.

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2021:

Yes but just think about what "annoying, overly privileged assholes" those who wrote the work of fiction we call the Bible, must have been, if they thought that inventing him was putting a good spin on it.

Want to be happier, lower your expectations apparently.

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2021:

Or plant a garden, its the only thing which always exceeds expectations.

Sir Rodney Biden

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2021:

Funny but perhaps not original. The film A Bridge Too Far. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pILlitb8Acc

Saw this beauty today when picking up my son from school (near Charlotte, North Carolina).

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2021:

Masks, social distancing, and hand cleaner before entering buildings, should always have been the normal anyway, not just a response to the C. virus, there are lots of other nasty things out there, like winter flu, we just had such an exceptional run of good luck for the last fifty years, it could not last.

Oh fucking awesome.. [futurism.]

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2021:

Was bound to happen. We got away with no masks, on hand cleaning, no social distancing for a long time. We were lucky, they should have been the normal, not just a special response to the C. virus.

by Mana Neyestani

Fernapple comments on Sep 9, 2021:

Sometimes you just have to be smug. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q

Yeah, how do you do it? I'm sure there are different ways to get to the same result.

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2021:

Sixty plus fifteen.

Here's a question...

Fernapple comments on Sep 8, 2021:

Wow that is so rude, and I thought you were a nice lady, you can get arrested in some countries for asking questions like that. And no, not at least with latex.

I was just contacted by someone who said that they were from Amazon and that someone had used my ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2021:

I get three or four calls a week about problems with my Amazon account. Which is very odd, because I don't have an Amazon account. Being in business, I also get about three invoices a month, from companies I have never heard of and certainly never traded with.

Question: why are health care workers even showing anti-vaxxers compassion?

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2021:

If it only goes to the deserving, then it is not compassion.

Does anyone do charity or community service with a group not affiliated with religious ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 7, 2021:

Yes, but I live in the UK where most of the charities are not religiously affiliated. It may be a lot tougher in the US to find such a thing, you have my sympathy, not being able to make the contribution you would like because you are excluded on the grounds of faith, must be hard. Have you considered starting your own ? Especially if you could find two or three other people in your area who are in the same place, at the very least you could open a small charity shop/stall and raise some funds, which you could spend locally or pass on to a larger national/international charity.

13. Not enough! 😆

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2021:

I try to avoid cities, but I have done four.

Look carefully!

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2021:

Give it the finger my son !

God always wants and even encourages wars- Christian wars,Muslim wars, Jewish wars, Hindu wars, even...

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2021:

People want wars, but they can rarely find good reasons, based on logic, reason, evidence etc. to support them. So they turn for support to the one source of authority and backing where logic, evidence and good arguments are not needed.

Religion adapts to the needs and desires of its adherents.

Fernapple comments on Sep 6, 2021:

Religion survives by providing an alternate voice to that of the state and other institutions. Where ideas are concerned its a market place, where every product has to find a place. And when the state, international culture, and most human institutions embrace human rights, where does religion go to continue to find an audience who need an alternative ?

It's quite easy and enjoyable to become an atheist in US,EU, or elsewhere but it's too much painful ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2021:

If people have no way to prove what they want you to think, they have to resort to repetition, so that even thinking about questioning becomes too much of a task to face. If you encounter heavy repetition therefore, it is reasonable to guess that you are being sold a lie.

A right-angled isosceles triangle is squared on the hypotenuse and on each of the other two sides.

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2021:

Since an isosceles triangle can only have a right angle at the angle opposite the hypotenuse, as all triangles, therefore all isosceles with a right angle must be of the 90, 45, 45, form, which means that all those having a 90 degree are the same triangle, therefore the relationships between the areas will always be the same. And since the 90, 45, 45, triangle gives areas of 1 squared plus 1 squared yielding an area on the hypotenuse of two. ( Hypotenuse equals square root of two. ) And since the area of the triangle itself equals one half of a rectangle with sides equal to 1 and is therefore = one half, and the areas on the sides equal 1+1+2=4 that means that the ratio is four to half, or eight to one. My only reason for voting one is that you did not define "larger" clearly. Sorry for writing it out in longhand without math notation, but my keyboard does not do it very well.

Innocents and happiness!

