The protests matter.

History shows us how and why. It also shows us that thinking they don’t matter is pretty common. If even 10% of Americans showed up to protest you would see instant, dramatic changes the next day. And it tends to snowball. Americans are not as powerless between elections as they have convinced themselves they are.

I think that deep down they know all this, but it’s easier to claim it won’t matter.

To better protect myself from cognitive biases I try to put my faith in the consensus of the experts. Otherwise we all just waste time cycling through old, ego-fueled debates that have been fully explored before we were even born.

In the case of protesting: the overwhelming consensus is that protests matter. If you don’t have the time/inclanation to defend a disertation as to why they don’t: you should listen to those that have. Unfortunately the experts don’t have the resources to play whack-a-mole with every objection any person can claim on any platform. If you want that you need to go to school. Until then trust and protest. The longer you wait the harder it will be.

We would completely solve the climate crisis in one generation if we all stopped having kids.

Out of curiosity: Which operating system(s) can you shutdown while the kernel is being overwritten? I wouldn’t imagine that as a limitation of Arch Linux specifically.

Any alien species that is aware of our satellites is so technically superior to us they wouldn’t bother. The James Webb Telecope is our best, but we still aren’t certain we’ve named all the planets in our own solar system.