This sounds like the title of a ChubbyEmu video.

It would be nice to live in a country with the big political headline topic of bike lanes.

It’s more than that, the anxiety and lack of practice in real, that includes the awful, social encounters growing up creates an environment in which those kids, now adults, have incredible anxiety for social engagement. It’s almost like we created our own Black Mirror world by putting a screen buffer up in front of our children’s faces starting as early as 2yrs.

Helicoptering. Planning the child’s week to enrich them, scheduling play dates with no organic initiative by the child, and inadvertently dictating a script so when that ordered script and mommy umbrella are torn away at college, near panic level anxiety hits. And why wouldn’t it? No practice at deciding for oneself or engaging with real people with the full range of normal human emotions. No chaperoned play dates or protections by mommy when a bad grade happens any more.

But there is a haze right now of sorting out true ADHD from the lack of focus and attention fostered by screens. Which we do want to do, because it’s still reparable if we can start on therapeutic work no later than the early 20s.

Again, yes, with social anxiety being confused with autism. Same deal.

Of course both autism and ADHD are very real, which of course I need to spell out in no uncertain terms because this is Lemmy, but the upbringing of the latest crop of kids also, at the same time, can foster symptoms of both and that needs to be sorted through. It’s not right or healthy to assume either way on this one.

If you watched Stranger Things, the depiction of Nancy going to work and being relegated to making coffee for the boys instead of being taken seriously at an actual job is an iconic representation of women’s struggle in the workplace. Remember, women were only allowed to have their own bank accounts, credit cards, and home loans as legally protected assets, starting in the late 1970s. We were deemed more incompetent, and more wards of our husbands in those respects. Inertia of those notions remained even after the legality changed. That whole bit in Delores Claiborne, where her husband finds her “private”, “personal”, only her name on it bank account and just empties it: real. (That is what RBG had a deciding vote on btw, what gave her such credit back in the day, changing financial freedoms for women to match those of men.)

Yes, this may seem a little focused on women, but it’s a significant piece of the “things were better” push on the right. The right did grow, in part, as a reaction to the loss of the more controlled, traditional, “kept” female. It’s important to keep a full visual of what going back could mean. Roe has already fallen.

Moving away from screen time to more face to face is good. Doesn’t mean texting is bad, it’s fantastic, amazing even, how easy it is to communicate. I love it. But I still drive 10-15min to sit down in a living room face to face with people. I feel little to no stress when disagreement, argument, or even anger occurs. Facing the normal range of human emotion in another doesn’t make me want to hide.

Even just moving back to more long form media would help stop the destructive, anxiety perpetuating, focus reducing rewiring happening. YouTube statistics are now saying anything over 10 minutes is doomed to die based on viewer preference. 9 minutes or less or gtfo. Shorts are quickly taking over and perpetually rewiring people on the daily.

This all or nothing, either or bullshit needs to stop being perpetuated. It is why we have such an inured two party system that effectively makes their followers dance each election.

The tactic here is exactly the one used by Jordan Peterson, mixing truth with garbage for the sake of manipulating an audience into his way of thinking. And it works.

We did stay out in groups of friends, face to face, until it was dark out. We also used destinations like malls, pizza places, and water as an excuse to do so. Cars were a big deal, a means to get there without parents. Summertime involved backyard bonfires in states without burn bans. Uninvited friends and neighbors would randomly show up. Being occupied socially sometimes meant sitting with other people saying nothing, a little bored, doing nothing other than sitting in a room with others, sometimes listening to uninteresting people or TV. But that was ok because you were with friends, spending time.

The reality is there are brain changes due to screens and the invasive format of the “short”. Literal re-writing at the level of how neurons talk to each other. Shortened attention spans. Increased anxiety. Increased impatience. Inability to focus. Worse, inability to go all in on a single point of focus, for hours to create, produce, invent, or simply develop thinking skills. Increased anxiety and lack of coping in interpersonal, not even relationships, but interaction such that this idea of sitting around with groups of people, deliberately, as a way to use free time appears weird and fictional.