Fernapple comments on Sep 5, 2021:

"Been at the cat nip again have we, you naughty girl."

Certainly troubling, hope they are able to find some.

Fernapple comments on Sep 4, 2021:

The link could be improved perhaps.

"If we are a civilized society, founded on thoughtful intelligence, killing should almost never be a...

Fernapple comments on Sep 4, 2021:

No I don't agree, at least one sub group of killing, assisted dying is well worth supporting.

Get up early, no sleeping in….

Fernapple comments on Sep 4, 2021:

The hours of the day are just random labels applied to time periods, they have no biological meaning, and your internal clock is perfectly adjustable. What I suspect that the study, if valid, really found was that there is an effect on health caused by the lifestyle choices that typically go with late rising, such as taking little exercise and excessive drinking.

Regarding abortion: This is my secret story.

Fernapple comments on Sep 3, 2021:

It is brave of you to share your personal pain so openly. It was not a fun read, but I did commit to reading it all though. Sadly though I think that any of the people who really need to read it, and who would benefit from reading it, simply won't be reading it. There is a wide communication gap, I am sorry to say. People in some cultures, are, and especially, were, trained to believe that being unkind was the best response to many situations. My own wife found herself in a very similar situation as a young woman, many years before we met, when she was deserted while pregnant, and sadly it was her own mother who beat her very severely.

Anti-vaxxers storm the wrong BBC building in botched U.K. protest [globalnews.ca]

Fernapple comments on Sep 3, 2021:

So anti-vax protesters can't do effective research. Now that is an amazing new development !

JC said it best:

Fernapple comments on Sep 3, 2021:

You are and you have, only that with which you can swim ashore from a shipwreck with. Anon.

Flight story:

Fernapple comments on Sep 3, 2021:

You have to be wary of aliens in UFOs doing research into human toilet habits. They sometimes hover behind aircraft to collect samples, but it is OK if you have taken your horse wormer as you should, because that messes with their readings, then they can't track you home.

Hi there! This is my first post.

Fernapple comments on Sep 3, 2021:

Hello and welcome. Nice quote.

I actually feel that I’ve become a more loving person since I deconverted from Christianity.

Fernapple comments on Sep 2, 2021:

Well done, though it is not all that unique, happens to nearly all who leave the church.

From time to time, I’ll see headlines that read something like "When you die you realize what’s ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 2, 2021:

Youth is wasted on the young, who have not the wisdom to use well it or know its power and value, and lost to the old who do.

THE FLAWED EPISTEMOLOGY It seems an obvious hypocrisy to me that there are pundits who can't ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 2, 2021:

Sadly it is a feed back loop, because of course a lot of those "powerful and influential people" got to be that way by being successful at pedaling lies. If more people fall for your tricks, then the more successful you become, and if those people equate worldly success with morality and truth, then the more they are likely to believe you, which breeds more success, which makes you more credible in more peoples eyes, and so on. Where rationalists, and professions like scientists, who work long and hard to extract every small grain of truth, and then try to show a healthy level of sceptical judgment to even their best works, are never going to sell many delusions for much profit.

i really am surprised how satisfying it can be to block persistent stupidity.

Fernapple comments on Sep 2, 2021:

I will not do that, because I love to push them, just to see how silly I can get them to be. ( Its a poor sport I know, but I live alone and get bored sometimes. ) But having said that, it does do good to make nonsense plain to more moderate people by pushing it to expose its absurd foundations. So not without serious intent, though often I suspect that most people will not bother to read the often long debates I get into over silly things.

You know, laughing at yourself can improve your heath.

Fernapple comments on Sep 2, 2021:

If food is a marketable commodity, then like everything else, the more you can sell, of the poorest quality, with the least regulation, to the greatest number of people, with the greatest number truly addicted, then the more money you make. At the end of the day therefore obesity is a very successful product.

You know, laughing at yourself can improve your heath.

Fernapple comments on Sep 2, 2021:

Because 58% are slim. ( Funny question ! )

Have you put your happiness beyond your cognitive horizon?

Fernapple comments on Sep 2, 2021:

Sorry the link seems not to work.

Isabel Codrington (British 1874-1943) Evening 1925

Fernapple comments on Sep 2, 2021:

Very Caravaggio, with a modern twist.

