You’re not depressed. You just need $250,000 in your bank account.

Reblog to materialize $250,000 in prev's bank account

Is windy

the idea of "performative reading" is fucking ludicrous. what next, performative watching the sunset? the idea that a stranger simply living their life is actually somehow performing for you is psychotic and shows that you consume too much media

Yesterday I read a newsletter by Brandon Taylor about how social media makes us want to narrativize our lives. At one point, he talks about when he wrote that people need to go outside and feel the cold wind on their face. Someone called it cliche and his response, which has been sticking with me, are there are no cliches in actual human life. Cliches are in stories and life is not a story.

I really hope we find a way to exist online without thinking of the other people there as little shows for us to watch.

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

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I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

Yup, these are actually *really* important. And a small bit of work helps, so it’s doable even if you’re snowed under with survival work or in too much pain to concentrate for longer periods.

It’s multiply-checked by more than one person, so don’t worry about fucking it up because your concentration is fucked. Your input is valuable but not the only input.

I find Zooniverse very good, and it does Citizen Historian work too - I spent time digitising concentration camp records because a) families still don’t know what happened to some of their loved ones b) this makes the records available for historians without travelling to archives in person, which I can testify is *invaluable* for disabled historians and helps cut the need for overseas travel to do vital historical work.

It unexpectedly helped me with learning how to decipher premodern handwriting too, which proved really useful in my academic stuff. You *will* pick up valuable skills doing this. Put it on your CV.

Other places you can go to do citizen science, from the notes

(Thanks to everyone who left these in the notes! If you know more, put them in the notes, and I might add them! And ty @enbycrip for the fantastic addition that covered a bunch of details I didn't get to)

Apps/Websites

• eBird (birds
• Merlin (birds)
• citizenscience.gov (big project database, US-based)
• iNaturalist (nature)
• MapSwipe (collaboration between several Red Cross organizations and Doctors Without Borders, update vital geospatial data)
  Smithsonian archives (transcriptions, many subjects)
• Cornell Bird Lab (birds)
• FoldIt (folding proteins)
• Fathomverse (sea animals)
• Project Monarch (butterflies)

In person

• Bioblitz (nature)
  Species watch (species)
  Audobon Society (birds)

Also:

Even if you don't have time to spend, but do have some processor cycles to spare, check out the projects available at BOINC's Compute for Science: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/

Hey guys, these projects make a HUGE difference for science. For example, I run bplant.org and iNaturalist is the #1 source of images in ID guides and articles and other educational materials I develop. The plant observations are also helpful for assessing plant ranges and how these ranges are changing with climate change. And it also helps me identify local seed sources for use in restoration plantings. Use of iNaturalist, even casual use like a random person uploading pics of plants they see growing in their yard, or a random parking lot they were in, or a random vacant lot, those observations are MAJORLY helping in (1) education (2) science (3) conservation.

This stuff makes a huge difference.

Also, if you want to make the biggest impact on these sites, release any material with the more permissive licenses, like CC-BY. If you add a NC or ND clause, for instance, your photos cannot be included on Wikipedia or bplant or a number of other educational sites, because those license restrictions are incompatible with combining with copyleft material.

But yeah, go do citizen science, please!!!

I thought I'd go back and repost this because there are probably a lot of people out there who, like me, reallllyyyyyy need something to distract them right now

So, hey. You. Stop doomscrolling. Take a deep breathe. And if you want, try doing some citizen science or citizen history instead

I'm also going to especially promote MapSwipe, for those who want to do something tangible to help people now.

From their website:

Data Everywhere

In today's technology-filled world, we have access to vast amounts of information at our fingertips. This includes geospatial data, which helps us understand places and the “where?” of things - a vitally important piece of successful humanitarian programs. It is important for getting from point A to point B as well as for coordination, understanding needs, tracking impact, identifying gaps, and a multitude of other concerns. For responsible use by humanitarians, this information must be assessed, refreshed, and validated as populations, infrastructure, and the surrounding environments experience the inevitable changes that occur as time, conflicts, and disasters unfold...

MapSwipe is a free open source mobile application available on iOS and Android that empowers anyone with a smartphone to make a meaningful impact contributing to global mapping efforts. MapSwipe crowdsources the review of satellite imagery to:

everyone shut up and say happy birthday wikipedia

ALT

???

happy anniversary to the great molasses flood

fuck its Already like 100 am

I am holding your face in my hands so gently when I say this:

You cannot optimise your way out of being human

You can take every supplement, superfood, and nootropic going, and you'll still have days when you're ill, when you're tired, when you make stupid mistakes for no good goddamn reason.

You can read every book on non-violent communication, or gentle parenting, you can go to therapy, and be ever so mindful about the people you fill your time with, and you're still going to experience conflict, and misunderstandings, and grief.

You can plan your schedule 24/7 in carefully calculated 3 minute increments to ensure maximum productivity, but that train will still be late, that project will still run over, you'll somehow still never get around to learning that language, or that instrument, or that sport.

You can do your cardio, and track your macros, you can carb-load, or keto, or whatever the fuck dumbass extreme diet is this week's fountain of youth. You can do crosswords, and sudoku, and keep up a 12-step nightly beauty routine, but you're still going to age. You're still going to live through the gradual dissolution of the self, both physical and mental - and that's if you're lucky.

There is no one right way to live your life. Everyone you look at who is somehow managing to live the life you imagine is perfect for you has sacrificed something important to you, or has resources you don't.

I get it. I do! This mortal coil is wrapped so tight around you that you can't breathe if you stop a moment and let yourself be aware of it. There is a book on the shelf in your local library right now that would change you as a person if you read it, but you never will, because it's one of a million and there just isn't enough time.

You are an animal, just electricity in meat. The product of millions of generations of 'just good enough'. Let yourself be that. Learn to be just good enough. Let yourself lie in a sunbeam like a cat. Let yourself search for small pieces of joy like a magpie. Feel every transcendent and wretched inch of your humanity and howl at the moon like a wolf when there's too much of you to fit inside your skin.

You don't have to be perfect, but please, let yourself be you.