Yes. This is my habit as well. I feel weird for the opposite reason as OP as I'm a guy who doesn't do it daily if not several times a day. I guess I could technically, but do I really have the time and energy for it?
I honestly have no clue what's going to happen next, but I think Mandami has proven a lot of the people in the US are getting fed up with the status quo, especially this right wing laissez faire policies the current administration embodies. It's going to be interesting to see where things end up if this momentum continues.
I know of no factory for "vegan" food that kills the male workers days after they are born, and keeps the female workers in confined spaces for their entire lives, while forcibly impregnating them to ensure there will be a future population of workers. But please go on.
And that's kind of what I'm getting at, the writing for Discovery was lacking in a way that everything felt forced and rushed. The plot, pacing, the character relationships, etc. Why would we expect the politics to feel subtle when nothing else in that show was subtle?
Valid point, TOS wasn't always subtle. In my defense I was referring to the TNG, DS9, VOY, (and sometimes) ENT era. Whose writing often felt significantly more polished and less rushed than TOS.
So if you are trying to say modern Trek is written in a style closer to TOS, then yes I 100% concede to that point.
Yes, that was literally my point. I'm uncertain where the disagreement is?
TNG was rich with thought provoking philosophy, you would be left to ponder the morality of the episode long after the fact. Sometimes things were intentionally ambiguous, sometimes not. But the episodes always invited viewers to come to conclusions.
The writing style has shifted from that approach, with modern Trek the answers require significantly less digging, sometimes it feels like the lesson is being underscored. The morality is the same only how it is presented has shifted.
So what I'm saying is the politics is the same as it ever was, what has changed was the writing style.
I'm not even going to place a value judgement on that shift, some might prefer the face value appeal of modern Trek. Personally I prefer the writing style that was used on TNG, you may like a modern series better, either way it's all good.
I think it's very easy to claim 'woke' with modern star trek, but I think the issue is that politics used to be more tightly wound into the plot in that they used to express leftist viewpoints in a natural way that served the plot. The episodes were well thought out and were rich with allegory and metaphors.
Now the political views have remained largely the same from before, but the writing has suffered to an extent that things feel forced and no longer serve the plot in a natural way. It's less thought provoking, and more "here's the moral of the story". Which for better or worse only really underscores Star Trek's leftist views.
Right now AI companies are doing what they used to say drug dealers do "Hey it's free! Why don't you give it a try?" And once you get hooked they jack up the price.
In all my years I've never come across someone giving away free street drugs, but AI companies do it all the time. The problem is once the funding dries up, I suspect the real price of some of these services is going to be astronomical. They are giving away millions, if not billions of dollars of services free or deeply discounted all in the hopes of "gaining market share".
When the bubble pops we will likely start seeing the actual cost of some of these services.
Mix in the fact that if you've ever used some of these AI services you'll find most of the time you have to babysit the LLM to give you what you want and not go all haywire on you.
With our current level of technology I think we are in a place where we are only really able to augment some of our workers workflow. I really can't see replacing the full staff of a large to mid-sized company considering the cost and efficiency of these products.
That said I think the genie is out of the bottle, and AI services are here for good. What the landscape will look like in the next few years I really can't say. More people/companies may choose to run LLM's locally on their own machines/servers trained on very specific use cases as that might be more cost effective than what our current generation entails.
As a man I've always assumed this was the correct approach. I'll keep myself groomed as long as you keep yourself groomed, this always struck me as the respectful thing to do.
I spent the entirety of my high school years dating one girl, at the time I was in the thick of things and didn't realize it, but it wasn't until we broke up that I realized how disfunctional we/she were and made me realize that my life with her was the exact opposite of everything I wanted out of life.
I spent five years with her and was on a fast track to a very different life, and I hopped off that train at the very last moment.
I refuse to argue with my wife, I try to be compassionate to those around me, strive for financial stability, and take care of my body and mind. All things I didn't have with my first real girlfriend from high school.
Furthermore her constant pregnancy scares (yes I wore protection, every time.) taught me that I have zero urge to be a parent. Every time she told me she might be expecting, but subsequently refused to take a pregnancy test, my entire existence was filled with dread. I couldn't contemplate a single possibility where having a child resulted in anything good.
That might be my biggest visible 'scar' from those days the circumstances of my life and finances are drastically different, but that revelation remains consistent.
Some of the countries with the large percentages of vegetarians, vegans or predominantly plant forward diets such as India or South East Asia are not wealthy by Western standards. Eating a 'healthy' plant forward diet does not have to be an expensive affair.
