two things I feel into a rabbit hole about recently were how LSD became illegal and the Fermi paradox.

so LSD, once hailed as a powerful tool for psychological healing and spiritual exploration, became illegal largely due to political and cultural backlash. as the drug became associated with the 1960s counterculture, anti-establishment movements, and civil unrest, governments—particularly in the U.S.—moved to criminalize it more out of fear of social disruption than scientific reasoning. the backlash overshadowed promising medical research, leading to decades of prohibition.

the Fermi Paradox points out the contradiction between the high probability of alien civilizations existing in our vast universe and the complete lack of evidence or contact with them. despite billions of stars and potentially habitable planets, we haven’t seen signs of intelligent life—raising big questions like: Are we alone, or is something stopping civilizations from contacting or surviving long enough to do so?

My Feedly mainly

+1

I also never liked the twitter format of “tweets”, there’s too much going on at once and I feel overstimulated

I wouldn’t say the UK was the second most influential—realistically, that spot goes to the US. And I’m not even a big fan of the US right now, but their industrial power, global logistics, and role in both Europe and the Pacific made a massive difference. Without their support, especially through Lend-Lease and D-Day, things could’ve turned out very differently.