u/Kutluna

I’ve been working at the same dental clinic since I graduated, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how my employers approach running their business. Their model is very different from what I’ve seen elsewhere, and I’m genuinely curious about the strategy behind it.

I’m currently in my fourth year as a dentist. I actually started going to this clinic as a second-year dental student just to observe, and after I graduated, the owners offered me a position. I’ve been working there ever since.

The clinic is owned by two partners who are among the most respected dentists in our city. They currently have four clinics, employ more than 35 dentists, and have built a very strong reputation.

What confuses me is how they treat their employees.

I had always assumed that, from a purely business perspective, employers would prefer people who are financially dependent on their jobs. Someone with fewer alternatives might be less likely to leave and more willing to tolerate poor conditions. These owners seem to do almost the exact opposite.

They regularly hire dentists from very privileged backgrounds. Some are only one or two years out of dental school, yet they come from wealthy families and have backgrounds like competitive riding, polo, tennis, golf, etc. They clearly aren’t hiring people simply because they desperately need the job.

And they pay extremely well.

Their salaries are among the best I’ve personally seen in dentistry in Turkey. Even newly graduated dentists receive very good salaries, while experienced dentists can make significantly more. In some cases, based on the numbers I’ve seen, the clinic probably isn’t making much profit from an individual dentist after paying their share.

They also invest heavily in training. The owners regularly teach us themselves, individually or in small groups, sometimes every week or two. They also bring in other dentists and specialists to train us. They openly share their knowledge and techniques instead of trying to keep us dependent on them.

What surprised me even more was what happened with a dentist who left.

Even after this person left the clinic, the owners were willing to offer them a very good salary because they wanted them back. The person eventually struggled on their own and returned, and the owners simply welcomed them back and continued working with them normally. There was no resentment or “you left us, so now you suffer” mentality.

They also don’t seem afraid of employees becoming competitors. They genuinely seem to want the dentists working for them to become better dentists, even if that means giving them skills and experience they could eventually use elsewhere.

This is the part I don’t understand.

Why would a successful business intentionally pay employees this much, invest so heavily in their education, hire people who aren’t financially dependent on the job, and openly teach them almost everything they know?

The only explanation I can think of is that there’s a much bigger long-term strategy. Maybe they’re planning to expand to 15+ clinics and are developing dentists who can eventually become clinic managers, lead dentists, or even partners. Maybe they’re building a system where the owners don’t need to personally control every clinic because they have a group of highly trained people they trust.

These owners have also become almost like older brothers to me over the years, so I’ve seen how they operate fairly closely. They genuinely seem to care about developing people, not just maximizing short-term profit.

I want to build something similar myself one day, so I’m trying to understand the actual business logic behind this rather than simply thinking “they’re good bosses.”

Is there a name for this kind of management strategy? For people who have experience running dental practices, medical practices, or other professional service businesses, how does this model make financial sense in the long term?

I've spent years browsing Reddit and other forums looking for new games to play. At this point, I've probably played most of the mainstream games that usually get recommended here some of them two or three times.

But I have a serious problem: I cannot finish games.

I've been playing Minecraft for years and I've never even killed the Ender Dragon. I've had games where I've played 80 hours, only to look up how long they're supposed to take and find out they're supposedly 20 hours even if you explore everything.

I've realized that whenever a game gives me something to explore, somewhere I can walk around, optional content, different playstyles, etc., I'll try to experience EVERYTHING instead of progressing. Eventually I lose track of the main game and never finish it.

In my entire life, the only games I've actually finished are The Walking Dead series and Celeste.

So I'm looking for something extremely short and extremely linear:

Almost no exploration

Little to no optional content

No DLC/expansions

No complicated progression or different playstyles

Very little freedom

Basically just follow the main path and finish the game

I don't care if the game is highly rated or considered a masterpiece. I just want to finish a fucking game.

What would you recommend?

I've been thinking about this for years.

Out of every game that has ever been announced or rumored, the only one I've genuinely been waiting for is Riot's League of Legends MMO. The funny thing is that I'm not even an MMO player. I usually don't enjoy the genre.

The reason I'm so interested is because I believe Riot has the world, the characters, the lore, and the budget to make something that could become one of the greatest MMOs ever made. Runeterra feels like a universe that was built for this.

I also think that if Riot truly delivers, it could easily become a "forever game" for a huge number of people.

So my question is: why hasn't it happened yet?

I know the project has reportedly been rebooted, but Riot is a massive company with enormous resources. Is the challenge really that difficult, or are there other reasons behind the slow development?