The perception that a plant based diet is a wealthy western modern invention is white washing its unglamorous origins as a traditional eastern diet, especially in Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, etc cultures.
To dismiss a plant forward diet because not everyone can afford to eat impossible burgers 7x a week is disingenuous, as people were eating diets with little to no meat for centuries before faux 'beuf' plant minces were invented.
I REALLY hate how this potentially pivotal character moment was ignored in Picard.
I feel like much of the conflict, especially in the first season could have been avoided if he had just stayed in command. It's clear that Riker was able to go on some kind of extended sabbatical while retaining his command, I'm not sure why he chose not to do that?
I'm also I'm not sure if this was on purpose, but I feel like the three seasons of Picard was a meditation on what happens if you disregard this piece of advice from Kirk.
I think you are looking at this from the wrong perspective, I think you are discounting sexual selection as a basis of why humans have long hair. I suspect the advantage is less this helps me to survive, and more this helps me to find a mate.
Another response pointed out the advantages of having dense curly hair and how and why we evolved with that, I think our ancestors used that starting point as a means of signaling health, youth, and vitality. And from there different hair types evolved as an expression of sexual selection.
We evolved to have heads of long thick hair because our ancestors found it attractive. And to this day it continues to be used (subconsciously or consciously) as a means of determining the sexual health of a potential mate.
If you think about it, when we get old or sick the hair is one of the first things to falter, not having a head of long thick hair doesn't necessarily mean you are unhealthy, but it is also difficult to maintain a head of full shiny head of hair without having a level of health and vitality.
Tldr: I think to this day hair is used as an indicator of sexual health from a potential mate, having long, thick hair can signal that health from a distance, and would be a distinct advantage in spreading those genes.
Legally how can you state it is 100% juice when the first ingredient is filtered water, then you add the cochineal extract, and the acorbic acid. I mean it's mostly juice but it's clearly not 100% juice. I feel like this is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
My main, high spec audio production laptop is running Windows, my work device is a Mac, I have a Chromebook for when I'm working out, and I have an old Dell running Linux mint which has become my main beater laptop. I guess you can say I'm ambidextrous.
Some people online claim he's hiding as a preacher named Bob Joyce.
Curious, what would you recommend the Americans do?
Sounds like the security guard was just a knob
Yes. This is my habit as well. I feel weird for the opposite reason as OP as I'm a guy who doesn't do it daily if not several times a day. I guess I could technically, but do I really have the time and energy for it?
I honestly have no clue what's going to happen next, but I think Mandami has proven a lot of the people in the US are getting fed up with the status quo, especially this right wing laissez faire policies the current administration embodies. It's going to be interesting to see where things end up if this momentum continues.
I've been thinking about this possible solution for over 30 years now.
I know of no factory for "vegan" food that kills the male workers days after they are born, and keeps the female workers in confined spaces for their entire lives, while forcibly impregnating them to ensure there will be a future population of workers. But please go on.
And that's kind of what I'm getting at, the writing for Discovery was lacking in a way that everything felt forced and rushed. The plot, pacing, the character relationships, etc. Why would we expect the politics to feel subtle when nothing else in that show was subtle?
Valid point, TOS wasn't always subtle. In my defense I was referring to the TNG, DS9, VOY, (and sometimes) ENT era. Whose writing often felt significantly more polished and less rushed than TOS.
So if you are trying to say modern Trek is written in a style closer to TOS, then yes I 100% concede to that point.
Yes, that was literally my point. I'm uncertain where the disagreement is?
TNG was rich with thought provoking philosophy, you would be left to ponder the morality of the episode long after the fact. Sometimes things were intentionally ambiguous, sometimes not. But the episodes always invited viewers to come to conclusions.
The writing style has shifted from that approach, with modern Trek the answers require significantly less digging, sometimes it feels like the lesson is being underscored. The morality is the same only how it is presented has shifted.
So what I'm saying is the politics is the same as it ever was, what has changed was the writing style.
I'm not even going to place a value judgement on that shift, some might prefer the face value appeal of modern Trek. Personally I prefer the writing style that was used on TNG, you may like a modern series better, either way it's all good.
I think it's very easy to claim 'woke' with modern star trek, but I think the issue is that politics used to be more tightly wound into the plot in that they used to express leftist viewpoints in a natural way that served the plot. The episodes were well thought out and were rich with allegory and metaphors.
Now the political views have remained largely the same from before, but the writing has suffered to an extent that things feel forced and no longer serve the plot in a natural way. It's less thought provoking, and more "here's the moral of the story". Which for better or worse only really underscores Star Trek's leftist views.
