lattrommi

You are right, it’s not the same thing. I had an English teacher who tossed out her vocabulary lesson one day and instead went off on a very energetic rant about critical thinking, ultimatums, game theory, dilemma, paradox and so on. I’ve always wanted to recreate her lesson but never get it right.

I do think my final line still applies for this scenario. There’s always another way. I think War Games does the same idea I was trying to convey but I’ve never seen it, I’ve only seen enough references to it, to vagely know what it’s about…

I have only tortured children as a passenger in an automobile, using flatulance and automatic window locks. I have not murdered anyone. I have never used ticktalk.

It irritates me a lot when people use ‘we’ and ‘our’ in contexts that include me, when they do not apply to me.

So to rephrase your first comment in this chain:

The american government, via israeli and other proxy and puppet armies they have created, are already torturing and murdering millions of innocent children in gaza, africa and southeast asia and unchecked capitalist corporations, both american and international, are actively enabling climate change to maintain american military dominance to serve as their shield from the people who resist; is that okay?

The answer is: No.

I have not been comfortable for a long time, figuratively and literally, long before I ever heard about gaza, since before I was considered an adult, a few weeks prior to 9/11.

I have protested in many ways since then, with several years incarcerated because of it.

I have lived an impoverished life by american standards, although not the same level of poverty as other places, by several orders of magnitude for some places.

It is the billionaire kleptocracy that is controlling the country I am trapped in, that is causing climate change. Not me, with my lack of using fossil fuels whenever I had the choice, eating locally grown as much as available, avoiding supporting the worst companies such as big oil and the process and/or fast food complex.

Sorry for the rant. Like I said, I really hate when people say ‘we’ and it includes me.

The core of the riddle is that it is an ultimatum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum

Ultimatums have been debated historically, in great detail. For example, in the old testament of the bible.

https://www.bibleoutlines.com/isaiah-361-377-dont-make-a-deal-with-the-devil/

Even if one is not religious or cares not for reading biblical stuff, it is simplified effectively as such:

If given only 2 choices, it is never fair. Find another choice.

If they are going to be living short lives in tortuous conditions thanks to climate change anyways, than yes. Otherwise no.

Could we maybe substitute the children with the one million richest people on the planet?

You’re already doing better than me by making this post, keep up the good work!

As someone with a lisp who tends to turn ‘s’ and ‘z’ sounds into a ‘th’ sound, i will respectfully disagree that it is a cool combination. it hurts me a little that i can’t always say words properly but i suppose i could always ask a doctor to aneththetithe me.

defenestratafenestra isn’t a real word but i use it to tell people i stopped using Windows and switched to Linux.

i feel the same way about pneumonoultramicroscopicsyllacovolcanoconiosis. it’s fun to say!

it’s not considered a real word anymore (and from what i gather, never really was a real word, in the opinion of the english nerds who decide such things) but i learned how to say it, dammit! i can’t unlearn that!

i might have even learned how to spell it correctly. i didn’t check the spelling as i wrote it in this comment but i also don’t think it matters if i incorrectly spell a word that isn’t really a word. so… yeah…

anyways, it was possibly used as a complicated version of what was known as ‘black lung’ disease, which coal miners in the appalacians contracted from inhaling silica dusts, for anyone curious.

Destroy my credit again.

My cat Chili could relate.

Battleship.

Yeah, the movie based off the board(?) game.

Feel free to fire up the torches and start handing out the pitchforks, because I’m not playing by the rules.

It doesn’t just look like it will suck, it looks like a ‘so bad it is bad’ type of movie, an overbudgeted ‘this is what is wrong with movies these days’ sort of unmitigated hot wet trash from a dumpster fire in the bad part of town.

It isn’t well written.

It isn’t well acted.

I honestly can’t even promise a good time.

These are the thoughts that went through my mind when I read about it before watching: “This is going to be awful and a waste of my time. These actor names kinda look familiar but I don’t know who any of these people are. Is Rihanna her first name or last name? Isn’t she just a singer. It better not have that stupid umbrella song. Wait, Liam Neeson is in this? Is he doing okay? Did he lose a bet? Does he need money? I bet that evil Jar’jar forced him to to do this. Wait, running time over 2 hours?! How is that even… the board never took more than like 15 minutes… except cheaters moving their… fuck me, I already need a drink.”

Go into the movie with that mindset. Be angry at it before it starts.