“This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years!”

Ferdinand Foch, 1921

Technically, an orbital “Rods from God” weapon would also still qualify under “sticks and stones”. Just very big ones.

Conversely, there are many other people from his time that definitely did exist and verifiably so. I have a bronze coin minted in Judea by Pontius Pilatus. I can look at it, I can touch it, it’s real. Even as an avowed agnostic, I see no reason why Jesus couldn’t have been a real person (minus the miracles that were almost certainly later additions).

I do agree that in the grand scale of things we’re actually very early. That alone would explain a lot.

Unfortunately we’ve pretty much used up all easily available resources. Anyone ‘starting over’ would have a much harder time getting the things they need to really get the ball rolling again.

When humans first discovered gold they practically only had to scoop it out of rivers. You’ll be hard pressed to find any streams with such appreciable production anywhere in the world today.

Nah, I’m willing to bet there is actual physical life in our very own solar system (apart from all life on Earth, of course). Europa’s oceans for example have a decently high probability of hosting microbial life.

Of course, discovering primitive life all around us would be a bad sign the great filter is still ahead of us instead of behind us…

The most boring one: most species off themselves before they fully get off their starting planet. We will go the same way. Take your pick from climate change, war, pandemic, … or even a combination of several!

Exactly this. In ancient Roman times, emperor Caracalla was infamous for having many of his enemies outright killed. One of these was the brother of a soldier who was assigned to his personal guard at the Rhine border regions. When Caracalla got off his horse for a piss, he got a gladius thrusted between his ribs. For all his might and power, he very much brought that on himself.

Sometimes people like that soldier are the last line of justice in the world.

I’m a Reddit refugee from when they axed 3rd party apps. I was quite active in the ancient coins subreddit, but there’s simply no way I will ever grace their site with a click again.

There’s an alternative on Lemmy, which I’ve used, but there’s literally only one other active person. Two does not a community make.

I’m gonna go with “no” judging by how things have been going in the past. I hope to be proven wrong, but I’m not holding my breath.

I agree, all the evils of yesteryear are still there and active, just either well-hidden or people simply don’t care/pretend not to know (cfr football world championships in Qatar, …).

We’ve made enormous progress technologically, but humans are still the exact same as 2000 or 5000 years ago. We’ve changed exceedingly little in that time, and the few things that have changed could be reverted very quickly if shove comes to push concerning climate collapse etc.

Best I can do is a token effort as long as it doesn’t upset the shareholders.

I live with my SO and child and I’m still lonely as fuck. Not their fault, it’s not their role to be my therapist or w/e. But I sure wouldn’t mind being able to hang out with some people who share my interests. But ever since Covid, that reality is just… gone.

Depends on the capabilities. If i can automatically open my garage door with my mind or draw a bath, or control a cursor on a screen, then no. If it enables entire new ways of experiencing sensations or memories, or ways to share them, or fully immerse you in a virtual world indistinguishable from reality, then maybe. If it’s not from a company Musk has any hand in.

I don’t enjoy doing it, but I do it with the goal of showing myself I CAN do it and to gain joy/accomplishment for that, and also because these are some specific weak points of mine I’ve been trying to polish and repair for ages. Also, I’m always very impressed with people whose handwriting looks like it was printed because it’s so precise and consistent. Mine has always looked like I was a doctor (I wish), so I just wanted to improve in that regard.

I’ve been consistently trying to write and draw for 15+ years, with weekly practices, and I haven’t seen any appreciable improvement. My handwriting is still erratic and illegible, and I can’t carry a story thread over a page or two without stumbling and falling hard. Meanwhile, both my grandfather and mother are accomplished artists. Guess it skipped a generation…

For every right-wing tough guy urging his crying son to “man up,” there’s a voice from the left telling him that to express his concerns is to take airtime away from a woman or someone more marginalized.

AutoTLDR bot managed to capture the very essence of this piece. All you need to know is in here. A two-pronged assault on masculinity with no obvious (non-toxic) way out.

I don’t see it happening. I’ve been in this boat for like twenty years. I don’t have anyone who visits or hangs out with me. I only see my coworkers on the work floor, which is 1-2 days a week tops. Also, no one I know considers it an issue worth debating, let alone take action over. “Let them sort their own issues out”.

If I want to get drunk with strangers, that’s always an option, but it doesn’t really interest me so I pass.

since this battery update was forced on laptops originally released in 2020, this issue has also bricked hardware outside of the warranty window, when previously users could simply send in the laptop for a free repair.

I hope HP aren’t surprised when they get accosted with bricked laptops through their execs’ windshields at random intervals…

Yay!

Gotta catch 'em all. Ain’t self-fulfilling prophecies grand? We get saddled with what are essentially debuffs for life, and as an added bonus we attract people who make all of them worse or even exploit them. And because we’re aware of this, it’s totally our own fault and responsibility to fix ourselves. If people keep taking advantage of us, well, that’s on ourselves for letting them!

Why the fuck are we even born in the first place? As NPC’s for “real” people to have their way with?