True! It’s just another of the many ways that evil is counterproductive to its own interests.
Helping groups of humans that bigots don’t like would literally result in less humans that bigots don’t like in the world.
But they can’t help the wrong humans! Oh no! They have to hurt those humans! And so they leave those humans in the socioeconomic conditions that maintain exponential population growth indefinitely
In a broad sense this is inaccurate - war has been around as long as humans, and yet we were on an exponential population growth curve until the demographic transitions started.
Over the last century we as a species have significantly reduced child mortality, improved education, infrastructure, overall quality of life, and established reproductive health initiatives that supply condoms and sex education!
These advancements cause the local mortality rate to plummet. Then the following generation gets to reproductive age but has much less offspring, and the reproductive rate falls farther than the mortality rate did.
This is called the “demographic transition” and has occurred across dramatically different cultures, environments, and economies.
This is not universal or inevitable across the globe but the impact is so significant that global population as a whole is currently heading towards a plateau!
Therefore condoms, reproductive healthcare, and distributed economic growth are more effective at reducing population growth than bombs and bullets.
Developing a nation is literally more cost-efficient than destroying it. For the species. Not for the people selling the bombs.
It could be more complex than that. It could be an average number of vampires preying on an evolutionary disadvantage - hospitality. Vampires cannot cross a threshold uninvited, but Italians are famous for welcoming everyone and their mothers to dinner. It was a recipe for disaster until they found the holy bulb.
Ever wonder why Italy has crosses in every home? Why the Vatican formed there? Could it have been a long and storied history of the rise and fall of romans and religions? No. Vampires.
It was more obvious when they all had big bellies, but have you ever noticed that the Pope sitting in his white outfit and hat looks like unpeeled garlic?
Personally, I think both theories can be true. It is hard to corroborate dates for our records. Immortal bodies that burn away in sunlight pose some archaeological challenges.
But consider this:
What if Italy had a significantly higher number of vampires than normal? Before they learned the secrets of Allium, and faith, and a big wooden spoon always close at hand.
Only one grandmother remembers the past. Cross on the mantel. Big wooden spoon. Garlic in the sauce. One big dinner, every week. Everyone’s invited.
Coming soon to a theater near you:
Nonna: No Blood Before Supper
Please don’t feel that the best thing you can do is shut up! You deserve a voice in the matter, even if it is much harder for you to use it the way others can use theirs.
Besides, not everyone can always be or even needs to always be the person who spreads the message. We need people to help figure out what the problems and solutions are just as much as we need people to share those problems and solutions with the world.
It is usually a necessary evil that we have marketers to sell the things that wouldn’t exist without the engineers to produce them.
If the user was going to message someone off platform they’d still be sending them an unencrypted message anyways if they have to switch apps to SMS.
It sounds like they don’t want to take responsibility for that user choice or be connected to anything that happens because of that choice.
It would still be an insecure choice, even with obvious UX distinctions. It would only be a matter of time before headlines muddy the waters with “intercepted Signal messages reveal…” or “Judge rules in favor of subpeona for unencrypted Signal messages…”
Then you’re not actually advocating for change. If you have no interest in changing minds then you have no interest in any meaningful difference in the future. Besides, the consent has been manufactured and the horses have been lead to a poisoned pool.
The apathetic dismissal of people as helpless - the belief that they are, individually and as a whole, incapable of change or redemption or worse, unworthy of it - is a small but meaningful part of the machine that has altered reality in front of our very eyes.
We appear to be in one of many pivotal moments in history, where economics and politics and technology all tip the dominoes that are human lives toward an entirely new and irreversible state.
Hard times tend to meet demagogues and easy answers, but they also tend to force people to come together and face hard truths. I’m not saying you personally can save or change them all - perhaps not even save any. But there are plenty of good, ignorant people that will have opportunities to learn some terrible lessons very soon.
Correct! One of the most important tools we need to obtain, the most important weapon we need to arm yourself, isn’t obvious, or simple, or easy.
