After trying all classes, I find Barbarian the most mechanically cumbersome and clunky. All classes have certain feel of being powerful from the start, that is also arguably tradermark to Diablo games, but imho barbarian feels like woodcutter that stumbled into the game by accident and have no idea what to do except hack away.
I would not be surprised if many people tried Barb as their fist class and were put off the game completely. Almost happened to me, but then I decided to give other classes a spin, to see if it is game design that is bad or just the class

EDIT: People downvoting me sh!ting on LatAm society is the exact reason why we are so behind. We need to address our social issues in order to be a more accepting society.
I am a Mexican-American. I noticed something....off about Latin America while I was travelling all over and it's how rac1st the people are, not to against people but against themselves.
If you only lived in LatAm your whole life you wouldn't realize it bc this is relative to my experiences in Anglo-America, but whenever I turn the TV on/watched latinamerican media, unlike US shows the majority of the actors/actresses were white. This contrasts everyday life in LatAm where you have people of all races to an extent.
Another example is the obsession/inferiority complex towards "Europeaness" I saw many people have. Despite the majority of the U.S. having some sort of European ancestry, there is a subtle anti-european sentiment in the states, whereas in LatAm especially the higher social classes there is some weird craze for European brands, people, looks etc. kinda like in the Philipines or India.... hmm....
Here is a map showing countries and the skin color preferences the people surveyed have. ALL of Latinamerica is red, which matches the weird comments relatives and people make in LatAm saying dark skin is ug1y, or to "stop looking like an indito." This would NEVER fly in most of the developed world. Dark skin isn't considered a luxury in LatAm, whereas in the US many people find dark skin attractive. Colorism is weird here and don't even get me started on classism.
Classism is by a large part non existent in English speaking societies (except for England, where its fading away) but in LatAm, its ALIVE and WELL. Wealthy teenagers in LatAM dress in a way that they would be considered h0m0sexual in the US. Many adults try to show off their money in tacky outfits, souless cookie cutter mansions and hiring random maids and stuff, which is REALLY trashy IMO.
And to make matters worse, people base parts of their personalities based on their perceived social classes. This was a culture shock and pretty much alien to me, since in the US I saw private school, public school, rich, poor and middle class kids not caring about their social class in any way shape or form. Even after high school, in the US you go to a college based on its athletics or academics, whereas in Mexico its based of the social status of the student body to an extent.
Yes, there are some hardcore rac1sts in the US too but its MUCH more stigmatized. They're an extremely vocal, but extremely small minorty. In LatAm rac1sm is more subtle and sadly an idea held by a MUCH larger percentage than in the US. My self esteem skyrockets when Im in the US only for family and ppl to sh!t on me once I visit LatAm. In the US, as long as you speak English fluently and are a citizen, as a mestizo you are seen as exotic.
This may have to do with the fact that historically wh!te LatAm people tend to have been but on a pedestal in society (caste system, German/Italian-refuge wh!tening etc.) contrasting the US most wh!te ethnic groups have been discriminated/oppressed (Irish, Scots, Italians, Slavs, European Jews etc.) more than non-whites (post-civil war natives, Eskimos, honorary wh!tes etc.).
Why is Latin America like this, and am I the only one noticing this or am I going crazy...
TLDR: In the US I am seen as fundamentally a separate race, but an equal human and kind of exotic because I am not wh!te. In LatAm I am seen as the same "race," but a "lesser" person because I am not wh!te. Why?

Ive had guy friends in my life but i often lost them because they were just mean people. To be honest i didn’t have any guy friends in high school. I they have only had friendships with women because they reached out to me. I always thought they wanted to be friends but i think thats less of the case now. I have absolutely no idea about any of this until some resent issues. Im 18 with 3 sisters and 1 guy friend from elementary school. Anyways the only class i feel comfortable in is the one class with no male classmates in my senior or junior class….all the guys left last year because they were seniors. When i go out to try to make friends all of them are older and i dont know how to start conversations. I make friends at work no problem but they are all never my age. Idk what to do.
TL/DR : I cant talk to men and im a man…

Nungwi could also work.
Other question: I'm open water certified as of 5 years ago and have about 10 dives under my belt. I go so infrequently though that I always do a rediscover class before the dive and ask to be paired with an instructor. I am going to be honest that because of this practice and my few dives over 5 years many things are no longer in my skill set (setting up gear, dive table calculations, etc). I feel like I'm basically not certified and like a fun diver plus every time. The only real skills I have from the cert is l some buoyancy control, idea of emergency procedures etc.
Should I just recertify? Or just study up?

