Hi Tilders! I am new here, but my experience with the community thus far has encouraged me to post an AMA. I've specifically decided to post this AMA in ~talk rather than ~science for more exposure, and because I am hoping to field questions ranging from scientifically well-read to less-read, technical to curious, why care to who cares, and everything in between.

I won't be posting "verifying proof", because like many of you, I love my anonymity here. However, I will include peer-reviewed citations to question answers when I feel it necessary. I will do my best to share free-access articles, but this won't always be possible. If I link an article of interest to you that is paid-access, message me; maybe, I may be able to get a copy to you. Also, please be patient for my replies. Even though it is summer where I am, I am still busy in the lab and thoughtful responses take time.

Here is a brief background on the Rice Blast fungus to help get the conversation started:

Rice is an important staple food consumed by nearly half of the global population Khush. 2005. From 10 - 30% of the annual rice harvest is lost to disease caused by Magnaporthe oryzae, which is enough rice to feed greater than 60 million people Skamnioti and Gurr. 2009. To cause infection, a three-celled asexual spore called a conidium attaches to the rice plant's leaves, stems, and even roots. Once attached, a germ tube emerges from one of the three cells and grows along the surface of the plant. Hydrophobic molecules on the plant surface, called hydrophobins, induce a developmental change in the growing germ tube. The growing germ tube tip begins to form a dome-shaped structure called the appressorium. This specialized structure swells and generates up to 80 Mpa of pressure, enough to penetrate kevlar. A penetration peg penetrates the plant cell tissue, and bulbous invasive hyphae colonize the plant cell tissue. The fungus keeps the invaded plant cell alive, while it consumes its nutrients, with the plant cell dying only when the invading growth moves to an adjacent cell Cruz-Mireles et al. 2021. Schematic.

The Rice Blast research community focuses on all stages of its development. My work is focused on nuclear division during different developmental stages, and I am specifically working on understanding which and how motor proteins are involved in nuclear division in this fungus. Understanding the nuclear dynamics and the involved machinery will hopefully open avenues for controlling the plant infection and reducing the global crop loss.

I hope you all find Rice Blast interesting, and I hope I will be able to answer many interesting questions!

I have a very senior role inside of a 450 person company, in IT. I'm not going to be too specific but it's in the TV industry. I state this because anyone that works in TV probably knows it's full of hot heads and technically inept people. I have a very small team of two in the UK looking after four sites, a couple of guys in the US too, looking after almost pure remote folks, they're mostly cloud.

Every time I go on holiday and as the most technical and senior person, some shit happens that ruins my break. I've had everything from ISP issues caused by finance not paying the bill so we had a site cut off, through to a show not being able to be delivered to channel on a deadline of hours which meant I had to step in, no matter where in the world I am and on what vacation.

I'm away again. Today, 10am, ping after ping about a site outage. Servers unavailable. Telephones not working. IT have failed again. The usual email chains and Teams/Slack chats that start pointing and poking. Absolutely furious and away on a family break I ignored it for the youngsters to solve, it should have been an easy fix. But no, the information given to them was wrong. The diagnosis handed to me incorrect. A cancelled ISP contract kicked in but we have multiple site outbound connections so that should not effect us. The site to site link goes dark for this particular site. I finally get THE CALL. I'm not going to rant too much as it gets technical but there's only so much that can be done from a phone VPN over a poor quality cell connection when you're somewhere between a wooded area a beach, and all you have on you is a 6" android device. I eventually got hold of my US senior tech who spent a four hours trying to direct the UK youngsters on what to touch, where to look. Turns out, some people randomly plugged in a switch, a NAS with DHCP server on and then managed to loopback the network using two ports of a SIP phone over the weekend as they had no clue what they were doing and eventually the network gave out. Spanning tree is not as good as it should be. We're a small team and due to always being overridden in protocol I've never been allowed to MAC address deny by default even though we're often a hacker target. BYOD is rife and it's getting harder to not lose data.

Anyway. Another day of my vacation ruined, time I should have spent concentrating on my family and having fun, building memories. The seething email I have sent to the board will go down like a lead balloon, I cannot wait to read the responses on Monday! Deny is going to get enabled by default or I'm going to resign.

So I ask you, how many others like me are there in here that work pushes in to your personal time, every time you try to get away from it?

