What all this means is that learning the impossible is possible augments our ability to see ourselves doing the impossible, which triggers a systemic… - Steven Kotler

Big-box health clubs oversell memberships by 400 percent

At most puppy mills, they pack the dogs into wire cages, usually for the entirety of their lives, often in pitch-black conditions. There are waste collection trays beneath these cages, but they’re rarely emptied. Flies are a constant. With no air-conditioning in the summer and no heat in the winter, dogs freeze to death or die from heatstroke with regularity. During the hottest months, when the cage metal heats up, puppies have been known to cook on the wires. The food is poor and veterinary care infrequent. Open sores, tissue damage, blindness, deafness, ulcers, tooth decay — even rotting jaws because the tooth decay has gotten so bad — are more the rule than the exception.

the Altered States Economy totals out to roughly $4 trillion a year. That’s a sizable chunk of our income that we annually tithe to the Church of the Ecstatic. We spend more on this than we do on maternity care, humanitarian aid, and K–12 education combined.” It’s larger than the gross national product of Britain, India, or Russia. And to really put this in perspective, it’s twice as many dollars as there are known galaxies in the entire