Please keep it civil.

  • @[email protected]
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    301 year ago

    We’re the healthiest and smartest generation in the last hundred or so years on average per person, yet due to a variety of systemic factors we’re all totally handicapped to producing positive changes towards helping one another let alone many, and it’s largely down to our systems being completely shit.

    • bazovanyi
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      21 year ago

      Companies want people to be healthy and smart to do work. But they also want people to be divided to smaller groups (e.g. bullshit rule about not telling your salary to coworkers). And companies pay as less as people can withstand so we will want to work more. And by working more we are more closed minded and angry and don’t have a time to be kinder.

      Idk if that’s makes sense, but I’m just sad because of inequality and people (poor, short sighted people) willing to defend it.

    • HasturM
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      11 year ago

      Citation needed. The smartest and healthiest generation might have been GenX instead, GenZlers have seen overall decline in health, live expectancy and mental health.

  • sweetviolentblush [they/them]
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    161 year ago

    We currently live in a thriving bully culture. Every stupid fucking political issue were focused on is either preventing bullying or encouraging bullying. I think its about time we recognized that a huge percent of humans get a dopamine/feel good boost when they shit on other people. This counts for things as vague and superficial as someones appearance, up to whether or not someone should have rights.

  • @ElectroVagrant
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    161 year ago

    Society & civilizations are formed & developed to bring us to a state beyond mere survival, and the extent to which a society/civilization fails to uplift & provide for those within it to live fuller lives not preoccupied with surviving is a deep mark against its sociability and civility.

    Worse still are those that do not merely fail to do so, but those that actively resist doing so, with some twisted notion of the virtues of survival amid society (see: social Darwinism & related misanthropic ideologies).

  • @[email protected]
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    161 year ago

    The biggest issue humanity is facing currently is corruption of governments and corporations.

    • @[email protected]
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      181 year ago

      Is the controversial part of this opinion the fact that it’s not controversial at all so that it will create a discussion based on its controversy?

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        It’s controversial merely because he said biggest. I l, and most likely many others, would argue that the bigger problem is the fact that we have introduced so much greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere that life as we are now will be impossible a hundred years from now

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      They aren’t corrupt, they are working perfectly, as designed. To keep the rich rich, and the workers surpressed.

    • @[email protected]
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      01 year ago

      I think the bigger issue is how to maximize individual freedom while preventing school shootings, dictators and potential oppressors from taking control of systems

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          No I don’t, I think every country has a host of issues, you tell me chief, what do YOU think are the biggest issues?

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            It was a genuine question.

            I’m not sure if I had to pick one issue what that issue would be. Probably either pending climate disaster or the increasing centralization of wealth and power.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    Pineapple on pizza is okay.

    (I have my 9mm beretta, an uzi, a kalishnakov machine gun I picked up in the Congo, 6 grenades, a machete and and broad sword and I’m going up on that hill over there so you come and take me down. C’mon all you motherfuckers try and say otherwise, pizza purist pussies!)

  • @[email protected]
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    141 year ago

    Velcro is fine. It shouldn’t just be for kids shoes: shoelaces are like ties: a pointless time waster we should have ditched as soon as we invented velcro.

      • @[email protected]
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        51 year ago

        I got the velcro on my motorbike boots replaced at a shoe repair shop, a whole €12 to get another couple of years use out of them seemed likes bargain. New boots like them are €150 at least

      • @[email protected]
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        41 year ago

        Laces wear out over time too. Also, nicer velcro is sold, though I have no idea if it lasts longer.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          Not that it doesnt but it takes way more time. And velcro usually stops wirking due to fur and dust getting suck on the spiky side and its easyer to replace laces. But i still like velcro since its easyer to whear.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 year ago

        Laces do stop working after a while, and that’s why you can buy replacements.

        I see zero reason you can’t have strong mountpoints for the velcro, and have replaceable velcro ‘laces’

        • @[email protected]
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          31 year ago

          Not that they dont, but thend to take way more time. And velcro usually stops working due to fur and dust getting suck on the spiky side of it and its easyer to replace laces. But i still like velcro since its easyer to wear.

