I enjoy these every time they make it to my feed, thanks for making them.

In God We Trust is also an objectively less cool motto than e pluribus unum which translates to out of many, one. We traded the original ideal of a people united by difference into a boringly generic religious proclamation just to try to stick it to the commies.

The modern definitions of units feel even more arbitrary because they are inextricably tied to more organic origins. Consider the often made fun of fahrenheit scale which was the first to define a reasonably repeatable degree size by using two widely available reference points as the 100 and 0 ends of the scale, human body temperature for the high end and an ammonium chloride ice water mix for the low end.

The definition of a second was a bit jankier. Etymologically the name comes from a second hand added to a watch face to give some kind of indicator that the minutes are passing by. NIST has an excellent writeup on this subject. Over time different repeatable ways to measure a second have been determined all with the goal of having some action a human could use to calibrate their device’s second measurement to so their seconds are as long as everyone else’s.

The point is, we didn’t choose a second to be defined as some number of atomic oscillations. We had an already agreed upon definition of a second that used less precise methods than modern technology demanded and used a natural phenomenon that could be very accurately measured to make a less arbitrary definition.

I’ve used my location history to remember names of places I went to over a year ago, addresses I was given and expected to write down but forgot, confirm for myself I actually went and did something that I couldn’t recall fully…

It’s great for someone with a shite memory.

Y’all love diminutives, call them jiffies?

I can’t cite a source but I read once that the lawyers got involved and said Microsoft/Windows/some other term they have legal control of had to be the first word.

No concerns about the company management being corrupt and working against your interests, though?

Yeah the main lesson I’ve taken away from the last decade of cryptocurrency instability, NFTs, and things like algorithmically generated judicial sentencing guidelines that perpetuated the existing racial biases while making them seem more legitimate because “the computer can’t be wrong” is that we should run our whole society with them.

Misunderstanding on my end then, I made some clearly unfair assumptions. I agree with you there and apologize for the mischaracterization.

You might want to turn that incredibly critical eye you’ve got for communism back in on capitalism, that’s all.

Out of curiosity, how do you think governments in large capitalist economies (such as the US) properly account for greed for power and keep it in check? Do you think they are doing a good job on that front?