Possible cause of Long COVID has been discovered.
May. 31st, 2025 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
( Cut because the image is huge. )
Image text: Japanese researchers have found a possible explanation for long COVID. They discovered that small fragments of the coronavirus's genetic material can remain deep behind the nose, in an area called the epipharynx, for at least six months after infection. These viral remnants irritate the immune system and may cause fatigue, coughing, dizziness, and "brain fog."
The researchers used an old Japanese treatment called epipharyngeal abrasive therapy (EAT), where the area is swabbed once a week with a cotton swab dipped in 1% zinc chloride solution. After three months, the patients showed:
- significantly fewer viral remnants
- lower levels of inflammatory substances
- noticeably reduced symptoms
The treatment appears to both remove the lingering virus and calm the inflammation. A larger clinical trial is now underway in Japan to confirm the results. This discovery could lead to more targeted treatments that address the root cause of long COVID symptoms instead of merely managing them.
Image text: Japanese researchers have found a possible explanation for long COVID. They discovered that small fragments of the coronavirus's genetic material can remain deep behind the nose, in an area called the epipharynx, for at least six months after infection. These viral remnants irritate the immune system and may cause fatigue, coughing, dizziness, and "brain fog."
The researchers used an old Japanese treatment called epipharyngeal abrasive therapy (EAT), where the area is swabbed once a week with a cotton swab dipped in 1% zinc chloride solution. After three months, the patients showed:
- significantly fewer viral remnants
- lower levels of inflammatory substances
- noticeably reduced symptoms
The treatment appears to both remove the lingering virus and calm the inflammation. A larger clinical trial is now underway in Japan to confirm the results. This discovery could lead to more targeted treatments that address the root cause of long COVID symptoms instead of merely managing them.
What's Making Me Happy Today: Old Skies
May. 31st, 2025 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I spent the last two days playing Old Skies, the newest point-and-click adventure game from indie studio Wadjet Eye Games, and I ended up loving it!
You play as the employee of a time travel company in the 2060s who accompanies clients—wealthy people, or academics with grants—to the past for nostalgic or educational experiences. She is also often hired to change the past, within the company's algorithmically defined parameters for what can be changed while preserving the "important" parts of the present timeline. As a result of her job, the protagonist is one of the few people anchored in the timeline who is aware of the constantly flickering reality around her, in a world that's always rippling with the aftereffects of these commissions.
It's a way of living that the protagonist begins to have more questions about as some of the cases she's handling start to overlap with each other and with her personal life.
The game has a lot of elements that I tend to like in this studio's games, including many well-developed NPCs to meet, puzzles that are interestingly varied but not fiendishly challenging, a point of view to the story, and some clever mechanics. Wadjet Eye has always leaned toward having diverse casts of characters, but this is definitely the queerest game from them that I've played so far, which was a happy surprise.
My usual complaints about Wadjet Eye games persist on just two fronts: 1) the voice acting is generally great, but there's always one or two odd choices in the mix that sound jarring, and 2) they obviously care a lot about music when it comes to licensed or commissioned songs, but the background soundtrack often just loops around in ways that don't match what's going on in a scene. But those are obviously very minor issues, and this was overwhelmingly a well-made and thought-provoking game that I had a great time playing and couldn't put down once I'd started it.
You play as the employee of a time travel company in the 2060s who accompanies clients—wealthy people, or academics with grants—to the past for nostalgic or educational experiences. She is also often hired to change the past, within the company's algorithmically defined parameters for what can be changed while preserving the "important" parts of the present timeline. As a result of her job, the protagonist is one of the few people anchored in the timeline who is aware of the constantly flickering reality around her, in a world that's always rippling with the aftereffects of these commissions.
It's a way of living that the protagonist begins to have more questions about as some of the cases she's handling start to overlap with each other and with her personal life.
The game has a lot of elements that I tend to like in this studio's games, including many well-developed NPCs to meet, puzzles that are interestingly varied but not fiendishly challenging, a point of view to the story, and some clever mechanics. Wadjet Eye has always leaned toward having diverse casts of characters, but this is definitely the queerest game from them that I've played so far, which was a happy surprise.
