SubstantialNothingness [none/use name]

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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: November 20th, 2023

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  • If it’s a sustainable practice that is in balance with nature, I keep my mouth shut. It’s incredibly rare and only practiced by small groups who are almost always disadvantaged afaik.

    If the “family traditions” are simply exploitative and unsustainable modern animal agriculture, then I tend to feel fine speaking up.

    I’ve seen attacks on indigenous practices that I don’t agree with - I figure, why not go pick on mass ag instead where the suffering is unfathomable. (edit: but I won’t tone police others.) On the other hand, I’ve also seen people claim the modern WASP diet of farmed steaks 5 nights a week is their ancestor’s typical diet.

    I don’t want to play judge so I just focus on the immorality and unsustainability of exploitative mass animal agriculture and leave it at that. I figure it’s hard to be insensitive to long-standing traditions when I’m only criticizing a development that occurred in the past 100 years.


  • Central & West Africa have received terrible amounts of rain this year.

    UNICEF responding to severe flooding in West and Central Africa affecting 4 million people

    quotes

    Severe flooding across West and Central Africa has hit an estimated 4 million people so far this year, many of them children, displacing at least 500,000 people and destroying more than 300,000 homes.

    The flooding ranges from Liberia to Nigeria and across Mali, Niger and Chad, with central Africa also affected. In Northeast Nigeria, a burst dam this week has added further to displacement with an estimated 40 per cent of the town of Maiduguri flooded, affecting up to 200,000 people. Other dams in the sub-region are also under pressure with the heavy rainfall, with fears that any similar dam breaks would lead to even greater displacement.

    Floods in the region have already damaged at least 61 schools and 13 health centres. Last year’s flooding, which was also severe, had affected 692,000 people in the region by this point in the year, and eventually affected 4.5 million.

    In Chad, one of the worst-hit countries, torrential rains have caused flooding throughout the country since late July, with nearly 1.5 million people affected already, 145 deaths and the destruction of 70,000 houses, according to the government. The flooding has also destroyed bridges and roads. Wadi river valleys are full and difficult to cross, adding to the complexity of delivering aid into Sudan’s Darfur region.

    16 out of 24 countries in West and Central Africa are among the 30 countries with the biggest climate change risk for children, according to UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index.


  • It’s riding on the back of Lue Elizondo, the former US Torture Czar and a CI operative who is urging immunity for those who broke the law for the sake of “national security.”

    All of the big names in the past few years have had a connection to the US military and/or intelligence, and none of them have suffered any consequences. Most all of them are closely tied to Lue and each other.

    Lue got caught trying to fake a UFO sighting in his backyard, and after years on the podcast circuit he just released a book a few weeks ago - a book which is ghost-written and which basically rehashes decades of UFO rumors in a new package. Since the release his appearances have been on overdrive which is partly why so many people are talking about it right now. Mellon (an operative from the banking family who is also interested in UFOs) is close to him and wrote the forward which calls on Great Man Theory to describe Lue lmao

    US Congress was split on legislation that was supposed to shine a light on what is going on behind their backs, and it had proposed amendments: The Dems wanted to give it teeth, while the Reps wanted to declaw it (while claiming the opposite). iirc it just failed for the second year in a row, but I might be getting my bills confused. Anyway, Lue is a chud who is very comfortable in right-wing spaces - he’s been on JRE multiple times for example. I don’t recall him speaking out against the legislative shenanigans.

    I think there actually is something behind all of this - alien or not - but the public is clearly getting a drip feed to steer them toward a particular narrative and interpretation. Most of which is probably bullshit. Lue and friends have made it pretty clear that there’s a limited hangout going on, but insist that it’s for our own good. They are very US-centric and fear-monger about adversaries frequently.

    I’m still interested in UFOs - they have a long and strange history across the globe - but I don’t trust any of the recent names in the space whatsoever. Any truth they might speak is going to be diluted with propaganda. They could actually be ushering in some sort of disclosure or recognition but it won’t make me think any more highly of them. I worry about how successful they’ve been at leading a growing discussion on the topic even though I’ve wanted more awareness on it for many years.


