megane-kun

There’s this saying “a fish is caught through its mouth,” and this is an illustration of what it means. This pope might present this ‘cool’, ‘modern’ image to the public, but his words spoken in private amongst his peers reveals his real stance about these things.

Edit:‌ proofreading.

Thanks as well. It’s certainly a POV I didn’t consider (that it’s akin to a protest) having grown up in the culture that produced such practices. Again, thanks!

Ah, my bad. I didn’t mean to imply that it being done in a religious context invalidates it, just that the religious context would inform us more about the man’s intent and whether or not they’d continue on doing so regardless of the result.

I used the term “pledge” earlier, but maybe it’s better to use the word “vow” to refer this. The term in Filipino is “panata” (which wiktionary translates to “vow”). It usually isn’t as dramatic as this, however. And as far as I’ve observed, a lot would do these vows after they deem their prayers to have been heard (usually recovery from illness or accidents, or recovery from financial ruin), and thereafter, no matter what, they’d try to fulfill their vows, whether that’d be a crucifixion reenactment, or attending processions, or even just as simple as foregoing alcohol or vices or letting their hair grow.

edit:

I must clarify my position here, I‌ guess. I am neither in favor nor against the practice. But having grown up in the country where these practices occur, I just felt I have to clarify some things. Personally? I don’t mind. They’re doing these things with good intentions, and they’re hurting no one. As far as I know, they don’t force anyone to join them, but rather, make sure that those who are following their footsteps are sure they want to.

I agree with your sentiment, but I felt compelled to comment on one crucial element here: what he has been doing isn’t a protest, but some form of a religious pledge. It just so happened that this year, he’s praying for world peace. This is akin to some traditions in India and other parts where self-flagellation is part of religious ritual, but only for those who pledge themselves to it. It’s touched upon in the article, but he’s been doing it since the 1980’s as thanksgiving for his survival in an accident. Some people just do it once, but some devote their lives to it, and it seems to me that he’s one of the latter.

Whether or not his actions will lead to results doesn’t matter, as far as I see it. He’s already devoted to the bit, and only old age (and poor health) will likely stop him.

Thanks for the explanation.

It reminds me of the concept of depreciation in accounting, in which you’re accounting for the “loss of value” of a piece of machinery as time goes on. I guess it fits how the capitalists view people (labor) as yet another kind of machine. I dunno how it fits with what you’re trying to explain here, but it somehow clicks for me. So that the factory owner can keep buying machinery, they must allocate some of their funds not just for the upkeep of the equipment, but also save up for the cost of buying a new one.

Admittedly, I’m not very well-versed with neither accounting nor the theories put on display here, but we learn something new every day, right?

(PS:‌ I’m still working through the pamphlet you’ve linked. I might have gotten a lot of things wrong, and in that case, I apologize.)

I was like “(companies) paying parents to have children” belongs to a caricature of capitalism, but here we are. (My bad, it’s companies paying parents to have children, and not some bigger entity, like the government. I already edited the previous sentence for clarity.)

If you don’t mind me asking though, what “marxist theory in action” do you see in this article?

“If I can’t have you, no one will.” – China, apparently.

And as usual, no one will do something decisive about it because China is a huge bully and is using its reputation as the world’s factory and its economic heft to intimidate anyone who thinks of doing anything about it.

Yep. Plus how it’s rendered depends on which frontend you’re using. I’m using Alexandrite, and I swear, the way it shows the name of the community makes you think that the tagline or whatever it is is indeed part of the community name (it’s not). So, yeah, it’s not really your fault, as far as I see it.

Of course, however, learning how Lemmy works is pretty helpful in situations like this, but we all kinda learn it as we go.

Hahahaha~! Well, glad to have helped you then!

It’s kinda screwy anyways, I would have also thought it’s part of the URL myself had I not checked the community on its home instance before.

That’s not the one you’re looking for, huh? Best of luck! I hope someone remembers what community that one is.

I think you’re referring to !tenforward@lemmy.world

In Alexandrite, it’s shown like this:

Sure, sure. Whatever you say.

