I look into this every few years and have yet to see any evidence of it. Even the scale alone means any of them would have to be orders of magnitude worse than high fructose corn syrup or sucrose to be worrying, since they’re multiple orders of magnitude sweeter.
For a comparable level of sweetness to HFCS, a serving of artificial sweeteners is a fraction of their Acceptable Daily Intake.
There’s quite a few caffeine free, sugar free sodas, at least in the states. Taste is subjective tho
Kinda depends on what you’re looking for. Going through my podcast app:
Dimension 20 is a bunch of CollegeHumor actors doing DND campaigns. I don’t play DND but have enjoyed this so far.
The Dollop is a couple comedians riffing about strange people and events from history. More entertaining than educational but you might expand your knowledge a bit as long as you don’t put too much weight in their research.
Blowback is a history podcast that goes over major historical events that people probably know of but not much about. The production quality is amazing and the research is really good. It’s like listening to a well-made documentary. Plus they got Jon Benjamin as a guest actor for season 1.
Welcome to Nightvale is a surrealist horror/comedy with a fun vibe. Lots of memorable one-liners.
My Dad Wrote a Porno is pretty funny, although I felt like the bit sort of wore out after a few episodes and stopped listening. Seems to have an audience and still be going so maybe it picks up.
Citations needed is a solid critique of news narratives.
Monday Morning podcast is okay if you want to hear Bill burr rant to himself for a while. He’s been doing it for like 13 years so there’s probably gold in there, but I think he’s better when he has someone to riff with. Only listened to a handful of episodes though.
Damn this is a good one. It captures such specific emotions.
The child has sadness and worry in his eyes but is outwardly happy, perhaps hopeful for a better future. The hope and worry are gone in the adult, but the sadness persists. Now it’s a tired, worn-down sadness. The possibilities that existed in youth have converged into a simple, predictable future. Get up, get ready for work, go to work, come home, unwind from work, go to sleep, repeat until death.
Maybe this is one the futures the child had hoped for, a life with stability and predictability. That’s what he studied and worked for, it’s better than many people have. But now that he’s on this path with nothing to look forward to but the rest of his life, he’d rather look back on a time that had more hope and possibility.
Kinda wild you’re getting ratioed for softly encouraging investigation lmao
No investigation, no right to speak
Y’all other libs need to stop just adopting the meme positions of this site without actually reading, the realities of the decisions made in history are infinitely more complex than “this leader smart, all decision good; that leader dumb, all decision bad”
The weird jab is only working against the fash because they’re obsessed with aesthetics. And now that it’s being overused by people who are similarly hollow, it’s gonna lose its impact very soon.
You’re not getting a serious answer because everyone here is irony poisoned as a defence mechanism from watching liberal electoral politics fail over and over again while continuously being gaslit by Dems. Most of us voted for Obama because we believed his progressive rhetoric. Then we watched him bail out banks and continue bloody imperialism and torture, failing to fulfill most of his promises despite at times controlling all three branches. We’re living in the world of Obama’s cynicism, or backing up further, of (Bill) Clinton’s rightward shift into Republican politics with a Democrat mask.
Most of us backed Sanders then watched him get ratfucked twice. A lot of us still voted for (Hilary) Clinton because we believed she might be marginally better than Trump, and we watched her lose the electoral college despite winning the popular vote. A lot of us voted for Biden for the same reason, then watched as he continued Trump’s policies and funded genocide.
At each step more and more people started realizing bourgeois electoralism is a sham and turned to reading theory and organizing. So we really don’t care who you vote for. If you actually care about anything more than aesthetics, read some theory and join an org.
You know what, you’re right. I’m gonna vote for Biden too. It’s HIS turn
I’m writing in Trump.
Ivanka trump.
It’s HER turn
If you actually care, go join an org and read some theory. “Snoozing the timer of the bomb” requires working for a real solution that can be actualized in this supposed extra time. Otherwise it’s the same performative nonsense we’ve been told by liberals for the last three elections.
Wtf is this 2012 meme lmao
Someone as old as you should have recognized the lesser evil trap by now
I’d guess it’s because it captured the demand for english-language isekai at a mid reading level, and snowballed with hype around new releases, which quickly got rolled into the movie franchise as well. For 15 years there was a new release almost every year, between the books and the movies, so you couldn’t really avoid hearing buzz about it. If it was just one book without regular injections of hype into the public consciousness, it’d probably be largely forgotten.
Kids don’t care so much about prose and they’re usually too naive to pick up on political subtexts, at least consciously. As a kid I liked them for the escapist fantasy and the simple narrative.
