I won some stuff in a church raffle when I was a teenager. Nothing remarkable - i think a suitcase.
I also won some sex toys from a charity raffle for repro rights, but some past partner took them. Not sure who, but I don’t have them anymore.
Thinking about it for the first time now, it is funny how those are two very different contexts.
Seems like the lesson is “Don’t bother doing non-violent protest. You’ll go to jail anyway. Shoot a CEO, become a hero.”
At the risk of being a little spicy, I feel like a lot of christianity has been about hearing what people want to hear for a long time. All the stuff that boils down to “do whatever you want, you’ll be forgiven” is nonsense. Prosperity gospel is garbage.
If you think you are a good christian but you are not helping the poor, you are fucking fool.
Luke 18
18A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
19“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 20You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’ a ”
21“All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
22When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
23When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. 24Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Luke 10
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
All of these so-called christians who refuse to aid other people are fools, cowards, and failures.
Of course, the bible has a lot of strange and inscrutable stuff, too. Like the parable of the talents is a weird one. I just get really mad at people who say they’re christian but are selfish
Would you rather reach in and pick an item from
Sack 1, which contains [rusty nails, angry scorpions, razor blades, one fun sized candy bar]
Sack 2, which contains [various candy bars, one rusty nail]
The US is sack 1 in this metaphor. People should improve the canadian system, but there’s no reasonable take that they’re at all similar
Things like this happening in real life are why I think some conservatives are legitimately, sincerely, deeply stupid. And a little cruel.
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/08/1192663920/southern-baptist-convention-donald-trump-christianity
It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — “turn the other cheek” — [and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the response would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.
I don’t know what can be done about this. Humans are tribal and facts can’t beat that.
Pray to Saint Luigi for help
The laws exist because people wrote them. They can change. But some people would rather die than live in a more equitable world.
Well let me share with you the wisdom of age: often you can just ask someone what’s up.
This also works on dates: you can just ask someone out. You don’t have to go all in your head about it. If only someone had told me when I was a teen, alas.
How old are you?
Have you considered asking what’s up?
Things that aren’t Nazis might be a good stopping point
It comes up in software development sometimes, which is my day to day. It also is useful for any “fast but inaccurate approach” scenario, which comes up sometimes.
I wouldn’t say I’m proud of using it. It was already in my lexicon. (So was “lexicon”)
Here’s an article about them https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-heuristic-2795235
Why do you ask?
What about a dead billionaire?
If someone shot musk or zuckerberg dead I’d be like “That’s good. That’s an improvement.”
Did anyone want this? MMOs are kind of passé. There’s a couple big ones still kicking around (WoW, Guild Wars 2, final fantasy) but there’s a huge graveyard and hospice for all the others.
We could do a lot for climate change, world hunger, homelessness, disease prevention and eradication, and so on with that much money.
All of these people are doing mass murder via opportunity cost, and I hope they pay for it.
If americans were on average smarter and better informed, then we wouldn’t be in this situation. I don’t think the majority of people will understand what’s happening. They’ll blame the jewish space lasers or gay frogs or whatever instead.
I’ve been buying stuff from Bandcamp. They sold recently so their future is uncertain, but as it stands right now it seems like a pretty good deal. Artists get a good cut, and you get streaming + drm free copies of the music to download.
I don’t really like subscriptions for music. It’s like renting. I’d rather pay $10/mo buying an album and have a big library after ten years than have nothing.
Emotions aren’t good (or bad). They’re often like a heuristic. Fast but inaccurate. This is great when it’s like “a bear wandered into the house” and emotions say “RUN” and cold logic would be like “what? Why? How?” until you get mauled. It’s not good when it’s like “climate change makes me feel bad so I don’t believe in it”
I mean if you want to keep running bleed against a boss immune to bleed go ahead, but I’ll probably switch to an occult infusion.
And yet when someone’s like “the GOP is an existential threat and we should treat them accordingly” it’s all “you’re being alarmist” and “murder is a crime”
I hope every member of the GOP chokes to death alone and removed from everything they ever loved.
Return to office mandates are some combination of management failure, class warfare, and maybe some real estate valuation nonsense. There’s no good reason for it.
I’d really like people to unionize so they can say “no” as a unified group.
I don’t buy eggs, so not directly.