Yes, absolutely, science in general is necessary for any kind of desirable civilization. Space exploration contributes a massive amount of knowledge to scientific research and betters the human race.

But it shouldn’t be a playground for billionaires to plan space hotels for ultra-wealthy clientele. Public works for the public good, for the betterment of our human race as a whole, not just for the super rich.

1. Typically, but not always. Some trans women are biologically intersex. (This also depends on how you define “biologically male” which is not totally straightforward.)
2. It matters in some contexts, not in others. Their physician should know, because various hormone treatments cause different effects in people’s bodies, and certain health conditions effect biologically male or female people differently too. That’s nobody else’s business but the patient and their trusted medical providers. As far as their dignity, opportunities, and general acceptance, it doesn’t matter. Trans folks deserve the exact same rights, opportunities, and acceptance as anybody else.
3. Usually people who bring this up aren’t acting in good faith, so I don’t engage with them. On the rare occasion where somebody is genuinely curious and wants to learn, I answer them in the same way as I am doing right now.
4. Because the word “woman” denotes multiple concepts, like the word “parent”. If a child is adopted at birth and is raised by a couple, the child and their community will refer to those people as the child’s parents. This is not a false statement, because the word “parent” doesn’t only mean the direct biological progenitors of a person. Parent also is a social role, hence the verb form “to parent somebody.” This is also why we have the terms, “biological parent” and “adoptive parent” to add additional information when it’s necessary.

Trans women are women in the sense that they are filling their society’s sociological role that surrounds the expected concept of a woman. That will be different depending on many factors, and will have many different aspects including their pronouns, fashion and clothing, voice, makeup, hair, activities, and so forth.

Just like any other woman, they will chose which social roles they desire to fit into, and which ones they don’t, and all of that is completely acceptable.

“My friend says the story is stupid and no one would want to read it.”

That’s not real constructive feedback. If your friend has actual critiques of your concept, that’s one thing, but just saying something seems stupid is meaningless and carries zero weight.

Don’t let people live their life and your life too. If you’re passionate about an idea, try it and see if it works. Worse case scenario, it fails, and you learn from it and get lots of practice for your next idea. Which still might be bad, but it will almost certainly be less bad, and same with the next, and the next, and before you know it, you have hundreds of hours of practice and experience and you’re creating real cool stuff.

Also, sometimes ideas are good, but you currently lack the skill to execute them well. That just means you need to increase your skill level. An idea that fails badly when you first start out, might turn out fantastic 5 - 10 years down the road.

Film directors/writers sometimes talk about this, where they had an idea or a script for a movie that they wanted to make, but they didn’t have the budget and necessary experience to do it justice early in their career.

TL;DR Your friend’s “feedback” is worthless, if you’re really passionate about this idea, go for it. Worst case scenario, you gain a bunch of experience trying to make it.

GrapheneOS, love it.

I mean, it’s intended to be an insult because the implication is that Reddit sucks.

I personally never understood the “Redditor” insults.

Reddit is just a forum directory with an infinite feed. You can find cringey weirdos but there’s also subreddits for potted plants, chess, home improvement, etc. which are pretty mundane and low drama.

I left Reddit for similar reasons, but I still use it sometimes for troubleshooting and advice in the IT/Programming space.

Brace yourselves for all the meat eaters suddenly getting extremely defensive…

Conservatives making people poorer, dumber, and less free, classic!

Finally got my crap together. Career taking off, got rid of my toxic relationships, adopted several cats, getting into really good shape.

I work in IT, many of the managers are pushing it. Nothing draconian, there are a few true believers, but the general vibe is like everybody is trying to push it because they feel like they’ll be judged if they don’t push it.

Two of my coworkers are true believers in the slop, one of them is constantly saying he’s been, “consulting with ChatGPT” like it’s an oracle or something. Ironically, he’s the least productive member of the team. It takes him days to do stuff that takes us a few hours.

That’s rough, I’m sorry too, it never gets easier. 💔 stay strong, the important thing is that they feel safe and loved 💙

Let me share my personal story. Trigger warning for anybody reading this, there’s a lot of details.

My spouse and I had a beloved cat who was amazing. Rescued her as a kitten, the runt of her litter. She was born sickly and got worse for a while, we thought she wouldn’t make it for several weeks.

But we nursed her back to health and she started to thrive. She never got big, even fully grown, she was 6.5 lbs. Most people thought she was still a kitten, but she had 60 lbs of attitude lol.

She was a wonderful cat, full of life, playful, fierce, super smart, my spouse and I were totally in love with her.

Then one day, she stopped eating and started acting really lethargic. We went through all the typical potential causes. Tooth pain, upset stomach, constipation, UTI, etc.

Took her to the vet several times. After almost 2 weeks of us barely able to get her to eat more than a few bites of her usual favorite treats per day, we had them scan her for potential blockages or other stomach issues.

Vet came back with the results, it was cancer, her entire abdomen was filled with large tumors. 100% terminal, the vet said that there was no way to remove it all without killing her from the internal trauma because the cancer had spread so far and was completely surrounding many of her organs.

