Our cells continue to make copies all the time. Whenever a copy has a problem - a mutation - then the cell usually kills itself. Sometimes it doesn't and the mutation lives on. Some of these aren't a problem but some are. For instance, cells can grow too quickly while being mutated and that's called cancer.

Getting old is basically our body not being good at copying cells anymore where a lot more errors are introduced to the point where our body eventually shuts down. This isn't a bad ELI5 of aging.

We're not good at solving the problem though. There's some research in stem cells but that might be more like applying duct tape to torn clothes rather than making clothes repair themselves or last longer.

Think of it as making a copy of a copy. We can create printers that last longer (healthy diet, etc) but in the long run, it's still a machine and machines break.

There is another special type of cell that's required for life: neurons. Unlike other cells, neurons don't divide. So right before you're born, you have the most neurons you'll ever have in your life and you'll continue to lose them as you age. Again, stem cells could help here via transplants which is an artificial solution at best.

> You impersonate a government official, get arrested

This is the key part of it. You can impersonate a government official just fine if it's clear that it's satire. I'm sure you've heard of SNL or Chappelle Show as examples of popular shows in recent history that impersonate government officials.

If you're arrested for satire then acquittal doesn't matter because your rights were violated and you should sue since satire is protected speech.

We used to have 6 work days and this hasn't happened yet. So there's little reason to think it would now.

What's worse is that unlike back then, quite a few white collar jobs feel like they're not just 7 day jobs but on-call 24/7 jobs.

Gas stations.

From the article:

> > The defense secretary, Luís Cresencio Sandoval, told reporters that Guzmán had been transferred to the Mexican capital after his capture by members of the army and national guard.

Fed explicitly said they are going to raise rates.

Yes but for the US that's just a Tuesday. If you mean Nice, France shooting then are you referring to the 2016 [incident]? Do you know how many shootings of the same caliber (pun intended) have happened in the US in Florida alone and just this year?

Here's school shootings alone.

What do you get excited and passionate about? I could try to explain from there.

Yes it's a joke. The joke is that in 1442, Christians were hanging people and witchcraft hunts were going to begin soon (i.e. ignorance, despair, and cruelty ruled). Same thing the Middle Eastern countries are doing now in their year 1442.

Oh sorry, I was focused on the "Iran was fine" bit that you started with. Iran was not fine (as far as being free). Iran had a dictator - an unelected king (aka Shah) at the time. Mohammad Mosaddegh was just the prime minister. The Shah was still in charge of Iran and personally appointed those who elected prime ministers.

CIA simply removed the Prime Minister.

I've seen photos of Iran and it was gorgeous. China is also beautiful. So is Jordan and Egypt. It depends on where you look specifically considering vast majority of the planet is poor - including Iran even back then. Gorgeous architecture and a reasonably well-dressed population doesn't mean what I said didn't happen. More info...

I'm certainly not defending the current crop of religious wingnuts ruling the country with an iron fist but they simply replaced an unelected dictator which goes back to a long line of other unelected dictators going back to the BC era.

Iran's Shah also tortured and executed rioters. Something about being a totalitarian government - whether ruled by religious nuts or monarchy - is the common theme here. Heck, democracies do this too if you've seen recent news. This is just headlines that hope to inspire people to overthrow the current wave of dictators and maybe open up Iran to a better form of government.

Because in Islamic calendar, it's the year 1442. They're doing the same thing Christians were doing in 1442.

Here's the issue. Before when a party lost, they took a hard look at themselves and wondered where they went wrong to persuade the population and then adapted their views to be better in line with the population. This is while also trying to obviously sway their views to the original idea, otherwise the party will lose coherence over time and perhaps merge with the other party.

But what's been happening is... lack of acknowledgement of mistakes. Not that mistakes weren't made - they were - but the idea of making a mistake, i.e. making an error... is somehow a grave sin. That they're somehow mere mortals now instead of divinely anointed representatives who are incapable of making mistakes.

This makes sense too, since they tend to court the religious group and if you say the infallible God speaks through you then how are you able to make mistakes without undermining your entire message? Not only are mistakes not allowed but no change in policy is also allowed otherwise it, again, undermines the entire message. This is particularly true when that's a central message that you've been running for decades. A core component of your party are people who believe this for literally generations now. They support you not only in votes but fundraising as well. You cannot lose those people even though their numbers are dwindling due to age and growing irreligiosity of the subsequent generations.

So whether or not you believe it, you are required to never change. Since the population is leaving you behind and your views become outdated where a shrinking fridge of the population has your support, what can you do? Seems like you have only two options:

• bite the bullet and change, or
• destroy entire voting blocks to make sure that your hardcore supporters vote and everyone else has a hard time

The problem is that the definition of conservatism is preservation of the status quo. There's no problem with this - a car requires both a gas and a brake pedal to function best. The problem is that Republicans have stopped being a brake. They slammed on the emergency brake and want to reverse. They froze the progress of the United States at a particular time - somewhere around 1950s (but with 2020s economics and affordability measures) - and want to go back to that time. That's not conservatism. After all, conservatives should slow down progress until enough of the population has adopted the new norms. Case in point: romantic love was a liberal idea that's widely adopted and even championed by conservatives. Same with interfaith and interracial marriage, not to mention divorce (ignore the very fridge but very loud mouth breathers). This is fine - this is conservatism. You rail against progress but when the tide turns, you adopt it. As a result, conservatives should - and I'd say must - adopt the new norms which includes not only abortion (which they mostly do with primarily the Evangelicals causing problems since even majority of Catholics approve of abortion) and they also should be adopting new norms like gay marriage as well. This is what conservatism is. You fight against liberals changing the status quo (since not all of it is good) but once it's become widely adopted (and abortion and gay marriage are now widely accepted) then they should change their stance.

