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.
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’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.
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?
“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.
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.
It’s okay to have kids. It is NOT okay to make garbage arguments in favor of doing so.
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.
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.
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
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 »
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 »
“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 »
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.
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 »
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.
Johann Sebastian Bach had 20 children. You increase your odds by having more children. Immortality is a numbers game!
“ 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.
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.
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.
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.
Can you hook me up with a date with your mum (Wombat’s Mum).
Hey! AI Cyber Bot – stop dissin on Low IQ Retards.
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.
> 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
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
OT;
https://youtu.be/wtItdqxHZYA?si=ZpaGYt-Y9TknlR4G
I’m ready
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Good point!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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…
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.
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 »
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 »
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 »