#human prosperity

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

International Darwin Day on February 12th will inspire people throughout the globe to reflect and act on the principles of intellectual bravery, perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth as embodied in Charles Darwin. It will be a day of celebration, activism, and international cooperation for the advancement of science, education, and human well-being.

Local and state governments will close in commemoration of the Day, and organizations and businesses will celebrate by engaging in community outreach centered around science as a tool for the betterment of humanity.

Darwin Day will be observed by the United Nations and its members as an opportunity for international partnerships through the common language of science for the common good of all.

==

Feb 12 is International Darwin Day.

[avocado62524]

[reality-detective]

Keep moving forward, holding tight to your life’s vision of a kinder, calmer, healthier and happier world until it becomes a reality.

Nothing Can Stop What Is Coming...

Never Go Back...

Allow the Metamorphosis to happen...

Forward IS The Only Way To Transformation...

The World IS About To Change 🤔

[sundemonlord]

Justice

venmo: @torchport

cashapp: $onepeaceman

I am once again asking for mutual aid and financial assistance.

I had made it a semi-habit of contacting random people pell-mell. And it works, sometimes.

But it only works with people who actually care and/or are cognizant of the Reality (tm).

Capitalism is a disease and it squashes Life in many forms.

It dampens innovation, the human spirit, and camaraderie among peoples.

Whatever faults or differences man may have are made more stark in its sickly glow. And it emboldens vice in most by means of duress.

..

I want to be safe, healthy, and free.

I'm not sure I can do that in the world the way it is. With people the way they are. In this society and environment.

Despite the fact I am in much better straits now... existence weighs on me like a burden rather than something to be enjoyed.

I would like to thrive and to enjoy life. I just wonder if I was meant to, with my constitution and demeanor the way they are.

I wonder if I can continue to adapt and grow in the ways I need to. Or if I'm too bad and broken, now.

..

If you care to help a weirdo like myself out, please donate. I would like to continue to contribute to the world in the ways I am able.

But I am disabled and mentally ill.

I need more help. Like we all do, I guess.

[wayti-blog]

Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a spiritually moribund [at the point of death] religion.

Martin Luther King Jr., speech, 1960

[angadgautama]

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HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳

[ferryfoam]

I think about The Seige of AR-558 all the time. It's probably one of my absolute favourite ds9 episodes (along with In Purgatory's Shadow and By Inferno's Light which can not be topped) that one part where Julian is treating the wounds of one of the star fleet officers who've been essentially abandoned in this war zone and the officer is clearly so deeply traumatised by his experiences there is one of the most poignant moments in the entire show to me. The dialogue is so good and it really reminds you that this is an actual war theyre having, not just some flashy space battle where the good guys win and then everything is fine- it's had lasting impacts on these people who star fleet is meant to protect but really they send out a group of officers to a planet and then leave them there for months longer than they were supposed to be and so utterly do not care about these people because they see them as disposable. Even after Sisko and the ds9 crew realised how awful the conditions were everyone was expected to stay there - a position too important to the federation for them to let these people go home but not important enough for them to send backup or replacement officers (I though Quarks presence in the episode was really good as well for providing a perspective of someone not in StarFleet and a lot of the things he said about human nature and the actions of the federation really reflected how I was feeling about it as well haha)

Also the music was really good

(Edit if you want to hear more of my take on star fleet corruption I have put it in the tags)

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

was meaning to write a serious and thoughtful meta on this shot as the show's first use of metatextual framing (a story within a story) linking its premise to the war movie as a genre (the show as a fascist gothic work) but yknow what. scratch all of that lmao. the only thought that matters is: the moment you really start thinking about the show as a reactionary post 9/11 power fantasy, you can't stop.

[ranticore]

have to ask, for all ThunderStrike fans out there. does he end up becoming the all-king after defeating Cuinn???

Yes he sure does!! And he's pretty good at it

I didn't go into too much depth but essentially the flock as a whole represents a massive cultural group (not just comprised of eagle harpies but representing members of the same size class) which stretches along the entire plain to the coast in the north. Each settlement is an eyrie, and each eyrie has space for one or two kings depending on population size. The all-king takes on more of an ambassadorial role than the others, he meets up with representatives from other flocks, and also is responsible for deciding which humans get eggs or youngsters to raise when they come begging (the humans must bring gifts and proof of wealth and power)

In the future, when Cuinn is king of the Kosa eyrie (and manages to raise their reputation enough that harpies in other eyries start to actually respect them), Thunder Strike would be the guy he has to go crawling back to if he wants his eyrie to be included in the wider flock, which carries a lot of prestige and benefits. I haven't decided how that would go but I doubt it would be an easy relationship for either of them.

