I was raised very Catholic. Old school Roman Catholicism.

I remember praying as a child and I remember what it feels to believe in a deity. It's one of the reasons why I can talk to religious people and build a sense of commonality. I don't try to destroy what they believe in. I know that gives them a sense of safety and company that staves off the loneliness and fear that comes with roaming through this world.

If you had a magical entity that is always with you and you believed that could grant you wishes and keep you safe, would you give that up? If you would is still not easily so.

And that is why attacking the belief itself is a bad idea, because it reinforces the need for it.

I found myself unable to support the logic for it from a very young age and moved on from it.

But in talking to a pantheist, I have a harder time disproving that logic, as it fits with the nature of reality. While I don't consider myself a pantheist, pantheism itself leads me more to agnosticism than atheism.

I find the conversation in relation to theism utterly frustrating because both sides find the absence of proof to be proof itself.

I rather not commit to any logic such as this. As I was once thought to believe in something without proof. Never again.

I even find comfort in saying "I don't know". Not only when I didn't get around to learning something that others did, but in the not knowing.

The universe exists in a contraction of two impossibilities. Nothing and Infinity. As the most fun thing to ruin our brains is trying to imagine an edge of the universe expanding. Expanding? Where to? Nothing? If there's nothing, how is there space for it to expand into? Just as terrible as... it came out of Nothing. Nothing? If there's nothing how can there be cause for something to be? Nothing and Infinity. Probably the same and no way for us to verify any of it.

We're monkey cousins roaming on a geoid trapped in a vacuum lit by a fire bomb that has us circling it until it explodes.

Bringing the idea of a deity into this only makes it weirder not simpler.

And pretending like we really know what the hell is going on, only makes us less sane not more.

Oh, absolutely. Biomagnification is inherent to the logic of raising through the trophic levels. So even if we forego the zoo experiment as a setting, in theory any time there's a toxin or a man-made hazardous chemical due to pollution in the wild, we are bound to find higher levels of either due to the concentration effect alone.

We can even point that back to the study, as the zoo animals were eating domestic raised animals by humans and the inherent hazards of that practice surely increase the risk of cancer, not lower it. Maybe they can even start a lab grown meat trial with carnivorous zoo animals and see if the cancer rate actually lowers from that alone. In theory, it should.

No, you don't need to "grow up". You're right in feeling the way you do. Growing up in relation to that sounds like giving up. If anyone needs to grow up or give up is the people destroying Nature and people's lifes just so they can get more tokens in a rigged game that always benefits them.

If anyone here can find it, a few years ago there was also a meta study that evaluated the aggregate information provided by zoos and found that carnivore animals are a lot more likely to develop cancer than omnivore animals and herbivores. Herbivores, the least likely. Which from a trophic balance makes absolute sense. Given that a large predator without self regulation would require other population control occurrences to be in place from a meta-space perspective. And amino acid density doesn't really discriminate what is growing, anyway. So, it all makes sense. As it's supposed to.

And speaking of this, us Humans have to develop our own self-regulation at an individual level and species level combined or we'll continue to predate on the environment and each other as a result of our own devised resource scarcity. The fact we fight viruses and cancer better and better only makes it more necessarily so. Lack of self regulation always leads to scarcity. It is how the initial predation systems were formed to begin with. Ambulant organisms reproduced and consumed without any inhibitors or restrictions, leading them to prey on each other when the lower trophic levels were no longer available to sustain their numbers and consumption. Again, it all makes sense. As it's supposed to.

Is this a warning? I hope most of you have spotted this sooner than this article seems to have, because this has been going on for quite a while.

There's even been articles uncovering far right groups financing influencers and youtubers as a way to sever through culture.

And I keep saying that "Gamergate" was the true opening of that avenue into the mainstream almost a decade and a half ago. That was the time to spot it. By the time that "kermit the frog impersonator" and the "no chin alpha" showed up on the public radar, the problem was already unfolding wide and around for a while.

And I have a suspicion that what started Gamergate was just some good old sport trolling that then turned into... well... the opening of the gates of hell.

Obviously that I have no way to confirm this.

But I still have some fun imagining those who were indeed just trolling for some dumb fun back then, now aged with their scruffy beard and hair greying, holding their knees in a fetal position muttering to themselves "What did I do?"- and yes, it's kind of fucked that I find that funny.

But I also keep saying the same thing over and over...

This is not just an American problem. This is everywhere.

If you disagree, I suggest you take a stroll through Europe...

You can start with Portugal, and the ridiculousness with the party Chega and its circus of followers, moving next to Spain with Vox and their own clown show, then France and don't tell me you haven't even heard of Marine Le Pen. Just take a look up from there to Britain with good old Brexit and the tumour Nigel Farage with the cancer that is Reform. What about Italy? Anyone thinking that Georgia Meloni snuck up on Europe must've been in a coma during the Berlusconi years, because the orange blob as president is just a terrible American remake of that Italian classic. And Germany, did it elude anyone the fact that AFD scored the second place in the elections and is even polling in first now, apparently? I could keep going, but we should stop before we get to the Balkans, right?

"Well, that's just Europe and the U.S. then."

What about Australia, with Peter Dutton and the crazy brand of fascism they have going down under? Or Canada and what the hell is even Pierre Polievre who was all set to win? Yes, these two did lose but not by much and the type of fuel they ran on is still there to burn.