My usual complaints about Wadjet Eye games persist on just two fronts: 1) the voice acting is generally great, but there's always one or two odd choices in the mix that sound jarring, and 2) they obviously care a lot about music when it comes to licensed or commissioned songs, but the background soundtrack often just loops around in ways that don't match what's going on in a scene. But those are obviously very minor issues, and this was overwhelmingly a well-made and thought-provoking game that I had a great time playing and couldn't put down once I'd started it.
REC: Untitled Chibi Jim by StarBramble (Our Flag Means Death, Jim Jimenez)
May. 30th, 2025 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Fandom 50 #18
Untitled Chibi Jim by StarBramble
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Character: Jim Jimenez
Medium: Art
Length: 1 piece
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: action/adventure, happy ending, portrait, clothing, blades
Description:
This is just super cute. I love Jim's adorkable moments on the show, and I always love a good juxtaposition of cuteness and deadliness. Jim's ready to star in their own stabby Little Golden Book here, complete with a loving representation of my favourite ensemble of theirs: the undercut, the mustard-colour shirt hanging artfully open at the collar, the suspenders, the earring. I just want to take them home with me.
Untitled Chibi Jim by StarBramble
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Character: Jim Jimenez
Medium: Art
Length: 1 piece
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: action/adventure, happy ending, portrait, clothing, blades
Description:
A chibi-style drawing of a smiling Jim Jimenez in a fencing pose with their dagger, dressed in their season 2 outfit.
This is just super cute. I love Jim's adorkable moments on the show, and I always love a good juxtaposition of cuteness and deadliness. Jim's ready to star in their own stabby Little Golden Book here, complete with a loving representation of my favourite ensemble of theirs: the undercut, the mustard-colour shirt hanging artfully open at the collar, the suspenders, the earring. I just want to take them home with me.
Update from last post.
May. 28th, 2025 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I was able to take a few days off from work, but it's not nearly enough. I got to the Scarborough Faire renfaire again and some craft stores. But I'm really mourning the loss of Joann Fabric. It, like Toys R Us, is a victim of Vulture Capitalists stripping it for parts.
It was the last "fabric store" out there, since Hancock Fabric closed down in the 2010s. Michaels has fabric and some sewing supplies, but it's not geared towards sewing and the selection is kind of sparse. Same with Wal Mart - but it's Wal Mart. Snobby Lobby is not even worth mentioning, and those bigoted rightwing antiquities thieves can go get bent.
I really don't want to have to order stuff from Etsy every time I want to take on a sewing project that I can't find supplies for locally. This really sucks.
The owner/founder of Texas Renaissance Festival was found dead. That's all I'm saying here without a cut, but here's an article on the subject. Warning for Unpleasant Stuff. I guess we'll see what all of this means for Texas Renaissance Festival this year.
But, changing the subject, one thing that I've noticed that bothers me is that it seems like my ADHD is worse than ever. It's nearly gotten me into a few wrecks that only reflexes saved me from, and it's led me to make a few impulsive decisions that I've regretted later. I know I have to go back to therapy and get back on meds, but I don't want anyone to try and strongarm me into taking SSRIs again. And yes, the loss of Joann's is a blow because crafting is kind of how I blow off steam when I need a mental health break.
I feel like our Capitalist Overlords really want to make a world where all we can afford to do outside of work is Sleep, Stream Media from Streaming Services, Doomscroll Social Media, and Play Video Games. Which is an eventuality that none of us should tolerate.
Trust me, I am not trying to stir up nostalgia for the recent global pandemic, in which a lot of people died or were maimed. But there was this aspect of quarantine life, and I feel like it's the part that the so-called "Captains Of Industry" want us to forget the most:

[tweet from c0wbitch, reading "remember quarantine when everyone was making bread and dancing and making art and taking care of plants and just learning new useful skills and we got a small glimpse into what life is supposed to be like"]
It was the last "fabric store" out there, since Hancock Fabric closed down in the 2010s. Michaels has fabric and some sewing supplies, but it's not geared towards sewing and the selection is kind of sparse. Same with Wal Mart - but it's Wal Mart. Snobby Lobby is not even worth mentioning, and those bigoted rightwing antiquities thieves can go get bent.
I really don't want to have to order stuff from Etsy every time I want to take on a sewing project that I can't find supplies for locally. This really sucks.
