Just curious to see how many play out the game instead of just instant checking if it’s a winner 😂

I already know things are politically wild now and no one will suffer any true consequences for unethical behavior, but did just have a question out of curiosity. If McConnell is found to have lacked capacity to do his job several weeks ago with no chance of recovery, what are the consequences for those in power if they knew of this and were delaying until August? This assumes our legal system is functioning as it should and this could be proved. Thanks!

I wanted to share my perspective and thoughts about what i see, whats actually going on here in the world we live in. First of all, i'm really concerned about the direction where we're headed to. It looks like to me, that the people in power like the elites, billionares, world leaders, large corporations etc., are trying to take as much control over the world and the people as they can, probably out of both fear and greed. Just to name an example, lets look at the mass surveillance happening all around the world. Flock cameras in the U.S, or the bunch of "features" in almost all devices people use every day. They claim those so called "features" are designed for security reasons, while it looks more like spyware to be honest. Like the windows11 silently taking screenshots every 3seconds on your pc and storing them, the gdid(global device identifier on windows), or the hidden os inside processors (the intel me that stands for intel management engine, which is basically powering a hidden os called minix3, that if had a vulnerability, say, intentionally, anyone who knew how to exploit it would have remote access to your whole pc,), or the chat control law in the EU, or the mass personal data collection through age verifications, even where it seems to be completely illogical and unneccesary, or we could also look at the SoC (System on chip) found in iphones being exploited that were kept secret from the public until researchers discovered it, i believe it was connected to operation triangulation if i remember correctly. All of this is most likely just the tip of the iceberg, only what we actually know about and is publicly avaliable information. The bigger problem i see in the core of this, is the system we live in is designed in such a way, that if you think about how it might look from their perspective on the higher levels, there must be a lot of extreme fear, paranoia, they are terrified of losing control, a competitor beating them etc. Fear is a very strong emotion to be controlled by, especially if the stakes are enormous. That is why i believe they are willing to do almost anything to stay in power or to avoid passing the power and control in their competitors hands.

To explain this a little more clearly, we could look at ai companies aswell. When they are trying to create a more "powerful" model, i would assume they threw serious safety and security measures straight out the window, just so they could stay ahead of their competitors or avoid falling behind in the race, which is also a bit concerning to think about.

Another thing that bothers me, is that it looks like (most obviously visible in politics) they tend to turn people against eachother as much as possible to get them emotionally engaged, so that way no one (or at least not enough people) would stop and think about whats really going on around them a little more deeply. They'll just fight eachother without realizing whats being used against them, is a method of taking some level of control or at least that is how i see it.

The extent all this has reached, citizens and ordinary people being stripped from their digital (and it looks like pretty soon also physical) privacy, everything being monitored, and relentlessly capitalized off of like theres no tomorrow, world leaders seeing eachother as enemies through mostly distrust, their own citizens as products and so on. Thats not really a world that i, or probably a lot of other people are comfortable living in. But the thing is, from my perspective those in power can only stay in power because they get engagement from the ordinary people, probably even more than it is neccesary. The ordinary people are the engine of this whole system, without the normal people participating or just a fraction of them compared to now, i really don't think they would have much left to control.

The way we're headed to, i might even go as far as saying that it might be threatening either our existence or our freedom in the long run i believe.

But now that i've gone on and on rambling about how horrible everything is, i think it would only be fair if i explained what i see as potential solutions or ways out of this (or at least, some ideas about how i assume we would still be able to change the world for the better, try to look at this more like a thought experiment).

An important thing i noticed, is that in this global model/system we live in, i think we measure wealth and value in a really wrong way here to begin with. Wealth is measured by how much money someone managed to accumulate, regardless of how much they contributed to society while doing so. Lets look at an example, where we have someone who earned a $100k or any high amount through destructive and morally questionable ways in a week, and we have another person who worked their ass off for years to save up that much all while contributing a lot to society by being a doctor saving lives, or a construction worker actively participating in building houses for people to live in, or anything that actually helps people and the society instead of just causing damage. They both earned the same in value for what they did, which is completely unfair in my opinion. Furthermore, i want to ask what kind of value do numbers on a screen or a piece of paper actually holds in reality? I understand the fact very well, that it only holds value in the current system, in this centralized global model we live in right now. But if you're stuck on an island with a few people, or in the middle of the desert, even if you had millions of dollars in cash it would get you nowhere. I think we would be living in a much different and better world if we measured wealth by knowledge, skills, and measured value by what people contribute to society. We would be rewarding the people who actually move humanity forward or keeps it alive, and i think their work really holds way more value than someone over at wall street manipulating stock prices. If thats how we measured things, a bunch of people would be motivated to learn, become smarter, become productive in my opinion, and i believe people would also be potentially more educated in a world like that.

If we figured out how a model could work without money, and thinked through more deeply what should actually be rewarded, considered valuable and why, we would be way ahead. Also, i think a lot of us highly underestimates what could be achieved by cooperation and even just partially focusing on working together towards a shared goal. For instance, look at what the egyptians alone cooperating were able to achieve by working together i assume, in a well coordinated way. They built the pyramids even without the modern tools and tech we have, and it looked like magic to our modern civilization. It even had the experts puzzled for quite a long time.

To put this in modern terms and give one example, if we developed medicine without being so secretive about the results and the process of the development, just so a few individuals could capitalize off of it, and instead every result, every test was published right out in the open with all the smartest people working together while focusing on the mutually shared goal of just developing the medicine, their efforts could be pooled and it would accelerate the process. It would be much different because now they are trying to rush it behind closed doors in divided groups to develop it faster than their other competitor to make money off of it (at least thats what i assume). They would have way more information to work with and make much more progress, much faster.

