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I don’t have trouble explaining. I keep it high level and generic because 99 times out of 100, people are just making small talk and want to know just enough about you to categorize you.

I like the various mythologies for psychopomps; Anubis, Charon, grim reapers, Azrael, Vanth, valkyries, etc.

Figure out how to make and keep friends. It only gets more difficult as people are out of school, have their own families, have less time for short-notice adventures, etc.

At the same time, figure out what you want in a friend that is worth investing in to you. Not every friend is worth keeping as we all naturally grow in different directions.

Same. I have very cautiously taken some recommendations from my brother and liked them. But for every one I liked, there were 100 I didn’t and the online weirdos who got way too intense about them.

State College in the late 00s. For sure we stayed up late, solving the world’s problems (theoretically) as only young, not-yet-jaded people can. There were also people who couldn’t go three days without getting blackout drunk and I tended not to be good friends with them due to lack of common interests.

I also didn’t meet a single Jewish person until after I graduated college, there just isn’t much of a Jewish population where I grew up, so I’m deeply skeptical of that theory.

You’ve expressed no reason to change, so yes, stay the same until there’s a reason to spend millions of dollars and upend established systems.

Because I don’t see a reason to change. And changing would cost a lot of money and effort and impact. You’re the one proposing a change - why?

No. Why should we?

Found within my own home/possessions, a jolly rancher hard candy.

Out in the wild, a geocache. I go searching for them intentionally on occasion, but I also just spot one while I’m not looking and those are my fave. Especially the really tiny ones, “oh, that bolt on that stop sign looks a little weird. Hey, it’s a nano cache!”

I also go hiking a lot and it’s always fun finding plants I have high confidence that they are edible. I cooked up quite a bit of wild fern this spring, now it’s berries and mushrooms.

I’m pretty darn explicit when I invite a person over to help with beer what it will entail; lots of cleaning, wear comfy clothes that can get wet and dirty, there will be heat and weird smells, and a small amount of physical labor. Still want to come? Cool. If not? Swing by in 4-6 weeks to enjoy a beer with me after it’s fermented and carbonated.

And I never invite more than one, maybe two people. Anymore than that and folks are just standing around, unable to participate. If you have a genuine interest in teaching on your end, and a genuine interest to learn from a friend or two, I would recommend changing your approach to how you plan these events and try again. It sounds fun but one-teaching-a-group sounds like very challenging logistics.

And/or the socialization. Maybe the intention to listen and learn was there, but overcome by the excitement of socializing with friendly people.

I throw them in a box and never use them again. My USB cable box is a rats nest of at least a hundred cables. Why? Because I might need them some day. Even those stupid mini-Bs and UC-E6 for cameras that broke a decade ago. No labels necessary, just procrastination.

If a friend invited me over and they launched into an unsolicited cooking lesson, I would think they are a pretentious twat, lol. There’s always context of course, but I’m not looking for friends who push their knowledge on me without my invitation.

Mutual interests, or expressed interest to learn more in either direction, groovy. One way info dumping, nope.

Listen I brew beer. It can get kinda repetitive and boring. Sometimes I invite friends over to keep me company and I don’t lecture on sanitization and chemistry because that’s not what they came for. The occasional friend does want to learn about brewing, they express that wish, and then I explain some things to them. Some friendships are good for the former, some for the latter, and it’s on you to navigate which is which.

That is one of the many hypotheses that tries to resolve the Paradox. Everything everyone has replied to me with so far is part of one existing hypothesis or another. Like I said, it’s a good read.

Are you familiar with Fermi’s Paradox? Great Wikipedia rabbit hole to fall down whenever I can’t sleep.

I think today I like the zoo / star trek hypothesis. There’s advanced aliens out there. They know about us. They are choosing not to interfere. At least not until we reach some technological milestone that may still be beyond our current comprehension.

I’m not entirely sold on the argument I lay out here, but this is where I would start were I to defend using chatGPT in school as they laid out in their experiment.

It’s a tool. Just like a calculator. If a kid learns and does all their homework with a calculator, then suddenly it’s taken away for a test, of course they will do poorly. Contrary to what we were warned about as kids though, each of us does carry a calculator around in our pocket at nearly all times.

We’re not far off from having an AI assistant with us 24/7 is feasible. Why not teach kids to use the tools they will have in their pocket for the rest of their lives?

So that others don’t have to? Can you elaborate on that?

Like, I don’t subscribe to any replacement theory, not to keep social security/economy afloat, not to keep any particular race dominant over others, not so humans maintain mastery of earth and nature, nothing. I am not sure why my not having children would drive someone else to have kids. They could just… only have the kids they want and not weigh my lack-of-kids into their equation.

Booooooring. You’re supposed to get frothing mad at each other so your hate-filled comments can be screenshotted and shared over and over to be mocked.

Yeah, except I could see a group of single gender drawing attention. All women? Draws in men looking for a shot. All men? Draws in men looking to roll. Mixed? Looks more like people who just wandered down the wrong street and will be gone soon enough.

24 is a lot of people, but it’s the likelihood of mixed gender that made me pick the option.