The owner/founder of Texas Renaissance Festival was found dead. That's all I'm saying here without a cut, but here's an article on the subject. Warning for Unpleasant Stuff. I guess we'll see what all of this means for Texas Renaissance Festival this year.
But, changing the subject, one thing that I've noticed that bothers me is that it seems like my ADHD is worse than ever. It's nearly gotten me into a few wrecks that only reflexes saved me from, and it's led me to make a few impulsive decisions that I've regretted later. I know I have to go back to therapy and get back on meds, but I don't want anyone to try and strongarm me into taking SSRIs again. And yes, the loss of Joann's is a blow because crafting is kind of how I blow off steam when I need a mental health break.
I feel like our Capitalist Overlords really want to make a world where all we can afford to do outside of work is Sleep, Stream Media from Streaming Services, Doomscroll Social Media, and Play Video Games. Which is an eventuality that none of us should tolerate.
Trust me, I am not trying to stir up nostalgia for the recent global pandemic, in which a lot of people died or were maimed. But there was this aspect of quarantine life, and I feel like it's the part that the so-called "Captains Of Industry" want us to forget the most:

[tweet from c0wbitch, reading "remember quarantine when everyone was making bread and dancing and making art and taking care of plants and just learning new useful skills and we got a small glimpse into what life is supposed to be like"]
REC: Untitled Cobel/Reghabi by genderfeel (Severance, Harmony Cobel/Asal Reghabi)
May. 27th, 2025 08:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Fandom 50 #17
Untitled Cobel/Reghabi by
genderfeel
Fandom: Severance
Relationship: Harmony Cobel/Asal Reghabi
Medium: Art
Length: 1 piece
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: drama, ambiguous ending, former relationship, blades, fights & breakups, rivalry, sexual tension
Artist's Summary: everybody ready for the toxic mad scientist exes yuri reveal
Description:
Look, I fell completely in love with Reghabi during season 2. I already enjoyed her from season 1, but her bizarre flavour of lack of chill combined with the scene of her eating frosting out of the can put her in perfect woman territory for me. I also ended up even more fascinated by Cobel throughout the season, with Sweet Vitriol in particular being an "Oh, hello" episode for me. Which is all to say, I am so here for putting these two in the same room and seeing what happens.
But if I wasn't already sold on the premise, this art would have gotten me there. It feels like a still from an action scene, with the movement and tension it conveys. It captures the characters' features in a distinct style, and their expressions are perfect, matching each other but with that extra hint of determination on Reghabi's side and coldness on Cobel's. There's the sense that what comes next could be sex, a stabbing, or both, and I love it.
Untitled Cobel/Reghabi by
Fandom: Severance
Relationship: Harmony Cobel/Asal Reghabi
Medium: Art
Length: 1 piece
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: drama, ambiguous ending, former relationship, blades, fights & breakups, rivalry, sexual tension
Artist's Summary: everybody ready for the toxic mad scientist exes yuri reveal
Description:
Reghabi looms over Cobel, holding a scalpel to her throat. Cobel looks up at her from the ground, neither woman flinching from the other's intense gaze.
Look, I fell completely in love with Reghabi during season 2. I already enjoyed her from season 1, but her bizarre flavour of lack of chill combined with the scene of her eating frosting out of the can put her in perfect woman territory for me. I also ended up even more fascinated by Cobel throughout the season, with Sweet Vitriol in particular being an "Oh, hello" episode for me. Which is all to say, I am so here for putting these two in the same room and seeing what happens.
But if I wasn't already sold on the premise, this art would have gotten me there. It feels like a still from an action scene, with the movement and tension it conveys. It captures the characters' features in a distinct style, and their expressions are perfect, matching each other but with that extra hint of determination on Reghabi's side and coldness on Cobel's. There's the sense that what comes next could be sex, a stabbing, or both, and I love it.
REC: Untitled Narwhal!Merman Izzy by MegaDucko (Our Flag Means Death)
May. 23rd, 2025 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Fandom 50 #16
Untitled Narwhal!Merman Izzy by MegaDucko
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Character/Relationship: Izzy Hands (Izzy Hands/Edward Teach in framing text)
Medium: Art
Length: 1 piece
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: slice of life, romance, ambiguous ending, established relationship, au: merpeople, long-distance relationship, gifts, nature
Artist's Summary: For 27 years now Ed has been bringing Izzy, his sea unicorn, small gifts every time he returns from a particularly lucky raid and those are Izzy's happiest moments...