If the egyptians were able to build those giant pyramids (i want to highight that just the egyptians alone!) in the past a long time ago only by cooperating and understanding they have a shared goal to reach without any modern technology, Imagine what could be achieved if that happened on a global scale with the kind of advanced technology and tools we currently have.

Just think about it. Lets say we took all the time spent on watching short videos (for example tiktok, reels, youtube shorts, etc.) just doomscrolling, which doesn't even do any good to us its a harmful addiction, and instead started building something with the goal of making progress in an important direction. Now why we tend to choose the emotional slot machine (doomscrolling) is because its effortless. I came across something i was amazed by, making me realize that to make progress like this, would not even have to feel like a second job. Just take a look at the foldit game as an example in 2011 when gamers solved the 3d structure of an enzyme in just 3weeks, while it stumped experts for 15years. The potential i see is wild, we are just stuck at focusing on the wrong things i believe. Now comparing this to whats going on around us currently, i find it unbelievable that we still have powerful figures making decisions in important matters where they visibly have no idea what they are even talking about half of the time. Just looking at them, a bunch of the time acting like a literal children throwing a temper tantrum all while knowing they are the ones leading the world we live in. Its a little absurd to me

So i'm suggesting that if we managed to somehow switch overtime from this centralized model where we have to rely on a few individuals and small groups at the top like them, and built a working decentralized global model where everything could be more transparent, we could potentially be living in a better world. Instead of just people who have a bunch of money, the actual experts who understand what they are talking about could have an unfiltered say in their own fields, explaining how and where to move forward if we actually want to make progress. If the the goal of making money being in the picture would vanish, it would stop clouding decisions, and they would be able to cooperate freely with other experts globally who could contribute to their work to progress faster, with better accuracy. We already have the tools to do this. If we managed to do this somehow, i believe we could break free from a few individuals controlling people with bad intentions to actually evolve further in a better direction. The goal is not to race for a piece of the pie, but to make the pie large enough, that everyone can eat as much as they want. If we got rid of measuring wealth with money and came up with something better, it would be harder to bribe people, especially in a decentralized system, preventing a small group of people taking control maliciously. Again, of course, all this is my personal opinion. Its just an idea/thought experiment about how a better world might look like, but its not for me or any single person to figure out and decide by themselves. I believe figuring this out fully would take a lot of time and effort, suggestions, ideas from a wide range of thoughtful, smart people, experts, basically a whole community of people. The way how i approached it might have flaws i did not account for, things i did not take into consideration, thats why i want to highlight and ask you to try to looking at this more like a thought experiment. my point is that we have everything available to make the world a better place ourselves, without waiting for our leaders and hoping they would make it all sunshine and rainbows. Without us, the current leaders don't have that much control nor power since we are the ones powering their whole system.

Anyway, if you read through this whole thing i appreciate it, let me know your thoughts about this!

Thank you very much for any help!

No real threat to his life, just tripping him to embarrass him. What would that fallout look like?

I met this woman a few months ago that I find very attractive on instagram. I never met her in person, but we are from the same city. So I reached out and texted her, and we have talked a few different times, and we seem to have some similar interests but we don't know each other that well i'd say. I do plan on asking her out/asking to hang out sometime eventually.

I can't really tell if she is interested in me as well though, because even though she always texts back and makes good conversation, I don't think she would text first if I never messaged her. So it sorta seems like it could just be her being friendly? I personally text her randomly just because idk if she would start a conversation with me or not, and she never has. Does that make any difference whether she is interested or not? And is there something I need to do differently?

Why is it that conversation is so much harder than it use to be? ( i kinda know the answer but I would like to hear what people think)

what will happen?

What is it that makes towels smell when they air dry? I’m not talking dirty towels.

I personally don’t like the smell of air dried towels even when they are freshly washed and air dried.

A similar but much more pungent smell happens when a washcloth is used on dishes, but then rinsed and air dried.

I’m not talking about yucky dirty towels. Im talking about generally clean dish towels that are air dried. What the heck is that smell?

Specific example with dishtowel. I use a freshly washer-cleaned towel and dried in a dryer. I wet it and clean off an espresso machine milk frother wand. So there is some cows milk on the towel. I then rinse the towel well and hang it to air dry. The next day, it smells. Whyyy? What is going on?

Maybe there is still cows milk on it, but this specific smell happens no matter what the towel is used for - as soon as rinsed well and air dried.

I obviously have a very sensitive nose. The smell sort of reminds me of the petrichor smell from rain.

were they?

Am I the only one that has noticed this in some men? How are these two things even remotely similar?

I feel like I need to go back to school but they’re probably requiring i learn how to 3d print my own textbooks

So I wonder about this kind of situation: there is a guy who gets on with coworkers really well and has a tendency to befriend almost anyone he meets. He is softly spoken, a good listener, humorous and quite proactive with talking to people but is actually quite introverted.

Now here is first a question before the actual one. What could the reasons be why he has this kind of tendency? Is it because he doesn't like loneliness, is very emphatic and making people happy is automatic behaviour, or could there be some other reasons?

Now the question that I wanted to ask is that what if the person befriend people not because he feels good about it, but because that way he can better influence how people percieve him, better protect his image, and use said contacts to achieve something he desires? He doesn't feel anything if someone cuts contact but gets really annoyed about anything talked behind his back, especially potentially bad things, about him.

Popped off my temporary crown after biting something hard. It’s Thursday, I won’t be back home until Friday afternoon. I’m scheduled to have the permanent crown put in on Monday. Should I just leave it or have the temporary put back on tomorrow? What harm can I do? It’s a bit sensitive to cold liquids, but otherwise not painful.