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Kathryn Janeway

By Ames

Finally, we’ve made it to the Delta Quadrant in A Star to Steer Her By’s character spotlight series, as we turn our focus to the crew from Voyager. And who better to start us off than our intrepid Intrepid-class leader, Captain Kathryn Janeway? She stalwartly leads the crew through uncharted space, wheels and deals with new alien species, kicks countless asses, and drinks copious amounts of coffee. What’s not to like?

Well, some things, as you’ll see below in our patented list of all Janeway’s Best and Worst Moments throughout the series (and beyond!). What’s in the Delta Quadrant doesn’t actually stay in the Delta Quadrant, you see. So count the number of times Janeway self-destructs the ship as you read on below and listen to our countdown timer over on this week’s podcast episode (T-minus 57:33). There’s coffee in this blogpost!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Ralkana? He said you’d been shot. One of the early gems of Voyager is “Resistance,” and Kate Mulgrew is on high display throughout. When she comes to understand Caylem’s tragic history, Janeway embraces his cause with compassion and empathy. And when the poor, senile man is dying and continues to mistake her for his daughter, Janeway lets him believe his delusions because they’re all he has.

Hello. I’m Captain Kathryn Janeway. Welcome to the Bridge. We joke a lot on A Star to Steer Her By that Janeway’s go-to tactic is self-destructing the ship. And she gets to actually carry that through for the first (but not last) time in “Deadlock,” taking out a whole bunch of Vidiians with her. Lucky for us, a spare Voyager crew (including a bonus Harry and Naomi) are saved as a result, since any other time it’s a trick you can only pull once.

There’s nothing to fear… except Kathryn Janeway Throughout the sensory-overload nightmare fuel that is “The Thaw,” Fear the Clown torments the people within his holo-environment until he crosses paths with Captain Janeway and she proves to be the most cold-blooded of them all. She cleverly tricks him into releasing the hostages before ripping the rug out from under him with the reveal that she isn’t really there.

You’re part of a family now, and you have obligations Watching the crew become more of a family as the seasons progress is a highlight of Voyager, and the way Janeway comes to trust Neelix is lovely to watch. In “Macrocosm,” she makes him an ambassador, and an episode later in “Fair Trade,” her “you’re part of our family” speech when Neelix admits to feeling like he no longer has a purpose on the ship proves how she values him.

Time’s up Not only is “Year of Hell” one of the best two-parters in all of Star Trek, but it also has yet another instance of Janeway destroying the ship! She takes it upon herself to save her crew from the Krenim and their very pretty, very powerful timeship by plowing what’s left of the Voyager directly into that sucker. And she even gets a great sendoff line to go with it!

For what it’s worth, you made a tempting offer If we’ve learned anything from the first several seasons, it’s don’t cross Janeway or she will double-, triple-, or quadruple-cross you right back. Evidently, no one clued in Kashyk in “Counterpoint” because he tries to use her to find a wormhole and nab some telepaths, but she’s been prepared for that the whole time. Pity, the two of them were almost cute together.

I’m a little busy right now, helping a friend It takes her quite a while (most of the series even), but Janeway slowly makes steps to accepting the EMH as people. By “Latent Image,” she’s agreed to let him process his trauma, even though it would be much easier to deal with if she just erased it (again) like the program he is. She even sits with him while he has existential crisis after existential crisis.

Her Royal Highness, Arachnia, Queen of the Spiderpeople! As far as comedy episodes go, “Bride of Chaotica!” is one of our favorites. You can tell everyone’s having so much fun, especially Kate Mulgrew as she throws herself fully into the over-the-top role of Queen Arachnia. Janeway pretending to be a B-movie villainess is just candy to watch, and she saves the invaders from the fifth dimension. All in a day’s work!

I make a better you than you Jake thinks he’s very funny in making me include this one on the Janeway list, but here we go. So Dala in “Live Fast and Prosper” isn’t really Janeway, but she does make cunning deals and schemes with the best of them. And hell, the bonafide Janeway delivers as well by foiling her counterpart’s dastardly plans and throwing her in the brig where she belongs.

I’ll start my own Federation, with blackjack and hookers When the Voyager is stuck in the titular void from “The Void,” everyone’s begging to resort to piracy – it just looks so fun! – but Janeway puts her foot down. Despite being so far from home, she has tried her darndest to unhold Starfleet ideals, and starting her own miniature Federation is her way of showing that people are better when they work together. Void friends forever!

Must’ve been something you assimilated While I could pick on Admiral Janeway for breaking the Temporal Prime Directive in “Endgame,” I’m just too impressed by how she so thoroughly owns the Borg Queen. She knows diplomacy won’t get her anywhere with the Borg, so she lets herself get assimilated to pass on a neurolytic pathogen that takes out the whole collective and saves Voyager!

