I think billionaires would typically rather get eaten than lose their gains. Hence the willingness to risk human extinction over number not go up so much.
Sure, the first year (or two) of COVID were wretched, but most of those barriers have since cleared — yet I’m still struggling. I’ve noticed the same with a number of people within my family and neighbourhood....
It was a favorite of mine as a kid. For me, all the nativity reminds me of the war in Gaza and the Christian Nationalist movement infecting the US government and stripping away civil rights.
Generally the high extinction risk from compound crises (climate, plastic, etc.) has dispelled any notion that what I do here or happens to me matters at a greater scale.
If I ceased to exist this moment, it might cause a small amount of local harm, but little wake. These days, I’m a practicing absurdist, mostly that means I’m aware of my grief and dispair in fine detail, a geographic manifold I’ve well explored.
Ignorance and Want are no longer child wretches hiding in the fold of the robes of a Christmas spirit, rather now have become massive kaiju thundering across the countryside ravaging the population with withering gaze and breath of biting hyperborean frost, leaving a path of toxic wasteland in their wake.
Probably get sent to a concentration camp. Dunno if California will secede from the union to preserve human rights, if it comes between secession or letting the DHS collect all our immigrants and non-trad women.
So yeah, Collecting guns is a thing people of means do in the US for fun when they’re not keeping them around for hunting and dissuading vermin. And skulls can be obtained for a variety of reasons. (I had a set designer with six-plus skulls he’d use as molds for dozens of plaster skulls when he needed them for film settings.)
Unless he’s committed an actual crime, or even just needed a license for collecting guns in his county when he had none, this is essentially reporting a celebrity likes the wrong kind of porn.
I’ll still give him the benefit of the doubt that there may be some justification for a knife and a break-in. It seems unlikely though, and in that case, yeah, maybe he shouldn’t be trusted with bunches of guns.
The whole danger to self or others thing is a common limit.
I feel disappointed in myself all the time, a product of a childhood with parents, teachers, ministers, officers that saw me wanting.
The thing is, they totally lied to me regarding what life and survival in society was all about. And they were half-assing it all this time. In fact the phoning-it-in is consistent from the average menial laborere to the President of the United States. They’re not even trying to do a good job.
So in my case, while I’m disappointed in myself out of an old habit, I am disappointed in my society more, for established valid reasons.
And whatever your vices are, whatever your character failings, you are valid too. Character doesn’t come out of a vacuum. You were made this way.
I need desktop / homescreen wallpaper that is minimalist enough to not be distracting and yet is more complex than a flat color or gradient. And a single one in place will bug me after a time, so I borrowed a bunch of powerpoint tech backdrops.
all of those things only harm the human experience and end up making people live less!! no drug!! why do people like these things if they only harm your body… i don’t understand… gluten is bad for your heart too
Because they make us feel good in the short run, and are pressured by society to cope now. Especially when the boss man demands we function and do our job.
If we treated our workforce like human beings (or our school children, for that matter) they might not be so susceptible to vices, but that would also harm a major market and western civilizations prioritize economies over the good of the public.
You’re definitely influenced by the market of western civ. Big tobacco, for instance, lobbies the government of Mexico to let them sell cigarettes without restriction (e.g. to kids, without warning labels, without PSAs warning people that smoking is dangerous).
I should clarify when I say it happens in western civilization, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen outside of western civilization. China, for instance has its own set of vices sold to the people fully aware of their ill health effects. I’m less familiar with them, and can’t give an informed opinion about it.
But as Russia’s history with Vodka shows us, personal responsibility only carries us so far, and a state may gladly sacrifice the integrity of its households to squeeze more production from the workforce.
The Kalashnikov was really good and has totally proven itself as the people’s battle weapon.
The story of the rise of the Armalite as a reponse is a weird story, but as I’ve researched it (opinions often differ) it wasn’t the AK that killed the M14, but the notion of squeezing three fire teams for M2 machine gun emplacements into a squad, rather than one.
The M14s were lost to M16s as their weight got displaced, but according to the Marines I talked to, they favored the M14 over the M16, and liked the hole they could punch through the enemy (and anything behind them for miles).
That said, later iterations of the Armalite got better.
I’ve been having this problem with This Is How You Lose the Time War which totally implies the human species will survive the next few centuries regardless of the climate crisis, the plastic crisis and our preference for fascism or annihilation rather than giving up capitalism and hierarchy.