This is a problem that is everywhere. And what creates this madness is that there are grifters who are willing to say whatever it takes, that take problems that affect almost everyone except the elite class, but then single their message across to a particular subset of the public which is too uneducated to understand the rest of the conversation that everyone is trying to have. And because the indignation is something that so many others can join in on when there's so much to feel angry towards, the menace spreads wider as a result of a compromise to meet the end they desire.

But this second wave of rage that joins in has the logic that if there's things that need fixing in one's household, the best is to burn the house down, apparently.

And the really sad part is none of this is new.

Socrates thought that elections were too important to be handed to a general public which was too ignorant to understand its functioning or its true value. And who was it that believed that there was a need for a lie to "deceive" the population into doing the decent thing? I can't remember which of them said that. (If you do, please do tell) But that was what many found religion to be the method to accomplish it. As ludicrous as that might sound.

It's just the same loop of the revolt of the idiots. "My pain is truer than yours" type of nonsense.

On and on.

But if anyone knows how to make the arrogant humble and the idiot know their idiocy, please do tell.

Because you would've made the greatest discovery in human history that would break this seemingly never-ending loop.

I keep saying for a while that Precision Fermentation is the future. Because if it isn't, that probably means there isn't one.

Using the lowest trophic level possible to grow our sustenance directly is the only way to ensure the least destruction possible. Which ensures the most environmental and ethical efficacy. As there should never be anything to distinguish between them in the first place.

Why is it always the kind of person you think it's gonna be? I mean, always. One can match the level of inconsiderable idiocy from car models alone.

Imagine knowing you're wrong and persist and insist this much in continuing to do the wrong thing in front of everyone, so that everyone can behold the thing that everyone knows that is wrong for you to be doing, and you still continue to do the wrong thing that you know that everyone knows that you know that is wrong to do. No? Hurts your brain, doesn't it?

Now... Why is his license plate blurred in the video? Does this level of inconsiderate behaviour deserve that level of consideration in return?

And how many people kept warning everyone of this and for how long?

I am a bit tired of the lack of foresight. In reactive vs proactive measures people only seem to understand reactive ones.

I've been telling people about the dangers of the lack of digital sovereignty, in relation to nations, communities and individuals for I don't even know how long. As many many others have for even longer.

It's as if one keeps telling someone to fix the fissures in the hull of their boat while on shore, but they only seem to understand what you mean when the boat is leaking through these same fissures at sea.

It's only then that it starts to sink - pun very much intended.

By that point it's too late. And the outcome might be a tragic one.

It's the same with the environment.

It's the same with their own health.

It's the same with everything.

One doesn't need to ponder about this for very long to pinpoint that this is because the absence of reference is what makes it harder to acknowledge it. Because one has a harder time understanding what one doesn't have a frame of reference of, and then the subsequent dismissiveness ensues.

The great tragedy of all the proactive efforts is that when they are successful, something has been avoided, and therefore unseen.

We register rescue, not prevention.

And it's only in the rescuing that the understanding of what could have been avoided starts to be perceived. Not everyone is like this, but most people seem to be.

But I don't know how as one gets older, sees what might be a cliff ahead and finds only reasoning for a faint downslope.

And I no longer care to know if it is due to denial, laziness or ignorance anymore. Because I'm quite exhausted of this.

What's this?? A politician in a position of power taking a stand on a principle with integrity?? Especially these days?

How did he sneak in?

They're usually not allowed in the establishment.

Hmm... Suddenly I can't trust him anymore. That's how fucked I am with the political class. Like, immediately it just pops "what's his angle besides some PR glow?" - that's where my mind goes instantly.

It's exhausting...

What a Fucking Legend!!! People such as her should be our icons. Not the plastic ridiculous people that the legacy media and the algorithimc social media keep pushing out like clowns to the circus floor to keep people distracted.

Sue Parfitt. Let's remember her name. In fact I'm gonna save this post.

And while I'm not one to support religion, between her and the reverend that gave that sermon to Trump's face in church, I would say "Lady Priests" (apologies for the reductionism) are having a moment and showing the cloth that apparently only the women in it seem to remember what "their calling" is supposed to be all about.

If anyone knows the name of the woman that gave that sermon, tag it under. Please.

It's not about supporting the church, it's about giving credit where credit is due.

In fact, we should start making a record of the people who are raising to the occasion these days all over the world, and taking the moral stand and give them the space and the limelight, instead of allowing everything to be about the shitty people doing their shitty deeds. That takes so much of the bandwith as it is, and makes us feel alone in the face of it all.

Be it about the atrocities being committed in Gaza, Ukraine, the U.S. or in any place where wrongful actions are occurring, let us make visible the people that raise to face it. Let us put forward the faces and voices of the ones who still truly give the word "humanity" some of its supposed meaning back.

PS: A lot of people here might not be able to read Spanish. But I do and I really liked the article you linked. It was a really nice complement to the one linked in the post. So, thank you for sharing it.

I've been barricated in my room with the Air Conditioning for as long as it is possible over the last few days.

And while it brings me some relief, it also burdens my conscience to know this relief is also contributing to the problem that makes seeking this relief necessary.

Just shoot me already.