What gives me hope is all the things that the madness of humanity can’t touch. No matter what happens life evolved and there’s so much variation it’s beautiful, and it doesn’t matter if we understand it is there or not. Star formation and supernova will continue to occur. There’s an entire reality outside of us that will continue to exist whether or not we go extinct. The electromagnetic spectrum, chemistry, microorganisms, neat rocks, all of those things exist whether or not we do. I think I just very heavily avoid thinking that centers humanity. It’s cool that we make music and have love and compassion but we also are nuts and have capacity for very sad and painful things like increasing suffering and causing mental anguish. So I just think clouds and leaves are neat and trillions of other planets exist and there’s probably life elsewhere too. Maybe they do better, or maybe it’s not intelligent life like us at all and it’s just a bunch of weird creatures just being neat. A planet doesn’t even need life to be interesting there’s entire geological formations on Pluto and weather systems on Saturn larger than our planet. Imagine the moody clouds not even made of water vapor just making the craziest looking sunsets on Jupiter and it exists whether someone is there to see it or not. I think that’s pretty cool that basically all of reality exists completely separately from our species. Completely untouchable by religion and politics. As for the religion and politics, idk I keep myself and those I love safe. I continue to express my dissent and my disagreement and remind myself that a lot of these ‘arguments’ are old as hell and humanity has been dealing with them for a long time and you probably won’t solve them. I hope you get more acts of kindness and less exposure to the cruelty.

Yeah you’re the one misunderstanding lol

It’s not a ‘goal’ there is no purpose or goal to evolution or life…it’s a property of life that it propagates itself but that’s not the goal, reproduction is a function or a property of life. You could also argue the ‘goal’ is survival and there are sticks and carrots poking at making an organism survive, but again it just sounds like you’re misunderstanding how those words are used in academia, you’re doing the same thing with fitness. Fitness in evolution isn’t about running or being strong it’s how well an organism functions in its environment and what makes an organism fit varies from organism to organism and environment to environment.

I want to be convinced and those are affirming articles, but since Roe v Wade fell I’ve just felt like nothing is safe. Any thoughts on Roe falling?

Hell yeah canned peaches. I agree though too there’s weird things that make charity a hard problem

I like nature but see it in both ways. It can be creepy and scary and gross. But I don’t know, mostly I guess it’s the variety of visual stimuli and noises that I like. It’s all just so neat, the shapes of plants, shiny hummingbirds, how big it all is, moody fog in trees, finding a weird bug or plant you’ve never seen in your life, seeing things that are explicitly not made by humans, I find it comforting. Human made stuff is cool but also if that was all there was I think it would be pretty depressing, it’s nice that things exist outside of our making.

I remember seeing an interview with him and he had the most expensive TV he could find in his mansion but he never watched it, and that was the perfect summary of his values to me - vapidly pursuing status while not actually being fulfilled in the slightest.

I believe you would want to be more dialectic about this not didactic

Could you elaborate? I too would also like to sleep at night.

Magnificent

Yes.

Anyone seen some of the promo videos for Forever California? Nothing radicalized me more than hearing a business pitch talking about how progress is being hindered by ‘legacy systems of governance’ Hell yeah they absolutely without a doubt want to make company towns again and pitch it like a new idea and sidestep democratic governments.

I mean…yeah like Jaron Lanier warned about technocracy being distasteful of democracy in one half a manifesto which was published in 2000 I believe. And anyone who was on 4chan before 2016 would know about /lit/ recommends on nick land and moldbug saying nerds will be new techno philosopher kings replacing democracy with some fever dream of digital feudalism, but you could be talking about this stuff since 2000 and peoples eyes would still glaze over. It’s late? People still don’t even seem to care even though they bitch about centralized platforms. People still think you’re just over exaggerating or weird for saying social media owned by corporations is giving corporations way too much power over public discourse and culture.

You’re probably right, I basically agree too, but idk. It just doesn’t seem to ever stop a zealot or a nazi or the spread of their ideology. Not to mention in America it’s basically every zealous evangelists wet dream that one day their bible will be illegal and their gospel will be silenced by the government - they’ve been saying it’ll happen for decades. I’d rather them say what they truly think out loud and for our culture to not tolerate it by collectively being disgusted and enraged and having no pity for if they do get hurt. Like I wish that no one would care or be surprised if someone that says ‘the gays and black culture are degenerate and are agents of demons and Jews’ get their ass beat because they basically should, but to make it law and have the courts and government do it? Idk. Seems like a trap to me. I just want cops to turn a blind eye and no one be surprised if a nazi gets punched. But idk Germany seems to be doing fine with it being illegal. It’s probably just some bs free speech absolutism Ive picked up being American.

I agree and it’s what I’m trying to lean into. I’ve been thinking of democracy as a verb or a muscle that has atrophied in me. Corporations certainly aren’t democratic, and most systems we live in nowadays don’t lend themselves towards democratic modes of engagement. My goal is to learn more about unions and look at mutual aid groups and tenant unions and look at examples in American history when people were more civically engaged and try to do more.

The nazis and religious zealots should continue to have their free speech and be able to parade, but they need to be shunned back to the recesses of popularity and life where they were scorned and looked at with disgust and their points were not granted the dignity to be engaged with in ‘debate’. Instead they are now treated as a spectacle and a disbelief that anyone even truly believes those things. They also successfully framed the discussion that they have reason and science on their side, and culturally we all need to understand they are ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag.

Exactly they worded it like that completely on purpose.

Japan Sinks 2020

Wolfs Rain