Despite all the and suffering it has caused and will cause, Trump admin has at least handed us the beginning of a breakdown in US hegemony as trust has eroded with other nations who are all busy pivoting away from it right now.

Unfortunately upon breaking the gridlock, other nations are scrambling to maintain the status quo rather than leaning into the future by redoubling commitments to address human and climate crises before it’s too late for the humans.

Journalists too. Not too long ago it was quite taboo to kill journalists, especially foreign ones, but the taboo seems to be gone altogether there is no outrage.

Philosophy is excellent food for thought, working through a MOOC course (MIT/Yale?) and doing the prescribed readings might strike your fancy. Happy to give more specific recs if you have some existing curiosity about a topic. Side note that it’s difficult to find people to talk to online about serious philosophical topics, the options I’ve seen (discord groups, facebook groups) usually aren’t very engaging but the reading and lectures and contemplation are engaging on your own imo.

Watch ancient history documentaries like the Fall of Civilizations or History with Cy channels on youtube (Fall of Civilizations is also/originally a podcast if you prefer). Whenever I am feeling empty of interesting thoughts this is my go to. When I watch frequently I constantly find my thoughts combining and recombining history with my current experience in a way that feels awfully close to intellectual stimulation. I also find it gives some mildly comforting perspective on current events.

Built to purpose gadgets. Getting into arduino or similar as a hobbyist can be intellectually engaging. The process of identifying something in your space you could enhance then drafting and executing a plan (including some basic programming) is kind of like a puzzle. Building things you don’t need like an LED based checklist for chores that resets every day, a pedestal that spins to give a house plant even sunlight, or a solar powered bird house might be a fun challenge.

Edit to add that if you live near a university professors will usually let you unofficially audit their class if you’re interested in a topic and have time during the week.

That’s wild!!

The chart is on a page discussing this:

My workplace is NSF funded and supports a number of activities designed to increase interest in the discipline among young kids or improve teaching techniques for k-12 teachers. Similarly, we run an REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) program to give undergraduate students exposure to hands on research (and hopefully encourage them to stay in the discipline for graduate school).

A majority of our funding still goes to PhDs doing fundamental research, but the pipeline that feeds academic research begins with children, and research funding priorities aren’t blind to that.

Find a nice waterfall and build a hut by it

We could probably recreate the sound without burning gas, the newer electric cars sound like alien ships which is definitely a different vibe

Flow charts or bullet lists as visual aid. The higher position your interlocutor is in the simpler you should try to keep your point. If you need their input on a project only bring them one A vs B decision at a time.

I forget the title but there’s a sci-fi story where there’s a galactic council between sentient creatures but they don’t invite newly discovered sentient species to the council until they survive the milestone where most sentient species nuke themselves out of existence

…it is our interest and our task to make the revolution permanent until all the more or less propertied classes have been driven from their ruling positions, until the proletariat has conquered state power and until the association of the proletarians has progressed sufficiently far – not only in one country but in all the leading countries of the world – that competition between the proletarians of these countries ceases and at least the decisive forces of production are concentrated in the hands of the workers.

Definitely wasn’t disagreeing with you haha

“I’m a liberal on health care because I believe it is a birth right of every human being—not just some damn privilege to be meted out to a few people. But when it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I’m about as liberal as your grandmother. I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body. I support a limited amnesty, and I don’t think marijuana should be legalized.”

Remindme! 13 years

Completely plausible! Have you aged since? Or stopped aging at 27?

Edit: If not maybe you needed to add a few drops of purple eyeglass-cleaner sample.

Can relate but I made potions in the bath. With various colors of shampoo. In actual glass test tubes and such from the science supply store (probably not wise @my parents but all the little glass bottles were adorable).

“Passionately Support The Machine While It Crushes Everyone Including, Eventually, Me”

So do you recommend a high fat diet?

That must feel soul sucking to build :(

Yeah I’m not sure why you would embroider names on blouses either…

I considered where to post it and decided it was reasonably in line with other loosely ornithology/classification themed memes in this community