Carter Sisney

[Rare 🇺🇸 @RareImagery]

You steal it, you wear it

[Science Magazine @ScienceExpand]

A visual representation of the healing power of time.

[emily north @north0fnorth]

fun fact: duluth, minnesota is the world’s most inland location accessible to oceangoing ships at over 2300mi/3700km from the atlantic via the great lakes and st lawrence seaway. the ship in this photo is headed from lake superior all the way to the mediterranean!

[UberFacts @UberFacts]

Outer space is only an hour away, if you could drive your car straight into the sky at 60 MPH

[Carter Sisney @kickastro]

@CuriousMindsHub "Wherever you go.... There you are" Mike Watt

[BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ @mmpadellan]

If the Pope has to stay out of politics, then you have to keep whatever the hell THIS is out of politics too.

[Pascal Bornet @pascal_bornet]

A 16-year-old just exposed a problem that goes far beyond physics.

He explained dimensional reality in 9 minutes more clearly than most institutions have managed in decades.

What struck me was not only how smart he was.
It was how simple he made it feel. That is rare.

We are used to seeing complex ideas wrapped in jargon, status, equations, and academic distance, as if difficulty itself were proof of depth.

Then a teenager with a webcam comes along and breaks the whole illusion.

No gatekeeping. No performance. No intellectual theater. Just clarity.
And that is what makes this so powerful.

xkcdHatGuy, or “Danny” as some viewers knew him, walked people from 1D to 4D in a way that millions could actually see, feel, and understand.
Hand gestures.
Simple sketches.
Tesseracts on paper.
A visual explanation of how a higher-dimensional being might perceive our world all at once.

For many people, it was the first time dimensional physics stopped sounding abstract and started feeling real.

That should concern every expert, every teacher, and every institution.
Because the barrier was never intelligence.
The barrier was explanation.

What I find fascinating is how often we mistake complexity for credibility.
We make knowledge harder than it needs to be.
We protect it with language.
We hide it in systems.
And then we act surprised when people disengage.

This story cuts through all of that.

One teenager proved that when truth is explained clearly enough, people do not need to be persuaded to care.
They understand immediately.

And then came the predictable part:
the internet turned a human story into a myth.

He vanished.
Conspiracies spread.
People imagined censorship, hidden knowledge, even dimensional beings.

But the truth was much more human, and much more important.

Sudden visibility. Pressure. Mental health struggles. Identity collapse.

That part matters. Because behind every viral breakthrough is still a person, and we often forget how quickly the crowd can turn clarity into pressure.

To me, this is the deeper lesson.

The future will not belong only to those who know the most.
It will belong to those who can make the complex feel undeniable.

That is true in science.
It is true in business.
It is true in AI.
And it is becoming more urgent by the day.

Who do you think creates more impact now: the person with the deepest knowledge, or the person who can make difficult ideas finally click for everyone else?

#Innovation #Physics #ScienceCommunication #Education #Leadership #AI #FutureOfLearning #Clarity #KnowledgeSharing

[Iran News 24 @IRanMediaco]

Trump takes control of the Strait of Hormuz😭🤣

[Carter Sisney @kickastro]

@buitengebieden He needs ski poles or it don't work😆

[Natalie F Danelishen @Chesschick01]

Ai is out of control 😂

[Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600]

This cartoon from @derspiegel shows the world as seen by Trump. It's a new take on an old cartoon premise. I live on the Idiots island. Source: https://t.co/fF7nF471XC

[Carter Sisney @kickastro]

@Scaramucci Love this! The Scaramucci Code. Proud of your journey and insight Anthony.

[AnthroVet50 @spooked75]

Why is MAGA so hateful?

I get asked this a lot. The short answer is: because hate is the point. But let me break it down.

Grievance as identity

MAGA isn't a political movement built on policy. It's built on resentment. The core message has always been "you've been wronged" — by elites, by immigrants, by cities, by universities, by the media, by women, by minorities, by anyone who isn't you.

This isn't a coalition that comes together to BUILD something. It comes together to tear things down. Hate isn't a byproduct of the movement. It's the fuel.

