I lean in favor of rebirth, but via naturalistic processes rather than projections of our own moral wants. I don’t need a supernatural explanation to recognize that whatever is most irreducibly “me” was born at least once. Why would I assume it would only be once?

If we follow from that premise, we can also chart a kind of probabilistic, umm, not karma but something not far off: If we’re reborn after death, how do we determine what kind of life our next one is going to be? Pretty obvious actually, just look at what kind of life everyone has already. If, for example, only 1% of humans have an especially good life, it looks like there’s a a really slim chance any one of us is going to be the one who gets to have that kind of life.

By contrast, 99% of humans are living in increasingly bad conditions, lower wages, higher prices and virtually every economic card stacked against us, as well as *gestures broadly*. It’s remarkably more likely that anyone would be reborn as a 99 percenter.

But why should we assume that we would only ever be reborn as a human? The total human population right now is 8.2 billion. There are estimated to be about 20 quadrillion ants in the world. And more than 44 billion animals have been bred into existence and slaughtered for food this year alone. Are you more likely to be reborn a human, an ant, or someone else’s property?

There’s a consequence here if rebirth is the law of the land. It would mean that death is not an escape after all. The only way to give yourself your best chance of a better next life would be to put in effort to make the world better for everyone. There is no way out, only through.

The “what about plants” argument is such a thoroughly debunked joke argument that it’s amazing anyone would continue to make it. Eating animals and their secretions requires harming significantly more plants than eating the plants directly because animals need to be fed too, and animals as food is by far the least efficient and most environmentally destructive way to have a food system.

Context matters. In the ancient world starvation was a constant threat, so a source of concentrated calories like honey could in some cases be a matter of life and death despite the dangers of getting that honey. In industrial society we have in many cases the opposite problem - the majority of the top causes of death are lifestyle diseases which ultimately come down to overconsumption and sedentary lifestyles. Too much dietary fat, especially too much saturated fats, too much sugar, too much refined foods, too much concentrated calories, too much easily consumed liquid calories.

By contrast vegans by far have the easiest time maintaining balanced bodyweight levels.

If you all could learn to let go of your prejudice you might learn to recognize that doing the right things for animal’s rights is also some of the best things you could do for yourself. These “vegans” you hate so much are just trying to get you to stop self-harming.

Animal ethics isn’t just about whether other animals are being harmed or killed, it’s also about being against exploitation. They might not be able to think in quite the same way that we do, but it’s still clear that they have their own wills and lives of their own that they want to live. It’s worth asking ourselves if we really want a society that’s willing to exploit and turn other thinking beings into commodities, even the ones whose thinking appears to be so much more rudimentary than our own.

It’s easy to dismiss them because they’re “just bugs”, but presently bugs of all species are facing radical population declines with all the ecological instability - maybe even looming collapse - that brings. Maybe we collectively might be more willing to protect bug populations and do more to protect our environments if more of us stopped to analyze our anti-bug bias and considered that they have a natural right to life like we do. The planet does not exist solely for us.

Also, honey is essentially a refined sugar that’s no better healthwise than table sugar. Date sugar/powder is a sweetener made of whole fruit and is a much better choice. Plus, it’s just weird to want to eat the vomit of other species anyway.

If the only gardening related activity a person is doing is composting, that might be a net addition to climate change, not a mitigation. Most forms of composting cause C02 to off-gas, enough so that it’s often recommended to keep compost piles near trees or other vegetation so those plants can absorb some of those emissions and benefit from them.

If the hardware can ever be shrunk enough to make even a semi-pocketable x86 handheld, I would be happy if Valve were ever to release a “Steam Deck Mini” or something.

Or maybe their new efforts with ARM support point toward a future of a much more portable Steam-on-Linux-on-ARM device.

It would be more accurate to say it’s like requiring you to make the source code for ZSNES available if you were distributing copies of ZSNES.

What, where do you get that? Any publicly conveyed copies of gpl-licensed software must make their source code available, and be published under the same license. This is true regardless of modifications.

Came in to say this. Linux on ARM is getting so close to daily driver ready.

I know it would have the same issues as the Unreal Engine - all the training, engine building, and systems integration it’d take to get a game released, but I think it’d be cool if Bethesda were to make an Elder Scrolls game on their ID Tech engine. That codebase is pretty celebrated.

Agreed.

I’d say that’s a question for city planners.

I’ve been told that this is a no-go for city planners because the sheer quantity of fallen fruit can be a walking hazard, and no one wants the legal liability. What it comes down to is that “free” fruit trees would require additional ongoing maintenance costs. Nothing nefarious, just logistical issues.

You know all of them?

There are a lot of religions in the world.

[Citation needed].

As a religious/spiritual person I agree, and I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. In science we understand that our models are all wrong, and only the next most accurate representation of a part of reality until a newer discovery or testing allows us to make even more refined models.

All religions can benefit from an application of the scientific method.

Would you care to elaborate on what you feel like when you try living on plants? What do you tend to eat? How long does it take before you start feeling like shit?

Judging by your last comment about it “not hitting the same” my initial thought is that the issue might not even be nutritional, possibly more psychological/subjective.

Mint is literally a slightly modified Ubuntu.

I don’t, to be perfectly honest the builtin controls are the only part I don’t like. Too heavy, too bulky, terrible dpad, and for me it’s so uncomfortable to use the LR bumpers that I almost always remap them to the back paddles.