London-based writer. Often climbing.
Yeah, that’s it: you can get some of that stuff from some fruits, but you’re looking at a lot of avocados!
Bacteria synthesise B12 inside various animals. Even our gut flora synthesise it, but they do it too far down our digestive system to be useful!
You can’t live on fruit alone because you need vitamin B12, which you can only get from animal products or supplements. Fruit is generally also low in carbohydrates, fats and proteins, all of which you need to live!
Aside from your odd definition of capitalism and its outcomes, which other people have addressed, the answer to the headline question is: yes.
Karl Marx, for example, believed that you could not have capitalism without exploitation and that it was therefore an unethical system that should be defeated. He also held that capitalism was inherently contradictory and that it therefore not only should be destroyed, but that it must be destroyed.
However: Marx also believed that capitalism was an enormous improvement on the previously existing social system of feudalism, because it produced far greater wealth through the development of new technology. This is a key difference between Marxism and the earlier ‘utopian socialism’ (which his theories largely replaced), which saw technology itself as an evil.
Marx also welcomed the fact that capitalism destroyed (as he saw it) some earlier forms of oppression (albeit while introducing new ones). Marx’s letter to Abraham Lincoln congratulating him on his re-election discusses the American Revolution and Civil War in precisely these terms.
So, you can enjoy the greater (obviously not ‘infinite’!) abundance of goods that capitalism has produced, you can acknowledge its positive impact on technological development and its material improvements of the lives of millions of people and be not only a leftist but a fully orthodox Marxist… just so long as you also acknowledge that capitalism is also an exploitative and self-destructive force that should, can and must be defeated.
True, but it was more restricted in its potential application (because you had to be near a reliable water source). Modern electricity generation, including renewables, doesn’t have that limitation - as the application of coal to steam power demonstrates!
But the economics are clear: if renewables stay cheaper than fossil fuels (and there’s no reason to think they won’t), governments will make the switch anyway.
We’re actually doing pretty well, globally, at shifting to renewables. We’re making more, more quickly and more cheaply than ever before.
Too busy listening to the sound of M’Benga’s voice to hear the words he’s saying.
They wouldn’t put this tease in the trailer if they weren’t actually bringing Him back, right?
Right?
I often wonder about this with regard to right wing Americans believing such ridiculous things. It’s seem that what Trump supporters ultimately have in common is not one set of beliefs but a shared belief in things that make no sense: that all Democrats are paedophiles, that JFK wasn’t really assassinated, that vaccines don’t work, that climate change isn’t real, that Donald Trump is anything but a foolish, evil corrupt man. What do these views have in common? They’re fundamentally foolish things to believe.
The fact is that once you believe one patently absurd thing - for example, that an interventionist god exists - your thinking gets warped. When you then make this absurdity the centre of your worldview and your identity, your views on everything become warped. After a certain point, they seem to start believing things because they make no sense.
If a person believes God actually answers prayers, something there is no reason whatsoever to believe, they’re primed to believe all kinds of other nonsense. This is exactly why many religious people have stopped believing in that kind of thing, and now take refuge in the idea of prayer as comfort or as asking for ‘strength’ rather than asking for anything specific (note that even this compromise requires them to ignore the plain meaning of the words of, e.g., the Lord’s Prayer). Most people find it uncomfortable to believe in nonsense. For others, it becomes the point.
I love Voyager, but of all Treks it’s the hardest to make a move of. Their whole thing was to get home and… they did! You can’t have ‘We need to reunite the old gang to get home from the Delta Quadrant one last time’.
Right, but we mitigate that harm (good) by depriving people of their freedom (bad). It is necessary to do it, for the exact reasons you suggest - to reduce evil overall.
I’ve been meaning to read some stuff about how to approach criminal justice if we don’t have free will, but I keep reading other stuff instead. So many books, so little time!
I still think prisoners should be treated well, no matter the crime.
Yes, absolutely. Even for the worst of the worst, their should be rehab attempts, whether it’s anger management, getting them away from gangs - whatever it is they need. I think there are only small numbers of people, if there are any at all, who are really irremediably violent and dangerous, but even for them I’m not exactly happy about putting them away indefinitely.
Prison seems the obvious one. It’s obviously (to me, that is) not desirable to deprive anyone of their freedom, but for persistently violent people I don’t think there’s a better solution, unfortunately.
So, e.g., lots of parks with publicly accessible five-a-side football pitches, ping-pong tables, basketball courts, skateparks whatever - that’s your sport. The parks also have bandstands or outdoor theatres, where there’s space for that.
Public libraries with rooms people can hire (or use for free) for book clubs, sewing circles, art classes - that’s your art.
Good thing about the above is that all these ideas already exist in lots of forms, you just pick whatever works best for your current situation.
Oh no. Not the real estate industry.
People are already painting his face on walls.
It’s job? The vacuum guitar schema. Rough!
Bonus fun: watching YouTube’s auto-generated subtitles try to deal with Klingon.
Quite enjoyed the Chibnall era. Okay, it wasn’t peak Who, but it doesn’t deserve all the hate!
Also, to counterbalance my positivity, I was never that keen on Matt Smith as the Doctor. Never quite landed for me, though granted he had a huge act to follow after Tennant.
Ha, I came here to say Bitches Brew before seeing it was in the OP!
I’d add Loveless by My Bloody Valentine: much-imitated, but there’s nothing quite like it.
Also, my early '90s bias is showing here, but In Utero by Nirvana is uniquely brilliant. No one’s melded beauty and ugliness so successfully in any medium.