After a COVID skeptic falls to the disease, people ask an awkward question: Should we care?

Fernapple comments on Sep 1, 2021:

You have to remember that however good it is, to always find some empathy for those who suffer and die. And it is of course. Yet in the end, every loud and proud anti-vaxer is doing their best to, and is probably successful in, persuading or forcing many others to imitate them. That at least makes them in effect, guilty of manslaughter, probably, in most cases, multiple counts, and if they are not truly convinced anti-vaxers themselves, but are faking it for power or profit, then that becomes effective murder. It would never "stick" as they say, in a court of law, and they are therefore only moral not a legal crimes, but it does, make what sometimes happens, natural justice, so that there is no need to fell any guilt if we do not in fact feel sympathy.

Enjoy.

Fernapple comments on Sep 1, 2021:

I am old enough to remember the days before double glazing. When you would wake u in the morning to find that your breath in the night had made "frost ferns" on the inside of your window. Something like "dark skies" that todays children hardly ever get to see.

The Myth of Religious Violence .

Fernapple comments on Sep 1, 2021:

No war was ever started for a single simple reason. You can therefore put any spin on the origins of collective violence you like, from economics, religion, violent instinct, personal ambition, race, the nature of politics, class conflict or the need to redirect it, and many more including, the exclusion of any of the above. It is messy indeed, and perhaps the best case is to treat each conflict as an individual case, and disentangle its strands from that point. People like simple answers because that is easy, and people are lazy, but understanding is hard. And it is very true that a lot of what is seen in the West as Islamic imperialist ambition, is actually just a defensive attempt to reverse the attempts by the West to impose western values at gun point. Which never works.

HONG KONG BILLIONAIRE DOUBLES REWARD FOR ANY MAN WHO CAN MAKE LESBIAN DAUGHTER STRAIGHT | The ...

Fernapple comments on Sep 1, 2021:

What planet do you live on , where you have not heard of a.i. and in-vitro ?

Nothing can dim the light which shines from within. - Maya Angelou

Fernapple comments on Sep 1, 2021:

No. Eventually the battery runs out, and you think. Why did I ever think that a torch would make a good suppository anyway, and I don't really need extra light to sit down.

"You are not an individual, when living by or under the terms of someone else.

Fernapple comments on Sep 1, 2021:

No I don't agree with that. We all are part of society, ( Indeed you could say that if we are not, then we do not really exist.) and as part of society we all live by the terms of many other people. A knot in a web is still and individual knot, and contributes to the strength of the whole because of it individuality.

“I’m completely in favour of the separation of Church and State….

Fernapple comments on Aug 31, 2021:

Not sure. In most of Europe where there is a state church, religion dies fast, and at the very least becomes only a token gesture. In the US where the churches are free they are still a major force. The church thrives by giving people an alternate voice to the state, when it is part of the state, it is tainted by the crimes of the state, strangled by state red tape, can not offer anything alternate, and is seen as a voice for the establishment, pulling it away from the people.

I'm not sure whether or not this is for real, but just going by my own age and condition, I'm buying...

Fernapple comments on Aug 31, 2021:

They are big generalized groups though.

'OK millennial': Don't blame the boomers for decline of religion in America

Fernapple comments on Aug 31, 2021:

A regular in the Christian press, blame. They will look of course for anywhere to place the blame, as long as it is not within their perfect religion.

A few minutes ago, here at work, a gorgeous blondie arrived, wearing a company hi-viz vest, asking ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 30, 2021:

Why, in the UK the churches have been almost completely behind the vax program. Why should it have anything to do with religion anyway, except that, as major social institutions you would expect the churches to be behind any major social project, for the peoples benefit, including their members. You Americans are really weird.

Maybe Mary and Jesus were sharks?

Fernapple comments on Aug 29, 2021:

If he was the result of an unfertilized egg, yet male, perhaps he was a honey bee. That is not a LOL joke, more of a drone.

Delta Airlines really doesn’t want to call the delta variant the ‘delta variant’ ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 29, 2021:

I feel more sorry for Corrona beer.

Captain Godbotherer Kent Hovid is in the crap again Biblically sanctioned wife beating does not ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 29, 2021:

Yes but the faithful will say. "He is a Christian. Therefore we must forgive him, and remember a sinner returned to the fold, is our most precious gift. Unlike the evil unbelievers, who think that you should be judged by what you really do, not by your praising of the lord."

