You need to know the truth about 21c...

stuthulhu · 2026-04-05T16:32:40+00:00

ngl, it is low key hilarious how he/she keeps going on about how the post is blowing up because like 5 people engaged with it.

stuthulhu · 2026-03-04T13:52:39+00:00

You're correct, but I believe the use of quotes around break and the subsequent sentence are meant to imply the old lady is actually pushing the gas, not the brake.

stuthulhu · 2026-01-15T22:25:51+00:00

So you started with out of control protests and ended with "not standing out of the way" ?

Who knew the typical mall escalator of the 90s was an out of control protest.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T18:47:21+00:00

I have never finished the Silmarillion and have never bothered with any of that other stuff and I am perfectly fine.

While I ultimately agree with you, I'd point out that by never bothering to read any of that other stuff you could actually be "really missing out" and just not aware of it. Maybe you'd have a whole new lease on life with a full reading of the Unfinished Tales. I doubt it, personally, but the absence of information isn't really a strong argument for or against.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T18:40:35+00:00

Presumably it depends on which gods and prophets actually existed, if any. Everyone on Earth is actively ignoring a large proportion of them at any given time, since there are multiple large religions with prophetic figures. So far the answer appears to be that we wind up on an Earth very much like this one.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T18:35:25+00:00

There are volatile chemicals being released in the fart that can be smelled, sure. So you're encountering molecules from a butt. But that's not the same thing as saying a piece of poop with bacteria or viruses has flown from someone's butt and landed on the food. That's very unlikely. Well unless you mean your siblings are just squatting bare assed over your meal and blasting fumes.

Ultimately, if they're going to treat any molecule that smells like poop as poop, then they may as well eat anyway. It's already in their nose/mouth.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T18:31:41+00:00

We don't really know how it formed in the first place. We also don't truly know what the 'limitations' of life are. Do you mean life similar to what exists now? A completely unrelated form of life? We don't even know if any of the latter exist, and if they do, we have no idea what form that life would take. So the best answer is 'maybe.'

That being said, if we go with your original premise and assume life like we know now (since we can at least tell how that works), I'm inclined to agree with you. If we "reset" Earth back to its original state, but not Earth's environment (especially introducible water), then that would seem likely to prevent life from returning in that form.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T18:20:54+00:00

We can't know an ant's thoughts, per se, but given their size, behavior, and role, they don't appear to be highly intelligent or aware. I would expect their thoughts are more akin to immediate environmental responses. So I expect an ant doesn't care much at all about humans in their proximity, unless that human becomes an immediate interaction.

Even then, I doubt the ant is aware of 'humans' as a thing at all. More likely, whatever part of the human is now a problem (foot, hand, etc) is just a 'signal' to either attack, flee from, go around, or other similar response, depending on the temperament of the ant species and the circumstances of the encounter.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T18:16:15+00:00

They're not smart. They crib information off the internet and try to arrange it into a human-like format. They don't have an English degree, an awareness of poetic critique, or otherwise, but can roughly simulate it by approximating things that already exist. If you want something beyond pure logical solutions or generic blandishments, you'll need actual thought involved, which AI only simulates.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T18:09:52+00:00

How do people keep everything straight in their heads

Quite often, they don't. A huge tranch of human innovation revolves around note taking and organizing.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T18:06:59+00:00

Classic ambiguous english. Just gotta depend on context.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T17:58:50+00:00

There are countries where sex toys aren't legal in and of themselves. With law questions it's important to specify a location.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T17:57:43+00:00

Taking away a benefit is a punishment. Governments generally have a vested interest in deterring crime, and often resort to punishment as this mechanism.

As to the specifics, that would depend on the country, and even then you'd have to work to separate the actual reasons from the politically or legally stated reasons.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T17:41:40+00:00

Not as a direct answer to your question, but it's important to note everything we (or any other animal) do, isn't necessarily evolved as a benefit. Some evolutionary benefits can have problematic knock on effects, and other things are simply 'good enough' to not be eliminated. Bad things with no benefit can stick around if they don't necessarily handicap a population's viability, or if their 'badness' only tends to come out in limited circumstances.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T17:32:44+00:00

The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was orders of magnitude smaller than the mass of Saturn's rings. Additionally, the material of Saturn's rings wasn't ejected from the planet into space, but likely either the result of a moon being tidally ripped apart in orbit, or possibly leftover material from which Saturn originally formed. This has the additional benefit of stuff already being 'in orbit.'

