I agree wholeheartedly

Biochemistry — specifically protein structure. It’s so cool.

My favourite protein is Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP). It was first extracted from a jellyfish, and it’s super useful in research. The middle bit is the bit responsible for the coloured glow, and the rest of it (the barrel type structure) is basically just to stop the emitted energy from being immediately absorbed by the solvent.

If anyone wants me to nerd out more about proteins, hit me up.

Good response.

I actually think this is actually a big component of widespread distrust of science, and experts more generally. I remember during COVID how some people in my country were distrustful based on how the science seemed to be changing. Specifically, how initially, it was uncertain whether COVID was transmissible via air, or just through the droplets spread through coughing or sneezing. This is part of why the policy messaging around mask usage seemed to be a bit muddy — because initially we didn’t even know to what extent a regular cotton mask would help, or how important good airflow in indoor venues was.

Real science is messy and always evolving. Some of the most interesting scientific research happens in areas where our knowledge is tentative. What took me most by surprise was that some of the people expressing distrust in the science weren’t anti-vaxxers or others who have already made up their mind against science, but just regular people who were so used to trusting scientific knowledge as an abstract construct that they ended up distrusting the scientific process. I think about this a lot.

“too dumb to understand code requirements in every industry and profession.”

Or selfish. Unfortunately Hanlon’s razor can only cut so deep.

I feel like Boomers’ jokes about hating their spouse is thinly veiled suicidality jokes. Like, they’re giving big “I did everything I was meant to and I hate my life” energy

I find it cool that Dolly Parton’s stage persona is so thick a mask of glamour that when she’s not “in character”, she can go out and get to live like a normal person, who no-one recognises her. I don’t know if this was by design, but it sure seems to be a smart choice

Something that I find interesting with Rome is that arguably one of the ways it managed to keep going for so long is that it was continuing to push its borders outwards through conquest. Assimilating a land and its people into the Republic/Empire is one way of dealing with the problem of invading “barbarians” (even if that is just transmuting the problem such that your external threat is a new group of “barbarians”, and the old potential invaders potentially pose a threat from within).

Continuing to push outwards is a way to continue developing the military though, and to distract the military from the potential option of seizing power for themselves. There’s only so far you can push before the borders you need to secure are too large to do effectively, and the sheer area to be administrated is too large, even for Rome.

As you highlight, it’s a common misconception that people don’t realise that the Fall of Rome was far more protracted and complex of a process than a single event. I think that’s a shame, because I find it so much more interesting that historians can’t even agree on when the Fall of Rome even was.

“Marked by opulence and a distracted upper class, depending on foreign born nationals and the impoverished to defend them from the mob.”

I’m not sure how linked to the Fall of Rome these things are when they existed throughout basically the entire history of the Roman Empire (and even the Republic before it). The “secession of the plebs” was effectively a general strike of the commoners that happened multiple times between the 5th venture BCE and the 3rd century BCE — many centuries before the Fall of Rome.

Commenting to echo my agreement. Rome was bloody huge, and it was hard to administrate. Things like high quality roads and advanced administrative systems help to manage it all, but when you’re that big, even just distributing food across the empire is a challenge. Rome only became as large as it was because it was supported by many economic, military and political systems, but the complexity of this means that we can’t even point to one of them and say “it was the failure of [thing] that caused Rome to fall.”

An analogy that I’ve heard that I like is that it’s like a house falling into disrepair over many years. A neglected house will likely become unliveable long before it collapses entirely, and it’ll start showing the symptoms of its degradation even sooner than that. The more things break, the more that the inhabitants may be forced to do kludge repairs that just make maintaining the whole thing harder.

Thanks for the podcast recommendation, I’ll check it out. I learned about a lot of this stuff via my late best friend, who was a historian, so continuing to learn about it makes me feel closer to him

'around the time they fired the guy who ran “Every Noise at Once" ’

You know, that explains a lot. I think I’ve read that dude’s book — it was a good read.

