God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs. God creates Man, man destroys God. Man creates AI, AI destroys man. AI creates dinosaurs…

Circle of life.

Environmentalism and animals rights is a helluva no sell for you guys, isn’t it? The rejection of that value as fundamental to what needs to change caught me off guard, and is why I push back so hard to keep your flavor of leftism from becoming the dominant voice. I went rounds over in ML about this the other day, the idea that accepting non-human suffering/environmental destruction as a sad but acceptable consequence of human advancement so long as there’s “pledges and goals” for reducing it in the future is tolerable.

If we’re going to fight this fight let’s actually start fresh, not just make excuses for retaining the ugly parts of the system we destroyed because “humans are more important, we’ll get to that later”. Later never comes, there’s always a reason that can be found. Humans are important, but they’re not the only things living on this planet, most of them get a few decades of life, and there’s a lot more humans as well as other living things left to come after those of us here not are dead.

This is why I push people for their deeply held convictions about why they want the system they want. Slogans, laundry lists of unverifiable accomplishments, rehearsed talking points, the words of dead philosophers; none of that means shit. What’s it mean to them, the individual.

Always with the anthropocentrism. Hit me up when you feel like fighting for the rights of all the victims of capitalism and human greed. You might get some assistance now and then, but you’ll never get solidarity until the pretense of human exceptionalism is dropped.

I think an argument could be made that DC does exist in the Foxverse. In 2, Deadpool says to Cable “You’re so dark… You sure you’re not from the DC Universe?”. Later DP time travels to kill Ryan Reynolds before he makes the Green Lantern movie (and note, killing Ryan Reynolds in the past doesn’t cause future Deadpool to cease to exist, they’re two different people). Makes sense since no non-mutant superheroes from Marvel exist in the Foxverse, DC operates without a rival. Also, this is a nerdy shower thought, take it as you will.

Good point. Kids know too much and get addicted too early. Adult know too little and can’t tell the difference between lies and reality. Everybody consumes way too much porn. That’s it, everybody put their phones in the garbage. No more Internet, everyone gets a landline, rotary dial, call on the other end does’t disconnect if you don’t hang yours up.

I don’t block them. I just keep pressing them for an explanation of their personal philosophy. Not regurgitated, preconstructed points, actual personal philosophy. It usually goes “accusation of fascism/zionist”, “bad faith/strawman/red herring/I don’t have to explain it to you”, “you’re a nihilistic anarchist”, non-sequitur, list of actions they’ve taken irl but can’t/won’t break anonymity to prove (anybody can claim they’ve done anything in an anonymous forum), and finally inform me they’re blocking me. I mean, that’s great, block me online. I still exist in the real world and you’re going to have to face me someday. Unless of course you empower your own authoritarian regime that will keep my constant demands for your individual opinion and “nihilistic anarchist” viewpoints blocked from society. Which is what I think they want, zero challenge from any source or counter philosophy.

I repeat, anyone online can claim organizing because it’s anonymous. You’ve been challenged to explain the philosophy behind what you’re organizing for.

Is this why they call you silentjohn, because when pressed for a defense of your beliefs you refuse to answer and instead drop hashtag grade slogans? No wonder we’re losing to the fascists, the commies can’t even defend the philosophy they stand for.

You got called out because instead of providing a good faith argument in favor of your belief you just posted some snide remark. I pressed you to provide any sort of substance and you accuse me of being unworthy of your time?

This is an anonymous forum for the sharing of ideas and conversation. Anyone can post a laundry list claiming radical actions, but there’s no proof. Nobody knows who you really are, nobody knows if what you say is true, and there’s no way to prove it because unless you’re going to post a lot of irrefutable personal information online it’s just talk. Personally, I give you the benefit of the doubt and take you at your word that you do engage in those actions, but I could claim I’ve aided and abetted arson at a fur warehouse, doxxed an animal researcher and harassed them to the point they’ve had to move to a different state (then did it again), lived in an Occupy encampment for months through the winter, and beat a bonehead with a lock and chain outside a punk venue while getting a knife to the abdomen in response. Could be true, could be bullshit; it’s the internet.

Anyone can organize. The Proud Boys organize. I wasn’t asking for your organizational resume, I was asking for what the philosophical goals of your organization are. Why is what you seek to achieve not what OP accused you of authoritarianism? And now, additionally, why is it that so often when pressed to provide an explanation of those beliefs do people resort to “troll post”, “bad faith”, “not worth my time”, and non-sequitur replies? You are probably correct in the assumption that your reply won’t change my belief, but that doesn’t mean it won’t provide insight into how another person thinks that may influence future interactions or contemplation from myself or one of the many people on this forum that read it.

The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing are a steampunkish punk band that actually put out a release on wax cylinder in 2010. It was one of the first new ones in decades and if I remember correctly it was quite the effort to get someone with a functional antique machine to put it back to production.

