That’s definitely part of it, but I think the main issue is that a lot of the new tech in the last 20 years was used to further the far right (e.g. Facebook, Google) and erode civil rights in general (e.g. privacy, right to repair), on top of constant enshittification and ever-shrinking longevity of devices.

I think that depends a lot on the specific addictions and which circumstances make you want to give into it more. e.g. physical addictions like to highly addictive drugs are typically harder to moderate that non-physical addictions.

New technology kind of stopped being exciting for me. Too much abuse, and even stuff that’s hard to abuse (like new medical treatments) typically takes several decades before it’s available for end users and even then is usually out of reach financially for most people.

I really don’t want to use voice chat when I’m talking to random people, I’m already not using any chat features. I’d rather use a different platform/software if it comes up at one point (e.g. for stuff like coordinating between mods); I generally prefer it when software keeps its scope small.

Weirdly, as a non-native speaker I find UK headlines even harder to read.

I can teach you about homo things, too ; )

Maybe they got in trouble too many times for not doing it exactly as instructed, even if the instruction is obviously bullshit in some ways?

Making constructive, non-adhominem critique, and accepting such critique. Maybe calm debate/discussion in general.

I got into the unfortunate habit of clicking away my timer without actually getting up to do whatever it was supposed to be reminding me of. Always telling myself that I’ll just finish whatever I was doing right then.

You don’t need a popular election to elect a state figurehead, Germany just has it done by existing parliaments. And figureheads who aren’t monarchs don’t usually have vast landholdings like most monarchs do.

Influencing their subjects (especially other aristocrats) through their economic power was always important for monarchs, though. The medieval period had lots of weak kings who had substantial trouble bringing the aristocrats under them in line, a lot of the time they weren’t even able to collect taxes at the kingdom-level (you kind of need a money-based economy for that, and civil servants were in very short supply in the middleages).

Still not convinced that the tourists wouldn’t come anymore if you depower the monarchs and keep the palaces etc. as state-owned tourist attractions, TBH.

You really think the tourists would stop looking at British castles etc. if the UK became a republic?

Which king?

it’s a cheap, simple concession

Depends. AFAIK the English monarchy is fairly expensive.

LA also just doesn’t seem like a particularly safe place in general (though IDK how much that spills out from the real ‘problem’ districts into the kinds of places that OP would be at).

A lot of the time, “dark age” pretty much literally just means that we don’t have much information (i.e. because they didn’t write).

Which city in which country? TBH I’d be wary about being openly GNC anywhere in the USA right now, but even there there are degrees to this.

Sort of related, I’ve been reading a series of blog posts about ancient Rome and Greece. Super interesting stuff, and it happened so long ago! At the same time, the ancient romans and especially greeks were slavers (Sparta was literally 85% slaves, Rome was comparably egalitarian with just 15%) and were really into the “glory” of battle, which was often really bloody especially for the Romans (in other places/other time periods, battle seems to have had surprisingly low lethality).

If you’re interested, the series on Sparta is a pretty neat (and horrifying) introduction for that blog: https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/ The blog author is a college teacher who is specialized on antiquity, btw.

And the sales!