    • @[email protected]
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      51 year ago

      Velcro doesn’t do well with pulling forces over a long period of time, and it doesn’t do well with dirt and dust. We would all be adjusting our velcro all the time. Also shoelaces are easier to replace, and can be used to apply pressure to multiple parts of a shoe much easier than velcro. Think about shoes like converse or docs where they need to be held upwards and along the foot and leg shape, it would be very hard and annoying for velcro to do the same.

    • @[email protected]
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      -111 year ago

      By definition anyone desperate to talk about how “controversial” they are is an edgelord. Let’s block community and move on.

  • @Moonguide
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    111 year ago

    Not controversial with politically literate people, but bigots, fascists, racists, homophobes, transphobes, etc., shouldn’t get a platform to spew their shit. Public or private, doesn’t matter. And any effort by them to acquire one needs to be put down.

    It shocked me when my friends pushed back when I explained why Rogan shouldn’t have those people on his show with a freeze peach argument. Those people deserve nothing but a sock full of batteries.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      I disagree with, and despise people who spew hate speech and other bigoted bs…but I also don’t believe in using violence against anyone merely because I disagree with their words. I think most reasonable people could perceive how that might become a “slippery slope”.

      • @Moonguide
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        21 year ago

        It might, but at this point the kid gloves have to come off. We’re coming ever closer to climate catastrophe, and we get nothing but platitudes and half measures. Wages are nowhere near to liveable, and we get nothing but a boot to the face. Hateful bigots have free roam to spew their shit in the streets, internet, radio and print, and now they run the government and spew their shit with no consequences and we get their hatespeech converted to policy.

        Taking the high road is a losing strategy.

    • @[email protected]
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      -81 year ago

      Ahh, yes. The hallmark of the supposedly “politically literate”. Wanting to physically beat everyone who doesn’t agree. Truly the most enlightened of stances.

      • @[email protected]
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        181 year ago

        It is definitely a hallmark of the politically illiterate to be completely unaware of the paradox of tolerance.

        • @[email protected]
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          41 year ago

          Do you understand that there’s space between “aware of the paradox of tolerance” and “sock full of batteries”?

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        “doesn’t agree” here meaning “is trying to strip minorities of their rights”. Just a little intolerance should be tolerated.

        Edit: I read some of their comment history, don’t bother engaging them. Full mask off shit. Favorite quote: “I don’t give a singular fuck about voting rights.”

      • @Moonguide
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        11 year ago

        Walk off a cliff, fash.

  • @[email protected]
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    111 year ago

    That the mental health system in the US is fundamentally broken due to the general attitude toward suicidality. As I understand it, the general and medical view of suicidality is that suicide cannot be allowed under any circumstances. Anyone acting in ways that seem like they could realistically lead to suicide must be stopped, by force if necessary. To this end, not only is it considered morally correct to report suicidal people to the proper authorities, but it is actually mandated in many cases.

    This seems perfectly reasonable from the perspective of most people - suicide wreaks terrible havoc on the lives of the people around the victim, after all, on top of the general loss of life. This holds especially true because most suicide attempts are spur-of-the-moment decisions that have not been thought through, and these cases have a very good chance of recovery if they are talked down. As far as I am aware, the majority of people who have been brought back from suicide attempts are grateful for the second chance.

    But this leaves a rather large class of people behind, who are in such anguish for one reason or another that suicide seems like the only option. These are not people who kill themselves on a whim - they are people who have considered the ramifications of such an action for sometimes decades. If one of these people determines that suicide is the right choice, this essentially traps them in a space where they can no longer be helped. They cannot reach out to literally anyone, because everyone from their therapist to their friends to their relatives are likely to call in an intervention and involuntarily imprison them in a psychiatric ward. And even worse - these people do this in a genuine attempt to help, completely unaware of the paradox this creates.

    To someone of this mindset, evoking an intervention of that nature is simply not an option. If one is in such pain that suicide seems like the only escape, then removing that escape is by definition worse than a death sentence. It seems a special kind of cruelty, the last remaining thing the world can do to ensure you feel every last second of this pain it has in store for you. To these people, their autonomy is often the very last thing they have left, and it is incredibly precious.

