ACLU affiliate NYCLU (New York Civil Liberties Union) sued the private ivy league Columbia University over the “suspension of pro-Palestinian groups” so the ACLU of Florida could choose to help these neo-nazis; since the ACLU has in the past helped neo-nazis, Republicans, the KKK, and other horrible groups.

I’ve twice asked Christians to pray in Jesus’ name asking for the immediate and permanent end to torture, rape, murder, and war. They prayed, and when I next met them they were still Christians despite none of those things ending.

I think religious people are dishonest and/or unable to differentiate between reality and fairytales.

Matthew 7:7-11
7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

I’m not convinced that voting for genocide and mass extinction is OK, and I’ve looked at arguments in favor of them like the lesser-evil. I may be too stupid to understand the arguments in favor of them, but I don’t think I’m being a perfectionist because I actually disagree with many things in Green and socialist platforms - but they’re not things that cross the line for me.

If people want to follow Douglas’ example of supporting the lesser evil, they can - as about a third do. But I’m mostly not writing for them, because they don’t care enough that their actions are actively helping and giving legitimacy to genocide, a climate cascade causing a mass extinction event, a psychotic economic system, a food system torturing 2-6 trillion animals to death a year and enslaving 2-4 trillion animals in torturous conditions a year, unsustainable pollution, biosphere degradation… They don’t care enough that by voting for the lesser evil, they’re actively culpable of the system getting more evil after every election.

Instead, for the plurality that don’t vote at all, I’m pointing out there are other options: like voting for ethical people instead, and starting the long fight towards an ethical civilization. It may be a long defeat, but for those who won’t cross the ethical lines listed above, doing the right thing (even if you lose) is better than actively supporting those who are making the system more evil. The difference between +9+9 and +7+6 is real, but for some the ethical lines they won’t cross is between +7+6 and -5-3.

From your point-of-view, the Democrats winning is good, and the Republicans winning is bad. You might see them on a left-right scale of 0-10, where 0 is good, the Ds are at 3, the Rs at 9, and Hitler at 10.

Some other people see a bigger window than that: look at https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020 and compare how these people see the distance between Trump +9+9 and Biden +7+6, compared to the distance between both and Hawkins -5-3. These people agree that the Rs are worse than the Ds, but they don’t want to help the Ds win because the Ds are mass-extinction causing capitalists. To convince these people to vote for the Ds instead of Greens/socialists/not-voting at all, you have to convince them that the Ds actions of:

• making anthropogenic climate change worse and so causing a mass extinction,
• helping genocides, and
• propping up an economic system that rewards narcissistic psychopaths and punishes ethical people;

are good, and worth voting for.

The Democrats are not Left wing. They’re left of the Republicans, and less authoritarian, but they’re a right-wing party who crippled banking regulation in favor of oligarchy, bailed out the worst banks, lied about drilling for oil[1] and causing a mass extinction event, and supported Israel even after they went from defending themselves to committing genocide.

The goal for ethical people is not to get the Democrats to win, but instead to elect ethical people to government. e.g Hawkins and Nader.

It’s possible, even in FPTP voting systems, for people to reject the 2 parties that usually wins - see the UK where the Tories or Labour have been the only 2 winning parties for more than 90 years (including 2 short coalition governments); but where polling shows the 5th party (the horrible Reform) and 8th party (Greens) are now leading.

“It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” - Eugene V. Debs, Appeal to Reason, 1900-10-13

“Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.” - Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class 1904-09-01

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/08/16/biden-oil-drilling-production/ As he campaigned for president in 2020, Joe Biden made a bold promise at a New Hampshire town hall, adding repetition for emphasis: “No more drilling on federal lands. Period. Period. Period. Period.” […] The Biden administration has now outpaced the Trump administration in approving permits for drilling on public lands, and the United States is producing more oil than any country ever has.

Maybe because 98.1% keep voting for either evil or the lesser evil; but almost none of them vote for the good like Nader?

“Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses, and American universities - and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, […] you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public.” – George Carlin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBrbXOmnW70

“It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” - Eugene V. Debs, Appeal to Reason, 1900-10-13

“Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.” - Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class 1904-09-01

The order of magnitude higher incidence of colon cancer in the west, comes from the western diet’s higher intake of animal protein and fat, and lower intake of fibre:

O’Keefe SJ, Li JV, Lahti L, et al. Fat, fibre and cancer risk in African Americans and rural Africans. Nat Commun. 2015;6:6342, (video).

Getting a diagnosis of early colon cancer isn’t prevention. Prevention is eating a healthy diet with 60-120g of fibre per day from a whole-food plant-based diet, instead of the average 18g fibre per day from a typical western diet (video).

I don’t think that applies to at least Kosovo, Vietnam (didn’t bring any kind of freedom, oil was discovered later), Germany, Japan.

If both are extraverts, then not initiating contact possibly means that person doesn’t want to be friends anymore. Which is fine, sometimes it’s better for a friendship to end.

If one is an introvert, then them initiating much less might not mean anything.

If both are introverts, then not getting messages or calls about banal things may be preferable for both, making them ideal friends.

To prevent the script from spreading further, all Wikimedia projects were set to read-only for about 2 hours, and all user JavaScript was temporarily disabled.

The NoScript extension in Firefox makes the web so much nicer. It turns out sites that don’t require JavaScript tend to made by vastly better humans than sites that do. More so for sites that require cross-site scripting and cookies to just show text.

Can’t search on google.com without allowing JavaScript, but it turns out Lite.DuckDuckGo does, and for me at least gives vastly better search results.

Wikipedia can be read and edited without allowing JavaScript, and I personally don’t like the crap that the scripts provide. It’s also usable without cookies, tho the idiotic UI options column on the right is a hassle without cookies.

1. wouldn’t start more wars,
2. bring on more debt, and
3. release the Epstein files.

Does the “wouldn’t” apply to 1 and 2, and not 3? If so then a “wouldn’t” should be added before “bring”.

Also, 3 is partial.

The UK also has 1st-past-the-post voting, yet polling is showing that people are rejecting their 2 big parties: Labour (liberal capitalists) and the Tories (sociopathic capitalists), in favor of Reform (psychotic capitalists) and the Green party (ethical environmentalists).

“It is infinitely better to vote for freedom and fail than to vote for slavery and succeed.” - Eugene V. Debs, Appeal to Reason, 1900-10-13

“Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact.” - Eugene V. Debs, The Socialist Party and the Working Class 1904-09-01

Yeah Firefly is amazing, even for people who don’t normally like its genres. Avoid the movie Serenity tho.

Occupied, a Norwegian show about Norway trying to stop being a petrostate.

Already mentioned: Chernobyl, Deadwood (avoid its movie), Six Feet Under (the finale is amazing).

Tonnes of CO2e, averages:

 1.60 a roundtrip transatlantic flight
 2.40 one year of car use
58.60 one year, for every child you have

Chart, Wynes et al. 2017 PDF