All posts by sonworshiper

General

The Cons

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“We’ll probably never come back,” I told my wife as we left Okinawa, our home for a total of 14 years. We were headed to Offutt Air Force Base, a place I knew I never wanted to be stationed based on what I heard from my friends overseas.

Never say never, so goes the logic, especially where the military is concerned.

On the first day of our four-day Labor Day weekend, I got an assignment notification from the military. We are headed back to Japan at the start of the year.

I started thinking of the positives and negatives about this decision. If I say no, I lose the ability to retire. So although I say “pros and cons” like it matters, there really isn’t a choice involved.

Okinawa is beautiful, the additional money for living overseas is a useful financial blessing, and after so long overseas, Okinawa feels a lot like home. I know what to expect from my job there, and my family is eager to visit our favorite places. “The beach!” my teenage daughter exclaims. There are some fantastic pros to going.

Then the thought of actually leaving hits home, and I’m surprised by how bittersweet this news is. There’s the initial shock and the dread of moving, with all the hassle of outprocessing and air travel as a family. But the list of cons goes far deeper.

Even though we never thought we’d want to be in Omaha, Nebraska, this base and this town have captured a place in our hearts. Part of me doesn’t want to leave, and it’s because of people here:

The coworkers I encounter every day – I work at the school house, the initial training squadron for my career field. I train sharp students and have the privilege of collaborating every day with the very best of my career field. There is so much knowledge and experience in our building, I often feel like I’m learning as much as the students we train.

The true leaders – There are plenty of Air Force managers out to run programs and score great bullets for performance reports. But I’ve been lucky enough to work for several officers and enlisted leaders who go further, who are willing to take a hit in order to take care of their people. When I’ve succeeded, they’ve recognized it. When I’ve failed, they’ve corrected it with grace. And while I feel privileged to work for them, they’ve expressed confidence in me and gratitude for my contributions. I have rarely felt as valued in the workplace.

The sincere friends – There are many who know enough about me to look down on my faults, to point and laugh at my mistakes. Yet I’ve had friends come alongside to strengthen my weaknesses instead of exploiting them. When I didn’t perform in my job duties in one area as well as I should have, I found support and restoration to get me back on track. When I struggled with fitness, I had coworkers who cheered me on to success and stopped me from beating myself up.

The surrogate family – There are few things that touch my heart as much as when someone touches the heart of my children. When you take time to meet my kid’s needs and put a smile on their face, you’ve won me over. I think of the worship pastor who looked out at a mens’ meeting, saw my oldest son standing alone, and then left the platform to go put an arm around him when I was stuck at the piano. I think of the leaders and pastors that have connected my daughter to a passionate group of peers, so that she comes home each week bursting with joy. I picture the BX vendor who takes time to let my son share his rock collection and trade with her for the polished stones she uses to make jewelry. There’s the surrogate grandmother who stepped in to create a special birthday for each of my children – especially for the middle child who often gets left out by his older siblings. And there are the writers who not only push me on, but encourage my wife to share her experiences as a source of help for those enduring painful situations. I often get the spotlight, but some light shined on Jami when she least expected it, and more than anywhere in our past, she has been blessed here. So I have been likewise blessed.

My actual family – My brother and my sister-in-law offered to fly our oldest children to my hometown to visit with their grandparents. They traveled with their two small children to visit us when we weren’t able to come to them. My mother-in-law arrives in a couple weeks to do the same. My parents, along with them, have borne the frustration and the pain of separation from family with patience and endurance. The thought of travelling far from home again is unsettling, because I want so much to be closer to loved ones.

So, as I consider what lies ahead, imagine my surprise at the tug on my heart. I am not a Husker fan, so perhaps I am not a true Nebraskan. But I am grateful nonetheless that I have so many reasons to want to stay in the place that I never wanted to go.

You all are the cons, the reasons we will miss Offutt.

Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

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Gaming

D&D Next: Combat

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D&D Next: Combat

AKA Lamoncha, the One-shot Wonder

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“Oh, man, I might need to level those guys down a bit.”

