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Daily Alchemy: a question to think on together
“When does adding new history to a place or museum feel like discovery, and when does it feel like a fight?”
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The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, probably via use of the word "optics" ;)
I've been reading the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (abridged*, of course, at least to start with!). New to the topic, and I’ve never identified as a history buff, but I’m really loving it.... - Editec...
Imagine fighting a war to liberate yourself from slavery only to find that you are expected to pay your former owners for your freedom Perhaps FRANCE needs to return all the REPARATIONS money Haiti had to pay them for over a Century.... - annabeth...
Could it be ethically ok to not vote?
note: I posted this two hours before Biden stepped down. It’s possible that a different Dem candidate could change my choices, but my overall perspective feels the same.... - annabeth...
There are a few ways I’m orienting to this. For a long time I listened to NPR every day and got huge emotional surges around every new piece of political info. For the past 5-7 years I am either in a correction or overcorrection.... Yeah I think my favorite way of framing "governance" is the social meta structure we use to solve coordination problems. I think the most basic use case is outsourcing violence so that we don't have to really think about it on the object level any more.... Safety is what is motivating me to think about this. My most visceral touch point for it is my daughter, but I have SO many black and brown family and friends, not to mention that all this shit is terrifying for anyone.... - [deleted]...
Culture shocks while visiting Kathmandu, Nepal
I'm here for Harris' friend's wedding, and the country is way poorer than I realized. GDP per capita is just under $1400 (in 2023), 2022's HDI is ~.6 (medium human development), both of which are apparently among the lowest in South Asia. The roads are crazy!... MKULTRA Secrets Surface in Congress as Lawmaker Demands Full Files
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna chaired a House hearing on June 30 2026 focused on the CIA mind control program known as MKULTRA. She stated after the session that expert witnesses described Jack Ruby and Charles Manson as MKULTRA assets.... - JustJacki...
Absolute Power and its Relationship to Corruption
I love today's alchemy post: “When a leader profits hugely while in power, what would actually change your mind about whether that is a problem?” We're supposed to think on this together. My gut reaction is it would depend entirely on how that politician made that huge profit.... Why Old CIA Documents Still Matter In The Age Of AI And Brain Scans
MK Ultra was not the only project. Earlier work under names like MK Delta focused on chemicals and drugs for secret operations. When MK Ultra took over, it kept using a lot of the same chemicals and ideas. The work did not stop.... I’m coming back to this after tonight’s Monday, thinking about how this powerful realization is half of the story-I don’t have to do any particular thing, but I don’t get to avoid the consequences of that.... Yeah, I’m with you. Although… I think the man and woman genders will always have the specialness of being the OG genders, with a giant history and biological impact, and we shouldn’t ignore or deconstruct this away, while still honoring and including all the genders as equal... in terms of leaning into disagreement—the secret service fucked up, but whether or not someone should be fired is super context dependent. I’m reminded of this classic story of the salesman who lost a million dollar deal at IBM, trying to resign, and his boss saying "Why would I... - Wirvine...
I think there has been a steady increase in executive power, since at least FDR, but likely stemming from the wartime powers Lincoln used and the subsequent reconcstruction presidents who were the first to deal with a lot of issues that would reoccur after them (Industrial... Global Warming as a natural phenomenon
I grew up in West Texas with a geologist Dad who supported our family with a career in the oil industry. This has always led to some dissonance for me re: global warming and environmental stakes generally.... Experiment: How is whatever's happening serving the greater good?
If we zoom out long enough, we can often see that massive setbacks created foundations for evolution. Eg: The great oxygenation wiped out almost all life on Earth, but also created the atmosphere....