Yeah, it’s almost as if he’s selling access to his inner circle and giving them advance notice of policies that may affect markets. Wouldn’t that be wild?

But are you also overheated?

Yeah, won’t this effectively result in de-facto unlimited campaign contributions, if not outright electioneering? Churches are often polling places for elections.

screenshots it on lemmy and posts it on IG

That cat’s grammar and spelling were terrible, and it was hilarious.

This is the low-hanginng fruit I came here to upvote, if not post myself had I been faster.

If it helps, some models are showing it level off. If we advance climate science and use it to inform policy, we might be able to slowly contract our population while avoiding a “Children of Men” style collapse. I assume it would take a few thousand years to reach an equilibrium that allows us to maintain a habitable environment while still developing space-faring technology. The bonus is that the time it would take might change our practices into something a little more worthy of spreading to other planets if that ever becomes possible. I think with our current energy and pollution situation, we’ve guaranteed ourselves future hardships for many generations, but I don’t think it’s hopeless yet.

Regardless, other life has done similar stuff before. It resulted in mass extinction, but life moved on in some form. I hope the earth will be great with us in it, but if not, it will probably be fine without us, too.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event

Good to know. I definitely don’t want that. I should just go see a migration and enjoy them from a safe distance.

For me, it was the fireflies. I grew up in suburbs at the edge of a city, where the rural land started, just about as far as city water and sewer reached. It grew pretty quickly, and by the time I turned 18, I was about as close to the city center as I was to the outskirts. In that process, every summer, there were fewer and fewer of them until one year they were just gone. I was busy, so I didn’t think much of it at the time, but looking back, I regret not making an attempt to make a habitat for them in our garden.

It’s prob mimicking a puppy or something.

Why would you put that uncensored comment out here for us to see? Now I’m going to have nightmares as if directed by John Capenter about spiders that look exactly like puppies to humans until they attack.

They are most dangerous on Halloween, by the way:

Stay vigilant. Do not become a statisic.

Hmm. I do think I’d make a good, unusually benevolent, eldrich god. On the other hand, I still miss my beta fish that died 5 years ago. No telling how I’d react to the rise and fall of a spider family line, dozens of generations in length.

Tarantulas are cool, but I’d worry about dropping it. I know they typically don’t bite, and that their bites aren’t dangerous. Still, I don’t know if I could relate to it positively after that. It’s not rational. I’ve gotten mild dog bites and cat scratches from pets playing too rough, and those are much more dangerous. Tarantulas still pas the cuteness test, but I think the spider bias affects them more than jumping spiders.

I don’t think I’ve ever been uncomfortable having a jumping spider on me unexpectedly. It’s fun to watch them hunt. Watching the retinas in their big eyes move to track things is fun. It makes them seem more like adorable cartoon characters.

Thanks for the suggestion. I just might do that. They’re very cute.

Plot twist: it’s tea made with the pour-over method, using extra tea leaves to keep the flavor strong. This croc is downing 200mg of caffeine in one go.

I don’t know that we should be caffeinating crocodillians.

No problem!

That’s very accurate. I don’t mind handling tarantulas or furry jumping spiders, but shiny spiders of any kind creep me out. Bonus point for terror if there’s webbing involved. Hobo spiders are probably the worst. They’re so fast and aggressive. I still catch them and take them outside, but it still feels awful. The only exception to the mercy rule is the shower. Shower spiders go down the drain immediately.

Just because they didn’t have modern technology doesn’t mean they didn’t have any technology. They could have used Skype for videoconferencing.

I think so, too. They all seem to have eight legs, more than two eyes, which don’t look like compound eyes, a cephalothorax/two body segments rather than three, a lack of antennae, etc. It would probably be easier to tell looking at them head-on so we could see their chelicerae.

Edit: turns out the pedipalps are more of a giveaway.

Man, I wish spiders didn’t creep me out so much. They’re very cool, but my ancient lizard brain isn’t having it.

Yeah, that’s what I was trying to express. Taco Bell is vaguely Spanish, but doesn’t have anything to do with Spain (or Mexico, for that matter).

It would be like an O’Brien’s restaurant that primarily sells sushi.

Still, that’s really cool! There’s something particularly funny about a McDonald’s in Scotland. It feels like a Taco Bell in Spain.