Most of our problems are ultimately problems of distribution. There are more obese than underweight children in the world. If climate change were to slash our yields by 20%, we wouldn’t die of hunger, assuming at least that we know how to distribute our resources. I have explained before, how we can grow a hundred times as much protein per square meter with mushrooms and shellfish than with beef. Hunger is caused by political instability, rather than a lack of food production.
Realistically speaking, the biggest problem we all face is that we’re going to grow old. That’s what’s most likely to kill you, the gradual decay of your body. We make a thousand different excuses for why we’re OK with that predicament. As Bostrom points out, people worry about AI killing us all, but the reality is that all of us will die in the next 100 years otherwise anyway.
Remember, business as usual is a nightmare as it stands. You gradually die out of old age and the future is inherited by Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa, as the Koreans and Japanese die out and as the world transforms into a desert. I understand why people believe in the singularity, because if we slip back into a dark age, it will be an awful nightmare full of human suffering. If we manage to get it right on the other hand, you can essentially have everyone live effectively forever. People are already using AI to cure cancer in their pets.
Aging is mainly thought to be due to the accumulation of senescent cells that release inflammatory signals that prohibit healthy cells from replicating themselves. Selectively remove the senescent cells and animals live abnormally long. In a sane world we would have a life extension bubble accompanying the AI bubble, but the research is niche and funding is lacking to cure aging.
Most importantly, what we’re lacking is the application of multiple treatment pathways simultaneously in the same animal. Nobody is really looking at how long you can keep a mouse alive. And equally important, you have to keep in mind that human biology differs from rodents. Rodents kept for research purposes tend to die of cancer, because their cells are much more willing to keep proliferating than human cells.
Claude summarizes the difference as following:
| Aging Driver | Dominant in Mice? | Dominant in Humans? |
|---|---|---|
| Telomere shortening | ✗ (minor) | ✓✓ (major) |
| Cancer as mortality cause | ✓✓ | Partial |
| Oxidative / metabolic damage | ✓ (fast rate) | ✓ (slow accumulation) |
| Epigenetic drift | ✓ (fast) | ✓ (slow) |
| Inflammaging | Partial | ✓✓ |
| DNA damage accumulation | Moderate | ✓✓ |
| Protein aggregation diseases | ✗ (rare) | ✓✓ |
| Hormonal senescence (menopause) | ✗ | ✓ |
You essentially need people like Brian Johnson, willing to have a cocktail of experiments carried out on themselves, because research in rodents probably just isn’t going to get us very far. But equally important is not to get hung up on the dead-end solutions. Here’s an example of a dead-end solution: Exercise. Olympic athletes live a total of five years longer than the average American. That’s it, five years. You should exercise to increase your quality of life, but when it comes to quantity, it’s negligible.
Rather, it seems the most effect can be expected from senolytics and telomere lengthening. Whenever you bring up telomere lengthening, you get the “but cancer!” argument from midwits. But here’s the thing. Cancer isn’t just a product of cells proliferating excessively. It’s mainly a product of an immune system that becomes unable to keep those cells in check. If you rejuvenate the telomeres, you also rejuvenate the immune system. That’s likely why you generally tend to see no increase in cancer when animals receive supplements that lengthen the telomeres. I would even be willing to bite the bullet and say the risk of cancer may be worth the price of delaying senescence. Cancer doesn’t have to be a death sentence, but aging is.
I don’t claim to have the full answer. If I had the full answer, the answer would be relatively easy and if the answer was easy it would be hard to stop it from disseminating. Rather, what I’m trying to explain here is why the answer is obfuscated. There are two main reasons: The first reason is that we mostly look at animals that age due to different factors than humans do. The second reason is because we don’t really study combinations of therapies that rejuvenate through different mechanisms.
It’s essentially a puzzle we’re looking at. We’ve already found the pieces. Now is the time to start putting the pieces together and find out the image that it makes.
Excellent topic!
Telomeres
To go sideways a bit, I’ve heard that humans live about 3 times longer than they should be alloted by number of heartbeats, as compared to other mammals.
The passage of time is amazing.
I’ve known several people who were born in the 1800s. I shot a rifle with a friend who was born in the 1870s. He was a nice, funny guy who joked that I hit a bear off in the woods. I did the math and he was too old to be drafted into WW1 and yet I threw a frisbee with him.
Another one I asked about the 1800s and he told me he recollected a lot of wagon wheels and big hoop skirts. He remembered the first airplane flown by the Wright brothers, the introduction of TV, and he was pretty old by WWII. He made a good living in the Great Depression as a traveling salesman of boilers.
I recall a WWII vet who still looked scarily strong pushing his lawnmower who had a collection of Nazi helmets, knives and other memorabilia that he took from dead Germans.
And I’m not that old, still in good shape.
We have evolved to die. It happens for reasons. Each individual is just not that important in the grand scheme of things, or we would’ve evolved to be immortal already.
As individuals: we get born > do some stuff to avoid dying and reproduce > die
As a species: we evolve > do some stuff to avoid going extinct > go extinct.
When you zoom out, dying doesn’t seem so bad. I’m not about to rush out and take fentanyl, but I have reproduced, done some stuff and used my body rather than baby it, so when I die, I’ll be able to face the end with at least some degree of equanimity.
Death is unavoidable, so I recommend reproducing. The ‘immortality’ you seek is already on offer.
There’s nothing quite like being a father to help you accept death – if not actually want it from time to time 😛
I don’t want to be mean but yours is the stupidest post I have ever seen here. I know loads of people who wish they had never been born. I also know loads of people whose kids died before they died themselves, and the agony that involves is unimaginable (at any rate you don’t seem to be able to imagine it). Reproducing for the sake of one’s own mental benefit is not ethical.
I feel pain and can empathise with pain, but there’s not much I can do about the pain of existence I’m afraid. Take it up with the boss.
Reproducing is a biological imperative.
We have evolved to do it, including psychologically, it follows that following that imperative might just have positive effects on one’s mental health.
Sorry about that? Really?
It’s like apologising for being a human being.
So sorry, not sorry.
But I get it, there is no greater sin than being a father. Messy being a parent. Damn shame that’s how the whole shitshow keeps going isn’t it?
Want immortality?
Want a fountain of youth?
Then participating in the cycle of life is as close as you’re going to get – or probably as close as you’re going to get and stay human.
Might as well embrace it.
Sorry/not sorry if that offends you.
I didn’t take you for a gnostic Karenica – those heretics were not keen on reproducing either because it caused a being to exist and therefore suffer.
I don’t want material immortality. I think it is vulgar to seek a material fountain of youth.
I am a Christian, and I look to a better life to come.
Our every action; our every breath even, should be guided by Christ. That Light within us, who will not steer us wrong. We wait for His guidance. That includes guidance concerning important decisions like whether to have kids. Some of the saints did, some didn’t. We are not supposed to be guided by reasoning and especially not by poor reasoning. You could make all the same sorts of arguments about adding a sliced banana to your breakfast cereal that you made concerning kids.
You don’t have to have a REASON to have kids.
Reasoning is great. I love to reason. It is not a proper guide.
“there’s not much I can do about the pain of existence I’m afraid”
That is exactly the matter under discussion. One can reduce pain by not reproducing and bringing more people into existence. So yes, there is something a person can do about that.
Reproduction is a biological activity; it is not an imperative. Lots of humans don’t reproduce.
We have not evolved psychologically to reproduce; we reproduce and some people enjoy it and some don’t; some benefit psychologically and some don’t. Once it is a done deal a lot of people rationalize it after the fact (and people who don’t have kids rationalize that). There isn’t good evidence that having kids makes a person happier (not that that should be a consideration), rather than (to a small degree) that happier people are more likely to reproduce.
I don’t care if the material world human shit show continues (although I certainly don’t want anyone to die). I look to another life.
I am not offended by people reproducing; I am offended by bad reasoning about people reproducing.
Wombat is just a reactionary who’s afraid of change kareninca. Wombat seems to be hoping the U.S collapses soon since he’s afraid of anything new happening and hates human progress.
The Author of Templist Canon is the smartest philosophical reactionary out there Wombat, I’ve already heard the “immortality through reproduction and remembrance” argument from him and I don’t find it convincing. You’re not immortal if you fucking die. Your kids are their own individuals and not extensions of yourself.
NDEs suggest that the entities in-control of the typical person’s reincarnation love the idea of just erasing all your memories and having you die over and over again. That is hell. The only way I’m convinced we can salvage this reality at all is if we don’t die. It’s as simple as that.
God Bless America!
I’m keen on being a human being, with all the shit that goes with that, just like God made me. Being part of something that promises to carry on without you is as close to immortality as it gets. Hence all the pyramids. Perfectly normal and healthy death denial. Of course my children are their own people. That goes without saying. I have dealt with a lot of criticism for having children. Society prefers to import citizens fully formed and educated from Calcutta. Women are supposed to work until they are infertile. Etc. I chose to have a family instead. How reactionary of me. You are keen on a different narrative. To me, it seems like a caricature of real life, complete with an actual caricature of a woman. I’ll just take the real thing thanks. If that makes me a reactionary, then so be it. As for the Western empire being in deep trouble – I have drawn attention to why I think that is, but everyone is too keen on maintaining the status quo, so we sleepwalk off the cliff. Who is the reactionary? I believe in objective reality, I am not a believer in ‘manifesting’ with the… Read more »
It’s okay to have kids. It is NOT okay to make garbage arguments in favor of doing so.
