The Futurama joke about dropping of a giant ice cube into the ocean is somehow more sensible than reality.

I think humans are distinct among animals for the degree which they observe and think about each other's faces.

To clarify for anyone reading: the technique is the same wherever you do it. What's cheaper is that you can take advantage of the natural geographic chokepoint that is the ismuth of Central America to treat a smaller area. But these boneheads think... I dunno, somehow Nicaragua is freeriding on the US when we do treatment there instead of spending 100x the money doing it all over the continental USA.

"bumblebee" is the most adorable name for a creature ever devised.

Cover yourself up man, it's like you're mooning god!

Little Beaver is growing into toddlerhood, with all the fun and meltdowns that entails. I've noticed a lot of behavior changes since she's moved into the toddler room at daycare - she must be observing others and imitating them. In particular, she's been wanting to sit on the toilet already, even though it seems way too early yet.

I begrudgingly have to accept that Elon is some type of genius. He has convinced the entire stock market to be his bagholder on his quest to become a trillionaire.

Crazy that they banned Cenk too, that makes it clear that this is only about anti-zionism.

Luv u 2 😘

There are two seemingly contradictory explanations for collapse in fertility rates that I commonly see:

1. That having kids is financially infeasible for many more households
2. That economic prosperity and education lead to the collapse of fertility

But I think what squares the circle is that the second statement is actually describing societies with more developed capitalism, and that the seeming extra prosperity has come from cannibalizing social reproduction in pursuit of more intensive labor productivity. It's how you can get a society where there is relative material abundance, but no spare time or cash to raise your kids.

Fertility rates track the "one map" pretty closely, and I don't think that's a coincidence. And the fact that China has now joined that group might warrant some uncomfortable reflection on our part about the trajectory their society is taking.