I came here to make this exact quote. Good job bro!

It’s estimated that mice have 70 million to 100 million neurons in their brains. They are capable of feeling pain and have social hierarchy. They also experience emotions like fear, pleasure, and anxiety. (We use them in pharmacology models of many mental illnesses.)

Have you ever heard the phrase, “the neurons that fire together, wire together” ? Our neurons are in a constant feedback loop with the environment we experience. Our experiences shape how our neurons make interconnected networks, which then impacts how we behave upon the environment.

If those neurons connected to the computer chip only ever experience playing the game “DOOM,” how would they know about anything else? How could they know about pain without having limbs to innervate and experience the pain with? How could they have a social hierarchy without others to interact with? We may as well be god to those neurons on the PC chip, because we are controlling the entire world they have access to.

What I find sad is that our society is ok with hooking living cells up to a computer to make smarter computers, but has a problem with ethically harvesting stem cells to be used to treat diseases.

It has to be a full fetus with a heartbeat to have rights. /s In all seriousness, the human brain is estimated to have 86 billion neurons.

Thank you for this.

I live in the USA and I am 46 years old. I owned a car for a brief 3 year period when I moved away from NY to Dallas, TX. (The public transit there was abysmal, and the roads were way more dangerous for riding a bike than they were in NY.) The rest of the time it’s been nothing but bicycles.

In 2000 I bought a brand new bike, spent $1400 on it and had it for 23 years until it was stolen. At the time, when I bought it, I was making 26K a year. I paid cash; that was what was within my means to own something without having to pay extra for it through a loan. In 2023 I bought a new (electric) bike, paid $1000 cash, no loan. I make 55K now. That’s what was within my means to own something outright, without having to pay a middle man for the privilege of borrowing money. No car loan hanging over my head, no worries about gas prices, or paying insurance and registration for the privilege to drive. The most I spend on transit is $65 a month during the worst weather month, (Feb,) in the winter. Other months is usually $13-26 when I am mostly riding the bike everywhere.

As a 20 something year old growing up in NYC, cars were unaffordable in 2000, and they are even more unaffordable now in 2026 for me as a 46 year old. Between the insurance, registration, inspections, fluctuations in gas prices, a loan payment, along with being responsible for repairs if something goes wrong and be stranded to boot, I’d be living in my car because I wouldn’t be able to afford rent.

The entire automobile industry is death to us by 1000 cuts. Cities have been built around cars, instead of being built around the needs of people. I refuse to fucking participate in it. I’ll be cycling until the day I die.

In 2000 I bought a brand new bike, spent $1400 on it and had it for 23 years until it was stolen. At the time, when I bought it, I was making 26K a year. I paid cash; that was what was within my means to own something without having to pay extra for it through a loan. In 2023 I bought a new (electric) bike, paid $1000 cash, no loan. I make 55K now. That’s what was within my means to own something outright, without having to pay a middle man for the privilege of borrowing money. No car loan hanging over my head, no worries about gas prices, or paying insurance and registration for the privilege to drive. You are 100% right about people living above their means. If the weather is really bad, I take public transit. The most I spend on transit is $65 a month during 1 month in the winter. Other months is usually $13-26 when I am mostly riding the bike everywhere. Me being a cheap bastard about transit affords me the ability to live 3 miles from my job, (higher rent,) and affords me the opportunity to travel and take a small vacation on yearly basis. I can afford to pay my bills with cash because I make a point not to live above my means.

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating:

Refusing to release titles to the PC isn’t going to make me run out and purchase a console. There are tons of games on PC. My backlog is long enough that I can live happily without whatever kind of bullshit Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox are trying to peddle. Assuming I did care about a specific title, and it’s being gate locked by console exclusivity, I’ll fucking pirate it. That’s what you get when you decide you don’t want to sell to a specific market. Sony, Microslop, and Nintendo can all get fucked.

Climate law means shit when it isn’t enforced. Companies actively dump dangerous waste into their surrounding communities and getting a slap on the wrist while taxpayers pay for clean up, and real Americans can’t drink the water in their wells or live in their homes because of the pollution.