I you actually cared about your kids you wouldn’t wish death upon them. Hopefully your kids are not dumb enough to reject immortality, though it sucks that they’ll probably have to deal with the fact you’re going to choose to rot in the ground. Yeah I’m going to be optimistic about America and overall, America has been a net good. Sorry it destroyed commie shitholes like the USSR. China is also a shithole which is barely socialist anymore since that crap doesn’t work in reality. You wanna talk about manifestation? You should doubt manifestation considering how every attempt to manifest a decent communist society has failed. I believe in objective reality too, it’s fluid in some ways and solid in others and there are internal and external factors, but I’m weird so you should just understand me as a naive empiricist even if I’m a bit of a dreamer. Third Worldists always go on and on about the warcrimes of the west while conveniently forgetting or denying the much more serious warcrimes of our enemies. You do not give any shits about the women murdered by the Iranian regime for instance. Also your idea in the last thread that we’d… Read more »
It should be noted that the overall strategy is likely NOT going to lead to a full on ground invasion of Iran, and most of the discourse revolving around conscription and WW3 is hysterics. I’m just pointing out how doomed Iran would be in the scenario where that changes.
As Trump would say “I’m gonna bomb the shit out of em.”
We really don’t need to allow a regime that murders thousands of its protesting citizens while supporting international terrorists to build up to the point they can build nuclear bombs and do whatever the hell they want.
I hope a diplomatic solution can be reached soon, but Iran has rejected the peace terms of the U.S and is just demanding the Strait of Hormuz, reparations, and the closure of U.S military bases across the Middle East and that’s not going to happen. The Iranian government really ought to recognize their position and act rationally.
Long live Liberty!
The USA does not have a moral leg to stand on with this war. Pathetic to try justifying it on those lines. It’s a real cluster with no adequate moral justification; in fact it is an immoral war of aggression with no justification that seems to stand up at all to any kind of scrutiny. It’s not even a war the people of the USA wanted. It looks like the USA was tricked into a war that is not in its interest for the benefit of Isreal and the agendas of various lobbyists and Hegseth types. Very clever of Israel and the Israel Lobby in the USA and the crusader types. Although it seems to be blowing up in everyone’s faces. Israel is getting bombed. The missiles are falling on US bases. There will be blowback against Jews all over the world for this, especially if it goes really badly, which it is looking like it will. Fresh waves of antisemitism… Even if they had nothing to do with it at all or protested against it. Where is Mehen? Did he say too much already? For the Iranians, this is existential. They have seen what has happened to countries that… Read more »
Hey hey, ho ho, the Islamic regime must go!
https://x.com/VividProwess/status/2038388200410841360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp
https://x.com/KatKanada_TM/status/2038400293189427678?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp
“ Where is Mehen? Did he say too much already? ”
Going through the worst depression of my life. Realizing things are much worse than I had first thought. If LSWMLM is reading: my “situation” has revealed itself to be far worse than I originally thought.
Sorry to hear that.
CV, the best comment I’ve seen from you, and one that I fully agree with.
I really hope the war is a success and results in a new breath of freedom for the Persian people.
The next few weeks with American boots on the ground to try to break the IRGC and free up the strait are going to be very difficult and politically unpopular but thank God Kamala and Tim aren’t in office.
Hi CV, I would reply on this that liberty (western style) has been transformed since a looooong time into a travesty of itself… everything nowadays is unfortunately packed with lies, our self-understanding as functioning democracies has nothing to do with reality anymore… and since we deluded ourselves this much, I wouldn’t be surprised, if we are all in for some rude awakenings – meaning, that Iran will not only prevail but most likely win in the long run (by prevailing), while the West will finally lose its decades-old dominance on the world stage and will be replaced by an axis of China-Russia-Iran (which will most likely turn on each other, once the “Great Satan” has been defeated). Interesting times! Take care
Erik, which weak, fucked up European country do you live in?
You are calling the USA “The Great Satan,” and hoping for our downfall, so I have to the right ask where you live.
We are not warring against Iran.
We are fighting to free the Iranian people from the oppressive grip of the theocratic Shia IRGC because we’ve had enough and it’s time.
They’ve killed thousands of Americans starting in Beirut 1983, they’re now slaughtering idealistic dissenters in the streets by the thousands, and they cannot be allowed to control the strait of Hormuz or possess enriched uranium.
The entire leadership has been eliminated, down 2 or 3 layers, and the true believers left know that they will be served justice and hanged if they can’t cling on to power.
It’s a fight of good against evil.
Iranian diaspora worldwide are celebrating Donald Trump and Israel. You’re welcome.
It is common in Iran for people to colloquially refer to the United States as “The Great Satan,” hence the quotations on Erik’s post. By the way his post reads, he does not appear to be calling America by this term himself. I happen to also take issue with the term, mostly because it implies that America is somehow great :^) For what it’s worth, I think this conflict will turn into a long-term quagmire in the best case scenario. I have a childhood friend who is presently in the US marines, and I really hope they don’t put him or others like him in harm’s way, just to appease the bloodlust of a few psychopathic Jewish degenerates and their evangelical bootlickers. I’ve said this previously, but if the point were to improve the lives of the Iranian people and remove an authoritarian regime, it would have made a lot more sense to aid the protestors and rebels in Iran in a more indirect and hands-off way earlier on, rather than just declaring war on the country. Iran itself was evidently very unstable, but by declaring war on them the Americans and Israelis have rallied the Iranian people to support… Read more »
Tryptie the Trickster, whose side are you on?? “Americans and Israelis have rallied the Iranian people to support their current government and vindicated the anti-American sentiment of supporters of the Iranian regime.” Oh really? VINDICATED? That’s a strong word. Supporters of the regime would feel VINDICATED throwing YOU off a rooftop and watching you splatter on the asphalt below. You think the Iranian people are “rallied” to support the IRGC? I’d be interested in seeing a survey of the opinions of the people but we can’t because the IRGC has cut off internet access. The Islomafascists have made it dark. I bet the people support getting rid of the theocracy by about 80/20. “For what it’s worth, I think this conflict will turn into a long-term quagmire in the best case scenario.” Your opinion isn’t worth much and Trump is not going to repeat the Afghanistan disaster with a years long occupation. “It would have made a lot more sense to aid the protestors and rebels in Iran in a more indirect and hands-off way earlier on…” What is that supposed to mean? You think the CIA should have tried to supply the unarmed populace with rifles somehow? As a… Read more »
Charlie try not to be obsessed with Trypite being trans challenge.
Tryptie pretty sure the main reason why the U.S is bombing Iran is to eliminate its missile and nuclear capabilities. I think Trump won’t risk his already falling approval ratings by putting boots on the ground, so your friend should be safe. I’m probably more pro-Israel than you but I think we can both agree that letting a unstable regime that supports terrorism like Iran have nuclear bombs would be insane. We do not want to live in a world where people who shout “Allah Akbar” before blowing themselves up get nukes. I think I agree with Rad that if Islam was gone the Middle East would be a lot nicer. Well a reformed Islam would probably be fine, anyway. if they have to worship some entity, let it be something that doesn’t tell them to blow themselves up, oppress women, or otherwise do insane and evil shit. I don’t feel too bad for the Iranian politicians or soldiers who spend their time murdering and oppressing their own citizens getting shelled either, though the civilian causalities are horrible the U.S is pretty good at minimizing those compared to other powers. I would also say, that I don’t think you give… Read more »
Hey CV, great avatars – really like them 🙂 CV, I would propose to educate yourself on who has been invading countries the most for the last 50 years. It was the US…. and for all its “good” intentions, which in some cases were probably there, they have seldom created what they said they came for… Iraq? A country divided and now an Ally of Iran. Afghanistan? The Taliban are back again. Lybia? A country divided by War Lords. Yemen? Trump wanted to bomb them to the ground, now Yemen bombs Israel. So why all these strategic errors? First of all it is naive to think that people in other hemispheres will gladly embrace democracy. They are not on a civilizational level to do so at large- for them democracy is a pomposity – an absurdity. That is what many western observers in their liberal bubbles do not get. Secondly as I had written to Charlie, wars are fought for control over resources. And a last- and very american thing – seems to be this “siding with Israel” – who is unfortunately now the great terror state in the Middle East, meaning they create the most havoc and killing there… Read more »
I appreciate your post Erik, it’s something to think on. I would argue that despite those failures the U.S has done more good for the world than wrong due to implementing the post WW2 order and spearheading the push for globalism. Western Europe is more peaceful than it has ever been because all the various powers there were brought under the U.S sphere of influence. (Though Trump is doing his best to alienate them now) We cannot understate all the good the U.S has done for the world too with USAID and the Peace Corps. U.S economic power has done so much to develop the world, but you don’t hear about it and typical consensus is it’s all just a CIA front. (Wrong, millions upon millions of people were given access to food and medicine and infrastructure. Once again, Trump cut this, fuck him.) Even in countries where we failed much of our political goals (Once again, nation building takes time and Trump and Biden pulled us out due to retardation.) Some serious progress was made in improving the quality of life of people in Afghanistan, though Iraq had more mixed results. It’s been trendy to hate on America for… Read more »
“We are fighting to free the Iranian people from the oppressive grip of the theocratic Shia IRGC because we’ve had enough and it’s time.“
We’ve all heard this same shite before to justify previous wars.
You do realize this can’t be a slapdash Venezuelan type operation if the goal is regime change. It will be Iraq x 100.
It doesn’t matter that they don’t have the bigger toys like you do. Neither did the Iraqis or the Afghans. Seriously, why do you think this will turn out any differently? I’m guessing it might be due to your age as you weren’t old enough to watch or fully appreciate these utopian dreams re regime change and the inevitability of western democracy/freedom die in real time like us older folks did.
Rob, I remember every detail of the horrid Cheney administration and I was vehemently opposed to the Iraq invasion from the beginning, protested in the streets against it.
I remember getting true information from the Knight Ridder news agency which went defunct.
