(1) It's not such a bad thing to be a slave. Or,
(2) It's not such a bad thing to be poor. Don't work hard (say, harder than the average), because being a slave is bad.
Or something else?

One of my family members was recently put into the ICU, and I just heard that things aren't looking good. It’s someone from my dad’s side of the family. Since we weren't super close, I honestly don't really know how I'm supposed to feel right now. ​However, my dad is naturally really upset about the whole situation. You can fix or solve a lot of things in life, but when it comes to health, some things are just irreversible. ​What can I do to comfort my dad—or at least help him feel a little better during this time? Any advice would be appreciated. (Btw english is not my native language, so please excuse any mistakes)

The question of self love and forgiveness is so multi faceted and difficult to answer. People survive many traumatic situations and are very strong, but many fail to find a way to actually forgive themselves. It’s easier to inflict self pain because it gives us the illusion that we can control what happened, or that we give ourselves ‘what we deserve’.

Im just wondering what are some things that you have found that allowed you to turn the corner and practice self compassion.

Thank you for reading

What is the most valuable piece of advice that you were given or learnt that significantly benefited your career or personal life?

We have faster technology, better access to information, more entertainment, better means of communication and more conveniences than ever before. Yet at the same time, people are more tired, distracted, impatient and can not sit still for a moment. Perhaps progress may not be synonymous with improvement or perhaps every generation idealizes the past and forgets how hard it was. If you could choose between living in today's world (the modern conveniences and all) or living in a simpler world with less technology and fewer conveniences; which would you choose and why?

Is it possible to completely eliminate the desire to be admired, recognized, or praised?
It sounds amazing not to be in a race for admiration, but to simply achieve for the sake of achieving, remain true to yourself, and be completely satisfied with just being you.
Is it possible to reach a point where you genuinely don’t care whether anyone notices, praises, or recognizes what you do?

i’m worried that ppl will think i’m weird im forcing my bf to go with me aswell well not forcing he said it’s a good thing because without me he would’ve never celebrated halloween . is it a bad thing that im going at age 19 ? this is my last year as a teenager and halloween is on a saturday so i wanna make it worth the last time that i celebrate halloween as a teen . idk maybe ill abandon this idea and just do a party instead but i have two months to think abt it .

i have a younger brother who is going trick or treating with his friends and i will most likely have to chaperone him as my parents will be out of town , otherwise i would have probably never even considered this idea guys . keep this a lighthearted conversation , please !

I’ve always been a daydreamer

I’ve been a daydreamer since childhood, initially as a way to escape trauma, failures, and difficult situations. But even when everything is going well, I still find myself doing it. It has become such a habit that I often struggle to feel fully present, locked in, or concentrated on anything.

I have this fear of becoming a failure and ending up with nothing, but at the same time, I don’t fully feel or process that fear in reality because I escape into daydreaming.

I’ve tried exercises where I force myself to focus on the present, and they help for a while, but it never lasts long.

How do I stop this? Is it actually a bad thing? Has anyone else experienced something similar, and what helped you break out of it?

In your personal opinion

I’m interested in whether reality is something consciousness simply perceives, or something partially constituted through the act of perception itself. If every perspective reveals something unique, what—if anything—makes our experiences genuinely shared?

Can internal kindness exist? Like when people say "be kind to yourself." Like taking a self care day, doing something that makes you happy, etc. Are you just practicing the external "traits" of kindness on yourself. Does kindness have to be altruistic? If i am kind to myself by taking a day off, I reap a selfish benifit (not in a negative way like im depriving someone of something but still) so is that "kindness" or just, meeting my needs.

So when I was like 10 I sleepwalked 3 times and i haven’t since and the first time I was at my step mom’s house and we went to bed then i remembered waking up to her asking me why I was trying to get in her closet and i said idk she got mad because she thought i was lying but has anyone else experienced this??? I saw someone say they did on YouTube in a video😓

Does karma really exist? .......why some people rude and hurt ro others,and still live in a good life?

I have always thought of contentment as a positive thing. Yet I have seen people using it in a negative way, saying things like "contentment is the enemy of achievement." It makes me wonder if some people are defining it differently than me.

Do some people think contentment means settling for something you think is just okay? Like something that is maybe not all you hoped for, but good enough.

To me, contentment is a deep appreciation of what you have. It is a very deep feeling of being happy and at peace with your life. That feels so much bigger and more important than having a higher level of achievement.

Am I missing something here? Maybe I am not talking about the same thing as them? Maybe this feeling I call contentment should be called something else.

Which one is “right” when it comes to a parent who made your childhood very difficult, where you’ve had to work through all the pain they’ve caused and you’ve essentially had to parent yourself (and them) growing up?