Description:
Izzy's status as the ship's unicorn has a special place in my heart, and bringing this together with a merperson AU to give us Izzy as a narwhal-style merman is just brilliant. And as always, MegaDucko has realized a brilliant concept beautifully.
The setting is perfect for Izzy, with his sturdy build and scars: not white sand and crystal-blue waters but a more rugged and cooler coastline, beautiful in its own way but not conventionally idyllic. The overall design of his body feels so natural despite its fantastical construction, with the way his musculature and colouring blends together between top half and bottom, and with the way he's got his tail curled around, dripping water on himself. Curled over his gifts from his sailor-love, it's easy to see that piece of land he's cuddling up to as a proxy for Ed. His expression perfectly strikes the balance between contentment and yearning, and I'm firmly opting for the happier ending discussed in the artist's thread.
Untitled Narwhal!Merman Izzy by MegaDucko
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Character/Relationship: Izzy Hands (Izzy Hands/Edward Teach in framing text)
Medium: Art
Length: 1 piece
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: slice of life, romance, ambiguous ending, established relationship, au: merpeople, long-distance relationship, gifts, nature
Artist's Summary: For 27 years now Ed has been bringing Izzy, his sea unicorn, small gifts every time he returns from a particularly lucky raid and those are Izzy's happiest moments...
Description:
Merman Izzy, his lower half the mottled grey tail of a narwhal and his brow sporting a long horn, lounges kelp-draped on a rocky shore. He's adorned with a bracelet and an earring, and protected in a small grotto beside him is a collection of other trinkets.
Izzy's status as the ship's unicorn has a special place in my heart, and bringing this together with a merperson AU to give us Izzy as a narwhal-style merman is just brilliant. And as always, MegaDucko has realized a brilliant concept beautifully.
The setting is perfect for Izzy, with his sturdy build and scars: not white sand and crystal-blue waters but a more rugged and cooler coastline, beautiful in its own way but not conventionally idyllic. The overall design of his body feels so natural despite its fantastical construction, with the way his musculature and colouring blends together between top half and bottom, and with the way he's got his tail curled around, dripping water on himself. Curled over his gifts from his sailor-love, it's easy to see that piece of land he's cuddling up to as a proxy for Ed. His expression perfectly strikes the balance between contentment and yearning, and I'm firmly opting for the happier ending discussed in the artist's thread.
What I'm Reading: Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams (2025)
May. 21st, 2025 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
✓
kingstoken's 2025 Book Bingo: Over 300 Pages
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams is a 2025 tell-all about the author's time as Facebook's Director of Global Public Policy in the 2010s. The book focuses on the ill-preparedness of Facebook executives to navigate the geopolitical situations they inserted themselves into in their obsession with perpetual expansion, including their role in the Rohingya genocide, as well as the general bizarre work environment and the sexual harassment that the author experienced.
Wynn-Williams comes off as a deeply careless person herself, albeit one buoyed along on a slightly different type of inflated self-importance than her former colleagues. There's a lot of what feels like completely unreflected-upon self-incrimination in the book that lends credibility to her stories. The seams show clearly enough where she's edited her interactions with others (usually to give herself the winning last word in conversations that clearly would have continued) that I'm inclined to believe the bulk of what's there, even if I don't buy the characterization of her responses or her assessment of her own moral fibre.
When this book first came out, I wondered if reading it was going to feel redundant alongside all the media coverage it was surely going to get. But the gag order Facebook imposed on the author banning her from promoting the book—combined with the avalanche of other news in early 2025 about tech billionaires dismantling democracy—seemed to result in fewer articles about the content crossing my path than I would have expected. For that reason, I'm glad I took the time to read it.
Also, it's worth noting that in my searching, I found many results on other search engines that didn't turn up on Google, even when they involved sources that Google usually indexes.
( An Excerpt )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams is a 2025 tell-all about the author's time as Facebook's Director of Global Public Policy in the 2010s. The book focuses on the ill-preparedness of Facebook executives to navigate the geopolitical situations they inserted themselves into in their obsession with perpetual expansion, including their role in the Rohingya genocide, as well as the general bizarre work environment and the sexual harassment that the author experienced.