On the list of Things I don’t want to hear the DM say, this might not be tops, but it’s close.

With the character creation process complete, my friend and I decided to check out combat. He took two level 4 monsters and put them up against my one level 1 ranger. Sure, it was going to be a challenge, but we figured it might work out fine.

We’re testing out a few things at once. Our conversation takes place over Skype. He set up a campaign page on roll20, something I’ve wanted to do but never got around to doing. So I’m looking at a grid with a couple features, two circular pics of enemies, and one pic for my character. As a joke, I send the DM a whisper using roll20’s in-window chat function. I’m using Dicenomicon on my iPad to roll everything. If there were any doubts, the app lets you copy a history of rolls to show proof. But we trust each other so that’s not necessary.

Keep in mind, these are just my initial experiences as a player. I haven’t dug into the rules packets yet.

We roll initiative. I get it, and I roll something low for my attack. Maybe a 3. Better luck next round.

One of the two walks up, hits me with its weapon, and the end result is 4 damage. 4 out of 10 total hit points. My character already feels much more fragile than 4E.

“Oh, wait, they have poison, sorry. Roll to save against that.”

I roll incredibly low again.

“Yeah, the poison hits you for…” Dice roll in the background, determining my fate. “Six damage.”

I laugh. “Uh, I’m dead. Well, unconscious, I guess, but defeated.” In one round.

That’s when he utters the quote at the top of the post. Maybe levels make a more significant difference here. Also, I didn’t create the “ideal” character, otherwise I’d have had a few more HP. But still… one shot kills hurt the confidence a little bit.

Round 2…. FIGHT

A few minutes later, healed up and ready for a fight, Lamoncha faces off against two level 1 fire beetles. This goes decidedly better.

Unlike 4E, with multiple powers to choose from each level, Lamoncha has exactly zero combat powers. He has his hand crossbows, with blades built into the structure like handguards in front of the pistol grips. So I declare I am shooting a loaded bolt, or I am slashing something up close.

No dailies. No marks. No encounters. No burst attack. That’s it.

Of course, this is only level 1. There will be special abilities and cool combat attacks coming with later levels.

While I liked the 4E descriptions of what each attack looked like, I see how this is more beneficial both for ease of creating the materials (they don’t need a new list of powers and crazy description of each action every time something comes along) and for running the character.

For one, this cuts down some of the potential delay in combat I see with 4th Edition. No one has to stop and consider what power to use out of a page full of text. Two, this might force some thought and role-playing into the combat.

What if I want to fire both crossbows? That’s something to discuss with the DM. Maybe I want to jab the blade on the crossbow into the creature, then fire the bolt point-blank. I picture this working like called shots, where the DM could set a higher difficulty to hit, but allow the roll as an expression of creativity.

One of the beetles is dead, and the other closes in. I ask, “Are there still opportunity attacks if I use a ranged weapon next to an enemy?” There are.

Lamoncha has taken a hit, and is about half conscious. But the way I pictured him working involves shifting around or between foes and using something like “gun-kata” in a dance of crossbow-bolting death. So I take the risk.

He shifts around the beetle and takes aim, giving it the chance to strike. It rakes its clawed legs at him, scratches leather armor, but does no damage. He fires and kills it, and the DM sings the Final Fantasy victory theme for me.

How is combat in Next?

It’s different, for sure, and a huge shift from 4E. But that’s not a bad thing.

General

Who Is My Neighbor?

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I’ve posted about this sort of thing before here, and I usually reserve my cultural and political comments for this blog. I feel like the SBC is looking at the challenging words of Christ, and asking “Who is my neighbor?” to find some wiggle room. That disappoints me deeply.

Workplace Leadership

Spit and Polish

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My kids have developed a love for the show Mythbusters. I can’t blame them. The show is done well, the experiments are often captivating, the personalities interesting, and the questions they come up with are so unique.

For example, one recent episode questioned the myths of a few common ‘wise’ sayings. Among these, there was the proverb that “You can’t polish a turd.”