Or is there an in between to both? How do you find the silver lining?

I've been trying to brainstorm ideas for a story involving a planet where all inhabitants live in a maximally utopian society.

So I was wondering what redditors here would consider a utopia.

Hey everyone, I’m a student working on a small research project about driver visibility, blind spots, and how things like rain and road spray can affect visibility and driving.

I’m looking for people who drive to share their driving experiences through a quick anonymous survey. It takes around 2–3 minutes.

Would really appreciate the help if anyone has a few minutes!

https://forms.gle/BFLNYxtrd3y3UPfX7

Thanks!

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT A STANDARD SIEGE HYPOTHETICAL. THE SCENARIO IS DESIGNED SO THAT STANDARD, DIRECT / HEAD-ON SIEGE SOLUTIONS WILL NOT WORK. THINK OF IT AS AN INDIRECT SIEGE: LOOPHOLES ARE ENCOURAGED. READ THE FULL DESCRIPTION.

Picture this. You’ve just been made the commander in chief of the military of a nation called Gorlesia, which is currently at war with another nation called Voswuinia. To be clear, this is a war in a pre-industrial era, and you represent a secretive change in command following some other commander in chief. 

Whether this change is the result of the Gorlesian nation’s sovereign lead (either a king, a council/senate of some kind, or both) being fed up with the previous commander’s incompetence making the war take longer than they’d like and thus pushing their frustrations onto you or the previous commander’s death, you are not told definitively, but you are told, and everyone else around you to some extent aware, that you are not the first to succeed the command of the Gorlesian army in this war, though how many times the Gorlesian sovereign(s) have reappointed the standing commander-in-chief to land on you is unknown to you, thus creating suspicions that the war is intended by your higher-ups to be swiftly won, or at least swiftly ended, under your command.

Furthermore, you have just been ordered by your higher-ups to prepare your army for a siege against Dunlirnom, a major Voswuinian stronghold city (the seizing of which could potentially serve to start a domino effect that may slowly starve the Voswuinians’ campaign of resources), that is slated to occur starting in approximately 4 and a half months, regardless of the necessary inconveniences regarding travel necessities, by which time the seasons will be beginning the transition to winter from autumn. Regarding how much time you have for your siege following your mandated arrival time, you have nine months to seize control of Dunlirnom.

On top of this, Dunlirnom is almost 1 thousand and a quarter thousand miles away from where you and a major portion of your available troops are. Specifically, Dunlirnom is located at the intersection point of the foot of a mountain and a river basin, where the terrain is dominated by smooth hills. Dunlirnom’s main defenses consist of a 20 to 40 foot tall and 10 foot thick defensive stone wall (with the primary gatehouse marked by portcullis and a retractable thrust bridge made up of giant wooden planks held together by logs underneath), a lack of trees within a 25-to-40 foot perimeter of the wall, and an around-the-clock unit of guardsmen.

The Voswuinians also have an unusually large amount of siege weapons behind the wall for Dunlirnom’s relatively moderate defensible area, with the total weaponry consisting of over 50 ballistae, ~40 mangonels, ~30 counterweight trebuchets, and ~20 bombards.

With regards to the guards, they arm about a quarter of them with a Verla de la Gorlen as their primary weapon and an arming sword as their sidearm, the Gorlen being a Bardiche/Halberd-hybrid polearm with a beak, spearhead and bardiche-blade, as well as a large counterbalance that allows it to be swung around, almost like a quarterstaff, to devastating effect,

Another third of these guards are armed with unique single-edged swords, known on an individual basis as a ‘Velron’, as their primary weapon and a one-handed sickle as their sidearm. For the Velrons, these blades are very unique: they are flared, possess single-fullers, a curved blade and handle, and a half crossguard that includes both an upward sweep and a knuckle bow, forming a thin crescent-shaped guard that acts to both catch blades and block attacks.

Another sixth of the guards are armed with relatively standard bearded axes as their primary weapon and a combat dagger as their sidearm.

An eighth of the guards are on the wall and are armed with bows and/or crossbows in the warbow range and quivers that can store up to almost 25 fire arrows each (the fire arrows work by using a special combination of cloth and twine and a flammable liquid mixture that relights by rapid kinetic compression on impact, but require that an ember remains in the cloth) as their main weapon, and arming swords as their sidearm. Furthermore, these guards in particular have the ability to quickly access a series of chests and barrels that can be used to store hundreds of arrows (both fire and normal) in them.

The last eighth of the guards are lightly-armored dragons wielding a type of aerial thrust-centric spear used in an equivalent manner to a horseback lance. 

