Apparition of Jack

@Leo Gura I can’t really express my sentiments towards your ideas beyond something along the line of “less head, more heart.” It’s good to be able to analyse societies from the depths of Tier-2 thinking but at some point you’ve just gotta move beyond that and say we’re all just people and we all just need kindness, right?

What do you call saying a CEO’s life is worth more than a homeless persons, if not financial utilitarianism?

People have innate value, Leo. Even a blind homeless man in a wheelchair. You can’t put a monetary value on human life.

That billionaire’s name? Albert Einstein.

Being homeless sounds like quite the challenge. All the more reason to be kind to people.

Having the United States annex a sovereign nation with a completely different political culture will surely lower the price of eggs!

Ask Elon Musk if he’s willing to abandon the billions of dollars of government subsidies he gets in the name of “gutting waste.”

The reason the world has experienced unprecedented levels of peace, trade and prosperity since WW2 is because of the rules-based international order that was established after it. Wars are extremely destructive to economies, so it’s in everyone’s best interest to encourage a world where conflicts are resolved diplomatically, not militarily. If every country that had a gripe with another country (as Russia does with Ukraine) felt it could declare war, the world would become a far more chaotic, dangerous and impoverished place overnight. Russia broke those rules. Russia needs to be resisted because it can’t be allowed to show the world that settling minor diplomatic disputes with force is acceptable anymore. If Russia gets what it wants from Ukraine, what’s stopping China from invading Taiwan? Or North Korea invading South Korea? Or hell, even something like Ireland invading the UK? Borders and modern states exist for a reason. Sovereignty has to be respected least we all turn into colonial warmongers again. Just letting Russia roll over Ukraine because of some fake concern for Ukrainian civilians is foolhardy. Oh yeah, and if Russia is so “desperate for peace” as they claim, they could just… stop the war and go home. They’re the aggressors; without them, there is no more violence. But they won’t, because they’re led by a madman with delusions of grandeur.

After I’ve finally had my two coffees in the morning

@gettoefl Pain is guaranteed to all of us. No need to increase it unnecessarily.

This is why I’m a huge proponent of building a society that makes sure everyone’s basic needs are met unconditionally, so that the basic tension between survival vs truth-seeking isn’t there. Of course, not everyone would immediately go and become devout philosophers if suddenly people weren’t scrambling just to make sure they had shelter and healthcare, but at the same time I do think a lot of people would genuinely pursue more advanced, higher-consciousness states of living if they had the material opportunity. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and all that. Hard to reach enlightenment when you’re struggling to feed yourself.

@Leo Gura Other than a bag of cocaine, probably

Surely this will lower the price of eggs!

Elon Musk’s “DOGE” stooges trying to access the information of federal employees and locking them out of the system when they protest. Scary stuff.

@Basman My favourite theory for why Trump wants Greenland so bad is because it looks big on Mercator maps. The guy is dumb enough to make that a key motivation lol