Michael Berglund

Sculptor, Graphic Artist, Maker of Strange Things, Digger of Dinosaurs, Brewer of Beer, Obsessively Curious, floating brain.

[cinesthetic. @TheCinesthetic]

“He really has the two things – the weirdest mind, and the most wholesome mind.” - Guillermo del Toro on David Lynch

[Super 70s Sports @Super70sSports]

“My name is Matt Foley and I am a motivational speaker. Now let's get started by letting me give you a little bit of a scenario of what my life is all about. First off, I am 35 years old, I am divorced, and I live in a van down by the river.”

👉 https://t.co/8XULw3ryiy

[Aes🇺🇸 @AesPolitics1]

Kamala Harris just released the best political ad that I’ve ever seen in my life.

[Cory Booker @CoryBooker]

From The Boss. He put it perfectly. Thank you Bruce Springsteen.

[Jake Tapper 🦅 @jaketapper]

RIP

[BFI @BFI]

Guillermo Del Toro on AI, emotion and the value of art.

Watch the full In Conversation on our YouTube channel.

@RealGDT

[Democratic Wins Media @DemocraticWins]

BREAKING: In a stunning leak, Donald Trump gave the keynote address at the Heritage Foundation where he announced the work the foundation did (Project 2025) would be crucial to his policy goals. Retweet so all Americans know Trump will enact Project 2025.

[Matthew Sheffield @mattsheffield]

There is no such thing as the "culture war." What we're actually talking about is white evangelicals trying to cheat at politics rather than accept that Americans long ago rejected their authoritarian and superstitious viewpoints.

[Lakota Man @LakotaMan1]

The Lakota believe that the northern lights are the souls of future generations yet to be born.

[Michael Berglund @AtomicmutantMB]

@RealGDT Just don’t get borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance. We need this film finished! 😊

[Victor Shi @Victorshi2020]

WOW. This 17-year-old, in under 2 minutes, destroys Republicans. He called them out on everything they’re doing. This is our future. This is why I love Gen Z. We see right through what Republicans are doing & WILL make them find out. Watch out Republicans.

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

There was once a time when being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. The ancient Egyptians first described the disease more than 3,000 years ago. During the many centuries that followed, parents would helplessly watch as their diabetic children slipped into comas and died.

By the 18th century, doctors discovered that a heavily modified diet could slow the disease. Many children were placed on starvation diets with limited carbs, which helped prolong their lives. However, such treatments were not very effective, and some children even starved to death.

Fast forward to 1922, when a group of scientists went to the Toronto General Hospital, where diabetic children were kept in wards, often 50 or more at a time. Most of them were comatose and dying from diabetes. These children were in their deathbeds.

The scientists moved swiftly and proceeded to inject each of them with a new purified extract of insulin that they were able to successfully isolate. As they began to inject the last comatose child, the first one that was injected began to wake up. Soon, all the children in the room began to wake up—one by one!

The scientists responsible for saving the children's lives were Frederick Banting and Charles Best. They both agreed that it would be unethical to profit from a discovery that could potentially save millions of lives. They sold the insulin patent to the University of Toronto for $1.

"Insulin belongs to the world, not me," said Banting.

[Epic Maps 🗺️ @theepicmap]

Half of US GDP comes from these 23 orange blotches

[Epic Maps 🗺️ @theepicmap]

Land doesn't vote, people do

[Epic Maps 🗺️ @theepicmap]

1000 years of history in 1 image

[Minnesota Wind Chill @mnwindchill]

Congrats to Sam Berglund for a great season and a well deserved spot on the AUDL All-Rookie 1st Team ❄️🥏

#bundleup #letsgochill #allaudlrookie

[Alaric The Barbarian @0xAlaric]

One aspect of historical life that most misunderstand is the degree to which things could just... happen, without any possibility of averting them.

We live in an administrative state, with Lovecraftian levels of bureaucracy dedicated to dealing with every possible occurrence. This hasn't always been the case.

For example, take it back a few centuries and people could just... walk into your village with swords and say you're now their slave. What are you going to do, call the police? The men of the village *are* the police, and if they're overpowered there's no recourse.

For women, being taken as a war bride was a non-zero possibility in life. That was just a possibility you had to live with.

Even more recently (18th, 19th centuries) sailors could be "recruited" by press gangs. Kidnapped, often from a tavern or similar, and forcibly interred in the Navy. That's just your life now. Got too drunk and woke up on the HMS Victory as a deckhand.

There are dozens more examples. This sort of randomness is a more primordial way of life, one that we've done our best to excise from modern society.

But in reality, it is still the base form of life - we just do our best to work around it, to make such actions undesirable in the long run.

However, this is a double-edged sword. While you're unlikely to be pressed into military service or taken as plunder... alienation from such risks creates a false sense of control. A sort of false belief that because these things are disincentivized, they can't happen.

After a lifetime exposed to such an environment, you begin to believe that everything in your life is under your control, that nothing can happen without your approval. This manifests as anxiety, neuroticism, fear of loss of control.

At the same time, it disincentivizes action in the moment; everything should be planned long-term, played prudently and slowly.

Because everything becomes a long-term game, we build an unfamiliarity with intense, life-changing situations. Emergencies, acts of violence. People freeze up, think "this can't be happening"... "this isn't allowed to happen."

Very dangerous, and distinctly modern, way of thinking.