Set your compass to Starfleet Finally, we’ve been pretty forthright about our love for Star Trek: Prodigy, and Admiral Janeway really gets some great moments to chew the CGI scenery. In the season one finale, “Supernova,” she stands up for the Protostar crew, especially sticking her neck out for Dal in a way that is so pure and supportive that you root for the whole group. We're so excited to watch season two when it’s up on Netflix!

—

Worst moments

And if you win you get this shiny banjo made of gold What the whole series boils down to is the long journey to get home from the Delta Quadrant… but it’s kinda Janway’s fault they’re stuck there in the first place due to her needlessly selfless actions in “Caretaker.” And then there are countless opportunities to get home after that that she squanders to uphold Starfleet rules. Who’s gonna know, Janeway?

The Trolley Problem solution for maximum murder Probably the most infamous action Janeway takes is the murder of Tuvix in the eponymous “Tuvix.” Sure, it’s to get two crewmembers back, and I’ve heard that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one, but it is straight-up cruel the way she forces Tuvix to medbay against his will, kicking and screaming the whole way that he wants to live.

I couldn’t help it, said the scorpion. It’s my nature. Boy, does Janeway know how to put her crew in needless danger by making snap decisions and then arguing about them a lot (a lot) with Chakotay. Her decision to team up with the Borg in “Scorpion” against the newly introduced Species 8472 is frankly insane. There’s no reasoning with Borg, lady. I’m with Chakotay on this one: you can only trust a scorpion to sting you.

You must comply In “Scorpion,” Janeway promises to return Seven to the collective when they finish the whole Species 8472 thing, but instead Janeway straight up kidnaps the poor drone and makes the decision to deprogram her in “The Gift” like the cult victim Seven is. It’s all entirely against Seven’s wishes and a little uncomfortable to watch because our new Borg has no agency yet.

Get down with your bad self Okay, Jake is being a pill again and insists we include Janeway’s fictional counterpart from “Living Witness” using biogenic weapons against the Kyrians. And yeah, it’s not actually Janeway – it’s a purely fabricated story the Kyrians concocted for their biased history program – but ya know what: I love how diabolical and ruthless this Janeway is so much that I’ll include it.

I’ll be benefiting from other people’s suffering Even more uncomfortable than watching Janeway force individuality on Seven is watching Janeway straight up ignore the DNR from Torres in “Nothing Human.” We sorta get that Seven can’t make her own decisions because she’s essentially a cult victim, but Torres is of sound mind when she refuses to accept surgery from Crell Moset and Janeway won’t hear it.

Sit in the corner and think about what you did We did a whole other blogpost about when it’s a good idea to break or uphold the Prime Directive after watching “Thirty Days.” Janeway refuses to let Tom save the Moneans and throws him in the brig for a month for trying to help them. It’s inconsistent to say the least when captains decide to hide behind the almighty Prime Directive, and Janeway is the biggest offender.

You’re malfunctioning, and you need to be repaired We praised Janeway a moment ago about how she respects the Doctor’s agency in “Latent Image,” but all through the series leading up to that, she struggles to think of him as a sapient person. It’s revealed in this episode that she’d ordered his memories of Jetal wiped as a way to deal with his trauma – something she’d surely never do to one of her solid crew members.

The Handbook on Personal Relationships is three centimeters thick Season 5 is well represented in this list, and you’d think that after that long, Janeway would have a modicum of respect for her forever ensign, Harry Kim. But in “The Disease,” she sets a double standard out of nowhere that crew members can’t bang aliens without permission. Hello? Janeway, everyone has already broken that, not just Harry, your special little boy.

Every captain gets a little torture as a treat! We get to watch Janeway go full Captain Ahab on the Equinox crew in “Equinox.” She hunts down Ransom like he’s her white whale. She tortures Lessing for information. And then she fires Chakotay for doing his job of being the most moral character in the room. It all feels out of character, but that’s kinda the point because this is what the Delta Quadrant pushes people to.

Delete the wife Speaking of seeming out of character. In “Fair Haven,” Janeway designs herself a holo-boyfriend and then falls head-over-heels in love with it. We fully support the captain going and getting holo-laid, especially since it’s unethical to bang her subordinates, but she should know better that this guy is just a sex toy and not a real person – she did program him that way!

Two Janeways are better than one There’s a whole new meaning to arguing with yourself in “Endgame.” Turns out, Admiral Janeway originally doesn’t want to wreck up the Borg as we gave her credit for above, but withholds her plan from her younger self and then tries to pull rank while everyone else is rallying to save millions by taking out the Borg. Ladies, can’t we just work together… to kill Borg!