Hooker Electrochemical Company (now Occidental Chemical Corporation): Between 1942 and 1953, the company dumped over 21,000 tons of hazardous chemical waste into the Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York. The leaking, abandoned landfill forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes and led to the creation of the Superfund program. (This one is known as the Love Canal scandal. Hooker sold the landfill, and told the buyers not to build on the land, but the new landowners built on it anyway.)

DuPont/Chemours: The company released millions of pounds of PFOA (“forever chemicals”) into the air and the Ohio River from its Parkersburg, West Virginia plant, contaminating drinking water for thousands. The contamination spread to Hoosick Falls, New York, where DuPont, 3M, Saint-Gobain, and Honeywell settled lawsuits for over $90 million.

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E): Between 1952 and 1966, the company used hexavalent chromium to fight corrosion at a cooling tower in Hinkley, California, allowing the wastewater to percolate into local groundwater. The resulting health crisis in the community was popularized by the film Erin Brockovich.

Tyson Foods: An investigation found that from 2018 to 2022, 41 Tyson processing plants released approximately 371 million pounds of toxic pollutants—including nitrogen, phosphorus, and cyanide—into U.S. waterways.

ExxonMobil: The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill released roughly 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, ruining 1,300 miles of coastline, decimating the fishing industry, and killing extensive wildlife.

Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.: Between 1963 and 1980, the company dumped large amounts of hazardous solvents into the Crazy Horse landfill in California, which later contaminated the water wells of neighboring families.

BP: The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which spilled over 130 million gallons of oil, caused widespread, long-term damage to marine life and coastal communities.

Campbell Soup Supply Co.: Admitted to violating the Clean Water Act at least 5,400 times between 2018 and 2024 by discharging waste into the Maumee River in Ohio.

Anaconda Aluminum (Montana): Contaminated local water sources with lead and chromium.

Duke Energy: Faced severe scrutiny for leaking 39,000 tons of coal ash into the Dan River.

I grew up in the 80s when there was a massive push to recycle, only to find out 20 years later that all of that plastic I was separating and putting aside wasn’t being recycled, and was instead sold to third world countries and just ended up fucking up the environment in those third world areas. Now I just go out of my way to avoid purchasing items that are made of plastic or sold in plastic packaging since the recycling I was doing didn’t impact shit.

No, we aren’t voting republican. Some of us are still holding our noses and voting dem. I’m sure there are people on both sides, dems and repubs, that just kinda say, “fuck it,” and don’t vote. (My uncle leans more right side, and he refuses to vote cause both sides are the same. He’s a disabled veteran, and I keep telling him he needs to pay attention, because the people that get voted in will fuck him and his benefits over. He’s just a complete brick wall when you try and talk with him about it.)

Many very left leaning Dems don’t feel there is a fundamental difference between parties anymore because BOTH parties capitulate to corporate donors.

There’s been no campaign finance reform. Campaign finance reform holds broad, bipartisan popularity, with roughly 70-88% of Americans supporting stricter limits on money in politics. Majorities favor reversing Citizens United and reducing donor influence, as most citizens believe big donors, corporations, and special interests have too much power. Neither political party has addressed this.

Insider trading reform, particularly regarding members of Congress, is extremely popular, with over 80% to 86% of voters supporting bans on individual stock trading by lawmakers. Despite this overwhelming public support and bipartisan momentum, actual legislative action faces hurdles due to skepticism from some lawmakers. I’d say not skepticism, it’s more a fuck you I got mine attitude.

Neither Dems nor Repubs are interested in serving the people, they are interested in serving themselves, and their corporate donors.

1. Reagan gave us trickle down economics and destabilization of south America and the Middle East with the Nicaragua contra scandal to funnel weapons to Iraq and Iran. Our tax dollars being used to kill brown people. During the 1980s, the United States aided Saddam Hussein’s regime primarily to counter Iran, providing billions in economic aid, dual-use technology, and crucial battlefield intelligence, particularly during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988). The U.S. supported Iraq’s military efforts, ensuring Baghdad did not lose to Iran, despite knowledge of chemical weapons usage. (Didn’t we eventually fight a war to get rid of saddam? Oops 😬)

2. The first Bush was also involved in the contra scandal. Just before leaving office, President Bush pardoned six Reagan administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who were charged with crimes related to the Iran-Contra affair.

