Thoughts

Ecology

Ne leur pardonnez pas, car ils savent ce qui fond. Translation: Do not forgive them, for they know what is melting away. There's a play on words in the French phrase, inspired by a quote from the Bible.

Adapting to climate change is an admission of failure. We must fight it by massively decarbonising the atmosphere.

With every species that disappears, it's a library that burns and the Earth becomes less habitable.

The greenest path is the one you don't have to take.

Compensatory measures are a great hypocrisy. It is impossible to restore a destroyed ecosystem to its original state. There is bound to be a net loss of biodiversity. Who claims to be able to recreate a forest of hundred-year-old trees? Or a thousand-year-old peat bog?

There's no such thing as too much biodiversity.

Washing lettuce uses many times more water than the lettuce contains. And it takes so much time! Completely absurd. Hydroponics is the future.

The best insect hotel is nature.

The younger people are, the more they care about the environment.

Once you've seen horses running free in the wild, you understand that horse riding is the exploitation of animals.

By eating rodents that carry Lyme disease, mustelids (martens, weasels, badgers, ermines...) are our precious allies and are NOT "harmful" as some hunters would have us believe.

Investments

The easier it was for you to earn money, the more risk you take in investing it.

The market is the best teacher, and some of its lessons are very expensive.

The so-called bull market is over when the scammers have fewer new followers per week.

Technology

While we search the universe for aliens, we grow new life forms in our computers and laboratories. We'll probably merge with our new inventions before we discover extra-terrestrial life.

The next generation of drones (faster, cheaper, autonomous) will take smuggling out of control.

The only way digital will surpass face-to-face interaction is by developing brain-to-brain connectivity.

People think we're going to spend the last years of our lives in a room glued to screens, but it looks increasingly like we'll have exoskeletons to help us stay mobile and travel the world. Unless, of course, we reverse the aging process, which would be even better news.

Notifications are ads designed to make us spend more time on apps. And most apps are designed to get us addicted. The fewer apps on our smartphones, the better.

The amazing thing about artificial intelligence is how much it can do without consciousness.

One day we will build rockets as fast as we build cars.

Health

Heal your trauma so it doesn't affect your children.

Leonardo da Vinci died at the age of 67. By defeating agism, humanity will benefit from the brightest minds for the longest time ever.

We're about to become elves. Immortals, if not wounded.

Once the effects of aging are eliminated and disease is under control, every death will be exclusive news.

If you're struggling with a mood disorder, know that it's best to make important decisions when you have an objective view of reality. That is, when you're not having a mental crisis.

It is impossible to get out of depression by spending time thinking. Depression makes us believe that thinking will make us better. You can spend years locked up in your head, withdrawing into yourself, and it won't improve anything. There is no "inner problem" to solve. That is the lie of depression. It is the resumption of physical, social, cultural, manual activities that gets rid of this disease.

Surfing

I am still waiting for surfers to release a song about how an airline broke their surfboards.

If you try to copy another surfer's style, you'll end up surfing like an idiot.

Comparing yourself to other surfers takes all the fun out of surfing.

Humour, I guess

When I see how some Americans dress to go to Walmart, I think more of us should go shopping in bathrobes or Pikachu costumes.

Engagement ring vending machine for people who get married and divorced a lot.

100 IQ: paying for Netflix. 200 IQ: watching Netflix using someone else's account. 9000 IQ: reading episode summaries for free on Wikipedia. (Note: IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle.)

I'm going to grow a long neck and call myself Rodney Mullet.

Other stuff

The world ocean is 655,6 times the size of mainland France (361,900,000km²/552,000km²). As de Mac Mahon said, "Que d'eau, que d'eau!".

The concept of the circumstellar habitable zone works for campfires. Too close and you burn. Too far away and bears attack you. Only in between can you survive.

Society

Productivism is so ingrained in our societies that if people see you doing nothing, they think you have a problem.

Alcohol abuse is everywhere. Scientists and doctors agree that it's a huge problem for society. We have to get rid of it culturally, just like we did with tobacco.

The fact that people wait for their vacations or retirement to read books is a tragedy.

The IT team knows about employees what the HR department doesn't.

An artist's job is to tell conventional rules to fuck off. "Leurs règles ont toutes une tombe, c'est ça qu'ils ne comprennent pas." - Booba

We remember those who went to the Platonic Academy, not those who went to the Games of Ancient Rome.

The idiots are not those who make spelling mistakes, but those who focus on them and miss the point.

Internet is a Denial Of Service attack on our attention capacity.

Two places to feed the pigeons: the park and the newspaper stand.

L'abus d'école est dangereux pour la santé. Translation: School abuse is dangerous for your health.

If the death penalty does not scare criminals, then prison will scare them even less. The question is no longer what would be a real deterrent, but how to create a society where it is less attractive to be a criminal than a do-gooder.

Habits

If you want to wake up early naturally, you have to go to bed ridiculously early.

Meditation is shower thoughts on steroids.

Become a minimalist and you won't need Ikea or Marie Kondo's books.

Abstinence is easier than moderation.

Publishing regularly leads to mediocrity.

It is less the time spent together than the variety of shared experiences that makes up what we know of each other.

Happiness is a choice. Then it needs constant nurturing: get rid of what makes you unhappy, do more of what makes you happy.

Don't read the writings of people who boast about being praised by the mass media.

If someone has selflessly helped you, return the favour.

True friends don't push you to get drunk.

It's better to have little money and be happy than to earn more and be unhappy.