pingveno

Interesting. I’m not going to stop doing it, but still, interesting.

Make your bed each morning. Your bedroom will look more organized and you will have a nice bed to lie down in at night.

For reading, digital. I can have access to a functionally unlimited number of books. They also tend to be less expensive. That makes a difference for media like manga where it racks up pretty quickly. And I can make adjustments to the text and lighting that help with readability.

I still like having some books around as decoration. They bring a room together nicely.

Don’t panic. Think globally, act locally. Help the next generation be better than your own. Know that successive generations are likely to keep improving. Watch the arc of history instead of despairing whenever there is backsliding or push back.

I think it’s becoming better overall, not worse. Yes, there’s a populism issue at the moment, but this is far from the first time that’s happened. We’re dealing with the introduction of an entire new means of communication, online media in general and social media more specifically. That brings all new hazards and benefits that need to be dealt with.

The era after the printing press was developed brought intellectual development, but it also sparked revolutions. Those didn’t always wind up with that right people getting into power. It took a while for society to adapt and stabilize. I expect the same will happen with Internet communication.

I’m also hopeful because studies have shown that successive generations generally improve their abilities in abstract thinking. (I’m having trouble sourcing that statement, unfortunately). That’s important for the economy because the jobs of the future will need that abstract thinking. At least in my experience, it also acts as a bulwark against bad actors because people with poorer abstract thinking abilities tend to be more gullible, at least when it comes to lies that they like.

Not me, but family lore. When my parents had just started dating in their 20’s, my mother was housed in “The Beaver Hut” with a bunch of people including her twin sister (my aunt). It was spaghetti night and they were making a homemade sauce. My aunt was putting in salt. Instead of a teaspoon, she put more like a quarter of a cup or more. Everyone else was going to fish it out, but she was like “nah, it’ll be fine” and stirred it in.

Needless to say, it was not fine. It was so salty that everyone except my father refused to eat it.

Note: It might have been something else like pizza. With spaghetti, it you screwed up a sauce that much it’s easy enough to make a substitute sauce from kitchen staples and odds and ends.

I get the point you’re trying to make, but it wouldn’t be at all out of character.