I’m willing to bet half those BC stats are actually Albertans driving into the mountains. Significantly more westbound than eastbound fatalities in the Rockies. If you fall asleep at the wheel in Alberta you wake up in the middle of a corn field. If you fall asleep at the wheel in BC you don’t wake up.

Checkmate in TWO moves? How? The quickest I know is four.

Isn’t that like an ancestrally appropriate thing for Mongolian rulers? Where did he go? Bagdad? Would have thought they’d be proud of him.

People from the Bible times lived longer.

Not seeing any strutting.

Go see a therapist.

We talking about horoscopes here?

Yes, but over consumption really is a first world problem, isn’t it? If we ended consumerism as a norm more than 95% of the problem would disappear.

Heh … I was hemming a bit melodramatic yesterday, but that’s what this conversation always feels like to me. We have this fundamentally usurious and destructive relationship with an other (Earth), and we’re trying to figure out ways that we can keep using, but not have her die on us.

Why don’t we just live a more reciprocal and life-giving relationship. If we could collectively decide to live simple lives with less stuff and more experiences and community we could have healthy planet and I bet we’d be happier too.

… but you know,. It takes some vision.

Ugh … We’re raping the environment. This is discussing how we can keep our victim alive so we can rape more.

Why can’t we just dial back on the rape of nature?

I’m going to drill a bit deeper on this because I feel sympathy for people who are mired in systemic poverty, and stray into budget poverty in impulsive attempts to experience something nice.

It’s the people who buy $50k vehicle they can’t afford because they want to “fit in” that I have no sympathy for. For me it’s not about Puritanical judgment over how tightly utilitarian someone ought to be, but whether or not someone went into poverty for the sake of conspicuous consumption.

The word “extreme” colours your question a fair bit. I think equality of all genders is good, I don’t think anyone should be subject to unfair treatment based on gender. As a cis-het man I like to be in a relationship with a strong woman.

However, I dated someone for a while that probably fit into the “extreme” category. It was exhausting. I sometimes felt like I couldn’t do anything without it being subjected to the question: “is this the patriarchy?” Like, she needed to hang some closet doors, had no tools, and I was like, “Oh, I can bring my drill over next week and do that!” That offer to help needed to be examined.

It also got annoying that workplace frustrations we both faced were always primarily parsed as “men being sexist” when it happened to her.

IMO often her “fierce conversations” were her being kind of dick about something.

Her model for independence and autonomy strayed very close to a refusal to take anyone else’s needs into account. Her desire to treat everyone like they were equal ignored actual power differentials and the responsibility with which they come. For example, she argued she wouldn’t put the booze away if someone she knew was an alcoholic was coming over because that would be patriarchal and robbing the alcoholic of their agency.

It got exhausting.

Privacy concerns have also kept me away. I’m a bit inconsistent in application, but Google and Microsoft has me considering FOSS alternatives, Linux, and Graphene OS.

I also have to maintain a profile for professional reasons, though I get someone else to manage our pages. I don’t even know what it is, but I get anxiety within seconds of interacting with my feed, and I am NOT an anxious person. My ex is addicted to it. Sometimes I feel I lost her to FB and it’s echo chambers if unaccountable validation.

I was so confused by this as a kid when I started to comprehend international politics. I remember asking my parents, “kids know this isn’t ok. How do groups of adults behave like this?”

Nobody has any power over me. I think Jesus and Marcus Aurelius agree on that.

No. Pointed in that direction is, “Goodbye Alberta.”

It’s bad for you. I’m a steal yo girl, and if you come near my taniwha hideout, I’m going to eat you.

… I’m so high right now. That’s probably how this ends for me: humans bringing me some cannabis, getting me too high, and leading me somewhere out of the way.

It’s more like this is a myth they can believe in. They feel trapped in an unfair, punitive and coercive system where they functionally have no real choices. The myth of sovereign citizens allows them to grasp onto a hope that actually they do have some choice. “I never consented to this, I never chose this, so I must be able to opt out, right?” In some ways, it’s much like the myth people tell of the “Reptilian Overlords”. Looking at the unfairness, abusiveness, and callousness of those in power, it’s easier for some to cling to a story that explains their “otherness” than accept that humans do horrible shit to each other and accept that is part of one’s own identity.

Yeah, I’ve seen this cropping up over the last few days and was wondering.

A quick look through a few news sources suggests that it is related to an artificial ground mulch made from recycled materials. This mulch was used in a bunch of parks. It came from a recycling company that claims all its mulch has tested negative for asbestos. Again, although it is referred to as ‘bonded asbestos’ which means it has been combined with another building material, it doesn’t say what. Up until the 90s asbestos was used in concrete, under lino, and in drywall.

… I don’t know who the fuck would use ground up construction materials for playgrounds mulch. Pretty sure the school near me (in Canada) users ground up tires, so I’m not walking too tall here. I suspect that’s going to be it’s own thing in a few years. (Tires are pretty fucking toxic. They very optimistically thought they could make artificial reefs from them in the 80s. No. Nothing will grow on them.)

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/19/asbestos-mulch-locations-sydney-sites-near-me-nsw-map-full-list-when-where-found-schools-parks-epa-news