Partly because a huge majority of firefighters in the USA are volunteers with donated equipment. Fires are rare enough outside cities that going on a call once or twice a week isn't that hard. If you're living in an area with a volunteer fire department you should consider signing up! Most of the volunteers in my company are under 18 or over 65. We desperately need healthy adults who can show up to a 30 minute call maybe once a week. You don't have to be in great shape as a volunteer, and you can refuse any order from command if you don't feel safe. I've thoroughly enjoyed being a volunteer.

Also we're building out a new socialized ambulance program that does add a small annual fee to all properties in the region to pay for the ambulance staff. We do also have volunteer EMTs, but the call load is much much higher. Not many EMT volunteers with other full time jobs want to wake up 10 times a night to drive Mrs. Soffia to the emergency room because her tummy hurts again. Paid staff on an ambulance crew actually makes a lot of logistical sense given how busy we are. We're very excited about it, the townships all voted to approve, so we're starting up in Jan 2027!

My neighbors both have chickens that love being picked up and petted. Depends on the breed.

Also ocelots don't like to be petted, do we need to build ocelot murder factories now to kill a few billion a year as revenge?

Great article! I'm floored.

I think all of the outcomes will happen in different domains and use cases. It all depends on the cost to verify trust and quality. Plenty can do with slop, but certain donations absolutely cannot.

Reminds me of the book Fall or Dodge in Hell where they use PERDAs and editors to verify authorship and build trust networks to combat fake signaling from AI. I think that book (while bleak) is a bit too hopeful. An excellent read though, well worth the time.

Yeah and marry me "chicken" tofu on TheeBurgerGuy on YouTube is better than any real chicken. It's like the best cooked chicken you'll ever have. Perfect texture and flavor! No gross raw chicken juices to handle. Happy belly and happy soul

I wonder about how other sectors are affected by this hype that are in the top 500.

I would wonder if a value stock index would be a better idea. Or international.

Check out the video game Freedom Force. It was such a great BG3 but superheros type game

Thanks! I tried to match the symbolism: looking towards the horizon with a mountain range between two wands, and I think I nailed it.

It's fascinating to me how some people seemed to be hardwired to need to restrict things from their diet without an obvious biological need. Maybe it's certain media, music, shows, foods, carbs, high fat, low fat, violent video games, animal products, dairy (but are lactose tolerant), problematic actors, problematic directors, AI slop, made in a specific country, etc.

I think it must be an evolutionary advantage somehow that if X% of your local tribe is into something to decide to restrict it from your diet. Plenty of times a majority of a tribe was probably into eating or doing something that turned out to be dangerous or toxic or medium term damaging. The people who were sticks in the mud about that thing ended up safe from its effect.

I know! It adds such richness and makes the world feel lived in. Also adds so much lore, like this squid whale isn't even in the game, it's just world building

thank you!

Love you are getting caught up

Delightful!