Love Blindly and Hate with a Focus

Brett, 30, NC→DC, he/him. Politics, public policy, economics, international relations, philosophy, sociology, and geography. Also: bad music, (found footage) horror movies, urbex, etc.

[yuurei]

spraypainted cursed hamtaro from 3 years ago revisited. and the abandoned factory where hamtaro resides.

[fairycosmos]

what’s the big deal about being avoidant. like ohhhh im dodging the bullet quick everyone lets mock the bullet dodger

[afloweroutofstone]

PUNK B!TCH - PARTYOF2 [Jadagrace & SWIM]

And I be like, "And what?" Carolina, stand up They sayin' hip-hop dead, but it's propaganda

[afloweroutofstone]

Whenever I say that a song "goes places," this is what I am talking about

2011 toyota prius - death insurance

What if we talked, just like before? Can you ask me to come over? I'll say "sorry, but I'm fine" When it's obvious that I'm not I can't do it all again And I realize that, in the end, you’re better off without me Here, I felt the dread inside my bones I know I can’t live unless I’m alone

[parkchanwoohoo]

[afloweroutofstone]

First time in my life I’ve seen a “Perot for President” pin out in the wild and it’s on a teenager’s backpack. Gen Alpha is on another level

[badpunktakes]

one user was quick on the draw and managed to get a screenshot of this incredible "punk oncology" post before mods took it down. Now you can enjoy it

[tomb-mold]

have you noticed that everything depends on various factors

[iliketurtles55]

(Sequel to ‘This memory is being forgotten’)

[peanutbuttaz]

[7dmom]

Some fake things that aren't real are low key really importsnt

[afloweroutofstone]

Bug-knowers, what’s the name of this funky fellow I encountered on a walk today?

[boarboy-old-blog]

[afloweroutofstone]

Everything I learn about the economy of the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia is fascinating. Even in places without effective legal, judicial, and law enforcement systems (ex. Haiti, Somalia, etc.), organized crime and international black markets still really only make up a minority of the economy. Most of it is in the type of informal agriculture / natural resource extraction / light industry stuff that you'd expect in any other comparable country. Even without a real legal system, even when organized crime runs major parts of your national territory, common sense says that most of the economy is still going to be in the basics.

But there is this one unique area of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand that is Oops It's All Crime. My understanding is that the Golden Triangle plays a significant role in the global markets for heroin, meth, human trafficking, animal trafficking, arms trafficking, underground gambling, phone and cyber scams, and money laundering. Laos literally has a Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone at the point where the three countries meet that serves as a cartel-run free trade zone. Cambodia is in the same boat too, something like one-third of their economy is from organized scams. There's this one single area of the planet, comparable in size to the East Coast of the US, that has specialized in the efficiency and productivity of their crime

[abigailspinach]

[k-simplex]

Noticing my shoes hurt and, because I'm a systemspilled analytical thinker, immediately thinking "Who benefits?"

[afloweroutofstone]

I feel like I hate AI slightly less than the average Tumblr user, but it still scares the shit out of me to see how many people now engage in internet arguments by submitting their opponent’s argument to an AI bot and saying “explain why this is wrong and I am right.” It is concerning first because most AI models are sycophants that will tell you exactly what you want to hear, which makes then extremely potent delusion-confirmers. But it’s even more concerning because learning how to argue for yourself— how to evaluate claims, to assess an argument, to find and check sources, to spot flaws in someone’s case— is one of the most important skills you can have in life. If you don’t have that, you are unable to evaluate what is true for yourself. You will walk right into the arms of the first crackpot or cult that talks to you when you don’t have Claude available. Extremely grim portent that many people seem to find this acceptable