They only look out about a century, right?
— frank

Yeah, are you worried about next century? — Marchesk

No, but a happy outlook for next century is dubious since there's a delay between CO2 emission and the associated effect.

The tech miracle would be commercial fusion. With cheap, abundant energy you can do a lot. Such as large-scale carbon capture and desalinization. — Marchesk

:up:

the latest IPCC report — Marchesk

They only look out about a century, right?

(1), I view capitalism as the real religion, and a particular variant of it seems to be dominating the minds of the plutocracy -- whether or not this can change, I don't know. — Xtrix

It's changing in Russia right now. They're transitioning to a command economy. They will continue to export coal and gas because they're dependent on the proceeds.

most of the warming is locked in — Xtrix

Not yet. There's still a huge amount of coal left. It would take America about 200 years to burn all its own coal. That's what we need the Covenant for.

To really halt excess CO2 production instead of just slowing it down would require some sort of global covenant: a new global religion, basically.

It could happen, but until then I think you're right that you can help by having faith in mankind. With that faith you influence the world around you in all sorts of small ways. You send out a certain message along the webs of communication extending around the globe.

That's the effect of faith: to "be the change you wish to see in the world".

How can we celebrate the first black woman on the Supreme Court if mo one knows what a "woman" is? — Harry Hindu

It's time for the birds and the bees, Harry.

First black woman on the SCOTUS! Yay!

Agreed. Which makes him continuous with every other American president in history. — StreetlightX

Not really.

What, it's funny. They made such a big deal of suspending Russia. — StreetlightX

I know. Trump didn't care about human rights. That's why it's good to have actual laws.

We have schizophrenia.

The question which for me is central to the thread is now why science does not count as a religion, given these anchors. — Banno

Separating science from religion is a recent development. In Europe, Christianity disintegrated so that "religion" came to reference the conflict between different sects.

The idea of a secular government with non-divine legitimacy appeared and with that, the idea of religion is now substantially contrasted.

So you're dealing with a concept of religion that's familiar to you, and no doubt associated with various memories and emotions of your own. Remember that an analysis of that won't transfer to the larger concept of religion.

The sour snake in the belly
coughs up the bloody purpose:

To build walls of mud around the meaninglessness
and bite and bite

Because the pain won't go away
And it means nothing.

Isn't Zelensky the reason this is still going on?

If he would have left the country, Ukraine would be part of Russia now, right?

:up:

Just looked at your avatar, now that is crazy. — Punshhh

Yes. Gotta keep that under wraps and pass for normal.

Every solider who comes home in a coffin wrapped in a flag from some kind of overseas adventure is someone's else cause of rightful celebration. One country in particular likes those decorated boxes. — StreetlightX

Like I said, your psyche is a wasteland.

If you're going to invade another country, expect to die. You signed up for it, literally. — StreetlightX

There just kids. If they surrender, you shouldn't kill them.

:up: You're still crazy though.

I have zero moral judgement about Ukrainians murdering, in whatever way they see fit, Russian aggressors. — StreetlightX

That's because you're fucking crazy.

Raising minimum wage to 19 dollars might do the trick and split the GOP for good. That way not just Democrats benefit but actual US citizens. — Benkei

There's a labor shortage right now, so that's happened organically.

Although inflation is high too, so it's hard day to day to get a handle on what's happening.

Ah, the tone police. — Benkei

It's more the sound of self-loathing, though. Maybe not you so much, but others.

The extreme right is the anti-status-quo bloc now. Unfortunately, they're as insane as they can possibly be about it.

They're splitting the GOP., and I guess they'll try to make a third party at some point.

That's good news for Democrats.

The rouble is back to what it was before the invasion. — NOS4A2

It's artificial though.

Knowingly killed more people than any other single entity in the time between them knowing cigarettes caused lung cancer and them telling anyone. Apparently — Isaac

I think COPD is a bigger killer than lung cancer isn't it?

Estimates for native americans killed through deliberate governmental action range from 95 million to 114 million in Canada and the US. Whether that was the US government or proxy governments for colonial powers is a bit academic. It does beat Mao although admittedly over a 500 year time period. — Benkei

It's not academic that the USA and Canada didn't exist 500 years ago, when measles was the biggest killer of Native Americans.