Zero-sum thinking

They genuinely believe that if someone else gains, they lose. Rights for gay people? That's an attack on Christians. Immigrants succeeding? They must be stealing from "real Americans." A Black president? He must be illegitimate.

There's no concept of shared prosperity or expanding opportunity. Just winners and losers. And they're terrified of losing.

The dominance hierarchy

A lot of MAGA is rooted in evangelical and authoritarian psychology. There's supposed to be a natural order: white at the top, Christian at the top, male at the top, straight at the top.

When you've been at the top of a hierarchy your whole life, equality feels like oppression. Giving others a seat at the table feels like theft.

The media ecosystem

Fox News → OANN → Newsmax → podcasts → Twitter/X. It's a 24/7 rage machine. Every algorithm rewards outrage. Every host competes to be more extreme than the last.

These people are literally addicted to anger. Neurologically. They get dopamine hits from feeling righteous fury. They wake up and immediately check their phones to find out what they should be mad about today.

Turn it off for a week and they go through withdrawal.

Economic anxiety — weaponized

Here's the thing: a lot of the underlying pain is real. Deindustrialization gutted their towns. Opioids killed their families. Wages stagnated while costs exploded. The American Dream stopped working for them.

But instead of blaming the corporations that shipped jobs overseas, or the billionaires that rigged the economy, or the politicians that deregulated everything — they're taught to blame immigrants. To blame welfare recipients. To blame Black people in cities. To blame trans kids.

Classic fascist playbook: take legitimate economic anger and redirect it at the vulnerable.

The permission structure

Trump didn't create the hate. He just gave it permission.

For decades, these people were told to keep the quiet part quiet. Be polite. Use dog whistles. Then Trump came along and said the loud part loud — and nothing happened. No consequences.

He showed them they could be openly racist, openly cruel, openly contemptuous of democracy — and not only survive, but win.

"He fights" doesn't mean he fights for them. It means he's mean to people they don't like. The cruelty is the point.

Community built on enemies

This is the part people miss: MAGA is a community. For a lot of these people — especially older, rural, isolated Americans — it's their entire social world. Their friends are MAGA. Their family is MAGA. Their church is MAGA.

The hate is the membership card. The shared enemies are what bind them together. Leaving the movement doesn't just mean changing your politics. It means losing everyone you know.

So they double down. And double down again. Because the alternative is being alone.

The bottom line

Why is MAGA so hateful?

Because scared people + relentless propaganda + permission to be cruel + community built on shared enemies = hate as a lifestyle.

They're not going to be reasoned out of it. They weren't reasoned into it.

The only thing that works is making it socially and politically costly to be part of it. Outvoting them. Out-organizing them. And building something better that gives people a different place to belong.

[Jay Alto @theJayAlto]

you pity the moth confusing a lamp for the moon, yet here you are confusing a screen for the world

[Stephanie "LB" 🟧 @LincolnsBible]

posted on substack by a person named Teri Leigh

I’m writing this from Minnesota.

These are just a few things that may not be making the national or international news.

a beloved local donut shop Glam Doll Donuts across the street from where Alex Pretti died turned into a warming house and medic center for protestors building and maintaining the memorial site.

a 70yo independent bookstore owner DreamHaven Books down the street expressed his pain on camera, walked through a tear gas cloud, and his website crashed less than 24 hours later from too much business and donations.

the day after tear gas bombs destroyed a N-Mpls neighborhood sending a 6mo old baby to the hospital, at daybreak, a small church community cleaned up the mess of pepper balls, tear gas containers and trash so the neighbors didn’t have to wake up to the memories.

a local independent journalist Mercado Media pounding the streets everyday reporting things from the ground had a testicle removed and showed up two days later to walk with 75,000+ community members to walk the streets in -20 degree weather.

a local sex-positive adult-store The Smitten Kitten has completely transformed into a donation and distribution center.

a local pizza place Wrecktangle Pizza raised over $83K in less than a few days to support families that are sheltering in place.

