It’s almost funnier than Frank providing a certificate that he doesn’t have “Donkey Brains” in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT4vVLvvb2U

Truly. I didn’t know a song could make me cry until I listened to Billy Austin, a song Earle wrote about the death penalty.

I appreciate that you gave it a listen! Hopefully you appreciated it

I know y’all are quoting System of a Down, so I want to share a country song about exactly this…because the difference in the musical styles is neat. One of my favorites by Steve Earle: Rich Man’s War.

It’s a song I’ve always loved for the direct message of rich people using poor folks as soldiers in wars…but also the way it weaves in a larger economic picture about the decisions by the rich that put people in the very desperate positions that they later exploit.

Yeah: go back to the nineties and the man arguably most responsible for the hyper-partisanship in modern politics was also a rep in Georgia…Newt Filthypigfucker Gingrich

Half-Life: Alyx is mostly what I hoped we’d get from HL3, inasmuch as it hits your points a & b for sure, and IMHO c (though I know that’s not agreed on by everyone). It had great action and expository setpieces (avoiding spoilers), and the (albeit relatively simple) puzzles definitely added something to Half-Life that really worked for me.

Unfortunately it didn’t solve all VR issues (melee being an obvious one), and not least of which the cost. I played it on a cheap (~$100), janky old WMR headset, but not everyone can do that without vomiting, so a great PC and good headset are a hefty price, which is probably the biggest hurdle for a full-scale 3 in VR. Especially considering there just aren’t many other games worth making that investment in, IMHO. I played the hell out of Alyx, a little of a few other games…but Alyx was the pinnacle of what VR could do for me.

Clearly he saw something that the Deep State is trying to hide, and now’s the chance to see it for ourselves.

Thanks, I respect your take too. I fully understand that I’m an optimist, and will desperately cling to any shred of hope we have. Not a position everyone holds, and I don’t hold it against anyone to not have hope for humanity’s future, as much as it conflicts with my own thoughts. In any case, I hope you have a good one! Thanks for a good discussion.

That’s entirely my point though: we can’t reason with a deadly virus, but we can with most humans. Or at least some humans. OK maybe a few. The point is, I don’t think it’s logical to throw in the towel.

That isn’t human exceptionalism in my view, either: because I don’t believe we’re inherently special animals when it comes to how we treat the environment. My point is that most animals inherently exploit resources, and drive others to extinction. We just managed to make guns and power tools and propaganda. Once humans are gone, we have no reason to think that any species that manages to start some technologically advanced civilization will be any better. So either we eradicate all biological life to ensure that it doesn’t eradicate biological life…or we try to improve humanity, because despite things, we can often be reasoned with. Humanity has gotten better, even though it hasn’t improved enough, when looking at human civilization over the last few thousand years. That’s my point: not that we don’t deserve calamity, but that we can - if we fight hard enough - try to steer our own species toward a better future for everyone.

Who knows though, maybe if humanity is gone the bonobos will rise up to take our place. They’re pretty chill, all things considered.

That’s the easy way out. Please stick around and help the rest of us try to steer humanity in the right direction. Help the moral arc of the universe bend a little faster. It’s hard work, and most of us won’t see much of a return. But long-term, let’s hope that humanity can.

To clarify: I’m a biologist. The perspective you’ve taken is basically “Noble Savage” but for animals. Animals are pushed to extinction all the time. Yes, we’re incredibly good at it, and we’re good at coming up with highfalutin reasons for killing things, but look at chimps, ants, dolphins…nature is brutal. It sucks to be most animals. Say a habitat changes, and a species “needs” to move into an adjacent similar habitat that’s already occupied by one or more species exploiting those resources? Extinction of something is pretty likely. That’s all very much an oversimplification, of course, but this is a lemmy comment.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111310 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-it-comes-waging-war-ants-humans-have-lot-common-180972169/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War

The hope I have is our intelligence. The fact that you recognize this existential threat is more than a badger is capable of.