I use user tags if someone is just being a blockhead, but I’ll block them if they’re being harmful running apologetics for some heinous shit or pushing obvious misinformation

They are guessing machines, predicting the next token. At best it’s equivalent to the language center of the brain, but it still needs many capabilities like logical reasoning to weight and evaluate different actions and outcomes wrt values or goals to not just mimic the behavior of thinking agents. It’s one of many steps in a long line of experimentation and engineering building towards AGI but we still have no idea how close it really is, maybe 10 years, 50 years, 500 years, etc. They are useful for specific tasks like a hammer or newspaper or search engine, but because of all the fear based investing to not miss the next big thing people with more money than brains invested heavily without understanding the limitations or actually capabilities of the technology.

There are scientific targets and experiments being run

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis-ii-science/

100% there is a big political component to the effort, but there are also data that we can’t get without getting farther from Earth

Many people find hope in exploration, discovery, and pushing physical frontiers. These were necessarily parts of human history that shaped our intuitions and desires and I think without new frontiers people get cynical or bored that can lead to some awful behaviors and outcomes. It’s the same with scientific research it doesn’t need to take the majority of the public funds but there is a minimum especially for some planetary scale science efforts.

We have so many problems to fix isn’t a good reason not to explore and inspire, I’m sure there were ancient people who thought investing in roads was a waste of public funds why do we need to connect to other cities or lands if we have problems already, but some of those problems were resolved with trade or treaties or pluralistic cultures the roads allowed.

Discworld is great and so many series within it to start with, guards! Guards!, the color of magic, mort, etc really enjoyable to read. My second fav after LOTR for fantasy.

Edit: a couple more fun ones are the forgotten realms/sword coast/icewind Dale/etc d&d setting books like drizzt by r.a. Salvatore and the Diablo novelization series by Richard knaak that reads a bit like Conan the barbarian or berserk

There’s 1 listener supported classical station and 1 listener supported news station, the rest are garbage constant ads or worse

You use rotating passwords, challenge/response phrases, secret handshakes, etc. Even without this dystopian nightmare scenario it’s good to at least have a crisis/I’m in danger secret word or phrase with family members in case someone needs help without making the situation more dangerous.

Just go slow and pay attention, if you’re really nervous trim first then use a chemical hair remover just try it on a spot first as some can be sensitive or allergic to it

I saw the series but never any of the movies, saw it in high school and it was pretty good for an intro to giant robots fighting monsters. Not my first anime I think that was 8 man after or Dragonball z.

A car built after 2010 so it’s full of cameras and lte connections and gps etc so car companies and the advertisers they sell data to and the governments they backdoor always know what trips I make, how far, how long I stay, etc.

Gotta indoctrinate that guilt of being born human beings early and often, took me almost 10 years to deconstruct and let go of those fears

X-Men pinball machine, there’s a spot under magneto with a magnet that holds the ball in place for a sec