I realize I’ll get downvoted to hell for saying it, but IMO anyone who says that non-violence works every time is naive.

The French didn’t gain anything until the guillotines started rolling. America didn’t get their freedom until they started fighting back. British/Portuguese/French Colonialism in Africa didn’t come to an end until the locals started rioting and in some cases flat out starting revolutions.

Anyone who says violence never solved anything hasn’t been paying attention to ANYTHING in history EVER.

It’s Tommy Westphall’s world. We’re just living in it.

Kazinsky probably “killed himself” because he took a look at the world of 2023 and realized that no one listened to a single word he said.

That’s correct. It IS better than it was. And it’s important to KEEP it that way. But in case you haven’t noticed, world history is following pretty much the exact same path beat-for-beat that it did in the lead up to that war that cost 140 million lives.

It’s not whether we are better off than we were in the past. It’s a question of whether or not we’re going to stay that way. Because the next world war might claim a billion or more. (exaggerating for effect of course)

In some ways I think they always were about non-violence. Kagami clearly only resorted to the bombing when they had nothing else to lose. The female leader (Sonia I think her name was) was on that side of things as well, while Roger Cross’ character (I think his name was Travis?) was the militaristic one.

Canadian Sci-Fi starring Roger Cross

That made me laugh out loud because it’s so damn true.

It was a pretty good show that sadly got forgotten. But yes, on my second rewatch recently (In Canada at least it’s also on Tubi for free…) I was immediately with Liber8. They are the protagonists. And I think that was kind of the point of the show by the end.

I too enjoy peyote on occasion.

Well shoot. My regular eye doctor is a cute little thing that I kind of have a crush on, and now all I can picture is her talking about my eye sphincter…

I’ll have none of your witchcraft here, thank-you-very-much.

Out of curiosity, does a different shaped pupil change your vision? I equate a pupil to a camera lens aperture; the smaller it gets, the less light gets through. Have you noticed a difference?

My impression as an atheist is that there is no special sauce that makes human intelligence impossible to achieve. It will happen eventually.

Our brains are computers made of meat. Nothing more. Our thoughts, our dreams, our consciousness itself is quite literally just chemicals, hormones and synapses instead of circuits, binary code and wiring. There is no soul that would prevent true life from arising once the computing becomes powerful enough for it.