Freeloaders take advantage of the cooperative nature of others for personal gain. That doesn't seem selfish to you? — praxis

You mean the elite?

The Aztecs were original in a particular brand of religious sacrifice but a bunch of pussies compared to settler colonialism and all the crap that came with that — Benkei

They were still mass murderers. Sure, they don't have the scale of the two countries that top the list of mass murderers: USSR and China, but give them a break. They were in the middle of nowhere.

I'm just praying karma isn't a thing or we're both fucked. — Benkei

Whatchoo mean "we" kemosabe?

the sense they were both expressions of empire and the countries propping them up responsible for millions of death across the world. Sure. Pick your favourite mass murderer. — Benkei

The Hittites were pretty cool. Egypt was in a class by itself. Obviously.

Aztecs, though. Talk about mayhem. :grimace:

If Frank is too skittish to express his objections maybe some else knows what he’s talking about? — praxis

I don't have any objections. I didn't really get why we were talking about freeloading.

However, I feel as though yout DNA might be dispersed a little better if you were nicer to me.

Basically it's simply that, according to our particular biology, cooperation generally propagates more of our genes than freeloading. — praxis

Oh. OK.

Right, so it's not

the strategy our species has developed for gene propagation. — praxis

wish there was a clearer picture of what the sanctions are actually doing. Of course, gradually tightened sanctions are not going to have an over-night effect, but I hear mixed messages on their effectiveness. — Bitter Crank

If the sanctions were supposed to undermine Putin's popularity, they don't seem to have done that. If anything, the Russian elite is more closely tied to Putin than before.

Russia did have a market economy in which westerners participated. Apparently that's gone. They will now have a command economy.

Here.

The reason is simply that we are biologically a social species and therefore cooperation is vital to our survival, or rather the strategy our species has developed for gene propagation. — praxis

It doesn't look like selfishness has been deselected.

Plus, at this point, the real issue of concern is what the sanctions are about to do to the Russian society.

They're set to run Russia into the ground.

I think it would be fruitful to ask why Ukraine wanted to join NATO.

Is there some path Russia could have taken that would have made Ukraine happy to continue a friendly relationship with them?

I'm not a biblical scholar either.

"αετοι" can be translated as either eagle or vulture. Vulture fits the meaning of the sentence better, so most contemporary translations use vulture.

Where people insist on using eagle, it's because they favor some esoteric meaning behind it.

Here.

Also, I like 'eagles' better. — ZzzoneiroCosm

That's good enough.

frank

Eek. From eagles to vultures. How did that happen? — ZzzoneiroCosm

You were quoting the King James Version. It's got a lot of mistranslations in it.

guess my point is really that we're complaining about something that we think is "horrible" but we've done everything to normalise that in the past 60 odd years (and actually way before that). — Benkei

I think the situation is more complicated than that, but I'm thinking we probably can't discuss that.

Yeah, a brilliant poet.

"Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." — ZzzoneiroCosm

"Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather."
--English Standard

He may not think he's god, but he definitely thinks he's god's gift. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Yes, I guess so. He actually was pretty cool.

but I don't do it to celebrate the birth of some man that claimed to be the son of a god — Harry Hindu

Jesus never claims to be the son of God in the gospels. It's said of him (in Matthew, I think).

China does the same. When accused of taking the Russian side because it was sharing Russian disinformation (according to an EU agency), the Chinese responded as follows:

"In the past decades, who has been spreading disinformation to wage war in violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries? Who has been expanding its geographical scope and range of operations that have disrupted regional stability? Who has provoked conflicts that have caused large humanitarian disasters?" the spokesperson asked. — Benkei

Benkei! You know too well how China deals with destabilizing forces. They re-educate. They do exactly the same things they did during the their revolution, where they take scientists and make them work as janitors.

I'm sure the middle east would be more stable after the Chinese got through with it, but it's because they only have a flimsy idea of human rights.

I'm not saying the US is some sort of Good Guy. Yes, what it did to Central America was abysmal. They destroyed any leftist aspirations there and replaced it with an elite that gave way to organized crime. Then when societies imploded and their children showed up on the US border, Americans were confused about why Central Americans can't organize their affairs better.

But the US is a minor figure in world history. A footnote. It's not the worst thing that ever happened. What some historians will note is that the US carried forward the imprint of the British. They are not a footnote. They'll get a whole chapter.