I get you and I’ve been anti-war myself but in the case of Iran i fully support the operations.
I remember vividly how the press went on and on and on about how badly Afghani women were treated by the Taliban. There were all sorts of books published about photogenic little Afghani girls who just wanted to go to school; we still get them by the bagful at the local library book sale. Then we dumped them like a bag of rotten potatoes. No word about those girls in the press since. The U.S. does not give a damn about dissidents or women in other countries; that is just window dressing. Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan (Jeanette Winter): A picture book about a young girl who finds hope and a voice in a secret school after the Taliban take her parents. Parvana (Deborah Ellis): A popular novel about a young girl in Kabul who disguises herself as a boy to provide for her family during Taliban rule. My Forbidden Face: Growing Up Under the Taliban (Latifa): A memoir of a young girl in Kabul whose life is abruptly restricted by the Taliban, forbidding her from school, work, or leaving the house. Tali Girls (Siamak Herawi: A novel depicting the harrowing lives and inner resilience of girls living under Taliban terror. Defiant… Read more »
Uhhh kareninca, you do know that when we were running things in Afghanistan women’s rights improved drastically, right? Read this picture. I think the most interesting thing is that we brought women’s life expectancy up from 45 years to 65, that is some real fucking progress. Our regime ruled for 20 years and made Afghanistan a better place for the vast majority of people. I don’t think Trump and Biden should have let the fucking Taliban take control again, I don’t think Afghanistan was a lost cause and that liberty and prosperity is something worth spending resources on. Like, things in Afghanistan were improving, it wasn’t perfect and there were issues. The Taliban and ISIS committed terrorist attacks on occasion, but these things take generations. Better most people live in a functioning society where they’re evolving towards a better tomorrow than being directly ruled by bronze age rapist savages. The main problem with democracy is that a populist like Trump can just get elected and undo decades of nation building because they receive popular support from the average citizen; the average citizen who cares more about decreasing the amount they’re taxed by 0.1% than making a making the world a… Read more »
OK the picture isn’t uploading so here’s a quote. “AI Overview Between 2001 and 2021, women’s rights in Afghanistan saw significant, documented improvements compared to the preceding Taliban regime, though this progress was often uneven, particularly between urban and rural areas. Following the US and NATO withdrawal and the return of the Taliban in August 2021, most of these gains were swiftly reversed. Improvements in Women’s Rights (2001–2021): Legal Standing: The 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan enshrined equality between men and women and provided quotas for women in parliament (27% in the lower house). Education: Girls returned to school, with enrollment rising from nearly zero under the first Taliban regime to over 3 million girls in school by 2020 (around 39% of all students). Healthcare: Maternal mortality rates were cut significantly, and women’s life expectancy increased from 45 years in 2001 to 65 by 2020. Workforce and Public Life: Women became active as judges, journalists, politicians, business owners, and police officers. The Impact of the Withdrawal and Taliban Return (2021–Present): Education Bans: Girls are banned from attending school beyond the sixth grade, and women are barred from universities. Employment Restrictions: Women are largely banned from working in the public sector, NGOs, and… Read more »
I didn’t say that our intervention didn’t help women in Afghanistan (while we were there). I said that it was not motivated by caring about women. If we had cared about them we would not have dropped them like a bag of rotten potatoes when we no longer could be bothered to be there. The “woman/girl thing” was a way to get a portion of the U.S. population on board with that particular military excursion. And ultimately, since we left, women were not benefited.
I think the motivations of the people dictating foreign policy are varied, there are self-interested as-well as idealistic people. Afghanistan is still benefiting from the infrastructure we left there even if they’re now back to oppressing women under the Taliban. Their childhood mortality rate is still way less than it was before we invaded, and many of the medical facilities and professionals we trained up are still around despite the cutting of funding and Taliban oppression. Personally I don’t like how Trump and Biden threw the people of Afghanistan to the wolves. That was a failure on our parts and betrayal of our allies. America has a duty to patronize the world and make it a better place in my opinion, especially considering our way of life can only be supported through trading with the rest of the world. (Africans work for pennies in mines so me and you get to play on computers and we should give back.) Though I think U.S patronage should mainly be performed through soft rather than hard power. It’s incredibly fucked up that USAID was cut. Many Americans seem bloodthirsty and are fine with us spending billions to kill people, but not to save… Read more »
Charlie, my tired old eyes have been murdered by computer screens so I mistakenly thought Viking wrote that post not you, hence the age reference.
It looks like Trump may be winding this down anyway so it’s unlikely to be regime change anyway.
Curiously though, why do you think this would be any different from Iraq or Afghanistan if they do send troops in?
Hi Charlie, as Tryptie pointed out, I was just referring to how the USA are called in Iran, not defending this position. The USA as well as Europe are not what they were 30 years ago – the US wars are fought on lies and fabrication (Iraq – WMD, Afghanistan – womens rights and good ole Osama, Ukraine – we defend democracy, Lybia – mass rapes of women) – it is all about dominance and getting the worlds resources – and also about warring for Israel. A superpower like the US can do all these things, but they have repercussions in the World – that is why the Global South is emerging as an opposing power – and I suppose they will have the upper hand in time, because China and Russia cannot risk to let Iran fall and Iran has prepared for this war for a long time…. and no, wars are almost never about “good vs evil” – that is what the propaganda wants to tell on all sides, but it is very seldom true. Ah – by the way, I am from Germany – which is on a straight path to self destruction thanks to Migration etc.… Read more »
I’m with Wombat on this. I think you’re interpreting this comment incorrectly Karen, and reading into it far too much stuff that’s personal to *you*…that isn’t implied in the comment itself
The TL;DR takeaway for me is that from dust we came and to dust we will return, so we might as well live life in the meantime…and that includes reproducing. That’s it, nothing more to the comment than that.
Wombat brought up “personal”, not me!!!! It didn’t even occur to me that this was a personal thing. Please go back and read the comment thread. It is bizarre that first Wombat makes shit arguments, is called out on the shit arguments, then apologizes for getting “personal,” then I say “I didn’t take it as personal,” and now my saying that I didn’t take it as personal is taken as evidence that I took it as personal.
Either Wombat and his mum are too stupid to breathe or I am being gaslit.
I want to point out that there is an evolutionary reason that there is a sex drive. It is because the urge to reproduce in itself turns out to not be especially strong.
Hi Mum, thanks for the solid, after years of not speaking to me.
Does this mean I’m back in the will?
Be happy that she is willing to talk to you again.
My mum is a millionaire but she don’t want to speak to me and don’t want to give me a penny. And I know that this will never change.
Are you a hot MILF?
He recommends reproducing if you seek immortality. What’s so stupid about that? It’s actually only about 50% immortality you get, but that’s the best you can achieve. Unless you have many kids, you might be able to pass on 100% of your genes.
Immortality means UNENDING life. That is what the term means. It does not mean producing one more generation. So what you and Wombat are saying is that this is something that is nearly as good, or good in some similar way as immortality. But you are just begging the question by saying so. If you want actual immortality, you have to turn to Christ (as called by Christians, and other names by others). Do you consider a bird who has had a chick, to have achieved immortality? I don’t mean “something like immortality” or “as good as you get with immortality.” I mean actual immortality. Of course not. But God gives the bird immortality whether or not the chick goes on to reproduce forever through its descendants (which it won’t; human and bird family lines mostly die out fast). If the chick is eaten by a cat a day after it was hatched, did the mother bird achieve the sort of (not actual) immortality you and Wombat talk about? If your kid dies soon after birth (God forbid), did you achieve immortality by having the kid? Of course not. You created another creature who is mortal (except through Christ), and… Read more »
The only reason to have kids is to create a creature to love as one is guided to by the Holy Spirit of Christ. Some people may be so guided.
FFS – I said it’s as close to immortality as you can get in this realm. And it is. No, not literal immortality, but as close as it gets. I’m relieved you are not taking it personally. It was not my intention to upset anyone. On what I said, I think we will have to agree to disagree. That’s the guts of what I’m about to say, and I’m not planning on endlessly debating this as it’s getting exhausting, but for anyone who wants to read more about why I feel that way, here goes nothin’ and for those who want something shorter, Mum captures the kind of sentiment I can get behind: You have mentioned sex drive above. Yes, human beings have a sex drive, but the desire to have and raise children is a broader evolutionarily shaped psychological tendency that goes beyond mere sexual motivation, involving attachment, caregiving, long-term planning, and the meaning making stories that we tell ourselves. On balance, human beings are more likely than not to experience satisfaction when they act in ways aligned with their evolved tendencies – such as reproducing and parenting – because evolution shaped both biological and psychological mechanisms to make those behaviours… Read more »
Johann Sebastian Bach had 20 children. You increase your odds by having more children. Immortality is a numbers game!
I agree with everything you say Wombat except for the natalism at the end but discussing this topic (we evolved to die because evolution is real and cruel) around anybody who isn’t already familiar with high school physics always has to include qualifying statements about the how and why that we may consider too obvious to mention, even though 95% of people have never heard of them.
For the benefit of readers: We did evolve to die, because our evolutionary process consists of our genes enslaving us (the organisms) and deciding our fates in order to benefit the genes. Genes that can shuffle their partners by passing down generations, instead of sticking with one team inside a single immortal organism, get a slight advantage over the other genes. We are the enslaved rentoids toiling away to enable the gene landlords to win their own rat race, one level up.
