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Great read in general. Thank you. That documentary is brilliant. I like jokes too!! Thanks Tara!

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Yes, i also don't really want to live in the kind of world you describe. And that includes living in a world of SARS-CoV-2 scare narratives (which seem to be increasing in quantity right now). i don't really want to live in a world where mask wearing becomes normalized, and where our default relationships with others are governed by seeing the other as a "threat" to be "protected from."

Yet i don't really see a way out. i wonder if this is simply liberalism working itself out (see Patrick Deneen's book on Why Liberalism Failed), and there won't be much of a shift (if any) until something new emerges. To be clear, i don't understand this as defeatism or "pessimism." i just don't see any other way to go if our dominant philosophical anthropology consists of being autonomous individuals seeking their own self-interest (which includes identity). Until we are able to recover something from the past about the importance of character and virtue - which also includes ending modernity's inherently hostile relationship with the past - this seems to be a logical trajectory.

What we need to do in the meantime is develop small, local, sustainable friendships and ways of living that help us to be sane again. And this includes laughter - which is why i was so grateful, Tara, for what you did here. The link you provided to the Ryan Long comedy piece is so what we need right now in the interim. These are the kinds of things that can help us stay sane and hopeful as we stumble toward a sustainable and friendly future.

Thanks again for this work, Tara.

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I too enjoy laughing and indeed some pretty dark humour got me through the last 3 years. I find that those who can’t laugh at themselves or the human predicament might be frozen in trauma. Unfortunately that gets projected into the interwebs and ‘activist’ spaces. Great interview with Bridget btw, thanks for including. So conversational, I wanted to pour us all another round of coffee, serve up the pastries, and keep hanging out.

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Comedy is a great sieve. Can a person see things from other odd angles. Allow themselves to be surprised and enjoy it. Get the nudge nudge, wink wink. Or are they in a very deep and narrow path with no view but their own.

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