Edit: Sheesh. Some of you folks need this.
Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages
up·lift·ing /ˌəpˈliftiNG/
adjective
adjective: uplifting
inspiring happiness, optimism, or hope. “an uplifting story of triumph over adversity”
In 6 billion years the sun will swole up to engulf the earth and none of this will have ever mattered.
I actually do find that comforting.
Assuming humanity doesn’t get our shit together enough to explore and settle the galax-heeheehee. I’m sorry. I used to hope for that.
Even if we did, most of us will likely be born into slavery on some distant colony as the property of a deranged tech trillionaire.
I vote to reduce taxes on the slave owning billionaires just in case I ever become one.
Sensible choice.
Wow you all suck at this. Okay I’m gonna do an actual one. The amount of wars had around the world has SIGNIFICANTLY decreased from just a century ago.
Humans aren’t destroying the earth. We may be changing it so it’s no longer hospitable to us, but the earth will go on fine even if humans extinct themselves.
This isn’t a fact but I have a gut feeling that people will be taking their power back in the near future.
Every dip into fascism in human history has been accompanied by an eventual upswing and purging of said fascists so, yes, I believe you are right.
IDK…some places have never really had Democracy, or their democracy is openly corrupt, or have been some other shitty leadership for generations. People can live under these systems…just the have/have not division can be really stark.
Franco lasted a long time though. I might be dead by then
Franco’s fascism died with him. Trump won’t live another 36 years.
My go to happy thought is this:
Wild dogs, wolves, coyotes, etc… don’t have eyebrows. That is to say that they never evolved the muscles necessary to move their eyebrows in an expressive way.
Moveable eyebrows were a trait that domesticated dogs specifically evolved in order to mimic their humans and invoke more empathy (and let’s face it…likely manipulate us for more treats)
That’s a good one.
When you die there is nothing. You go back to where you were before you were born.
No past, no future, no memory, nothing.
You will cease to be and the memory of you will fade from this universe nearly instantly.
There’s a lovely peace to that…
That might be the case. Or you could be part of something else. A collective consciousness, of which you are a transient node. Or maybe there is no time at all. What we call time could just be our current state on a progress bar as we process life. Or maybe we’re part of a nervous system for some larger construct. Or perhaps we are just reluctantly self-aware iterations of bio computers with fleeting lives that appeared through the chance combination of carbon-based structures.
Who knows. That’s the beauty of it, which I personally feel religion and a certain type of confident atheism tend to deny with their respective faith/certainty.
Death is before me today Like a sick man’s recovery, Like going outdoors after confinement. Death is before me today Like the fragrance of myrrh, Like sitting under sail on breeze day. Death is before me today Like the fragrance of lotus. Like sitting on the shore of drunkenness. Death is before me today Like a well-trodden way, Like a man’s coming home from warfare. Death is before me today Like the clearing of the sky. As when a man discovers what he ignored. Death is before me today Like a man’s longing to see his home When he has spent many years in captivity
It sucks how good that show was for how fucked Gaiman is.
The comics are amazing too
Yeah im reading the comics for the first time, I’ve read some of his books before. My gateway was the Pratchett joint venture. I hate that hes so rapey. Now I know a bit of how potter fans feel.
Their casting choice for sandman was really disappointing to me. His appearance is so distinctive and strangely dignified in the book but they cast some conventionally attractive guy with for the lack of a better term little prick vibes
Pizza. It’s really good and I’m going to eat more of it
“There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life that can’t be improved with pizza.”
Daria Morgendorffer
Renewable energy and battery storage are seeing an absolute collapse in prices such that it is inevitable in the near to mid term future that we will move away from fossil fuel extraction leaving much of it in the ground. This will happen no matter who is in charge politically or who tries to subsidize fossil fuels because money is king and a lot of free energy hits the earth every day.
This, combined with falling birthrates, means we will hit peak carbon emissions and begin to drop back to a new normal, a new economy built around labor rather than capital because of the shift in balance between resources and workers similar to what happened during the black death. It is my opinion that this will begin to happen in my lifetime and will fully come to pass in our children’s lifetime.
Having worked in energy for 10 years (particularly battery storage and solar) you are correct about the prices falling, and in my opinion you are also correct about this dooming fossils.