Numerous studies have shown that talking about the things going on in our life is beneficial for our mental health, but sometimes it’s hard to speak about them with the people in our lives.

So, share with us strangers. We may not be able to fix it for you, but maybe you can leave some of the burden you’re carrying in these comments and walk away a little lighter. I’ll start!

I saw that new “Aged” filter on Tik Tok this week and thought I’d give it a try. The moment my camera opened, I was looking at the spitting image of the deceased father. I panned my head, raised my eyebrows, smiled, and frowned, so many of my facial mannerisms were exactly the same as my dad’s. As I felt all the emotion of missing my dad well up inside me, watching the camera, I said “Hey boyyy” in the way my father used to say it to me. It broke my heart to see the image of my dad staring back at me and talking to me, I miss him so much.

I lost my dad 7 years ago now, and each year I can feel little details of him slip further away. The shirts I kept of his are sealed in bags so I can open them and smell him again, but ziplock can only do so much, the scent is all but gone. I can feel little details about him that I knew so well slip away as time passes. The way the skin of his hands felt when I held hands with him. The feeling of his back when I would give him big bear hugs. The comforting details slip further out of reach as I dive deeper into adulthood on my own, without my dad to help me. So the fact that I could open this app and look at a live image of my dad, embodied in me, both breaks my heart and fills it in a strange way.

I’ve been noticing food shrinkflation a lot here in Belgium lately. Smaller soda cans, biscuit packet counts going down, 125g becoming 115g etc.

And honestly, to choose between the same size package getting more expensive vs less of it… I’ll take the latter. It’s reducing consumption. Which is great as a whole, but also selfishly if I’m buying a pack of crisps and I get to eat less of it … great.

Not so great on essentials obviously but those aren’t really hit by shrinkflation as much as snacks, etc.

Okay, that’s it. I do want to stress that I don’t like paying more for the same shit, but on a practical level, if I do, I much rather get less for the same price than have to spend more and be stuck getting the same quantity.

Especially if it’s junk food… I’ve even found myself disliking the old soda can sizes when I come across them. Having gotten used to the new ones, the old ones are straight up too much.

I spontaneously came up with Tildesians, but I have seen others, including Tilders and Tildren.

Edit, I was hoping to surface a variety of nicknames, so thanks for your input, I like to play with language. It's fun.

1. What do you think of popular figures like Noam Chomsky, Jason Hickel, Richard Wolff, David Graeber, and Bernie Sanders?

2. Why does grotesque inequality persist? Will the lot of the downtrodden and the oppressed ever improve?

3. What do you think of Anarchism?

Just looking to learn from the community members here. Thanks.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Nothing spectacular- I don’t particularly wince at bitter foods but after posting this thread:

https://tildes.net/~food/18ae/is_it_me_or_does_spicy_sweet_bitter

I was today’s years old when I learned most people don’t taste bitterness like I do; it’s not an overwhelming taste and on some foods a light bitterness is actually pleasant, but I didn’t know that others don’t taste the bitterness of things e.g. unsweetened sparkling water.

Well I’ll be a donkey’s uncle.

Whether you work indoors or out on the field, with your hands or with your mind.
Whether you create things, fix them, sell them. Or whether you work with people or look after them. What gets you up in the morning, keeps you going through the day (or night) and makes it enjoyable? (or bearable!)

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I'm intrigued to ask Tildes this because people are from all walks of life and from all over the world.

Right now, Europe is being hit with a heatwave that's breaking all records. Last year the UK had it's hottest day ever recorded too. It's pretty crazy and it's messing with crops, animals and humans alike. It's changing our way of life.

The question is: do you believe we're the cause and humans have caused global warming?

Or

We're in a climate cycle the world naturally takes going from ice age to extreme heat and back again?

I ask because I'm of the belief that science is right, humans are causing this. However, a few friends, some of who I believe to be fairly intelligent, are firmly sticking to it being a planet cycle and it's purely natural.

Your views please?

I've seen discussions on here about nostalgia or nostalgic moments. It seems not only in this site, but others find themselves reminiscing about a time long passed. I've seen it popping up more and more. Some brush it aside as people being nostalgic about a time when they didn't have to work, but I find myself thinking that the increased rise of people reminiscing about the past is because the quality of life and/or the world itself feels so much worse than it did in the past. I've done this as well, too many times.

What're your thoughts on this?

