I turned 44 just the other day; honestly, without a doubt I'd have taken the pill the day before my 21st birthday. One big do-over and minimal responsibilities to manage after the de-aging.
✔️ Someone taking care of me 24/7 for a period measured in years?
✔️ School? What a joke. Ace everything, be a social and intellectual prodigy?
✔️ No bills, no responsibilities?
✔️ Boundless energy and Wolverine-like healing?
✔️ One set of friends in their 40s with life and professional advice/connections for you as you turn 21; and another set of friends your own age bursting with enthusiasm, ideas, and a gleam in their eye?
Like, I'm not seeing a downside to this over here...
Soft to start, but I reckon he'll get harder the more vigorously I shake him. Who knows though, he may just jiggle around semi-limp like a just-came-2min-ago dick
Too true man, but sadly not enough people have broken out of the walled gardens and still get their info from FB, Insta, X, etc...
Comparing what I see on here vs what friends on traditional social media see....there is a start contrast in the volume of pro Israel comments and such. Probably a function of number of users
Israel has been running a very effective crowd sourced propoganda arm for years and years....they even had an app at one point directing sympathizers in what to say, where to say it, and what to look out for.
Good news for us is that the sheer volume of pro Palestine posts and comments make it so the bots and bad faith actors can't really keep up and brigade all of them in a sustained way.
Not only did they say the quiet part, they went ahead and pulled the cloak from the dagger. Every statement and action seems to be in blatant disregard of public perception on the international level. Diplomatic and otherwise.
I remember being utterly flabbergasted by how overtly things were happening when this all started. "The blood oath must be kept" was the best reason I had then.
Thanks to the less bullyable entities you mentioned some definitive action might finally be taken.
I feel like this micro-news-cycle and news fatigue thing is exactly what they've been counting on, seems like they legit think this will all eventually blow over. People will forget, get bored, or get distracted by something new....
I also feel like the attention has been sustained longer than they would have liked but they're so balls deep into murder that its too late for the pull out game
This brand of positivity you're embodying is the most infectious one, and if I can feel it in your writing I imagine hearing it spoken from you would be some next level inspiration.
I've lost some people close to me over the years and what saddens me most is how I've forgotten so much about them beyond what they looked like. All of them except one....Gordon left behind audio recordings as his last messages to each of us in the group of friends.
Every time I hear his voice, it brings back so much about him that just can't be said. His cadence, intonation, and overall manner of speaking have helped keep an entire person in my memory.
I wonder if that's an option for you. I can say from experience that the lasting impact of audio is...powerful. Being able to actually hear my friend...i can imagine him speaking to me, and it's in his voice because his voice is not forgotten.
Your family hearing your thoughts, in your voice.....and being able to hear you speak long after your time....man, I can't think of a better way to highlight your true personality and make it a lasting one.
Man, just that word brings back memories of Hardees. Along with the usual red and yellow sauces, they had a third sauce...a white one. Me, thinking it was mayo, loaded up two of those little white paper cups and sat down with my burger and curly fries.
I should preface by mentioning that I love me some crispy curly fries with gobs of mayo...took one massive dip followed by an expectant bite and I'm like 90% positive that my face showed the entire range of reactions starting from "yo, wtf is in my mouth?", moving along to "this is NOT mayo!", detouring briefly to "what kind of sadist fucks with the mayo container", reaching "what is this spicy orgy in my mouth?!", and shortly after landing on a new all time favourite dipping sauce.
A towel, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
Traveling with a towel in my carryon bag has saved my ass more than a couple of times. It's a towel, it's a pillow, it's a small blanket, it's a privacy shield, it's a surface to sling your fake watches to passerbys and earn enough for your return flight home.
Want to freshen up prior to landing or during a connection at an airport? That towel will get you dry after washing up, brushing your teeth, etc. No silly paper towel, or Dyson hand dryer nonsense.
Says the guy from the future... 😅