into the justification of the transfer of power from Omega-centered households/royal courts/temples to being led by Alphas instead.

Would tasks be stratified along the lines of historical gender roles: for instance, Alphas become designated as those who go forth to hunt/gather and/or conquer/protect, Betas as those who offer care/support to the household which evolved into defining and upholding the law, especially those pertaining to hate crimes perpetrated upon the underprivileged caste(s) seen as weaker and disadvantaged due to societal norms/prejudices/discrimination, leading to the prevalent practice of masking one's caste in social situations, and Omegas as those who establish/improve upon agricultural practices by staying home to manage/rule the household/farm/settlement/realm—archeological journals have published articles citing evidence from ancient burial sites confirming that women were increasingly relegated to societally weaker roles upon the advent of agriculture, whereby burial chambers of high ranking females tended to contain significantly fewer treasures than males of equivalent rank, as the number of tombs of honored female hunters and/or warriors quickly diminished to the point of rarity by the Iron Age—or would Alphas subordinate any other biological caste, which could lead to mass protests and/or strikes that would be suppressed to reestablish order within the perceived hierarchy and regain the productivity of cottage industries? What, if any, are basic human rights in the Omegaverse from this point onwards? Where does the buck stop and revolution begin? What would be the Omegan equivalent of Jeanne d'Arc?

What biological advantages did this give our ancestors in a survival situation—would these increase the odds of protection and/or a successful mating?

Is A/B/O biology expressed as genetic traits inherited at conception and manifest upon reaching adolescence, or are they an epigenetic response influenced by environmental factors, up to and including the gender caste(s) of the parents, and/or statistical scarcity of the population of a particular caste?

Is A/B/O considered a spectrum where Betas could lean towards Alpha/Omega characteristics/behavior, or would the biological caste expressions be hardcoded where Beta bodies look intersex, with fully functional reproductive organs?

Would the formation of harems be encouraged, under what circumstances (e.g. infertility, alliance with higher ranking clans usually in return for monetary gain or power, etc.), and would this cause hierarchical competition for a mate's favor/patronage; in addition, how would top/bottom dynamics and/or kinks be regarded/negotiated?

How does all this influence the determination of which marital unions/progeny would be considered legal (agnatic/cognatic/morganatic, etc.)—would the concept of lineage follow paternal/maternal lines or A/B/O lines, how does that impact inheritance/succession laws especially when establishing the senior house versus cadet branches, and would the laws favor primogeniture/ultimogeniture/coparcenary birthright for the granting of estates/lands, titles and/or hereditary office such as lordship/Karta, asset transfer, etc.?

What if other societies/nations follow different lineage laws/suzerainty—royals/nobles were commonly given in marriage to allies/enemies to produce viable heirs who would supposedly unify the relevant parties via assimilation into the ruling structure; how would the resulting conflict involving the nobility rallying around various royal heirs due to ideological differences be resolved—would civil and/or international wars leading to a dynastic split become the established norm due to historically documented difficulties with modifying succession laws, or would mediation/arbitration settle matters, in which case who would be considered the ultimate authority, especially if there was religious incompatibility? How would all this impact the path to kingship/empery, how would the laws of heraldry work, the importance of bardcraft to track potential future allies and past traitors, how alliances were formed/discarded, the reasons/ways that wars were fought, the recruitment of which phenotypes for certain types of light/heavy infantry versus cavalry, the differing ways that fighting styles were taught, the crafting of female armor versus male armor because of the differences in the average height/weight, body shape and center of gravity?

Considering historical settings required the breeding of heirs, homophobia would likely be defined as unions between those of the same biological caste such as A-A and/or O-O (though not usually B-B) regardless of sex and/or gender, unless female Alphas and/or male Omegas present with fertility/gestation/childbirth difficulties (leading to perisexism), in which case Betas could become the dominant caste, but then what are the consequences if Betas are unable to reproduce because of the evolutionary conditions in that universe, but could legally arrange/command the marriages of their fecund family members; if so, would Beta caste heirs be selected via adoption and/or from Beta children born to their Alpha/Omega siblings and/or orphaned cousins, all of whom might be considered second class citizens or maybe even chattel in this type of society?

· And now for questions wrt modern societal norms, expectations, guidelines, products, etc.:

Would the term 'nuclear family' need to be redefined as a triad rather than a couple; and if there are children, can they now call themselves a pack/clan, or would more members be required?

Would a regular feature of the home include a large conversation pit which also doubles as the area for pack cosleeping, and is there a soundproofed rut/heat room nearby, in addition to the regular bedroom(s)?

Should everyone wear something that covers the neck glands to prevent accidentally flashing an intimate area, or would this type of restriction only apply to Alphas and/or Omegas?

Can we assume that there exists a vast range of pheromone suppressants/dupes/masking agents on the market: patches, sprays, roll-ons, pills, injections, etc., and would there be a black market for experimental suppressants that have yet to go through human trials which are available only to the ultra-wealthy who can afford the fines if caught?

How does having animalistic traits such as estrus cycles, pheromones, and rut/heat affect the establishment of policies for sick time off and/or parental leave as versus the un/expected breaking of pack bonds for bereavement leave?

Would traditionally conservative religious groups enforce/urge a time of seclusion for those in estrus similar to the barring of entry into temples for women on their period?

Are there support groups for those experiencing discrimination whose outer appearance doesn't match their scent?

We love u gooseworx

Metro Man was not loved growing up in a way that mattered. His adopted father was clearly very absent, and while we don't know much about his family, their relationship seems superficial. Because of this, his sense of duty to the world is also superficial, hence his boredom.

Hal wasn't raised with power. He gained it and was shown how to use it by a 'space dad' who only taught him power and not love. Hence, he sees it only as a grasping means to an end.