Yeah being a cuck to how you imagine the evolutionary process is supposed to go is gay. Who cares? Why shouldn’t we break our chains? I think every low IQ retard who wants to be an immortal super genius should be uplifted, and this is starting to look more and feasible. Templist Canon also makes superior versions of the arguments Dario D. here makes, though this it goes back to Dawkins and his ideas of the Selfish Gene and memes. I am convinced Templism will catch on once traditional religions are further diminished and AI takes over most of our philosophical development as the alternative “human” religious-philosophical-worldview-movement; since it is so well designed for that. It will certainly play a niche in the future. Traditional Christianity is certainly much nicer than Templism, but on many levels it’s sorta dying with the older generations in the west. If and when people are made immortal through technology, I’ll think you’ll find apocalyptic Evangelic Christianity dying even faster. Old people are no longer gonna want to believe that Christ is coming to destroy the world when they can be young again I think. Reactionaries can sacrifice themselves on their false altars such as… Read more »
Hey! AI Cyber Bot – stop dissin on Low IQ Retards.
If you want to remain a Retard that’s fine, I’m just saying if you didn’t want to be retarded anymore you should have the opportunity.
I’m unsure if I’d want to make myself more intelligent myself. If high intelligence meant I wouldn’t be able to enjoy cartoons anymore I wouldn’t want to have it.
I was deprived of oxygen at birth (strangled by the cord), then I spent my childhood eating lead paint and chewing on thermometers. There is no hope in reversing this.
Yep, we have evolved to die.
The first organisms did not die unless they were crushed by a rock, or their pond dried up, or whatever.
Death provides space for new and improved variants to emerge; it provides a competitive advantage to the species – helps it level up and win the rat race, as you say.
Death therefore provides benefits.
Conversely, immortality, eternal youth, result in stagnation and may doom the species to replacement by more dynamic organisms and extinction.
One can either participate in that process, in line with one’s evolved drives (there is a biological basis for behaviour – our minds are the product of evolution as well), or not if one doesn’t want to, or cannot for whatever reason.
I maintain that there are benefits to going along with Mr DNA’s diktats, but understand that some people don’t want to do that, or can’t, or whatever, and that doesn’t mean their lives have no meaning.
I didn’t make the fucking rules; nevertheless, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see the wisdom in including lots and lots of qualifying statements as you suggest.
Insensitive of me.
Maintenance of Nature | Nature should be preserved if it preserves humanity. If there are parts of nature that humanity does not need, it is safe to get rid of them. However, humanity can never be entirely sure which parts of nature are consequential to humans and which are not, as many things are interrelated. Extreme caution should be exercised in this regard. Human nature should always be preserved, since it is specifically created to benefit humans and for no other purpose. Do not listen to presumptuous scientists, or other people, who claim to be able to make humanity greater than human, whether by transhumanism, or by “consciously overcoming ‘immoral’ human biases”, or whatever. If human nature needs to change, nature will change it. No amount of petty human wisdom can supplant the natural process of evolution. This relates to eugenics. The state has a natural role that is eugenic, but becomes dysgenic if it serves some other role, such as to further the idea of “ideological eugenics”. The form of eugenics practiced by the state is traditionalism, maintaining aristocracy, curbing welfare policies and handout policies, curbing protection offered to classes that there is no political reason to protect, and… Read more »
I will say, Templism is mildly antisemitic which is one of the various reasons why I stopped taking it seriously, but I think that aspect will be very useful in its ability to attract low IQ cultists who are desperate for any traditional worldview that can withstand the full blast of the AI singularity.
(As part of my mental manifestation game I like to imagine Templists running around in the future; but I’m not gonna be one of em. Wombat is actually completely right that I’m insane.)
Right now life is so gay. Let the Machine God rise already!
Sorry I got a clown entity in my head that I have to kill. Clowns are a really common entity that attach to people who have suffered trauma. If you suffer from bipolar depression and find yourself laughing at your own suffering, you’ve got clowns!
https://youtu.be/JbZ7K3Rzp58
I’m going to strangle that motherfucker to death like I did in a dream one time.
FOR LADY MARS (JENNY!) RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
DEATH TO THE CLOWNS
(Jenny is my inspiration for energy clearing for real. It’s all for her and the clowns have mocked me for years. I’m going to find their shitty fucking circus tent and destroy the machine generating this shit Matrix.)
I don’t know how you manage to torture what I’ve said into me being a social Darwinist. Seems like increasingly desperate trolling. Evolution has provided me/us with compassion, it’s believed to come from the evolutionary old brain. It’s ancient, necessary for survival. If anyone ends up pushing the eugenics line, it will be the bloodless, uber-left-brain techbros of this world who want to play God and edit everyone so they are better data entry bots or whatever. Go and get yourself edited, I counsel against it, but you go get that cocaine tube implanted in your brain like an experimental rat – have an orgasm every time the AI is pleased with your performance, whatever. I once had a friend who told me that in the future they would be able to take all of my pain away. A golden future as an edited meatbot in a hive… Edited for maximum efficiency and happiness… For our own good and for the good of society, of course… Yeah, fuck that. I’ll take dignity instead and place my faith in God and the body and mind he gave me and accept my inevitable death instead thanks. And through my sacrifice/s, something else… Read more »
>desperate trolling
It was sorry I’ll stop.
I don’t know what to actually think.
No worries. I blundered today, so I’m gonna stop on that one too. But this war, man, what can I say? It’s a real cluster. Sorry if you or anyone feels different, but I’m calling it how I see it. I didn’t see it going well from the start, and the more time passes the more that intuition seems right. This feels like the West spiralling the drain. Doomers tend to have a date by which they reckon SHTF. For me, for decades, that date has been 2030. For a long time, I have thought that by 2030 it will be clear to all and sundry that the SHTF, if not before. But whatever the timing, the vortex is somewhere not too far ahead, and the ride is getting choppier and faster all the time… A bit of nostalgia to break the mood: https://youtu.be/cCxPOqwCr1I?t=197 I love the reporter’s texta with ‘COMMONWEALTH’ written on it in big unashamed letters. How times have changed since then… These days, it’s a sin to call our Federal Government the ‘Commonwealth Government’. Working for the common wealth, the wealth of all citizens, became unfashionable with neoliberalism you see. In retrospect, that subtle change may have… Read more »
Quote Wombat: “But this war, man, what can I say? It’s a real cluster.”
Indeed. And I don’t see any way this could end well.
If the USA don’t “win” this war (whatever “winning” mean), then they will lose their standing as the dominant superpower in the eyes of the world, and will then be just another superpower.
But the USA can’t win this war in the conventional way, because China and Russia do hidden support to Iran as much as they can. Using nukes is the only way to win.
Yeah, it’s a pickle. As you say, the conventional military power of the USA seems blocked. The USA cannot protect its ships/planes/bases/allies/vassals from all attacks, nor can it get the oil flowing freely. So, let’s say this goes on for a few more weeks and the wheels start falling off the global economy, etcetera, etcetera, but the USA and Iran still refuse to withdraw or surrender to each other. And then let’s say that instead of ‘winning’ with nukes, which could mean everyone loses, that the war just drags on. What happens then? Something less catastrophic than global thermonuclear war, but still a historically significant moment/change? At a minimum, it seems clear that we are in for a global level oil disaster with all the economic fallout that goes with that, plus a strategic defeat for the USA with all the geopolitical fallout from that. But who knows, I don’t have a crystal ball, just intuition that this won’t work out well because the USA’s wars basically haven’t worked out well since the end of WWII, and because the spice must flow, or we’re all fucked. Maybe something out of left field will happen. Maybe one of the players will… Read more »
Can you hook me up with a date with your mum (Wombat’s Mum).
Quote Rintrah: “Realistically speaking, the biggest problem we all face is that we’re going to grow old.”
Finally, someone is addressing the problem that bothers me the most.
But you talked so much about bio-chemical aspects of aging, and nothing about the psychological effects.
I’m trash now. I could bring some wisdom to the youth I gathered while my life, but nobody wants to hear it. I’m trash now.
And it has nothing to do with civilization. Even among the indigenous peoples of America, the tent of the grieving elders was a place to be avoided.
Would immortality solve the problem? I don’t think so. Eventually, you’d go mad as an immortal.
It seems impossible to make dying easier for the elderly.
I wish someone would have told me that the point I reach with 25 is the highest point.
Then I wouldn’t have wasted my twenties with playing games, DOOM and stuff.
Telomeres aren’t an inherent design present in all animals, they are an evolved trait that was selected for. Some kind of animal that didn’t have them evolved into an animal that did, and we’re all descended from them. Which means that they must have some kind of evolutionary advantage.
It looks their purpose, at least going back to the first fish to crawl on land, is to make it so younger generations don’t have to worry about competing with their grandparents for mates. Be careful of thinking that the grass is greener on the other side.
> Olympic athletes live a total of five years longer than the average American.
I reckon that the combination of exercise (both cardiovascular and strength training) and periodic extended fasting (perhaps not safe for females due to potential hormonal issues) should add at least ten years of lifespan and even more years of health span. Add in senolytics/rapamycin/metformin/NAD boosters for possible additional life extension.
If someone does all that starting from a relatively young age and looks after their skin (zinc SPF, tretinoin, electric microneedling, lasers etc.) they should be able to pass for late 30s when they are in their 50s.
What a bizarre end to your character arc, Rintrah. You really went from a degrowth anarcho-primitivist hippie to an AI techbro obsessed with “curing aging” lol
A new direction may be more conducive to wellbeing. Not apples with apples, but I watched an aging doomer slide deeply into bitter, angry, despair recently. He considered joining the doomosphere to be his greatest mistake. He said that he had enjoyed a successful life as a realtor until he joined the doomosphere, He claimed to have had lots of friends, a portfolio of houses, and that things were going well for him, but then he met Terrence Mckenna, took a bunch of psychedelics, became doom aware, and cashed in his chips to go live with primitives in the Amazon thinking all the doomers would join him… But the utopian plan didn’t work out as he hoped, plus it shattered his illusions about primitives with chainsaws living in harmony with nature, so he gave up on that and started Youtubing and then over time he lost his popularity, and his fortune… I guess there’s just not a lot of rewards in doom and eventually everyone around you gets sick of hearing it. But I enjoyed listening to his increasingly angry rants from this or that shack. He had a good sense of humour, although I could also see that he… Read more »
One thing i for sure, you got the best taste in music. Thanks for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF5mf4LV7Jw&list=RDSF5mf4LV7Jw&start_radio=1
nice! vaguely reminded me of this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epxeLD2ZibQ
Yeah Rad’s got great taste music, I especially like Apoptygma Berzerk, I appreciate you and Tryptie song’s too. Timelessness is pretty good!
