I thought the point of the stuff was to avoid killing animals.

The best is no door at all - like at airports where there’s just a barrier wall you have to walk around. I was about to say it’s not something you can do in every setting, but that’s only because we aren’t willing to dedicate the space to it.

The Houthis are a large group controlling a big area of Yemen, but not the official government of Yemen. So if the Houthis enter a conflict, that’s not the same as the government of Yemen doing so. But Israel is trying to equate the two. They’re basically saying “Yemeni government, we hold you responsible, we think the Houthis are your proxy.”

So this accusation is not so much about the mere act of entering the conflict, itself, and more about WHO has actually entered it.

A comparison might be if Hezbollah carries out an attack, that’s not necessarily the recognized Lebanese government doing it. But Israel will blame them anyway, if for not other reason than to accuse them of not doing enough to stop it. This comparison is quite apt because both Hezbollah and the Houthis are well aligned with and funded by Iran.

Instead of throwing up my hands waiting for someone else to ratify a framework, I personally give substantial direct financial support to an African American family, not because I feel personally responsible for what happened 200 years ago, but because I know that what happened 200 years ago didn’t end 200 years ago but continued on and eventually became Jim Crow and eventually became the War on Drugs and all the while has just simmered there as subconscious racism. It affects them all day every day every time someone looks at them, every time they board an elevator.And alltogether it has unfairly advantaged me and disadvantaged them. I can’t even imagine the mental stress of being a black American over the last several years. And the entire 200 years we’ve been abusing and short changing these people, they have paid us back in unique gifts of art, music, and literature (on top of their everyday contributions to science, industry and education like everyone else makes too). I pay because it’s the least I can fucking do to help and say “someone sees, someone cares.” I give because I can, and never had to face what they face. I give because it’s their money.

You do you.

Birth rates decline as societies develop out of pure agrarianism, by virtue of the fact that unskilled farm labor is no longer as valuable.

If anyone else wants to hear a whole song and dance sideshow to this, see the above. 👆

Just Google the details in the image.

Matt Smethurst is a Christian pastor.

“Our portion” is a Christian concept - in this case probably the name of some organization but it’s named after the Christian idiom. This is in all likelihood the name of the organization that created the ad.

Why would the Satanic Church place any of that in one of their ads?

They’re trying to make every single “believe in yourself” message that people have ever heard in pop culture seem like the whispering of Satan. Think: Luke in Star Wars turning off his targeting computer.

They want all of that to feel wrong to kids. Because they are trying to raise a flock of subservient subjects. Christianity is like Monarchy for the mind. It calls on you to kneel, not to know, dare, strive, find out. Nope. Just kneel.

That sounds fucking satanic to me.

Yes yes, I know you see everything through the lens of the disappearing middle class narrative.

But you’re unarmed with the basics. Agrarian societies run on family farms, where human hands mean more output. Developing countries have absolutely shit standards of living but they have the most kids. This is in direct contradiction to the way you see things.

The reason more developed countries have fewer children is because in a more advanced economy, workers need to be more educated and trained to produce value. They don’t begin contributing to the economy at age 5. More like 18 or 21. That is expensive. Nothing to do with boomers tanking the economy. This is fundamental and true around the world.

Don’t get so attached to a narrative that you become blind to everything else.

I don’t know how European solidarity works, but will people from France pay double for a shirt because it comes from Portugal instead of India?

You seem genuinely unaware that countries like Germany legitimately have less than replacement birth rates. I don’t discount your point about paying people more, but I can acknowledge both these realities and you can too. While the class struggle with billionaires rages on, there actually are real demographic challenges.

What’s actually wrong with Indians?

I kind of suspect this is the entire point of this conflict. The US is not immune to global oil supply disruptions, but we are a net exporter now, while China relies very heavily on foreign imports. I would not be at all surprised if this was a way to put the hurt on China and the rest of the world, while blaming Iran for it. Of course Epstein distraction too, but not only that.

Women commit more infanticides but we would talk about that as a collection of cases of mental breakdown or criminal intent, not as an essential female quality. Similarly, this supposed “trend” with vanishingly small numbers should be looked at as a collection of cases of gross neglect or criminal intent, not as an essential male quality.

No one’s arguing. You chipped in. It didn’t make sense. You can’t make it make sense, apparently. I guess we really are done here then.

So what? That’s not an answer to my question or a followup to your comment.

When it’s that high for years their hand may be forced. It’s a very slow ship to try to turn around.

Either pitiful delusions or deliberate scaremongering (or both). Rest in dirt, motherfucker.

Power generation is predominantly coal and natural gas. Liquid petroleum, the base material for plastics, is used very little for electrical generation.

So do you want to explain again how using more renewables instead of coal and natural gas is going to drive up plastic production? I think your point is just reflexively pessimistic.

And animal cruelty will be totally unaffected.

I think people don’t know just how successful renewables are. Taken together, they are now the single largest global source of energy, having displaced coal.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2rz08en2po

Of course, we want to see even more momentum, because while renewables have surged, so has energy demand, so fossil fuel consumption isn’t quite falling yet.

But I think you may have more reason for optimism than your comment suggests. Conservative lobbyists are not succeeding in killing renewables, except perhaps in shithole countries like Texas.