Everything we call civilization was invented in the last 500 generations—way too short a time for our bodies and brains to re-optimize. We're a bunch of forest primates in a totally unnatural environment, trying our little best. Someone needs to give our species a hug.
Big congrats to all the people giving up on their New Years resolutions right around now. As Jean-Paul Sartre reminds us, allowing past decisions to control our actions is a bad faith denial of our transcendent radical freedom,
Geopolitics in the Middle East is complicated. Who is our friend? Who is our enemy? Why? One convenient hack to figure it out is to just look up which countries have McDonald's in them.