Wynn-Williams comes off as a deeply careless person herself, albeit one buoyed along on a slightly different type of inflated self-importance than her former colleagues. There's a lot of what feels like completely unreflected-upon self-incrimination in the book that lends credibility to her stories. The seams show clearly enough where she's edited her interactions with others (usually to give herself the winning last word in conversations that clearly would have continued) that I'm inclined to believe the bulk of what's there, even if I don't buy the characterization of her responses or her assessment of her own moral fibre.
When this book first came out, I wondered if reading it was going to feel redundant alongside all the media coverage it was surely going to get. But the gag order Facebook imposed on the author banning her from promoting the book—combined with the avalanche of other news in early 2025 about tech billionaires dismantling democracy—seemed to result in fewer articles about the content crossing my path than I would have expected. For that reason, I'm glad I took the time to read it.
Also, it's worth noting that in my searching, I found many results on other search engines that didn't turn up on Google, even when they involved sources that Google usually indexes.
( An Excerpt )
The current state of things, May 2025 edition.
May. 18th, 2025 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I've started to notice that I'm having a lot more trouble regulating my emotions recently, since things started to get really stressful back in March. All of the red flags are flying (binging Skyrim, difficulty keeping my composure at work, struggling to remember words mid-sentence, impulse buying, interrupted sleep, etc.)
I'm taking some time off from work after this week. I'm going to have to probably fight not to spend the entire time playing Skyrim, because Skyrim is where vacation time goes to die.
However! I am reading books! I am nearly finished with Lewis Spence's Druids, Their Origin And History," after which I am going to finally try to work on his other book The Magic Arts In Celtic Britain. Which Robert Plant claimed was one of his inspirations for the song Stairway to Heaven.
And the reason for so many Druid Books is the result of the fallout from seeing the film Sinners. And the paradigm of colonized people spreading colonialism like a virus - or like vampirism. Can those of us whose ancestral culture was repressed or assimilated into white supremacist Mayo Monoculture still reclaim some aspects of it? Especially when mostly what's left is a bunch of hazy impressions, and occasional intense spikes of longing for something that people struggle to define in words?
Or as Robert Plant wrote it in Stairway To Heaven, "There's a feeling I get when I look to the West, and my spirit is crying for leaving. In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees, and the voices of those who stand looking." Yes, I know those lines are also very evocative of the Lord Of the Rings, which was a huge influence on Led Zeppelin's entire discography. But yeah.
(Maybe if someone could express it in words, it would lead to the paradigm shift I've been waiting for my while life.)
I feel like I should also acknowledge at this point that Led Zeppelin became famous in part by adapting Blues tunes written during The Great Migration, which is important in context with the influence that Sinners has had on me since I watched it, and the themes of cultural appropriation within the film.
Anyway, there have been times when nonfiction books have been incredibly difficult for me to get into. It happens whenever my ADHD flares up really badly, and it's gotten worse since I've been addicted to the internet. Learning to be able to focus on one thing for a long period of time is crucial for any kind of Occult practice, and it's something that I've struggled with as I started to become "extremely online."
So, I deactivated by Bluesky account. Not only to save my brain's ability to focus, but because the brainrot there has been especially bad these past few weeks. It's worse than the last post here where I swore to quit Bluesky.
Listen, Joe Biden was certainly not perfect as President, and he made mistakes. One of those being that he did not step aside and hand the reins to Vice President Kamala Harris the moment he realized he was impaired. And I realize that some of this is happening because some hack has recently published a book about how he apparently had dementia equal to Reagan in his second term, etc. But when I see people who I formerly regarded as "sane and well-adjusted" claiming that Biden is literally the worst President ever, and that his term was, in the words of one, "America's lowest point" - when Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump were also people who recently held that office, and Trump is literally shipping people off to concentration camps - it just proves to me that my worst fears about the detrimental and deleterious effects of algorithmic "fast social media" were all justified. Like to the point of asking these people to draw a clock, and post the results on their feed.
Whatever. I'll miss seeing takes from Faine Greenwood, but yeah.