Are there any credible news, leaks, interviews, or industry speculation that explain what's going on? Is there a reliable place to follow updates on the MMO?

And finally, how many of you are actually waiting for this game? Am I in the minority here, or is there still a large community hoping Riot eventually releases it?

I'd love to hear your thoughts, whether you're optimistic, skeptical, or have been following the project more closely than I have.

I've been thinking about this for years.

Out of every game that has ever been announced or rumored, the only one I've genuinely been waiting for is Riot's League of Legends MMO. The funny thing is that I'm not even an MMO player. I usually don't enjoy the genre.

The reason I'm so interested is because I believe Riot has the world, the characters, the lore, and the budget to make something that could become one of the greatest MMOs ever made. Runeterra feels like a universe that was built for this.

I also think that if Riot truly delivers, it could easily become a "forever game" for a huge number of people.

So my question is: why hasn't it happened yet?

I know the project has reportedly been rebooted, but Riot is a massive company with enormous resources. Is the challenge really that difficult, or are there other reasons behind the slow development?

Are there any credible news, leaks, interviews, or industry speculation that explain what's going on? Is there a reliable place to follow updates on the MMO?

And finally, how many of you are actually waiting for this game? Am I in the minority here, or is there still a large community hoping Riot eventually releases it?

I'd love to hear your thoughts, whether you're optimistic, skeptical, or have been following the project more closely than I have.

https://preview.redd.it/vcfkq1b4ukfh1.png?width=596&format=png&auto=webp&s=e093bf81d14a2a18d507d2eddbf0c925859da21c

I bought a PDF and I'm trying to edit it in LibreOffice Draw to remove some logos. The problem is that most images appear completely black in Draw, while they display normally in Adobe Acrobat, Edge, and other PDF viewers. Is this a known limitation of LibreOffice's PDF import? Is there any workaround to make the images render correctly?

I have a 400-page book and a mirrorless camera mounted on a tripod, so taking consistent, high quality photos isn't the problem.

What I'm looking for is software that can process all of these images in bulk.

Ideally, the workflow would be:

1)I photograph every page in order.

2)I import all of the images into the software.

3)The software automatically detects the page boundaries, corrects perspective if necessary, crops each page consistently, enhances readability (if needed), and exports everything as a single PDF in the correct order.

OCR support would be a nice bonus, but it's not essential.

What software would you recommend for this workflow? I'm looking for something that works well with hundreds of images rather than requiring me to manually adjust every page.

I have a 400-page book and a mirrorless camera mounted on a tripod, so taking consistent, high quality photos isn't the problem.

What I'm looking for is software that can process all of these images in bulk.

Ideally, the workflow would be:

1)I photograph every page in order.

2)I import all of the images into the software.

3)The software automatically detects the page boundaries, corrects perspective if necessary, crops each page consistently, enhances readability (if needed), and exports everything as a single PDF in the correct order.

OCR support would be a nice bonus, but it's not essential.

What software would you recommend for this workflow? I'm looking for something that works well with hundreds of images rather than requiring me to manually adjust every page.

I started reading philosophy mostly as a kind of mental exercise. I enjoy seeing how different people think, and I like being exposed to ideas I wouldn't have come up with myself.

Like a lot of people, I started with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. But honestly... I don't think I got much out of them. In fact, the reason I stopped after reading one book from each of them was that I kept thinking, "They're basically saying things I already believe." Most of what they said just felt like common sense to me.

At the same time, I don't want to disrespect them. Maybe the reason they sound like common sense is because they've influenced civilization so much for thousands of years. I genuinely don't know, and I'm actually curious about this.

Were philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle so influential because they expressed ideas that almost everyone naturally finds reasonable? Or do they only seem like common sense to us today because they've been so influential for so long?

When I read them, nothing really surprised me. I don't think I encountered a single idea that made me stop and think, "Wow, I've never looked at it this way before."

After that, I read Kant. I actually liked Kant. Then I read Descartes, but I didn't enjoy him because I thought many of his ideas were just... dumb. Then I read Karl Marx. I also thought most of his ideas were dumb, but at least I appreciated that he approached things from a perspective I normally wouldn't. So even if I disagreed with him, it still felt like a better mental exercise because it wasn't just common sense to me.

The philosophers I've enjoyed the most so far are Stirner, Ayn Rand, and Friedrich Nietzsche. The reason is that they either presented ideas I hadn't thought about before, or at least they seemed willing to go against mainstream values. Whether I agreed with them or not, I found them interesting because they felt different.

But even then, I still haven't found the feeling I was hoping to get from reading philosophy.

