Funny story - apparently one of my distant relatives who lives in Kansas City has a new neighbor: none other than Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. 😅

(No I don't know their address, and wouldn't tell y'all even if I did)

@atatassault @jonny
Eh, in economics PhD programs, that probably only narrows it down by like 10% anyways 😭

It's weird how you have some older people who, not only do they not know the lessons of history that happened before them, but they are incapable of even recognizing the parallels of history that have happened within their own lifespan.

It's not like any of this reactionary right wing populism bullshit is NEW. It pops its head up roughly once per generation. So if you're talking Boomers or older, they've seen it first hand 2 or 3 times now. And yet, so many people keep falling for it!

@cavyherd
I don't know that it's "better messaging" but they're better able to utilize base human instincts of fear of the other, tribalism, and rally around the powerful. It's a more difficult message to spread that you should help even people who are different than you and weaker than you.

@irenes @impactology
I'm reminded of the saying - something like "science progresses one funeral at a time". Basically meaning that progress in a field is stalled and stagnated by the power of the "giants" of the field who want to defend and maintain the relevance of their innovations in their generation. The field never progresses until after they/their cronies die.

I'd heard of Charlemagne, but it'd been a long time, and I didn't remember the broader context of his empire (or even that it was called the Carolingian empire). Most of my European History courses only really started at the end of the middle ages. So it was a fun history rabbit hole to drill down and learn something new when I learned about an Empire in Europe that I'd never really known about before!

@jens @cmdrmoto @randomgeek @maddiefuzz

Haha, I always love when I can nerd snipe someone into infodumping one of their hyperfocuses!

@jens @cmdrmoto @randomgeek @maddiefuzz

Everyone loves you when you happen to have the right random tidbit of knowledge stashed away in the grey matter at just the right time. They don't understand that you're not in control of which tidbits of knowledge get stashed in there in which priority. If I don't have the space to run down my various brain weasels, I won't be able to provide the magic connection and inspiration when you really really need it.

@randomgeek @maddiefuzz

I mean, clearly we do the most important stuff first.

... You just spent the last 6 hours researching the Carolingian Empire because you saw it mentioned on a Wikipedia page when you were looking up information about Belgium.

Yes, the most important stuff first, as I said.

@maddiefuzz @randomgeek

@randomgeek Haha! Nah, I get it.

'tism - RAAAHH! WHY YOU NO FOLLOW PROCESS AND ORDER AND RULES!

ADHD long drag on bong - Umm, sis, have you seen our to-do lists? All 73 of them?

In a very real sense, the nature of a species is not simply a distinct organic being absent of any environment or context. It's the whole thing. Their ecosystem, their upbringing by their parent(s)/community, their socialization, their predators, their food, their competition for their food. When you change those variables, the very nature of the species changes in unpredictable ways, even if the genome itself hasn't changed in the slightest.

@CJPaloma @garbados

@thekitmalone
Yes and no. While Trump has radicalized and motivated a lot of people on the far right, and those people would still be radicalized even if he dropped dead tomorrow, they won't necessarily be as motivated and neatly fall in line behind the next strong man in line. You can look at many far right leaders across the world, and after the leader themselves dies or is removed, the power struggles that follow often fracture, divide, and demotivate the movement.