I wish there was a more concise way to phrase that question. I've asked it a couple times and always get some interesting answers.

This is inspired by all the "isekai" stories in anime and manga where a hero is summoned to help fight the demon king, along with the LitRPG genre. They use game-like interfaces to track stats and skills. Not just the typical combat ones like magic or weapons, but mundane skills like cooking, cleaning, walking, resting, drawing, lying, etc. Naturally, higher level skills tend to surpass basic physical limitations found on Earth. You could run faster than a train if your speed is high enough, or sculpt an exact replica of Michaelangelo's David in just a few days with a sculpting skill.

So imagine you got summoned to such a world and went through the whole "defeat the demon king" quest, and could choose one skill to take back to Earth. This includes anything from some specific magic ability like weather control and invisibility, to trained skills like archery and blacksmithing, to even basic stats like strength and stealth. Anything is fair game, but you can pick only one.

So, what skill would you choose and why?

So from earliest childhood, I have experienced that from time to time the electrical grid becomes unavailable for use and it can take days or even weeks to restore service. I'm having trouble comprehending the scope, scale and plausibility of what changes would need to be made to increase the electrification of everything in the way that is being pushed by policy advisors.

Everyone is pushing electric cars. I think it's a great idea, but I have questions about how the grid can support it.

People tell me that the next big advancement in the workplace is going to be the incorporation of artificial intelligence. Doesn't AI require servers on a massive scale? How plausible is it for AI to reach all corners of society and economy on our existing grid or reasonable expectations for plausible improvement of the grid?

The banks seem to be lobbying for the substitution of electronic accounts for cash. Again, electric power is not always available. Also some people who need to use money don't have homes and can't reliably charge electronics. If I remember correctly the payment system went down in Canada a while ago and people without cash were out of luck.

What insight can you share with me?

I was part of the reddit exodus, and I just discovered that when I sign out of my account, I'm still able to browse RIF from my phone. But my feed was no longer curated by me, so I saw what most people see when they visit that site from the "sort by hot" option of browsing.

I was a bit shocked. Almost every other top post was something ragebait-y. Something filmed to get you upset, to get your heart rate up and release something pleasurable in your brain. The comment sections followed suit, with folks bashing people in the videos(deservedly most of the time) and hundreds of upvotes following.

I believe what I'm witnessing is the real life version of the "10 Minutes Of Hate" described in Orwell's 1984. People enjoy getting mad. We've all felt it - an increase in heart rate but something, maybe dopamine being released at the same time, and a need to share that anger with others.

I don't like it, and I don't see it stopping. An entire generation has been raised on videos and stories designed to upset them and evoke this feeling.

Is there something you just don't get? Something that you have no idea why people like it? Something that baffles you personally, but clearly not everyone shares your neutral-to-negative feelings? Now's your chance to ask.

Here's the way it works:

1. Someone names something they want to understand the appeal of.
2. People respond, doing their best to convey why they (or others) like it in a way that's understandable to a skeptical audience.

This can be anything: musical genres, food combinations, personal habits, life experiences, etc.

Importantly, this is NOT meant to be a thread about grousing about what other people like. Think of it less as "telling people to get off your lawn" and more "why do those people like to spend time on my lawn in the first place?"

Seems like people in my family are pretty lucky. My brother won a $250,000 hospital fundraiser lottery a few years ago. And my daughter won $123,000 charity fundraiser a year after that.

What they say about lottery wins seems to be true. Both of them blew through their winnings in fairly short order. Easy come, easy go I guess.

For example, this article shows demand for aviation mechanics. What are your observations and experiences re demand in hiring?

https://apnews.com/article/jobs-workers-shortages-hiring-manufacturing-airplane-mechanics-84176a760eaacd1b629e9cef2f6ee42c

I'll start: as a film major, I could talk in length about several aspects of filmmaking, especially writing and directing.

EDIT: I'm overwhelmed with such a high number of interesting responses. You guys and girls know a lot of interesting stuff that goes way beyond my intellectual abilities. This is not an attempt to be modest or to draw empty compliments, it's quite simply the truth. That is the reason I did not answer to any comment yet. I wanted to make a proportional effort (I also got a new dog and he's awesome, but that's unrelated hahaha). I will try to do so tonight, and probably create a related thread to you guys can speak a little more about your awesome obsessions. Cheers!

