who is “they”, and why should I believe a word they say?

no

shrooms can make you more empathetic, but in my case it also unlocked a new kind of depression in realizing that so many who need a change of perspective to see things that way, even for but a glimpse, never will. I felt such love and empathy for others in that moment, and such sorrow that it would never be felt nor returned by the vast majority of others; I understood perfectly in that moment what Edgar Mitchell meant by an “instant global consciousness”, and how we would likely never achieve this state of enlightenment among enough individuals to matter.

They should return it to France until they decide the inscription at the base is worth living up to again. You know, “give me your tired, give me your poor”? Doesn’t really jive with the whole immigration gestapo thing.

Republicans? Hypocrites? Noooo. Surely not.

Yeah it was exactly that deep despair I felt that made me want to donate it once it started growing back in – my hair is one of the few things I actually really like about myself, to lose it felt truly awful and I want to spare someone else feeling that way for long. I don’t know if I’ll keep growing it out and donating it forever, I might only donate the one time (long hair is, also, a giant pain in the ass); but it bothered me more than the nausea – and the nausea was fucking insane, first and only times I have ever projectile vomited in my life: being on chemo.

On that note, if you don’t already have a bucket handy at home: buy a bucket they can keep at the bedside, or something else with a wide opening that’s easy to aim for. Maybe also get some of those vomit bags they use in the hospital with the plastic ring that holds them open, they disappear easily into a pocket and are a great help when you’re gonna be sick while away from a convenient place to hurl.

And make sure once they do finish evacuating the entire contents of their stomach that they put something back in there after, even if it’s just a little soup or something; it is somehow even less fun retching on an empty stomach and they’ll need the energy.

been there, done that, try to eat some crackers or something if you can, keep your energy up. Chemo is brutal, I’m currently growing my hair out to donate it and I’ve still got these super tight curls for the first few inches of growth from the chemo making it grow back differently. Everyone says it looks great, so hopefully it makes someone a nice wig. But god, I remember how much I hated the nausea and how much more I hated and even grieved over the loss of my hair at the time (I like my hair, okay? And I look terrible bald.)

You got this. It’ll suck ass every minute, but you got this.

Shart of the deal.

if I could’ve been born just twenty years earlier, just long enough to have my childhood, adolescence and my early twenties during the fuck around period, I feel I would be at least moderately happier and possibly mildly more successful than I am now; having my earliest, strongest memory be the morning of 9/11.

I’m told the world sucked less prior, that the end of the 90s was an exciting and hopeful time to be alive and I have to take their word for it, as I was too young to remember much before the morning of the attacks. It would just be nice to have the memory of hope, too, instead of only the looming specter of the future. It would be also nice to maybe remember a part of history where we weren’t having a once-in-a-lifetime economic dumpster fire every few years, but I’ve already given up on ever retiring, so I suppose that memory would merely make me more bitter.

Plus being born in 1977 would’ve meant getting to experience the golden years of video games firsthand, before selling a complete, bug-tested product started to be thought of as “optional”. Or at least it wasn’t nearly so egregious, they didn’t have the capacity for microtransactions anyways. That would’ve been nice to experience more of, I only got the tail end of this.

He said he likely wouldn’t be dropping anything til July, June should be “safe” (as safe as running windows is normally anyhow)

yes, the problem is you did not sacrifice a live goat while mercury is in retrograde and github is down, as is custom for digital magic and necromancy.

weren’t you just gonna buy more yachts anyways, though?

I’ve always thought about it as something similar to what happened with Ritonavir, i.e. disappearing polymorphs. But inside your own body and with proteins instead of a drug.

It might be that normal proteins, while optimal in their function with their shape, might be more stable or have a lower potential energy when misfolded as prions. They don’t do the job they originally did, anymore, hence why they cause disease; but they certainly seem to be a lot more stable (given they require significant time in an autoclave to fully denature them…) and there doesn’t seem to be a way to make them go back to the way they were before. It’s just our luck that they’re not easily transmissible the same way tiny crystals of ritonavir were, else we’d be really fucked.

Is it not also your responsibility as a parent to teach your child that many others (certainly not all, but many) have a strong moral compass and many will choose not to engage with them if they espouse repugnant views? Including you, the parent.

I can think of nothing more potent an indicator that maybe I’ve fucked up pretty badly than my own parents deciding my moral compass is so warped it’s not worth interacting with me. Assuming they’re otherwise loving parents who aren’t seriously warped themselves, that would be right up there with “big bright red flashing electric billboard by the freeway calling me a humongous asshole by name” as far as signs that I need to make a change go.

well, again, I don’t know the situation – when he approached you, has he ever offered any indication these views he’s held are changing? Or is he still actively praising the orange turd? Because if you’ve set a clear boundary that you don’t want that type of person in your life, it’s not a good idea to go back on it. I wouldn’t want that type of person in my life. I don’t. I’m very grateful I’ve not had to cut off any family because of it, yet.

Love them, support them if they desperately need your help, but there is not a single person in my life I know or have known whom I would willingly welcome into my world who pursued an engineering degree who actively espouses harmful ideologies, those that make rich men richer and sets poor people fighting each other over culture wars, or actual wars sending kids off to die in far corners of the world. And when you take those ideologies to their extremes, you get gas chambers and world wars.

If they don’t know the harm they cause (and that they’re assisting in by supporting), then make it a teachable moment. Show them the consequences of supporting fascism – show them Don’t Be a Sucker, show them photos from concentration camps or testimony from the Nuremberg trials, show them how right-wing authoritarianism is harmful to everyone. Show them the parallels between the historical atrocities that right-wing populism has been used to justify, and how they connect to the actions of the men now in power. If they know about the harm and don’t care, I’m not sure how I could actively welcome someone like that into my life.

I’m probably not telling you anything new with my rambling, I’m just spitballing. You’ve probably thought a lot more about this than I have and tried plenty, I don’t know the situation; but I empathize with your predicament greatly. Nobody wants to cut family out of their lives, we all want to see our kin be the best they can be.

Certainly, but if ~18 years of parenting wasn’t enough guidance, what more can be done? At a certain point, they have to make the decision themselves to change, and if they won’t there is little sense in trying to force it or provide further guidance. Further, this doesn’t exactly sound like a small difference of opinion if they’re calling their own kid “fascist”, from the way it sounds it’s probably a lot more than just wearing a red hat, this son might well have become a straight up unpleasant person to hang around and engage with; and I don’t think one should be obliged to entertain fascists regardless of how you know them, they should be shunned, at best.

I was today years old when I learned that the Children of Atom have a real-life counterpart. Not quite worshipping the radiation, yet, but they might yet get there.

if I may ask, what are you hoping to achieve by trying to regain contact with someone whose fundamental values differ so greatly from your own? They may be your son, and you can still love them from afar and the person they used to be, but I think you shouldn’t compromise on your principles and break bread with him unless he himself wants to be someone worth associating with.

It’s probably much easier for me to say than it is for you to do, but I would strongly suggest actually not approaching them at this get-together, and instead seeing if they approach you first. If they don’t and just pretend you aren’t there, I wouldn’t say they’re someone you should be overly concerned about connecting with.

Sure, but then it’s a lot easier to notice it’s broken. It also makes a lot of noise, shooting a gun; a spray can is near silent.