oh wow, that is gorgeous

I don't particularly agree with that, as it would essentially require exponential change in biases for a population to be considered open-minded, which isn't how societys work. But even so, the study did actually show an increased rate of change towards positive sentiment corresponding with the boom in travel. Perceptions shifted from trending negative to trending increasingly positive during the period of inflection they describe.

My perception of the COVID years was... quite the opposite, at least outside of my immediate bubble. It felt like polarization and isolation increased more intensely that I'd ever seen. And the strong negative impact on conservative-leaning populations has been well documented.

Oh man, idk how I've missed that one, but it just shot to the top of my list

I did not know until this very moment how deeply I wanted to build a beaver society 😂

I mean, I very much get how it feels that way given the current political climate, but the data does indicate Americans have gotten more open-minded over time, especially about racial/cultural differences.

And this study specifically notes a huge shift in rhetoric about immigration between 1945-1965 - correlating with the big boom in travel in the 40s, post WWII, and jet travel coming into play in the 50s-60s - two of the biggest increases in American travel. And the overall trend positive has continued, despite the increased polarization in the last couple decades.

I'm not at all saying that increased travel caused all of this, correlation is not causation and society is way more complex than that. But the trends are there, at least.

Personally, I rather prefer Maya Angelou's take-

"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends."

Travel is not some magical, all-powerful cure for the ills of the traveller or the world. And when done without care, without awareness, it can do a great deal of harm. But it is also a powerful tool to foster connection, which in turn breeds understanding. And that is dearly needed in our world.

Ooh cool - it feels like subnautica but in the sky, which is certainly promising

Agreed! AI and other emerging tech has a lot of potential to do so much good - it just takes the right application.

Nice, I was really hoping someone would start a lunarpunk community!

Love it, but it has pretty niche utility.

It's great for improving frest fruit/vegetable access in small urban communities, without massive transportation costs and preservative use.

Also very cool for small, isolated environments like ocean voyages and space, where production space is severely limited.

And extremely interesting from an ecological perspective when combined with a full circle microsystem, as in aquaculture.

But overall, it remains wildly inefficient for large scale agriculture needs.

TX lawmakers are going to doom the state, again. "make no mistake, the 9th largest economy in the world runs on natural gas" - more like the largest laughing stock in the world blacked out the whole state on natural gas...

Wind was hit far less by the 2021 freeze, and solar was hardly impacted at all. Meanwhile, they continue to advocate for overreliance on under equipped natural gas facilities that completely failed to maintain functionality - shutting down TX for days, and killing 200 people as a result. Solar is the best option they have to prevent it from happening again, short of a total power grid overhaul, but instead of celebrating growth there, they decide to fearmonger about scary renewables.

lol, I guess I got lucky! "open source furniture beer garden" brought it right up on duckduckgo 😄

this really is a wonderful project, thanks for tuning me into it!