3. Clinton, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999: Repealed the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, allowing commercial banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to consolidate. This removed controls on banks that allowed them to over speculate, and allowed consolidation of industries to be too big to fail. (This set is up for the supprime mortgage disaster that left tax payers holding the bag. Oops.) Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000: Exempted over-the-counter derivatives—including credit default swaps—from regulation. Telecommunications Act of 1996: Significantly deregulated the broadcasting and telecommunications markets. (The deregulation stipulation was that these companies would be rolling out broadband in exchange for deregulation and tax breaks. We still have communities in the USA that don’t have broadband. The telecoms laughed all the way to the bank, and jacked their prices way up. Oops.) President Bill Clinton’s administration (1993–2001) was involved in several military conflicts and interventions, primarily focused on peacekeeping in the Balkans, stopping ethnic cleansing, and responding to terrorism. Key actions included NATO bombing campaigns in Bosnia (1995) and Kosovo (1999), the failed mission in Somalia (1993), the occupation of Haiti (1994), and cruise missile strikes against Iraq and terrorist sites in Afghanistan/Sudan.

4. Bush the second coming, Iraq War (2003–2011): Launched based on assertions that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and threatened peace. The invasion swiftly removed Saddam, but sparked a long insurgency and sectarian violence. There were no weapons of mass destruction. It was bullshit that helped his buddies in haliburton get rich on the tax payers dime bombing brown people. Oh, remember Guantanamo and the torture? How about the slow response to hurricane Katrina that devastated new Orleans? Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury in a case involving the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. (Oops we sabotaged our ability to gather intelligence.) Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys in 2006, the Department of Justice fired eight U.S. attorneys, raising allegations of political manipulation within the Department of Justice.

5. Obama gave us the affordable care act, and capitulated to the insurance industries by not pushing harder for single payer care.

This is why many very left leftists were unhappy about the ACA, it didn’t go far enough, and much of that law was written with lobbyists from health insurance companies who only care about their profits, and not about the human beings being insured.

ACA subsidies that helped people pay for insurance expired. Republicans were happy to let those subsidies expire. Dems had leverage with the shut down at the end of 2025, and broad support for keeping the government shut down to use that leverage to extend the subsidies. The dems ended the shut down over on a promise from the GOP to go back to the drawing board for ACA subsidies at the start of 2026; and like always the Republicans broke their promise. Why roll over when you have leverage to help the American people? It’s because their corporate donors didn’t want the government shut down.

So those of us on the far left don’t see much action from the dems in terms of helping people, while republicans also don’t help people on top of seeking to actively hurt specific groups of people. When you have to decide between a shit sandwich and a piss sandwich some of us are like, ya know what, I’d rather go hungry.

Sounds like this was caused by an altercation between two students.

The family said the incident stemmed from an earlier dispute between Sylas and another student.

My money is on that other student convincing or hiring thugs to beat up Sylas.

Is it possible that Trump didn’t really want peace with Iran, and having Israel attack just gives us the perfect excuse to back away from peace with Iran, while allowing us to make Israel the scapegoat if the war doesn’t go the way we want it to?

I don’t view this meme in the context of the most recent election, or current administration; I view it with 40 years of political policy and context I’ve lived through. Over decades, I find this meme to be mostly accurate. I was born at the tail end of Carter’s admin, for context.

1. Reagan gave us trickle down economics and destabilization of south America and the Middle East with the Nicaragua contra scandal to funnel weapons to Iraq and Iran. Our tax dollars being used to kill brown people. During the 1980s, the United States aided Saddam Hussein’s regime primarily to counter Iran, providing billions in economic aid, dual-use technology, and crucial battlefield intelligence, particularly during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988). The U.S. supported Iraq’s military efforts, ensuring Baghdad did not lose to Iran, despite knowledge of chemical weapons usage. (Didn’t we eventually fight a war to get rid of Dadsam? Oops 😬)

2. The first Bush was also involved in the contra scandal. Just before leaving office, President Bush pardoned six Reagan administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who were charged with crimes related to the Iran-Contra affair.