Specifically you and your methods. And that which is beyond your control could either be on the macro scale such as community-wide or worldwide events, or the more personal side of things such as family, friends or complicated relationships.

I personally am desperate for distraction right now as a result of crisis with my younger brother. It's beyond my control now (though it never really has been) and it's difficult to focus in this period of waiting. For a while, I found some distracting solace in Diablo IV, actually, because the game teeters just enough into mindless action that it keeps me from overthinking. But I need to be working right now and cut through the noise. I am certainly curious about other methods from other folks.

Edit: Thank you to everyone who took the time to share your stories and advice thus far. It has truly been helpful and, in a way, creating this post and reading these responses felt like a method of coping I didn't expect.

Does leadership imply ego? Does it require ego? What are good characteristics of either? Can leadership be altruistic? Can ego and altruism co-exist? Or do all leaders function from a place of self-interest?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on this.

Edit: lots of great discussion here. If you want to post an introduction, please go to the next Introductions topic.

It's been a couple months since the previous introductions thread and we're getting some new users, so it seems time to start another one.

This is a place to post an introduction with a few fun facts about yourself. Anyone can post an introduction, new and old members included.

Also, on the topic of bios, you can read anybody's bio by clicking on their username (if they've posted one), and you can edit your own bio in settings.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Greeting everyone, first time actually posting on tildes so try and forgive me for any shortcomings as it's hard to tap out paragraphs on a mobile device.

So I wanted to ask you all, when you think nostalgia what specific idea or memory comes up for you?

When i give it some thought my specific memories of nostalgia are of the late 90s early 2000s. I picture a freshly constructed suburban neighborhood where there are no fences built yet, no trees planted or grown, and just grass everywhere - giving it a very liminal feeling. I reflect back on the hours spent outside until after dusk where the amber glow of the street lamps brought a feeling of warmth and coziness on a warm spring evening.

I also think about the technology, or lack thereof, at the time and how we used it. Beige computers transitioning to black ones as the 2000s crept up, using your big toe to turn them on, playing runescape or Sims Deluxe Edition mindlessly for an unhealthy amount of time etc. I think about the connectivity we had to each other, no smart phones, a wild west internet, and in my case a house phone with a kilometer long cord so that grandma can call europe with calling cards for hours on end while she tangles us all up with the cobweb of wires.

The list of memories can go on forever, but now I turn it over to you guys/gals.

I came across this phenomenon naturally once again when I saw an article asking why people thought a cornucopia was once a part of the Fruit of the Loom logo, going on to describe the Mandela Effect. I was flabbergasted as my mother frequently bought me this underwear brand throughout the 90s and I distinctly remember the logo being that way. Specifically as rendered in this image. The company says this was never the case and yet thousands remember it to be true and more disturbing still, there are articles going back decades that describe the logo having a cornucopia. (Conspiracy theorists call this 'residue', or the lingering of the 'truth' after some psychic or interdimensional catastrophe)

Now with other cases of this phenomenon, I'm skeptical. So what if so many kids misremembered how a childhood book series was spelled (Berenstein/Berenstain) or misattributed when a famous person died.

This Fruit of the Loom one rocked my world. Is this mass hysteria? Government conspiracy? Time traveler interference? Parallel universes colliding?

I'm not really sold on any of it and normally I'm a skeptic who believes in rationality and generally agrees with Occam's Razor. This underwear logo though...it scared me.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This weekend, my spouse and I were hit by a car that missed a stop sign and crashed into our car head-on. It was the most terrifying moment of my life, and both of us thought it'd be our last. We ended up ok, but it definitely shook us. I feel immense gratitude to be alive and breathing right now.

What near death experience have you had, and how has it impacted your life afterwards, if at all?

For me it was when I went with my family on vacation to Knotts Berry Farm. My parents gave my brother and I each a set amount of money (I think $10). We went in a store in the park and I bought the first thing that grabbed my attention, a change purse that said Knotts Berry Farm. Mind you, I'm a 5 year old boy that has no use for a change purse. No idea why I did it, impulse I suppose.

My brother took his time and searched the entire store carefully. After looking for a while he found in the back corner they had a toy section. They had GoBots for sale. He got a GoBot. I still had my change purse.

I asked my parents if I could return my change purse and get a GoBot and they said nope. They explained that I made my choice and in the future I should make more thoughtful choices. I'm now in my 40's and my wife and kids regularly reference the change purse story as I'm very careful in researching anything I purchase to avoid another change purse incident. My wife has searched for years to find that stupid Knott's change purse as a memento of our beloved family story.

