You’re right, but remember that gates are bidirectional. Maybe in the future there’ll be a point where his brother reconsiders his political views but if he’s only surrounded by similar-minded folks, it’s way harder to break out of that social circle.

The other 10 are just infants obviously.

Or save your money and get absolutely loaded on blackjack and hookers back home.

Not exactly what I’d call a healthy coping mechanism in face of emotional stress.

I agree. Don’t think about it like going to the wedding or not. Decide if you want to cut ties with your brother and possibly other parts of your family. Maybe also people that don’t share his political opinions but still side with him in terms of the wedding. Chances are high that not going will permanently damage your relationship to your brother and possibly other family members that side with him. If you value your ideals higher than your family, that’s perfectly okay. But from perspective you aren’t forced to do that.

Good point, if you’re 100% subjectively lucky, not only you would have that ‘live-forever DNA’ but also everyone else that you’d wish for, i.e. all your loved ones. And if you were looking for a new friend or partner, you’d always find a perfect match immediately.

I guess such an ability might have severe negative consequences for the part of the universe you dislike or don’t care about. But from a purely egocentric point of view, I can’t see any drawbacks at the moment.

If you don’t specify a currency or a grade of inflation, this might kill far more people than expected.

1 billion Iranian Rial for instance is just about 23752 USD.

How is that different from ‘being able to fly’ or ‘being able to turn invisible’? My understanding of OP’s twist is that you don’t have full control over your ability but that the skill is permanently active.

We could also run some heat pipes through the body to improve conductivity, stretch the skin to increase the surface etc.

If the person doesn’t need to be alive to stay at a comfortable temperature we could even grind the body into a powder of tiny heat emitting particles. Then add a very fast flowing liquid with a good conductivity and our super hero heating system is good to go.

But enough psychopath talk now. I personally don’t want to turn anyone into a heating system, but I’m sure capitalism will find a way to exploit this special property. :D

Good point. If you fly feet forward towards the ground with an acceleration of 9,81 m/s2 it should feel pretty much like normal standing with gravity.

If humanity finds out about that property of you, you might end up as some kind of human battery. If you can’t be cooled down under any circumstances, one could use your body to heat up infinite amounts of water/air with heat pumps and use you to heat entire cities. Super useful for the rest of humanity but not exactly the life I’d like to live. :D

I guess in combination with the ‘can’t stop it’ twist that would mean that you can’t stop talking in these old and random languages. So people will think you’re crazy and you’ll end up in some kind of mental illness hospital.

‘Using cloud software will lead to lower costs and a better overall service quality’

mostly automated, including cotton harvesting

Do you have a source for that? As per the last documentaries I saw on this topic, sweatshops are still a huge topic in the textile industry. 10 years ago there was a horrible accident in Bangladesh where more than 1000 people were killed and another 2500 injured after the building of a single textile factory collapsed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rana_Plaza_collapse

As per the sources I know, conditions might have slightly (!!!) improved since then but still miles away from acceptable.

More than 60 million people work in the textiles and garment industry across the world according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) – most of them in developing and emerging economies. Yet in many of these countries, production and working conditions fall short of internationally defined environmental and social standards.

https://www.bmz.de/en/issues/textiles-industry

Despite public outrage about substandard working conditions, the global garment and textile industry remains rife with cases of sweatshop conditions, union-busting, gender discrimination, and forced and child labour. Around the world, the rights and safety of garment workers are being systematically neglected.

https://www.somo.nl/our-work/sectors/garment-and-textiles/

Textile workers in underdeveloped countries face labor rights abuses, low pay, long hours, dangerous working conditions, and restricted access to healthcare and education. Gender discrimination is a significant issue, particularly for women.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-97-5341-3_19

Today, the textile sector is one of the largest economic sectors globally in terms of production amount, labor employment, and gross domestic product. At the same time, it is also one of the least sustainable sectors due to its profound negative environmental and social impacts

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15589250231220359

Also it’s the first time that I hear that fashion is manufactured mostly in automated processes. I always heard that it’s highly labor intensive because the styles permanently change, batches are small and complex designs still can’t be automated in an economic way. As far as I know, there are no machines that can produce the numerous different models of shirts, trousers, backpacks, jackets, caps, dresses, skirts etc. that we see in fast fashion.

How exactly do you plant and harvest cotton, transform it into cloth and sew a shirt without labor? In agriculture as well as the textile industry we see horrible working conditions in Africa and Asia where this stuff is mostly manufactured.

Would it be racist to now give more money to the darker skinned people?

From my perspective, yes.

The redistribution of the generational wealth should be adressed as well by politics but that should be independent of the racism discussion. Significantly unequal distribution of money due to inheritance is more and more dividing society. But I don’t care if the rich people have a lighter or darker tan.

If you target inequality with inequality in the opposite direction, you’re just feeding rightwing narratives IMO.

I use Altra Lone Peak for hiking and there’s indeed lots of space for your toes. Never had blisters again.

I vote for Japanische Kampfhörspiele!

This. Get him a pile of cards from craigslist or a similar 2nd hand side. I’d probably go for private sellers that are just quitting the hobby, so you have a better mix of good and ordinary cards compared to what @iii@mander.xyz described. But I would say especially younger kids can be impressed by quantity far more than quality.

I also don’t get the hype around Paris. It’s not super ugly but also nothing special.

I don’t live too far from it, could easily go there for a week-end or even day trip. Still only been there twice and have no plans to go there again. In many spots it’s very crowded and dirty and the attractions aren’t better than in any other major city.

Why do you think his whole neighborhood is on ketamines?