Right now AI companies are doing what they used to say drug dealers do "Hey it's free! Why don't you give it a try?" And once you get hooked they jack up the price.
In all my years I've never come across someone giving away free street drugs, but AI companies do it all the time. The problem is once the funding dries up, I suspect the real price of some of these services is going to be astronomical. They are giving away millions, if not billions of dollars of services free or deeply discounted all in the hopes of "gaining market share".
When the bubble pops we will likely start seeing the actual cost of some of these services.
Mix in the fact that if you've ever used some of these AI services you'll find most of the time you have to babysit the LLM to give you what you want and not go all haywire on you.
With our current level of technology I think we are in a place where we are only really able to augment some of our workers workflow. I really can't see replacing the full staff of a large to mid-sized company considering the cost and efficiency of these products.
That said I think the genie is out of the bottle, and AI services are here for good. What the landscape will look like in the next few years I really can't say. More people/companies may choose to run LLM's locally on their own machines/servers trained on very specific use cases as that might be more cost effective than what our current generation entails.
As a man I've always assumed this was the correct approach. I'll keep myself groomed as long as you keep yourself groomed, this always struck me as the respectful thing to do.
I spent the entirety of my high school years dating one girl, at the time I was in the thick of things and didn't realize it, but it wasn't until we broke up that I realized how disfunctional we/she were and made me realize that my life with her was the exact opposite of everything I wanted out of life.
I spent five years with her and was on a fast track to a very different life, and I hopped off that train at the very last moment.
I refuse to argue with my wife, I try to be compassionate to those around me, strive for financial stability, and take care of my body and mind. All things I didn't have with my first real girlfriend from high school.
Furthermore her constant pregnancy scares (yes I wore protection, every time.) taught me that I have zero urge to be a parent. Every time she told me she might be expecting, but subsequently refused to take a pregnancy test, my entire existence was filled with dread. I couldn't contemplate a single possibility where having a child resulted in anything good.
That might be my biggest visible 'scar' from those days the circumstances of my life and finances are drastically different, but that revelation remains consistent.
Some of the countries with the large percentages of vegetarians, vegans or predominantly plant forward diets such as India or South East Asia are not wealthy by Western standards. Eating a 'healthy' plant forward diet does not have to be an expensive affair.
The perception that a plant based diet is a wealthy western modern invention is white washing its unglamorous origins as a traditional eastern diet, especially in Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, etc cultures.
To dismiss a plant forward diet because not everyone can afford to eat impossible burgers 7x a week is disingenuous, as people were eating diets with little to no meat for centuries before faux 'beuf' plant minces were invented.
I REALLY hate how this potentially pivotal character moment was ignored in Picard.
I feel like much of the conflict, especially in the first season could have been avoided if he had just stayed in command. It's clear that Riker was able to go on some kind of extended sabbatical while retaining his command, I'm not sure why he chose not to do that?
I'm also I'm not sure if this was on purpose, but I feel like the three seasons of Picard was a meditation on what happens if you disregard this piece of advice from Kirk.
I think you are looking at this from the wrong perspective, I think you are discounting sexual selection as a basis of why humans have long hair. I suspect the advantage is less this helps me to survive, and more this helps me to find a mate.
Another response pointed out the advantages of having dense curly hair and how and why we evolved with that, I think our ancestors used that starting point as a means of signaling health, youth, and vitality. And from there different hair types evolved as an expression of sexual selection.
We evolved to have heads of long thick hair because our ancestors found it attractive. And to this day it continues to be used (subconsciously or consciously) as a means of determining the sexual health of a potential mate.
If you think about it, when we get old or sick the hair is one of the first things to falter, not having a head of long thick hair doesn't necessarily mean you are unhealthy, but it is also difficult to maintain a head of full shiny head of hair without having a level of health and vitality.
Tldr: I think to this day hair is used as an indicator of sexual health from a potential mate, having long, thick hair can signal that health from a distance, and would be a distinct advantage in spreading those genes.
Ah that makes so much sense, thanks for clarifying! Manufacturers are legally allowed to lie to consumers, that's much better!
Legally how can you state it is 100% juice when the first ingredient is filtered water, then you add the cochineal extract, and the acorbic acid. I mean it's mostly juice but it's clearly not 100% juice. I feel like this is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
My main, high spec audio production laptop is running Windows, my work device is a Mac, I have a Chromebook for when I'm working out, and I have an old Dell running Linux mint which has become my main beater laptop. I guess you can say I'm ambidextrous.