TheRealKuni

No no, perfection must be the enemy of good, otherwise how will anything ever improve? We have to let the worst people win so the world gets worse and then magically everything will be fixed by revolution.

Ask and ye shall receive!

Heh, broadly I agree. I think I know what people like about it: very familiar sound, chord progressions, themes. But to me it mostly sounds pretty much the same.

That said, some of what it finds its roots in is worth hearing. Bluegrass, southern rock, etc.

People need to step outside of their food comfort zone and try out different things.

I agree! My rule is, generally, if someone likes it there’s something about it worth liking. I can’t always find that thing (sometimes for genetic reasons, like cilantro and, I suspect, very hoppy beers), but I’m always willing to try.

This isn’t only true of food, by the way. Music is another place this is true. If you can find why people appreciate a type of music, you can usually learn to appreciate it even if you didn’t at first.

Yeah seriously, kiwi is fantastic, pizza is fantastic, kiwi on pizza? Probably fantastic. If it’s like pineapple it’ll caramelize when it cooks.

I couldn’t stop talking like James Spader for like a month after watching some of that show.

Evangelicals are “useful idiots.” They’ve been conditioned to believe anyone pro-choice can’t be trusted, and their media bubbles prevent them from hearing the worst that “their side” does. They’ve been trained to distrust mainstream media, and therefore they believe, truly, that the things right wing media tells them are accurate. That Antifa are terrorizing the country, that trans people are a danger to their children, that immigrants are criminals, etc. And because the building blocks have been placed carefully, even some of the more rational among them end up trapped in circular thinking preventing them from getting out.

As the saying goes, “There but for the grace of God go I.” I’m lucky to have gotten out of that bubble when I did.

The right identified an easily manipulated segment of the population and has spent decades preparing them for this.

But just as I tell Evangelicals: most people, everywhere, are people like everyone else. They just want to live their lives. Most people are not evil, they’re just people. When they elect evil leaders, it’s not (for most of them) because they’re evil. It’s because they’re ignorant and disinformed.

I agree, the first time I finally made it through was when I rented it on cassette tape from my local library back in high school.

I’ll have to look up the retelling!

I used the phrase “relatively recent” on purpose. It’s not a new idea, but it also isn’t ancient.

Yes! I really need to read The Silmarillion again.

To play devil’s advocate (or perhaps God’s advocate?) if you leave behind the relatively recent “God is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving” thing, then bad things happening would be part of even a benevolent deity’s plan. That is to say, bad things are going to happen, working to find a balance that works out well in the long run would be the goal.

“God works all things together for the good of those who love and trust in Him” is a commonly misunderstood doctrine. It isn’t that nothing will ever be bad. It’s that even bad things are included in the plan.

(The Mistborn series, especially the third book in the first era and the books in the second era, does a good job with this concept. Also the final book in The Wheel of Time touches on it during the confrontation with the Dark One.)

So theoretically, even a Christian who despises Trump could say Trump’s presidency is “part of God’s plan.”

(But I’m guessing that’s not what most people mean when they say something like this.)

Good thing Christian leaders have now figured out that empathy is bad.

For what it’s worth, the people saying empathy is bad are not a majority of Christian leaders, or even a significant number. As always, the loudest and most absurd voices are heard most.

Unfortunately, Christianity has been so thoroughly undermined by the political right that many Christians don’t know shit about their own religion, so they’re more likely to fall for those loud and absurd voices.

Steam Deck ftw

Exercise is a smaller part of the weight loss puzzle than people tend to think. 500+ extra calories is a lot of exercise. But it can make life better in general, because endorphins are awesome.

Weight loss starts in the kitchen. And the human body isn’t designed to lose fat. It’s designed to store it for when it can’t get any food. So it will fight you tooth and nail (or more accurately fat cell and gut bacteria) to cling to the fat.