In fact, the conflict is just an epic tastes great / less filling choice between two transhuman far futures in which all of today’s culture is recovered and preserved. We matter!
But yeah, its just the correspondence between two fictional heroes in love. They don’t exist past the page.
No need to check on my sanity. Im long diagnosed and a soul crushing emo whose suicide risk is carefully managed.
I’d say that we’re all fucked. There’s going to be at least one global population correction in the next century. Even if we are able to push it back through mitigation, new development, geoengineering, luck and pluck, the zoomers are going to see it by midlife and everyone’s life will be defined by it the way Dresden hit Kurt Vonnegut.
I don’t think that’s the case. It’s just that Europe was able get the upper hand. The ill behavior that comes with that power is an indictment of the human species. China, Japan and Russia were happy to crush and exploit Korea without a European in sight, leading to the current fractured state. (It’s practically the setting of an RTS game.)
But maybe we’ll figure out a sociological trick that allows us to maintain an egalitarian society, but that’s for the survivors of the next few centuries to figure out. (And they may not be human.)
In the 19th century, when it comes to Korea, Japan was doing the heavy lifting. Queen Min (who couldn’t be pinned down by Korea’s intensely patriarchal society) developed a spy network in Imperial Nippon to track the modernization of its military as Japanese ambassadors practiced the same gunship diplomacy they learned from Europe.
She became such a problem, Japan sent a literal platoon of ninjas to kill her. Which they did, brutally.
The Joseon dynasty fell to disarray and collapsed in short time, though the assassination of Queen Min wasn’t causal so much as Japan was ready to put its war fleet to use, and Korea, with its sweet harbors and strategic significance was a choice target for a test run.
This is the advantage of everyone really, really not wanting a nuclear war. We assume its not really until the evidence it is is overwhelming. And maybe even then.
A friend of mine has (had? it was a while ago) an uncle who was one of the key turners in a midwest ICBM silo in the early 1970s. Having turned into a pacifist hippie (while still working for STRATCOM) he admitted during every psychiatric review he totally wasn’t going to turn that key, not now, not ever, even when staring down a Soviet first strike, because he was totally not going to be that guy that killed thirty million people.
And for reasons my buddy nor her uncle can fathom, they kept him at post.
I had three girlfriends for a while in my late twenties in that I was the guy they hooked up with when their primaries were out and they were feeling lonely / jealous. Not a great gig, as I was getting laid way less than I would have liked.
Curiously, my flat-mate’s boyfriend, who was getting plenty, was envious of my poly adventures, maybe imaging more of a harem lifestyle than I actually had.
PS: Only in my late forties did I ever become comfortable letting my parents get news about my love life, by which time it had stabilized.
I’ve never owned a car myself, but my fam swears by the Datsun 280z, especially thanks to its dependence on standard parts. My grandpa’s Z was nearly a ship of Theseus, with only a few original parts remaining when he died, maintained by him and my uncle.
I have had a tendency since my earliest days on social media where I will get halfway or more through a response, and end up just cancelling it. Sometimes I feel like I’m just being to over the top with snark or otherwise don’t want to be that kind of person, but a lot of the time I’ll decide I just really don’t care...
One in five, I’ll guess. I am prone to TMI, not as much intimate sharing as wanting to write about things that are too far remotely related.
I’m also prone to seguing into a rant as I have much to say I wish were said more often. Sometimes I edit those out. Sometimes I mark them as rants.
And then I am prone to mobile keyboard fatigue, and will wear out if a short explanation won’t do. I get back to it at a proper keyboard less often than I don’t.
“The Ukrainian government’s military intelligence service says it hacked the Russian Federal Taxation Service (FNS), wiping the agency’s database and backup copies.”...
In Lawrence of Arabia when asked about the secret to snuffing out matches with his fingers without it hurting, Larry responds The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.
The trick (we all learn this in our middle adulthood) is not minding what others might think when we scratch our private itches. Everybody itches the way everybody poops. It’s not about hygiene, I itch like fire coming out of the shower (my doc doesn’t know why). If it bothers someone that you’re a human ape thing like the rest of us, they are not worth your time.
An interesting hypothesis. The alternative would be to shower in tepid water and come out feeling a bit chilled. At least now during the winter. Usually it’s the summer when I itch coming out of the shower.
Myrrh mixed with posca or wine was widely used in many ancient cultures to produce pleasurable feelings and as an anti-inflammatory and analgesic.