However, I do not agree with your second point around a new economy arising built around labor rather than capital. The mechanics of value creation can change (eg renewables vs fossils) but what the ruling class will not allow to change without intense prolonged struggle is their own position as the rulers.
You might be right, but my idea on it is that productivity increases have leveled off and population will begin falling in our lifetime. The ruling class loses power historically when the supply of labor is impacted.
Every generation in human history has been more intelligent and progressive than the last.
This trend is not slowing in the modern era.
Fascism doesn’t actually last that long. At some point, policies have to have some kind of attachment to reality, and fascists are incapable of grappling with reality.
Franco stuck around for quite awhile, but yeah its track record is usually short.
Franco was the first one I thought of. However, his fascism didn’t outlive him, and President Pedophile doesn’t have 36 years to go.
Historians debate just how fascist Franco really was. In fact, Orwell wasn’t even that sure when he wrote Homage to Catalonia, and he was quite clear that he went to Spain expressly to kill a fascist.
i recall my spanish friend saying something like it wasnt really franco that was the problem, but all the aristocrats wanting to use him as their source of legitimacy
When I need my fix of good news I go to iea.org and look at some graphs. I’m always thinking it should be faster but then again there’s hope for climate change and the world is transitioning despite how entrenched the fossil fuel industry is.
Here’s one on the investments being made:
Canada geese and white-tailed deer nearly went extinct. Now they’re considered pests in some areas. It’s possible for nature to bounce back, it just needs to be given a chance.
Pests? If you got a problem with Canada Gooses, you got a problem with me, and I suggest you let that one marinate.
It’s my HRT birthday today, two years now and it’s really sunny and warm. It’s a nice day :3
Happy HRT birthday! Love your name btw :)
Trump is pretty old, and I cannot think of an example where a movement based around a cult of personality has successfully survived long after their leader has gone. Nor are there any viable successors that are likely to dodge any infighting. JD Vance as a successor? Yeah, ain’t happening.
To summarize, the pendulum will eventually swing the other way. And the worse the MAGA crowd pulls it in their direction now, the harder it will swing.
yeah. frankly while most left/liberal dont’ see it, Trump is also a product of the pendulum swinging. we have been on a good spat of liberalization for 30+ years and there was going to be a backlash. and as someone who grew up working class white, i totally get the unfairness and bitterness of so many of those people who the economic/education system has totally abandoned, and the horrible feelings and condescending that comes from the liberal elite/educated set who look down on everyone who isn’t highly educated and living in a coastal city. i got lucky and got to be one of those people, but many of my peers did not.
frankly i find it truly revolting how much of liberal america is so disgusting smug and condescending towards anyone who isn’t exactly like them, and that massively accelerated in the 2010s. used to be in the 2000s people would respect/admire me for working my way from a poor working class family to elite school on scholarship and putting myself through grad school and building al ife for myself… somewhere around 2015 that all became to change though and i repeatedly starting meeting folks who told me that i should have ‘stayed in my place’ and my ‘education is wasted on losers like you’. etc. and that attitude has only gotten worse and worse in the 2020s. i’d say there is a massive massive increase in class snobbery and elitism that didn’t exist 10-20 years ago.
i’ve also noticed progressives have moved away from economic issues largely and are entirely focused on culture war bullshit, esp use trans people and trans rights as the most important thing ever, which has alienated many many people due to the rage and hatred being spouted over it. to me this is a horrible horrible move, and plays right into the right wing’s advantages. because they are offer a much clearer narrative about these things than the left/liberals are. and clear narratives win elections and voters.
what baffles me is how the democrats can’t understand or replicate Obama’s success and messaging and act like he was some act of God. He wasn’t. He just appealed to people’s sentiments and listened to them… just like Trump did in this last election… meanwhile the democrats totally ignore the people and lecture us that they know better than we do what is going on in the country and we should be happy with how things are.
