I’ve seen enough joint replacement videos, especially knees, to think carpentry skills are a job requirement.

It actually looks a LOT smoother and sharper than I expected. Look at microscope photos of razors and knives and they look like chewed up chisels.

I think the combination of access to anonymous social media, or at least access to media without any physical interaction, leads to a lack of empathy and hostile behavior. Then you have the echo chamber effect where any group has its beliefs amplified and the extreme members get the most attention. It is trivial to react hostilely and leave a comment like “Go kill yourself” on someone’s post. The other person is just a block of text to you. When I write something I have to reread it a few times to determine “How will someone misinterpret this negatively?” and sometimes I feel like I’m writing for an audience of rabid dogs just itching to bite me. All too often even the most innocuous comment will still get a ridiculously hostile response. I’d say this isn’t just an American issue on the internet either. I see it with Europeans and Asians. It is a human issue.

Sadly now negativity has become a kneejerk response. Every stranger’s motivations are a personal attack on you, everything is part of some grand conspiracy aimed at you, etc. America’s obsession with individualism vs society as a whole seems to have reduced everyone to a crazed survivalist hiding in their bunker.

“many Americans are physically beating their children”

I’d say this is MUCH less now than in the past and is now strictly enforced.

“you can’t even safely walk alone in public during the night”

Depends on where you live. There have always been “bad neighborhoods” in cities and this is true around the world. I have never felt in danger walking alone at night around my area. I’m sure there are neighborhoods in, say, Paris or Marseille you wouldn’t walk around by yourself at night.

In the old days a person with radical ideas had a hard time finding others with the same mentality. It cost money to send out letters, print stuff, etc. Now you can blast out whatever comes into your head to potentially millions of people. You can form groups with them and feed each other’s paranoia and biases. On top of it broadcasting to you has become even easier and targeted and most of what is broadcast as news online is negative and fearmongering.

Then there is the whole issue of the “anonymous asshole” online who feels disconnected to those they are communicating to and makes assumptions (usually hostile) about them and feels freer to be hostile or provocative.

co2, which would otherwise reduce the atmosphere’s reflectivity

Just to be pedantic CO2 absorbs bands in the infrared and reemits it, energy that otherwise could be lost to space. This is part of the reason you can’t do infrared telescopes from earth.

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/02/25/carbon-dioxide-cause-global-warming/

Water is an even more powerful greenhouse gas but fortunately the earth is cool enough for it to condense back out of the atmosphere. If temps got high enough that more evaporated than condensed then you’d get a runaway greenhouse effect and we’d be truly fucked.

Start reflecting sunlight back into space and increase the earth’s albedo

Tai Chi for staying limber

Most people in Europe rent. It actually has advantages over owning depending on your situation.

They mean anyone with more stuff than they have.

Maybe folks have just grown out of most fast food. It is generally too greasy for my stomach now. Most candy feels so sweet to me now that it makes me a little nauseous.

We do enjoy stronger tastes as we get older.

It is always weird to hear fans refer to what happened in a game as “we”

Sort of the old medieval guild system to prevent competition and keep prices high.

I didn’t know a type of cheese could do business deals. I’m going to get sponsored by cheddar.

Boogie Nights, my wife had enough of it and insisted on leaving.

I wanted to leave the art film “Burnt By the Sun” but ended up apologizing to my date (she liked arty films too). We both agreed it was so bad it was almost amusing.

Mad Maxine!

Gen-X here, we do too

Self immolation as a form of protest. For anyone unaware of it there was a Buddhist monk who immolated themself to protest the oppression of Buddhists by the Catholic PM of Vietnam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thích_Quảng_Đức

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_Against_the_Machine_(album)

https://time.com/3791176/malcolm-browne-the-story-behind-the-burning-monk/

Maybe this is why I’m not seeing it, it was a few months ago.

Edit: The link says this was in DC recently though.

“A US Air Force soldier is in critical condition after he set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, Sunday.”

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