That said, the world wasn’t necessarily better. Just watching Wills mom on Stranger Things trying to make a phone call when her phone burned out was painful. It is nice to have a map with a “You Are Here” star wherever you go. No more perpetual cloud of cigarette smoke with all white walls and decor perpetually stained beige or yellow with nicotine sludge from cigarettes. Women’s lib had (past tense) made more progress away from rape culture and towards reproductive freedom. Less racism. And so on.

Articles like these, similar to political pundits, seek to muddy what is true by using truth to spread lies.

In regard to some avenues of research that’s too bad. Cats are a point of study for weight gain and loss since they appear to have issues similar to us. Some cats gain and hold weight faster than their mates with similar amounts of food. Some cats compulsively overeat while their mates do not. And so on.

How is deportation to an entirely unrelated country not a form of human trafficking?

That’s a fair point, but how many terminal cancer patients have you seen make headlines for Luigi style acts?

One of the more interesting points of that odd but good Stewart podcast in which he, a historian who studies revolutions, and the writer of Andor discussed re revolutions is how often things don’t happen even when all the formulaic boxes are checked. There is a list, a recipe, for revolution, but even when all the ingredients are there; it often fizzles.

Same thing regarding what you’re saying, I think.

I think it’s more likely he has a pacemaker with a defibrillator. Stroke is still on the table.

He’s throwing things out there to see what gains traction. The “real patriot” red hats are great, but likely too much of a threat to personal well-being to be worn.

Many headlines are looking for the leopards ate my face angle and this headline accomplished that goal.

Remember, the billionaires, MAGA, Big Data, and Heritage are all in bed together, for now.

Vaccine skepticism isn’t so much about vaccines per se, it’s following a small movement that grew organically and fanning the flames instead of letting it die in obscurity. The purpose here is using it as a vehicle for promoting skepticism of tried and true science.

What’s the greatest enemy of authority? Tried and true facts with no room for dispute. By effectively undermining vaccines, the way is paved to continue to sow doubt and skepticism for other science, making it easier to dispute facts that can and will undermine authority without thus skepticism.

Yes, the added benefit is population control and distraction. If people are sicker and more financially blown up by medical bills they’re far too busy and demoralized to engage in revolution. And there’s less of them due to death. Brain fog from long COVID is beneficial as well.

In addition, they can pocket the funding that would otherwise go to vaccine programs.

It’s perfect, from an authoritarian viewpoint.

Here’s the thing about “groceries in town”. You will find deals at the deli/bakery and possibly the butcher areas of the store. Sometimes. That said, 80% of it is ridiculously priced.

What often happens is people store more food and bundle their drive into town for stuff.

I will, for example, do most of my grocery shopping after my last shift in a run. Less gas and bother and it’s on the way.

We have a large garden. Two freezers. Cold storage. Two fridges. Fruit trees. If a snow storm dropped and we were stuck for a month we’d be fine. The food would get boring, but we’d be fine.

The one danger to this move you’re making will be the sounds or lack thereof. Once you go rural you may have a very hard time going back to hearing people and their vehicles all the time. As in they become a point of grating stress until they stop.

Interesting. I expected huskies to be higher, granted, maybe they are for straight dog bites. Pitts, huskies, Malinois are the ones I’ve seen the most. Followed by the occasional Shepard.

Stewart recently did a podcast where he and his guests talk revolutions. He has a historian and the writer of Andor on for this discussion. Highly relevant and interesting. The random chaos of aligned planets, so to speak, that prefaced the storming of the Bastille was surprising.

There is a formula. But the people don’t always react. I fear we all have such incredible inertia to sit in chairs that nothing will ever change. Vance will be President and we will continue to sit in chairs.

Could’ve smelled worse.

Death by a thousand (financial) cuts.

Where is this? A Walmart in Wyoming?

Consider the luffa next. It’s a squash of sorts that grows on a vine. The inner matrix of the large zucchini looking fruits is the luffa sponge. Zone 10.

I’m too old to be able to answer that correctly.