We were absolutely devastated. She was only about 3 and a half years old. The vet said it was just bad luck, it was rare to see this kind of cancer in a young otherwise healthy cat, but it did sometimes happen.

Even still, we asked about chemotherapy, (yes they do that for pets sometimes). The vet said that at best, it would only give us 1-3 more months if we were lucky, and she would be drugged up so much that she would basically be in a state of dillusion the whole time. Plus it would have cost between $4,000- and $8,000. Which was far beyond anything we could afford.

My spouse and I went home, cried our eyes out for the next 2 days, and talked about end of life care. Our primary vet had given us a pamphlet about in-home euthanasia. They come to your home, you can lay down and cuddle with your pet, play music or talk to them. The vet administers a shot, and after about 10-15 minutes, they fall asleep and then…they’re gone.

We chose that option and it was as positive of an experience as it can be, when doing something so sad.

We laid down on both sides of her, placed her on her favorite blanket, and just gently pet her, kissed her, and quietly told her what a brave girl she was and how much we loved her. Our vet was super calm and respectful. After she administered the shot, she let us be with her, and checked her pulse every 5 minutes or so. After the third time, she quietly told us, “Alright, she’s passed. Take all the time you need. When you’re ready, I’ll take her back with me.”

The vet handled the cremation and a week or two later my spouse and I got our cat’s ashes delivered to us in a little urn, with a clipping of her hair and a little paw print in clay. There was a hand-written note from the vet with her condolences, signed by a bunch of the vet techs, it was very sweet.

It’s a brutally hard choice to make, but I think it’s the right one. Our cat was in so much pain, she was malnourished, exhausted, dehydrated, she had lost all the joy that a healthy life provided her. Looking into her eyes and seeing her in so much pain, that’s what convinced me and my spouse to do it. I think it would have been selfish for us to keep her alive in that state waiting for her to die “naturally” or forcing a massive cocktail of drugs into her just so we could get a few more days or weeks with her.

I don’t condemn people for putting it off, I get it, it was one of the hardest decicions I’ve had to make as an adult. I wept like a baby before and after it for many days. If you haven’t seen it before, I can’t describe it. But there is a certain “look” an animal gets when it’s near the end. They know, they are smart, they have a soul of some kind I think, they can sense it. As somebody who is an animal lover and has had pets all my life, you learn what it looks like. It’s a look of pain and pleading, a look that says, “I’m in pain, and I’m tired, it’s time for me to go.”

Some people say that pets can’t tell you if they want to be done, but I think they can, it’s that look in their eyes of desperation, and when you’re my age and you’ve had to say goodbye to numerous pets over the years, you learn what it looks like.

Left wing (actual OG) Libertarianism is great. Right wing Libertarianism is basically a bunch of antisocial/intellectually lazy people who think the ideal society is one where everybody has a few acres of land with a little shack that they built themselves where they subsist on potatoes, carrots, and chicken eggs and stockpile gold and silver to trade with another libertarian twice a year.

We are rapidly depleting our healthy soil due mainly to destructive factory farming techniques used across the world.

Just one inch of healthy soil takes centuries to form from the slow breakdown of organic matter by a whole host of micro-ecosystems.

The desertification of massive swaths of our planet continues largely unabated.

“Yes, I’m sure I typed my password correctly.”

Working in IT, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that and how many times it’s been wrong.

I’m going to assume worst case scenario, rotting bloated corpse that stinks, is covered in flies, and is floating high and very visibly on the surface of the water.

In that case, I would need the pool to be probably Olympic sized and be on the long end away from the corpse.

My instinct says that would be enough for me to not be too horrified beyond the initial horror of seeing it in the pool.

I love how she starts off by saying her legal team recommended she not do that…then proceeds to do it anyways lol.

Onision had a pretty spectacular implosion, but he was always a pretty wild and controversial figure. Shane Dawson was another pretty massive one. Miranda Sings was also huge, then all the weird and creepy chats and stage moments came out, sank her whole brand.

Typically it refers to leftists who strongly defend/advocate for authoritarian statist approaches to socialism/communism.

Depends on your meta-ethical framework. If you’re a consequentialist, then you should always choose the option that leads to less evil being done. Same if you’re a utilitarian.

If you hold to a Kantian value-based framework, like the action itself holds the primary moral goodness or evil in its own nature, then choose the action that itself is less evil.

There are many other frameworks. It also depends on what you think happens in the case of something like voting. Some people see participation in any sense as a sort of tacit agreement or endorsement of the system as a whole. So by casting any vote, even one of protest, you are legitimizing the system as a whole.

Others see voting as a mere means to an end, and thus, is justified if the outcome is better than not voting would be. Some see it as purely neutral, like a tool that can be used for good or bad.

Still, others see it as an inherently good thing, and view abstaining from the act of voting as a moral wrong, because it is a willing act of self-sabotage of the moral interests of the greater good, or sometimes as a violation of the social contract.

There are many other positions and considerations. Basically…it’s complicated.

One day the crude biomass you call “the temple” will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you.

But I am already saved, for the Machine is immortal.