Adam and Jaime set out to test this theory. Jaime intended to use actual polish, and Adam learned an old Japanese art involving polishing dirt into shiny smooth spheres using only water and elbow grease. Jaime even considered the diets of the animals in the “selection process” and chose a carnivore’s droppings because of the assumed “quality” of the material.

The end result? Myth busted. You can polish a turd.

There’s not much you can’t spin to sound good. You don’t even have to outright lie. The way we tell the truth, and the amount of truth we tell, both of those can contribute to a shiny result.

I immediately think of the various kinds of data and statistics I look at in my office job. Much like any corporate setting, our military units track all sorts of information in order to figure out the quality and quantity of whatever we’re doing. That can be really helpful.

But it offers a tempting opportunity. We can put a shine on poop and sell a lie to those above us.

What are the dangers of how we use data and metrics?

First, we can make something bad look good.

Our unit uses a system to track how many events aircrew accomplish each month, with a set quota required based on experience. All the crewmembers get checked to see who is keeping current. The point of the program is to ensure commanders know the readiness of their aircrews. In the guidance, it specifies this data is not meant to be used as a sort of report card or grade.

So of course we use it as a grade, and everything becomes focused on getting good numbers instead of actually preparing aircrews for duty. We have people running training events designed only to make numbers look good instead of get crews ready for their mission in the real world. The numbers that get reported look great, at the expense of the aircrew expected to report for a flight ready to do their best.

Similar to that, I recall an inspection of our programs where the entire squadron scrambled to put a standardized cover and spine on every binder in the building. The logic was (and still is) that if things look good at first glance, inspectors don’t dig as deep or ask as many questions. So we put pretty covers and spines on binders that hadn’t been reviewed in years, despite a requirement to review annually. I questioned that logic, but the unit gambled that no one would check those particular binders, and they won that bet.

So what’s the answer? Focus efforts on doing the job, not on counting jobs done. Let the data serve its purpose. If it shows a problem, fix the problem, not the numbers.

Second, we might manipulate the data to suit our needs.

There are leaders who care about the mission and their people, and there are managers who care about the results they get from the mission and the people. The former make decisions based on the perceived best interest of the entire organization. The latter act based on what creates the best data for their area of responsibility, regardless of impact to the rest of the organization.

It’s really easy to tell when you’re dealing with one or the other.

If I care about a particular program or system only when I’m in charge of it, I fall into the selfish manager camp. Good results for the program make the manager look good too. So they focus effort on what sets them up for success. When something beneficial to the organization might impact the manager’s results, they shoot that suggestion down.

The easiest way to tell which type you’re dealing with is by witnessing a change in responsibility or authority. If all their priorities shift when they change positions, if what once got shot down now gets approved to make the new program results better, then *cue Jeff Foxworthy* they might be a manager.

Leaders care about doing what’s best for all concerned, even when it doesn’t benefit them, even when it hurts. They’re willing to sacrifice some results in order to keep the organization going. They’re willing to fight for what’s best regardless whether that makes them look good. Of course they want good numbers and positive performance reports, but they want meaningful numbers and accurate performance reports more.

What do I do with this? I try to fight for what’s right even when it’s outside my area of responsibility. I care for the entire organization, not just my little corner of it. Caring about other people’s results usually leads to them returning the favor, in my experience. And that makes a healthier unit.

Finally, we may assume the data tells the whole story.

Changes in data help us identify trends. If production slips, we know, because we track how many things we produce. If accuracy slides below standards, or if we’re missing something important, data is often the first indication.

As much as I rant about counting beans and reliance on tracking numbers, there’s a reason we do it. Generally, it works great. The trouble is, some situations are unique, and it’s hard to capture everything in a number.

We had a student come through who dominated every phase of the course. From the beginning, he made his goal clear. “I’ve been at the top of every class so far in the military, and that’s important to me. I want to do that here.”

Out of, say, 600 questions in the academic course, he got one wrong. His marks were good on all simulations. He went into his flight training with the same vigor, and got marked well above standards in a couple key areas. On his evaluation at the end of the training, he received no discrepancies or markdowns, and got marked for “superior performance” in his main aircrew duty.