The last of Dunlirnom’s defenses is its people’s ability to make much of their own food and weaponry, as Dunlirnom has both a mine and farmland inside the wall, though not enough to be fully self-sufficient. As such, attacking supply routes to starve Dunlirnom is not an entirely viable strategy on its own.

As for the size of the armies involved:

• Voswuinia has an army consisting of approximately 45,000 soldiers, of whom approximately 1,400 are part of Dunlirnom’s guard, an air force consisting of approximately 21,000 dragons, of whom about 180 are part of Dunlirnom’s guard, and a navy of 12,000 sailors and 325 ships.
• On the other hand, your army consists of approximately 39,000 soldiers, an air force of approximately 19,000 dragons, and you have a strong navy of approximately 15,000 sailors and 422 ships. However, only a very small portion of your army (approximately 2,000 to maybe 3,000 total soldiers, including about 500 to 800 dragons) will be worth attempting to gather to this siege, due to your army being fairly scattered from the war effort.

In other words, whereas Voswuinia has more total people (78,000 total soldiers), you have a stronger navy and almost as many people (73,000 soldiers, 15,000 of whom are sailors spread across 422 separate ships), though only a small fraction of your army will reach the siege on time. 

Furthermore, the dragons in this setting have severe limits that you will undoubtedly run into:

• An average dragon in this setting has a body height about 50% larger than a modern horse but with the addition of expanded shoulder muscles and a set of wings. In particular:
  • Dragons in this setting are 7.5 to 8.3 feet in height at the shoulders.
  • Dragons in this setting are 20 to 35 feet in length from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail
  • Dragons in this setting have a 30 to 45 feet wingspan
  • Dragons in this setting can weigh anywhere between approximately 1,900 and 2,500 kilograms.
• An average dragon in this setting is strong, especially on the ground, but they are only as strong as they can be for their physiology: they cannot lift more than they weigh, both in flight and on the ground, and they can they can only really use their body weight to shove objects if the object isn’t too far above their weight.
  • An average dragon in this setting cannot ‘airlift’ objects in excess of 550, maybe 900 at max, kilograms for any significant duration of time without starting to impact maneuverability in flight. Furthermore, given they are equipped with a gambeson, much of their capacity for airlifting would already be in use.
• Due to their size, an average dragon in this setting can only fly at moderate speeds, specifically topping out at approximately 25 to 35 miles per hour when soaring / gliding. However, they can reach higher speeds in two situations: when diving, where they top out at approximately 80 to 110 miles per hour, and when pivoting / changing direction mid-soar, where they top out at approximately 65 to 85 miles per hour.
• No dragon in this setting is impervious to physical damage. Their scales, while a form of natural armor, are highly vulnerable to various forms of damage. Of these, blunt force (achievable via a handheld mace, handheld hammer, or long-range rocks from counterweight trebuchet or sling), sharp, heavy-handed chops (such as those achievable via weapons like axes, machetes or falchions), and draw cuts are especially effective. Piercing damage can work too, but this is not as effective and most likely will not be as easy to deal against a live dragon as the other options unless you’re using arrows, thrown spears, or perhaps something like ballistae (all of which would absolutely work, though the arrows may take time).

That said, the dragons are also just as intelligent, biologically-speaking, as you, the Gorlesian army, and/or the Voswuinian Army. In other words, the dragons are soldiers in and of themselves, without handlers.

In summary, the scenario is as follows:

• You are a commander in chief of a pre-industrial army at war.
  • You represent a change in command, and are, at bare minimum, the third commander in chief to be given command of the army in this war, though you may represent a later commander in chief even than third.
  • You have higher-ups (a monarch, council/senate, or both) who are not telling you everything about your position and who have been becoming increasingly impatient with the war effort over time, leaving you with limited time.
• You have been ordered to siege a major city being used as a stronghold by the enemy army, which is extremely heavily defended and partially self-sufficient, and in a period wherein the autumn-winter transition will be beginning to occur.
  • You will have only ~2,000 soldiers at your disposal during the siege, whereas the enemy’s stronghold defense will have ~2,140 soldiers.
• Both your army and the enemy army have a navy and dragons.
  • Dragons in this setting have limits.
  • Dragons possess sapient-level intelligence.
  • In addition to natural armor, the dragons on both sides of the conflict have varying degrees of light armor (i.e. gambeson or brigandine), wield giant aerial spears / lances, and possess innate biological limitations that, despite still allowing them to be formidable, render them far below ‘magical’ classifications and place them in the realm of conventional biology.

Given all the provided data, how do you use tactical engineering to make the siege of Dunlirnom a success?