— The all-holy Wikipedia
Here in the modern age we forget just how much the diggity-dank (whether cannabis proper or whatever herb grows as a nearby weed) was important in human life and culture. Tobacco and coffee came late in history and heck we’ve almost forgotten about khat (which is a controlled substance in the US, probably because it would compete with coffee and tobacco if it were well known)
The only reason were not allowed to trip balls through our lives now is because it interferes with our industrial work. Seriously, the industrialists pressured states to restrict drugs because it slowed assembly lines.
There are three things I know that look like that.
~ The Fat Man configuration of an atomic bomb
~ An internal confinement fusion reactor
~ A magnetic bottle with which to store extremely reactive substances, such as strange matter, a black hole or antimatter, none of which anyone actually has in enough quantity to be dangerous and require a magnetic bottle. But we still have the containment chambers.
Wax is a description of the solid, and is a name for many many things, so its really good to not conflate different waxes. For instance hot paraffin on sensitive body part can be really exciting in an intimate romantic setting. Hot beeswax can cause third degree burns.
Cerumin or earwax is completely different stuff, and probably not good for anything but the ears.
There are some processed beeswax balms out there (Bert’s Bees was bought out by Clorox, so they may have updated their product for industrial efficiency, but there are still indie products for lip and skin care. Use in moderation unless you know you have a condition and are treating it. Too much lip balm will acclimate your lips to overbalming.
Brenda rule (static.piaille.fr)
Stolen from imgur rule (programming.dev)
And the image/chat was stolen from tumblr, I think?
Patient Gamer Rule (media.kbin.social)
Is it just my circle, or has it been a challenge getting into the Christmas/holiday spirit the last couple of years?
Sure, the first year (or two) of COVID were wretched, but most of those barriers have since cleared — yet I’m still struggling. I’ve noticed the same with a number of people within my family and neighbourhood....
If you could travel back in time and utter a single sentence to someone, when would you choose to go and whom would you address?
How do you explain to yourself the existence of this Universe or the existence of anything at all?
Americans, what are your plans if Trump wins in 2024?
Metal rule (lemmy.world)
RULE - Rim Unot Lsure Eifthisfitshere (I hope you had a stroke from reading that :3) (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
18+ Scandal at 20,000 Feet: B-2 Caught in Stealthy Embrace with Secret Lover! (files.catbox.moe)
Rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
What's something you're oddly obsessed about? (SFW)
why do people like cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, and sugar and gluten??
all of those things only harm the human experience and end up making people live less!! no drug!! why do people like these things if they only harm your body… i don’t understand… gluten is bad for your heart too
Flag of the Biblical Tribe of Benjamin Rule (feddit.de)
reddit.com/…/flag_of_the_tribe_of_benjamin_accord…
Egg IRL (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Sword of Liberty (sh.itjust.works)
Virgin AK Clone vs Chad Western Firearm (sh.itjust.works)
simple solution really (sopuli.xyz)
Babuskarule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
They never were (lemmy.ml)
New reusable, silenced, self-rearming antipersonnel mine design (sh.itjust.works)
What are some generational differences between millennials and Gen Z ? (lemmy.zip)
memo-ruley hole (lemmy.world)
rule (lemmy.world)
The time the chuds saved the world (sh.itjust.works)
Don't rU(wU)le (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
Rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
animefeminist.com/love-yall-lonely-catgirl-seeks-…
Out of all the cars you've owned, which one holds a special place in your heart as the absolute favourite.
Shamelessly stolen from /r/askreddit.
Cult of the Lamb dev doesn’t stop at sex, now adds guns to the chaos (web.archive.org)
How often to you bail on a half-written post or response?
I have had a tendency since my earliest days on social media where I will get halfway or more through a response, and end up just cancelling it. Sometimes I feel like I’m just being to over the top with snark or otherwise don’t want to be that kind of person, but a lot of the time I’ll decide I just really don’t care...
Credible Cyber Offense (sh.itjust.works)
“The Ukrainian government’s military intelligence service says it hacked the Russian Federal Taxation Service (FNS), wiping the agency’s database and backup copies.”...
boob itch rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
196 (lemmy.world)
egg⚛️irl (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Description: Photo of a complicated found ball-shaped science experiment (gamma ray detector)....
E3 Is Permanently Canceled (www.gamespot.com)
Ear wax rule (lemmy.world)
Rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
vote for your favorite or suggest your own candidates (sh.itjust.works)
Actual personality rule (lemmy.world)