All those results go into a worksheet with a formula to figure out an overall score. The trick is, almost everyone gets the same grades on their sims and flights, so his points weren’t really any better than someone else as long as they did decent work. The eval grade that counted for the formula also only takes into account the same grade the average student will receive; it didn’t factor in the superior performance areas.

So the math worked out to put him just below the cutoff for Distinguished Graduate, even though he literally did everything right. We could look at other students and see a clear distinction between his performance and theirs. The data are usually reliable, but in this case, the data were misleading.

If we just look at numbers and don’t put thought into what they may or may not be telling us, we’ll walk away with an acceptable snapshot of the organization’s performance. But every so often, we’ll be wrong.
I know, this last bit doesn’t really fit the theme of polishing a turd. It’s more like Tolkien’s turn of the old proverb into “All that is gold does not glitter. Not all who wander are lost.” Sometimes what looks like poop might need a touch of attention and thought, maybe a quick polish, to find the gold hidden beneath the surface.

Like anything, data are fantastic when used properly, with integrity and care. The fact is, we can polish turds.

The question is, who wants to?

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Gaming

D&D Next: Character Creation

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Note: My updated post concerning my character creation experience in 5th Edition D&D is found here. Check it out and let me know if I’ve missed an important subject or left a question unanswered.
This post was written when a friend and I were trying out the then-newly-released rules for D&D Next, almost a year before the Player’s Handbook for 5th Edition was published. This post receives more weekly views than anything else I’ve posted, but it’s based on out-of-date material.

“Where are the skills on this character sheet?”

That’s the first comment my friend-turned-online-DM made when I opened the D&D Next playtesting materials. He made it as a joke, because my reaction amounted to “What the–?!”

Yes, the character sheet is a little bit different.

As promised before, here are some of my first experiences with D&D Next, or D&D 5th Edition, or D&D “Wizards of the Coast tries to fix what everyone hates about 4th edition” Edition, or whatever you want to call it.

The playtest materials consist of a bunch of .pdf files for various excerpts of rules. We popped open the Character Creation document, eager to see what else changed. Step 1 was comforting in its familiarity.

Every character needs attributes. The rules present a basic set of stats, a point-buy system, and 4d6 minus the lowest. Since I had no attachment to my experiment, I chose to roll. And since I had no goal in mind, I thought the stats might help guide the rest of the character creation process. So I plugged in the numbers as I got them instead of taking the best rolls for the stats that might suit a particular class.

Nameless ended up with some unfortunate rolls. He’s a little strong, and very dextrous. He’s also slightly smarter than average. But his constitution and wisdom are average, and his charisma is poor. (Str 12, Dex 16, Int 12, Con 10, Wis 11, Cha 9, if you care. These stats include racial bonuses.)

So, whatever else is true, I knew nobody liked Nameless. Step two is choosing a race. The DM thought the high Dex might fit a half-elf, and I was fine with that. That also gave me a choice of another language. For no real reason, I picked Gnomes.

Then we discussed why it might be that no one likes this character. Perhaps he lived among elves that were strict worshipers of nature. On a trip outside his home, Nameless encountered some of the clockwork mechanisms of the Gnomes and fell in love with their intricate designs. His passion for technology and machinery ran counter to his tribe’s culture, so he became an outcast and apprenticed with Gnomish tinkers to learn the craft.

His outcast status also gave me an idea for a name. Since he is arguably crazy in the view of his peers, and since he is consumed with a sort of idealism, I went with LaMoncha, thinking of “the Man of La Mancha,” Don Quixote. Instead of charging windmills, he might build them, to the chagrin of his people.

Step three is to choose a class. Next keeps the standard four: cleric, fighter, mage, and rogue. It also offers six less common classes that may or may not fit a particular campaign: barbarian, bard, druid, monk, paladin and ranger. It doesn’t specify what particular stats are ideal for a given class, but you can look at what gets used in a few class abilities to make your decision.

