“Luck” meaning, having a lucky mutation that’s beneficial to reproducing in the current ecosystem.

In Echopraxia, the transhuman pilot repeatedly calls the old guy a “roach”.

“I’ve told you before, Daniel: roach isn’t an insult. We’re the ones still standing after the mammals build their nukes, we’re the ones with the stripped-down OS’s so damned simple they work under almost any circumstances. We’re the goddamned Kalashnikovs of thinking meat.”

― Peter Watts, Echopraxia

And one of my favorite Heinlein quotes:

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

― Robert A. Heinlein

No way we colonize space or smaller rocks until we invent artificial gravity, which I don’t think is possible. Even spin “gravity” comes with a nauseous Coriolis force unless the station is huge and you’re on the outer edges.

Luna is a death trap, no magnetosphere, radiation soaked, and the fine dust would make asbestos look like lung candy.

Much the same for Mars. No radiation protection, fine dust clogging everything.

All agreed! At 52 I considered a relationship with a 26-yo friend. If she didn’t have 3 tiny children, maybe? But no, just couldn’t see it working. I’d be 80 and her at 54? I’d be robbing her of her youth when she could have had a younger man to share that life with.

Funny enough, my Filipino wife is 6-months older than I, and she was fucking horrified to learn that. Her friends are all married to white dudes 20+ years older. Cultural thing. :)

Easy. Sell a gun on FB Marketplace for a ridiculously low asking price. It would sell faster than I would be banned.

LOL, he’s too dumb to understand he’s being played. I was shocked when he spoke against Putin playing him! Someone must have whispered in his ear.

Disgusted as I am, and wishing the international community would make us Americans pariahs, that just doesn’t play. More than ever, we’re economically dependent on each other. A foreign government can’t simply tell the largest economic engine on Earth to fuck off.

Once our eventual fall from economic grace gets bad enough, alliances realign, then they can tell us to fuck off, not before then. It’s just history man!

Meh, I won’t put strict age limits on sex. Relationships? I can guess what would and wouldn’t work for me, but the world is a big place and people are wildly variable.

Only saying, we had far more in common than I had thought. I was replying to someone who said winter/spring relationships are only about physical attraction.

Agreed! But we had solid conversations, deep and involved. I was astonished at how mature and educated they were, forgot what I was like at that age.

I’ve found papers I wrote for school in my teens, thought, “Oh boy, this is gonna be some bullshit.” Read them and was surprised at my understanding of the world!

Guess my point is, I will never undersell the youth, not ever again. Dating someone half my age, meh, can’t really see it, but I do see it as possible for some.

Actually, that comes at 30.

Funny enough, it was an agricultural class where the utility of the quadratic equation hit me. Professor didn’t even call it that, but we used it to calculate maximum efficiency in fertilizer spread.

Neat! Never seen one around salt water, but we do have an army of pelicans that hang right at the fisherman’s feet. Filthy beggars. :)

We had a monster blue heron break out of the trees and across our canoe path in the swamp. H U G E

No shit. Been saying for years that he’s as easily manipulated as a toddler, and I mean that literally, not even as an insult. Best part? He’s too dumb to ever know when he’s getting played.

Nah, I figure I’d go for 20 years. 4 years isn’t going to make meaningful change.

You guys think I’m just some untouchable peasant? Serf? Peon? Well, maybe so. But following a broom around after shitheads like you for the last 8 years, I’ve learned a couple of things. I look through your letters. I look through your lockers. I listen to your conversations, you don’t know that but I do. I am the eyes and ears of this institution, my friends.

I’m 54 and most of the people I know are in their early 20s. We get along great and have plenty to talk about.

Seems you’re correct. So how are poppy seeds so common if they’re Papaver somniferum? Weird.

Mother was a narcissist, not on Trump’s level, but I’ve never known another person so eat up with NPD. Impossible to overstate that these people cannot understand personal responsibility for their actions. Their failures are always someones else’s failures. They cannot fail.

I was well into my 40s before it occurred to me, mother never once admitted fault or said she was sorry. Sure, some people act like that, sometimes, but you can tell they have a sense of guilt, a sense of wrongdoing. Sure, we’ve all know people who misdirect blame. A true narcissist cannot feel those emotions, cannot be wrong.

Telling a lie is a falsehood you know is false. Trump has never lied. He believes every word that has ever come out of his mouth. It tears my brain apart every time he’s accused of lying or bending the truth. Anyone having a hard time with the notion I just described is suffering cognitive dissonance. Have fun with that, he can’t feel it. You can because you’re sane.

Trump isn’t playing games. He isn’t a tactical or strategic genius. He’s simply a wealthy narcissist who struck political gold. He got dumb luck, like some of us do, and ran with it.

LOL, yeah! That’s exactly what happened. He wouldn’t have personally ordered it, but he the buck stops at the Oval Office.