What truly are humanity’s energy needs, though?

Do we need Facebook? Do we need Instagram? Do we need deepfakes and AI music?

This cuts to the heart of it for me. I will not install Meta or LinkedIn apps on my phone because they have been found to be very intrusive.

This is a problem I have yet to see schools tackle. A kid in junior high school has no mental context for the Russian Revolution of 1917, for instance. Having them read Animal Farm is a pointless waste of time.

Poor choice. Animal Farm is way, way more than an allegory of one historical event. It's a broadbrush statement on the kind of people likely to seize power at every opportunity (or if you prefer, the effect unrestrained power has on most people), and a humorous jab at authoritarianism.

The other books mentioned (Gatsby et al.) really require context, but literal pigs sitting down to dinner with powerbrokers is something a 14yo can grasp.

Reading allegory is the way start building mental context.

I read Animal Farm in 9th grade and it had a profound impact me. Hmmm is that you Napoleon?

Same with things like (picking at random) The Great Gatsby and a lot of literature having to do with adult relationships and romance. How on earth is a 16-year-old in 2025 going to understand what's happening in Gatsby? I read it, wrote some papers and got As on them, but didn't really make sense of it at the time.

In addition to being a short classic, I think teens could identify with Gatsby being obsessed with getting the approval of people who have nothing but contempt for him. There's a devastating scene at the end where the narrator, Nick Carraway, organizes a funeral for Gatsby and literally none of his friends show up. I think that might resonate deeply for more than a few teen readers.

The Great Gatsby is an Americanized version of a Greek tragedy, I don't think it's too hard for a 16 year old to understand. It's no "Rabbit, Run", at least.

That's more a commentary on 2025 than 16 year olds I assure you. In the 90s adult relationships weren't particularly mysterious to your average 16 year old.

…or so the 16-year old still thought.

I mean you leave with whatever take suits you but don't expect buyin for some revisionist narrative that casts 90s era 16 year olds as infantilized incompetents. I'd like to point out that the majority of kids that age at that time had cars, jobs to support said, and relationships of their own of varying levels of "adult"-ness.

I was a 16 year old in the 1990s and it was mysterious to me.

So you were born circa 1979?

Close, you're late by 4 years.

This and the other accounts critical of COP30 were created very recently. The one above you, 3 hours ago.

Interesting.

Or perhaps anything left of fascist evil is considered controversial?

We can each play this game.

Progressives identify as such. “Fascist” is thrown around as an epithet to dehumanize people who you disagree with, to justify murdering them in cold blood or motivating others to do it for you. It’s not really comparable.

It's interesting that they call out NVIDIA specifically as an enabler. MAGA going to war against NVIDIA now?

That's an odd, fundamentally disconnected mechanism that, I think, would have devastating impacts for Main St.

and it does, and has for many decades. This dual mandate makes little sense in practice

The dual mandate makes plenty of sense when you realize that the Fed and monetary policy aren't intended to be the whole of economic policy, and that the actual main piece of economic policy is with Congress and fiscal policy.

I assure you that the fantasy of this being a band-aid rip-off moment will turn sour when the sore becomes infected and you're living through a depression.

dei.gov redirects to waste.gov. It's a PHP site with only a password entry form.

WordPress nevertheless.

whitehouse.gov is also WordPress

I watched that last year. It's very interesting research and seems effective not just for Alzheimers but for treatment of addiction as well. I'm seriously counting on this treatment for any family members who may end up being diagnosed with it later in life.