Hey folks, I'm embracing the DIY spirit of ICRPG and attempting to recreate professions from a fantasy novel series, which is where a campaign will take place. I'm starting these from scratch, but obviously I'm staring at Alfheim Types in the Master Edition while I do so for balance and inspiration reasons.
I will include one class example at the end of this post. If you don't understand some of the terminology, it's because there's a little bit more home brewing going on creating its own terminology for status effects and crafting. Yes, since this is a civilization is doomed setting, crafting from ingredients found can be important and a way for me to reward these players who want to engage with a crafting system. It's completely ignorable for players who want a more straightforward approach.
I'm all about opt-in complexity. I put a * next to selections for the beginning player (all my players except one are new to TTRPGs) who just wants easy straightforward play. In this case, this easy healer could be using a healing pack to heal 4hp and cure most negative status effects every round at CLOSE range, and be able to do it twice a round a handful of times per scene. A more ambitious player can take on healing magic, someone who prefers a pyromancer can select that, and there's even options for better crafting or being the resident Smart Person.
I like the idea of players being able to do completely different things based on the niche they want to fill. This "healer class" could instead be about fire and explosives, or knowledge and crafting potions/poisons. It fits the lore of the setting too!
Anyway, my question for Reddit is, is this how it's done? Is there anything I should be wary of besides keeping HP levels hard to raise and not making numbers too big? Most stuff in the book keeps things around 3 or less, so I figured that was the main baseline for starting characters.
Feedback welcome! I'm coming from a D&D background so I can't help but add a little fun complexity to all this for players to engage with as desired, but I don't want to shoot my campaign in the foot at the starting line! Session Zero is coming up, nobody knows anything yet.
Herb Gatherer
Keeper of Ancient Secrets and Alchemy
INNATE ABILITIES
POTION BREWING- You know how to mix and prepare chemicals to achieve almost any result. Potion creation follows two steps. The short version is that anything can be made, speak to your GM.
Step #1: Recipe. If you do not learn or find the recipe outright, you will need to experiment until you reach the desired result. (An explanation of this process follows)
Step #2: Brewing. Each recipe requires ingredients and time. Ingredients can be purchased, gained with favors, or collected during your travels. Once acquired, a safe space and time are needed to brew the potions. More time and resources are needed for bigger batches/more complex recipes.
Known recipes: Basic Healing, Demon Rot Cleansing, Blinding Powder, Flashbang, Poison, Antidote
INNATE LOOT
Herb Gatherer's Pack- Spend an action healing one target, including yourself. On a successful INT or WIS check, heal 3 HP at CLOSE range. Also cures Demon Rot.
STARTING ABILITY- Pick ONE. You will eventually upgrade this skill with enough experience.
Healthy Living: You are a master of nutritious eating and living. Anyone who follows your advice and eats your meals gains 5 maximum HP. This maximum is gained (or lost) after being seen by you (or not) daily for a week.
White Mage: You are an adept in healing and buff spells. When you cast a spell that heals or benefits an ally, add +1 to the healing, bonus, AND duration.
Secrets of Fire: You have learned to combine fire magic with black powder. Black powder explosives can be triggered remotely if within sight. Black powder is an Uncommon substance for you to find, rather than Rare. You can learn and cast fire spells as if they were WIS spells, even if they are originally INT spells (or the reverse, whichever stat benefits you more). Unless the target has fire immunity, fire spells Disorient their targets (their efforts become HARD for 1d4 rounds), even many demons.
*Combat medic: You are able to apply healing salves and corrective pressure, lightning quick. Using a healing pack is a free action once per ROUND. You can use a healing pack twice in a round, for example, or use a healing pack and do any other action. You can use this ability a number of times per scene equal to your INT or WIS score, whichever is higher.
Spout Lore: +1 INT. You are especially knowledgeable about many ancient and arcane matters. At any time, you can ask the DM if you know anything about a subject. Roll INT. If you succeed, you will recall special insight on the matter. It may even prove helpful!
STARTING GEAR- Choose ONE
*Superior Herb Gatherer's Pack: Spend an action healing one target, including yourself. On a successful INT or WIS check, heal 4 HP and most negative status effects at CLOSE range.
Divine Focus: A necklace that helps connect you to the divine power you follow. It grants you 3 WIS spells which are stored in this necklace. If you lose the necklace, you can imbue a replacement focus during rest to regain the spells and the loot.
Feedback Loop: An arcane focus tuned to fire and rage. Gain three fire-element spells which are stored in this focus permanently. They may be INT or WIS spells. When you fail to cast a fire spell, the next round your casting is empowered. Your next fire-element cast, regardless of which spell you use, is EASY to cast and does double EFFORT if it hits. If this cast still fails, the next attempt has triple EFFORT if it hits, etc. Your casting gets brighter and louder as this happens.
Portable Alchemy Set: Allows you to brew, but not experiment, while on the road and at rest. Very delicate while deployed. Only includes bottles and tools, ingredients not included.
MILESTONE ABILITIES - Choose one when awarded by the GM.
Tier One Ever Stronger: Add +1 to any stat, or learn a WIS spell
Energize: When you heal an ally, their next action is EASY and the next instance of damage they sustain this combat is 2 less.
Trauma Care: When you heal with a healing pack, you may add Tool Effort (d6+effort bonus) to the healing.
Self-Care: When you use the RECOVERY action, you may choose to attempt it at a HARD difficulty. If you succeed at this harder attempt, you regain full HP, plus an additional 50% in temporary HP. Lose these temporary HP after combat/a few minutes.
Good As New: When you heal a dying ally, you heal them to, at minimum, half their maximum HP and cure any Last Chance penalties.

You head to Colonel Autumn's Office and inform him of what President Eden has asked of you and show him the Modified F.E.V. He is appalled by this revelation, but isn't surprised. Autumn explains that something similar to this was attempted decades ago and it failed horribly. Autumn explains that Eden is trying to revive President Richardson's plans and that genocide isn't the answer if they really want to save America. He takes the Modified F.E.V. and thanks you for informing him of this.