tow-truck companies are donating their services to clean up the accidents and abandoned vehicles left by ICE and the city is waiving impound fees.

local multi-faith spiritual leaders are spearheading sit-ins at corporate headquarters such as Target and USBank to have deeper conversations with CEOs and boards of directors about community relief.

social workers are taking in children who came home from school with both their parents “disappeared.”

animal shelters and pet-fostering agencies are rescuing pets left alone for days or weeks after their humans were detained.

every restaurant, church, karate dojo, dance studio, school, barber shop, and other small business has created their own underground grassroots supportive network to protect their neighbors, get people to and from work, and raise funds to pay everyday bills.

women who are moms and work full-time jobs are donning reflective vests in shifts to stand watch at bus stops, city parks, and grocery store parking lots ini sub-zero temps to bear witness before going home to tuck their babies in at night.

the MN National Guard offered donuts, coffee, and hot cocoa to peaceful protesters the day after Alex Pretti died, reminding community that we are all in this together and they are here to keep the peace.

These are just a few examples. Stories like this are happening in the hundreds here, every single day!

Community is EVERYTHING!

This Substack community and the MN-Strong resistance has saved my mental health these last weeks.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for giving a shit.

I love you.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

The Paradox of Time according to Aristotle

[Steve Inskeep @NPRinskeep]

Compelling argument.

[HotSotin 🇫🇮🇺🇦🇪🇺△ @HotSotin]

North Korea is a democracy. It's name is Democratic People's Republic.

[Dylan Allman @dylanmallman]

We are living through a moment where a group of people do not just disagree, they do not even acknowledge a shared fundamental reality.

There is no common frame of reference, no mutual set of facts from which discourse can even begin. They can watch the same video, from multiple angles, and walk away convinced they saw a completely different event.

They exist inside a narrative so deeply entrenched that to question it, to even acknowledge a contradiction, is to commit some sort of ideological treason.

This is a deliberate, conditioned immunity to contradiction. It is a cultivated resistance to evidence. They have developed a mind so thoroughly welded to its chosen reality that it will alter, discard, or fabricate whatever it must to maintain coherence.

They can be shown, in real time, the unraveling of their worldview, and they will patch over the holes with fantasy rather than face any doubt whatsoever.

Politics has turned knowledge itself into a partisan weapon. The expectation is no longer to seek truth, but to defend your team at all costs.

There is a lingering obligation to have an opinion on everything, to be informed at all times, to adopt the correct stance. And so, they improvise. They adopt prefabricated opinions handed down by their faction. They fill in the gaps with instinctive loyalty rather than demonstrating any semblance of independent thought.

The game is rigged, and they know it. Two parties, two choices, two sides that everyone is herded into, and neither is worth the loyalty demanded of them.

But to acknowledge this would be to admit powerlessness, to admit that they are trapped in an illusion of choice. So they cope. They retroactively justify their allegiance by turning their side into something righteous, infallible, and necessary. The alternative is too terrifying.

It is a coping mechanism turned mass psychosis. And it is escalating. When reality itself is dictated by allegiance, when loyalty outranks reason, when every fact must be bent into submission to fit the tribe’s chosen narrative, the outcome is inevitable: war.

When factions exist in separate realities, they cannot coexist. They cannot negotiate, they cannot reason, they cannot even comprehend the other side as anything but a threat.

This is irreconcilable. We cannot function like this. A society cannot sustain itself when its people are no longer individuals but ideological husks, possessed by abstractions, fighting battles for masters who do not even know their names.

You are not your faction. You are not your party. You are not an extension of a collective mind.

The moment you outsource your thinking, the moment you allow yourself to believe that your side must be right because the alternative is unbearable, you have ceased to be an individual. You have become another interchangeable pawn in a game that does not need you to think, only to obey.

Wake up. This war for reality is not one you want to be drafted into.

[Jim Sciutto @jimsciutto]

Question: what is the value of a potential U.S. security guarantee for #Ukraine when Trump is currently threatening to violate an 80-year-old security commmitment to @NATO ally #Denmark over #Greenland?