I don’t vote for racists sorry
Welp if Biden wasn’t going to lose, he sure is now lmao
To me it makes me think of the intellectualization of revolutionary theory to the degree that it’s no longer revolutionary, merely a means by which academics can advance their careers. I get that impression with a lot of western Marxian/critical theory from the last few decades tbh (although that doesn’t mean the works don’t contain interesting ideas).
A quote from Marx that I like:
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
Yet some academics remain content to idly interpret while benefitting from the spoils of imperialism and colonialism.
Oooorrr it’s just a comic by an anti-communist trying to point out a perceived hypocrisy so they don’t have to engage with the ideas lmao
Search “beginner Russian comprehensible input” and find something that suits you. Tons of free and cheap resources
Gotta read history in tandem with theory. We don’t have time to reinvent the wheel for every movement. Learning about the nitty gritty details of past experiments is one of the first steps towards building our own experiments. I think a lot of the problems on the left stem from consuming abstract theory without understanding the material conditions from which the theory was refined.
The line between medicine and drug is largely arbitrary.
Start with the basics of diet, exercise, water, sleep, social interaction. They’re consistent and have very low harm potential. It’s also shocking how much each of them contributed to a sense of well being, or how much a lack of any one of them can cause a downward spiral.
Supplements and vitamins also aren’t super risky, although they aren’t well regulated and many do nothing in their pill form. One or some of the vitamin Bs seem important for me personally, although I’m not 100% certain and I don’t know which one(s) and to what degree. But I’ll drink a monster energy regularly because they have 200-400% dv. Omegas from fish oils may also be good. L-tyrosine and things like it are commonly discussed in nootropics boards, I can’t vouch for them personally.
As far as medications, it’s unlikely you’ll find an easy and risk-free solution, unfortunately. Even well-studied prescription medications aren’t guaranteed to work for your specific needs and have potential to make things worse, which is why in an ideal world everyone would have access to a medical professional that can oversee their use. And often the ones that work aren’t immediately obvious, but demonstrate marginal improvement over the longer term. In fact euphoria and hypomania (which in the moment feel like “oh my god this drug is working”) may be signs the drug isn’t a good fit. Very difficult to gauge on your own.
Online prescription mills are fairly painless if you have a good idea that a specific medication might work for you. I used them to get on a specific antidepressant after doing my own research.
Kanna and St John’s wort both have SSRI compounds I believe. Be careful, just because something’s a legal plant doesn’t mean it can’t interact negatively or have harmful effects. But these are probably the closest to what you’re asking.
Kratom is legal and can boost mood but has high addictive potential. In my experience not worth it except to get off more addictive substances.
Dex/dxm/dextromethorphan is an active ingredient in some cough suppressants that has antidepressive potential. Can be purchased with no additives at some pharmacies and online. Tripping on this isn’t fun at all in my opinion, I’d rather do salvia, but small doses seem to have some mood improving effects that last a few days
Stay away from diphenhydramine (I mention it because it’s often spoken of in the same context as Dex). Its use has been linked to dementia.
Psychedelics can help deconstruct old assumptions and mental structures that may be contributing to your depression. I’d describe the experience as rediscovering the magic of existence. Many of them also have antidepressant qualities-- a sort of afterglow that may last a week or a month. Microdosing is said to tap into the afterglow without tripping. LSD and shrooms are fairly well-studied. Mescaline acts similarly and may be easier to find. Morning glory seeds are legal and contain LSA which is similar to LSD. Salvia acts differently than any of these, often leading to bad trips, but is generally legal. None of these are addictive, but may be risky for people with certain mental illnesses.
There are a variety of legal and grey market stims that can improve mood, but they may have harmful effects and addictive potential. You’ll find a bunch of them if you browse nootropics boards, but keep in mind anonymous comments are not scientific and may undersell risk and negative effects. Nootropics boards will also discuss other supposedly cognitive enhancing substances. Lions mane is a common one. Some are natural supplements or things your body already produces (though this doesn’t guarantee they’re safe or pure). Many are addictive, many are probably snake oil. Search a drug/supplement on pubmed before trying it.
Adjacent to nootropics and more dangerous is research chemicals. Half of them are attempts to make “legal” but identical/similar analogues to illegal drugs. Some are novel. Almost none of them have been studied and purity is never guaranteed. I Honestly don’t recommend unless you’re at a point where it doesn’t matter. At one point for me it was “find a happy chemical or commit suicide” and I think that’s the only level this kind of experimentation is truly justified. But well-studied psychedelics are preferable.
Perfect solution tbh