Now. Now, this denial and deflection of the real issues has resulted in the election of an insane man to the presidency, a man that promises to rush our species to the bottom. One that denies what our planet is telling us, one that denies that acceleration of this doom has already begun, one that can't wait to make this dire situation worse.
I understand the greed behind the fossil fuel industry. However, what use will money be when the human population begins to starve because we've killed off the things we survive on? I don't get the short-sightedness of such greed. I don't understand it at all. Others diversify and change with time - whole industries were able to do this - why the single-mindedness? There would be no crisis for them if they'd taken some of their profits and used it to R&D new technologies.
As with evolution, to me it seems a very simple principle: adapt or die.
So this weirdly seems like a case of "we won't adapt, so the whole species has to die". It's genuinely baffling.
As with evolution, to me it seems a very simple principle: adapt or die.
So this weirdly seems like a case of "we won't adapt, so the whole species has to die". It's genuinely baffling.
I can't deny the fact that we are in a crucial moment regarding the survival of our species, and to me it looks like we have just signed our own death sentence.
That's why these may be the last days of humanity. In a literal sense. I don't know what kind of creatures will survive in the world we are now designing with smoke and heat. I doubt we can call them human - if anything of our species remains.
A race to the end. If the guy that won the electoral college actually believed in Christianity (which I don't think he does, not one bit), and was a fundamentalist/extremist as well, then this running pell-mell to our doom would make morbid sense to me. Because most religions have some kind of catastrophic end-times story; and the more fundamentalist the faith, the more these end-time scenarios are believed (and believed to be happening in the present). Some actually crave it. (Here's an excellent little site that shows you how many religious "end days" you have survived since your birth.) But that's not the guy the electoral college elected. As far as I know, the only god he believes in is himself, and he used religious belief as it has always been used. To lead the easily led. But even there, I don't think he used religion to lead them. He simply knew exactly what to say to the rural white religious, and they ate it right up. Most everything I've seen that attributes him to being "God's choice" was stated by the religious, not by the candidate.
I read an excellent opinion piece about who he is, what he wants, and the people he has conned. But the end game puzzles me. Those profiting from fossil fuels are, I am sure, quite aware of the consequences of our current actions. So why encourage the end? To be rich and dead? It makes no sense.
But I do think we're fucked. Whether or not we allow Nazis to take power in January, I think it may already be too late. I want to have hope in our species, but we need to start working now, and much harder than we currently are, to correct the problem if we and the life we live off of are to have a chance of surviving.
With Nazis in the White House, we will have horrific treatment prior to the runaway greenhouse effect. We will have death. Women will die from being relegated back to second class in untold numbers. Not just from the lack of care for our health, but those who enjoy harming others enjoy harming females most. And if women are relegated to second class again, what's to stop them from doing what they want with us in all aspects of our lives?
LBGQT people will die. Something they find icky and have superimposed into their religion will be punished. Yes, superimposed. While the bible is literally filled with hatred of and degradation to women, there's barely a full sentence about people who are not hetero. But again, the haters will be emboldened, the LBGQT people will be shoved back to second class, and those that enjoy harming others will have the state sanctioning their crimes.
Black people will die. After so many years of struggle and just trying to be heard and being murdered by the bad apples in our own police force, after all the fighting and hope and fucking baby steps toward equality, the end game is that it would all be for nothing. The deep-seated hatred of the Other fostered by the very political party that never delivers to it's own poorest constituents will be unleashed. As long as poor white xtians are being stroked with the idea that they are somehow superior to those with more melanin in their epidermis (or in any way different from them), and as long as they believe those Others are to blame for their woes, they won't notice that the con they adore is actually the one fucking them. That's why it's called a con.
Religion has been doing that since we could think about thinking. Get people to swallow a huge, gigantic whopper, and it's that much easier to get them to swallow any manner of others. Sure, it may have begun because we're a species that likes explanations, but it's proliferation was due solely to men wise to the fact that it was a great tool to manipulate and control people.
With Nazis in the white house, all manner of people of color will die. People who are not Christian will die. Mexican immigrants and Muslim Americans will be rounded up and interred. If you think that can be accomplished without significant death you are lying to yourself. These are my fucking neighbors. These are human beings. Again, I like our species and would like to see us survive. But apparently that's too much to ask for from rural white christians that think different skins on our species somehow separates us, or that females have been designated by god to be treated as slaves. We're not different breeds and we are all human and there's no supernatural finger pointing to any one of us to indicate our superiority. Its all a fucking scam, and for people like me it's astounding the vast, overwhelming number of people that are suckers for the con.
LBGQT people will die. Something they find icky and have superimposed into their religion will be punished. Yes, superimposed. While the bible is literally filled with hatred of and degradation to women, there's barely a full sentence about people who are not hetero. But again, the haters will be emboldened, the LBGQT people will be shoved back to second class, and those that enjoy harming others will have the state sanctioning their crimes.
Black people will die. After so many years of struggle and just trying to be heard and being murdered by the bad apples in our own police force, after all the fighting and hope and fucking baby steps toward equality, the end game is that it would all be for nothing. The deep-seated hatred of the Other fostered by the very political party that never delivers to it's own poorest constituents will be unleashed. As long as poor white xtians are being stroked with the idea that they are somehow superior to those with more melanin in their epidermis (or in any way different from them), and as long as they believe those Others are to blame for their woes, they won't notice that the con they adore is actually the one fucking them. That's why it's called a con.
Religion has been doing that since we could think about thinking. Get people to swallow a huge, gigantic whopper, and it's that much easier to get them to swallow any manner of others. Sure, it may have begun because we're a species that likes explanations, but it's proliferation was due solely to men wise to the fact that it was a great tool to manipulate and control people.
With Nazis in the white house, all manner of people of color will die. People who are not Christian will die. Mexican immigrants and Muslim Americans will be rounded up and interred. If you think that can be accomplished without significant death you are lying to yourself. These are my fucking neighbors. These are human beings. Again, I like our species and would like to see us survive. But apparently that's too much to ask for from rural white christians that think different skins on our species somehow separates us, or that females have been designated by god to be treated as slaves. We're not different breeds and we are all human and there's no supernatural finger pointing to any one of us to indicate our superiority. Its all a fucking scam, and for people like me it's astounding the vast, overwhelming number of people that are suckers for the con.
But EVERYONE will die if we don't take care of our greenhouse gas problem. Everyone. We do not have enough technology in place to grow food in quantity enough to counterbalance what ecological destruction will do to farming and our oceans. We will have ten billion people on the planet soon. We do not have the technology in place to feed these people if we can no longer farm or fish. We do not have space arks and we do not have vast underground bunkers (well, there are some bunkers, but it's a pretty grim future and there's certainly not enough space for everyone), and we do not have a rescue plan. This is it, like it or not, and we need to come together as a species if we'd like to go on as a species.
Fuck it, we can barely breathe anymore. Pollution is now the #1 killer in the world of our species (and I would bet of most others). And we ignore all of this. You see not a whisper of this in most mainstream news. The climate was barely mentioned at all in the presidential debates, or indeed by the candidates. Well, except that one said they believe in it and wants to do something about it and the other said it's a hoax invented by the Chinese. Then later said he didn't say that.
Yes, I think we're fucked. I think there was a glimmer of hope prior to the election, but putting an insane person in the White House is basically signing the death warrant on our species (and, again, many many many others).