How many "maybe's, perhaps's and unknowns" are contained in this article?

Fernapple comments on Aug 29, 2021:

I have no difficulty stating that with a straight face. Its called probabilities. It is a branch of math. Really Powder, I fully respect anyones right to refuse any medical treatment, and don't think anyone should be forced to take anything if they don't want. But supporting your choice and trying to justify it repeatedly, with misunderstood, deliberately misunderstood, misquoted or badly mangled maths and science, factoids, often not even relevant to the issues. Is just silly, boring and makes you look silly and boring as well, while doing nothing to improve the case. Quite the contrary, it just makes the argument you wish to support look silly, by association. If you really struggle with things like basic maths, there are remedial adult education courses available in most countries.

We're losing our religion...but where do we go from here? - The Big Smoke

Fernapple comments on Aug 29, 2021:

I agree with you, and would add that, the article also ignores the almost certain direction of religion in the future. As and intellectual method for understanding the world, religion was superseded twenty five centuries or so ago. When people first noticed it had failed to provide a true description of the world, and they therefore created, first philosophy and then natural philosophy ( a.k.a. science) to address the failings of unregulated culture ( a.k.a. religion). At that point religion should have died, but it did not, it survived by offering something else, by becoming an alternate voice to the state and the mainstream, especially for those excluded by the state and other secular institutions like medicine and property. As for example, in the Roman world, Christianity prospered by opposing capitalism and fascism, as the dominant world and state views. Then in the Dark Ages by offering an alternative set of humane and altruistic ideals, to oppose violent brutality as the main human cultural norm of the state. But where does religion go then in the twenty first century, an age when most developed states have embraced humanitarian views and human rights as their flagship ideals. It can only do what it always has, and become the voice of the excluded, which now means, and increasingly means, becoming the institution of the fascist, the racist, the sexist, the violent bully, the fraudulent and the anti-socially. Watch this space, if you think religion is bad now, it will get a lot worse.

We are a collection of atheists, agnostics and free thinkers many of us are humanitarian and pursue ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 29, 2021:

I do limit my meat intake in many ways. But if you are concerned about animal suffering, then the best way to prevent that would be to create and increase a demand for meat produced to high animal welfare standards. A lot of farmed meat is produced with great cruelty, but demanding high quality animal care in the meat you eat, would be a far better way to reform that, than total veganism. Most wild animals also live short lives of great suffering, so that turning over the land and other resources used to farm meat back to nature, would hardly be a reduction in suffering either. Perhaps the most happy and suffering free creatures, are those who are regularly hunted, since ( some ) human hunters, are the only predators who actually take care to kill quickly without suffering, and regular culling cuts down on the population pressures which cause the famine, disease, high infant mortality and other things which are the main source of misery in wild creatures. There is a good case therefore to be made for a, wild game and roadkill only, diet.

I saw you laughing...

Fernapple comments on Aug 29, 2021:

I will be commenting telepathically today. So if you get a pain in the bum, that was me.

An open question to my Christian friends. Did Jesus have a penis?

Fernapple comments on Aug 28, 2021:

If he was not interested in sex, why did he keep a harem of thirteen, and tell them to abandon their families and love only him. Obvious controlling narcissist sexual addict.

"Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.

Fernapple comments on Aug 28, 2021:

Now that is having a dream.

My daughter has a booth selling her soaps at a local craft fair, and wanted me to whip up a bunch of...

Fernapple comments on Aug 27, 2021:

I often like to mix an organic oil such as linseed, or teak, etc. with varnish say 60% to 40%. it soaks in well and does not give a high gloss finish but is very waterproof after a couple of coats. Takes a day or two to dry.

Outside my bedroom window I have put up a bird feeder.

Fernapple comments on Aug 26, 2021:

Photo would be nice ?

‘World’s Worst Invasive Weed’ Sold at Many U.

Fernapple comments on Aug 26, 2021:

Does not happen so much in the UK. Though in the past we introduced Himalayan Balsam and Japanes Knot Weed, which are still big problems, and now illegal. While the Romans left us Ground Elder which is a perfect pain, and I do occasionally get asked if I stock the quite illegal, though native, Bracken. Do you have problems with these in the States ?

