I think the loophole is going to stay in place. The hemp lobby has exploded since 2018, and has done a lot to keep the loopholes from closing in even very Red states. In the real world money is what talks, and I think there’s too much money at this point to put the genie back in the bottle.

But that’s my two cents. I could be wrong. Hope I’m not.

Yeah, and also I wouldn’t go out of my way to shit on someone who believes we live in a simulation. Simulation theory is sort of plausible with our current understanding of tech—but right now it has just as much evidence as most religions (which is none for both). So yeah, I don’t think it’s good practice to try and dunk on people for their beliefs.

Yeah, everyone in this thread saying the phone bad is a Boomer cop out is oversimplifying the issue.

Yeah, there’s probably a component of taking the blame away from decreased quality of life by blaming it on phones—but you can’t neglect the effect that lack of social interaction has. I’m from the same era, and it’s overwhelming to think how much more complex everything has gotten.

I don’t think the problem is that the government “wasn’t the best ever,” I think it’s that it hasn’t changed. And the US hasn’t done a lot to enforce some of the groundwork beliefs of the framers.

I still think the idea and balance of power of the US government is one of the best—but it was created to change with the times and address practical flaws (amendments) and hasn’t.

Yeah. But then you remember that space is big—so it’s pretty damn easy to miss.

Na khorocho, que si?

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I have a pretty high tolerance for disrespect (either from patients or other specialties) since I work in Emergency Medicine, but COVID was just off the charts.

And it’s this weird thing where a decent percentage of humanity was working super hard to save everyone else—did save most everyone else—and a ton of people are just going on about the “Fauci Ouchie” and nanochips.

The general public has no idea how many people we saved with the mRNA vaccines and critical care medicine. They’re blatantly oblivious to it. The death toll would’ve been monumentally worse without a coordinated effort of public health, healthcare, and research. Yet no one has any idea. COVID was simultaneously one of humanity’s greatest unrecognized accomplishments and one of its greatest blunders.

If you’ve ever read or watched The Expanse series I feel like it’s spot on as far as humanity’s response to disasters.

I was assaulted by a family member for not giving “IV Ivermectin” to someone with COVID who I had just crash intubated (honestly thought they were going to code, but somehow didn’t) back during the Delta wave.

My view of humanity has gotten pretty pessimistic since COVID. If I had the guts I’d honestly love to go create an insulated community of people who actually think about stuff and want to help each other.

Ha ha so true. I thought you were joking but you never know with the internet.

I mean you basically don’t smoke then. Most of the effects of smoking are based on pack-years, which is the number of years you’ve smoked a pack per day. So two packs a day for 10 years? 20 pack years.

You have barely any pack years, and you stopped so young that the adverse effects are definitely reversed (10 years of cessation to reverse risk of lung CA/COPD).

1. Smoking
2. Smoking
3. Smoking

There are already a lot of good answers but I want to highlight this. Chronic tobacco smoke causes increased aging due to multiple mechanisms. Moreover, environmental tobacco exposure from second hand and third hand smoke prior to the 1990s was MASSIVE. So even if you didn’t smoke you got insane daily exposures to the same chemicals.

If you’re addicted to a substance seek help for it.

This was my life when I experienced addiction.

My comment was mostly intended as a joke (like me being bullish is going to make the market move in the other direction), but I do think that what happened in 2020 was artificially can-kicked down the road by unprecedented government intervention in the market. So it’s less of a “severe as I’d like” scenario and more of a “curtailed by massive global intervention in the economy.” Maybe that staved it off forever and we will have a soft landing? Possible, but I don’t think so.

We’ve been due for a recession since 2020–the drastic pullback for several months at the onset of COVID was hardly a “recession,” more like a blip. I’ve finally stopped saying it’s imminently going to happen, which maybe means it’s going to happen now.

The internet is such a funny place.

Open Lemmy and see this on the front page today with a ton of upvotes, yet I make a post a while back criticizing Boomers and my account gets brigaded and spammed. Hope that’s not happening to you OP!

Lemmy is almost as toxic as Reddit these days.

Having mega corporations design space networks for you sounds like a great idea until they decide to lock you out and hold your government hostage. Or sell intel… Or sell access to other actors….

Just admit it—the corporations run the world at this point.

Healthcare gang represent!

We talk for our dog. We don’t have children, but our dog has full on conversations with us but it’s just my wife and I making his “voice.” It always goes along with the context and it seems to be what he would be saying. Our old dog and our current dog even have their own distinct intonation/dialect when saying things.

It’s to the point that sometimes we look at each other and go “huh, it’s weird when you think about the fact that he’s never actually really spoken before….”

Folie a deux?

House of Dragons was actually pretty good. Reminded me of the beginning of GOT. Not sure if it’s continuing, though. But at least it’s a prequel so the plot points are all already out there in his history prequel books.