I hope someone on the left/dems capitalized on the severe economic need in this country and steers away from the culture war bullshit. A candidate that wants to actually fix the problems in this country that affect everyone, but it seems nobody is coming forth to do so. And at best we are just getting some candidates who are just going to go with the ‘trump bad, me not trump’ routine again, which we know doesn’t work.
what a lot of people miss in Trumps success is that he had a clear vision people could get behind, even if it was all bullshit and lies.
esp use trans people and trans rights as the most important thing ever, which has alienated many many people due to the rage and hatred being spouted
You have completely and hopelessly fallen for Republican propaganda. You’ve swallowed their entire framing of trans issues without any thought. You’re repeating the Republican Party line verbatim.
Democrats have spent the last decade trying to stay the hell away from the trans rights discussion at every opportunity. They’re not over bigots like Republicans, but they try to talk about literally anything else. Republicans however have continued to scream from the rooftops about trans people, as they try to incite the populous to acts of literal genocide.
Where are all these Democratic leaders that spend all their time talking about trans people? Can you name a single one? You’ve been brainwashed by conservative media.
Except I’ve been personally assaulted, threaten, and attached by trans people and their rabid allies for suggested trans people are just people and they don’t need special treatment. In person. In real life. i’ve been screamed at my face and threated with violence for not ‘using the right pronoun’, even after i asked them what pronoun they wanted and use it…
I live in a progressive area. Trans people here have it good. But a lot of them refuse to accept that… they want to abolish sex/gender entirely and become physically violent towards anyone who says ‘maybe you should chill and just enjoy your life’ or dates to accidentally ‘misgender’ them. They are the bullies and bigots here.
I’m glad you’ve never been personally attacked and harassed. I’ve had trans folks literally verbally assault me for waiting for coffee because I ‘look too straight’ whatever the fuck that means. multiple times over the past three years especially. Literally had some trans guy scream in my face on the subway yesterday while I was sitting in the corner minding my business and him going on and on about ‘don’t you like my beautiful care I’m a lady now why dont’ you want me i know you want me because you’re a removed i can tell because you have nice boots you take it in the ass.’ And I’m sitting there just ignoring them because I don’t want to engage some mentally ill psycho.
Just because you’re trans or leftist, doesn’t give you the right to assault and harass other people. Most of the democratic party pols are pro-trans agenda. And the ones who dare speak out against it and say stuff like 'maybe men shouldn’t be in women’s sports, or ‘maybe we should have 3 kinds of bathrooms’ get attacked mercilessly and called bigots and hateful by the nutbags. Every moderate democrat who speaks out on the issue gets attacked, despite having popular support because they expressing a more common sense approach instead of a ‘trans people should have no rules or restrictions on them that the rest of us cis people deal with’.
I don’t care about anyone being trans. But I care about insane people using their trans identity to abuse and harass other people, to file lawsuits and etc all because they feel they need to be treated differently than everyone else. Like you want gender affirming care? cool, but don’t give 12 year olds puberty blockers. 12 year olds have no idea who or what they are. let them figure it out when they are young adults like the rest of us. Just like we shouldn’t allow 12 year olds to get plastic surgery or tattoos or any of that type of body modfication
but any complexity or nuance on this issue gets the pro-trans extremists calling anyone a bigot. people should be allowed to be critical of these things. discussion and debate should be allowed to happen without the threat of violence and harassment from the pro-trans people or the anti-trans people.
funny how i’ve never seen a pro-trans person irl on online every have a good discussion of these issues… they just resort to insults and harassment and refuse to acknowledge anyone else’s concerns or questions. it’s almost as if they are just as ignorant and hateful on these things as someone who is anti-trans. and it’s not so much about trans people… as it is about their little culture war bullshit.
ironically when i see trans people discuss some of these things… who dont’ have an agenda… they are a lot more moderate on ‘trans issues’. probably because they are just a person and not some ideologue using trans people as a prop to further their political agenda.
I thought of disputing, but every paragraph is a troll
been waiting for that pendulum to swing almost 50 years now…
I cannot think of an example where a movement based around a cult of personality has successfully survived long after their leader has gone.
Most religious cults especially Christianity lol, what a statement
Wallets are twice as likely to be returned as people expect. And the interesting thing is this holds true more or less globally.
Reminded of when someone opened their car window and yelled to me on the sidewalk that I had dropped some cash on the ground :)
Last time I ran out to a parking lot to find someone who dropped some cash in a store, they split some of it with me!
