I’d learn to speak zombie. Doesn’t take long, it’s mostly throat noises. And walk like a zombie, just pretend a horse kicked you in the ass yesterday.

Big companies become like alien organisms that are embodied in big buildings and employ human beings as blood cells. They are predators that consume human life energies.

Best to do what you think is right … as for Democracy, it’s a good idea, I hope we’ll see it show up one of these days. ‘All men are created equal’ … but then someone’s gotta pick the crops.

One dollar won’t buy much of anything. Give me a magic ten instead.

Yeah! A lot of times, hanging around with people you share things in common with leads to friendships. In friendships you might discover a few more things in common. No worries … if it’s fun and the chemistry is good, the rest will follow.

There are multiple kinds of ‘smart’. The following section in Wiki breaks them down into IQ, emotional, social, and moral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence#Human

Historically, a lot of ‘high IQ’ people didn’t necessarily ‘fit in’ to society. See the story of William James Sidis … ‘He entered Harvard University at age 11 and, as an adult, was claimed by family members to have an IQ between 250 and 300’.

Also historically, people smart enough to see that a lot of the world is about shuckin’ and jivin’ and not giving a crap? may not be not interested in playing the game. Some find other interests and don’t see the point in ‘accomplishing’ things that will mostly be forgotten. Ramanujan had a HUGE talent for math ONLY, unrecognized until he wrote a professor halfway around the world.

We were all born without a manual. There are ways to enjoy life on your own terms.

There are different kinds of smart. A person can be quick and creative at something (math, mechanics, music, marketing …), and less so at everything else.

If the something is -complicated-, then a lot of learning is needed, and a good qualified teacher will help you sort out what is really important to know. Chess is complicated, and you need to learn basic strategies of how to move and not get eaten alive. There are some books that can help with that. But a human teacher can get you there a lot faster. If you’re really motivated but you’re not remembering enough? it may not be your ‘something’ !

GEOLOGY can be intriguing when much of it is set outdoors (in videos, no bug bites, no poison ivy) and being explained by a professor at a small college with a great love of the topic and a talent and desire to share it with a large audience. Yes, I’m talking Nick on the Rocks himself. Danger:He’s often accompanied by other interesting geologists. It might be catching.

https://www.youtube.com/@GeologyNick/videos

If you’re new to the topic or have children, then Nick also does short (under 10-minute) shows that are shown on PBS, which you’ll find here:

https://www.pbs.org/show/nick-rocks/

Oh, I’m thinking about 20 minutes in line outside a small community center, back when I lived in North Dakota (pop of whole state about 600,000). As a lifelong nomad, it was the only state I lived where I actually attended a Democratic party caucus. It was an enjoyable excursion into a behind-the-scenes election process that most will never venture into. Best part was, I escaped without being signed up for anything more!

Some way of grouping Communities other than by name (not very useful). E.G. search on ‘Climate’ and you don’t get the name of one of the busiest communities.

In other words, group them a step up the taxonomy. Create 10 or 15 groups (sci/tech, history, music, culture, media, nature, issues, locations…), see what mods have to say about that list. (Could do worse than the Wikipedia taxonomy.)

Seems like a lot of people need to know that these things **can ** -bite- you. We recently went to a restaurant that used one to direct you to an online menu. We asked for on-paper menus instead… If this is going to be service industry, it better get smarter about it.

“How QR codes work and what makes them dangerous – a computer scientist explains” https://theconversation.com/how-qr-codes-work-and-what-makes-them-dangerous-a-computer-scientist-explains-177217

https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2021/qr-codes.html

Have a look at Gorbachev. A big loss, that.

It can be hard to find the right community to post a link in. Figuring out the rules and knowing who’s reading them (and sometimes what they’re really about) might cause someone to give up. (Especially when people complain about ‘this isn’t the place for that’ without stating the better alternative.)

Bill Gates, except when Ballmer was there.

Either greed or religion has killed the most people before their time. One of them has to go.

I’d bet that ‘lemmings’ wouldn’t work.

Leave the poor things alone. They already don’t kill each other all of the time.

If we are realistic enough to put the fight against further global warming on a wartime basis, then we can operate things on a wartime basis. Which means planning things so that everything is focussed on winning the war. For example gasoline rationing would encourage people to plan their use of gasoline for maximum efficiency. It means people can get only as much as they can justify.

Rationing was used in the US during WW2. To see what that meant, read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_States

Sugar daddies …

Up to about the 1980s, the popular magazines used to frequently run cartoons with ragged-looking people holding up ‘It’s the END OF THE WORLD!!!’ signs. Guess they ran out of variants on that joke. But Doomsday Prophets have been around for centuries (some made big money from it) … and yet … here we all are.

We humans like to scare ourselves, but observation seems to show that it’s not a big worry. Will it all end, sure, some day. When? NOBODY KNOWS. Carpe diem, my friend … seize the day. And go ahead and make plans and execute them. Save your worry time for the little things that are inevitable.