Seriously. There is no reason to believe in something that not only isn’t proven to exist, but can’t. That argument could be applied to nearly anything.

Vampires? Can’t prove they don’t exist, so may as well believe in them.

Fairies? Same.

Flying spaghetti monster? Prove it doesn’t exist.

Like, I don’t want to knock other people’s religions, and I’m not so arrogant as to think I have all the answers, but I just can’t stand the “you can’t prove XXXX doesn’t exist” argument.

So here’s my time for this story:

When I was at a recruiting office for the Coast Guard, the recruiter asked why I specifically chose the Coast Guard over any other branches. I said I’m the type of person that if I volunteered for the military and then got sent to a situation where some 12-year-old with a gun was going to kill me if I didn’t kill him, I would not be able to absolve myself of the responsibility of having to kill a kid, even to defend myself, because even if I didn’t choose to be in that kid’s country, I relinquished my choice to the military, so I am still responsible. There’s nothing morally ambiguous about saving somebody who is drowning.

He said that was a dumb reason. I didn’t care.

Well, as it turns out, he was right, but not for the reason he thought at the time.

Make the Coast Guard Department of Transportation Again!

I get what you are saying, but that’s not the way to do it.

“What about male genital mutilation?”

“We should ban all mutilation of genitals of children. It is barbaric. Some more than others, but it’s all bad.”

If all you do is respond with essentially “what about this other thing that this particular article isn’t talking about,” it derails the conversation of the current article. Saying that all aspects of the subject if the article are bad and have no place in society says “I agree with this, and let’s extend it further.”

Swinging with right hand, holding with left (for right-handed people). So you can see what you’ve done so far as you go, just like writing with your right hand from left to right.

I want this product (not the 3d printed parts) with a bluetooth connection to build into my retired flight helmet (I have flown in military helicopters most of my career, but am old and grounded now).

Edit: responded to post instead of comment

I thought she played Bella perfectly:

A blank canvas. Nothing wrong with portraying the character accurately. I mean, I’m not sure all the mouth-breathing was necessary. Literally the only thing I remember about her, character-wise.

Supernatural’s whole story arc was based on this (and it worked for them). Inevitably, to beat this big bad that the brothers have absolutely no business going toe-to-toe with, they must do something that is bound to catch up with them, but it’s either that or the world is fucked. Then the next thing is even worse, and they have to do something that will bite them even worse in order to stop the world from getting fucked. And it just keeps ramping up, they keep losing more and more of themselves and punching so far above their weight class that they end up… well, no spoilers, in case somebody wants to watch (and I don’t know how to do spoiler tags).

There’s a point when Sam has some injury, like a broken arm or gunshot wound or something, and he’s talking to a nurse or doctor who asks him to rate his pain from 0, which is no pain, to 10, which is the worst pain he could imagine. He gets a thousand-yard stare for a second and says “3.”

I appreciate the write-up, thank you! I feel like a lot of this is semantic differences. I’ve always thought of socialism as any public funds used specifically to help citizens (e.g. social security, medicare, unemployment, UBI, etc) and Communism to be the public owning and running the means of production, and distributing goods thereof, and the stateless, classless, moneyless society to be the ideal utopia it aspired to (similar to Star Trek). From your comment, I see that what I call Communism, you call Socialism (which explains a lot of confusion from discussions in the past with self-described Communists I’ve known), and the nameless Star Trek post-scarcity system you would call Communism.

Do you think it is possible to slow-roll the transition peacefully, though? If, for example, instead of the government bailing out industries, they bought out industries on the cheap, slowly growing and monopolizing like Google or Amazon have? Or do you think the rich would simply block that from happening?

So I will admit that I am ignorant of a method of attaining Communism that isn’t at the end of a rifle, and thus authoritarian by nature (and fully accept that, to a degree, Capitalism is also at the end of a gun, but typically less overt, or often directed without instead of within). The only nations I’ve seen flying the red flag have appeared highly authoritarian (and I’m not going to get drawn into a “USSR and PRC aren’t/weren’t authoritarian, and DPRK is actually a utopia!” discussion, so if that’s the direction this is going, let me know and I’ll politely see my way out).

I’ve seen in the lower comments that Socialism would be used as a gateway to Communism, but I am unclear about the transition from “everybody’s basic needs are met via taxation and distribution” to “personal property is abolished” (as I understand Communism to mean, please correct me if I’m wrong). Plenty of European countries have had (for the west), strong seemingly socialist systems, but they don’t seem to be deliberately angling toward Communism, for example.

So I’m curious what this peaceful Capitalist to Communist timeline would look like.

Are we still talking about cars or back to bodies?

Like the mechanic handing you a $15 code reader and saying “just clear it whenever it pops up.”

I actually used this to explain a concern of mine to my wife. We had a Subaru Forester that had some minor but expensive issue that kept the check engine light on, so we ignored it. And because of that missed something else that made the engine 'splode (not literally, just turned the SUV to SCRAP). About 8 hours from our house and two hours from the nearest rental car agency (and no trains). With our daughter in the back and me needing to be at work the next morning.

Anyway, I was talking about how everything hurts a bit, and because of that my general pain tolerance is way higher to the point I don’t notice most of the time I’m hurt. Like the check engine light on the Subaru.

I imagine cancer is going to come along and when I find out at stage four, people will wonder how I possibly could have put up with it up to that point without going to the doctor. And I’ll say I didn’t even notice it.

An old buddy of mine commented once on the amount if minor havoc you could wreak with a handful of chain bike locks. Cheap, wrap around some door handles and lock, walk away. Yeah, somebody can bust out a bolt cutter, but for the amount of challenge to remove it, the low cost per use, and the speed of application, it’s pretty impressive for minor mischief.

Relatively harmless, too, as long as you aren’t doing any additional nefarious shit. Might work for some gated community gates.

The origin and story of Dogman is certainly dark.

BONE!

So ultimately, the punishment for not believing is being destroyed? Like, oblivion?

Shit, this sounds like a win. I have no interest in eternal existence, even supposedly “blissful” existence. I feel like anyone who thinks of eternity on more than a surface level would feel nothing but existential dread.

I thought they accidentally got rid of Black Friday with their anti-DEI measures?

1. Don’t carry credit card debt. Save money if you can. Get a handle on basic finances

Credit cards are this weird thing. If you need them, you shouldn’t use them (if you can help it). If you make plenty of money and don’t need them, they are a very useful financial tool. I have paid interest on one of my credit cards once in the past 3 years, and it was only to have extra available funds for buying a house. But I have accrued well over 100k airline miles and several hundred (far more than the interest I paid) in cash back. I use credit cards exclusively for everything but my mortgage, and have them set to automatically pay the statement balance prior to the due date. If you aren’t extremely confident you can do that, you should avoid credit cards.

I definitely ran afoul of credit cards in my youth, so the banks have gotten their pound of flesh from me.

Wow, people are really pulling the last bit out of context and assuming the worst implications. His “stand by you” and “knocking on doors” thing is him acknowledging his white male privilege to feel safe doing things like going door to door in most neighborhoods, and being happy to extend that safety to others by standing beside them while they do it.

I get the concern about having a Nazi tattoo for over a decade, and concern that everything he is doing is performative based on his past. But what he said was pretty unequivically that he will support LGBTQ+ people, including in action. Whether anyone believes him or not is up to them. But what he said was not mealy-mouthed, it was direct.