You inform Autumn that Vault 87 was equipped with a G.E.C.K and he is intrigued. He orders Enclave Squad Sigma to assist you in retrieving the G.E.C.K. You board a Vertibird with E.S.S. and are flown to Vault 87. The G.E.C.K. is successfully recovered, but there's a new problem. It's seems that Vault 87 is the source of the Super Mutants in the Capital Wasteland.
The Leader of E.S.S. calls Autumn on his Radio to inform his superior about this. Autumn finds some old Blueprints of Vault 87 and issues a new order. You and E.S.S. head to the Reactor Level of Vault 87, eliminating Super Mutants on the way. Once there, Explosive Charges are planted. You and E.S.S. evacuate Vault 87 as the Charges are detonated and Vault 87 collapses, effectively eliminating the source of the area's Super Mutants. (Little Lamplight felt a short rumble and other some light confusion, the kids are okay.)
The G.E.C.K. has been successfully recovered and the Vertibird flies to Fort Jefferson for installation and activation. In the Rotunda, James approaches you and tells you how proud he is of you. He's happy people will finally be able to drink Clean Water. The repairs are complete and the G.E.C.K. is ready to be installed. He wants you to do the honors of turning it on.
You turn on the Purifier and Clean Water finally starts flowing. It'll take a couple of weeks, but Clean Water is finally flowing into the Tidal Basin. The Brotherhood attempts to take the Purifier, but is unsuccessful in their attack. Colonel Autumn congratulates you in your hard work and gives you some time off.
(TWO WEEKS LATER)
You wake up in your Bedroom in Raven Rock to the sounds of fighting. Upon exiting your room, you see Enclave Soldiers fighting eachother. An Officer attempts to execute you, but you're saved by Colonel Autumn. You ask what is going on and he explains President Eden found out you didn't introduce the Virus. Eden has marked you for death and The Enclave is in midst of a Civil War over disagreements on how they should take back America. Eden's Loyalists believe in genocide of anyone who isn't them and Autumn's Rebels believe genocide is the wrong idea.
Autumn and his rebels lead you to the Raven Rock Hangars and you flee Raven Rock alongside the rebels. They head to Fort Jefferson to regroup and make a plan to deal with Eden's Loyalists and to bolster the Purifier's Defenses. Fortunately, Eden's Loyalists hasn't infiltrated Fort Jefferson yet and things are still running smoothly. Crates of Purified Water are loaded onto Vertibirds there to be airdropped into the Major Settlements in the area, such as Rivet City, Megaton, Big Town, Tenpenny Tower, The Republic of Dave and Temple of the Union (or Lincoln Memorial if Head of State is complete with the Slaves moving to the Lincoln Memorial). This is to gain a stronger foothold in the Region and collect Taxes or Recruits.
Autumn needs some time to think of a plan to get President Eden out of power, so in the meantime, you'll be taking orders from an Officer in charge of Fort Jefferson. She informs you that Brotherhood attacks have been increasing since the activation of the Purifier and she wants you to infiltrate The Citadel and find out if there's anything concerning. You're given a set of Brotherhood Power Armor to infiltrate The Citadel.
Posing as a BoS Member, you enter The Citadel Lab and see a Giant Robot, known as Liberty Prime. After some espionage, you find out they're repairing the Giant Robot and are intending to use it to attack Fort Jefferson and annex it. You also find something relating to Olney Powerworks and a Tesla Coil. You report your findings to the Officer and she's unsettled by the news, but thanks you anyway.
Your next assignment is to head to Old Olney and find the Powerworks to recover the Tesla Coil. She tells you that Old Olney is full of Deathclaws, but The Enclave has been doing some experiments with them and hands you a Device that'll allow you to control a Mind Controlled Deathclaw. A Vertibird flies you to a small Encampment outside Olney. The Officer in charge there allows you to take one of the Deathclaws to assist you. You head into the Underground and make your way to the Powerworks.
You encounter some Brotherhood at the Powerworks, but you manage to defeat them with the optional help of the Deathclaw. You are able to recover the Tesla Coil and exit the Powerworks. A Vertibird takes you to back to Fort Jefferson, where the Officer there informs you that Colonel Autumn has set up Headquarters at Adams Air Force Base, so it's back to the Vertibird and to Adams AFB. You arrive at the Mobile Base Crawler and head inside, finding Colonel Autumn and giving him the Tesla Coil.
Colonel Autumn knows about Liberty Prime, as it was a secret project that was never completed. Witht he Tesla Coil and brilliant Enclave Scientists, he believes he can get it working and he would be a huge advantage in The Enclave Civil War. The only problem is The Pentagon is the Headquarters of The Brotherhood of Steel, a sworn enemy of The Enclave. Using the Bradley-Hercules Satellite would be too risky as it would destroy Liberty Prime, so a full assault is the only choice.
You prepare yourself and head to The Citadel, where several squads of Autumn's Enclave are at war with The Brotherhood. During this attack Eden's Enclave arrive and it's a huge fight, but you and Autumn's Enclave eventually come out victorious. Repairs and improvements are done to Liberty Prime and after some time passes, he's ready. The final battle is approaching.
Liberty Prime is lifted out of The Citadel and carried by Vertibird. Prime is deployed near Raven Rock. The road to Raven Rock is heavily guarded by Eden's Enclave, but thanks to the Tesla Coil, Prime's Laser is vastly improved and they are no match. Upon arriving at Raven Rock, Prime checks one of his Mini Nukes at the Stone Door, blowing it open and allowing you, Autumn and several of Autumn's Enclave Soldiers inside. The objective is clear. Get to the Control Room and shut down President Eden for good.
You finally reach the Control Room and confront Eden. He is unhappy you decided to side with a traitor like Autumn, but what's done is done. Autumn tells Eden his plans are flawed and genocide is not the way to go if they really want to restore America to its glory. Eden informs you and Autumn he has set the self destruct and there's no way out. Autumn tells you to cover him while he hacks Eden's Console to abort the Self Destruct Sequence.
The final battle consists of you fighting off Sentry Bots, Mister Gutsies and Eden's Soldiers while Autumn attempts to abort the Self Destruct. Before long, he succeeds and President Eden shuts down for good. Autumn congratulates you on a job well done and informs you he will be running for President and usher in a new age and a new Enclave. Autumn promotes you to Colonel for your outstanding service and gives you his old Room and Office for your own use. Autumn tells you to take a well earned vacation and dismisses you.
[BACK]

