RIP, Marshall. Your novella, Manna (full text), was so impactful for me, as a 20-something at the time you first released it on your website.

I was trying, but it was yet another thing to manage when I already was barely able to keep up with the daily expectations of modern life. Ultimately, though, I am not sure it was that. My body had been adapted to a certain diet for decades by the point I’d given veganism a try, and given what we’re learning about cell memory, I wonder if my body/gut biome was mostly just mad that it had learned to expect nutrients in a certain format and struggled to adapt to the new way. Maybe, given more time, I’d have adapted. I don’t know. I just knew I couldn’t keep going on feeling like that while managing my depression.

Either way, I’m happy enough with my flexitarian diet. I eat very little meat that I didn’t buy on clearance from my local grocer. Saving already-butchered meat that’s imminently destined for the landfill helps me to feel less bad about my animal consumption, though I’m sure some people would say I’m still enabling the meat industry anyway. Some weeks there’s not much clearance meat available, though, and that’s fine. During those times I don’t eat meat, or pull from my freezer. Ultimately I feel that I’ve done more for the environment by choosing to have no children and avoid air travel, given what we know about the emissions numbers. I do own a car, but am working on moving away from using it as much as is possible given my circumstances.

I appreciate your concern, and your candor.

I generally agree that life is worth living, and don’t have any immediate plans to take the sort of drastic action you seem to be supposing. This is a good summation of my situation. I’ve been to therapy, and don’t currently feel that it’s needed. I’m doing well these days, overall, both economically and mentally. I’ve been dealing with my post-teen-angst depression for over 30 years now, and I choose not to medicate against it, as it’s not solely the product of a chemical imbalance, but rather primarily a reflection of the material conditions of humanity at large.

As for humanity being worth saving… we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I won’t cheer on its downfall, or vote for accelerationism, but I’ve yet to see compelling evidence that humanity is valuable to anyone or anything but ourselves.

Why should anyone value what you have to say? Are you just here to expose us to your misanthrope?

I didn’t ask anyone to value what I have to say. I’m here to express myself, just like everyone else. Sorry if I bummed you out.

Become vegan, you’ll feel better

No thank you. I’ve chosen a vegan diet in the past but it didn’t make me feel better about humanity. Worse, even. My physical health suffered, too, so I don’t want to repeat that experiment. I’m fine with my current flexitarian diet.

There was a time, ten or twenty years ago, that I cared; When you could strum those chords on my heart-strings. I used to think that humanity was worth saving. That each human life had some inherent value.

Human life is not inherently more valuable than the cow that died to make the cheeseburger I had for dinner last night. It had a family, too, and probably did less damage to the earth than any of us humans can claim to have done.

I’ve lost patience with my species and their constant bickering and one-upsmanship. Endless competition is tired and trite. I’m bored of it. We’re not each-other’s enemies in any material way other than the ways we’ve created in our own minds, and with our own geopolitical and financial games. We’re one species, and none of us are so valuable as we’d like to think. Frankly, at this point, I’d completely understand if I were one day killed by a foreign adversary intent on teaching my government a lesson. Without consequences, nothing matters.

I hate that this is what I’ve become, but it’s the honest truth of how I’ve come to feel about us. I don’t even know where that leaves me, but something’s got to give. I’ll hold on to hope, but I don’t think we’ve got it in us to come together to save ourselves. We’ll be fighting each-other even as the world burns around us.

Exactly. Actions should never have consequences. That’s how we maintain a free and fair society.

Wow. What an asshole.

I think the chip on your shoulder has a chip on its shoulder.

Perhaps to you the saying is a platitude, but that seems subjective. To someone who hasn’t considered the impacts of their consumption habits, or the ways that different economic systems can serve to reward different patterns of human behavior, it can be a thought provoking statement.

There is no ethical consumption.

If you view ethics as a binary, then sure. If you view ethics as a complex and nuanced spectrum, well, not so much.

Capitalism doesn’t encourage anything.