  • There’s lots of good answers in here: Note it with detached acceptance and then return to the focus, use a mantra as a verbal focus, adding a physical element like walking or yoga, let the thoughts be and observe them as a focus.

    Have you tried meditating after exercise? That’s one of the few times my mind is particularly calm.

    Falling asleep sometimes just happens to some beginners, or it could be an ADHD thing from understimulation. However sloth/torpor is one of the five hindrances so it can also be a real long-term concern for your practice. If this is the case, then it could mean you are either fighting too hard against stimuli like thoughts, or else that you are too complacent and are not exerting enough effort on concentration. Anything anyone has recommended here could potentially help. Generally speaking, you want to make an effort to concentrate but not an effort to dismiss thoughts. If you have a thought that seems important like a task, trust yourself that you’ll remember it or that it will come back up if it’s important.

    And when you find yourself latched onto a thought, don’t punish yourself. There’s nothing wrong with it - it’s part of the process. Recognize it and that you’ve attached to it, accept that this happens and it’s not bad, and let the thought go back on its way down the stream of thoughts.



  • Art leans left. The suits role is to keep that leftism from getting too overt, while raking in the money.

    Another aspect: The common theme of the universe naturally leading to the resolution of injustices is a very addictive form of hopium that lulls individuals into inaction in real life. Like a lot of underdog stories. It really doesn’t matter if the fictional baddies are right-wingers, so long as the content prevents everyone from doing anything about the real life baddies.

    And a final aspect: Who needs to be portrayed as good when they’re rich and powerful? It’s mostly people who rely on other people - rather than the privileges of money - who benefit by being good. The system already protects the rich. So when many people get rich, they stop caring what others think about them. It doesn’t matter for their own quality of life anymore. And then people come along and want to to make a rich studio exec a lot more money by creating a show where the rich person’s likeness is a baddie? The execs know that formula sells like hot cakes - easy deal!


  • As I understand it, it’s more about consumption not reaching estimates in 2024 which resulted in excess stockpiles. This has pushed the price down to the point that OPEC hasn’t been able to remove production cuts established earlier, as they had anticipated on doing. The cuts are intended to exert upward price pressure by limiting supply but consumption was just too low to justify releasing more oil onto the markets.

    Investors had been growing bearish almost all year, the OPEC postponement was just another push in that direction (against the long-term trend which has been consistently bullish because no one believes in the green transition [to which this glut is unrelated]). The investors follow OPEC production (and Chinese consumption) very closely. It’s also not a very large short balance, but it could be a sign that investors expect a little more “pain” before consumption and prices recover. The next big shift in supply/demand may not come until N hemisphere winter, when heating increases consumption.

    I doubt this will turn into anything big, or predict anything big. However I think it could contribute to a short-term environment of instability, from which more important events might occur.








  • 100%. It doesn’t really effect the resistance. It almost exclusively effects us as the users.

    It seems the discussion has turned to the proposition under the sticky to actually officially restrict doomerist posts. And since the rules effect us infinitely more than the physical resistance, I do believe we should consider our own priorities when deliberating them.

    In that light, I would completely understand if the group wanted to restrict those posts in order to facilitate health, enjoyment, etc. I’m nowhere near the most well-adjusted person on the planet - and I would miss you all - but if my shouting into the void wasn’t wanted here or I otherwise felt the urge to leave, I know I’d be fine finding a different void to shout into. It’s not like hexbear is where I do my praxis. I think that would be the appropriate response for anyone who might feel pushed out.

    Nonetheless I’m also going to speak my piece and participate in the dialectics so long as it is welcome, and I have two fears: 1. If my favorite posters don’t post because they are afraid of being labeled a doomer and breaking the rules, I’m going to be less motivated to visit, and 2. If posters I disagree with stop posting, I’m also going to be less motivated to visit because one reason I come here is to absorb other lefties’ opinions which disagree with my own (so they I can consider changing my own position and so that I can better understand my allies who I don’t see eye-to-eye with). I can tolerate sorting through bullshit, but if there is a chilling effect on posting, then I fear that there’s going to be less value here for all of us.

    Our priorities are a perfectly legitimate debate imo - I’ll be curious to hear how others feel. I think I’ve probably spoken my fair share’s worth by now.