Still interesting to ask about that dent’s shape. We could think about how the chemistry of the material composing it/the way it weathered, or approach it as a micro biome where an entire ecological niche is carved out around going from rain puddle to rain puddle. If the puddle is in concrete, we can talk about issues of equity - do some neighborhoods have different shapes of puddle (eg, how well does the city maintain different neighborhood’s infrastructure.)

We can accept that the outlines of our puddle are stochastic and arbitrary, but that doesn’t mean we can’t marvel at tracing out its shape.

Imagine modeling the components of a word mathematically. Each word has a value in some number of dimensions, like maybe how negative the word is, or how much it has to do with fruit or something.

You’d be able to calculate a set of eigenvectors to describe each dimension, basically unit vectors. You could have an eigen-name or eigen-compliment, basically just a word that other names or compliments could be expressed in units of that word.

I think 1984’s Newspeak shows some examples of what eigen-words could be. Stuff like “doublepluscold.”

Charity can serve as a means of control. This is way Republicans advocate against social services.

The government cannot mandate that you attend church to receive EBT. A church can require you attend a service to feed you.

I’ve heard from friends in Utah, for example, that access to many social services is through the church. Friend was trying to rescue a girl from FLDS - pretty much all job training/housing required she play along with mainstream Mormonism.

Orgs like the Salvation Army are known to require trans people to detransition to recieve services as well.

Another benefit is the rent seeking - Goodwill is a good example. You can still turn a profit with the right combination of PR, and tying access to services based on things that’ll make you profit (Goodwill “provides employment” for disabled people - they are legally allowed to pay them far below minimum wage.)

It’s the two pillars of the contemporary Right - control and grifting.