Yeah, that’s often put forward, but I never really found the argument satisfactory. A deity can tell me starving children is benevolence all it wants, that just means that it’s using the word differently from me. I don’t care how impressive it is.

And omnibenevolent? A god that’s just screwing with us is feeling relatively more likely these days, and I’m not comforted.

One could argue by historical standards that we’re closer than not already. How sane would you say sane is?

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The cream does, in fact, rise to the top. All the rich idiots I’ve met were brilliant in a subtle way I couldn’t appreciate, and I myself am just being lead on by the people I know about having redeeming qualities of any kind. All the studies showing social mobility is small both upwards and downwards had some kind of fatal flaw built into their assumptions.

Stuff about moral decline is another candidate. In both cases, I’m actually pretty sure everyone in every time, place and walk of life has roughly the same capacities on average, but narratives suggesting otherwise are so damn pervasive I have to wonder if I’m missing something.

I mean, central planning would be more like the dairy board, but both the prices they sell for and the prices the farmers pay to suppliers are fixed at weird values, so they never can afford quite enough containers for the amount of product they produce, and have no reason to add new cheeses until things build to a crisis point and politicians are involved.

Nothing is centrally controlled outside of what a normal business controls AFAIK, so it’s more of a plain legally enforced monopoly, like monarchs used to grant by letters of patent.

Yeah, but to how much outdoor area? IIRC it’s still pretty factory farm. Maybe you can get super-freerange eggs as well, but not at my local store.

Backyard hens are dope.

No, because I’m sure it’s passed the tipping point towards autocracy. There’s endless different forms of both it and democracy, but it’s a constant that democracy begets democracy and autocracy begets autocracy, so that’s my “line in the sand”.

In America’s case as of now, all the checks and balances that used to work are still there, but they’ve been questionable for many years and aren’t going to do anything going forwards, so they’re functionally more like Canada’s monarchy.

If you’re looking for a perspective on what’s normal and what’s not, consider that when there’s a big social problem in Canada, it’s only a matter of time until a law trying to address it gets passed. That’s what a functioning democracy is like. Meanwhile, there’s been a known place in the US where no courts have jurisdiction to prosecute serious crimes for two decades now.

That’s correct, although the stuff he personally cares about is in the two big cities. You’re right that it’s not MAD exactly, but it’s more of a deterrent than it would be if this was DC and New York, or Paris and London.

They have a pretty famous strategic use, actually. To be fair, it dovetails heavily with domestic politics, but MAD is still strategy.

Russia is also pretty much those two cities and their little colonies, in practice.

Meat-eating and political apathy. Few people are vegetarians at this point in history, and activism tends to attract defective personalities.

If it sounds like I must be a misanthropic bastard that hates everyone, unfortunately, yeah, I think I do at this point.

Well I’ll be damned!

Italy needs to keep an eye on Naples, I guess.

Yes, that was a joke, although apparently there is one in Florida, lol.

Canadians all know this. Presumably Carney knows this. Effectively he’s ruled out wasting his time on a negotiation where their main ask is deep, deep fucking behind our red line.

Ooh, it is pretty.

I don’t think there’s any volatile compounds of lead, which would be the risk. Obviously don’t go off of just my guess, though. You wouldn’t think osmium would produce a lot of volatiles, and yet it’s frigging oxide is.

Of course, depending on where this is and how much water you use that might obviate the need for a well anyway. If you’re distilling it all surface water or just straight up wastewater might work fine.

I didn’t know Melbourne was in Florida.

Sure. But if there’s not even the illusion the brainrot is real life, maybe they’ll give it a try.

(And it’s not just America. You don’t have to be that hard on yourselves, dumb people are everywhere)

I do, and I’ve adjusted for that. I know Americans and I know how they are about their nationalism.