Saturday night 🌙 shots

Fernapple comments on Aug 26, 2021:

Very good, the moon is a very hard subject to get right.

Socrates.

Fernapple comments on Aug 25, 2021:

The Mafia. "Sometimes we have to do nasty things which we don't like to people, because they don't show us d' respect." "We don't like it, do we Ronald ? But we have to be doing it to you, because ." We do be doing what we do do be doing Ron.

OK people, this really illustrates my problem re definitions.

Fernapple comments on Aug 25, 2021:

Sadly the fallacy of the "argument from ignorance", does not work even in the twenty first century and on the web, the world may be moving in that direction, but we are not there yet. And if you do not know about the definition of the "argument from ignorance" look it up.

Today's hike. A cathedral of tall trees.

Fernapple comments on Aug 25, 2021:

Interesting, but there do not seem to be any photos ?

Now that I’ve reached level 10 do I resign and hand back my membership?

Fernapple comments on Aug 25, 2021:

Well done. There should be some recognition of a major contribution, if its only ten after your name.

Kids should not have to worry about that issue.

Fernapple comments on Aug 25, 2021:

Smart kid.

Research Shows a Rise in the Public Acceptance of Evolution Over the Last Decade | Hemant Mehta | ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 24, 2021:

Look its simple. Humans evolved from simpler more basic life forms, and creationists did not. Simple, can't see the problem.

Well folks it's been pretty well confirmed that I will be dying of cancer is spread now from my ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 24, 2021:

You too will be sadly missed. Do try to make the most of the time that remains. Many of us here I am sure will be thinking of you.

According to Urban Dictionary: Religionist An arrogant, prideful, egoistic, religious person ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 24, 2021:

Like you, I come from the UK, and they tend not to be visible on the streets here, ( like they are in some counties I hear, ) it is true. But I came through the English education system, which was very C. of E. in those days, still may be so, and I met a couple of truly evil ones there. I have also, had the misfortune to have been in a business which often deals with public institutions, including the church, and have met several that way.

Did you ever wonder where the imagination came from for the Alice in Wonderland book?

Fernapple comments on Aug 24, 2021:

A lot of it, is a satyr on mathematics. The rev. Dodgson ( L. Carrol ) was a prof. of maths, but a conservative who did not like the so called "new" maths of his day.

“The city Is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo”………………Desmond Morris.

Fernapple comments on Aug 24, 2021:

No. Most zoos are well regulated. LOL

Didn't know this

Fernapple comments on Aug 24, 2021:

In other words all of them.

How about you, do you wear a mask? Why or why not?

Fernapple comments on Aug 24, 2021:

In the UK, the government published figures, which are very doubtful and a very rough approximation, saying that. If when you meet someone, one of you wears a mask it reduces the chances of infection by 40% and if both of you are wearing a mask by 70%. The figures are very rough and questionable , far too exact to be literally true. But most people opted to wear a mask, for the simple reason that in the UK we do not trust our government, when we have reason to suspect they have a hidden agenda, but we tend to trust them when there is no reason not to, and no reason to believe they could profit by what they say. Simple. Why do you American seem to struggle with such simple stuff ?

It is foul out there this morning, but never the less I shall still be wandering out there in my ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 24, 2021:

Well done. Enjoy the wild weather, nature has many expressions, it is best if you enjoy them all. Personally I like rain a lot, sometimes I just like to get an umbrella and stand outside just to watch it. Sunshine is great, but just as a friends tears are as precious as their smiles, so is the storm in its wild fury just as precious as the warm sun. Only the stubbornest will, The greatest love can give. The very darkest night, The starlight sharply bright. Give all your lazy summers, The making of the hay. For the pure and cut-glass light, Of one bright, winters day.

"Why are we in this world?

Fernapple comments on Aug 24, 2021:

"Why questions have no meaning." Richard Feynman.

We need to believe in ourselves ❤️❤️🙏🏻🙏🏻

Fernapple comments on Aug 23, 2021:

More valuable.

"Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 23, 2021:

Something else that she was sadly wrong about, there are numerous examples of wild animals with healed leg fractures. And also examples of social animals especially dogs, elephants, monkeys and apes, where injured animals survived because other group members cared for and fed them. That comes long before civilization. The actual Greek meaning of the word, was originally just, city living.

