In the Alps, there are already quite some ghost towns. Small towns either turned into touristic villages or disappeared over the last 50 years. Others were border towns that slowly went out of business. So many are hanging in by a thread, with increasingly old population.

I do this sooo often. Often times I just write intro stuff to cool ideas that might or might not be connected to what I should write about. I find honing a page much easier than writing it, so I try to write something and recursively make it into what I need.

Absolutely! I just moved to a city that significantly sponsors third places, there are so many clubs and activities for free or almost (archery club fee at 45€/year, dojos go between 45€/semester to 100€, swimming pool at 2€/hour, film festivals for under 10€, knitting club and language club are free, additional discounts come with social security benefits). It makes such a difference! Meeting people becomes seamless when costs are not a constraint. It has been so much easier to build a social net.

Previously I was in a big business city. Everything costs so much, it was hard to justify. Free activities were few and far between. After years there, all my social contacts were through my work.

Wow, your wife and her brother rock! Congratulations!

A dude approached me letting me know he was the Blue Elf, he was dressed in a childish vibrant flat colors, but nothing too out of the ordinary. He told me he was an artist traveling for an exchange and that he was known for giving away blue puzzle pieces, of which he gave me one. Said goodbye a couple of stops later. He left me utterly confounded. Once home, I looked it up on the Internet and confirmed all his story…

We haven’t crossed the point of no return. We are accelerating because we keep press on the acceleration. If we stopped (as we did temporarily during Covid), stuff would get back on track. We have to act now

I don’t get it… I’m getting to the point that i dislike receiving most presents because i don’t have a use for them. Like: “ thanks for thinking about me and getting me this… plastic cheap Christmas decoration/little toy/picture book that I will never use”

On my side, I gift almost exclusively nice food. Doesn’t clutter in the long run.

I would particularly look at your cohort, a vague term indicating people you recognize yourself in. Your slightly older cousin, the neighbor, classmates and such definitely have a big influence.

Our society (with US at the forefront) is built on contradictions. On one hand, capitalism says you don’t deserve anything, you have to earn it. On the other hand, consumerism says you deserve every new gadget, luxury, treat.

I believe both are false: everyone deserves a reasonable standard of living (UBI?), nobody inherently deserves more than that but it should be possible to earn it. And we should acknowledge that earning something is not a matter of moral superiority, but a combination of some effort and some luck.

And it’s so rewarding to make something long lasting!

I think the key word was unaged. Cheese tends to become yellow when aged, starting very quickly. But stuff like cottage cheese and mozzarella are indeed milk colored

Some time ago, my colleague tried to pitch to our boss to turn the coffee room into a ball room. Unfortunately, cost and sanitation problems were impossible to fix :/

In the genre, it surrealism is your jam, Welcome to Nighvale.

One day maybe we can also consider pregnancy and obesity? But at least it’s one step in the right direction.

I have a career that required me to move internationally every 2-3 years. I definitely did not want to buy and sell houses at such pace, without even having a credit record in the new country. Scalpers should be treated like cockroaches though.

Such an extremist take is difficult to implement in practice. A healthy rental market gives significant power to the potential renters. Key word: healthy.

Low income housing can get taken over by the state but that’s not the only section of the market. White collar workers have also seen an increase in their mobility, for example.

Edit: Wow, some people read this and must have thought I was in support of house scalpers. But I have been a renter most of my adult life, and see the benefits. I appreciated being protected by the law, I hated when I wasn’t. I saw the effects of both on the market and I am confident a healthy housing market not governed by scalpers is totally possible. Just often not the reality.

In particular if you look at the long term (even just a couple of years): many homeless just need a little help to start climbing the ladder again. So housing and mental care would allow them to quickly become productive members of society. Prisons just lock them into a circle of poverty.

Sometimes I feel like a boomer being my years. I can’t watch a show and be on my phone. I either stop one or the other.

I hate how “think of the economy” comes before “think about the starving people”

I’m worried of seeing climate change half the way down the list…