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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: October 4th, 2023

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  • IRC the genetics don’t support that. It looks more like Polynesians originate from the area around Taiwan, sharing DNA with the indigenous Taiwanese. Again IRC there are some South American genes present in the Easter Island or Tahiti area, which seem to have been introduced pre-European contact. It’s tricky to tell though because there has been so much sharing of genetics since then. It looks like maybe some Polynesians went to South America one or a few times and returned.






  • That was the first word in my head: nope. There’s a whole lot of nope in this photo.

    “Yeah, just wheel the piano over against the far wall.”

    I’d be freaking out every time a kid jumped off a chair, or came down the stairs too fast. Strictly love -making. No fucking allowed.

    Darjeeling had this feeling in lots of places, but not this extreme.



  • I maintain that we have a battle of world views going on here. In some ways it’s about the myths we believe in. Most environmentalists believe in what I call the Hobbit Paradigm: we live in a beautiful garden, and if we grounded ourselves in relationships with our communities (including nature) we would have a good and sustainable life. Many technocentrists believe in what I call the Star Trek Paradigm: humans are limitlessly ingenious, technological solutions will save us, and Nature is viewed with an anthropocentric utilitarian ethic.

    I do not believe in the Star Trek Paradigm. It’s hubris. I also don’t think it’s a very pragmatic paradigm. We live in a world we evolved to live in. Not worrying about this world because we think terraforming other planets and setting up space bases might be a possibility is not comprehending the Good or risk very well, IMHO.

    I suppose a third paradigm is cold-blooded, individualist Realpolitik; It’s a dog eat dog world, fuck you, I’m just trying to get mine as hard as everyone else is. In this case Space Colonisation is just a beard to disguise a callous and usurious relationship to the beings is this world.

    That makes the conflict one of story, of myth, which means no one will have their minds changed by facts. They’re belief systems. We need to expose those fundamentally short -sighted or selfish beliefs. We need to tell better stories, and expose the ridiculousness of the other stories.



  • This is an ancient, but relatively unheard of Japanese dueling style called ‘tugoware’, where the duelists fight left handed, whilst trying to yank a double-handled katana out of each other’s hands.

    Fuck, AI really doesn’t get weapons, does it? Amazing it can put together reasonable looking armour, but just can’t figure out a sword.

    … we should probably keep it that way. It’s going to be stunned when it tries fighting us.