thieving_magpie

I can afford to fly. I'm on the plane. You don't have to watch my kid, but they'll be next to you. It works both ways.

Then quit whining about the toddler next to ya. That's your choice too.

I don't understand the objection to a middle ground approach here, but if that's what we want then screw it.

When I opened the article I thought it was going to be about someone cheating at the US Chess Championship.

No. According to me there is probably a middleground.

You can't have it both ways that you don't want a child next to you and just expect parents to spend extra money to accommodate you.

Easily pay? I assure you it isn't easy for a lot of us. The irony of your use of entitlement.

Some of us are just trying to survive financially or couldn't care less what you think.

Tough luck then buddy. Have fun with the kids.

There has to be some kind of middle ground here, imo. Nobody wants to sit next to kids. Families don't want to be penalized financially anymore than they already are for providing a benefit to society. We don't need to further disincentivize families and further our declining birth rates. At the same time it's wildly unfair to ask people to switch seats when they've paid for them (or even if they haven't).

And I'll smile back knowing you're about to have a really great flight with my 3 year old :)

(to be clear, I don't do this personally and pay extra to sit together but I do hope people start parking their kids all over the plane since that's what we all seem to want! It's tempting.)

Then don't whine when you're sitting next to a 3 year old that has all the same justifications you do for sitting there. I don't appreciate social pressure to make your flight as comfortable as possible at my financial inconvenience.

In all seriousness I understand your point but I think it's worth considering that you're also applying social pressure.

It was my favorite game from childhood. I remember finding it in an Office Max store. They had PC titles on a shelf high up. I actually played the game having no idea there was a movie/book associated with it.

I couldn't guess if it did well commercially, but I know I wasn't the only kid that had it.

Maybe they died.

I'm sure we could pull some money together to get you out of economic slavery. Don't want that on our conscience

I haven't looked into this issue in detail and was surprised to see such a brazen threat so I wanted to find information on your quote "comply or there will be consequences". I'm not able to see that in the context of white house or twitter. I haven't found anything close to it yet.

Could you point me to that information?

Complete tangent here. My favorite book to read my kids is Zen Shorts by Jon J Muth.

It features a panda named Stillwater who tells this story (among others) in it.

I agree with you but it's an awkward set of criteria:

- Change your mind when new information is given, that is thinking for yourself.

- Don't change it too much, that is not thinking for yourself.

- Not changing your mind is also not thinking for yourself.

Like I say, I agree with you but the nuance here is difficult to explain.