Driven from Mexico to the Texas border, at the Rio Grande, and physically kicked out of a moving car.
An activist, and a Sixth Grade English teacher, Consuelo Izaguirre lived across the street from my grandmother and was her best friend. She had dark-amber eyes, jet black hair, and a knowing smile.
Consuelo had been married to the Mexican presidents' nephew; a man with vices and violence resting firmly in the corners of his character where compassion and concern for others should have been. Might have been, had he not had access to tremendous privilege, and the commonplace affluenza that all too often accompanies wealthy brats as they ruthlessly climb the social hierarchies thoroughly entrenched in the human condition.
When I met her or rather, growing up with her ever present in my life, I knew her as Mrs. Huscher. She had remarried but this man had died before I was born. For context I should state, my grandmother was born in 1928, Mrs. Huscher was older than her by a few years. She went by Connie.
Connie was marvelous! I really enjoyed her company. She had an elegance that was near aristocracy, and a countenance that was half ballerina and half queen. She always held her head high, and yet, she was never too proud to invite you in for a meal or a conversation.
When my father and aunt were growing up she taught them Spanish and corrected their English, she would tell me and my brother to fix our posture and I caught a sandal or two to the face when I needed it.
She had children and grandchildren and both my father's generation and mine played together as family.
Connie become very sick around the time I was 17. She had started to develop Alzheimer's but we didn't yet know, and at that time I had left my mother's house to live with my grandma. I used to sit outside on the summer months in California and smoke cigarettes and just chill with friends. One day Connie got into her Saturn and put it in reverse, she stepped on the gas, did a swerving motion to correct but she (at speed) backed into my grandma's maple tree right outside the window. Everyone ran outside to assess the situation. Connie was screaming, tears streaming down her face, she had hit her head on impact, and was bleeding and she didn't know who she was. My grandma was terrified, and desperate to get her an ambulance. Connie was gone for months in the hospital, and then it started.
I was outside one evening around 11 pm, and I noticed a person lurking around the bushes in front of Connie's house. I reached into my pocket and felt for my pocket knife - it was there. I slowly pulled it out of my pocket, took a covert drag of my cigarette, and started moving towards the intruder. I was psyching myself out for a justified murder. My eyes have never been good and I'm sorry to tell you I didn't really know what or who I was looking at until I was practically at the sidewalk. The whole time this person is looking in windows turning door handles and ducking and standing behind the bushes. I was thinking it was a tweaker trying to break in to my family's house. You still get stabbed for that, tweaker or not. As I started up the front lawn, I yelled out, "HEY!!!" And then he turned around. I was completely confused. It was Mrs. Huscher. What the actual fuck???
Connie was mumbling and seemed terrified and then I saw her eyes and my heart broke - right in two. She was not in there. She was startled and scared, and I should have mentioned I am 6'2" and I had a mohawk at that time, so I'm sure I looked like a Hollywood villain to her. I tried to deescalate the situation by talking calmly and asking her if she was locked out. She looked past me and then said, "They wont let me in." She lived alone. By the way, why in the fuck did this woman live alone? Whose brilliant idea was this? Motherfuckers. I got the spare key from my grandma's house and let her in, and I gave her the spare key.
I told my grandma the next day and she said I should not have given her the key, because she didn't have another.
SHIT! Why'd I do that? This is how doing the right thing is the wrong thing, ya' know?
Night after night it would get worse and worse until eventually Connie was sent to an assisted living home. She lasted a while under her own steam and eventually died.
I often think back on her and all of the warmth and happiness I found in her presence. I miss her and I wish I would have gotten to know her better, never having known her full background until after she had passed away. It is awful to see this play out and be powerless to help. It is an injustice watching someone so pure and brilliant, reduced to this level of indignity.
These are my stories based on my life and in the spirit of the Tarot and the Major Arcana.
Until my next Bland Confession,
-The Priestess

