definitely_AI

For all of us, let’s hope, but I’m not holding my breath.

Alcoholism and masturbation.

I enjoi the wai you write! :)

Ronin. Back when TV was a thing, if that shit came on, we did not change the channel until it was done. GOD what a fantastic film that is.

Yes, I have! Jesus and the money changers, Moses and the golden calf, easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, money is the root of all evil- I can go on forever.

My belief is that Man being cast out of paradise is a story of the break between nomadic and sedentary life, because we were able to live in purity and harmony with the world as it were, in plenty and only using what we needed, and wanted for nothing- and what is the first thing that happens after Man is cast out? Man lives in a hut and is toiling and plowing the soil, followed by a long list of kings, one more brutal than the next.

The accumulation of wealth is the root of evil.

Anyone care to join me for a belt of whiskey?

Be sheer existence in a capitalist society, we a contributing to an insane wealth disparity, wars all over the world, the breakdown of democracy and law and order, and the total destruction of our biotope.

Novelty wears off quick, and utility scales slowly with price, at least for the thermal. It’s like with real wrist watches Anything under $1.5K is a toy- or so it is claimed, I’m not into clocks, but for thermal shit if you want real gear you’re looking at $2K for the lower-mid range models, buying both thermal and NV is just not an option unless you have serious cash to spend. I got a great deal on the monocular, at $600, and for the price it was decent for a hobbyist, but there were definitive drawbacks, most specifically field of view and distance.

I did randomly find a turtle sleeping in a bush in the middle of the night in the jungle though. That alone was probably worth the $600 hahahahaha! Nah not really. But it was cool being able to walk on the beach and looking through the thing and see people hundreds of meters away completely unaware of me. And thermals tell you a lot about what people are up to. It was important for my security as I was living in the wild, kind of, but in hindsight I was never in any real danger, and had I been, I had been better of with night vision anyway.

Using dirty grill tongs.

I’m not sure if it qualifies as a completely impulse purchase because there was some sort of rationale behind it and I did some research beforehand, but it was very off the cuff- in any case, it was a thermal monocular, and I needed one. Some part of my brain did, at least, and I was in a position where I had the money to do something stupid.

I was going traveling to far-away lands for an extended period of time, and my night vision has steadily been going as I get older, and being the adventurous type I sometimes find myself in less-than safe environments. So I figured, to get around my handicap, either night-vision or a thermal scope of some sort would be a good thing to have on hand.

In hindsight I should have gone with night vision rather than thermal, but it was a cool piece of equipment to have with me. It helped me very little in the end, and the NV would have been the better one to bring by far in the end, as I was at greater risk getting lost in the dark than getting jumped by bad people or animals.

Thank you. I thought I was alone. Like, I’m not trying to be an asshole, but you’re kind of demanding a lot of a broken drunk brain that doesn’t give a shit, I’ve got problems of my own…

Can’t fucking believe someone downvoted us for speaking our mind. No worries, I’m used to it. Get a lot worse on the street, just bizarre how disconnected from reality some people are.

Yeah, lots of alcoholics. I mean lots of drugs overall. A lot of the times it’s the reason we become homeless. A lot of the rest of the time we become addicts after becoming homeless. You hang out with the same people day in day out, and it becomes like kind of a fraternity. In some weird way it’s more honest than “housed society”. It’s like, it reminded me a lot of the army in a way. You’re constantly on your feet, constantly working, constantly hustling, constantly hungry, constantly fighting, constantly on edge, right? And just like in the army you quickly grow tight knit connections with people, because you go through the same fucking struggle every day, not necessarily together, but sometimes, but in any case, at the end of the day, there’s no pretention, there’s no grandstanding, we’re all a bunch of dirty old bums scrounging for food in trash cans, there’s no room for formalities if you catch my drift.

You ever been homeless? It’s… A humbling experience. A valuable one. Sure as fuck makes you appreciate everything around you a lot more, and sure as fuck makes you realize just how little you actually need to survive, and how bountiful society actually is, and how fighting for survival awakes deep primal instincts in you that you didn’t know you had.

Sorry for rambling, just happened I suppose. Peace.

I hear “the social contract has been ripped in half”.

I don’t think about it. I don’t understand the question, honestly. I see people as men or women, short or tall, blue eyed or brown eyed, they come they go. It’s not important to me how they see themselves, it doesn’t interfere with my daily business or interactions with people, I try my best to treat everybody with respect and mind my own business. They can think they’re the Queen of England for all I care.

Huh. I was going to write my own reply but I will defer to your argument, it perfectly encapsulates how I see it too, no notes.

I think it is a very topical argument- mind you I am genuinely not taking a position, I am exploring the logical consequences of the argument. There are pitfalls in the line or reasoning going on the argument that they are making. This is how philosophical discourse works. It’s how arguments and logic works. Being emotional about it is fine, but it’s not conducive to exploring the consequences of the argument.

The reason incest is frowned upon and often illegal is because of the danger it poses to any potential offspring.

The purely hypothetical counter argument here would be that what constitutes a “defect” or “danger” is highly subjective and prone to abuse. Where do we draw the line? Either there is no line and anyone can freely breed offspring, or we are in dangerous territory where we are determining which qualities we as a society deem “unwanted”. What do we mean by “defect”? What do we mean by “unwanted”?

At a population scale, genetic diversity is critical to survival of a population, and a collapse of genetic diversity through too much inbreeding tends to lead to a very unhealthy population

Well that is an argument from utility. Who is to say that people must subject themselves to the “critical survival of a population”? What if people don’t care? If they refused to, what would we do? Force them not to breed, by, say sterilizing them? Surely you see the issue here.

That’s ok. You don’t have to like what other people think. I don’t always like what other people think either. But it’s good to challenge and think through ones positions, I think everyone benefits from that. I think it’s critical, in fact.

(great thread BTW!)

Or homophobic, or transphobic, or other flavor of the month phobic.

If you disagree with their stated world view, you are being irrational, hateful, and must be censored. Which is ironic considering that what they demand is of the world to accept their version of reality at face value.

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