No, I'm not crazy. Hear me out.

I just published a new issue of For The Learn about apocalypses after being inspired by the podcast and book by Dan Carlin (of Hardcode History fame) and then I started seeing apocalypses everywhere in both daily and historic life, even as recently as two years ago.

Carlin's book, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misseswas a great read, covering relatively “bloodless” apocalypses of empires from Assyrian to Roman to the very “bloody” incredible Black Plague that killed 60% of Europe's population. One of the key points that Carlin makes in his book is that what history views as an “apocalypse” may have been more like a transition to a new dynamic. He points out that although the people who experienced the “transition” probably viewed like an apocalypical disaster, after reading it I started noticing the many transitions (violent or peaceful) in other books I was reading.

Anyways, if writing that connects distant topics into a common thread interests you check it out the latest issue of my occasional email and RSS newsletter over at For The Learn, titled The Past, Present, and Future Apocalypse. Every issue includes a “Links of Interest” section of currated books, podcasts, videos and articles which functions like that “Suggested Videos” wormhole section of YouTube that you find yourself falling into. 😜

Issue #3: The Past, Present, and Future Apocalypse

What comes to mind when you picture the Apocalypse? A lifeless, irradiated planet? The end of times from religious texts? What did our ancestors imagine and experience? What about our future selves or our descendants?

#crosspromotion #connectingideas #history #futurism #politics #religion

Scott Feeney on his blog post, “Four Twitter Features Mastodon Is Better For Not Having” points out several negative aspects of Twitter's design that the Twitter-like Mastodon does not have:

If you’ve gotten in an intense argument on Twitter, you might dread this “So-and-so liked 10 Tweets you’re mentioned in” notification. It tends to mean someone went through and gave kudos to every person arguing with and insulting you. It’s stressful to be pinged over and over with this—which is exactly why we’re all tempted to do this to people we think crossed a line. In doing so, we, again, increase the reach of content we dislike.

The other features he mentions are quite refreshing too.

Also, as of today Mastodon has over 1 million active users! 👀

Eugen 💀 (@Gargron@mastodon.social)

Hey, so, we’ve hit 1,028,362 monthly active users across the network today. 1,124 new Mastodon servers since Oct 27, and 489,003 new users. That’s pretty cool.

#technology #internetculture #crosspromotion #opinion #howto