3. Clinton, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999: Repealed the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, allowing commercial banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to consolidate. This removed controls on banks that allowed them to over speculate, and allowed consolidation of industries to be too big to fail. (This set is up for the supprime mortgage disaster that left tax payers holding the bag. Oops.) Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000: Exempted over-the-counter derivatives—including credit default swaps—from regulation. Telecommunications Act of 1996: Significantly deregulated the broadcasting and telecommunications markets. (The deregulation stipulation was that these companies would be rolling out broadband in exchange for deregulation and tax breaks. We still have communities in the USA that don’t have broadband. The telecoms laughed all the way to the bank, and jacked their prices way up. Oops.) President Bill Clinton’s administration (1993–2001) was involved in several military conflicts and interventions, primarily focused on peacekeeping in the Balkans, stopping ethnic cleansing, and responding to terrorism. Key actions included NATO bombing campaigns in Bosnia (1995) and Kosovo (1999), the failed mission in Somalia (1993), the occupation of Haiti (1994), and cruise missile strikes against Iraq and terrorist sites in Afghanistan/Sudan.

4. Bush the second coming, Iraq War (2003–2011): Launched based on assertions that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and threatened peace. The invasion swiftly removed Saddam, but sparked a long insurgency and sectarian violence. There were no weapons of mass destruction. It was bullshit that helped his buddies in haliburton get rich on the tax payers dime bombing brown people. Oh, remember Guantanamo and the torture? How about the slow response to hurricane Katrina that devastated new Orleans? Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury in a case involving the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. (Oops we sabotaged our ability to gather intelligence.) Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys in 2006, the Department of Justice fired eight U.S. attorneys, raising allegations of political manipulation within the Department of Justice.

5. Obama gave us the affordable care act, and capitulated to the insurance industries by not pushing harder for single payer care. Authorized air strikes in Libya (2011) and later against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The Dems had full control at the start of his presidency and wasted it trying to placate Republicans in the interests of bipartisanship. He was the tamest president in the past half century.

6. We all know what utter trash the 1st trump presidency was, so I won’t rehash it here.

7. Biden. His entire platform was, we aren’t trump. He honestly wasn’t that bad in terms of initiating military actions.

8. House and Senate during the second coming of trump. They threw away the leverage they had during the shit down for the promise that repubs would revisit tax subsidies that made the affordable care plans affordable for Americans. The Republican administration let the tax credits expire. How about all of the Dems that voted yes on trumps cabinet pics?

Have Dems been better? Yes, but not consistently. Lately there is not much difference between the parties.

Are you my brother from another mother?

OMG this is hysterical

I just bought my 3 y/o niece a subscription. They have diversified their publications and now have a magazine for 3-5 year olds, 0-2 year olds, along with the OG highlights that I grew up with. I can’t wait until she is a little older so I can get her zoo books.

I have briefly tried path of exile. It is also a good game, but maybe not for the casual aRPG player.

What I find really strange about PoE is that active skills you cast are tied to putting gems in your gear. As I continued to play, I found it frustrating. I might find a piece of gear that has good stats for my character, but the gem sockets are the wrong color for my gems that contain my skills. This necessitated grinding materials to re-roll the gem sockets, which was RNG. I found this to be a clunky way to change your skills too.

In grim dawn, you acquire active skills and stats as you level up and put points in your mastery. So if you want a skill, you base mastery must be raised high enough to unlock it, then you put a point in the skill. Putting additional points in the skill makes it stronger.

In terms of leveling up and making your character stronger, the system for spending points was pretty daunting in PoE. Resetting your points gets more and more expensive as your character levels up in PoE. This juxtaposed with the gem system for active skills just felt super clunky.