What a reductionist take, especially considering the paragraph you’d written just above it.

Murc’s Law.

What will the incentive be for these supposed new manufacturers, who just spent a whole lot of money building factories, to offer significantly lower prices than what Americans will have already gotten used to paying by the time said manufacturers have been able to build out their production facilities?

Better yet; Why would these manufacturers even invest in building out these supply lines when they can’t be sure that the next administration won’t remove the tariffs? Seems like a risky investment.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/

This person lost 3 months of work because they couldn’t be assed to backup their data despite having three months to do so.

Never trust an OS, or a piece of software, to protect you. Protect yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH1PJTY9AVA

I agree, and came in here to say the same thing. I think the data is being skewed by the fact that many (not all, of course) rental properties are subdivided into multiple units (or built that way in the first place). People commenting about how it’s considering modern costs, well, they must not have read the first two sentences of the article:

On paper, owning a home is almost always more expensive than renting — about 14% more, on average, after factoring in expenses like insurance, taxes, and upkeep.

But the difference has grown much more extreme in recent years as just about all homeownership costs have ballooned.

The only way you can arrive at that 14% number is if you’re averaging in multi-unit apartment buildings. Very few, if any, landlords are out there subsidizing their non-family tenants by charging less than the normal costs of ownership. If most landlords are losing money year over year, well… at that point just sell the property.

His thumb is un-tucked well before his hand (with only one finger extended) reaches his mouth. He’s not pinching it between any other fingers, as only his index finger is raised… so how exactly did he insert the zyn with one finger?

Harris stating that nothing would change

Are you referring to that one “The View” interview where she flubbed the question about what she would have done differently than Biden before returning to it later in the same interview to add in a bit about reaching across the aisle, or is she on record elsewhere saying that nothing would change during her presidency?

Because when I search for it all I see is tens of right-biased news outlets talking about that “The View” interview.

Looks like someone forgot about the 3-2-1 rule. Teachable moment.

I suspect we’re on the same broad page, but our means are vastly different.

I suspect the same and I appreciate you engaging with me civilly.

Your concerns about the situation being a slippery slope are understandable. We’re discussing things that live on the very edges of basic, modern human morality. I recognize that this creates a lot of unease.

I don’t hate the human. I would not kill baby Hitler if I had a time machine, as baby Hitler was not born evil.

My hate lies with what the human has become, the views the human has developed. I will not tolerate them. If that hatred, of those who outwardly espouse this level of murderous intolerance (and only those who do so), makes me no better than Fuentes, then I suppose I will gladly be that villain, if only so that others can continue to live their lives in peace. The violence and genocide inherent to the fascist ideology must never be allowed to take root. It is an existential threat to global peace that must be shut down with any and every means available. Peaceful means should always be prioritized where possible.

Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

• Sir Karl Raimund Popper, speaking on The Paradox Of Tolerance.

I’m not the person you’re replying to, but if you aren’t familiar, Nick Fuentes believes (in his own words) the following:

“We need to eradicate Jewish stranglehold over the United States of America. … We will win, because unlike our opposition, we are willing to die for what we believe in … We’re in a holy war and I will tell you this. Because we’re willing to die in the holy war, we will make them die in the holy war. And they will go down.”

This isn’t <a group of people I don’t like> this is <a group of people who support the rape, murder, and genocide of people they don’t like>. Nick Fuentes is a literal crypto-fascist. Fascists are owed zero tolerance, and the use of hyperbole to shock or scare them (or scare others away from falling in with them) is a valid tactic.

Oi Polloi - Bash The Fash

I’ll reserve judgement until the NHTSA. NCAP, and IIHS weigh in. I know the NHTSA and IIHS have declined to test due to the cost of the vehicle/testing vs low market share of the Cybertruck. As far as I understand NCAP has no plans to test since the design by default breaks EU regulations before you even consider crash testing.

I trust Tesla’s internal testing about as much as I trust Boeing’s internal testing.