The optimistic frog
says the pot
is half full.

The pessimistic frog
says the pot
is half empty.

The observant frog
says the pot we are in
is on the stovetop
and the water in it
is starting to boil.

@left_adjoint

Agreed. #solarpunk

I think the idea of community control over technology is really important. Individuals by and large cannot self-regulate technology usage. We need community norms and mutual responsibility around these things.

For example I think most people (not in isolated religious communities) would bristle at the idea of a community-wide firewall / parental controls on internet access, but I think we need to be looking at solutions in that space.

watching the new Thought Slime video: "sorry I'm more nasal than usual, i have the flu"

hell yeah the famously common summer flu is back

A king wears a crown
for it signifies
having rule over others,
so you who oppose kings
should understand
that the opposite
of wearing a crown
is not no crown at all,
no, the opposite
of wearing a crown
is wearing a mask
for it signifies
having care for others.

Every time society makes me feel I “exaggerate” by masking 😷, I remember the state uses illnesses as weapons. I want to fight eugenics.

I love my community, I love care, I love FFP2 😷

Also, can we establish something right now because I'm really tired of running this two-step in our discourse - peaceful, and nonviolent, do not mean the same things.

A PEACEFUL protest is some pussy hat shit and your oppressors want you to do it because they know they don't have to care.

A NONVIOLENT protest is NOT peaceful, it's just NOT violent. Nonviolent protest can work. Peaceful protests are just rallies.

The PURPOSE of protest is to SCARE your leaders into respecting your concerns.

no gods
no masters

And just to be 100% clear, #LosAngeles is nailing it. Massive peaceful protests are great. That's absolutely unequivocally a good thing. So are burning cop cars. Diversity of tactics is critical.

Escalating radically at a protest with kids and grandmas is a shit thing to do. Don't do that unless it's absolutely necessary. Having kids and grandmas out protesting is important. Having them peacefully block vehicles with their bodies or occupy ICE facilitates *is* a strong thing. That is real. That's not virtue signaling, it does something... And sometimes that isn't enough. Sometimes things *need* to escalate to save people.

Diversity is good. Don't break the diversity of tactics *either way*. #LA seems to be doing a pretty good job right now or holding that balance. I hope to see more of that in every city.

@ahltorp If they are not concerned about getting / transmitting Covid, that is also a failure of public health.

@TrimTab thinking about masks as something for immune-compromised individuals and their close friends / family is the failure of public health.

Imagine the same applied to other public health measures: washing hands after using the bathroom, purifying drinking water, not re-using syringes, etc.

@ahltorp That's the point. They clearly care about not getting sick, and yet they are not wearing a mask, the biggest bang-for-your-buck precaution you can take against getting sick.

Their actions reflect some of the following mistaken beliefs:
1) Diseases are transmitted primarily via surfaces, rather than airborne
2) Masks are not very effective at preventing transmission
3) Asymptomatic transmission does not happen often

It's like if someone, for fear of getting AIDs, refused to shake hands with anyone on PReP, but had unprotected sex with strangers and used used needles.

@TrimTab How's the masking in Europe during an ongoing and mass disabling pandemic?

@andrewrk Also, I'm very excited about this video! I have had a hard time finding good info about the build system in the past.

@andrewrk I don't pretend to represent "most people", but to shift your priors just a smidge: I like learning from both text and video. I don't have a strong preference for one or the other.

@plaguepoems To make sure it's clear, positivity rate is not infection rate.

French positivity rate of 19% does not mean 1 in 5 people in France have covid, it means 1 in 5 tests comes back positive. (but people who are positive, or have other reason to suspect they might be positive, are more likely to test)

Positivity rate is the % of tests that come back positive. If you do more tests more widely, your confirmed infection rate will go up, but your positivity rate will go *down* because proportionally more covid-negative people are testing.

And you can still track US positivity rates (for now) (for the tests conducted at wallgreens) https://www.walgreens.com/healthcare-solutions/covid-19-index

Weighted blankets aren’t enough. Run me over with your car.

Re: Brain Damage & Covid.

Examples of covid-induced brain damage and the consequences it has for behavior are almost universally met with skepticism right now.

This is because the folk concept of "Brain damage" people have (and the way the Law looks @ proving "intent") treats the brain as a single object that either runs or doesn't run. If it "runs" (e.g. shows planning) then you have "Proof of intent" and if it doesn't run, the person is going to be catatonic and completely dysfunctional.

The reality is quite different. The human brain is a massively parallelized but also compartmentalized structure - meaning that many many things are done at the same time. This means, for example, that someone may be capable of relatively complex planning and also have literally no idea what they're doing.

You yourself can know that this is obviously the case. You don't even have to be a neurologist - Just look around.

>Evidence 1: Sleepwalking & adjacent phenomena. Shows sophisticated planning and motor co-ordination, but clearly not "conscious".

Example 1: I had a Neuro prof who was a terrible sleepwalker as a kid. They'd lock him in his room. Once, when he found the door locked, he climbed out of his window and down the side of the house to make a sandwich.

Example 2: Everybody has known someone somewhere who "talked in their sleep."

Example 3: Being partially awake under anaesthetic, sleep paralysis, etc.

>Evidence 2: Catastrophic brain injury. Depending on how the brain is injured, some functions will be retained and others completely lost.

Example 1: Peter Porco was struck ~16 times in the head with an axe while sleeping. Before dying, he mechanically went through his morning routine (got the paper, put coffee on, etc.).

Example 2: Aphasia can be caused by brain injury. In one famous case, the man took a metal pole through his head. Lost the ability to name vegetables but not fruits, and boats but not wheeled vehicles.

Example 3: Ryan Waller, who was shot in the head during a robbery and interrogated for 6 hours by the police who believed he was a suspect in it. He was semi-functional throughout the interviews.

>Evidence 3: Personality shifts caused by tumors. Depending on where and how the tumor develops, can cause major behavioral shifts.

Example 1: The clock tower shooter Charles Whitman in 1966 had a significant astrocytoma on his thalamus. Specifically asked for his brain to be autopsied.

> Evidence 4: Dementia. Brain function declines in some areas but many components remain intact.

Example 1: Putting a bus stop in front of the dementia care facility because patients want to go home, remember how to use a bus, but don't understand why they're in the clinic.

Example 2: Dysfunction/damage/removal of the Hippocampus results in the person always thinking it's the same day - there is no functional short term memory anymore. Every day starts the whole experience over again - it's always Christmas.

> Evidence 5: Uh, Drugs & Alcohol? Drugs alter consciousness but usually leave most of planning and co-ordination intact. Else you would not even HAVE a drunk driver.

So, it's not at all unreasonable to suppose that Covid - which is shown repeatedly to damage core parts of the brain - can cause alterations in behavior that are not just "catatonia."

But mainstream society has a very rigid, incoherent view of "consciousness" here. So we're going to ignore Covid's impact on human cognition and behavior.

The Zombie virus that is worse than a zombie virus.

If US press wrote about the US the way they do the rest of the world

I fucked up my repo so bad

Are you easily surprised? The answer may surprise you.