I did not desire a rogue, though Dex is the obvious high stat for a combat rogue. (Then again, maybe not. Next seems to allow for a thuggish Strength-based rogue, and I’m sure there’s room for the smooth-talking Charisma-based charlatan.)

The description for ranger was that of a loner, which fit my outcast well. I thought of an old character idea for a ranger who uses twin hand crossbows as a sort of “gun kata,” spinning his way through fights and planting bolts in the skulls of his foes. This guy is supposed to be good with intricate technology. Modifying hand crossbows to suit his combat tastes would be easy.

What the class does not do is provide automatic skills like 4E did. The Ranger isn’t automatically the expert at all things nature and dungeoneering. The rogue doesn’t get perception and stealth by default. Also those skills don’t exist.

Each class does get some special features or proficiencies that make sense in the context. A druid gets proficiency with an herbalism kit. Sure, your druid might not want to mix potions, or your fighter may choose to do so. But there’s an inherent benefit for a druid to take up that trade. Rogues have a similar proficiency with thieves’ tools. For the Ranger, the special feature is tracking.

So what about skills, or their equivalent? Step four is to choose a background.  This provides the character with training in certain “lore” that sort of replaces skills. There are eleven sets of lore to choose from, some of which you can break out into subsets. For example, “cultural lore” might mean elven culture, or dwarven, or human, etc.

Any time you have a check that requires the use of lore you’re trained in, you get a +10 bonus to that check. It’s not skills per se, but it serves many of the same purposes.

Your background might be as an artisan, working some particular trade. That worked perfectly for my character. Others include soldier, thief, jester, court noble, minstrel, priest, sage, and spy. Maybe I skipped one or two. Each comes with a basic description of the back story of the particular background, a trait which might provide material or assistance in RP, a proficiency with some other item (disguise kit, artisan tools, navigation tools, etc) and suggested fields of lore. There’s a suggested equipment pack as well.

The rules suggest cooperation between player and DM to create a background that fits just right. The backgrounds provided are given as options to spark that imagination. My DM and I chatted and settled on the Artisan with minor tweaks.

Really, that covers the key steps of character creation. Step five is assigning those ability scores, but I did that on step one. Step six is purchasing equipment. I paid a little extra for the various modifications LaMoncha would have to make to his gear. The DM was fine with it. LaMoncha now has twin hand crossbows with partial scimitar blades installed underneath like handguards for the pistol grips. He wears metal hooks on his hips and carries crossbow bolts in bands around his thighs so that in one smooth motion he can cock both crossbows and retrieve two bolts to reload.

Step seven is to fill in numbers. Step eight is the final details like alignment, personality, and appearance. The 9 traditional alignments return, with Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic and Good-Neutral-Evil.

And now I have my D&D Next character. It started as a joke and an experiment, but the character creation process helped solidify a picture in my mind for a character that I came to enjoy.

Next I’ll recount how it felt to actually play the character in combat and in a skill challenge.

UPDATE 5 Jan 2013: I received orders to move overseas, and in the ensuing changes to my life, this project fell by the wayside. My friend and I have not completed any sessions in the last two months, and I don’t know if we’ll be able to restart the effort in the future. D&D Next continues to go through changes too, so this may not be entirely current. Nevertheless, it was a fun exercise, and I appreciate the attention it has received.

Gaming

They See Me Rollin', They Hatin'

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A good friend of mine (who sometimes — occasionally — posts things on the internets) proposed a joint venture:

How would you feel about a role playing group that plays once a month for about four hours, records the sessions, and posts the highlights as a podcast?

I love the idea, because I greatly miss having an RPG group. But this has been done before, so what’s the hook?

We can try using D&D Next as a way to introduce it and test it out.

Fantastic. I only know a little of what I’ve heard or read in forums online, so a hands-on D&D Next experience would give me perspective and potentially be useful for readers/listeners. Certainly more than “check out the stupid antics of our RPG group” would.

I’m looking forward to the idea, but there are a few technical tests to run and we need a fourth member, so this isn’t happening tomorrow, just sometime in the Future ™. That’s assuming we don’t all lose our motivation and get sucked into some other distraction.