I might show facts as plain as day: but, since your eyes are blind, you'd say, 'Where?

Fernapple comments on Aug 23, 2021:

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is NOT king.

You know.

Fernapple comments on Aug 23, 2021:

I agree with you totally about the vax argument, but I think you miss the point if you think that this site is especially to blame. The site just reflects the attitudes of the larger society as a whole, and indeed I would say that if anything, the debate on this site is more civil than the wider debate beyond. It is true that there are perhaps some on here who would do well to hear your words, but I think that for the most part you are preaching to the converted, try not to judge the site by its lowest but loudest ten percent, however annoying they are.

I’m all for ending the war, but sure as fuck had to be a better way to go about it.....👀

Fernapple comments on Aug 23, 2021:

A war has to end with a ( long ) consolidate and rebuild stage, pulling out early is not even a war, it is just doing a lot of killing and maiming to no point, making everyone a lot angrier and leaving behind a raging state of chaos.

Funny moment of confusion

Fernapple comments on Aug 23, 2021:

Hello and welcome, enjoy the site. ( 64M, I think, though I don't remember that good these days. )

WTF are purple carrots and where did they come from?

Fernapple comments on Aug 23, 2021:

I am told that wild carrots are poisonous, and that some brave person long ago, must have found a rare genetic mutation, which was not, and had the foresight and courage to eat and grow it.

Some folks out there keep searching that elusive fountain of youth.

Fernapple comments on Aug 22, 2021:

Youth is wasted on the young, who can not understand its worth, and lost to the wise, who do know.

Apparently the Mayan people gave themselves and others alchohol enemas, sometimes laced with drugs ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 22, 2021:

Saturday night on my local high street.

From a FB post by my sister: "I’ve been fighting stage 4 breast cancer for 8 years plus I’ve ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 21, 2021:

In the UK, where we are a little further down the line with vaccine, they just released a stat that 90% of the people now in intensive care with covid, are now vaccine avoiders.

cheetah and cubs

Fernapple comments on Aug 21, 2021:

Wow, that is a big litter, she will really struggle to raise that many.

So here's a part of the big bang idea that just never worked for me.

Fernapple comments on Aug 21, 2021:

No it is a lot more weird than that. A lot of cosmologists think that there is no center, and every observer creates their own center. That if you go in a straight line for long enough you will in the end returning to where you started, because space is curved. (Therefore what we think is straight is a curve. ) That there was no time before the big bang, because the big bang made time as well as space, and that in fact time and space may be the same thing. On the other hand there are cosmologists who have different ideas.

“The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 20, 2021:

Being uneducated often results in poor health and safety choices, which means that it is, for a lot of people, especially later in life, the exact same thing as being dead.

Looking at pictures of Afghanistan in the 60's is very disheartening.

Fernapple comments on Aug 20, 2021:

Marx dreamed of a world where the workers in western capitalist economies, would start a revolution and turn to communism, but that never happened. Nearly all of the revolutions which issued and ended in communism, started in feudal or near feudal societies, mostly based on rural peasant economics, such as Tsarist Russia and Eastern Asia. And the step is clearly only a small one, changing the hierarchical structure of feudalism, for the hierarchical structure of a one party state and a command economy, not too big a leap for a society in one go. If you turn to socialism in a reasonably democratic way, from an even half way successful economy, you usually turn to a moderate, tolerant, and culturally diverse form of democratic socialism. Hard one track communism only results from hard won, bitter and violent revolution, and to start that sort of revolution, you require, that people should be nearly starving. People will only face the fire power of the state, in violent uprising, if the choice is a truly stark one, between death for you by bullet, and death for both you and your children by starvation. The western semi-democratic capitalist states long ago, realized that the trick to managing social injustice and maintaining the divide, between the rich exploiters and the useful poor, was to give the poor just enough to keep them just above actual starvation. So that working harder for the rich and powerful to win a slightly larger share of the hand outs, would aways seem a better way to escape poverty, than charging into the throats of machine guns. And thus a fairly large degree of social injustice, in which those who work to produce the wealth, receive far less than their earned share of it, can be maintained forever, because the cost of change in the short term is too great whatever the long term benefits. The only way to change that, is to raise aspirations by the slow drip, drip, drip, of education and the constant democratic pressure which results, pushing society ever towards more social justice by democratic means. Which is why there is such a strong anti-education movement, pressed forward on behalf of the right wing rich elite, by those who are fooled into thinking that education is main feature of the rich exploiters, and that therefore rejecting education is equal to rejecting the rich exploiters. This is a very good trick to fool people, if you can get away with it, and it certainly does seem to work.

