In a very traditional Afghan restaurant I used to frequent, if you ordered something really spicy, they’d bring you these small mint drops afterwards to chew on, no extra charge. Worked very well for me.

I remember this type of discussions and the exact same arguments on Reddit, or was it Digg, way back when. Classic rock then was Phish or Grateful Dead.
Well, as a result, I’ve never gotten into these two particular bands, but I did start listening to music that’s like 10 or 20 years older than the stuff I grew up with. In fact, only recently, I’ve gotten a record player and some vinyl records. Works great for lo-fi rock which is imperfect by design.

“I am a fox,” said the fox.
“Please - tame me!”

Cue Basquiat.

Don’t know much about history… Don’t know much palaeontology…

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Counterexample: The European Parliament. IMHO, it looks like 4 right-wing groups, 2 left-wing ones and 2 centrist ones. While the exact positioning could be argued over, the right wing is quite certainly more fragmented than the left is.

They are all over Europe. I have three or four within walking distance. And they can hold some amazingly large items, too.

They are now putting laughing gas in energy drinks, as I found out recently. It’s also in whipped creme which might be one reason people are all over it.
I’m loving it. So much better than CO2. Also makes for good social commentary.

OBEY

Maybe I’m missing something here, but plenty of folks - blue collar workers, technicians, engineers - have away jobs where they work in different places for weeks or months at a time, and there are landlords who specialize in providing this clientele with bare-bones furnished apartments. I’ve been there, too - in fact, one year during the pandemic, I had spent just a bit more than half of my time working and living in a place away from home.

Breakup version:
Rachel and I are dating again.
Well, not each other, but still…

On the other hand, if we all work really hard, go the extra mile, burn the midnight oil… we can make it happen faster for that special someone.

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do learn from history are doomed to look on helplessly as everybody else repeats it.

This fantastic opening quote must have also been Marx’s weirdest flex.

There are many forums like that, especially if you’re not limited to one language. Most of the ones I frequent have been around for 10 or 20 years or more, but kind of fly under the radar. ilxor being a very good example. AFAIK, the latter also adds only one new user per day. I’d say that’s a good thing, even though I had to apply several times.

No, it’s Ocho!

The number of people who will get the reference can be counted on one hand, probably.

Solé’s fantastic and extremely recommendable book “Phase Transitions” covers this as well. Quoting Janssen et al.: “even when the group is faced with negative results, members may not suggest abandoning an earlier course of action, since this might break the existing unanimity.”
“More generally, the underlying problem here is why complex societies might fail to adapt […]. Even if there is some social perception of risk, short-term thinking often prevails when facing long-term vulnerabilities. Such undesirable behavior is often favored by a combination of incomplete understanding of the problem, together with the misleading view that all changes are reversible.”

Yeah but it is, though. Plus the psychological pressure from social media/ FOMO, plus enshittification everywhere, plus the constant undercurrent of wages and job opportunities eroding away from us due to inflation and upper-class greed.
People were happy when mobile phones entered the scene and became affordable. It didn’t take long for employers to use them for asking tasks of us during off-time for profit maximization, though. Not to mention the constant feeling of being spied on and experiencing the gathered data being used for being bombarded with creepily targetted ads.
I’m sorry for today’s youth, growing up thinking this is all perfectly normal and nothing can be done about it.