Then I was chatting with my wife today, and she mentioned how she lost a friend on Facebook over D&D. How do you lose a friend you barely know over D&D?

The source of all evil!
The source of all evil!

People fear the unknown, and if all they’re given is misinformation or worst-case examples, it’s easy to villify “that thing those people do” without ever giving it a chance or at least some rational thought. A lot of our friends are Christians, and sometimes we can be the worst at getting good information on a subject. Harry Potter is a tool of Satan in the “culture war” to introduce kids to witchcraft, right? And Star Wars is a tool of Satan to get kids hooked on New Age ideas. And Twilight is a tool of Satan to make kids stupid…

Well, maybe there’s something there.

But all too often we go off half-cocked on whatever the new cultural phenomenon is, and in the 80s, D&D got the same mistreatment from the Christian community. “People sit around in the darkness with candles casting spells!” and “Kids kill themselves when their characters die in the game!”

Hardly. More like “Friends sit around a table and interact in person telling stories, instead of acting like zombies staring at a TV screen or the light of a smartphone.”

But myths are hard to dispel. (Dispel… like dispelling MAGIC! Now my words are starting to incorporate witchcraft terminology! See how easily the evil creeps in?)

Spreading warts since... never.
Spreading warts since… never.

My family and I were at a park the other day, and in the course of playing around, we found a toad. After some effort, including a hilarious moment when the frisbee we tossed onto the toad started hopping around the sandbox, we successfully captured the beast.

We released it, and moments later, a little girl was watching it closely with wide eyes. Her parents stood close by, and the mom said, “Did you pick that toad up? That’s a horrible idea! That’s how you get warts!”

No, it’s not. But that’s been said so long, many of us believe it’s true.

To my Christian friends, is it possible we are all too willing to believe the scary news about whatever the next thing is, rather than investigate for ourselves and find the truth? My first-hand experiences with D&D and other RPGs have been nothing but positive. You can find some of those accounts in the Gaming category on this blog.

And to any RPG friends, maybe you’re curious what D&D Next will look like. Or maybe you’ve had a bad experience and can use a second opinion. Or maybe our group will discover that it really sucks, and we’ll post rants complaining about the dumbing down of the traditional game. In any event, I expect it will be a fun ride.

So stay tuned for updates, and keep an open mind.

D&D Next is not the Devil.

…or is it?

Culture/Politics

Pound of Flesh… or Soda

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I chugged the last of my third can of Diet Mountain Dew (or Mtn Dew, as the label now reads), and I listened to the radio news on the way home from work.

Even if it is sugary, as long as it's 16 oz or less, I can have as many as I want.
If it’s not sugary, I can have a billion ounces, right?

“A court in New York struck down the city’s ruling limiting beverage sizes in restaurants to 16 ounces.”

Well good. That was stupid.

Then I hear that somebody or other “vows to appeal and continue this fight.”

Seriously?

New York City must be an absolutely amazing place. If the biggest problem on their plate these days is fighting against a venti or the dreaded 32 oz giant soda from the gas station, then we should all be moving there ASAP. Forget crime, and gun control (or lack thereof). Forget about cities going bankrupt or businesses struggling, or unemployment rates.

Someone out there might drink a 24 oz cup of Coke!

What’s to stop me from getting a 16 oz soda at lunch, and then another one an hour later, and then another one on the way home from work? What prevents me from buying a twelve-pack of deadly sugary Coke to put in the fridge at work?

Like I said, I heard this as I finished my third can in about as many hours. Maybe that’s a sign of a problem. Thankfully they were zero calorie diet versions, because otherwise I would have thirty-six ounces of death in my veins!

Nothing in the current law stops people from drinking as much soda as they want. It just wastes time and effort trying to limit the size of the cup. Will this curb obesity? I don’t know… are we also limiting the size of fast food orders, and are we imposing guidelines on how many calories someone can eat in a given day? Are we enacting junk food taxes on chips and candy? Heck, I used a Starbucks venti as an example, since the 20 oz White Chocolate Mocha I used to enjoy is about the equivalent of drinking a Burger King Whopper. But the law appears to be aimed at sugary soda only.