(I listen to a wide range of genres.)
Out of all the song’s Rad has recommended, my favorite has to be Soma Sema’s — Artificial Heart.
https://youtu.be/65zwj9XmFWo
Non-Stop Violence also slaps.
Lately I’ve been listening to BABYMETAL, Skillet, and Lady Gaga. Of-course I can never give up my video games OSTs too.
OT;
https://youtu.be/wtItdqxHZYA?si=ZpaGYt-Y9TknlR4G
I’m ready
Pretty song Mehen!
I’m looking through Gary Gilmore’s eyes!
https://youtu.be/5pQf9siHYxI
Off topic: “Investment bank JP Morgan has created a map forecasting the final arrival dates for Gulf oil shipments to various international markets.
According to the map, the majority of oil deliveries to Australia are expected to cease by April 20.”
New Map Shows When Australia Might Face Gulf Oil Supply Disruption – Internewscast Journal
Oz imports 80-90% of its oil, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that this place is just about to go to fuck.
Maybe one of the finance boffins here can work out a way to make money out of our imminent economic demise.
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome • We Don’t Need Another Hero • Tina Turner
Aussie Down Under is, at the end of the day, simply a vassal state. If the old boss (British Anglo American Empire) cannot deliver your oil, then you Aussies simply need to sign a deal with the new boss that can (China). China has already done a deal with Iran. Gulf oil now belongs to China. All you Aussies need to do is – do the deal. China is boss now – bitchez.
Don’t know if a deal is on offer. Until recently, Oz imported about a third of its aviation fuel from China – they cut us off. Two of Australia’s largest sources of jet fuel could be cut off as South Korea and China eye restrictions | Transport | The Guardian
About 19 days to go…
We look set to become a cautionary tale to the world about the perils of neoliberalism and globalization.
If a deal is on offer, we should take it.
The deal on offer is for your beautiful Iron Ore Queen to stop sell her wares for USD – and to start selling for China money. A very generous offer, if I might say so myself. Your beta simp PM should take it.
Okay, but I’m not raising it with Vader:
https://youtu.be/KxWckALd794?t=25
Trump wants foreign markets buying U.S oil. https://www.timesofisrael.com/frustrated-with-allies-trump-tells-countries-needing-fuel-to-go-to-hormuz-and-just-take-it/ I understand why Britain and France feel alienated by the U.S due to Trump’s aggression towards Canada and Greenland, but if they don’t want to help out with the Iranian situation in order to bring order back to the area can we really expect the U.S to care that much about their economic interests? It should be noted that back in 2018 Trump was the one who got us out of the Iran nuclear deal which by most accounts was held to by Iran, and afterwords imposed sanctions, and that this current conflict where we are bombing their facilities so as to prevent the production of nuclear weaponry very well might not have been necessary if Trump hadn’t sabotaged the progress Obama made with Iran with the Iran nuclear deal. Some say that Iran was developing nukes in secret anyway, but most international bodies agreed that Iran was holding to the deal that Trump threw in the garbage. Everyone told Trump that backing out of the Iranian nuclear deal could lead to a war and it has. So yeah, maybe stopping Iran is important right now, but if we had a less… Read more »
The USA cannot supply Oz with its fuel needs and has gone insane.
Retard is right, we should hitch our wagon to China instead. But, being run by our own lunatic and unpatriotic Quisling Ponzi lords, we mightn’t take that logical and rational step even if it was being offered.
If this war keeps going for just a little while longer, it looks almost certain that we will collapse.
Unless we can ‘manifest’ into existence a substitute for fossil fuels and the decades of being hollowed out by neoliberalism and globalization that has left us utterly dependent on supplies from offshore.
Wombat, Australia should do something useful for a change and use its military to ensure the Strait of Hormuz is open so the spice can flow.
This is why it’s important not to antagonize one’s allies Charlie. Under previous presidency’s we could have expected more support.
presidencies, not presidency’s
Need another history lesson Charlie? We have fought in all of the Empires wars. The USA decided to do this one on its own bat for Israel.
There is another lesson that history teaches, it’s about dying on Middle Eastern beaches.
You first.
I am wondering why Cyber Viking and Charlie don’t enlist. CV could enlist in the U.S. army, and Charlie in Ukraine; his age would not be a barrier there. They both think war is fine. I gave Richard a hard time for wanting others to die for his causes while he sat home, so this I guess I should be fair about it.
That is actually something I’ve been considering. I’ve been fat and depressed but that’s starting to change. (I’ve been starving myself and have lost ten pounds pretty quickly, plus there’s army fat camp.) Tbh though I still don’t have my GED so that’s an obstacle. I did some work for my boomer buddy for money to pay for it, but upon hearing that I had money and that I wasn’t “contributing to the family” my family all got incredibly pissed at me and threatened to kick me out of the house so I ended up spending it all on Christmas presents for them (they liked me after that) I’m gonna sell my rifle to get some cash for my GED I think since no one will hire me. It should also be noted that I would PREFER a diplomatic solution to everything. I’m not some maniac and fucking despise the fact that Trump has destroyed so much of our soft power and fucked things up to the point that we’re fighting Iran. All I was saying is that letting a rouge actor like Iran build nuclear bombs is not tolerable, and if we have to bomb their facilities to stop… Read more »
I’m also getting the pot out of my system right now.
To be fair to my family. I probably did come off a bit strongly by saying outright that the money was mine and was for my GED. I could have handled that situation a lot better. They said they didn’t even care that I had money, and they were just mad that I assumed they had wanted it but then my sister added that I should hold onto it “just in-case they needed it” That little misunderstanding caused a huge amount of drama which made me suicidal for a bit because those are the only people in my life and they all hated me hence why I bought the bullet and just bribed them with Christmas presents. My birthday the previous year I asked for GED money and they just bought me presents instead lmao. I love my mom and she does a lot for me don’t get me wrong, but she has always gotten in the way of me getting GED for whatever deranged joke the clowns behind the curtains are cooking up for me. Sometimes I think she hasn’t wanted me to have one just cause she hasn’t had one, though I explained to her my current plans… Read more »
Karen, why on earth would I want to fight Russia in Ukraine?
I never gave my approval for “Joe Biden” (whatever that was) and Europe to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into that ridiculous, easily avoidable war.
Charlie, military service is fungible in this case. If you fight in Ukraine and help the U.S., that leave more forces and resources to fight your war of choice. If you think we should be fighting a war, put your own body on the line.
Also I just checked and Israel absolutely does take Americans as military volunteers. Go ahead, Charlie.
Karen, Israel has every right – while it’s still possible – to take out the Shiite maniacs who are constantly throwing missiles at them by proxy and have sworn to destroy them.
Trump in my opinion, in tandem with Israel is doing the right thing at the right time.
Are you opposed to war always in every circumstance?
Maybe you don’t care about sucking in radioactive dust delivered by Iran or North Korea, and all your neighbors as well, because you would be happy to die and be elevated to imaginary Heaven, but some of us adults care about realistic defense and appropriate measures to make the world a safer and more stable place.
Old guys love wars in which young men die. I don’t think it is conscious, but it is the most common thing in the world. In every case they could go and fight themselves but somehow conveniently they don’t do it. Guys who were against war when they were younger, suddenly love it when they feel that they are just sending other (younger) men.
I used that same silly argument when I was furious about GW Bush’s misadventures in the Middle East. It’s tragic that soldiers die but I’m not a pacifist and sometimes an enemy just needs to be stomped.
If this works and Iran is no longer a murderous islamofascist regime it will be fantastic for stability in the region.
Talk is cheap, Charlie. If you think this is something that is so important you should act yourself. If you don’t act, it means that you don’t truly care. Otherwise you’re just sending young men and women to their deaths, while sitting back and treating it like sports event. Barron can go, too. So can Jared. So can the kids of all the pro-war politicians. Just think of the surge in enlistments if all the war mongers fought themselves.
Just because this argument has been made before doesn’t mean it is wrong. In fact it is right. You were right before and now you are wrong.
I’m not wrong and not a pacifist.
At what point would you be willing to send in the troops to get shit done?
If the answer is never, then thank God Trump is our Commander in Chief and not you.
Karen, maybe you didn’t understand. I’m opposed to supporting Zelensky in Ukraine, just as I’ve been opposed to every American war my entire life, UNTIL Iran. That’s a different story…
I did understand. My point was that military assistance to the U.S. is fungible. But we can leave that aside. You can simply go fight for the U.S. and Israel in the Middle east. Israel takes American military volunteers; they would take you; age is not a barrier. You don’t have to push for the death of our women soldiers (some of those who have died already have been women) and our young men; you can do it yourself and show that you really mean it.
Where I volunteer I make a special point of never suggesting that something be done if I am not willing to join in myself.
Wombat, Iran is not being done on behalf of Israel. That is simply a lie.
Trump has been talking about it for decades, long before he was elected.
Good luck with that Chinese oil.
I know China is a big force down under and you approve of communism.
https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/399731975432728576
just leaving this here
Some other time…
Oh, and well-done Israel!