—

And we’ve finally made it home to the Alpha Quadrant! That’s all from Janeway today, but we’ve got her whole crew to peruse through for the upcoming weeks, so make sure you’re venturing through Voyager with us here, follow along with our Enterprise watchthrough on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, sip some coffee with us over on Facebook and Twitter, and lift your mugs to a toast: to the journey!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

After all, does our quality of life really improve when our economy grows 2 or 3 per cent?

Yes. Yes, it does.

https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts

This is like “when did a monkey give birth to a human?” 2 or 3 percent does change our quality of life when that 2 or 3 percent accumulates over time. 200 years of 2 or 3 percent inverted the 90/10 split of extreme poverty vs not-extreme poverty, with the crossover from 50/50 only within the last 60-ish years.

Higher GDP correlates to:

https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth

Lower hunger.

Higher education.

Lower child-bearing burden of women (”brood sow” cycle).

Lower child mortality.

Lower child mortality again.

Higher Human Development Index.

Higher life expectancy.

Higher literacy.

Higher life satisfaction.

Lower - and usually safer - effort of production and growth.

These are actually good things.

One may argue about human mental health or more existential matters like sense of purpose or whatever in developed countries, but dying early, dead babies and starving kind of get in the way of contemplating your ennui or your spiritual fulfilment.

It’s true that GDP is not the same as prosperity, as that includes other factors. However, there is no society with a lower GDP that has higher prosperity or human development status. You can’t have provide a society that offers high human wellbeing without the resources to actually create that wellbeing.

Is there such thing as infinite wellbeing?

https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks

It’s also the case that those countries with higher GDP have the capacity to develop solutions to improve the lives of those living in countries with lower GDP, such as developing cures for easily treated causes of blindness or technologies to address climate change worldwide. Who else is even capable of doing it?

equity, social justice and redistribution

And there's the kicker. The “ew, GDP” thing is a fashionable meme among those who wish to redistribute stuff - specifically, other people’s stuff - but as history has shown again and again and again that without a strong GDP, there’s nothing to redistribute. Anyone who uses "equity" unironically is not an economist to be taken seriously; they're not talking economics, they're talking Marxian ideology. (Marx was astonishingly racist, BTW. As far as "social justice," you could harldly ask for a worse exemplar.)

Meanwhile, the growth in prosperity has demonstrably done far more than postmodern deconstruction. The average black American is middle-class. What better demonstration of social justice than the rise of American GDP over the last 200 years, and particularly the last 60 or so.

It should also be noted that it’s peculiarly prevalent among people in countries that have the wealth, luxury and time to go “ew, GDP”. Even within the higher GDP countries, it’s a view of the likewise privileged academic middle and upper-middle elites, not that of the working class, particularly those who have immigrated to pursue their own betterment from countries that did not offer that opportunity, or political/social climate to enable it. This is not the view of people who want and are working for, what the "ew” people take for granted and often spit on while enjoying its fruits.

That is, the only reason they can whine about it is because they benefit from it. And yet, aren’t especially motivated to give that up themselves.

[mariluphoto]

BREAKING

The US Navy says it doesn't have enough warships to start Operation Prosperity Guardian against Yemen. According to journalist John Konrad, the US is refusing to deploy 24 combat ships. Why? Because it's afraid of Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones.

----------------------------

Última Hora

La Armada de Estados Unidos dice que no tiene suficientes buques de guerra para iniciar la Operación Guardian de la Prosperidad contra Yemen. Según el periodista John Konrad, Estados Unidos se niega a desplegar 24 buques de combate. ¿Por qué? Porque tiene miedo de los misiles balísticos antibuque y los drones hutíes.

(via. IG: rosypirani)

[awesomecooperlove]

⚠️⚠️⚠️PART TWO⚠️⚠️⚠️

😍🥰😘

[foolsome-phantom]

Currently bouncing around the idea, “what and life and death was the same entity” and here’s a beta idea. Color scheme isn’t quite perfect yet and the outfit is obviously temporary but I’m getting there!

[wayti-blog]

Organization is impossible unless those who know the laws of harmony lay the foundation.

-Ancient Egyptian Proverbs

[magnusmodig]

||. finally going to bed thinking about lore - keeper asgardians . thinking about how intelligence and wisdom are one of their favored traits. thinking about how thor is the best of every asgardian ideal . thinking about how he is wise . thinking about his street - smarts . thinking about how he is also knowledgeable in legends , lore , and folktale. he is adaptable . he takes this knowledge , adapts to it , and crafts himself into something stronger. he is ever growing , and one of those ways is how he seeks out knowledge , and knows well to keep a sharp mind on the tales told by word of mouth or written on a page.