NOT made of vitamins
Will we see a similar fight against junk food now that Twinkies are back?

This is like saying that in order to reduce traffic violations, any motorcycle exceeding the speed limit will be pulled over. What about all the other vehicles on the road? The law does nothing to really address the problem it’s aimed at. And it’s a stupid law because anyone can easily drink more than 16 oz of soda at any time.

Yet NYC has the resources and time and energy to appeal the appeal of the original decision in order to “continue the fight against this obesity epidemic!” Oh, so very brave! The Big Apple is lucky to have Don Quixote champions like Bloomberg, riding in to rescue the city from terrible imaginary danger.

I’ll raise my 32 oz large theater cup to that lofty goal.

Gaming

WoW, srsly?

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So I took a moment to lie to myself errr… justify my monthly payment to Blizzard for the privilege of logging into World of Warcraft.

The launcher opened up, and to my surprise, there’s an add for Cosmetic Head Gear that you can BUY NOW!

No, you’ve got to be kidding me, I think. Curiosity wins, and I click the link.

Put a hat on your toon for the price you pay to play the game for a whole month! WHAT A BARGAIN!
Put a hat on your toon for the price you pay to play the game for a whole month! WHAT A BARGAIN!

Yes.

Hats for your character.

Fifteen bucks each.

I know the Free-to-Play slash Free-to-Pay model is sweeping the medium, but Blizz, here’s a bit of advice. The trick with that model is the term microtransactions. Charge $1.99 for an app, or 99 cents for something cool, and people will pay without thinking too much.

I suppose they have some reason to go this route. They’ve sold unique mounts like celestial steeds, and special pets like mini versions of big bad bosses in the game. Those have ranged from $10 to $25.

But a $15 hat?

Nope, that’s way over my head.

Culture/Politics

Die a Log

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There’s a tactic of discussion that drives me nuts. Take any social topic, and start out with name-calling against your opposition.

“So and so is a bigot.”

“She’s a racist.”

“He’s a misogynist.”

Because clearly any difference of opinion is exactly the same thing as hatred (animosity, hostility) and intolerance (an unwillingness to endure without repugnance the existence of something).

It’s an incredibly lazy way to approach social issues. It’s judgmental, it’s making assumptions about the motivations and the thoughts of another person – something we cannot accurately and objectively determine – and treating those assumptions as fact. It’s the pot calling the kettle black.

When you call folks out on this disparity, they love to declare “I won’t be tolerant of intolerance.” It’s ok to judge the judgmental. Disregard the fact that almost all virtues are revealed when we demonstrate them toward others, and especially regardless of how the other party behaves. Compassion is no virtue if I’m only concerned about those who are concerned about me. Integrity is useless if I’m only honest with those who have been faithfully honest. If you love only those who love you, what’s special about that?

Call these folks out (or just wait a minute while they sputter in self-righteous rage) and then you’ll hear “I don’t want to debate beliefs. Everyone can feel the way they feel. I just wish people wouldn’t shove their beliefs in other people’s faces.”  (Right, like when you claimed anyone who disagrees with you is a bigot/racist/misogynist/ignoramus.)

So in other words, don’t discuss ideas. Even though these differences of opinion form the foundation of multiple debates on social and political policy in our country, let’s not “shove our beliefs in anyone’s face” or discuss our differing perspectives.

Just close off in your little bubble, surrounded by the comfort of assenting voices, hearing only the praises of those who would have you conform to their view. Never let an outside opinion challenge your ideal world, and advocate the value of standing up for nothing, since apparently there’s no topic worth discussing, no argument worth making or defending, no person worth persuading to your cause.

People today — not all, but far too many — are content to live in a cozy little isolated fortress of solitude. Let not some strange concept or disagreeable thought intrude upon this idyllic fantasy! There is no need for dialogue! It would be a shame to have to think.