You might enjoy my special interest, “terror management theory,” which studies all the ways irrational human behavior can be explained by the constant need to avoid noticing our own mortality

Nothing has reconciled me to my own mortality like watching billionaires resist the notion that they are going to die.

If the choices are dying or beginning to resemble that guy who got blood transfusions from his teenaged son, dying is fine. No rush, but definitely before it comes to that.

if you could choose between learning to live with your emotions or burning the whole world down in an attempt to avoid them which would you pick?

it is very easy to get hoodwinked by grifters that's all I'm saying

I think a lot about how dangerous this all is from the point of view of someone who once went into a ghost hunting experience for tourists ironically, with the goal of live-blogging it afterwards, and ended up crying in the Victoria BC Maritime Museum because the dowsing rods didn't summon my mom

also, by the way

a lot of us process our grief by making art

they're trying to replace that process with AI from both directions

it's also an act of generous creative imagination

sometimes when I really need my mom, and she's not here, I have to think about like, okay when she was being her best self, what might she say or do in this situation? it's a story we tell ourselves that gives comfort and meaning. no app can do that

it's not just that I find it chilling to imagine Sam Altman wearing my dead mom's face in order to sell me ads

it's that the way we ACTUALLY keep our lost loved ones alive requires a myriad of human skills these assholes perpetually devalue, like storytelling and deep emotional connection

Automation, climate accelerationism, anti-vaccine ideology, anti-immigration policy, and the gutting of public services is essentially a program of population liquidation. The billionaire capitalist class is pulling up the ladder and leaving us all to die. Class warfare on an ecological level.

It’s not even just the wealthy. Lots of liberals in the West think this way when it comes to the Global South. I’ve actually gotten someone I know to admit they prefer a vast population reduction to a future without cars and meat consumption for all. The rich just have even more to lose.

Yes. In fact, it seems like several presidential elections in my lifetime have come down to "we should care about other people" versus "no we shouldn't."