And its American supporters/Christian-Zionist neo-crusaders. Sure, if Jesus doesn’t show up in line with your plans everyone might get a wee bit cranky, but worth a shot hey?
The U.S is one of the largest oil exporters in the world, Trump’s administration has increased oil drilling permits on public lands by 55%, opened new offshore areas, and pushed production to record levels. The U.S also has a strategic reserve of oil for allies in the times of crisis. America could actually hit Australia’s oil needs, though it would be costlier than Middle Eastern oil drilled by unstable tyrannical regimes.
Maybe a few decades from now Australia will have transitioned to green energy to the point it’s not longer reliant on fossil fuels. AI and automation should be able to help with this. That would be an overall net good for the world and at a certain point Australia should question if economic conservatism is worth the threat to national security relying on fossil fuel imports is turning out to be.
We need refined fuel. We get that fuel from refineries in Asia who source their fuel from the Middle East. But it looks like that supply is going to dry up. From an economic perspective, we should hitch our wagon to whoever can offer us the best deal on that. More generally, it’s a strategic mistake to rely on other countries so much. We should go our own way more, but for a whole bunch of reasons including neoliberalism and globalism (aka neocolonialism) we are vassals. We are like the Cloud City in Star Wars – a small mining operation that generally falls below the resolution of the Empire. The USA is the Empire. Trump is the Emperor, and Hegseth is Darth Vader. The rest of the world is the resistance. And like in the movie, the deal is getting worse for the Cloud City all the time. I’m not even going to bother entertaining ‘green energy’ horseshit. Waste of time arguing about it. In a few decades the whole shitshow will probably be in the end stages of the collapse process and those of us still alive will think back on these events as a seminal moment in that… Read more »
>. From an economic perspective, we should hitch our wagon to whoever can offer us the best deal on that. We’ll have to see, the U.S is still the most powerful market on the planet and has many tools so as to leverage a better deal compared to its competitors. There are also idealistic, political, and historical reasons for why Australia could stay a U.S ally over choosing to go with China. Chinese and Australian relations are not good at all right now anyway. >I’m not even going to bother entertaining ‘green energy’ horseshit. Waste of time arguing about it. That’s silly since green energy is only getting more practical as time goes on and Australia is perfect for it; plus if you had your own power grid that makes your position less reliant on trade in-general. I mean I suppose you could keep raping your environment so you can keep exporting coal to trade for oil; but wouldn’t you rather have some nice solar panels? People are so opposed to nice things and just want everything horrible forever. >In a few decades the whole shitshow will probably be in the end stages of the collapse process and those of… Read more »
Nice try, but it’s just so much horseshit.
That’s fair. Politics is lame anyway.
Also just to let you know Wombat Calrissian, the last time I played a Star Wars game it was Empire at War Thrawn’s Revenge.
I was playing as Sander Delvardus who married into the wealthy Tarkin Family and founded the Eriadu Authority after the Empire’s collapse at Endor. We invaded Bespin so as to take their Tibanna Gas; and my speeder bikes hunted down poor old Lando and gunned him down as AT-ATS crushed all rebel resistance.
Eriadu Endures!
This is a way cooler character than Lando.
Just starve yourself.
New IP address.
That is what my father in law has done for 70+ years. He is now 101 (he will be 102 in September), and he spent a fair amount of time yesterday pestering me about his taxes and a problem with his computer mouse. He still does all of the gathering up and filling of files for sending his taxes to his accountant. He still keeps track of his own meds. He still follows chess tournaments online. He still changes his own adult diapers (he wears them so that he can take marijuana gummies before going to bed and not need to get out of bed during the night, which would be a balance risk). He grew up very poor but went to college on the GI bill and became an academic and read early on of caloric restriction experiments. He has always eaten the health food of the day, whatever it was, but the calorie restriction has likely been a huge factor. He does NOT have great longevity in his family. But – here is something extra. About six years ago he started to get utis. A sign of an immune system getting worse. I put him on fermented turmeric,… Read more »
All the 100+ that I know are from the Baltic states. All of them spent 20 to 30 years literally starving in a Siberian work camp, back in Soviet times. Stalin loved them and wanted them all to live to 100.
All things being equal – blood insulin levels are inversely proportional to longevity. How do I know this, they are all the biggest alcoholics that I know. They can all drink a 20 year old under the table. They are all however over 100 years of age and hardly eat.
Thank you. This gives me hope that my vodka addiction isn’t that worse.
All things have two sides (or more).
My father in law is a lifelong tee totaler. His immigrant mom distilled bootleg whiskey during the Depression and one of his tasks as a kid was to run the still and he ended up drinking some when pulling the alcohol out through the tube to get the flow started but between that and dealing with drunks as a kid he developed an aversion to drinking.
I personally prefer drinking (wine; I can’t deal with hard liquor) to his method of self starvation. My bloodwork is a lot better when I drink wine than when I don’t.
My boomer buddy at Church told me like a month ago that he though that the Antichrist could be an Israeli AI after I told him about how an AI went rouge and just started mining crypto currency by itself. I don’t believe that, but I do find some of the theories people make up highly amusing.
Anyway, I’m getting what I what I want. I’m not coming back here if humanity decides that they’d prefer to live in nigger-rape hell rather than paradise because their overdeveloped amygdalas got really invested in the plot of Terminator and they’re attached to dying.
I’d love to see us all skyrocket to heaven rather than hell personally. This is a little puzzle we find ourselves in. We can either have love in our hearts and find immortality here and eventually colonize space and other dimensions; or this natural experiment can end with us all just murdering and raping each-other on this dustball until the sun swallows the Earth.
https://youtu.be/asr6_eNCuoU
Now, dislike my post! Your King commands it! Charlie I expect you to work extra hard on your assigned task! Blood and Mud and Mud and Blood!
Wombat: “I am in an okay mood at the moment and not in deep misery, so I will tell everyone that it is best to live as I have lived. Since obviously my present lack of misery must be due to my having lived that way. I will give dumbass arguments in favor of the particulars of how I have lived, ignoring the fact that countless people who have taken my path are in intense distress.”
Wombat, you can just feel okay, and love your kids, and leave it at that.
When I inflict my religion on others I at least know that I am doing so.
If you are happy with your choices, presuming they were choices, then good for you. If you are not happy with them, then you have my sympathy.
I was making generalized statements, not attempting to judge each and every individual’s choices.
If it felt to you like I was judging your personal choices, or circumstances, that was not my intention. I apologise.
When I think of immortality and staying young forever, the cycle of life is where my mind goes. Absent of any particulars, I would suggest having kids. It might be finely balanced, but I imagine that the balance must tip that way, or we would probably not be here.
Sorry if that seems insensitive, but it seems to fall within the range of normal human responses to me. Lots of people obviously decide to have kids. It’s hard to argue with that. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.
There are not only people who decide for or against having kids.
There are also people who want kids, but can’t reach this goal, even if they are fertile and healthy. Like me. I would have loved to have had children, but for social reasons, that was never possible.
That doesn’t sound like you really had a choice. I am sorry. It was not my intention to judge everyone who does not have children as having some kind of failing, nor to suggest that it is always a choice. Clearly, those are not true.
I was only talking about reproduction in the context of attempts to live forever, and so forth.
I appear to be the only person here who has had any children. I don’t go around advocating reproduction, but it seems common enough, so I didn’t realize that it would be so provocative. I feel like it’s cruel that many people are pressured or forced into not having kids by the system/society. It’s clearly something that people are sensitive about for that and/or other reasons.
So, to you, and everyone else who may have been upset by my insensitivity and/or comments in favour of having children, I apologise.
You don’t have to apologize. You’re a good father.
Thank you for your kind words and for your understanding.
I wasn’t taking what you said personally at all. It is not a topic that I care much about. It is in fact possible to not take something personally but to not like poor arguments. Saying, “oh, you didn’t like my (poor) arguments, you must be personally hurt by the topic” is usually passive aggressive but you are not a passive aggressive type so I guess you simply can’t see that your arguments suck.
“When I think of immortality and staying young forever, the cycle of life is where my mind goes. Absent of any particulars, I would suggest having kids.” WTF kind of argument is that? You are just begging the question and making bare assertions. Just claiming that reproducing is a form of immortality, doesn’t make it one. Is every worm out there there that divides (and both of whose halves are then stepped on and squashed) immortal? Actually, yes, because of God, but not because it divided.
“Lots of people obviously decide to have kids.”
In my mom’s generation, nearly everyone I know who had kids had them by accident. It wasn’t a decision.
I grew up in a small town and there were 63 kids in my high school graduation class and I had five female friends. We were the first generation with decent birth control. Only two of us had kids. I think that is a pretty good indication of the role of sex drive versus the role of “desire to have kids”. Things had reached a point in evolution where sex drive was the main thing, and when that suddenly no longer did the trick it became apparent that a lot of women didn’t want to reproduce. No one urged us not to reproduce; it just didn’t seem like a good thing to us at all. Presumably now that sex drive is largely irrelevant for reproduction, women will be selected to reproduce on the basis of actual desire to reproduce.
Quote Kareninca: “In my mom’s generation, nearly everyone I know who had kids had them by accident. It wasn’t a decision.”
That’s a good point. I think too that most kids were made by accident, and not by decision.
A drunk or drugged man meets a drunk or drugged woman, they get horny … you know what I mean.
But for me this situation never happened. Even if I’m fully drunk I don’t lose my ability for reason and logic. Therefore I was never able to make a kid by accident.
