@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q... One definition of nostalgia that seemed particularly interesting was that it's grieving for the lost possibilities that existed in a past moment.

That is, it's not so much remembering what it felt like at a moment in childhood, as remembering being in that moment and having paths open that are now closed to you.

And it makes sense that would be a keener feeling as a teen or young adult, going through rapid changes and making decisions that will shape your life, when later in life things tend to stabilize, for better or worse.

@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q... I'm not an uncritical fan of Sanders or Corbyn, but I do think it was significant that each of them represented something of a breakthrough for social democrats, and the center parties panicked and went to great lengths to suppress them, leaving them exposed to fascists.

@nprofile1q... There's a bit in Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution where he goes through Tsar Nicholas's diary entries during a critical period, to show how totally (and comically) out of touch he was.

Trotsky comments that the fact that the Russian aristocracy couldn't get rid of someone so obviously incompetent goes to show how much the aristocracy had declined.

That puzzled me, until it occurred to me how many ways aristocracies have historically dealt with monarchs -- from having some grey eminence actually run things, to removing the monarch by various means.

You can look at several "heroic" moments in US history, where politicians went far outside established norms of law and procedure, and tidied up long after the fact.

So I think what's most significant about Trump and company is that despite their incredible incompetence that's been undermining both soft and hard power of the US, they've not been removed.

@nprofile1q... This is all consistent with my sense of how Medea Benjamin and Code Pink have operated over the years. A lot of cultivation of an activist image (and frankly that image was embarrassing in itself), but superficial analysis that seems dependent on propaganda from states opposed to the US.

@nprofile1q... "I don't understand why we're losing money."

-- Every C-level Executive in the US.

@nprofile1q... Part of what's strange here is that this is mature software, and given its purpose, they should be very cautious about adding new features.

@nprofile1q... It's a "colony-building" game, so producing food is an important aspect of it. Also, managing heat and cold. However, food spoils over time, depending upon temperature. So you can't grow food in winter, and it spoils in summer.

But, you can create a room, and a cooler (once you've discovered the technology), set the cooler to cool below freezing, and store all your food in that room.

In this game I was playing in an arid scrubland near the equator, with a colony of "tribal" impids, who are bioengineered humans who tolerate heat. So, year-round growing, but my food kept rotting. Also that baseline human who joined the settlement kept getting heatstroke.

So I posted that after finally completing a freezer.

@nprofile1q... I have to note I've gotten really tired of them absolutely definitely having completely defeated the Borg for good, only for them to come right back.

"Oh, the Borg queen, who had total control over the Borg, was the last survivor, and she just applied for membership in the Federation."

Next episode: "We're fighting the Borg again."