Elizabeth Quartwrite

People who say “it won’t matter”, or “nothing ever changes”, or “there’s nothing I can do” are just looking for an excuse to do nothing.

Don’t be one of those people.

Do something small every day. It might seem insignificant, but it adds up, especially when millions of us are doing small things.

Well sure if you’ve been taught how to do that. Many people do not have the skill set to evaluate sources. RealPatriotNews dot net looks exactly as credible as Reuters to them.

Also, consider that many people live in states that have defunded education systems, or were educated before we needed to know how to critically evaluate things online including genAI images and videos. It’s not as easy as it was even just a few years ago.

Unfortunately between the enshittification of search engines, corporate capture of major news companies, and politicization of our scientific bodies, what you find just a few taps away may not be the facts.

If I want to feel patriotic I’ll go watch John Adam’s on HBO again

I canceled mine. I was willing to give him a second chance after the endorsement debacle, but now it seems he’s getting more and more involved with making decisions for the paper and I don’t trust that. I’m looking for a paper that’s going to tell me the unvarnished truth.

democracy in michigan and wisconsin was crushed to the point of near-irreversibility until 2020 -- vastly worse than what trump seems likely to be able to do before 2028 -- and we fought back, inch by inch, until we took it back, despite Republicans having both structural advantages and real support

Feels like we all need to add as much pro-social, Mr Rogers like activity as possible just as a homeostatic response to all the ambient evil floating around right now.

Anyway I just signed up to read with little kids on Wednesday mornings before work.

I've received a tip that access to NASA supercomputing services used for fundamental physics research has been disrupted. I was told in-process computation jobs were interrupted from January 22-29 and access hasn't been restored. If you're in this situation, message stevanzetti.12 on Signal.

A flock of dark-eyed juncos at my feeder today.

Hey man sorry to hear about all your political turmoil. Would it help if I scrolled around on the computer all day and drove myself insane?

Stromatolites xkcd.com/3046

I honestly believe our most powerful position in a toxic time that feeds on cynicism, apathy,& despair is to genuinely care and act for a better world.

Cynicism is our enemy. We should check it, incl. on the left. It’s not intellectually superior. It’s the virus they’re trying to infect us with. NO

Hi, are you doomscrolling?

There's a lot of doom right now. Possibly unprecedented amounts. It might feel overwhelming, chaotic, and very disorienting. Despite all of that, you still deserve time to rest and recover.

Try not to stay up too late tonight. And charge your phone away from your bed.

🧵 👋 I'm a political scientist who wrote a book about the recent collapse of two democracies (Egypt & Tunisia).

Given the anxieties of today, let me present a 🧵 with thoughts & resources for:

WHAT TO DO IF YOUR DEMOCRACY COLLAPSES:

What does this mean? There are tons of drag queens on instagram

Occasional reminder that there’s no, “it’s too late, its over” for anthropogenic climate change. Every molecule of CO2 that doesn’t go into the atmosphere makes a difference. Preventing 0.1 degree of warming makes a difference. Every bit of climate resilience we build together makes a difference.

I wonder if this ‘need’ for AI is a result of the downfall of Google search. It used to be that you would google “piano songs for children” and a useful website would come up. Now you have to wade through endless pages of ad-ridden SEO-optimized garbage before you can find anything useful.

Screenshot of three headlines in news search results, all from the past 24 hours. 1) Elon Musk Takes Aim at Wikipedia, 2) Elon Musk says his $1 billion offer to Wikipedia “still stands”, 3) Musk Slams ‘Wokepedia’ for Biased Editing, Urges Donation Boycott

Christmas is a good time to throw Wikipedia a few bucks to thank them for the many times you relied on the site that year. Members of the billionaire class want to destroy it for some reason.

(@archive.org is also under constant threat nowadays and in need of support)

WE ARE STILL IN THIS.
Wipe your tears.
This is the difficult business of hope and defying expectation.
We do not give up.
We run through the tape.

Y’all aren’t allowed to throw in the towel until I do. 😉

Big breath. Locked in. Let’s do this.

In my experience, I see this type of attitude even in middle class folks too. Many people no longer value community relations and taking care of their neighbors.

This but with books

Nuts on a dish, pecans on the left, almonds on the right. Copyright Tom Kimmerer

The climate crisis has to be addressed at the national and international level, but consumer choice plays a role. One thing we can do is switch from almonds (R in photo) to pecans (L). Both are similar in nutrition, but it is water use and geography that makes a difference. 1/4

America is worth saving. It is worth the fight to make it better.

And if ideals aren't enough for you, then fight to make it better for you and yours. Fight to make it better for your friends and neighbors. Fight to make it the country we deserve.

I’m so glad to find so many of the folks I followed on Twitter pre-Elon. So many folks quit (for good reason) but I missed seeing y’all’s witty commentary on my feed.

“Americans are prosperous, but without any deep sense of obligations to others. We are a highly commercial, individualist people, and when we let go of even a thin liberal conception of the public good, we become nasty, petty, small, vindictive and irrational.”

What an achievement vaccines are. What a monument to our love for each other it is to stare straight into the face of something as horrific and unstoppable as smallpox or measles or polio or cervical cancer and say “You know what, it doesn’t have to be like this.”

HUMANS!

School Board elections in Oklahoma are next year...not 2026. Primaries for local elections are February 11th. Want to change the direction of the state? Run or find a campaign to support.

TNG movie. We're having a fancy party, starfleet folks in white dress uniforms are dancing with others in party casual clothes. There's maybe mountains in the background and trees. Beyond the dancing couples is a band playing music, and Data is standing in front, holding a microphone stand at an angle and singing jazzy style. He's holding out an arm and really giving the partygoers the ol' razzle dazzle. Closed caption reads, "🎵 Nothin' but blue skies🎵"