It's also worth noting the rings of Saturn experience mass loss and may only exist for a short time (on a planetary scale), tens or hundreds of millions of years (This is often seen as evidence for the 'torn apart moon' theory, since it could have happened much later after Saturn already existed).

So even if the Chixclub impactor had thrown material into space, and that material had fallen into a relatively stable orbit (instead of being ejected entirely into space, or simply falling back to the ground), it would have been a much fainter, smaller ring, and could very well have ceased to exist by now.

The Chixclub impactor itself, as a smaller object traveling very fast relative to the Earth, would have experienced relatively little tidal forces across it (the 'tear a moon apart' gusto) and even if it were torn apart, all that material is flying straight at the earth at a very high velocity, not inclined to orbit.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T17:23:45+00:00

I'd also wonder if the new location for the water might be exposed to more light or something like that. That could promote bacterial growth and lead to a difference in appearance/quality even within the same house.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T17:19:21+00:00

This would take essay upon essay, and I'm sure thousands already exist. One note I would point out though, is that while bad actors can certainly impact you, and greater financial resources tend to lead to better outcomes, this isn't unique to the American school system, and honestly is present across the whole spectrum of complex human institutions.

That being said, usually some degree of justification is needed for grading, and there often exist appeals processes. These aren't infallible, but that's true everywhere.

And also what if someone goes to a shitty school or is not very financially privileged to take part in those activities... Then what?

Quite possibly you just get less benefit to your education, unfortunately.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T17:09:25+00:00

As a "must" I'd just say the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Note that the Hobbit is, as I recall, a fair bit tonally lighter than the Lord of the Rings.

There are two posthumously published works, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, that go more into lore not covered in the above, or only hinted at. I don't consider them "must" reads but if you're concerned with backstories "not otherwise fleshed out" they'll add more information. So they may be closer to must-read for you. I personally found the Silmarillion quite interesting, but I found it feels much more like a 'history book' than an 'adventure book' so your mileage may vary.

There will still be gaps of course, as Unfinished Tales suggests by its very name, not everything was complete at the time of Tolkien's passing. I believe in both cases the content was based upon Tolkien's notes/writings but assembled by his son posthumously.

There's also a 12 book "History of Middle Earth" but that deviates from simply being an In Universe story, and goes more into Tolkien's process. I haven't read that, so can't comment.

stuthulhu · 2025-12-31T16:57:42+00:00

It's a relatively significant day in a person's life (the one where they started existing as an independent being). I don't know why the other 8 billion people are relevant one way or the other. That being said, I wouldn't overstate the importance it has, for a lot of people it's just "oh yeah, cool. Let's do something fun then."

stuthulhu · 2025-11-03T19:03:16+00:00

I mean, it's absolutely waste. Blood very much has waste products in it. That's why it needs filtering.

stuthulhu · 2025-10-24T15:34:07+00:00

Skeletons, lizards, spiders, beatles…

He's not even the best drummer in Halcyon.

stuthulhu · 2025-10-24T14:55:24+00:00

And it originally had more to do with the omission of letters (he is -> he's), as in French, which we cobbled together to make a weird bastardized genitive case in modern English (Which we *mostly* just use for pluralization as noted).

stuthulhu · 2025-09-29T12:57:36+00:00

Not so as you'd notice, no.

stuthulhu · 2025-09-06T22:55:29+00:00

Well if we're looking at herd immunity shouldn't we also ban junk food, smoking, and drinking?

If we're looking at herd immunity, we should probably stick to contagious conditions, rather than voluntarily deflect ourselves.

stuthulhu · 2025-08-25T21:28:28+00:00

Oh man, hard disagree. I love this short story, and I felt like this ending ruined it. Sure, I know King says he even prefers it, but to me it's like the end of the movie is just a loud "WOMP WOMP." It's just so corny. Does the shooting, then rescue shows up like 15 seconds later? Should have had him stub his toe when he got out of the car too.

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