I've been tempted to switch back to Reddit, but that was just as much of a dopamine skinner box. The point is not to switch to a different skinner box or echo chamber, but to abandon skinner boxes and echo chambers entirely. When I find myself going "I need to curate my takes to conform to the consensus of the Group Mind," maybe it's time to sever my connection to the Group Mind entirely.
ETA: And an interaction I had a short time ago on Tumblr kind of clued me into something: the first generation of kids who essentially grew up on Web 2.0 social media were indoctrinated to the black-and-white "You love pancakes? So that means you hate waffles, right?" type of discourse, and that's the only way a lot of them know how to interact.
I keep forgetting that Mastodon even exists. But I don't want that to turn into another skinner box. I guess let's see how long I can keep this up.
"And it's whispered that soon if we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter."
I'm taking some time off from work after this week. I'm going to have to probably fight not to spend the entire time playing Skyrim, because Skyrim is where vacation time goes to die.
However! I am reading books! I am nearly finished with Lewis Spence's Druids, Their Origin And History," after which I am going to finally try to work on his other book The Magic Arts In Celtic Britain. Which Robert Plant claimed was one of his inspirations for the song Stairway to Heaven.
And the reason for so many Druid Books is the result of the fallout from seeing the film Sinners. And the paradigm of colonized people spreading colonialism like a virus - or like vampirism. Can those of us whose ancestral culture was repressed or assimilated into white supremacist Mayo Monoculture still reclaim some aspects of it? Especially when mostly what's left is a bunch of hazy impressions, and occasional intense spikes of longing for something that people struggle to define in words?
Or as Robert Plant wrote it in Stairway To Heaven, "There's a feeling I get when I look to the West, and my spirit is crying for leaving. In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees, and the voices of those who stand looking." Yes, I know those lines are also very evocative of the Lord Of the Rings, which was a huge influence on Led Zeppelin's entire discography. But yeah.
(Maybe if someone could express it in words, it would lead to the paradigm shift I've been waiting for my while life.)
I feel like I should also acknowledge at this point that Led Zeppelin became famous in part by adapting Blues tunes written during The Great Migration, which is important in context with the influence that Sinners has had on me since I watched it, and the themes of cultural appropriation within the film.
Anyway, there have been times when nonfiction books have been incredibly difficult for me to get into. It happens whenever my ADHD flares up really badly, and it's gotten worse since I've been addicted to the internet. Learning to be able to focus on one thing for a long period of time is crucial for any kind of Occult practice, and it's something that I've struggled with as I started to become "extremely online."
So, I deactivated by Bluesky account. Not only to save my brain's ability to focus, but because the brainrot there has been especially bad these past few weeks. It's worse than the last post here where I swore to quit Bluesky.
Listen, Joe Biden was certainly not perfect as President, and he made mistakes. One of those being that he did not step aside and hand the reins to Vice President Kamala Harris the moment he realized he was impaired. And I realize that some of this is happening because some hack has recently published a book about how he apparently had dementia equal to Reagan in his second term, etc. But when I see people who I formerly regarded as "sane and well-adjusted" claiming that Biden is literally the worst President ever, and that his term was, in the words of one, "America's lowest point" - when Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump were also people who recently held that office, and Trump is literally shipping people off to concentration camps - it just proves to me that my worst fears about the detrimental and deleterious effects of algorithmic "fast social media" were all justified. Like to the point of asking these people to draw a clock, and post the results on their feed.
Whatever. I'll miss seeing takes from Faine Greenwood, but yeah.
I've been tempted to switch back to Reddit, but that was just as much of a dopamine skinner box. The point is not to switch to a different skinner box or echo chamber, but to abandon skinner boxes and echo chambers entirely. When I find myself going "I need to curate my takes to conform to the consensus of the Group Mind," maybe it's time to sever my connection to the Group Mind entirely.
ETA: And an interaction I had a short time ago on Tumblr kind of clued me into something: the first generation of kids who essentially grew up on Web 2.0 social media were indoctrinated to the black-and-white "You love pancakes? So that means you hate waffles, right?" type of discourse, and that's the only way a lot of them know how to interact.
I keep forgetting that Mastodon even exists. But I don't want that to turn into another skinner box. I guess let's see how long I can keep this up.
Then the piper will lead us to reason
And a new day will dawn for those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter."