ArbitraryValue @ ArbitraryValue @sh.itjust.works

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15

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3,242

Joined

2 yr. ago

As if 21st century kids have the patience to learn to play a musical instrument voluntarily...

I don't think the graph is showing the phenomenon that OP thinks it's showing - there was a crime wave that started in 2020 which isn't over yet, but things have gotten significantly better since 2022 and that's the same internal when police killings went up, so the straightforward conclusion is that there has been more intensive policing in the last three years which is what has reversed the dramatic increase in the homicide rate.

That's not correct. There were 15% more homicides in 2024 than in 2015 but the homicide rate went down since the peak of the 2020 crime wave.

But AI is actually way ahead of where I thought it would be in 2025.

plant has mouth

humans put words in the plant's mouth

Rude.

Well, it is kind of stupid to complain publicly the way that this guy is doing. He's wasting the little good-will from Trump that he did buy.

Loving regardless of physical appearance doesn't follow from loving for more than just physical appearance.

(I suspect that "don't be shallow" is the sort of advice that people often feel good giving but don't sincerely believe, but even the most sincerely non-shallow person generally can't simply ignore sexual orientation. Once you allow for sexual orientation, then you're already at the point where certain details of a person's physical appearance are absolutely critical for romantic love.)

Do you guys feel like you're the same people you were when you were kids? I feel like there's a direct connection between me now and me as a teenager (over 20 years ago) but a break between me now and me as a pre-teen who wanted to go out and do things instead of sitting at a computer all day.

OP's parents saw that he would need divine intervention.

I wouldn't be able to do that - I had to stop drinking caffeine a few years ago but still get cranky if I don't have the experience of drinking a big mug of tea in the morning, despite the fact that the decaf tea has no direct pharmacological effect on me. Then whenever I'm bored or anxious or tired I make another big mug of decaf tea and feel better. It has to be tea; other beverages don't help. Purely psychosomatic but still definitely a real effect.

You know those jokes about how people already in hell don't know that they're in hell? Relevant.

Obviously the average American isn't directly participating in making the major decisions, but what the average American wants still generally has far more influence on the future of the entire world than what the average citizen of any other country wants.

Well, I have the option of leaving. It's not purely hypothetical for me because I'm not originally from the USA - I was just a kid when I came here, so it wasn't my choice but it was a choice and I can see myself making a similar choice to go somewhere else. Maybe I will need to leave if things in the USA get a lot worse but for now living in a blue state still seems like the best available option.

Eh, at least the USA has agency - we get to choose which stupid direction to take half the world in, while most other countries are just along for the ride. Nowhere else except maybe China is like that, and I prefer even Trump to Xi.

Y'all get lemongrass?

I loved the men's outfits in my storybooks when I was growing up. We need to make it socially acceptable to dress like this again:

From a Russian storybook? I like the detail on the beetle at the bottom. A weevil of some kind?

(This photo is of a strawberry root weevil.)

What I don't get are the dogs that like people but are are aggressive towards other dogs. They're not always angry, but they do just hate all other members of their own species?

You think I'm just persnickety? I'm downright cantankerous!

I don't get it. Is the new icon funny somehow?