In grim dawn, leveling up your mastery gives you stats like physique, cunning, and spirit. If you are putting points into a base mastery for an arcanist, those base mastery points will overall give you more spirit per level; which means more energy regen for casting, and more magic damage. If you’re putting points into base mastery for a night blade, over time that gives you more cunning, for weapons based attacks, crit, and bleed. Putting points into base mastery for the soilder gives you more physique overtime, which gives you health regen, and the ability to avoid attacks. What I’m getting at here is the mastery system gives you the correct balance of stats. (Remember, you get to pick a second class/mastery at level 10.) As you level, you also get points to put into your characters base physique, cunning, or spirit which can help make you more well rounded, or boost a stat your are lacking due to the class choices you make. (Like a soldier + nightblade give you way more physique and cunning, and you might be running out of energy because you’re lacking spirit, you have a way to put points into spirit only to rectify this.) Reclaiming mastery points has a fixed cost and isn’t expensive the way it is in PoE.

The class/mastery system vs cost to make changes felt rewarding. It encouraged experimentation. PoE wanting/needing to make changes felt more punishing. I found in PoE I often waited to add points to my skill tree for a long time because I was worried about gem socket color on gear i might find, and the types of active skills I would find. Eventually I’d get locked into a play style and experimenting wasn’t rewarding in PoE.

The complexity of PoE eventually caused me to put it down. Grim dawn has the right balance of being more complex than Diablo 3, and simpler than PoE. Easy to pick up, with lots of depth too.

Refusing to release titles to the PC isn’t going to make me run out and purchase a console. There are tons of games on PC. My backlog is long enough that I can live happily without whatever kind of bullshit Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox are trying to peddle. Assuming I did care about a specific title, and it’s being gate locked by console exclusivity, I’ll fucking pirate it. Sony, Microslop, and Nintendo can all get fucked.

Grim dawn is an amazing game - 2,156 hours, (90 days,) played and counting. I can’t wait for the new expansion.

Here is a link to my review, with a copy paste below.

What happens when diablo, torchlight, and titan quest gang bang a video game developer and you’re not quite sure who the father is? Grim Dawn.

This game, hands down gets a 10/10. Absolutely worth purchasing at full price. Here’s why.

1. The class system is amazing. You can select a single class, or you can pick up a secondary class which allows for hybrid builds. The class system is similar to titan quest, in fact the game uses the TQ engine. (I own TQ, I haven’t play much, but now I am curios to pick it back up because Grim Dawn is so awesome.) The class system creates so much depth with varied playstyles.

Added for copy/paste; here is the full list of classes/masteries. Arcanist, Demolitionist, Nightblade, Occultist, Shaman, Soldier, Inquisitor, Necromancer, Oathkeeper, Berserker.

2. SO MUCH LORE. Really! I loved reading all the little notes you find scattered about the world. Many of the NPCs you interact with are pretty memorable, and add depth to the story.

3. Amazing art and music really help create the gritty and desperate world that is Grim Dawn. Boss battles feel intense. Dungeons and secret lairs feel creepy.

4. 3 different difficulties if you like achievement hunting. Crucible mode if you want to do a little PVP, or co-op crucible. 3 different crucible difficulties.

5. Despite how RNG the gear system drops can be, you have the ability to buy back talent and devotion points to adjust for gear drops. Skill bonuses on gear work well with the class/talent system. (Aside from the class/mastery system, there are a series of constelations you can also earn points for. Some constelations can be linked with your skills from your mastery class giving it additional effects.)

6. Gear is tradable. If you haven’t been blessed by RNGesus, you can trade stored gear with total strangers in multiplayer crucible. I love this. I love being able to give gear to someone that might be able to use it instead of letting it collect dust in my chest. Likewise, I have been freely given some pretty nice pieces too.

7. The community is AMAZING.

In summary, I love Grim Dawn. Grim Dawn, please marry me and let me have your babies.

Refusing to release titles to the PC isn’t going to make me run out and purchase a console. There are tons of games on PC. My backlog is long enough that I can live happily without whatever kind of bullshit Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox are trying to peddle. Assuming I did care about a specific title, and it’s being gate locked by console exclusivity, I’ll fucking pirate it. Sony, Microslop, and Nintendo can all get fucked.