Maybe this is something that only comes after reading philosophy for years. Maybe I'm just expecting too much too early. I don't know.

The main reason I'm posting here is this:

I'm guessing that if I keep reading the most famous philosophers, I'll probably keep running into ideas that mostly feel like common sense. So can you recommend philosophers who genuinely have unusual, unconventional, or even controversial ideas?

I'd actually prefer philosophers who aren't very famous. Even when I've watched YouTube videos about philosophers whose books I haven't read yet, I often came away thinking, "These ideas aren't really that different."

I'm specifically looking for philosophers who made you think, "I've genuinely never considered looking at the world this way before." That's the experience I'm after.

And finally, I want to ask the question I mentioned earlier:

Do philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle seem like common sense because their ideas really were obvious to most people? Or do they only seem obvious today because they shaped our civilization so much that we've internalized their way of thinking?

I've had this thought since I was a kid, and every time I bring it up to my friends they just laugh. But I genuinely don't understand it, so I'm curious if there's an explanation from psychology, sociology, evolutionary biology, or history.

I'm a straight man, and my logic has always been something like this:

If more men are gay, then there are fewer straight men competing for women. From the perspective of an individual heterosexual man, that sounds like it would increase his chances of finding a partner.

I've even joked before that "if everyone except me were gay, that would be the ideal scenario," because, purely from a selfish competition standpoint, there would be almost no other men competing with me for women.

So here's what confuses me.

Throughout history, many societies have been openly hostile toward homosexuality. It has been treated as immoral, insulting, sinful, or even a disease. Even a lot of powerful heterosexual men: kings, military leaders, politicians, tribal leaders, patriarchs, etc. have often expressed negative attitudes toward gay men.

Why?

If we ignore the moral and religious aspects for a moment and look only at it through the lens of individual reproductive competition, wouldn't a heterosexual man actually benefit from other men being gay? If your "competitors" are no longer competing for women, that seems like it would work in your favor.

So why hasn't that logic historically led powerful straight men or male dominated societies to be more accepting or even encouraging of homosexuality?

Is my reasoning missing something obvious? Are there evolutionary, demographic, social, or historical factors that make this intuition completely wrong?

I'm not trying to make a political argument here. I'm genuinely asking because this has seemed like a paradox to me for years, and I feel like I'm overlooking an important piece of the puzzle.

I'm a bit confused about how the inventory/weight system works.

For example, I wanted to pick up some kelp. I was already at my weight limit, so I dropped several other items that, combined, weighed the same as (or even more than) the kelp. But the game still wouldn't let me pick it up.

This isn't just about kelp either. I've noticed the same thing with other items as well.

Am I missing some mechanic? Is there another limit besides total weight, or is this a bug?

Edit, limit chart: 9kg/13kg 13kg/19kg 19kg/28kg 28kg/41kg 42kg/56kg 63kg/78kg 94kg/109kg 125kg/136kg 155kg/166kg 185kg/196kg 215kg/226kg (w/Eco Bag)

I've been wondering about something that sits somewhere between evolutionary biology, anthropology, and history.

From what I've seen, it seems like if a woman decides she wants to have sex, she'll usually have a much easier time finding a willing partner than a man would. I'm not saying it's guaranteed, and I'm obviously talking about statistical trends rather than every individual.

That made me think about other mammals. In many species, a relatively small number of males end up fathering most of the offspring, while many males never reproduce at all. Females, on the other hand, seem to have a much more consistent chance of reproducing.

Humans seem different because at some point we developed institutions like marriage, long-term pair bonding, and socially enforced monogamy. Intuitively, it feels like these institutions could have made reproduction more evenly distributed among men than it was before.

So I'm curious:

Before marriage or similar social institutions became common in early human societies, what percentage of men and what percentage of women actually passed on their genes?

After marriage became widespread, did those percentages change significantly? Did marriage increase the proportion of men who were able to reproduce compared to earlier human societies?

How does this compare with other mammals today? Is it generally true that a much smaller percentage of males reproduce than females, or does it vary greatly depending on the species?

While writing this, another question came to mind. Humans experience sexual jealousy, and we also have concepts like mate guarding and, in modern culture, even consensual cuckold relationships. That made me wonder whether sexual jealousy itself predates marriage and organized social institutions.

In other words, before marriage or socially enforced monogamy existed, do we have evidence that early humans still experienced sexual jealousy and tried to guard their partners? Is this something that evolved long before civilization, and do we see similar behaviors in other mammals or primates?

Finally, how and why did marriage become such a widespread institution in the first place? Was it mainly driven by inheritance, property rights, child-rearing, social stability, religion, or something else?

