Mage! Great damage, cool effects, often loads of utility, and if you don't kill your target in the first rounds you'll die quick and can do something else instead of suffering through a drawn out fight with no mana.

Glass Cannon - the most ADHD of builds.

I mean, you evidently can, actuaries and the OBE do it all the time, and I even offered an example above.

Does it account for all of their existence - no, Is it useful to - only in a very narrow situation, is it possible - absolutely.

I'd argue the more horrible part is that some people do put a value to others' lives with even less thought than my example, which is why they're wont to bomb civilians for dubious gain.

It's easy to put a price, it's much harder to appreciate the value.

Human cost shouldn't be too tricky to guesstimate.

An average US person produces about $142k/year (85k in gdp, divided by 60 % of working age), killed with about 40 years of productive life left is about $5,6 million. Add to that the lowered productivity of the close relations due to grieving and change of circumstance, as well as societal loss of morale, and you're probably looking at a loss of production of just under $6 million/life. And fractions of that depending on disability for non dead casualties (e.g. PTSD or loss of limb might be 50% depending)

The Iranian equivalent is about $400k/life, or less as civilian casualties tend to be older than prime age soldiers.

Now calculating the US cost of loss of Iranian civilian lives would be more challenging (loss of standing, loss of morale, loss of legitimacy, and follow-on actions of instability and discontent).

I would argue that the rise of Christo-fascism contradicts you. As well as the prevailing conservative movement.

But I do agree that the US somehow has less than expected populism due to these movements. With what you describe, any promise in alignment with self interests should do well. Yet currently a majority is grumbling that everything's been going against that for 50+ years, and yet the big political shifts haven't been to popular-concession-du-jour, but to expanding/retracting social democratic reforms.

I would argue the US populace is heavily propagandised, to the point of propaganda exhaustion, and apolitical for that reason more than because of any independence from the state.

This in turn is excellent breeding ground for sycophants and cronies in power, which would explain the repeatedly poor results in international dealings where power selection might have more bias towards competency.

Trump administration is repeatedly outmaneuvered by Russia, Canada, Mexico, China and now Iran. Notable examples also cover UAE, Israel, North Korea, EU, India and Japan. And the US has had a massive upper hand going into those situations. The fall of the petro-dollar was unimaginable (before a post-oil world) 5 years ago, and yet it's now a real possibility (pending logistical issues of the new currency), and with the dismantling of US soft influence, increasingly inevitable.

Seems a pattern tbh, expensive toys lead to expensive mistakes?

ICE-tapo?

If they did, they wouldn't be lying about it.

Belonging, contributing, being appreciated, learning, creating, growing, occasional novelty, human touch, emotional validation, companionship, shared pleasures. Physical, emotional, social, and mental capacity to appreciate this.

It's sad that that seems difficult to achieve.

One issue for a vehicle allowed in traffic is that ypu typically can't have things sticking too far out of the vehicle in any direction lest someone drives into them. Thus long haulage is put on long beds, even when not very heavy.

Advantages of long beds is also that you can better secure your load along the length, can use standardised vehicles and parts, as well as have an easier time with load balancing and view management.

Giftedness is not really a well defined thing, and different contexts mean different things with them. What is common though is the overlap of ASD, ADHD and giftedness traits, as well as the wrongful diagnosing of giftedness as the other.

An absurd simplification of how these differ can be that ASD have lower filtering of input, ADHD can't always choose their activation, and gifted people have two or more intensities.

Where someone with ASD might be overwhelmed by emotions, and ADHD person might feel it deeply and/or suddenly fall out of it, a gifted person will often be able to express great intensity, depth and often nuance, especially with expressive training (which the others typically don't).

Or another example: Where an ASD person might be physically uncomfortable with a wrong color matching, an ADHD person might not be able to avert their focus from it, a gifted person will be upset that the nuance is wrong. Close, but hopefully I managed to convey some nuance.

Whereas the gifted person might benefit from some of the same strategies as ASD/ADHD, there is much that they won't. Early development of intelligences, arboreal/branching thinking, high complexity thinking, high intensity (especially in their sensitivities: emotional, relational, verbal, intellectual, physical, and others not as well studied), and high perception of detail, need a bit more care to not become self destructive (perfectionism, burnout, poor confidence) or maladaptive (outsidership, manipulative, trouble with authorities).

I don't know of good resources for children, but some books that helped me as an adult are:

The Rainforest Mind - Paula Prober

The Gifted Adult - Mary Elaine Jacobs

Living with intensity - Daniels & Piechowski

The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You - Elaine N Person (also good for ASD)