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Perfect deloafing 🐱🐱🐈‍⬛

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Pareidolia

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A Tussock moth caterpillar is going to work on some milkweed. I found this plant in the garden the other day and decided to put a camera there for a timelapse. For whatever reason it is satisfying to watch the leaf getting eaten 😆🐛 I also love how the other plants are moving around at night.

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The tiniest of feathered miracles continue to visit, getting more bold by the day. I love that this one has gotten very comfy with this feeder and actually sits down there. This one's for Diane.

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Why is this heat so hot 😩

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the other day i learned that taking a long time to fall asleep is called “sleep latency” which is just the funniest thing to me tbh

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One of my philosophical considerations as I get older is appreciating how much moral virtue rules overlap with long-term pragmatism. Lying, for example, is a wicked thing to do, and also usually a bad idea and trying to spot the exceptions is unreliable. The more one generalizes utilitarianism across time and people, the more it looks like virtue.

Hundreds of philosophers have written on the edge cases of trying to pry these apart with deliberately constructed scenarios, which I feel get increasingly artificial as philosophy runs out of low-hanging fruit. "But if we suppose that the child is going to die unless an all-seeing oracle had predicted that you would..." -nah.

Recently I read an argument that such prying apart is itself a bad habit tending to wickedness. It is not a pragmatic thing to do, it worsens people's moral faculty by drawing an unreasonable amount of attention to an exception that is rare at best and physically impossible at worst, sometimes it glosses over another offense in the scenario construction. Philosophers will defend this glossing-over because in principle the other offense is a distraction from the point the philosopher wants to make, but pragmatically this inspires a mental habit of ignoring crimes to score dunks.

This was manifest in a fascinating retort to Amartya Sen that I want to share.

Amartya's constructed scenario in The Idea of Justice features three children presenting competing claims to a flute: Anne on the utilitarian grounds that she is a musician and will produce the most joy with it, Bob on the egalitarian grounds that he is poor and has no other toys, Carla on the libertarian grounds that she made it and the other two stole it. Amartya thinks this is a very difficult puzzle that shows there is no single right answer because he cannot decide between the competing claims.

The firebreathing retort: The flute should be returned to Carla, and Amartya ought to be punished as for theft or conversion, because by framing the scenario in terms of mulling over whose claim he should respect he has arrogated to himself the power of disposing of Carla's flute!

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It’s crazy how lefties just hide behind the utopian vision that will never happen to justify all their political positions.

“I just want everyone to have free healthcare”

I would like that too, but the limitation to that desire isn’t a lack of legislation it’s a real world where there’s only finite resources and limited manhours to accomplish that.

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bit of a heavy question I know but I feel like you may have some insight to this. I’m currently grappling with the fact that my dog is indeed an old dog now and he is not eternal and actually mortal and subject to many ailments from easily curable to fatal. the question is how do you deal with the loss of a beloved pet or just coming to terms that your pet will indeed die some day?

At the end of the day, the short answer is: you don't.

There is no real way to come to terms with something that doesn't negotiate.

But, the longer answer is that when someone acquires a pet, and accepts the responsibility of providing everything that pet needs for the duration of that pet's life, part of the agreement with the universe is the responsibility of providing a kind death. It's NOT fun. It's not happy. It's not easy in any way. But then, responsibility isn't about being fun or happy or easy.

And for me, at least, recognizing that as part of my responsibility with regards to my pets when I first get them, means recognizing there is an end when I'm at the beginning, and that if I am very lucky, and if my pet is even luckier, my pet will get to live their entire life with me, all the way to that end. They will never have to know what it is like to lose me. They will never have to wonder where I went and when I am coming back. They will never try to call me home when they cannot find me. For a creature I love, I can think of no happier life than that of a pet that is well cared for and gets to spend their life with their favorite person, and who gets to pass gently from the world before their days are too full of pain or suffering.

and that doesn't make it any easier when the time comes, and it doesn't make it suck any less, and it doesn't mean it won't rip your heart out when it happens. and there's not anything you can do to prepare for it, and there's not anything you can do to heal it faster when it happens. The ball will sit squarely on the grief button like it's made of lead, until it doesn't, until it is small and bounces around inside the box and only hits the button sometimes, and every time it does will still hurt like the last time you ever saw them, and there's nothing you can do to avoid it.

but you can make it worth it, while they're still here, because you know they won't be. you can take time to treasure the time you have, to listen to their heartbeat with your head on their belly, to stop watching TV or scrolling online, and put all of your attention into running fingers through their fur. Throw the ball one extra time for the joy of it, slow down to let them sniff that smell a moment longer, find foods they REALLY enjoy that they can have, hug them a little tighter and appreciate it NOW. of the two of you, you are the only one who knows it all ends- your pup only knows what love you share with him in the moment.

and in 5, 10, 15 years down the road, you will hold a new dog's face in your hands and ask yourself how you will ever come to terms with losing this one someday, too, and you will remember that there is no coming to terms, and that it will be worth it anyway, because you will choose to make it that way every day you still have them.

That's really all I know how to do.

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According to Know Your Meme, on August 18th, 2005, Erwin Beekveld brought forth this work into the world. HAPPY TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY, THEY’RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD.

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My stomach is so acid today.