What's holding them back? The Evangelicals that they've been courting for decades. Kissing up to the religious right is what's holding the party together.

This also explains why they're so ready to pounce to any other source of revenue, such as big business and even foreign interests. It's because members of the Happy Clappy can only make you so much money, particularly when the generations are literally dying off and the young mostly scoff at your ideas.

There is a way out but it'll be messy. There is a growing divide among the religious conservatives and that wedge is environmentalism. I.e. a growing number believe that God has given them stewardship over the Earth so they must protect it. This means splintering off, fighting big business, and adopting more liberal ideas on the fiscal front with large investments into new technologies. This should cause a rift wide enough to break the religious right in half which would allow the Republicans to change the platform to something people would actually vote for. At least that's my hope. I'm not holding my breath. I think there's a higher probability that we'll have an actual left-wing party in the US. Not Democrats since they're center-right but actual left-wing politicians. Whatever change we'll have, it'll be messy but it'll be quick. The failure of the Tea Party (and the current crumbling of the Trumpists back into the GOP) has clearly shown that the US favors only two main parties.

We'll see what happens but those who want fewer people to vote certainly stand against American core principles.

I don't think hate of that caliber is rational so there is no understanding those people. That goes for hatred of any ethnic groups in general.

Hmm yes I wonder how many wind turbines we could have built instead of helping families. Or how many solar panels we could have built instead of military aid being sent to a country being invaded by our opponents. I kind of agree more with you on the CHIPS act though a lot of our shortages are due to a semiconductor shortage. I.e. by shifting the silicon chip production more to the US, it'll reduce these shortages which result in higher inventory, decreased prices, and therefore lower inflation. ... but I digress.

How about we cut the military by, say, 10% to fund it all. Maybe 20%? How about pre-two-wars-at-the-same-time and hey, I'll give and unlike the Federal minimum wage, let's do inflation adjustments. So the US military budget in 2000 - before the wars - was about $300b. With inflation, that's $525b. You know what, we could have some legacy costs after the wars - paying for all those injured veterans and all - so let's round it up to $600b.

So that's a cut of $150b or 20%.

Now... how many wind turbines, solar panels, and tidal power generation could we build with this $150b. And that's every year, mind you.

> No one reads books anymore anyway so who cares.

Please don't mistake yourself with everyone else.

People continue to read books and, if anything, book readership has slightly gone up during the pandemic since other entertainment options have become unavailable.

What HAS changed is that more people are reading digital books than printed ones and more people are listening to audio books. This speaks volumes that people desire books in general but want that portability and accessibility. Penguin House and other publishers moved into that sphere as well and provide that service.

That said, I don't think they should merge. Anytime you have mega corporations merging, it's usually bad for the customer.

Obviously see your doctor but some things that helped me:

• sleep upright or at least elevate your head. I had an awful cough while I was lying in bed recovery and I just saw up and it went away.
• there is a pill - forgot the name of it - but it basically short-circuits your throat where you don't have these chain coughs. It's a clear yellow gel pill and used in pneumonia-related situations so I'd ask the doctor if it's a recurring problem.
• not terribly obvious but take allergy medication. Coughing often results from mucus draining down into your throat. Allergy meds often dry up the mucus in your nose. No mucus draining, no coughing.
• try those throat sprays but this depends. You need to literally spray the throat but if everything is swollen then you'll just numb your tongue instead.
• there are cough drops that include a numbing agent but, again, will mostly numb your tongue. I've had better luck with Theraflu.
• wash your sheets and open your windows. You coughing might be worse if you're re-breathing some nasty stuff. If you haven't dusted in a while, put a mask on, dust, then keep the windows open for at least a few hours and let it vent out. If you're sick, you should be washing your sheets at least once a week, more if you're also sweating. This includes pillow cases and change your pillow if it's old.
• this might also be harder to do depending on how sick you are but go outside for a long walk and go to a park or some place with fresh air (i.e. not downtown or a subway). Take long deep breaths and yeah, you'll cough but keep going.
• you can also gargle with salt water if you also have tonsil-related issues
• take a hot shower and take in deep breaths, it'll break up some of the crap you have there
• if you cough and it's dry then that's one thing but if it's wet (i.e. you have wet crap in your throat) then don't swallow it back but spit it out. If it's yellow or green then your body is fighting an infection and just spit that shit out.

Lastly, as in anything, take a break, try to reduce stress, take some days off, stop watching anything stressful (ex: scary movies or tough video games), maybe even get off of social media.

The problem with this type of thinking is simply ignorance. Ignorance as in "you don't know". Case in point, a century ago (and older), children were dying left and right of various diseases. Most of them are now mostly gone because of the early vaccinations that everyone gets. In countries where this doesn't happen, those kids still die.

Now say you grew up in a country like that. Everyone has mandatory vaccinations from young age and are protected from things that used to kill a good chunk of the population. You grow up with this ignorance of an otherwise mass death of children that used to happen all over the world for centuries. You grow up and don't see this death, you're ignorant of it and you're full of these vaccines that you received as a child.

So why wouldn't your ignorant self say vaccines don't do anything. After all, you don't see anyone dying. You spout nonsense like vaccines do shit.

Now let's say people take you seriously and stop vaccinating children. Magically these diseases come back because they don't care that you're ignorant, they only want to infect and spread to everyone else. Mass deaths begin again.

Then another cycle starts where vaccinations are reintroduced and, once again, a new crop of ignorant people comes up.

You're basically the animal on the right. Problem is that if someone takes you seriously then people are going to have to die before you realize your mistake.