I watched a few documentaries on the 100 Years’ War recently; I’m convinced we’re still living out THAT trauma … and that was just one crazy time out of many. It’s one of the ways I cope with climate change and the degradation of the global environment: reminding myself that living in really fucked up times is more the norm than anything. I do believe that modern technology and the absolute privilege we live with has given many of us in the developed world the illusion that we’re in control of the world. I have a suspicion that the awareness of how little we can do to stop the sheer randomness and brutality of life and human callousness is why religion has been so prevalent for most of history, it’s people having some solidarity in, “Holy shit, this is fucked. God, save us, you’re obviously our only hope.”

Withhold validation.

IMO geologists missed a lot of opportunities: i.e barfite, flashlite, holdmetite, alrite, campsite, dogshite (it’s white and fossilized, found in small deposits).

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.”