Hehe caveats definitely apply, like if you are talking to someone only over the phone, then maybe don’t say that one 😜 😉.

But it’s a good thought.

I suppose it depends on your goals - for a child or pet, is it okay to lie to them or simply force the issue, whereas for an adult human, how far should someone go to remove from them the consequences of their own actions?

Interesting article about the changing language surrounding climate change. Like now it’s starting to become climate emergency/breakdown/crisis, but before any of that it was global warming, and in the 80s apparently it was “inadvertent climate modification”.

Never forget that behind the mobs is a controller.

Yes and no.

I feel it is important for the human condition - it’s also a part of my faith system but entirely separately from that it also seems to me to lead to the most “zen”, as in if we only focus on ourselves that seems like the fastest way to unhappiness? (Is Jeff Bezos happy? Is Elon Musk? Is Steve Huffman? money flows like a river and if it only comes in but never is given away then that leads to imbalance)

But so very many organized charities have been revealed to be frauds that I am extremely wary of giving to one that I had not vetted, especially one associated with organized religion. But that requires so very much effort… still it’s part of it and connects you to it.:-)

One thing I love to do is tip. I’m in America btw, so it’s an important part of what they need, and these are people who are WORKING for it - like, they aren’t just street beggers (although I’ve given to them too - I usually have quite mixed feelings about that one though, and tend to not). Especially if I’m ever in a southern state - 10-20% just barely does anything for a $6 meal at a Waffle House, so those rules should not apply. According to my way of thinking, it is just part of the cost of the service - like I could go to a grocery store and make my own food, but if I to “out” to eat then I want to do what I can to counteract the evil fuckwads who decided that $2.25 an hour or whatever it is before tips are counted towards their paycheck (so not minimum wage + tips but that amount instead).

And as others are also saying, don’t neglect the non-financial ways of “giving” as well - something as simple as offering to flip a mattress for an old person or trim someone’s yard for someone dealing with an injury, which may be trivial for one but exceedingly difficult for another.

Also compliments. I’m not good at this and virtually never do it actually - but it might just be more important than anything else you could do for someone, e.g. could you prevent someone’s suicide just by offering such a simple gesture of support? (possibly not entirely intentional too, like a fentanyl overdose) Maybe I’m being too naive here and inflating the power of such… or maybe I’m still underselling the importance here?

Anyway it’s more about you than it is them - who do you want to be, someone who takes takes takes or someone who gives gives gives? Like when someone sees you walking into the room, do you want them to cover up their wallet/purse or beam with an authentic smile?

But don’t be stupid about it. If you give away your paycheck and then cannot pay rent, then you’ll be the one needing help. Therefore, treat financial “giving” like any other budgeted amount - not a “I feel like it today so here’s a good tip”, and more of a “every single time I go out, this is what I expect to offer” (and if service is poor so you feel that you can’t give it to them, then find someone else to offer it to?). The vast majority of us really need so much less than consumer culture says that we do - and I for one find chasing the monetized dream to be a futile endeavor, but giving is one of the most sure-fire ways to produce, if not “happiness” (not every time) then at least a settledness/peace overall.

Dare to be different, especially if you know that you are doing a right thing, and “remember the human” very much seems to be that, for me.

If you say that 1+1=2 and they say that 1+1=3, what should be done?

The inverted Turing test, it would seem.

Beep boop I am smarter than you… 🎵

Bleep bloop you seem to me dumb as rock… 🎼

That’s why I worry, not (just) about who will win the next election, but how we are going to survive the next one with project 2029.

When you’ve started playing Russian Roulette indefinitely, you’ve already lost.

On the bright side, Trump won’t last long enough to see that.

Correction: against Hillary anyone on the “other” side. Repubs can do whatever they want and their base will still support them, bc they are portrayed as “better” than the other side.

Same for Dems too. Even so, despite how they both lie, they are nowhere close to being the same. But they are similar.

The devolution into a 2-party system is absolutely deadly to a democracy.

Nope, not gonna do it - I’m not going to say it the third time to summon him, not again!

Well at least you keep her warm:-)

You will, nut, if you only just believe! :-P

Wait, that makes no sense, I think I misread it…

You will not if you only just believe!

Come mister tally-man and tally me bananas…

Butt somehow its backside is always too cold - make up your damn mind!? :-P

By using the 5th dimension:-)

I kinda thought so:-)

I tried that last week with a different video, where I did manage to think about that aspect, but it still was not well-received. Probably b/c “what is a bacteriophage” is too juvenile for this crowd.

The thing is, when I see such videos, I get excited - not even for myself who knows the material, but that it is now that much easier for others to follow. Like having climbed the ladder, rather than pull it up after us they are doing the hard and very necessary and quite frankly often under-appreciated effort of collating this information, packaging it in a form that is easily consumed, and delivering it to those who need it. I don’t think I learned about bacteriophages until college! And I did not know that such diverse matters as e.g. allergies and chocolate cravings could be traced back to their presence (& absence) until much later (when scientists themselves discovered that much later).

Kids who cannot afford to go to private schools, people in lower-income nations that nonetheless may have internet access, at least sporadically, women who are not allowed to learn in certain portions of the world (like almost Florida these days?), etc. - these videos are, if not quite college-level courses (such as the variety of Crash Course series), then at least preparatory material that can help! Also, someone who knows even extremely higher-level technical skills such as databases, Unix systems coding, and the likes of Rust, Go, etc., may likewise want to learn about “bacteriophages” (or “vaccines”, or “the actual, not most news-worthy, ways that most people die in the Western world”). So I am extremely happy that these videos exist (yes! I am not exaggerating there - it literally fills me with an amount of full-on joy!:-), for the sake of the love of learning and knowledge. It’s basically Wikipedia, put into video form, for the sake of the younger generations who won’t read and for whom these bright colors and neat voiceover effects will nonetheless still manage to spoon-feed them this knowledge (also, perhaps once someone knows a little bit… maybe they will read, after that?).

But perhaps most of all, the counter-culture side to me has a nice “take that!” moment when someone absolutely refuses to learn anything at all - even though there’s a brightly-colored, nicely-narrated, extremely condensed yet easy to receive video that will tell you pretty much all the basics of most subjects. Now I can look down on people who refuse to know things, b/c I know that they could know, if only they would. :-)

But I’m weird - and loving it - yet still if these videos aren’t wanted, then I should stop sharing them. Or at least find some other community that might want them more.