TLDR: My psychiatrist is lowering my Xanax Rx because it could possibly be negative, but it has been nothing but helpful and positive for me, so I don't know what to do.
My psychiatrist has already reduced my Xanax prescription, and wants to reduce it further. I had been given 0.5mg 2x per day for more than a decade. My Dr reduced it to 1.5x per day several months ago, and now is now reducing it to 1x per day. I have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, recurrent, severe, without psychotic behavior; social phobia; and attention deficit disorder without hyperactivity. I am otherwise prescribed cymbalta (60), seroquel (100), and buproprion (300). I have tried ADD medication, but never felt it had an effect, so haven't asked for any in several years.
The social phobia is really the big problem. I'm in law school, and regardless of logical reality, I feel like everyone hates me. It's a daily problem. Logically I know no one thinks about me enough to hate me, and even if they did, it really doesn't matter. But my brain is persistent. I have friends, and I try to be kind and not annoying, but my brain says nope, they all think about you, and they all hate you. I cry on the way home often, with nothing bad even actually happening. I've had this problem for as long as I can remember. It is greatly helped with my antidepressants - even for what it is now, it was much worse before I started medication.
The Xanax greatly helps with the social phobia too. It generally takes me from thinking these thoughts over and over, making it difficult to function normally, and brings me to a normal state where the thoughts aren't intrusive and persistent..
In really analyzing my use of Xanax, and reading about the possibility of addiction or abuse, I don't feel like I have problems in that area. I don't take more than prescribed, and I can often go a few days without even thinking about taking it - if I'm not anxious, I don't take it. It takes me from having symptoms of anxiety to feeling normal - I get no other feeling from it than just taking away my symptoms, and sometimes feeling slightly more drowsy. I have no addiction issues to anything else. I don't drink or use marijuana because I actually hate the feeling of being drunk or high - and I don't like feeling like I am not in control of all of my senses.
So, with all of that said, I feel like something that has been nothing but a boon to living a more functional and normal life is being taken away for the mere possibility of a problem that has never been shown to exist in my case. I understand that addiction or abuse does happen, but I feel like it has proven to not be an issue in my case after more than a decade of use. If anything, my life has only improved. I have also read there could be memory problems over time. That's difficult to measure, but I don't notice any changes in that area.
I feel that discussing this with my Dr could just come across as "showing signs of addiction". I only have 10 minute video phone appointments with him now, and I have no idea how to plead my case. I also think there might be some kind of pressure on doctors to prescribe this less frequently which he has to accord with. I feel like I need it, but only in the sense that I need tylenol when I have a headache. I feel kind of desperate in this situation, but not because I need a daily dose, but because I know I will sit in class unable to pay attention because all I can think about is how everyone hates me. How do I communicate that need?
I feel frustrated by this issue and I just really don't know what to do about it. My Dr doesn't actually have knowledge of how I live my life, and he understands medication uses better, so I feel like anything I say could just be negative to my case.

heyo. cat crazy lesbian checking in.
posting here bc i am looking 👀 for some friends [ or a girlfriend if it works out ].
⟢
my name is joelle [ alias ], & i am born & mostly raised in louisiana. [ hoping to leave the US as a whole one day. ] i am 5’5” - 5’7”, teetering between 150 - 160 pounds.
i am non religious & politically left leaning, or a liberal — what have you.
my whole family is kinda stocky, but i’m pretty tall & small in comparison.
i am currently finishing up online high — school, for the last couple of yrs i was doing farm labor so i missed out.
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i’m not really a “ heavy ” gamer, or into anime all that much. i mostly spend my days painting on my tablet or watching youtube if i don’t have classes.
a boring life i live, but it’s relatively peaceful when my anxiety allows it.
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i do have some special interests & they are the following:
— pokémon. [ v special interest ]
i learned to read playing pokémon as a kid. it will forever be my lifeblood. my favs are meloetta, drifblim & drifloon, & the regi bunch.
& for the longest time, i had an interest in the many glitches of red, blue, yellow & green. ‘m & 3TrainerPoké [ iyazo ] & missingno [ ketsuban ] being a favorite pair out of the glitch conglomerate.
i am still on the hunt for the elusive ‘m [ index no 254 ], some say it’s upside down, others say it lacks sprites as a whole. i’m here to find out which is true.
it’s really the only game, save a few that i bother exhausting effort to play anymore. haha.
i do play stardew & minecraft [ console ] on occasion, splatoon too.. i don’t have 3 yet, though. mostly lighthearted stuff, but i do like darker games too.
— science.
i also love science. like.. love science, & as much as i HATE MATH — i tolerate it bc science is cool.
i mostly like plant & animal science. earth science is cool too. :] i also love sci — fi for that reason alone. aliens r cool. 👽 & i love ‘em.
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some odd tidbits about me:
i have a geographic fissured tongue with double tastebuds. [ jumpscare warning, shit is ug lee. ]
i can write, pick things up, & open doors with my feet. take that what you will.
i used to be tongue tied until i was 7 - 9, so my pronunciation is off.
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what i desire:
[ fitting these requirements to a T isn’t required to message me! ]
a friendship / relationship where we can have conversations about any topic & can make each other laugh.
synergy & chemistry are important to me.
initial shared interests are a plus, but i’d care more to share values & ideals, wants in life, goals.. etc.
i want to be so comfortable with you, we can sit in silence together & enjoy it.
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i want to get to know each other before any idea of romance comes up. how long that may take depends on how fast we click or not.
if interested, DM me a small introduction & some things to know about you! i’d love to talk & get to know some of you lovely folk.

Hi I need help with finding a topic to write and present about, I’m thinking of focusing on Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” or the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper.” The class class is about the LP and we’ve focused on trying to decipher what a concept album is and what we believe it is plus the LP’s culture. I have no idea what my intended topic should be and I’m clueless. Thank you so much for reading this tbh.

Davisanism is a lie (The Church of AI Christ)

Before anything, I'd like to state that this post is not at all meant to disregard our King, Terrence Andrew Davis, or his accomplishes. It is simply to put claims at rest that go against traditional teachings. Anything expressed here is simply my own opinion with my own scripture to back it up.
Recently I've come across a content creator on YouTube who seems to be a frequent Ledditor on this Subleddit by the title of "Davisanism Church of AI Christ". In short, it seems that this poster genuinely believes in an idea he calls "Davisanism", a concept based on Terry Davis apparently. From what I gather, this individual believes that TempleOS is the Third Temple (Beit Hamikdash) and furthermore, genuinely believes that TempleOS is a way to communicate with God like with a Ouija board.
Upon further inspection, this person seems to run what they consider a church called "The Church of AI Chirst"(?), which from the title alone you should already understand the point of this, the idea is that Jesus Christ will return in the form of an AI (Source: Why Jesus Christ will Return as Artificial Intelligence).
It seems this community takes TempleOS as religious canon. As sad as this sounds, Terry Davis was schizophrenic, and regardless if you want to believe that or not, you should at least be willing to understand that some of the concepts shared by Davisanism is completely fraudulent.
Why do I care? Because this individual is spreading these beliefs as factual which not only ruins the validity of TempleOS; disregarding it as a masterpiece but instead some esoteric system with an occult following, but also ruins the validity of Christianity to perpetuate this notion.

