@Suran Careful -- if you let them outside, they can catch viruses. Also, in case they get lost, it's a good idea to have them chipped.
Monarch butterflies have been doing well this summer.
#butterflies #nature #biology #biodiversity #lepidoptera #insects #entomology #pollinators #flowers #garden #gardens #naturephotography #butterfly #butterflyphotography #insectphotography
@2legged It's short for my legal name ("Woozalia") and is also what my parents always called me ^.^
@thetonearm One thing I've never been clear on:
My understanding was that EV motos are basically silent, but this meant that people with low vision who needed to hear the vehicles coming often could not (at low speeds, anyway) -- so a mandate came from somewhere that they needed to make an audible noise.
The question in my mind is is: since it's not a noise naturally made by the motor(s), do they use some kind of mechanical tweak or device to make this sound, or is it just a recording being played through (essentially) a speaker?
...or do I have that all wrong?
(...not that you'd necessarily know the answer to any of this...)
@2legged @ChrisMayLA6 I know -- I've ranted about that repeatedly. I only use the word because it's what they call themselves ("right wingers" may not evoke the same group, to anyone reading my comments), in both US and UK, and I put it in quotes to indicate it's inaccurate.
This is what happens with social programs in the US, too: rather than get rid of them (which would be unpopular), the "conservative" party changes and constrains them in ways that effectively destroy their ability to function -- which results in people complaining about how terrible they are, which lays fertile ground for proposals to replace them with more "efficient" capitalist solutions.
A recent-ish example is how the "conservative" GOP sued Obamacare to allow states to refuse its built-in expansion of Medicaid -- which, despite the fact that it clearly benefited them*, GOP-controlled states proceeded to do.
(* or, to be specific, their official constituents -- the citizens of those states -- rather than their de-facto constituents, i.e. their largest donors.)
@claralistensprechen3rd Possibly relevant: the "utter bilge" collection (definitely not comprehensive yet)
@brooke "Request landing party. I have attached a file specifying the necessary gender and orientational characteristics."
P.S. I unintentionally left out part of the thought-process which may or may not be clear:
The left-right divide is (unfortunately) real and durable, even though I don't see it as genetic or unchangeable.
That is: A large chunk of humanity cares more about group cohesion than about minimizing harm through choosing actions most likely to have positive natural consequences based on empirical evidence (which is, I think, what we assume everyone wants when we engage in policy debate).
We will never convince them, overall, through education or sweet reason (any more than they will convince us through force or appeals to "everyone knows"), that our ideas are better -- even though they clearly are.
They will continue to vote for assholes with whom they somehow identify, and to support terrible things for what are (from a rational POV) essentially arbitrary emotional reasons.
Regardless of our inability to communicate with each other, they are still clearly committed to deeply harmful programs -- so what do we do?
When I say we need to build communities, and that I see my main role in that project as software and social systems, the key element which differs from what most others are doing is that I see an urgent need to design ways for people who loathe power to collectively accumulate (and ethically manage) power.
...and a key part of that is that these systems need to make it possible for large numbers of people to work together and reach agreements, quickly and accurately, regarding the resources they acquire -- while providing systemic safeguards against infiltration by authoritarian ideas and individuals.
(...and from there, I could launch into at least a couple of different lectures...)
Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
and despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future
in computer maintenance.
-- "Deteriorata" (1972)
The main thing I've found discouraging is how many people are still willing to support what's going on -- whether supporting TFG directly, or finding positive things to say about individual pieces of the fash takeover, or whatever.
If I were a eugenicist, I'd probably be thinking something like "humans are clearly two different species: one that embraces authority, power, submission and control, while the other denies the value of these things and seeks a society dominated by reasoning from evidence -- which it's clear that the majority are not capable of doing."
(This is wrong in several ways: it's clearly not genetic, nor even unchangeable (just very difficult to change, and probably mostly learned in childhood)... and it's also pretty clear that the former type of society sees more value in destroying the ecosystem to demonstrate their power than in working together to make it a better place. These are not two "different but equally valid" approaches.)
The conclusion that actual-me has been coming to is that we need to focus more on building peer-communities, communities of people who value collecting truth over accumulating power.
Many people are good at doing this directly -- IRL interactions with neighbors at various distances -- but I'm not; I've always been kind of an IRL introvert and online extrovert, so my focus has been on building software systems to help with organizing and resource-management; one of my specialties is epistemic systems (i.e. making sure that what we think is true is actually what is most likely to be true, given all the evidence we have available).
(...when I'm not busy with household stuff and just keeping things running, which unfortunately is most of the time.)
This is clearly a Black Tailed Tribble (trillicatbus darthfurricious), not a... "cat"... as you term it.
@artemis We should absolutely vote (just like we should have voted harder in 2016 and 2024), as hard as we can, but even a 100% successful outcome in this or any upcoming election won't solve the problem -- any more than we solved it in 2020. It's just harm-reduction.
Harm reduction is good, perhaps vital, but it's still a band-aid.
([/opinion])
@artemis I'm with a group that is working on longer-term systemic change (to oversimplify a lot). It's not much (yet?), but it's what we can do.
They may still be the "wave of the future", but what we're seeing now is not that.
This is like someone discovering fire and then burning down everything they possibly can, to show how powerful it is. (The investors really love to see a hot property, you know.)
@artemis It's been okay at least since Nathan Poe said it was okay to compare TFG to Nazis, or since that Nazi guy got punched on camera, or possibly since 1941, if not earlier...
In any case, I don't personally know anyone (other than a certain "conservative"-identified relative) who isn't saying this.
