Brave Little Hitachi Wand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_war

Might be a starting point. It’s not looking good.

Literally just use Wikipedia more

I can’t now recall which of her books I read, but as a budding creepy kid at the time it was with a mounting despair. No, this is a cool book, it must be! Why am I bored? When does it get good?

Considering how sex is, emotionally, such a life affirming and intimacy driven act, I’d expect someone like an ancient vampire to crave a great deal of it but never really get the itch scratched.

Imagine it. You’ve lived so long that humans have stopped seeming real. The older you get, the faster time seems to go. You’ve long since forgotten the ones you once truly loved. New humans are so culturally different and apparently short lived that they barely even register as people anymore.

Ancient vampires would be starved for intimacy or any genuine connection. They’d fuck skillfully and often perhaps, but without passion or connection.

What We Do In The Shadows has a funny answer to this question.

It always felt unbelievable when an ancient vampire was super “with it”. At best they’d be too shitty and un-self aware that their ego would remain basically intact over millennia, otherwise any immortal is facing an eternity of future shock, derealization, and complete dissociation.

The only way to really face eternity would to have such a disordered personality that the very idea of other people held no particular meaning.

Don’t expect three hots and a cot though

Oft evil shall evil mar

80 is unnecessarily pessimistic

Ideologically divided, yes. That old rift between the two ideologies of “try to govern mostly okay” and “where’s my check from AIPAC?”.

Seems like we usually do. Still the sick man of Europe, I guess

I’m more of a fan of that one than the Turkish one. Hope it doesn’t come to that!

In my job I’ve seen American ambulance bills that cost more than that. And if they used a helicopter or even just a fixed wing medevac it’s usually at least 10x as much.

Hell, I’ve seen routine injections billed higher than that come to think of it…

We’ll just have to see what Magyar thinks about it then.

the sloth eats the moth

Apparently this is true? I’ll be emotionally processing this one for the next week. I wasn’t prepared for that.

Flirting is just part of seduction. It’s not just to “make intentions known”, people are more dynamic than that. Being flirted with will often actually create feelings that weren’t there before. If you enjoy how someone makes you feel, you open up and become closer. Merely being liked by someone can be quite flattering.

Yeah. My whole life it’s felt like I showed up at the end of the party. The older I get, the more I realise what a mess was made.

Laudable. Would be interested to know what country you’re in/from - if only for the context of what cultural lens you’re seeing this in.

It’s a mistake to think they’re all comedically stupid. They’re definitely stupid enough that we wouldn’t enjoy their company, but they’re smart enough to know that if they can hang around until DT dies, whoever’s left will become something even more dangerous - and far more malleable.

Well, to come clean, you’re talking to an American who saw all this coming (in the broad strokes) five years ago and decamped to the UK for the long haul.

My view since then has been that after justice Ginsberg died in office, enough dominoes fell to make the fall of empire - one way or another, peacefully or otherwise - all but inevitable. Not that I put all of that on her, but it was a little selfish not to step down while a friendly administration could find a good replacement…

You’re right that this administration sees protests the way a dictator does - if small, a pleasant invitation to violent reprisals, and if very large, inherently threatening. You’re right in some things, but it’s impossible to be narrowly coherent in a topic of this size so with apologies, you’re getting a few paragraphs.

My broader view is that although the prior norms of the US government allowed for relative comfort domestically, they were built on the back of an economic and military empire abroad that was (still is) deeply disgraceful, and a return to form (even by peaceful protest) isn’t very desirable given what it would require to accomplish.

In order to merely return to a horrible but comforting status quo, Americans would have to somehow defeat a would-be king, peacefully, while he controls a global empire whose violence would command the respect of any Mongol khan, who also has the blessing of a class of moneyed elites whose economic inequality puts the ancien régime into the shade. And you’re thinking Americans will accomplish this? You flatterer.

If I had my druthers, we’d have a peaceful* revolution that dismantled the old system entirely, and quickly (quickly as hell given the geopolitical spinning plates we’re holding) reform into something more akin to an EU with way less centralised power, hopefully a smaller military budget overall, and a shitload fewer billionaires.

*Without much if any factionalized armed conflict, per se. A nonviolent revolution does require that violence be available upon request.

The reason I left is that I don’t see this level of general solidarity or awareness among my people. I think a different flavour of empire collapse is far likelier, and I’ve got people to protect now, or I’d probably still be there taking a flying fuck at the Nazis. I left my guns with sensible folk and left, instead.

So there’s my whole deal. We’re not likely to get it, but at least it’s something worth wanting in the first place. I have to hope that merely imagining a future worth having is in some way contributing to the common endeavour. And I hope that by being more expansive we can understand one another better, or leastways bicker more productively.