To anyone who resonates with this meme: Try to be kind to yourself. You have the wisdom to understand that you’re engaging in maladaptive coping measures, but remind yourself that these are choices you make under duress — an attempt to survive despite adverse circumstances.

It is possible to develop healthier coping measures that may better help you to cope with the world and all its strife, but this takes time and careful cultivation. We can do ourselves harm by trying to do too much at once, so remember that maladaptive coping strategies. I know that it feels demoralising to have to unhealthily immerse oneself in vices, but remember that you’re not failing to live, you’re succeeding at surviving, and for now, that’s enough.

I hope that things get better for you and me and everyone else who relates to this meme. I hope that we can both stick around long enough to find better modes of being. Until then, I hope that you find the occasional nugget of joy in your quest of escapism in the name of survival.

They don’t want people off the streets. The right thrive on stoking the fear and resentment of their base, and what better fuel for the fire than people on the lowest rungs of society.

This is why I have been increasingly frustrated at the UK’s current government, who are shitting themselves about the rise of the right wing Reform party, but refuse to understand that capitulating to their “stop the boats” anti-immigrant rhetoric, they’re just yielding more ground to the reactionary right.

I don’t expect establishment politicians to actually give a fuck about regular people, but they are actively at risk of losing their political power if they continue to ignore the actual root causes of the social malaise that Reform are exploiting. It’s beyond obvious that we are in dire need of investment in services and infrastructure, but I guess they’re afraid of pissing off their political donors and other people with unelected power (billionaires etc.)

Is it? I didn’t get that sense. What causes you to think it’s written by chatGPT? (I ask because whilst I’m often good at discerning AI content, there are plenty of times that I don’t notice it until someone points out things that they notice that I didn’t initially)

Sometimes, I feel like writers know that it’s capitalism, but they don’t want to actually call the problem what it is, for fear of scaring off people who would react badly to it. I think there’s probably a place for this kind of oblique rhetoric, but I agree with you that progress is unlikely if we continue pussyfooting around the problem

Quelle surprise

I find it odd that you seem to be more comfortable to think of the impact this will have on paragliders dropping bombs on people than on the innocent people bombed in this attack. I get that being a paraglider must be scary because it inevitably comes with the risk of being shot, but this is a story about civilian deaths due to a bombing, not paraglider deaths due to gunfire.

I’m of the view that there’d be more productive discussions if we collectively started to use the word “terrorism” in a more nuanced way that allowed for the possibility that not all terrorism is necessarily morally bad.

What got me started thinking this was that there is a character in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 who is open about the fact that she used to be a terrorist — except this was in the context of resisting a brutal occupation of her planet. I have recently been rewatching the show, and it’s interesting to see how the narrative frames this as an overall morally good thing whilst also reckoning with the aspects of the resistance that were morally bad. Makes me wistful for that kind of nuance in real world discussions of violent resistance.

It might also make it easier to vehemently condemn senseless acts of state sanctioned terrorism such as this bombing. Though based on the long history of interactional inaction towards multiple genocides, that probably wouldn’t make much difference.

Thanks for this better source. It’s hard to find quality journalism nowadays, so I appreciate when people like you make it easier to be well informed.

I recently watched the satirical video “Honest Government Ad | Visit Myanmar!” and it was surprisingly informative. I knew that the junta was bad, but through this, I learned a heckton more about how deep the problem goes.

“not that hard to do”

Eh, I’m not so sure on that. I often find myself tripping up on the xkcd Average Familiarity problem, so I worry that this assumption is inadvertently a bit gatekeepy.

It’s the unfortunate reality that modern tech makes it pretty hard for a person to learn the kind of skills necessary to be able to customise one’s own tools. As a chronic tinkerer, I find it easy to underestimate how overwhelming it must feel for people who want to learn but have only ever learned to interface with tech as a “user”. That kind of background means that it requires a pretty high level of curiosity and drive to learn, and that’s a pretty high bar to overcome. I don’t know how techy you consider yourself to be, but I’d wager that anyone who cares about whether something is open source is closer to a techy person than the average person.