    And so, the only route left is to suffer in silence, slowly regressing until the day they actually kill themselves. After a certain threshold where speaking about their mental state risks imprisonment, they are effectively already lost - because even if something could still be done to help them, the perceived risk is too high to ever reach for it.

    I was in such a state for many years, and was lucky enough to be able to return on my own to a level where I feel ‘eligible for mental help’ again. However, I feel as if most people who reach that level are not so fortunate, and it twists my heart to know what we are inadvertently inflicting upon these poor, invisible people. There has to be a better way to approach this.

    • Tb0n3
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      31 year ago

      Just look at Canada’s scandals around MAID and you’ll see why allowing it can lead to severe problems including inconvenient people being pressured into choosing suicide.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        Granted, I fully acknowledge that. I don’t think having state-sponsored suicide is the answer either, just that people need to be able to discuss their feelings freely somehow.

    • @quicksand
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      21 year ago

      You are so spot on. Unfortunately I do not know a better solution. If most suicides are spur of the moment and can be stopped by immediate intervention, then the policy makes sense. How can we handle those edge cases that ruminate and are stuck with suicidal thoughts?

  • HasturM
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    111 year ago

    Representative Democracies have failed (are failing) like all other political ruling systems have failed so far. Some failed just faster than others that failed more catastrophically while some fail silently (agonizing). In the end all systems failed.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      Is your argument only that democratic republics will fail? Are you arguing that it would be better to implement democracy in a different way, or that it should be foregone altogether? I imagine most people would agree that they inevitably fail, but not that there is a better option.

      • HasturM
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        11 year ago

        I intentionally wrote: representative democracies. I’m not aware of any ongoing implementation of complete direct democracy, not even in Switzerland so I can’t tell for those.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      Wow, that is unpopular. I’ve been campaigning against republics for a long time, but I’ve never seen anyone agree.

      • HasturM
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        -11 year ago

        Nowadays you can cause riots by saying: Humans come in XY and XX chromosomes by genetic program, the correct expression of this genetic program leads to male or female genitalia and there’s currently no medical or surgical procedure to change that, no matter how much you insist. So that was one notch less controversial.

        • @[email protected]
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          61 year ago

          You can’t cause riots by saying that. Obviously you can’t literally change your dna. No one is trying to do that. What people are saying, is that gender, while related to sex, isn’t the same thing as sex. The meaning of the word is basically category, and if you look at other cultures, they often have more than 2 genders, and they are not related to or are only partially related to sex. That’s what people mean when they say gender is a social construct. Trans people are truly changing genders, not sexes. That’s why the term “transgender” is used.

          • @zhemmy
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            21 year ago

            Sounds to me like they are recognizing the issue that gender is a construct, and making the issue worse by enforcing more made up social boxes to stuff things into, instead of recognizing and accepting the realities of sex and disrespecting gender as the oppressive tool it is. Just like how non-binary people who submit to their specific place in the trans story are enforcing the idea of two main boxes they fit between. I think the misstep in most languages development that pushed sex information/assumptions into pronouns has made it harder to think of things logically now. Someones genetic configuration have no relevance to the vast majority of communications. Unfortunately, I think this has cause bad people to enforce oppression and impacted peo people to create more fantasy that modifies the issue but doesn’t help it. I personally think the biggest danger in trans led communications is a lack of focus on looking to accept yourself as a physical being and disrespect what people expect from that, as a first step anyways. I think more steps beyond that are certainly good for some people. I think that sounds of the things trans people are advocating for is great for humans, but only because they’re the quickest way to get a slightly better quality of life using fantasy. I don’t know if eradicating the social constrains built into our very languages is as easy as creating fantasy social constraints that give more people more peace. It’s a difficult topic in my opinion.

            • @[email protected]
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              11 year ago

              I don’t know if eradicating the social constrains built into our very languages is as easy as creating fantasy social constraints that give more people more peace.

