LibertarianDeadhead

A former high school English teacher went viral with a raw farewell video after only three years in the classroom. She said many of her students can barely write a few coherent sentences, don’t know how to format a resume or cover letter, and increasingly just ask ChatGPT to do the work for them. Her blunt conclusion: technology and AI are making kids stop thinking for themselves. She even suggested we should probably keep smartphones and AI tools away from children until they reach college. It’s a sobering, unfiltered look at what’s happening inside classrooms right now — from a teacher who just walked away. What do you think — is AI quietly turning the next generation into people who can’t think or write without a machine, or is this an overreaction?

Bob Weir was a proud Democrat his whole life. But his daughter Monet told us at his memorial: every time politics came up, he called the other side "our friends, the repubs." Every. Single. Time. Scott Adams wasn't a Republican. Wasn't a Democrat. His friends called him "a human supporter." The Grateful Dead and Bob Weir built a tribe that crossed every line, yet had no boundaries. So did Scott Adams. Three days and fifty miles apart, they left us.

In another time’s forgotten space... another conversation takes place between Ron and Jerry. JERRY: I’m convinced more than ever that politics is bullshit, always was bullshit and will be bullshit. It’ll continue to be an empty, futile bullshit trip as long as people are willing to go for it. It doesn’t happen. It doesn’t get things done. It has no real relationship to the world in which we exist. It’s bullshit. If I were to say anything else, I would be misleading somebody drastically. RON: Giving up on the ancient tradition of trusting in the god-kings for protection and sustenance is a real challenge. [Jerry makes a funny face, shrugs and chuckles.] JERRY: It’s a matter of being able to change with the time. Change is the nature of the universe, and the way people should be relating to it is just to flow. It seems to work, because despite how weird it’s gotten – and it’s gotten weird in every way you can think about, one time or another. We’ve been assaulted by every kind of bummer, we’ve had splits among ourselves – it’s still been a very slow, very gradual climb. I don’t know where it’s climbin’ to, but… RON: A vast majority of mankind’s history has been spent living under the rule of tyrants and authoritarians. The ideas of liberty are very new when you consider the big picture. Liberty and free markets are the way forward if we truly desire peace and prosperity. JERRY: In my mind freedom is like a bullshit trip that we’ve all been sold that somehow makes it possible for you to conceptualize a life without responsibility. That kind of thing is not available on this planet. RON: The number one responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow. JERRY: Life is a complex network of interworking responsibilities. It all has to do with awareness and presence, in the sense of nowness, and everything works from that organic center. I don’t think it’s a question of rules or free or not free. Those are just situations and I don’t think they’re at the core of what life is. I haven’t found that to be so. Giving of yourself, that’s really where it’s at. [Ron nods in agreement.] JERRY: Either everybody takes care of everybody else, or nothin’ gets on. There never was a "free" concert. Money is only a symbol for energy exchange. If energy exchange could be worked out with some other analogue instead of money, I’d be all for it. But if it’s going to be strictly an energy rip-off trip, where the musicians get up there and sweat like hell for three hours, and everybody in the front row gets off, and it’s all for the purpose of illustrating some philosophical point, fuck it. It’s some kind of error. It’s all got to be paid for through the efforts of somebody’s labor or energy." RON: "Don’t steal – the government hates competition.” [laughter] RON: "The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren’t infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones. If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free." GARCIA: “We’re basically Americans, and we like America. We like the things about being able to express outrageous amounts of freedom.” [laughter] RON: "Let the revolution begin." [Garcia laughs his beautiful laugh, shakes his head, throws up his arms and lights a cigarette.]

Bob Weir was a proud Democrat his whole life. But his daughter Monet told us at his memorial: every time politics came up, he called the other side "our friends, the repubs." Every. Single. Time. Scott Adams wasn't a Republican. Wasn't a Democrat. His friends called him "a human supporter." The Grateful Dead and Bob Weir built a tribe that crossed every line, yet had no boundaries. So did Scott Adams. Three days and fifty miles apart, they left us.

Bob Weir explained to his daughter, Chloe, why Dead shows felt different from every other concert. At his memorial in January, she shared his thoughts with us: "We have a special relationship with our fans. They give us energy, we focus it, shape it and give it back to them — what I call the azimuth. The music happens there." For sixty years that exchange produced a lot of joy. Bob's other daughter, Monet, said this: "If we play our cards right, these sixty years will be just the beginning." Luckily for us, old man Weir mentored many over the years, passing on his understanding of the elusive "azimuth". Bob was right, we should be good for at least another 300 years!