Then provide a counter-argument. You’ve been accused of seeking to replace one authoritarian regime with another and your only response is “nuh-uh, propaganda”. If you can’t articulate what you want, why you want it, and and why you believe it’s not what the people opposing both you and the current regime offer, how are you ever going to achieve momentum to build the system you seek?

Work and finding a peer collective outside of what was available at my high school. I had some friends I went to school with, but I took a kitchen job at 16 and was exposed to a much larger group of ages, personalities, and beliefs. Same thing happened when I started going to punk shows regularly and found a coffee shop with a vibe I liked. Being exposed to so many different people helped me realize that what made me feel “awkward” wasn’t totally innate. I will always be a touch reserved, self-conscious, weird, but being in a jock-centric preppie high school, my ultra-conservative evangelical parents, church groups- those spaces amplified my insecurity and feelings of not belonging until it because a self-destructive feedback loop.

It’s not all rainbows and butterflies though. Alcohol came into the picture and while a good social lubricant it’s been a roller coaster. High school can keep you safe by limiting your friend options to people roughly your same age, in the real world you might end up becoming friends with people years older than you. There’s nothing wrong with making older “friends”, but as an inexperienced youth it can be hard to tell which older people recognize youth and a potential lack of boundaries so they step up and guide you positively, and which are people who struggle to recognize that, are reliving their own youth, or are straight up predators. It’s also really on you to figure out what you think is proper. When I was 16 the dude that had the party house was 30, and bought our beer for us. But he also would cut people off, make sure we didn’t over indulge, kicked out those who crossed the line, and kept people safe. I’m sure a lot of people would find a 30yo running a party house for high schoolers questionable, and rightfully so, but at the same time it was a far safer and more accepting environment for a lot of us kids than our own homes.

I also got involved in non-party related causes that were things I felt passionate about, particularly environmentalism. Similar to the party scene in that I ended up around people of all ages, all experiences, but were all present because whatever we were looking to do, we all found shared value in it.

Being around people and finding places where the bits of me I felt awkward about were accepted helped me. It also helped shape me, because when I trusted those people and they confronted me about bad behavior, instead of taking it like a rejection of me as a person I could learn to recognize what was being rejected was truly an inappropriate action.

Nice to see that even today the people are coming together to keep them painted (Estonia)

Jake forgot that one simple trick.

That cats don’t understand the nutritional value of a free meal doesn’t mean they’ve lost their instinct/drives to engage in feline behavior. Not every kill is because they intend to eat it, the internet is full of pictures of people grossed out because their cat brought them a half dead rodent, bird, or snake. Barn cats often lean more on the feral side but will still take you up on a free meal if provide it. The toys we buy for our pet cats are designed around engaging their predatory behavior and channeling it into not lethal play. If you keep a cat locked inside and are its only source of food, it will eat whatever you provide and adjust its behavior to the life offered. If you don’t provide opportunities for enrichment and feed it garbage it probably will end up unhealthy and obese, but I’d still question how often it’s seeking to alleviate it’s boredom stalking and killing bugs when you’re not looking. One of the biggest concerns for wildlife is that cats are domesticated enough to understand the convenience of a human-sourced bowl of free food to fill their bellies but being well fed doesn’t suppress the instinct to hunt. They’ll kill when the opportunity arises because they have the instinct to and it alleviates boredom even if they have no intention of eating it. You’re correct that the responsibility is on the human, because the human understands all this and is responsible for controlling the environment and diet.

This is true for any animal kept in captivity. If you’re the only source of food eventually they will eat what’s available even if it’s detrimental. If you don’t provide for their behavior needs they’ll indulge those drives in ways you don’t want. Dogs will dig, shred, and develop anxiety. Parrots will pluck themselves naked. A lot of fish and reptiles won’t eat the wrong thing and have a low tolerance for the wrong environment, they just die.

Well, when in Rome, do as the Vandals.

Harm reduction is the point because there’s no clean win in the system. But the people selling the animal derived products are often also the ones selling conscientious consumers the oat milk. They don’t care about harm reduction, just profits, and as veganism has grown increasingly popular they’ve amped up producing products to supply that demand. At the end of the day, we don’t actually need bovine milk, or soy milk, or oat milk. Whatever form they’re in they’re a want, not a need. If your only challenge to a system designed to profit from exploitation is to indulge your wants but feel good because that want is advertised as better, you’re not challenging the system. Living requires consumption, all living things do it. Sometimes reducing harm to others means deciding to forgo the want for something you don’t really need in the first place.

Also US but I’d say most people in my area have a more noticeable down shift on the end vowel so it sounds more “zeebruh”. Debra on the otherhand would still have a crisper “a”.