Check out Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harrari. It’s my pick for the best non-fiction book and after reading it I found A Short History of Nearly Everything suggested as a similar read.

It’s a bit more dry than Bill Bryson’s work but a lot more informative. I listened to the audio book which was brilliant but would probably find it a lot harder to read.

It goes over the history of humans from around 70,000 years ago until current day. I would recommend everyone read this book to give them perspective on the things we find important and the rules we collectively chose to follow.

This is my point. The person I replied to said OP shouldn’t expect more than what they got. I pointed out this same business model has worked for decades so OP shouldn’t have expected the outcome of a bricked device.

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You’d be shocked to hear that people purchase radios for over $100 to listen to music they don’t own.

Honestly it’s just a meme. We have deadly snakes and spiders but the death count each year is like single digits. They also just keep to themselves and will only attack if you’re a dickhead. Crocodile and shark attacks too are rare. Kangaroos will only fight you if you walk up to one swinging.

Most fear of Australian animals comes from residents of NA but I’d rather my Aussie creatures than the NA bears, wild cats, wolves, moose (meese?) Etc.

This is fucking horrid

Good Old Games. They sell lots of old PC games that you can’t find anywhere else and since many old games can’t run in modern architecture, they will usually package the games up in a way that they can run without you having to run your own emulators or virtual machines.

They also sell modern games and have their own game library software similar to Steam except unlike Steam it is DRM free.

There is nuance to rule following. If you’re following blindly and never question why the rule is in place, then you’re a chump. If you question the rule and conclude that it’s there for a good reason and follow it, you’re a champ.

Some rules are arbitrary but society expects them to be followed. Going outside the bounds of these rules can cause upset, so following them is generally the safer bet. However if there’s a rule in place that prevents your happiness, and breaking it has no negative consequences, just fucking do it.

Lol, yeah people react negatively to concepts when they’re only familiar with extreme examples of said concept. Just like how people shun the idea of communism because some communist nations were ruled by cruel dictators.

I’m not suggesting purging races or cultures or anything like that… but the small act of ruling that “this rapist is banned from procreating” is a form of eugenics.

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Imagine 2 boxes. One has an armed mouse trap inside and one has a chocolate bar. There are signs on the box explaining what is inside. You and an infant must each put your hand inside one of the boxes and retrieve its contents . In your understanding of “equal”, both you and the infant are considered equal in this scenario when you, an adult capable of reading and reasoning, have a clear advantage on determining the outcome of the box test.

The thought that humans and non humans are equal too broad of a statement. We of course have advantages over non humans. What should be said instead is: humans and non humans have an equal right to live.

There’s nothing special about us in the grand scheme of things that puts our lives above the life of anything else. Of course humans consider human life as the most important just as an ant would consider ant life the most important, but there’s no universal accountant keeping a list here.

But, as far as we know we’re the only creatures with morals, ethics and empathy. We understand that pain is felt by any creature with a nervous system. We understand emotions can be felt by many creatures with brains. We can’t truly call ourselves equals but we must be obliged to reduce the amount of pain we inflict on others because we’re the only beings who can.

We’ve reached a point in our understanding of the environment and dietary needs where we can sustain ourselves without needing to enslave other species. The fleeting joy one experiences from eating a Big Mac is not worth the torture of the cow the meat came from.

I’m reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

I’m maybe a 3rd of the way through and my mind has been blown at least 3 times. It’s very eye opening to learn about the earliest societies and the reason we believe the things we do.

It would be hard for me to not recommend this book to everyone… Especially if you have even just a small interest in history and anthropology.

Have you played Outer Wilds and Return of the Obra Dinn? They are 2 of the best narrative puzzle games I’ve ever played.

It’s good and bad.

I worked on rotating shifts on a helpdesk. 2 weeks out of 8 was 7pm - 7am shift.

The good was that the office which normally had about 100 agents during the day was reduced to 3 or less. Way quieter and you could do/wear/say anything without issue. During day shift I’d be answering around 10 calls per hour but at night if be lucky to answer 1 per hour.

This is also one of the negatives. Not having much work to do or other people to distract you would make the 12 hours slow to a crawl. Missing out on daylight sucked. I was always tired because 2 weeks is not long enough for the body to adjust.

For the right job and the right pay I would consider night shift again but overall I’d preferably avoid it.

I’ve got a few disjointed thoughts regarding life/death that may help.

Fearing death is a perfectly natural response to living. We have evolved to fear death. It’s there so we strive to live long enough to breed and raise our young. Humans are enlightened beyond only fulfilling our natural instincts but they still linger and this can’t be helped. It’s in our makeup.

They say life is a way for the universe to experience itself. Since you as a human are just one tiny piece of the whole universe, you’re not expected to experience and learn EVERYTHING… Rather you just learn and experience what comes to you naturally which will add to the universes “knowledge pool”.

All matter in the universe has existed since its beginning and will continue to exist until its end. You and all your loved ones are made of this matter. Even in death, your matter still remains in the universe. So while your consciousness might no longer exist, everything that makes up “you” still does… your matter has just rejoined the universe. Your matter shares this space with the master of everyone who has ever existed or who will ever exist. This means you will never be leaving your loved ones behind for eternity, quite the opposite.

I hope some part of my ramblings soothes you somewhat.