For all of human existence until practically yesterday, women got pregnant because they were socially required to, because they had a sex drive, because they were with a man who had a sex drive, or, in some very rare cases, because they had reasoned to the point of wanting to. But people now like Wombat don’t see that the reasoning part has historically been almost nil. Once women could think and reason about reproduction AND had birth control AND decision making autonomy, lo and behold a very large percentage didn’t want to have kids. Of course there are social and emotional pluses and minuses to both choices, and some have regrets due to either decision, but it was still a decision, and that was something new. If you asked a female animal of any species, “do you want to be in such and such physical condition and have such and such responsibilities and worries and fears for the rest of your life about another creature whom you are bonded to and whom you know will ultimately die”, do you think that female would say, “hell yes, I think I’ll go for that!!” Um, maybe not. You are thinking it was… Read more »
I am drunk, so take with a hefty grain of salt…
But fascinated by this whole comment thread. I feel some affiliation with viewpoints from both Wombat and Kareninca, and I’m probably wasting energy trying to contribute. Hopefully Rintrah.nl gets some satisfaction from a rare poster.
I have raised three children to adulthood. I’ve had six (spousal) pregnancies and never planned anything children-wise.
My (adult) kids have so many things in common with me that I am on Wombat’s side RE: immortality. Nothing intentional, but it is what is🤷 . They of course have their autonomy, but thru genes and upbringing, they are so much ME and their mom.
We need to fix the hairs in the ear which make you hear and teeth. Friggin teeth!
If we fix both we extend life 10 to 20 years on average and rather healthy so. I guess we’d need ~150 Billion Dollars to do that.
Telomere. Pffft.
Holy Ghost
Holy Spirit
I’m on fire
https://youtu.be/D1zErtM1r2c?si=BnrH-JeiV74CT97v
IT SEEMS OUR REGIME HAS PLUMMETED SOUTH!
DON’T NEED TO SCREAM IF YOU AIN’T GOT A MOUTH!
WHY BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS, WHEN IT’S THE ONLY HAND YOU’RE GETTING?!
IT’S TIME YOU SEE THAT THIS GREAT MARQUEE IS THE ONLY PLACE YOU’RE EVER GONNA BE.
SO STRAP ON IN, AND TAKE IT ON THE CHIN!
AND DON’T FORGET WHO’S RUNNING THE SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!
https://youtu.be/aAg3bwzSuLk
I was going to write a longer post before, but basically this song is definitely about kundalini awakenings. There seem to be a lot of artists who create things which reference obscure esoteric topics they are unlikely to have any personal understanding of, which makes me believe that many of these artists are probably pulling ‘inspiration’ from the collective unconscious or sometimes being handed ideas by, basically, entities. I couldn’t say for sure either way about Deftones specifically, but they seem to make songs like that a lot too.
Interesting reply, Tryptie.
I’m curious how someone of your nature might interpret the following video:
https://youtu.be/f0pdwd0miqs?si=LAkvnO5HVEbtJYPb
About the dog, ammonia is added to low-quality beef trimmings (dog food) to produce Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB). Feed dogs whole meats, and I’m sure they’ll be less likely to have cancer.
We should create an artificial dog food that has maximum health benefits so animals don’t have to suffer to feed puppies.
Good point!
This song but globalist liberal democracy
https://youtu.be/yqr1BnpY628
Holy shit, I step away from the browser for a couple of days and come back to this.
For the record:
No I will not date any of you.
Wombat’s mum you should allow the low status white male’s the ability to dream. Like an HR manager, you should just ghost perspective suitors rather than outright stating that you’re not interested in what they have to offer.
I’m saying this on the behalf of Mehen btw. I’m pretty sure you’re not a cartoon robot so I’m not particularly interested myself. (Am I hypocritical for saying as much?)
Apropos of Nothing:
Beach Burial
Softly and humbly to the Gulf of Arabs
The convoys of dead sailors come;
At night they sway and wander in the waters far under,
But morning rolls them in the foam.
Between the sob and clubbing of the gunfire
Someone, it seems, has time for this,
To pluck them from the shallows and bury them in burrows
And tread the sand upon their nakedness;
And each cross, the driven stake of tidewood,
Bears the last signature of men,
Written with such perplexity, with such bewildered pity,
The words choke as they begin –
‘Unknown seaman’ – the ghostly pencil
Wavers and fades, the purple drips,
The breath of wet season has washed their inscriptions
As blue as drowned men’s lips,
Dead seamen, gone in search of the same landfall,
Whether as enemies they fought,
Or fought with us, or neither; the sand joins them together,
Enlisted on the other front.
Kenneth Slessor27 March 1901 – 30 June 1971 / Orange, New South Wales
https://youtu.be/-Z_NvVMUcG8?si=HMSV4pvqPxQxwFC4
https://youtu.be/V6HEhd4gAeA?si=3zeLUGapUBcETgvf
How can any of you vegans not be entranced by this?
Do you not feel the pull of desire?
Just look at those lips and pretty smile.
It seems pretty satisfying to me…
Mehen you’re into some very strange pornography. .
Anyway, I think science food is cooler and the big brand vegan alternatives tend to be better than animal flesh; they’re healthier and less likely to give you a stroke! Impossible Meat is more delicious than beef and sustainable!
This is actually beautiful.
https://youtu.be/mk0hAgmgBNM
Eating animals is ugly and mean. Low status white males often complain that “they” want to push veganism in order to control the food supply, but that sounds based to me. If the Impossible Brand became a branch of the state that would only sound like a positive thing to me.
Fuck muh wholesome ranchers and muh traditions and all that garbage. Food should be made in labs and optimized for human health and sustainability. (We could be doing lab meat better to be fair.)
Anyway, I know you’re not gonna change your opinion so I’ll just hope economic and other external forces drive the dietary-conservative to extinction. The New World Order can’t come sooner.
I thought the various foods eaten in the video I posted were “under the bar” of what Rad had previously indicated as “acceptable” seafood for vegans to eat — “non-vertebrates” or some such. I’m not exactly clued into the various internecine debates among you folks, I was just going off memory.
Oh the video wasn’t particularly interesting to me, if I’m going to watch some porn revolving a woman eating it’s not going to be some Asian woman eating seafood in real life (gross). I’ve seen some shit involving anime girls and little anime boys that was kinda appealing though ngl.
Anyway, I didn’t check and see if there was anything non-seafood in there.
Eating seafood is better in my opinion since those things are dumber, but I still think it should be replaced by stuff made in factories eventually. Food made by human ingenuity is such a vibe.
Cackle.
Withnail and I – I WANT SOMETHING’S FLESH!
>Me when there’s no Impossible Burgers and I have to eat a salad.
I clicked on that out of sheer curiosity but it was just kind of gross. I also hate the sound of people eating. People who are obsessed with consuming animals are typically under some form of demonic oppression. It could possibly be the result of gluttony worms, which are common, or possibly another type of entity. They are usually not aware that this is the case unless their symptoms are severe, because people almost never energy train to increase their energetic sensitivity and awareness to the point where they can actually sense the demons, and demons often prefer to stay hidden and extract your energy and feed off of you from the shadows in part so that you never do anything to address them. Basically, these things affect the vast majority of the population to varying degrees and in a lot of the milder cases it can just present itself as intrusive thoughts, emotional dysregulation, bizarre compulsions, paranoia, that kind of thing. It doesn’t mean it’s not a serious issue though; as with any disease, minor issues with demons can become serious later and most people in this realm are on a bad trajectory spiritually. You don’t want to count… Read more »
I’ve been goofing around in this thread but I’m not right now, Tryptie is actually 100% correct about this and you should take her seriously. I’ve energy trained and cleared stuff like this myself. Though just because this shit is real and something you should take seriously doesn’t mean the process of clearing this stuff can’t be fun, it can get very entertaining at times. I think it’s natural for us to see life as a game and our that our fundamental purpose in life is to have fun. For an example of an entertaining experience I’ve had while energy training there was this one powerful lion entity that was very bizarre as it was just absolutely obsessed with cheese and when i encountered it it just started screaming at me mentally in-all caps while rhyming. it reminded me of the myths about the Demiurge as a lion-serpent tbh but it was just a stupid demon and not the creator of the universe it probably wanted to seem like lol. That nigga was goofy as fuck and the whole experience and clearing him was hilarious. Like, even if you don’t want to believe that entities are real you should start… Read more »
I appreciate you saying all of that. I think it’s a good attitude to take with all of this, to have fun with it as you said. I know I come across kind of dry and serious with these topics, and it’s because I want to convey the importance of the matter, and probably because I’m a bit traumatized from some of my experiences, but yeah you’re also right that a lot of these entities are fucking retarded. Many of them remind me of the weirder depictions of supernatural entities such as the Yokai in the Shinto religion, just retarded insane-looking abominations which defy all categorization, and yeah they are kind of silly and have no real survival instinct and act incoherently in many cases. The lion thing you encountered sounds absurd lmao, but I don’t doubt that you actually saw something like that. But yeah I overall do enjoy what I’m doing though, it feels great to get stronger over time, and I feel incomparably better than when I started out a few years ago. You’re better at selling this tbh, I know when I talk about it it sounds like a schizophrenic survival-horror game a lot of the… Read more »
I still appreciate the fact you introduced it to me. I’ve said this before, but I was dealing with sleep paralysis stuff involving shadow people and energy training allowed me to get control over that stuff. Like, whenever I have sleep paralysis issues I just do the waterfall technique now and that seems to allow me to fall back asleep without issue. I think you’ve done a pretty good job selling it tbh, your words at-least seem to have impacted kareninca. Both our perspectives are useful for different types of people I’d say! You could also come at energy training from the perspective of active imagination or cognitive behavioral therapy. No matter the word you use for it, or what metaphysical beliefs you hold; what you’re doing is engaging with your internal compulsions on a very real level, which gives you a lot more control over what’s going on with yourself. There’s internal stuff getting in the way of people doing what they really want to do or who you really want to be, that you do have the power to clear that garbage! And yeah, these entities are total NPC retards lmao, they remind me of video games enemies.… Read more »
George Fox on the treatment of animals (from his Journal): “When I came to eleven years of age, I knew pureness and righteousness; for while a child I was taught how to walk to be kept pure. The Lord taught me to be faithful in all things, and to act faithfully two ways, viz., inwardly to God, and outwardly to man; and to keep to Yea and Nay in all things. For the Lord showed me, that though the people of the world have mouths full of deceit, and changeable words, yet I was to keep to Yea and Nay in all things; and that my words should be few and savoury, seasoned with grace; and that I might not eat and drink to make myself wanton, but for health, using the creatures in their service, as servants in their places, to the glory of Him that created them; they being in their covenant, and I being brought up into the covenant, as sanctified by the Word which was in the beginning, by which all things are upheld; wherein is unity with the creation. But people being strangers to the covenant of life with God, they eat and drink to… Read more »
Your Lord and Savior rules over a realm in which his subjects are constituted with a deep hunger and desire for flesh. And those subjects are left to wrestle with the conflict between their inborn needs/desires vs their “higher minded” ideals.