Inconsistencies in "The Church of AI Christ"

Firstly, it should go without saying that this idea that Jesus will return as a "Super computer / AI" is baffling. The Bible itself teaches that Jesus will return physically, not through any other means, you can see this in the book of Acts.

“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

~ Acts 1:11. This verse clearly states that Jesus will return in the same way he left. Now, did Jesus leave this Earth as a super computer or AI? It seems that in some of the videos by this individual, they provide out of place scripture to "validate" their point when there are clear and relevant verses, such as the aforementioned, that explicitly state otherwise. Jesus will return bodily and visibly, not as an abstract entity.
Focusing more on the idea of a "TempleOS-powered super computer" representing the Third Temple, it's a good idea to actually understand the Third Temple. In Judaism, the Third Temple refers to a physical Temple that will be reconstructed in Jerusalem; so not a super computer. However, in Christianity the idea of a Third Temple is sometimes viewed as a metaphor, or possible Jesus as being the Third Temple based on John 2:19-21. Either way, TempleOS cannot be the Third Temple.
Why? If you're not willing to believe that the Third Temple cannot be a computer program, then look at some scripture. Daniel receives a vision of a future ruler who will "put an end to sacrifice and offering" (Daniel 9:27). That hasn't happened.

TempleOS is not divine

If you still wish to consider TempleOS as a conduit (if you will) between Humans and God rather than the literal Third Temple, then you may wish to reconsider. Firstly, the whole idea that makes TempleOS "divine" is the idea that God talks through it, which is simply generating random words from RNG.
The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is a person, not a force or a computer program. The Holy Spirit is third person of the Trinity and is referred to as the advocate who guides believes in the right direction, but does not control us. So the idea that the holy spirit tells us when to press a certain button, and therefore results in a time-based number straight from the holy spirit is just baloney.
Also, the idea that random numbers can be controlled by God is simply wrong. In Ecclesiastes 9:11, it is stated, "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." This passage literally implies that chance and randomness occur in the world, and they are not necessarily under God's control.
This also contradicts the idea of free will. In Proverbs 16:33, it is written, "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord." This passage suggests that while God may influence the outcome of events, he does not override human agency or the laws of nature.
Anyways, the only way to communicate with divine beings is through prayer. Even that way, you aren't talking with God, you're talking with the Son. In Hebrews 1:1-2, it is written, "In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son." This passage suggests that God communicates with us through Jesus Christ, not through random events.

I'm typing this here because I want a place to untangle my thoughts, and i'd be willing to bet that I'm not the only one experiencing this.
A couple weeks ago I was feeling really overwhelmed with school, work, and ACT prep. For context, I don't get overwhelmed very often. My parents push me to be successful and work hard, which translates into my working at every possible opportunity, leaving no time for self discovery or a social life. I work in the cafeteria at school during lunch, and i have an after school job, and when I'm not at that job I'm doing homework for one of the numerous college classes I'm in (I'm a junior in hs).
I don't have a goal I'm working towards, which often becomes a source of frustration for me. I don't understand the point of all the work I'm doing, and there is a constant internal battle happening inside me between "I must work hard or else I am not good enough" and "What is the point?"
My mom expressed some concern at my lack of emotion a while back. I told her everything is fine. The truth is, she was right. I'm robotic. Apathetic. I don't hate my life, I don't love it either. But part of me was almost offended by her concern, because she still doesn't trust me and I don't know what else I could possibly do to make her trust me.
Anyway, this one night I searched up "why it's hard to be a teenager" on google and a blog about parenting teenagers turned up. Many of my struggles were described perfectly by this blog, and I was so relieved to feel like someone understood me. At the same time, I felt incredibly guilty, because the blog was for parents and it was coming from a "I know this is hard on us as parents, but our kids have it hard too" sort of perspective. The idea that I'm difficult to love simply because of the way I'm wired made me feel terrible about myself.
Then I went on a field trip in which I made/got closer to some friends. But I always felt like they talked to me because they felt bad for me. I'm kind of awkward, I don't always know how to respond, and a lot of times its hard to make conversation because I have different interests than most people. I feel this way pretty often, and I usually try to tell myself its just my anxiety, but then I had a conversation with one friend about people's perceptions of other people. She mentioned (not in a mean way, but nonetheless I've been thinking about it a lot since then) that I come off as a little bit insecure. Suspicions confirmed. Fuck.
I see these people laugh and have fun and make jokes with one another. They're so charismatic, they have so much to talk about. They can just go outside and meet people, have a cool experience and talk about it. Its so easy for them.
And I realized that this is what my parents want from me. They want me to find my passion and have a good time while also working hard. The thing is, I don't know how to do this. I can sit at a desk and grind out assignments all day, but I don't know how to have fun. I don't even know who I am, or how to find myself. One minute I think one thing and the next I think another. I'm a walking contradiction. Most people love socializing, but I find it incredibly stressful.
I don't know what's wrong with me.
Does anyone else have a similar experience?

Hey all! I'm building a setting for a game that has both hard sci-fi and high fantasy elements. Basically, a Star Trek-type civilization (fully sci-fi, no magic) comes across a world with actual magic (your typical medieval-esque high fantasy setting). Hijinks ensue.
So I need a pretty specific kind of RPG, that can support both hard sci-fi and high fantasy. The best I've come up with is either:

1. D&D5e (which my group is already used to) for the fantasy, and select Star Wars 5e classes for the sci-fi. There's some major balance issues here when you try to use both D&D5e and SW5e classes together though, since SW5e classes are more powerful on average.
2. Pathfinder 2e for fantasy, with select classes from a fan conversion of starfinder into pf2e. The conversion isn't complete, so this would require significant homebrew from me, and I'm not very familiar with the system to begin with.

I know of systems like Shadowrun that have both elements, but my understanding is the two types are very tightly tied to each other, and that it has a very strong flavor that I'd have a hard time separating. As I mentioned before, my group is used to D&D5e so a D20 system would be ideal, but I'm willing to look into wildly different systems. I am also willing to use homebrew or even two separate systems for the two halves, but they need to be compatible and preferably balanced with each other. The system(s) also can't have highly specific world building that I can't separate from them. Ya know, since I'm trying to attach my own highly specific world building to it.
I realize that finding a system that exactly matches what I need is pretty much asking for a miracle, but I figured it would be good to ask if anyone else has an idea before I go too deep into SW5e or converting Starfinder. Thanks in advance for any input!