Love to hear other people's life lessons

Imagine you suddenly become an important figure on an international level. You invented a new kind of funky pop. A funky pop like no one's ever seen before. One that will change the marketplace and the course of humanity.

Theres probably some important internal politics behind the upper class of the funko pop game right?

So what's your plan if your wildest dream came true and you're suddenly the talk of the town?

I am planning on going into the peace corps after I finish up my degree. My first priority is an education position, but if I can't get that, I'm open to other options. I would love to hear about the experiences anyone had while in the program.

It has been 1,071 days since Tildes had a user introduction post. This one here in fact.

After seeing a few new usernames around the corridors since the Reddit API announcement, and seeing Tildes mentioned on Reddit a couple of days ago, I thought it might be kinda fun to do another.

• Brand new users, feel free to spill the beans on a few fun facts about yourself.

• Perhaps you're an old school Tildee returning after a long sabbatical... Fill us in on what's new in your world.

• Those of you who missed out on a little light 'getting to know you' by signing up in the previous 1,070 days, drop a word or two.

• And that leaves the old guard. You know who you are! You aren't excluded from this social gathering today. Perhaps a bio on what you love to post here.

I'm not expecting the 266 comments we saw with the very first 'Introductions', but a number between 1 and 266 is fine. 😊

I just got home after a long, extraordinarily stressful, and sensory overload inducing appointment at a government office that I had to do to get some paperwork dealt with. Partway through it, I realized that some sort of stim/fidget toy would probably help stave off some of the worst of it, if I had something small I could keep in my purse. (Ideally something that wouldn't be too awkward to use in public... though I'm not concerned about looking a little awkward, that ship sailed long ago, haha.) Wondering if anyone here has some good recommendations on stim toys suitable for adults that I could bring with me next time, and/or any suggestions for unobtrusive ways to stim that I could do just on my own without needing anything special. I only found out I was autistic relatively recently (in my 30s), so most of this is still very new to me - any guidance is very appreciated!

Every time I would be in the market for something particular, say, a keyboard, or a camping tent, I would ask google, “What is the best air fryer, Reddit.”

I would get the link to the subject, however niche it was, and see discussions from assumedly real folks talking about the subject I was curious about. It was informative, and I could research deeper into brands or products I didn’t know about before.

Is there another site that even comes close to that? Or are we currently in a dark period until something like that comes along? I don’t typically use advertised websites to tell me “lists of the top ten handheld gaming consoles.”

Just wondering if there’s an alternative to my previous method of research.

Wow. So my (not so) little cousin has been missing for a few days. He is an EMT that works in the greater Denver area, and often at Red Rocks, where a massive hail storm greatly injured many people. Between me, my sister, his sister, my mom, and my best friend, we couldn't get in touch with him.

Thankfully, he is okay and was on a rafting trip so he turned his phone off. I've literally wiped this kid's ass (we're 9 years apart). Knowing he is safe and headed home is the greatest relief. But that adrenaline rush over the past 48 hours to suddenly stop is quite the crash. I feel like I can sleep for a full day now.

It can be anything, big or small! I think it's valuable to be able to change your opinions and not cling to them out of loyalty, so let's celebrate our flexibility! I'll go first.

I never used to listen to audio versions of books that I haven't already read, because I felt safety in the fact that I already knew what was going to happen and didn't feel concern over missing a passage from distraction. But in the past few months I realised that I listen to podcasts constantly, and that audiobooks (of the right kind) can be thought of as longer form podcasts.
So I've been jumping more into audiobooks for when I'm on long drives or commuting to university, and honestly it's great. I've been really enjoying Stephen Fry's Greek mythology series, and was finally able to finish "reading" the Hitchhiker's Guide series. As I have a bit of a mental block on actual reading that is unrelated to my masters, it's extremely cool to still be able to enjoy non-academic books without the feeling of guilt.

I was nervous to post this in ~news, because it's more of a question than a story, but here goes.

I'm looking to turn down the temperature, pace, and volume of my news consumption habits, as well as limit how much time I stare at a screen (I do that enough professionally). I've recently experimented with subscribing to fewer, higher-quality news sources and getting them delivered via RSS*. This works pretty well, but I'm still left looking for something even slower. Something like a weekly news publication, which is delivered once a week in a print format that I can read away from a screen.

