Yeah, that name thing threw me for a loop for a while. The explanation was that >!memories are passed down through generations, so they kept names as well since they are kind of a continuation of the same person!<. I also read the second book, Children of Ruin, and it also plays around with similar names for different reasons. If the trend continues, I expect similar on the other books in the series.

I'll need to read the other books you mentioned. They sound interesting! I've come to enjoy the books I've read with people living through long stretches of time. It's a completely different genre, but Circe by Madeline Miller also deals with this.

Children of Time was an interesting concept that I thought came together well. It's a science fiction book with a split narrative where one half is about science experiments on a distant planet, and the other is about a colony ship that is searching for a new home. Because of the vastness of space, there are long stretches of time that are covered (I believe the book ultimately takes place over a thousand years). The two narratives overlap at different points.

Dungeon Crawler Carl may have one of the weirdest and fun plots I've read in a while. A guy named Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat named Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk are given the opportunity to be on the galaxy's favorite game show. The show is very similar to an RPG with fighting monsters, level ups, rare items, etc. Also, due to unfortunate timing, Carl is participating in the game without wearing any pants.

Right now, I am reading Neuromancer by William Gibson (physical book) and Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky (e-book), as well as listening to Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (audiobook).

I haven't gotten far enough into Neuromancer to form an opinion yet, but I'm enjoying the other two books. Children of Ruin is the second book in a series about future humans trying to speed up evolution on distant planets and dealing with the consequences thousands of years later. Alexander Hamilton is a biography on the US founding father from childhood until his death. It has a lot of interesting facts I never knew.

I have a hard time picking just one favorite of anything, but I think my favorite book might be World War Z by Max Brooks or Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.

World War Z is a novel about a zombie apocalypse. It stands out from other books in the genre by having a frame narrative where a journalist is compiling a bunch of interviews with survivors telling their stories. Each chapter is its own short story with new characters from everywhere on the globe, and you get a lot of different perspectives this way. If you pick up the audiobook, each chapter is voiced by a different person, and there are some famous people lending their voices.

Annihilation is about a mysterious zone that appears in a remote wilderness. Things in the zone begin to act strangely and mutate into otherworldly objects. Over time, a government agency closes down the area and begins sending in expeditions to try to discover its secrets.

I'll start by saying that I don't disagree with you. Human lives are significantly more important than the dollar. I would also like more people to do things because it is the right thing rather than doing things for money. However, news stories will always be told from multiple angles, and there will be more angles with bigger events like these wars. It is unrealistic to expect people to only ever talk about the worst outcome of an event and turn a blind eye to relatively smaller bad outcomes.

This is also news that some people will want to know. You seem to be asking that this story not get written or discussed because there is human suffering involved, but is it not still newsworthy? If this same thing was happening during a time of world peace, do you think it should be written about? If you think it is something that could be reported on in a time of peace, why should it be ignored in a time of war?

You said in your comment, "But let's talk about how this affects the power of the dollar instead because that's SO MUCH more important." Articles like these are not saying we should talk about the power of the dollar instead of human suffering; they are providing another angle to the conflicts. This article exists, but so do countless others that talk about the death and destruction of wars. It is not like this article somehow stops others that you care more about from existing. Also, while I can't read the article due to the paywall, I have my doubts that they wrote about how devaluing the dollar is more important than the deaths.

You also ask who cares about the dollar, and the answer is a lot of people. Humans can have compassion for people that they have never met, but they also care about the people they personally know. Changes in the dollar affect people's lives on a personal level. It's a hard ask for people to ignore their own well-being or the well-being of their families for people they haven't met.

Lastly, I think you yourself are making an argument for this article existing. You say that governments and other powerful people view things through the lens of their own wealth. Wouldn't articles like this one push those people into action to stop conflicts? If they read about how their own money will be affected by war, they are more likely to push for an early end to wars. If they never know something is hurting their wallet, they are fine with it continuing. It is a nice idea that these people would just care about humanity over money, but it seems unlikely that change is coming any time soon. We might as well speak their language to try to stop the suffering.

Obviously this is my opinion based off observations I've made, and not every user or sub in each instance falls under this generalization.

Both instances have a lot of users, and they have ideological differences, so they inevitably butt heads. Depending on who you ask, ML mainly has socialists, communists, or tankies. World seems to be more centrist leaning to the left, but it seems to be accepting of a more varied range of political opinions. Considering a lot of Lemmy users came from Reddit, I think a comparison can be drawn. My opinion is that World users have an ideology similar to most of Reddit and seem more likely to have left Reddit because they took issue with specific Reddit admin policies. On the other hand, ML users would have had an ideology that was more fringe for Reddit, and while they may have had issues with Reddit admins as well, they seem more likely to have left Reddit because their views were not well accepted among Reddit's general population.

There was a misunderstanding with a neighbor earlier that night because he heard my dog yipping and whining and thought she was in pain. He called the cops, they confirmed everything was fine, and told him that my dog just sounds like that.

A little after midnight, the neighbor pounded on my door so hard it shook in its frame and screamed cuss words at me at the top of his lungs. The neighbor moved to the parking lot and was pacing back and forth, running around in small circles, and jumping up and down, all while his eyes were locked on my apartment's windows. I called the cops. I later learned that the neighbor called the cops a second time at this point saying he definitely heard me beating my dog, despite my apartment being silent since the first incident.

The officer that arrived acted like the neighbor's behavior wasn't an issue at all, and he kept cutting me off whenever I tried to give an explanation or evidence that my dog wasn't hurt. He basically treated me like I was guilty the whole time without listening or checking. Ultimately, he said there was nothing to be done and left.

I found out the neighbor called a third time to say I was hurting my dog at 3 in the morning while my dog and I were asleep, but nobody was dispatched. My apartment management didn't bother even talking to the neighbor after I told them everything.

I recently started Blood Meridian. It's too early to tell if I like it yet, but I like McCarthy's other works I've read. I'm also listening to the audiobook adaption of Alien: Covenant. It's part of the Audible subscription right now, so I thought I'd give it a try. I like it a bit better than I remember liking the movie. It's pretty similar, but I feel like it adds a little more nuance to some character actions.