Not innarested in a taste of the true black meat?
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Eurgh.
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In this case they could have gone right to Oxtoplex.
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I searched on this term â Halo game something? â but also got this on my search:
Whois domain gotopless dot org, Gotopless - Claiming equal topless âŚ
Google confused. I ainât going there.
Edit: I changed the reference to gotopless website so people donât click on it by mistake! Sorry. My bad.
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Iâm in favor of changing culture to eat less meat (much less), preferring sustainably-farmed plants. But this article is Malthusian, based on assumed scarcity, and the Malthusian argument is not one that Iâd choose.
Itâs the idea that only the rich deserve to survive and the poor should just die and get out of the way or at least shouldnât be allowed to have sex. Ending welfare, not providing health care, paying starvation wages, and sending the poor off to war were ways that Malthus suggested to kill off the extra poor people. While that outdated scarcity-based approach clearly still has its proponents in politics today, it hasnât worked yet and after hundreds of years, itâs worth considering the opposite.
We know that wealthier populations have much lower population growth (in many areas tending toward replenishment or lower) and tend to eat healthier and more sustainably. Logically, raising people up from poverty into a wealthier lifestyle would therefore prevent the Malthusian catastrophe. That could only be done with the exact opposite approach - better health care, fewer pointless wars, higher wages, and more welfare. To get there, we have to consider the post-scarcity world, and âdress for the job we want, not the job we haveâ.
In other words, assume that thereâs plenty of food and act accordingly, and it will become self-fulfilling. (Technically, there already is plenty, itâs just a matter of distribution, so the assumption isnât too far off.)
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The middle classes in wealthy countries have fewer children, yes. Enormous per-child costs are imposed on middle-class parents who want to pass their privileges onto their offspring.
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It was supposed to be Octoplex. Curses, mobile keyboard strikes again. But Iâm leaving it.
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Good comic, but supersized meals with double meat for only 30¢ more arenât aimed at the wealthy, just as the target market for $9 organic kale smoothies isnât people in poverty.
In that context, the comic conflates the wealth of the U.S. with that of its citizens, - citizens that the U.N.'s special investigators of extreme poverty have discovered are living in âconditions that one doesnât see in the first worldâ.
Itâs a strange situation where the wealthy shell out big bucks for sustainable fair-trade organic vegan food in realistic single-human portions while the poor are stuck with all-you-can-eat supersized meat meals (that could feed a village) because theyâre so much cheaper. We live in weird times.
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Collapsing? Stars like our donât collapse.
They need to hire better astronomers. Which is odd, because their astrologers are usually on point.
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Animation warning, but no flashing or zooming:
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This was the plot of Timescape by Gregory Benford, a book I liked except for the rotten ending.
ETA: I like it better as FICTION.
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Obligatory:
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Probably a more realistic obligatory:
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Well if youâre going to go there, obligatory dance remix(es):
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I donât get how nuclear conflict counts as any sort of apocalypse. An apocalypse is supposed to be a significant shift in perception that yields astounding new insights into existence. Knowing that âsome people are violent assholes who sometimes annihilate each otherâ sounds like the status quo, an insight as old as time itself. Yâall are giving war far too much credit, here.
It reminds me of the episode of Monkey Dust where marketers re-brand cancer with some hip new name to increase its appeal. Instead itâs re-branding war as âbreakthroughâ to make it sound palatable.
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Oh, you do so get it. It refers to Revelation (from Greek apokalypsis uncover) and thatâs how English speakers have used it for centuries: to refer to the catastrophic end of the world. One might as well complain that one cannot have a cataclysm without a sufficient supply of water, or indeed a catastrophe outside of the end of a theatrical tragedy.
âWar never changes,â sez Ron Perlman, and it sounds as if youâd agree, except for the context in which he said it (the Fallout series of videogames) concerns the aftermath of a nuclear exchange lasting a little under two hours that kills off most of humanity as well as killing, maiming, or altering many other species of life as well. Death and destruction of a scale undreamed by the bloodthirstiest warlords of history. Yeah, just a dumb video game, sure, but âgiving war far too much creditâ for upending the status quo? Please. The very scale of destruction wrought by even a single primitive nuclear weapon is the reason why no president or potentate in possession of such an arsenal, however unhinged, has dared use one since Nagasaki. How many other armies throughout history have bankrupted themselves developing weapons they never intend to use?
You donât have to use the language the same way the multitudes do, but âdisingenuousâ doesnât mean youâre a slave in ancient Rome, either.
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