Superb dancing.

Fernapple comments on Aug 20, 2021:

Yes but you have to be really fit for that, have you got anything for us old folk ? LOL

And if the Taliban is not your cup of tea I am sure they will find someone to your liking soon.

Fernapple comments on Aug 19, 2021:

Or Russia or the UK, or the EU or Pakistan, or Saudi, the Taliban have pretty much played everyone for fools.

“They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger…they are driven by ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 19, 2021:

I always though that Tacitus, at least in this sense, was a historian, and that he was supposedly quoting Carraticus, the British king, about the Romans ?

It's all your fault...

Fernapple comments on Aug 19, 2021:

"Ill met by moonlight." Time for bed.

"Never collect inanimate objects.

Fernapple comments on Aug 19, 2021:

"Oh my precious." Gollum.

Single use plastics

Fernapple comments on Aug 18, 2021:

Telling it like it is.

A lot of Trump supporters are treating themselves with an antiworming medicine that has not been ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 18, 2021:

The article points out that humans, and horses, are very different and that a medicine that works with one may not work with the other. It however fails to point out, that parasites and viruses, are also very different, and that a medicine that works against one, may not work against the other, either. Is there such a thing as double stupid I wonder ? For Pete's sake you Americans !! What has happened to your education system, even a ten year old in the UK could tell you the difference ?

HELL EXPLAINED The following is an actual question given on a University of Arizona chemistry mid ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 18, 2021:

Replacing his imaginary friend god, with his imaginary friend Teresa ? ( But anyway I still prefer Teresa, imaginary or not. )

Perspective

Fernapple comments on Aug 18, 2021:

To quote waitingforgodo below. "To achieve the stated aim is success." But I think that it is true that there are some aims which are better than others. Therefore having better aims may be regarded itself as a form of success, which raises some successes above others. At one end of the scale. If my aim is, to beat my wife without getting arrested, then if I can stop her phoning the police, I am successful. At the other end, if my aim is to help cure world hunger, and I succeed in finding a new crop that will grow in deserts, then I am successful. Getting enough personal wealth to live a happy healthy life, is perhaps somewhere in the middle. But the big point about that is, that almost all studies made of the subject show that very little wealth is actually required for that. So that getting wealth beyond that, just for it own sake, and because I have not the thought and imagination to think of anything better to do with my limited time on earth, falls much further down the scale.

Serbian hermit discovers there is a pandemic, gets COVID-19 vaccine [newseu.cgtn.com]

Fernapple comments on Aug 18, 2021:

Well done him. Just because you want to join in with some things that society does, because they are sensible and logical, it does not make you an unthinking conformist.

This is a photo my father took 78 years ago of my first two pets.

Fernapple comments on Aug 18, 2021:

Beautiful dogs resting in the sun are a timeless joy. People look for the, so called, secret of happiness in all sorts of, religion, philosophy, mindfulness, etc. but dogs and sunshine do it for me.

Thanks to Google lens I was able to identify the new aquatic weed I found down by the lake.

Fernapple comments on Aug 18, 2021:

Sagittaria ?

Epistemology of Philosophy Nietzsche opines that the society is in constant change.

Fernapple comments on Aug 17, 2021:

Hello and welcome. Perhaps though it would be better to repost this in a different format, since the text is unreadable as it is. And it does sound interesting. One trick that I find works well for me, is to paste the text into a basic text editor, like Notepad, and if it looks OK there, then paste it to the site.

“What if a regressive trait lurked in “the good man,” likewise a danger, an enticement, a ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 17, 2021:

Yes that is true, though a lot depends on how you define "good man ".

Republicons Never Said One Word, For 4 Years, About Trump Selling Billons In ...

Fernapple comments on Aug 17, 2021:

Bring on renewable energy, make oil cheap and hard to sell. Just saying.