I hope I'm not mixing together too many different fields. I'm mainly trying to understand how biology and the development of human societies influenced each other. I'd appreciate answers from evolutionary biology, anthropology, or history, and I'd love recommendations for books or papers on the subject.

I've been wondering about something that sits somewhere between evolutionary biology, anthropology, and history.

From what I've seen, it seems like if a woman decides she wants to have sex, she'll usually have a much easier time finding a willing partner than a man would. I'm not saying it's guaranteed, and I'm obviously talking about statistical trends rather than every individual.

That made me think about other mammals. In many species, a relatively small number of males end up fathering most of the offspring, while many males never reproduce at all. Females, on the other hand, seem to have a much more consistent chance of reproducing.

Humans seem different because at some point we developed institutions like marriage, long-term pair bonding, and socially enforced monogamy. Intuitively, it feels like these institutions could have made reproduction more evenly distributed among men than it was before.

So I'm curious:

Before marriage or similar social institutions became common in early human societies, what percentage of men and what percentage of women actually passed on their genes?

After marriage became widespread, did those percentages change significantly? Did marriage increase the proportion of men who were able to reproduce compared to earlier human societies?

How does this compare with other mammals today? Is it generally true that a much smaller percentage of males reproduce than females, or does it vary greatly depending on the species?

While writing this, another question came to mind. Humans experience sexual jealousy, and we also have concepts like mate guarding and, in modern culture, even consensual cuckold relationships. That made me wonder whether sexual jealousy itself predates marriage and organized social institutions.

In other words, before marriage or socially enforced monogamy existed, do we have evidence that early humans still experienced sexual jealousy and tried to guard their partners? Is this something that evolved long before civilization, and do we see similar behaviors in other mammals or primates?

Finally, how and why did marriage become such a widespread institution in the first place? Was it mainly driven by inheritance, property rights, child-rearing, social stability, religion, or something else?

I hope I'm not mixing together too many different fields. I'm mainly trying to understand how biology and the development of human societies influenced each other. I'd appreciate answers from evolutionary biology, anthropology, or history, and I'd love recommendations for books or papers on the subject.

I've been thinking about something for a while, and I'd really like to hear how other dentists approach it.

One of my biggest principles has always been avoiding irreversible treatment on healthy tooth structure when the only indication is esthetics. When patients come in asking for veneers, aggressive bonding, or other cosmetic procedures on otherwise healthy teeth, I usually spend a long time explaining why I don't think removing healthy enamel is a good idea. So far, I've never gone ahead with one of these purely cosmetic cases.

But there's one thought that keeps coming back.

Sometimes I realize that no matter how much time I spend educating a patient, they're going to get the treatment anyway. If I say no, they'll simply find another dentist who says yes.

And, if I'm being honest, I also know that not everyone providing these treatments is doing them to a high standard or with the patient's long-term health in mind.

That's where I start questioning myself.

If a patient is absolutely determined to have the procedure done regardless of what I say, is it more ethical to refuse on principle... or to perform the treatment myself as conservatively and responsibly as possible so they end up with less harm overall?

Part of me wonders if that's just a convenient way of easing my own conscience. Maybe I'm just trying to justify crossing a line I don't actually believe should be crossed. On the other hand, maybe reducing inevitable harm is a legitimate ethical argument.

The irony is that if I eventually decide to do these cases for the sake of harm reduction, haven't I also become one of the dentists I originally disagreed with?

I'm genuinely curious how you think about this.

If you refuse these cases, where do you draw the line? If you accept them, what ethical framework helps you justify that decision? Do you see it as harm reduction, patient autonomy, or something else entirely?

I don't think there's an easy answer here, and maybe I haven't expressed my thoughts perfectly, but I'd really like to hear how other dentists navigate this dilemma.

Uzun zamandır kafamı kurcalayan bir konu var ve bu konuda sizin ne düşündüğünüzü gerçekten merak ediyorum.

Bana bazen tamamen estetik amaçlı hastalar geliyor. Dişleri gayet sağlıklı oluyor ama laminate veneer, bonding ya da benzeri işlemler istiyorlar. Ben de uzun uzun anlatıyorum. Sağlam diş dokusunu sadece estetik uğruna kaldırmanın bana doğru gelmediğini, bunun geri dönüşü olmayan bir işlem olduğunu anlatıyorum. Şu ana kadar da sırf estetik için sağlıklı diş dokusunu kaldırdığım bir vaka olmadı.

Ama bazen şu düşünce aklıma geliyor.

