Welcome to 5 Quick Things that I saw since last month that I thought were interesting enough to share with you. None of them are particularly timely so feel free to just enjoy 🙂

>Number One<

No Society is an Island

This article hits at the heart of something I’ve been thinking about since the beginning of the pandemic: isolation becomes nihilism. Despite the fact that this was published nearly 6 years ago now and it isn’t about Doomers or QAnon or the pandemic or even Incels (all things that would pick up steam at varying rates of speed well after it was published) it underlines how these types of isolation lead to the conservative ideology which allows you to disavow humanity. I don’t have a witty closing remark, I’m just sad.

>Number Two<

No Vibes, Just Check

At the last minute I decided to link this article instead of another that was basically called “it’s the end of the world and you’re still at work.” If I had to really argue all the articles I’ve liked over the past 6 months to 5 years have all been the same article: trust in others and the government has been eroded, how can we solve problems without that?

It’s also amusing to be that both this and the next video reference Bo Burnham’s Inside.

>Number Three<

Eternity at Your Finger Tips

Here’s a fun fact about me: I thought Bo Burnham’s Inside was just okay. HOWEVER, before you start throwing tomatoes at me and booing for the rest of the day, what I like about it is all the conversations its brought up for so many people. This essay is no exception tying together an Arcade Fire album I also think is just okay to look at the dread and that “funny feeling” we get despite our theoretical “everything” these days. I’m not always on the same vibe as Polyphonic but at least this time I think he hit it out of the park.

>Number Four<

Planet of the NFTs

It will probably shock no one that I spend a lot of my time thinking about what a society that actually works for most people might look like because it sure as hell doesn’t look like this one. Temporal displacement is something I live with both as a person with some mind limits, living with a person who has body limits, and in a world that has time zones making some things not accessible even if our bodies were perfect. This article articulates some of the interesting ideas surrounding that inaccessibility in better language than I have currently.

>Number Five<

We Can Build It Better

I’m a big fan of Climate Town‘s videos. He’s a climate scientist student (and now graduate) who makes entertaining videos that both run down all of the issues and history of why things got this way and always gives actionable items for how we can fix these issues which is mostly contacting your reps and being very annoying but sometimes there are other things you can do. I love these videos because they’re very clear and have lots of information at different levels so even if you know a little (or nothing) you can hop on and understand more complex things. Anyway, it’s not that suburbs have to suck or that you’re a bad person for wanting to live with your house not on top of your neighbor its just that the way they’re constructed now is bad and other things. You’ll have to watch the video to get the full scoop 🙂

Alright folks that’s all she wrote, see you next month!