Last year Juan Ramón Rallo published a book called Anti-Marx in which he tries to systematically dismantle the Marxist ideology as a whole, the book has about 1800 pages so it's an incredibly long and rigorous book. I will present 4 arguments he used against marxism in his book (these extracts are translated from Spanish).
1 - Wealth is not only created by producing goods, but by producing relatively more useful goods for those who value them relatively more.
For Marx, value is a phenomenon of a market economy (and therefore a capitalist economy) in which human beings produce separately for the market. In the market, each human being produces goods anarchically with respect to others but needs to coordinate with them, which is achieved by establishing equivalences between the productive contribution of each independent human being. This social comparison of productive contributions in the market is value, namely, the social labor time necessary to manufacture each type of commodity.
On the one hand, the dialectic between the value of a commodity and its market price determines whether we should socially increase or reduce the production of that commodity. On the other hand, the value created by each worker establishes their budget constraint: the more value they have contributed to society in the form of goods, the more value they can obtain from society in the form of goods.
In this sense, a society will be materially richer the more economic goods (use values) it possesses, although in a capitalist society all (or almost all) of these use values will be presented to us as a mass of values: commodities that require a certain amount of social labor to be created and that are distributed according to the social labor they represent. For this reason, if labor productivity increases, the same mass of value can represent a greater mass of use values. For example, if last year we were able to produce 1,000 cars with 100,000 hours of social labor but this year we can produce 2,000 cars with the same 100,000 hours of social labor, the material wealth of society has increased even though the value has remained constant.
However, this last point is only true when there are changes in labor productivity. If labor productivity remains constant, the mass of social value can serve as a proxy, or should serve as a proxy, for the material wealth of a society. That is, material wealth can only be increased by increasing value (we can only become richer by working more hours to produce more goods). However, this last proposition is doubly mistaken.
First, a society can become richer by allocating the same amount of social labor (creating the same added value) to produce goods that are more useful than those that were previously produced. If in 100,000 hours of social labor we can produce either good a or good b, and good a is more useful to us than good b (although both are useful), we will become richer by ceasing to produce good b and producing good a instead. The economic problem that a society must solve is not only to allocate social labor to produce objects that satisfy human needs, but to satisfy the relatively more important human needs.
Second, a society can become richer not only through the production of goods but also through their better distribution. If individual A owns use value a and individual B owns use value b, and A values b more than a and B values a more than b, exchanging those use values (without increasing the amount of values or values in society) will make that society richer. Again, the reason why that society will be richer is that the same use values, but distributed differently, will allow for the satisfaction of more important human needs. For example, a film enthusiast can enjoy novels and a novel enthusiast can enjoy films, but both will achieve higher ends (in their scale of preferences) if the film enthusiast gives up novels to watch movies and the novel enthusiast gives up movies to read novels.
Since Marx did not incorporate the concept of "marginality" into his analysis of use value (there are more or less important use values), he also did not take into consideration that the social production of use values consists not only of transforming nature through human labor in order to manufacture use values, but also of transforming nature through sufficiently coordinated social labor to produce relatively more important use values and distribute them to those producers who value them relatively more.
2 - The only factor of social production is not just human labor, but also time, risk, and entrepreneurial knowledge.
For Marx, there are only two factors of production: nature and labor. Every production process can be developed through combinations of both. All other factors of production (such as a machine) are nothing more than the result of nature transformed by labor. However, there are actually three other factors.
First, time. It is not possible to produce without time. There is no production process that does not take place in time. From the moment we start producing until we finish producing, a period of time necessarily elapses. In that sense, we can only work during a period of time if we are willing to wait until that period of time is over to enjoy the product of our work. For example, if we need to work for five years to produce a car and we are not willing to wait five years to enjoy a car, we cannot produce the car.
Second, risk. It is not possible to produce without assuming risk. There is no production process that does not involve risks (the probability that the result of that production process is not the desired one). No production process is purely deterministic, but rather any process is subject to random conditions that generate uncertainty about what its final result will be (at least, random conditions with respect to the information available to the worker). In that sense, we can only work if we are willing to assume the uncertainty of a production process. For example, if producing a car involves exposing ourselves to the risk of failing in its production and, therefore, losing all the time dedicated to its production, we cannot produce the car if we are not willing to assume such risks.
And third, entrepreneurial information. It is not possible to produce without information: information related to what, how, and for whom to produce (entrepreneurial information). What distinguishes humans from animals, for Marx, is precisely that humans direct their productive action towards a deliberately chosen purpose: that is, there is a rationality behind their work. We know what we want to produce, how we have to produce it, and for whom we have to produce it. Without this entrepreneurial information, human labor would be a mere waste of energy. All of which is particularly relevant in a market economy, where we do not produce for ourselves in an isolated environment, but we produce for others (for the market) competing with others who may have better information about what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom to produce it. For example, if we lack information on how to manufacture a car, we cannot produce it; but in the market, if we lack the best information on how to produce a car, we will also be unable to produce it since others will produce it.
To some extent, we could think that time, risk, and entrepreneurial information are features specific to human labor. And they are: time, risk, and information can only be expressed productively through human labor. But it is important to realize that, even when they are expressed productively through human labor, they are dissociable from human labor: that is, the human being who, within a certain production process, takes charge of waiting, assumes risks, or provides entrepreneurial information does not have to be the same human being who works producing use values through the time, risk, and entrepreneurial information provided by other human beings. That is why we can characterize them as independent or separable factors of production from human labor. Marx, however, trapped by the labor theory of value, could not contemplate other factors of social production different from labor itself.
3 - Capitalists and wage earners are not antagonistic economic classes.
For Marx, wage labor and capital are antagonistic economic categories. Capital is non-labor and labor is non-capital. Each one affirms itself by negating the other. Capital cannot exist (socially) without exploiting wage earners, and wage earners cannot exist (socially) without being exploited by capitalists. Such a contradictory conception of capital and wage labor derives from Marx's conception of value: if wealth is only created socially through labor and capitalists do not work (at least in their pure form, leaving aside capitalists who exercise managerial functions within a company), then capitalists can only enrich themselves by impoverishing workers, that is, by appropriating the wealth that only workers have created (exploitation).
From this perspective, the emancipation of wage earners requires the social annihilation of capital: that is, socializing the ownership of the means of production so that all the wealth created solely by social labor remains in the hands of all workers. The worker does not benefit in any way from the existence of the capitalist and, therefore, can only enter into an objectively contradictory relationship with him.
The reality, however, is that the capitalist does contribute to the social creation of wealth: the capitalist is the person who specializes in socially providing time, risk, and entrepreneurial information to a production process, thereby expanding the productive capacities of those workers who would not (or could not) provide that time, risk, and entrepreneurial information to different production processes on their own and who, therefore, could not produce certain use values. Abolishing the social function of the capitalist is equivalent to imposing forced socialization of savings, forced socialization of risks, and forced socialization of the process of creating entrepreneurial information. It makes it impossible, therefore, for there to be transfers of time, risk, and information between human beings: that a wage earner can cooperatively associate with a capitalist so that the latter absorbs all the waiting, all the risk, and all the creation of information that the former cannot or does not want to take on, and that precisely because the capitalist absorbs them, the former can dedicate themselves to working in a way that they could not work without their association with the capitalist.
By refusing to recognize the wealth-generating functions of the capitalist (as a social role, not as a natural category), Marx only saw social antagonism of interests between wage earners and capitalists, when productive alliances based on the harmony of interests can also exist between them. This does not mean that conflicts of interests cannot also arise between the parties in any cooperative relationship of any kind: a marriage can be a life project that both spouses consider to be mutually beneficial, but that does not prevent conflicts from emerging within the marriage that can sometimes even lead to its dissolution.
Therefore, the class struggle between capitalists and wage earners is not a necessary byproduct of the historical evolution of human societies with a certain degree of material development (in dialectical contradiction to their form of social organization), but a byproduct of the inoculation of certain mistaken ideas that, by altering the social worldview of individuals inserted in certain productive relations, poison those individuals and promote social war instead of active, mutually beneficial and good faith cooperation.
4 - It is rational to subordinate the production of use values to the market.
According to Marx, the alienation of labor in the market implies our subordination to collective irrationality: the market dictates what we should produce socially, how we should produce it socially, and for whom we should produce it socially, without anyone controlling the market and, therefore, without anyone being able to inject rationality and coherence into the entire process of production and social distribution blindly directed by the market. And given that the difference between humans and animals lies in the rationality that humans inject into their work, capitalism, by depriving our social work of rationality (of conscious collective control), would be dehumanizing us, turning us into mere automatons without will in the service of the social force of capital. Within the market, what is produced is not what is useful to us as human beings, but only what is useful to capital for revalorization: capital devours us, engulfs us, and vampirizes us.
In reality, however, a society composed of individuals with heterogeneous preferences and very fragmented information about the preferences of the rest of individuals and about potentially available technological options, can aspire to no more than discovering what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom to produce it through decentralized experimentation by different coalitions of individuals on different proposals of social wealth and through the competitive appearance of these different proposals of social wealth before an impersonal arbitrator like the market. If there are different social opinions about what should be produced, how it should be produced, and for whom it should be produced, the way to discover which of all these diverse opinions brings us closer to making relatively more useful goods for those producers who value them relatively more is by allowing the formation of human teams (composed to varying degrees of capital and labor) and having these teams (companies) compete with each other based on how much they can expect, how much risk they want to assume, and how much good information they have regarding the creation of wealth for third parties.
From that perspective, submitting to the market to socially discover what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom to produce it is not irrational: it is using the best social algorithm we know to maximize our wealth. It is precisely that no one controls that social algorithm in isolation that enables a truly unbiased competition among the various options for creating wealth: the market acts as a blind watchmaker in the social evolution of wealth. We subordinate use values to values to maximize the quantitative and qualitative creation of use values. The irrational thing would be precisely the opposite: to repudiate the market and pretend to replace it with mechanisms for coordinating social production that, ignoring the limits of human reason, lead us to make worse productive and distributive decisions than we could dynamically make through the market. It is not that the market provides perfect solutions to the problems of social coordination in the generation of wealth: it is only less imperfect than the rest of forms of social organization.

