You’re both in luck! Someone else linked to an article that breaks down how it could work in reality: https://startrek.website/comment/9430643

Truly. I didn’t know a song could make me cry until I listened to Billy Austin, a song Earle wrote about the death penalty.

I appreciate that you gave it a listen! Hopefully you appreciated it

I know y’all are quoting System of a Down, so I want to share a country song about exactly this…because the difference in the musical styles is neat. One of my favorites by Steve Earle: Rich Man’s War.

It’s a song I’ve always loved for the direct message of rich people using poor folks as soldiers in wars…but also the way it weaves in a larger economic picture about the decisions by the rich that put people in the very desperate positions that they later exploit.

This book speaks to it better than I can: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-bullshit-jobs/

Specifically take a look at

Chapter 3: Why Do Those in Bullshit Jobs Regularly Report Themselves Unhappy? (On Spiritual Violence, Part 1)

Clearly he saw something that the Deep State is trying to hide, and now’s the chance to see it for ourselves.

Alyx was incredible though! Way more than a tech demo (though I get the argument that it was a test to see if folks would pick up a VR Half-life 3). I played it on a cheap, used WMR headset and an old PC that could barely keep up, and it still stays in my top five videogaming experiences.

It’s a great example to bring up though, because I’d bet it wouldn’t have been made if the studio was only chasing money instead of trying to innovate.

Never used one myself, but apparently lightly spinning them helps the honey not drip because it’s so viscous. Stop spinning it and it can be drizzled.

Had to search online because I never understood why one would not just use a spoon either, but if it means there’s not as many little honey trails on the edge of the container, I can see the point. Learned something new today!

Exactly: or take folks who live in the tropics (about 40% of the human population) where it feels cold below 60F.

Thanks, I respect your take too. I fully understand that I’m an optimist, and will desperately cling to any shred of hope we have. Not a position everyone holds, and I don’t hold it against anyone to not have hope for humanity’s future, as much as it conflicts with my own thoughts. In any case, I hope you have a good one! Thanks for a good discussion.

That’s entirely my point though: we can’t reason with a deadly virus, but we can with most humans. Or at least some humans. OK maybe a few. The point is, I don’t think it’s logical to throw in the towel.

That isn’t human exceptionalism in my view, either: because I don’t believe we’re inherently special animals when it comes to how we treat the environment. My point is that most animals inherently exploit resources, and drive others to extinction. We just managed to make guns and power tools and propaganda. Once humans are gone, we have no reason to think that any species that manages to start some technologically advanced civilization will be any better. So either we eradicate all biological life to ensure that it doesn’t eradicate biological life…or we try to improve humanity, because despite things, we can often be reasoned with. Humanity has gotten better, even though it hasn’t improved enough, when looking at human civilization over the last few thousand years. That’s my point: not that we don’t deserve calamity, but that we can - if we fight hard enough - try to steer our own species toward a better future for everyone.

Who knows though, maybe if humanity is gone the bonobos will rise up to take our place. They’re pretty chill, all things considered.

That’s the easy way out. Please stick around and help the rest of us try to steer humanity in the right direction. Help the moral arc of the universe bend a little faster. It’s hard work, and most of us won’t see much of a return. But long-term, let’s hope that humanity can.

To clarify: I’m a biologist. The perspective you’ve taken is basically “Noble Savage” but for animals. Animals are pushed to extinction all the time. Yes, we’re incredibly good at it, and we’re good at coming up with highfalutin reasons for killing things, but look at chimps, ants, dolphins…nature is brutal. It sucks to be most animals. Say a habitat changes, and a species “needs” to move into an adjacent similar habitat that’s already occupied by one or more species exploiting those resources? Extinction of something is pretty likely. That’s all very much an oversimplification, of course, but this is a lemmy comment.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111310 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-it-comes-waging-war-ants-humans-have-lot-common-180972169/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War

The hope I have is our intelligence. The fact that you recognize this existential threat is more than a badger is capable of.

Sorry, I didn’t articulate my thoughts well: I meant that when I CTRL+F’ed the PDF searching for “dissent”, the second of three places in the PDF that it “finds” the word dissent is literally behind the word “concurring” in “SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, and JACKSON, JJ., concurring in judgment” on page 15 of the PDF.

I also don’t have legal training to dissect most of what’s in there, but I find it interesting that dissent is embedded in the PDF behind the title to their opinion.

dissent

So I went to read it and found there’s no dissenting opinion, but a concurring one: but oddly, if you CTRL+F “dissent”, their concurrence lights up for me. Tried it on two PDF readers, but maybe I’m losing grip on reality.

If your eyeballs are missing, I can make an assumption that your vision isn’t great just by looking at you. That’s not a moral judgement.

Doesn’t mean blood tests are useless, and in fact it means we have some idea where to start investigating a potential health problem.

Yes, I agree that there’s bias against folks who are overweight, and also that there’s a range of risk associated with being overweight. It’s pretty clear, however, that obesity is a health concern that we should take seriously. If someone smokes five pack of cigs a day, I’m going to make an assumption about their lung health. There’s always outliers that live to 100 smoking and not doing exercise, but it would be a shit doctor if they didn’t tell folks not to follow their example.

From the article:

“All the satellites which re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere burn and create tiny alumina particles, which will float in the upper atmosphere for many years,” Takao Doi, a Japanese astronaut and aerospace engineer with Kyoto University, warned recently. “Eventually, it will affect the environment of the Earth.”

You’re joking, but the covfefe thing was almost more ridiculous, given they pretended it was intentional and claimed that an inside group knew exactly what he meant.

I wonder if there will be a couple Putin-approved “vaguely possibly anti-Putin” talking points allowed, for the sole purpose of avoiding that (obviously true) accusation. So the Fox News heads can say “Tucker has the balls to stand up to Putin, it’s not propaganda!”, and Putin still wins.

We saw the uniforms go mostly black in DS9, so I think it is meant to show how the Federation isn’t totally recovered from the Dominion war…I wish they had pushed than angle harder re: the struggle to help the Romulans, the Synths, etc. At least by Lower Decks they’re back to the more colorful uniforms!

Or as the Engineer from TF2 said:

Hey look, buddy. I’m an engineer, that means I solve problems. Not problems like “What is beauty?”, ‘cause that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems! For instance, how am I gonna stop some big mean Mother-Hubbard from tearin’ me a structurally superfluous new behind? The answer? Use a gun. And if that don’t work, use more gun. Like this heavy caliber, tripod-mounted, little ol’ number designed by me, built by me, and you’d best hope… not pointed at you.