He was handsome and beloved at first. Then he started chewing through wives, which showed off his obese, syphilitic, murderous letcher side in a better light.

All I can think of when I read this is: "some animals are more equal than others."

If you must. But could you please give it back to me when you're finished with it? I'm kind of attached...

Bill Shatner went to space expecting it to feel like the opening credits of Star Trek. Instead he was overwhelmed with sadness approaching despair.

Perhaps your monster form is fueled by ionizing radiation, which bananas are a good place to get. Do you like Brazil nuts, too? They are apparently even better irradiators.

Because the alternative is despair? Sounds legit, but doesn't feel right.
Because I have faith in somebody's grand plan for the universe? That thought is not just unconvincing for me, it's a giant, red flag: "Warning, magical thinking... Thin ice."
So why?
Idk.
Because I choose to.

Happy New Year.

My moral compass aligns with Star Trek's vision of what our civilization could become, if we could just play our cards right. But here we are at the end of the beginning, and the odds seem to favor catastrophe. It feels illogical to clutch Pandora's box so close to my chest, but I do it anyway. Why?

So, at a quarter century, 2025 marks the end of the first lifetime-sized chunk of the next civilization sized piece of history-to-be. The intimate perspective that provided makes this a time of reflection, not just on our lives, but on civilization itself. How did we get here, where are we going?

Millennia measure the comings and goings of civilizations, and centuries those of it's people. Halves mark the boundaries between beginnings and endings, and quarters the beginnings of ends, and the ends of beginnings. So 2025 is the end of the beginning of the beginning of a new millennium.

Those significant-looking zeroes in date are pretty arbitrary, so is the cat right to ignore them? Of course it is, cats are always right, just ask one, it's aloof silence on the subject is all the answer you need. But, as a not-cat, caring feels more appropriate, but why?

But wouldn't very accurate clocks run at different speeds on the top and bottom of the room, telling you how warped the local spacetime is, and thus showing you which was happening? Doesn't one of these things have to be wrong?

This might be the wisest thing I've ever seen on the Internet, under the fun silliness.