Are you plagued by the feeling that everyone used to be nicer?

There’s some work by a guy named Richard Eibach on how people think the world has gotten more dangerous. And he finds that people believe this. And the people who believe this, especially, are parents. And when you ask those parents “When did the world become more dangerous?,” you get a date that is curiously close to the date of the birth of their first child.

The obvious implication being that nothing about the world changed. It was your worldview that changed. And now you have to, you know, protect this fragile life—and so you are much more attuned to the dangers of the world. That’s why you think there’s more of them.

Hm.  September 2001.  Curious, indeed.  But a pyschological illusion, right?

Circa 2002, Meredith Tanner posted a stylized version of this picture titled "BABY".  My son refuses to believe that he was a meme at such an early age.  Does anyone have a copy of the BABY icon?  Failing that, will you at least attest to the fact that you remember it?

Oh Wormie Boy, the Hive, the Hive is calling
From Earth to Mars, and in the Scarlet Keep
Oryx is gone, and all the Thralls are dying
It's you, it's you must go and I must sleep

But come ye back, for we are paracausal
And by Sword Logic you must always grow
So you'll be here when I am just a fossil
Oh Wormie Boy, Oh Wormie Boy I love you so

And when you come and all the Knights are dying
If I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And sing once more my viral song for me

And I shall hear, and thus begin an aftermath
So my revenge shall even sweeter be
For you will send my greetings to Xivu Arath
And I shall sleep until Immaru comes to me

I suppose that some percentage of this weirdness is genetic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Trpdhsajm4M

My son and I went to see "No Exit" at the community college theatre. It's a three-person study of the thesis that "Hell is other people."

What would you do in such a room for all eternity?

Me: “If for some reason NASA wanted to send me to Mars, I would go.”

Son: “You can’t even watch a 3-D movie!”

It’s true.  But hey, I survived Mission: Space at Epcot! (barely)