It’s Messaging.
Want to spend your time bitter? Apathetic? “I-told-you-so”?
I don’t blame you.
But you’re not actually working towards a solution. If all you have to say is “I told you so,” or “what’s the point?” or “everything’s fucked” - I get it. But you’re not contributing to the conversation any more than the people in this comic have been for the last how many years. You’re not helping any more than they were.
We need messaging. We need to be willing to fight these battles. Not fighting the embittered trolls, but spreading truth. Sharing solutions. Making plans. Fighting this. Apathy. Pointlessness. Accelerationism.
Spread free platforms. Spread free ideas. Have meaningful conversations with your friends and families and coworkers. Try again, and keep trying. In little steps, in great acts. Don’t let the shock paralyze you, the size overwhelm you. Don’t get washed away by the flood of hate. This is the second best time to act. Your opportunities are growing by the minute.
Life is about to get very, very hard for many people. Many of the obvious targets will suffer, but it’s pretty clear that nobody is “safe”. Even the poster boys are under threat of retribution for stepping out of line. And everyone, everyone is facing the inevitable economic downturn that is speeding toward us.
But hardship shakes beliefs. It changes minds. Things will become personal for even the most detached, apathetic, or privileged. And when politics become personal all bets are off.
But don’t bother if you’re not going to try. Really, really try. Think about yourself, and the world, and the person you’re talking to, and really try to make them see.
Take - and make - your opportunities to change minds. Don’t be afraid, but be careful. Don’t be polite for the sake of politeness, but be kind, be considerate, even be gentle when you think it will help, but don’t be polite.
Whatever they can say to you can’t compare to what is being done to you or about to be done to everybody. Whatever they say can’t be worse than their complacency.
Your one and only goal: stay on message. This is bad and it needs to stop. Here is how it affects you. Here is how it affects your family. Here is how things are going wrong, and why.
More than anything else, we need each other. We need solidarity, community. We need to genuinely start asking ourselves: how do we win? And then make the answer happen.
We kneel beneath the weight of wealth and tradition and fear. But despite the growth of AI, at the end of the day the people we kneel beneath are people. Humans decide what happens next. They are human. We are all human. We can decide what happens next.
Yes.
Profess: 1) To affirm openly; declare or claim. 2) To make a pretense of; pretend.
If one makes a pretense of holding beliefs, feelings, or values that one does not hold, one is a hypocrite.
Whether anyone else understands the pretenses of the hypocrite or not does not change the definitions of the words.
Hypocrisy: The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess
Having no values or beliefs and being self-consistent with ulterior personal values does not change the definition of the word.
If one professes beliefs, feelings, or values that one does not possess, one is a hypocrite.
Headline from fox news: “Oliver North: Israel will have to put people on the ground and it will be bloody”
Reality is truly stranger than fiction. If any writer continued to use a character like him for so long in such obvious ways without suffering any consequences, readers’ suspension of disbelief would be shattered.
He was there for Iran-Contra. He is still here for Israel-Hamas. The exact same playbook. Place political gain over national interest. Put lives needlessly in danger and extend suffering for an easy win.
Hypocrisy: The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
Holding a position when politically convenient and reversing your stance on that position due to political convenience is hypocrisy. It may be typical and expected, but it’s still hypocrisy.
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Not enough attention is given to the literal arms race we find ourselves in. Most big tech buzz is all “yay innovation!” Or “oh no, jobs!”
Don’t get me wrong, the impact AI will have on pretty much every industry shouldn’t be underestimated, and people are and will lose their jobs.
But information is power. Sun Tzu knew this a long time ago. The AI arms race won’t just change job markets - it will change global markets, public opinion, warfare, everything.
The ability to mass produce seemingly reliable information in moments - and the consequent inability to trust or source information in a world flooded by it…
I can’t find the words to express how dangerous it is. The long-term consequences are going to be on par with - and terribly codependent with - the consequences of the industrial revolution.