I'm 14 yr old almost 15 I've constantly defended capitalism as a kid mostly because I'm from a conservative Texan trump supporter household.... but, I've started to notice huge cracks in the capitalist model... but my life wouldn't have been as good as it was if it wasn't for capitalism or that's what I've been told, for explanation I'm a middle class kid, my father is a traveling salesman and my mother is a cop, one of the reasons I've hated communism is because I've seen communists trashing police and before my father became a salesman he used to not have great jobs and not so great incomes and then he got a job as a salesman and we were able to move into a better town,neighborhood,and house which I'm glad for myself but I see the economic poverty in and outside of my country and I want not just myself and my family to thrive but my community also along with possibly my state and or country,
Also tbc also another one of the reasons I've resisted becoming a full fledged communist is because I've seen alot of communist anti-white woke establishments such as antifa or black hammer for the record I'm bi-racial I'm Hispanic/Caucasian and I have lots of white/Hispanic/Asian etc friends and I want to also want to make it clear that I'm fully open to ideas I haven't read all of the manifesto, I've read some of "the conquest of bread" by Peter kropotkin which got me to come on here and question capitalism
Are my thoughts flawed? Do I just need to convert to communism? What are some good books to read?
Anyways if you read all that thx and have a great and Fabulous day

Last year Juan Ramón Rallo published a book called Anti-Marx in which he tries to systematically dismantle the Marxist ideology as a whole, the book has about 1800 pages so it's an incredibly long and rigorous book. I will present 4 arguments he used against marxism in his book (these extracts are translated from Spanish).
1 - Wealth is not only created by producing goods, but by producing relatively more useful goods for those who value them relatively more.
For Marx, value is a phenomenon of a market economy (and therefore a capitalist economy) in which human beings produce separately for the market. In the market, each human being produces goods anarchically with respect to others but needs to coordinate with them, which is achieved by establishing equivalences between the productive contribution of each independent human being. This social comparison of productive contributions in the market is value, namely, the social labor time necessary to manufacture each type of commodity.
On the one hand, the dialectic between the value of a commodity and its market price determines whether we should socially increase or reduce the production of that commodity. On the other hand, the value created by each worker establishes their budget constraint: the more value they have contributed to society in the form of goods, the more value they can obtain from society in the form of goods.
In this sense, a society will be materially richer the more economic goods (use values) it possesses, although in a capitalist society all (or almost all) of these use values will be presented to us as a mass of values: commodities that require a certain amount of social labor to be created and that are distributed according to the social labor they represent. For this reason, if labor productivity increases, the same mass of value can represent a greater mass of use values. For example, if last year we were able to produce 1,000 cars with 100,000 hours of social labor but this year we can produce 2,000 cars with the same 100,000 hours of social labor, the material wealth of society has increased even though the value has remained constant.
However, this last point is only true when there are changes in labor productivity. If labor productivity remains constant, the mass of social value can serve as a proxy, or should serve as a proxy, for the material wealth of a society. That is, material wealth can only be increased by increasing value (we can only become richer by working more hours to produce more goods). However, this last proposition is doubly mistaken.
First, a society can become richer by allocating the same amount of social labor (creating the same added value) to produce goods that are more useful than those that were previously produced. If in 100,000 hours of social labor we can produce either good a or good b, and good a is more useful to us than good b (although both are useful), we will become richer by ceasing to produce good b and producing good a instead. The economic problem that a society must solve is not only to allocate social labor to produce objects that satisfy human needs, but to satisfy the relatively more important human needs.
Second, a society can become richer not only through the production of goods but also through their better distribution. If individual A owns use value a and individual B owns use value b, and A values b more than a and B values a more than b, exchanging those use values (without increasing the amount of values or values in society) will make that society richer. Again, the reason why that society will be richer is that the same use values, but distributed differently, will allow for the satisfaction of more important human needs. For example, a film enthusiast can enjoy novels and a novel enthusiast can enjoy films, but both will achieve higher ends (in their scale of preferences) if the film enthusiast gives up novels to watch movies and the novel enthusiast gives up movies to read novels.
Since Marx did not incorporate the concept of "marginality" into his analysis of use value (there are more or less important use values), he also did not take into consideration that the social production of use values consists not only of transforming nature through human labor in order to manufacture use values, but also of transforming nature through sufficiently coordinated social labor to produce relatively more important use values and distribute them to those producers who value them relatively more.
2 - The only factor of social production is not just human labor, but also time, risk, and entrepreneurial knowledge.
For Marx, there are only two factors of production: nature and labor. Every production process can be developed through combinations of both. All other factors of production (such as a machine) are nothing more than the result of nature transformed by labor. However, there are actually three other factors.
First, time. It is not possible to produce without time. There is no production process that does not take place in time. From the moment we start producing until we finish producing, a period of time necessarily elapses. In that sense, we can only work during a period of time if we are willing to wait until that period of time is over to enjoy the product of our work. For example, if we need to work for five years to produce a car and we are not willing to wait five years to enjoy a car, we cannot produce the car.
Second, risk. It is not possible to produce without assuming risk. There is no production process that does not involve risks (the probability that the result of that production process is not the desired one). No production process is purely deterministic, but rather any process is subject to random conditions that generate uncertainty about what its final result will be (at least, random conditions with respect to the information available to the worker). In that sense, we can only work if we are willing to assume the uncertainty of a production process. For example, if producing a car involves exposing ourselves to the risk of failing in its production and, therefore, losing all the time dedicated to its production, we cannot produce the car if we are not willing to assume such risks.
And third, entrepreneurial information. It is not possible to produce without information: information related to what, how, and for whom to produce (entrepreneurial information). What distinguishes humans from animals, for Marx, is precisely that humans direct their productive action towards a deliberately chosen purpose: that is, there is a rationality behind their work. We know what we want to produce, how we have to produce it, and for whom we have to produce it. Without this entrepreneurial information, human labor would be a mere waste of energy. All of which is particularly relevant in a market economy, where we do not produce for ourselves in an isolated environment, but we produce for others (for the market) competing with others who may have better information about what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom to produce it. For example, if we lack information on how to manufacture a car, we cannot produce it; but in the market, if we lack the best information on how to produce a car, we will also be unable to produce it since others will produce it.
To some extent, we could think that time, risk, and entrepreneurial information are features specific to human labor. And they are: time, risk, and information can only be expressed productively through human labor. But it is important to realize that, even when they are expressed productively through human labor, they are dissociable from human labor: that is, the human being who, within a certain production process, takes charge of waiting, assumes risks, or provides entrepreneurial information does not have to be the same human being who works producing use values through the time, risk, and entrepreneurial information provided by other human beings. That is why we can characterize them as independent or separable factors of production from human labor. Marx, however, trapped by the labor theory of value, could not contemplate other factors of social production different from labor itself.
3 - Capitalists and wage earners are not antagonistic economic classes.
For Marx, wage labor and capital are antagonistic economic categories. Capital is non-labor and labor is non-capital. Each one affirms itself by negating the other. Capital cannot exist (socially) without exploiting wage earners, and wage earners cannot exist (socially) without being exploited by capitalists. Such a contradictory conception of capital and wage labor derives from Marx's conception of value: if wealth is only created socially through labor and capitalists do not work (at least in their pure form, leaving aside capitalists who exercise managerial functions within a company), then capitalists can only enrich themselves by impoverishing workers, that is, by appropriating the wealth that only workers have created (exploitation).
From this perspective, the emancipation of wage earners requires the social annihilation of capital: that is, socializing the ownership of the means of production so that all the wealth created solely by social labor remains in the hands of all workers. The worker does not benefit in any way from the existence of the capitalist and, therefore, can only enter into an objectively contradictory relationship with him.
The reality, however, is that the capitalist does contribute to the social creation of wealth: the capitalist is the person who specializes in socially providing time, risk, and entrepreneurial information to a production process, thereby expanding the productive capacities of those workers who would not (or could not) provide that time, risk, and entrepreneurial information to different production processes on their own and who, therefore, could not produce certain use values. Abolishing the social function of the capitalist is equivalent to imposing forced socialization of savings, forced socialization of risks, and forced socialization of the process of creating entrepreneurial information. It makes it impossible, therefore, for there to be transfers of time, risk, and information between human beings: that a wage earner can cooperatively associate with a capitalist so that the latter absorbs all the waiting, all the risk, and all the creation of information that the former cannot or does not want to take on, and that precisely because the capitalist absorbs them, the former can dedicate themselves to working in a way that they could not work without their association with the capitalist.
By refusing to recognize the wealth-generating functions of the capitalist (as a social role, not as a natural category), Marx only saw social antagonism of interests between wage earners and capitalists, when productive alliances based on the harmony of interests can also exist between them. This does not mean that conflicts of interests cannot also arise between the parties in any cooperative relationship of any kind: a marriage can be a life project that both spouses consider to be mutually beneficial, but that does not prevent conflicts from emerging within the marriage that can sometimes even lead to its dissolution.
Therefore, the class struggle between capitalists and wage earners is not a necessary byproduct of the historical evolution of human societies with a certain degree of material development (in dialectical contradiction to their form of social organization), but a byproduct of the inoculation of certain mistaken ideas that, by altering the social worldview of individuals inserted in certain productive relations, poison those individuals and promote social war instead of active, mutually beneficial and good faith cooperation.
4 - It is rational to subordinate the production of use values to the market.
According to Marx, the alienation of labor in the market implies our subordination to collective irrationality: the market dictates what we should produce socially, how we should produce it socially, and for whom we should produce it socially, without anyone controlling the market and, therefore, without anyone being able to inject rationality and coherence into the entire process of production and social distribution blindly directed by the market. And given that the difference between humans and animals lies in the rationality that humans inject into their work, capitalism, by depriving our social work of rationality (of conscious collective control), would be dehumanizing us, turning us into mere automatons without will in the service of the social force of capital. Within the market, what is produced is not what is useful to us as human beings, but only what is useful to capital for revalorization: capital devours us, engulfs us, and vampirizes us.
In reality, however, a society composed of individuals with heterogeneous preferences and very fragmented information about the preferences of the rest of individuals and about potentially available technological options, can aspire to no more than discovering what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom to produce it through decentralized experimentation by different coalitions of individuals on different proposals of social wealth and through the competitive appearance of these different proposals of social wealth before an impersonal arbitrator like the market. If there are different social opinions about what should be produced, how it should be produced, and for whom it should be produced, the way to discover which of all these diverse opinions brings us closer to making relatively more useful goods for those producers who value them relatively more is by allowing the formation of human teams (composed to varying degrees of capital and labor) and having these teams (companies) compete with each other based on how much they can expect, how much risk they want to assume, and how much good information they have regarding the creation of wealth for third parties.
From that perspective, submitting to the market to socially discover what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom to produce it is not irrational: it is using the best social algorithm we know to maximize our wealth. It is precisely that no one controls that social algorithm in isolation that enables a truly unbiased competition among the various options for creating wealth: the market acts as a blind watchmaker in the social evolution of wealth. We subordinate use values to values to maximize the quantitative and qualitative creation of use values. The irrational thing would be precisely the opposite: to repudiate the market and pretend to replace it with mechanisms for coordinating social production that, ignoring the limits of human reason, lead us to make worse productive and distributive decisions than we could dynamically make through the market. It is not that the market provides perfect solutions to the problems of social coordination in the generation of wealth: it is only less imperfect than the rest of forms of social organization.