Oh yes, sorry, I try to use Lemmy as a place for discussion, not an arena for rhetorical warfare. I had enough of that at the red site. So, I’m not challenging you, but building on your point.

Thanks for the Devil’s Advocate explanation. That’s what I suspect the two answer is, too.

I wasn’t the first to ask the question, but I haven’t heard an answer: If the genocide of Palestine is an acceptable price to pay to get a Democrat elected, then why wouldn’t trans genocide also be an acceptable price because of the threat to cis women? The utilitarian ethical calculation still works just fine.

Think of it like chemotherapy, when you have to invest poison in order to get better.

They’re missing out, then.

Villagers: Let’s sacrifice a virgin to the volcano god.

Virgin: Help me, step-bro!

“Plot”: proceeds as one would expect

Yeah, the real question about him: Does he accept his payoff in rubles, or is he the kind of two-faced mercenary who demands dollars? (I know my guess.)

I left my bathroom clock on standard time, because it’s hard to reach. Now I have to remember that it’s correct again.

That last but is almost NMEA 2000, which standardizes exactly that kind of information, but in boats. It’s old enough that they based it on CANbus, but there are many repeater products to add IP devices (Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) to the network.

ETA: By which I mean to say, plenty of designs already exist in the marine market which could be used to bridge a car’s CANbus to consumer devices, if they wanted to.

Billy West? What a stupid, phony, made-up name!

There’s still an important distinction: JMS likened Babylon 5 to a novel for television. It had a defined beginning, a middle, and an end, conceptualized that way from the start of development.

Yes, soap operas are serialized television, but totally open-ended. The producers of Dallas didn’t plan for J.R. Ewing to get shot as part of the series arc; they didn’t even plan him as a main character. A lot of soap operas have a very throw-it-against-the-wall feel. My grandmother was a Days of Our Lives watcher, and stuck it out even through the alien abduction storyline. Other people I know would stop watching for even years at a time, then come back and pick up whatever new storylines were then current.

I mean no disrespect to soap operas, as they give lots of people years of enjoyment. TNG itself was largely episodic, but had some soap opera elements, following evolving relationships among the crew which were carried through. But that’s still not the novel-for-television concept.

I used to know a woman named April, and her two daughters are May and June. (Both still under age 12.)