NightFantom

So that’s why it’s called cumsum?

Not so much cursed as just cool evolution. We can trace nipples producing milk to specialized sweat glands, isn’t that cool?

I believe platypuses (platypi?) and/or echidnas don’t have nipples but instead sweat out milk. Doesn’t that count as milk then?

With no teats, the milk is released through pores in the skin from which the young lap it up in her fur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus -> ecology -> reproduction

Close, but now you come into contact with the atmosphere not actually being the same density (in weight/volume as well as in particles/volume) throughout, but instead gets thinner as you get away from the earth.

For simplicity, assume space is actually empty, and the atmosphere gets thinner linearly up until x kilometers above sea level it’s completely empty. Then the density will also decrease with height, and the helium balloon will eventually find a spot that matches its density, and stop there.

Again there’s so much more to it but as a simplified model this works 😅

Rockets mostly need to fight speed (of the earth revolving around the sun), and indeed in our atmosphere speed means friction, but in space rockets still need a lot of propellant to change their trajectory. As always there’s a relevant xkcd: https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

The very short answer is that gas pressure is mostly proportional to the amount of particles per volume.

So a balloon filled with helium has X particles per cubic cm, while the air around it has the same amount (instead of getting crushed). But because helium is a lot lighter per particle than standard air, this makes the balloon lighter than air, and like trying to push an air-filled balloon underwater, this helium-filled balloon floats to the higher layers of air, until other smaller forces also start to matter and the balance is restored.

So a “vacuum-filled” balloon has nothing to give counter-pressure, but a balloon filled with helium definitely does.

I like the theory where (one of) the “great filter(s)” is just the likelihood of a technologically advanced civilization emerging from a greedy society is just way more likely than from a complacent society. So at some point some creature somewhere gets some critical mass of tech fueled by greed, this leads to global domination (humans over animals, as well as europeans over their colonies).

Without the greed, there would not have been the technological advantage, but due to this same greed we now have weapons of mass destruction strong enough to wipe any semblance of intelligent life from the planet.

Of course this theory is very black and white (not to mention capitalistic). Perhaps a curious society is also an option to reach technological advantage but not global domination, but would such a society manage to become a Kardashev type I civilization by sharing rather than conquest?

So to directly answer your question: I think it’s likely that someone would have enslaved most of the earth somehow, (which absolutely does not excuse it). It’s surprisingly good that humans on average dislike the idea of slavery and colonisation now, so maybe we can build on top of that a society of curiosity and progress instead of one of war and a (literal) dead end.

And illegal under GDPR I’m pretty sure

In university we had c++ and python courses alongside each other, and I currently get paid to write python. I honestly believe my knowledge of c++ (and of course the rest of the courses which went deeper into cpu architectures and data structures and whatnot) makes me a better python programmer, because of the deeper understanding of what goes on under the hood.

https://www.slc.gov/mayor/2025/05/06/salt-lake-city-adopts-four-flags-to-represent-residents-visitors/ extra sauce for if this pasta is too dry for you.

I don’t want oppression, even if it’s free