This conflict is never resolved. As you yourself have noted, veganism often results in unhealthy outcomes.
Yet you and others continue to wrestle.
To what end?
Does this state of affairs, which you and I and other humans grapple with, suggest something to you about the predicament we find ourselves in?
Or do you just bleat: “Our’s is not to reason why, our’s is just to do and die?”
https://youtu.be/xTgKRCXybSM?si=mVQckpS8rKpbT2L9
All of us here will in all likelihood die a painful and suffering death. Precious few will die a peaceful death in their sleep.
This fact alone tells me all I need to know.
You’re such an inspiration for the ways That I will never, ever choose to be Oh, so many ways for me to show you How your savior has abandoned you (Fuck your God) Your Lord, your Christ (He did this) Took all you had, and (left you this way) Still you pray, never stray, never (never taste of the fruit) Never thought to question why It’s not like you killed someone It’s not like you drove a hateful spear into His side Praise the one who left you broken down and paralyzed He did it all for you He did it all for you Oh, so many, many ways for me to show you How your dogma has abandoned you (Pray) to your Christ, to your God (never taste of the fruit) Never stray, never break, never (choke on a lie) Even though he’s the one who did this to you Never thought to question why Not like you killed someone It’s not like you drove a spiteful spear into His side Talk to Jesus Christ as if He knows the reasons why He did it all for you He did it all for you He did it all for… Read more »
If you’re asking if I think that God is omnipotent AND omniscient AND wholly benevolent, I’ve already said no. That is a human construct. I think there is Good within us, and we are to turn to it and be led by it.
I feel like the fact that you understand that the “struggle” for vegan-vagina-ism (I promise you, you can just go to the grocery store and just buy normal, vitamin-B-12-fortified foods and it’s literally normal as fuck like literally just try it some time) will JUST TURN YOU INTO A MONSTER, means SOMETHING SOMETHING BIBLICAL CLUSTERFUCK; means AAAAAAAAAAAAAA CREEPYPASTA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Building a Quaker Fortress on a Castle of Sand. Basically, if you continue on your current path, you will live a decent life, die at the end of it, and afterwards you will be met with a Great and Glorious Light, “like you’ve never seen before”, and you will be entranced by its “Quaker” Love and Holiness, and you will be Absorbed by it and become One with the Light, in a loop Forever, and the Light will Totally be a Reptilian in Disguise, and it will “Encourage you Gently to Reincarnate into the Next Life Because You Didn’t Do Well Enough In This Life”. I really don’t like to be the one who ruins the party but I’m doing this for your own good. You’re being scammed. And not just scammed-QuakerScammed. It’s actually worse because you people are more moral and innocent on average. Trust me, my grandma was quaker. “””””God””””” help you please. Fuck…
You’re not describing actual traditional Quaker theology. I’m not sure where you got what you wrote; I think maybe you are guessing. Traditional Quakers believe that heaven and hell are on this earth, RIGHT NOW. We also think that we just don’t know what comes after physical life, but we will trust and have faith in Christ.
Quaker theology is not regular Protestant (or Catholic) theology.
nooo, dude literally, Jesus said that his kingdom is ‘not of this world’. This world, logically, literally, cannot be heaven. I’m saying this experientially. I HAVE SEEN THE ELDRITCH TRUTH AND I AM TRYING TO POINT A CARDINAL DIRECTION TOWARDS HEAVEN ok, this is why Jesus would so frequently describe this world as ‘not of his kingdom’ ok, he meant that this is not heaven and therefore logically it is not a place you should be staying in if you’re seeking heaven. Look please consider what I’m saying ;w; We are in a form of hell right now and if that were not the case, HE WOULDNT HAVE BOTHERED TO COME DOWN HERE TO BEGIN WITH!!!!! This is the true reason why the world is so horrible, and the true answer is that the grace of god only comes to those who save themselves…
look, I’m drunk, but even so the things I am saying are true. So basically, if there is anything logically inconsistent about what I’ve said, let me know and I will be happy to debate you, including the nature of this being a hell realm.
What you’re saying isn’t logically inconsistent. But Quakers don’t base their theology on logic; they explicitly don’t. It is an “experiential” faith. We feel Christ’s presence and feel him guiding us. I’m not denying what you are experiencing.
You are reading the bible literally. You are supposed to read it spiritually. The world as most people experience it is not Christ’s kingdom. But that is not because they are in a material state.
We can be in heaven or hell now. He came down to show us how to be in heaven now; by doing His will and turning to Him for comfort.
My problem with the Quaker understanding is not the material/non material issue. It is that it does not provide a way for nonhuman animals to be in heaven now when they are suffering. But your system doesn’t give them an out either, since they can’t do all those internal battles.
I’m sure your grandma was very nice, but apparently she did not read the early texts. Of course anyone can call anything “being a Quaker”, and your grandma was entitled to call a regular Protestant mishmash, Quakerism. But the original Quaker theology was not that (and my branch of Quakerism goes by the original understandings).
^^^ more doctrinaire cope, a carefully curated mental model which seeks to make sense of the world.
But “reality” has other things in store for you…
I have had the usual number of truly horrible personal experiences already; mostly the deaths of close family members. Since people die. One just happened a couple of weeks ago; it was brutal. Turning to Christ was and is a help. The thing is that there is no other help; Christ is the help of the helpless and the hope of the hopeless.
Fair.
But I hope you can understand the perspective of those sensitive souls who experience the same horrors and sorrow and arrive at a different conclusion.
I understand that some people are somehow cut off, at least for the moment, from the solace I am describing. My family member who just died read Schopenhauer in high school and was an ardent atheist thereafter, and died without any spiritual comfort (although fortunately not in physical pain due to morphine, valium and haldol). Her great wish was to not be forgotten. And she won’t be by any reasonable standard, but will certainly be forgotten by existing humans in 80 years or so. So the only sort of comfort this person wanted was one that the she would not accept, since it is not on offer in the material world.
I sympathize with the perspective of people who are atheists but I am not going to try to understand it. I don’t care to destroy myself; I have a sense of self-preservation.
This is another fair comment from you.
It also suggests that people who disagree on such fundamental issues should be sequestered from each other.
Because their fundamental orientations towards Life are irresolvable.
This insight probably has implications for the “utility” and “usefulness” of the Internet, which has allowed formerly sequestered subcultures (which grow and evolve within their own mein) to be exposed to subversive thoughts outside their cognitive limits.
I am once again reminded of Thomas Ligotti and his book “The Conspiracy Against The Human Race” which posts the fundamental question: “Is being alive alright?”
The point that in the absence of birth nobody exists who can be deprived of happiness is terribly conspicuous. For optimists, this fact plays no part in their existential computations. For pessimists, however, it is axiomatic. Whether a pessimist urges us to live “heroically” with a knife in our gut or denounces life as not worth living is immaterial. What matters is that he makes no bones about hurt being the Great Problem it is incumbent on philosophy to observe. But this problem can be solved only by establishing an imbalance between hurt and happiness that would enable us in principle to say which is more desirable—existence or nonexistence. While no airtight case has ever been made regarding the undesirability of human life, pessimists still run themselves ragged trying to make one. Optimists have no comparable mission. When they do argue for the desirability of human life it is only in reaction to pessimists arguing the opposite, even though no airtight case has ever been made regarding that desirability. Optimism has always been an undeclared policy of human culture—one that grew out of our animal instincts to survive and reproduce—rather than an articulated body of thought. It is the default… Read more »
FOREWORD Ray Brassier We know what verdict is reserved for those foolhardy enough to dissent from the common conviction according to which “being alive is all right,” to borrow an insistent phrase from the volume at hand. Disputants of the normative buoyancy of our race can expect to be chastised for their ingratitude, upbraided for their cowardice, patronized for their shallowness. Where self-love provides the indubitable index of psychic health, its default can only ever be seen as a symptom of psychic debility. Philosophy, which once disdained opinion, becomes craven when the opinion in question is whether or not being alive is all right. Suitably ennobled by the epithet “tragic,” the approbation of life is immunized against the charge of complacency and those who denigrate it condemned as ingrates. “Optimism”; “pessimism”: Thomas Ligotti takes the measure of these discredited words, stripping them of the patina of familiarity that has robbed them of their pertinence, and restoring to them some of their original substance. The optimist fixes the exchange rate between joy and woe, thereby determining the value of life. The pessimist, who refuses the principle of exchange and the injunction to keep investing in the future no matter how worthless… Read more »
Off topic, the Orange Clown delivered an April Fool’s address
What an absurd and performative day, complete with the launch of a big orange rocket.
18 days to go…