When someone would ask, “Who wants to be 100 years old?” My grandpa would respond, “Ask someone who is 99.” I think that applies here. When will you feel like you can give up - well, why not now? What will be different when you’re 40 or 50? Why wouldn’t you want to be dating? Why wouldn’t you want your body to work?

These are real, current legs. The front 2 of the insect norm of 6

I absolutely agree that there should be a official name. My problem with birds is that there are 2 official names. The American Ornithological Society approves both of them (kind of). One is Latin/Greek/whatever in Genus species format - that is the one for science literature and taxonomy. The other is in English and silly in my opinion because that’s where people will use it to say nonsense like there is no such thing as a seagull.

There are weirdly rigid common names around birds. There is a whole thing about renaming them right now. They are essentially regulated terms that low level pedants respect. They are the same types of people who would correct you for calling Frankenstein’s monster ‘Frankenstein’.

The plant community is better. You could call a “sunflower” a “tall flower” and nobody would care. You might get a “oh, I’ve never heard that one” but never “there’s no such thing as a ‘tall flower.’” They just fall back to the scientific names when clarity is important.

IMO common names should just be useful. I will call any gull a seagull when talking to non-bird people because that is a term that is commonly understood and how effective communication works.

Wait. Was I not supposed to be talking about this? Next you’re going to tell me that sewage treatment is an innapropriate dinner party topic.

Absolutely! The positive emotions are easily the best of humanity.

I hope you don’t feel that was an attack because the fact that it wasn’t one will never override the emotional response if you feel it is. If you do feel that way, there is probably no reason to read on. You’ll be wasting your own time.

For the record, I didn’t say I agree with anything the right puts forward, I don’t see room to compromise on things I care about, and if you’re talking US I think the “center” is left of the two presidential candidates.

You’re absolutely right those are facts (and those facts get totally ignore by people because the are in conflict with their emotions), but the reason you’re looking at those stats is also emotion based:

Climate change will hurt blank (too many to list) and I LIKE blank (or am AFRAID of blank) so climate change is bad. Access to abortion is good because I VALUE people lives. All children should have food because I WANT to live in a world where everyone, especially those without agency, can be happy, healthy, and get at least a fair shake. Those are my motivations. How we get there is policy. That’s when facts become relevant.

Understanding how we all make decisions based on emotions will help you understand yourself, your motivations, and help you convince people around you that they should also value the same things as you. Practically, you need to go a step further than facts. Ask yourself why that chunk of data is important to you. When you cite it, why would the other person care? Because people are dying? Why does that matter?

This is a long one, and I want to start by saying that your comment is a super popular belief. Even so, I think misses the mark a little bit.

Everything in the political sphere is emotions based. ‘Murder is bad’ isn’t some ultimate truth. We care about other people and ourselves. That emotion then leads to the reasoning that murder is bad and should be illegal. Same goes for everything else.

What conservatives tend to do is say ‘murder is bad’ and ‘there is a group that I hate’. They then abandon the truth of what murder statistics tell them and blame it on the out group which justifies the second emotion. They’re not wrong because it is emotionally centered (again we all do that). They’re wrong because they aren’t willing to examine that emotional motivation vs reality.

All of that to say that if we think the problem is emotionality we are probably making similar mistakes even if the outcome is better. To paraphrase a very true statement in Futurama - There is no scientific consensus that life is valuable.

I think the point is that there isn’t a good enough reason to put internet in a car that negates the risk of it.

It is like adding lead to food. It’s a cheap sweetener with no calories. You can argue that cheap sweeteners aren’t important to you, but I don’t think you can argue that it isn’t a good reason. It just isn’t a good enough reason to negate the risk.

The op has it right. Definitely dahlias. I can see why you’d think zinnias though. It’s interesting how different (or similar) we can make plants look with dedicated breeding efforts.

Native plant/ecosystem restoration and gardening especially where it intersects edible plants. Also especially around the 45th parallel in N. America.

Nice work on the write up! It is hard sorting things out when they’re half true. For me, drinking water is especially important to get the fact straight on because of how bad it can go if the system fails. It would be silly to disregard anyone saying water wasn’t up to a safe standard, but separating things I would care about out from the fluoride and chlorine background noise is tricky. Thanks for the deeper dive!

Just generally, you can get a report of your municipal water testing. The biggest safety variable that I would be worried about testing at home for is lead in the pipes between me and the treatment plant. That includes my house/building and the municipal pipes.

Now taste, that’s a to each their own situation. Sulfury water is my limit for sure. No thanks!

I think hey are talking about the chloramine that Minneapolis uses to disinfect. It is more stable and isn’t just chlorine, so it would be in a “combined” result. The levels are page three of this report https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/media/content-assets/www2-documents/residents/2022-Consumer-Confidence-Report-FINAL.pdf It looks like 2023 isn’t posted yet, but I doubt it changes much year to year.

Are you talking about using chloramine in disinfection? I think conflating pool water and drinking water standards is a bit of a mistake. Things get added to pools from people’s bodies after chlorination that cause weird combined results. Drinking water is disinfected (chlorinated) as a final step. I would object to my municipality using chloramine, but not because I wouldn’t drink it.

The computer is constantly both bricked and not bricked. No way to know until you push the power button

This is for the ‘good’ neighborhoods. They’ll be where enforcement happens, and it will be selective.

Yes, and I have been hassled for it (not in Florida). Small town cops are the worst by far. I imagine if you have a nice car you might slip by though.

Their point is that if plants can suffer, and assuming we still want to eat, less plants die or are maimed on a vegan diet than on an omnivorous diet because livestock eats plants too and the conversion to meat is inefficient.

That means vegan diet is the way for less plant suffering even though you eat them directly. In fact it is because you would eat them directly.

Yes, if I said “hand me the scissors” it would just be one tool with two blades. I could also say “hand me a pair of scissors” to mean the same thing. Kind of like how “pair of pants” or “pair of glasses” mean just one of those items. For reference, I am from the US. Not sure if you meant English as the country or as the language. Either way, those usages are nonsense and I will happily keep using them.