Bazı hastaları ne kadar ikna etmeye çalışırsam çalışayım, eninde sonunda gidip bu işlemi yaptıracaklar. Yani benim "hayır" demem, o hastanın bu fikirden vazgeçeceği anlamına gelmiyor. Büyük ihtimalle başka bir diş hekimi bulacak.

Ve dürüst olmak gerekirse şunu da biliyorum; bu tarz işlemleri yapan herkes aynı özeni göstermiyor. Hastaya gerçekten uzun vadeli faydasını düşünen de var, tamamen ticari yaklaşan da var. Bazen de çok daha agresif preparasyonlar yapıldığını görüyorum.

Tam da burada kendime şu soruyu soruyorum:

Eğer hasta ne olursa olsun bu işlemi yaptıracaksa, benim bunu olabildiğince konservatif ve kaliteli şekilde yapmam, hastanın daha fazla zarar görmesini engellemek açısından daha mı etik olur?

Yoksa bu sadece vicdanımı rahatlatmaya çalıştığım bir bahane mi?

Bazen kendime "Ben yapmazsam daha kötü bir restorasyon yapılacak, en azından ben daha az diş dokusu kaldırırım ve daha iyi bir iş çıkarırım." diyorum. Ama sonra da şu geliyor aklıma: Eğer bu mantıkla hareket edersem, sonuçta ben de başta eleştirdiğim o diş hekimlerinden biri olmaya başlamış olmuyor muyum?

İşin içinden çıkamıyorum açıkçası.

Şu ana kadar böyle bir işlem yapmadım ama bu ikilemi zaman zaman düşünüyorum.

Siz böyle durumlarda nasıl hareket ediyorsunuz? Hastanın o işlemi kesin yaptıracağını düşündüğünüz durumlarda yaklaşımınız değişiyor mu? Bunu gerçekten "zararı azaltmak" olarak mı görüyorsunuz, yoksa bunun sadece vicdanı rahatlatan bir gerekçe olduğunu mu düşünüyorsunuz?

Kendimi belki çok iyi ifade edememiş olabilirim ama bu konudaki fikirlerinizi gerçekten merak ediyorum. Bence etik açıdan oldukça gri bir alan ve farklı bakış açılarını duymak isterim.

Hi everyone. First of all, I couldn't really find a subreddit specifically for plastic surgeons, so I hope it's okay to ask here.

I'm asking this because I'm a dentist, and this is something I only know from the dentistry side. I know how I approach patients like this, but I was curious how plastic surgeons deal with the same kind of situation, so that's why this example came to my mind. I just wanted to hear a different perspective from another cosmetic field.

Sometimes patients come to me with objectively really nice teeth. No cavities, no caries, everything looks healthy. Maybe there's a tiny bit of yellowish color, but honestly it's so small that most people would never even notice it.

Some of these patients get really obsessed with these tiny "flaws." I usually spend a long time explaining that their teeth are healthy, that there's nothing wrong with them, and that I don't think doing unnecessary treatment is the right thing. If I feel like the problem is more psychological than dental, I refer them to a psychologist or psychiatrist instead.

That made me think about plastic surgery. Sometimes I see people who are already really attractive, but they still want another cosmetic procedure for something that either doesn't exist or is such a tiny thing that almost nobody would notice.

So how do you approach these patients? Do you still perform the procedure if that's what they want, or do you sometimes refuse and recommend they first see a psychologist or psychiatrist if you suspect something like body dysmorphic disorder? I'm just curious how you guys usually handle these situations in real life.

Donald Trump is currently attending the NATO summit in Ankara, and I came across reports claiming that his feces will be collected and transported back to the United States instead of being left behind.

From what I've read, this isn't unique to Trump. Previous U.S. presidents have reportedly followed similar procedures during foreign visits, and there have also been reports that Vladimir Putin takes similar precautions when traveling abroad.

This made me curious about the biology behind it.

Let's say a hostile government somehow obtained one of these samples and analyzed it using all of the resources available to a modern state. What could they realistically learn?

Could they determine a person's complete genetic profile from it? Could they identify existing diseases, genetic predispositions, or even illnesses that haven't been made public yet? Are there biomarkers in a stool sample that could reveal something medically significant?

And if they did manage to reconstruct the president's genome, what could actually be done with that information? Could it realistically be used for intelligence operations or targeted biological threats, or is the main concern simply protecting medical privacy and preventing sensitive health information from becoming public?

I'm interested in the science rather than the politics. I'd love to hear from people with backgrounds in genetics, molecular biology, or microbiology about what is actually possible with today's technology.