              It would be essentially impossible to convince people to just stop using gendered pronouns. Some languages already do this, like Turkish, but it introduces more problems. It becomes much more difficult to differentiate between people in conversation if you use the same pronouns for everyone. People who natively speak Turkish, and other languages like it, learn to structure their sentences in ways that make it clear who they are talking about without the use of gendered pronouns. So not only do you have to convince people to stop using those pronouns, you have to change the way they speak entirely.

              I think its a much better idea to have more than 2 genders, maybe 3 or 4, and randomly assign them at birth regardless of sex. This way you could differentiate between people even more effectively as well as remove the social constraints. This would also be extremely difficult and probably impossible to make happen, but I think its ideal.

              • @[email protected]
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                11 year ago

                We assign a random token at birth, that is used purely to identify you in conversations?

                That’s called a name my homie

                • @[email protected]
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                  11 year ago

                  Yes, but why would you refer to people by their name every time you mention them? It gets very tedious very fast.

          • HasturM
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            -41 year ago

            I’m not sure about that. People are conflating sex and gender all the time and this looks even intentional to me just to create more confusion and potential for drama.

            If you check pre-millennial definition of gender you see that it was widely used synonymously. The distinction between sex and gender is just a form of newspeak.

            The current mainstream teaches that gender expression is constructed and gender typical roles are assigned at birth and by society during infancy. This is utter nonsense, has been debunked over and over again and is still based on John Moneys gender experiments with the Reimer twins.

            • @[email protected]
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              61 year ago

              Gender and sex were used synonymously in this culture because they were effectively synonymous. But, as I have said, other cultures do not necessarily treat them as the same thing.

              “The current mainstream teaches that gender expression is constructed and gender typical roles are assigned at birth and by society during infancy. This is utter nonsense”. This isn’t completely accurate, but it isn’t nonsense. Do you think a girl is born with the idea that she should wear dresses and like the color pink? Those aspects of gender are entirely dictated by society.

              Science does believe that a perceived gender develops in a child’s brain, but as far as I know, its unclear when or how it develops. It could be before birth, or years after. It could be genetic, or come from external influences, or both. What science does know is that if your perceived gender is incongruent with your sex, it can cause gender dysphoria. The way to treat it is to transition to your perceived gender.

              • HasturM
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                -31 year ago

                Science does believe that a perceived gender develops in a child’s brain, but as far as I know, its unclear when or how it develops. It could be before birth, or years after.

                No, science does not believe that. Sociologists with questionable record regarding the validity of their studies believe that, however they do completed forget that humans are not isolated and decoupled from animals.

                Males and females are vastly different and there’s nothing constructed about this.

                What science does know is that if your perceived gender is incongruent with your sex, it can cause gender dysphoria.

                Science does not know this. It’s a mainstream belief now but not backed up by good data. All we know is that transition does not remediate high suicide rates, despite greater societal acceptance of transgender in general. Some studies even show higher suicide rates after transition, however the datasets are too small and the studies are all biased on way or another. We don’t know!

                The way to treat it is to transition to your perceived gender.

                That’s one hypothesis. The other one is not to treat it and just wait because a good number of those affected by gender dysphoria turn out to be just gay and very unsure about their sexual orientation. Again: We don’t know because data is insufficient.

                Based on an unproven hypothesis you want people to transition despite this potentially having devastating results? I would be less sure about this, I have doubts.

                • @[email protected]
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                  21 year ago

                  I sure wouldn’t prevent anyone from transitioning, if that is the decision they’ve made. To many conservatives in my country want to control how people live their lives.

                • @[email protected]
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                  1 year ago

                  No, science does not believe that. Sociologists with questionable record regarding the validity of their studies believe that

                  What sociologists with a questionable record? Also sociology is a kind of science.

                  Males and females are vastly different and there’s nothing constructed about this.

                  Of course they are, I made no argument they aren’t. My point is that many aspects of gender are determined by society. That’s why I mentioned dresses and the color pink.