I suppose that the vitriol surrounding this topic is tied to the innate biological pressures towards procreation. Life is supposed to the ultimate good. People like us who have doubted this assertion are not only fighting against long-held societal norms, but also biological instincts. It also doesn’t help that having a child (or not) is one of the most impactful personal decisions one can ever make. Having a child not only affects your life, your partner, but most especially, the child themself! It’s something that will permanently change one’s life, and those around them for better or for worse.

I’m not even against people who choose to have children (the so-called “breeders” in antinatalist communities). If their lives are enriched by having children and forming a family, more power to them! Even more so if they can provide the child with what they would need to thrive, or at least survive in this world.

Perhaps this trend of growing sentiment towards childfree lifestyles is yet one of those bio-sociological mechanisms driving us to having more quality children instead of just having more children. Children that would be able to live better, more fulfilling lives than I can ever hope for, and can thrive in the shitty world we’ve left for them.

I tried to give you an overview of how someone might be sympathetic to their views, but I should have known that you’re not receptive to such.

And yeah, if you give me money for the expenses needed for that all-curing therapy, sure, why not? However, you might need that for yourself.

I’m not exactly antinatalist, but I’m somewhat sympathetic to their position. The way I see it is this: humanity’s effect on nature is on the average, harmful.

We’ve been very successful as a species, but at the cost of a lot of others that weren’t able to cope with our success. Perhaps some species which are useful to us—sometimes just by being cute, have learned to live with us, or have learned to live despite us, have managed to thrive. But for one species that gained our protection, how many others have disappeared with no one caring?

If that’s not bad enough, I don’t think that the average individual human being is thriving. We’ve destroyed a lot only to build depressing cubicles for us to rot in.

I don’t think it’s worth it.

Having a child means condemning them into an ever worsening world. And I don’t think I’ll be able to properly equip my child to even have a smidge of a chance of being “well-off”, healthy or even happy.

However, our innate instincts, as well as societal and other pressures pushes people to have children even when it’s not going to end well for the children as well as their parents. Antinatalism is a counterbalance to this pressure.

Just to share a bit of perspective from the Philippine side here. The Philippine president before Duterte, Aquino Jr, was more proactive in advancing Philippine interests in the area. Then, Duterte started the shift away from the US and its allies to move closer to China. The current president, Marcos Jr, is way less pro-China than Duterte.

I suspect that Duterte and his campaign was funded by the Chinese to advance their interests in the country, including the disputed area. It’s also worth noting that during his administration, the Philippines opened a lot more to the Chinese, with locals becoming resentful of the seemingly preferential treatment afforded to them. If that’s not enough, there started popping up Chinese-owned (nominally Filipino-owned) offshore gaming entities which were manned by Chinese nationals (some of them were apparently housed in terrible conditions by their employers).

There might be more anti-Chinese sentiment here after Duterte than before him, oddly enough.

Hmm, yeah, there’s that too, but unless you know the URL to use to access it from a different instance, it might be a bit hard (to access), isn’t it?

Fortunately, there’s a modlog for communities here in Lemmy.

Looking at it (currently the third in the list for removed posts), an admin removed it with the reason of “bad news source”. Not saying whether or not it’s justified though, but at least we would know who to blame and why.

I’ve just imagined a colony of them just chilling underneath my mattress and noped out of it.

You can’t even “deprive them of food” like one would address cockroaches and rats (like secure and seal the hell out of any food, make sure that food crumbs are properly disposed of, etc) because we are their food. Is there even a benefit to having them around, because if there isn’t, we probably should just eradicate them.

I don’t know how large a one euro coin is, but even assuming it’s as tiny as the tiniest coins we have here (15mm in diameter), those bedbugs are still terrifyingly huge! Now, having looked up how large a 1€ coin is (23.25mm), and estimating from the image, those bedbugs are around 5mm long!

… I thought they’re huge, but having looked things up, it’s right about average. I thought they’re usually much smaller than that over here though (roughly 1mm in length). I probably have had the good luck of never having seen a bedbug in my life. Cockroaches though, are a normal part of life around here, hehe.