I've subscribed to Sunday papers in the past, but it's too much and there's a lot in it - I think I'm looking for a little .. less. A slimmer publication, fewer pages. Almost as if someone selected the top five to seven stories covered on the Wikipedia current events page in the week, then wrote a few thousand words apiece on each. Something I can make it through with my coffee on Sunday mornings in a few hours.

Does anyone do this or have recommendations? If so, what do you read and how would you assess that publication? I think I've tried a fair number in the past, but I will take anyone's suggestions. Thank you so much in advance.

--
*I use Reeder for macOS / iOS - which is great btw, and it's shocking how much of the modern web still supports RSS. Highly recommend folks reconsider RSS in general.

Where do you think Tildes will be in 10 years? Will it still be around? How will the world be different from today? Do you think the world will be a better place? Be as positive or morbid as you want. Or, just say something, share something, post a link, tell a joke, give some advice. Then in ten years we can all come back to this thread and have a laugh... hopefully.

I'm seeing a lot of doomer content lately and plenty of defeatist commentary to match. I know it sucks out there but surely there's an air balloon that looks nice in the sky or something, right? It's exhausting to see the same negative stuff that I would see on reddit.

I need something positive and maybe you do too.

Here, I'll share something nice to get us started: This 72 year old guy graduated and his 99 year old mom cheered him on.

I have been (without paying attention) been reading more and more articles/op-eds etc from substack, usually linked from reddit or as of late, from here on Tildes. I decided to sign up and create an account for myself and found the list of suggested substacks to subscribe to fairly run-of-the-mill and not very enticing.

So, what are your favourite substacks? Which substacks raise topics new to you, challenge your perspectives, captures your attention for longer than intended?

I'm ashamed to admit that I've been on there way too much the last couple of weeks. I had always planned to use Reddit in my google searches because google sucks without it now, but I've been spending time talking there.

My niche interest in question is visual novels. There are very few places on the internet where you can discuss them. There was recently a final translation patch released for the Tsukihime Remake. I beat it and wanted to talk about it! Reddit has a Tsukihime subreddit. I don't know if there is any other English community on the internet that wants to talk about Tsukihime. It's niche enough that I know of no one in person who has that interest either. Without Reddit, where do you even look for an alternative?

I feel like I'm going continue being drawn back for similar things even if they are less niche than visual novels. For example, I wanted to talk about Final Fantasy XVI. I could have made a post about my thoughts here and maybe I would have gotten good discussion about it. Slipped my mind honestly. But I was drawn back to Reddit where there are thousands of people wanting to talk about it right this second. An alternative could have been Gamefaqs, but its a bit more toxic and I hate the style of forum (unthreaded, every post in chronological order, only way to follow conversations is with quoted text. Is there a term for that kind of forum?)

Does anyone else feel themselves feeling a similar pull?

Non-SFOite here. I’ve heard twice over the weekend how “bad and unlivable” San Francisco (proper) has become. Someone referred to it as a “failed city”, and “worse than LA”.

I’ve been to both cities and I’ve seen the tent cities in LA fashion district.

I’m curious to know if it truly had gotten that bad or if it’s just people being hyperbolic (like entire city level collapse).

I often engage in thoughtful discussions with my friends regarding our current socio-economic situation, and I find it challenging to discover a more fitting description than the term coined for it.

Wherever I direct my attention, I observe life increasingly being shaped by the well-oiled machinery of capitalism, a system devoid of inherent morals and existing solely to maximize profits for its shareholders.

To me, the notion of "late stage" capitalism implies a bleak future fueled by the insatiable demand for constant and unsustainable growth. This, in turn, hampers our ability to effectively plan for the future, as investors prioritize immediate gains. Consequently, our planet suffers the repercussions through climate change and the exacerbation of wealth inequality.

Moreover, the ruling of FEC vs Citizens United, wherein corporations were granted the ability to lobby as individuals, seems to have unleashed a relentless flywheel that perpetuates and nourishes the insatiable beast of capitalism and greed.

I am genuinely intrigued by the perspectives of others on this topic. If we collectively recognize that we are heading in an unfavorable direction, what steps can we take to regain a more positive trajectory? How can we incentivize prioritizing moral values and environmental impact over monetary gains?