                  All we know is that transition does not remediate high suicide rates,

                  Since when did we know this? In fact I recall it being the exact opposite. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10027312/

                  edit: I should have mentioned the paper I linked is not definitive by any means, but it strongly suggests a reduction in suicidality following gender affirming healthcare

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    Sometimes victim blaming is valid. We as people can take mitigating actions to avoid trouble. And a lot of people just don’t.

    E.g. people who don’t look before crossing a road at crosswalks. It’s the vehicles fault for hitting you. But you could have easily prevented it by having a modicum of self-preservation

    • @[email protected]
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      71 year ago

      Yeah I mostly agree with this. Like, sometimes a victim can cause something to happen without deserving the outcome. Nobody deserves to be mauled by a lion, but jumping into a lion cage will cause that to happen, and I won’t feel bad for you.

  • @[email protected]
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    81 year ago

    Whether you stand on the left or the right, the two party system essentially produces a trend where both parties walks lock step in the same direction, if your in group A and you screw up at life, group B can pay to subsidize your mistakes.

    Replace group A or B with whatever class or caste label you believe your in according to Marxist theory and you’ve got the end result of the two party system right there.

    Can’t wait to donate to an actual party policy rather than just a party with some beers, virtue signalling placards and rainbow flags

  • @[email protected]
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    71 year ago

    Using toilet paper instead of a bidet of some sort is absolutely disgusting and anyone who uses exclusively toilet paper is pretty gross.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      Once you step through you can never go back lmao. Doesn’t matter if its wet wipes, bidet or full shower

      • HasturM
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        31 year ago

        Full shower after each toilet session? You make Greta cry!

        I can agree with wet wipes, bidet or these japanese toilets with bidet features.

        • the post of tom joad
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          31 year ago

          I felt ike a caveman wipin with paper after getting to use one of those singing bidets with the programmable jets. We can’t be the greatest country in the world until we have a bidet in every bathroom

  • RoundSparrow @ SJW
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    1 year ago

    That the human brain hardware has not evolved in the past 2000 years, and classical religions are by far not the only means to induce entire populations (spanning multiple nations and continents) into believing false things. Modern advertising symbolism is often the new religion that motivates the mind, and people do not demonstrate nearly enough self-awareness of the side-effects of peer pressure induced by modern marketing/advertising. We are in an increasing race to the bottom of the flaws of the human brain that was never prepared for recording and unlimited playback of images, sounds, motion video, etc. All of humanity is under threat, and Carl Sagan’s 1995 book calls this out, among others, such as Neil Postman’s 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death. Trickle Down Economics may be a bullshit deception, but Trickle Down Memes and Symbols are very real, and we are entering another Dark Ages, this time planet-wide.

    “Finnegans Wake is the greatest guidebook to media study ever fashioned by man.” - Marshall McLuhan, Newsweek Magazine, page 56, February 28, 1966.

    • @[email protected]
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      31 year ago

      You mean Carl Sagan’s masterwork a demon haunted world? I picked that up again earlier this year and had a good laugh at how correct he was. It did keep pointing out that engagement/understanding is needed with the other sides. 10/10 would recommend it before cosmos or pale blue dot. He does such a good job trying to communicate his points in a nice and compassionate way. Sadly when I recommend it people assume it’s the atheist manifesto or something?

      • RoundSparrow @ SJW
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        1 year ago

        You mean Carl Sagan’s masterwork a demon haunted world?

        yep.

        It did keep pointing out that engagement/understanding is needed with the other sides.

        “The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is in its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you’re sensible, you’ll listen to us; and if not, you’re beyond redemption. This is unconstructive… Whereas, a compassionate approach that from the beginning acknowledges the human roots of pseudoscience and superstition might be much more widely accepted. If we understand this, then of course we feel the uncertainty and pain of the abductees, or those who dare not leave home without consulting their horoscopes, or those who pin their hopes on crystals from Atlantis.” - Sagan

        Everyone is mocking an out-group or the other since 2014, it’s reached saturation… inescapable. Echo chamber thinking has become routine, exactly opposite of Pale Blue Dot thinking.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          Have you read Nausea by Sartre? I think you might enjoy it.

          “People. You must love people. Men are admirable. I want to vomit—and suddenly, there it is: the Nausea”