Let there be this kind of light in these dark times.

I was thinking the same thing!!

It’s like at this point Trump is watching the show to take notes and stage direction.

The pause was long enough she was able to say all the things in it mentally.

Lucretius in De Rerum Natura in 50 BCE seemed to have a few that were just a bit ahead of everyone else, owed to the Greek philosopher Epicurus.

Survival of the fittest (book 5):

"In the beginning, there were many freaks. Earth undertook Experiments - bizarrely put together, weird of look Hermaphrodites, partaking of both sexes, but neither; some Bereft of feet, or orphaned of their hands, and others dumb, Being devoid of mouth; and others yet, with no eyes, blind. Some had their limbs stuck to the body, tightly in a bind, And couldn’t do anything, or move, and so could not evade Harm, or forage for bare necessities. And the Earth made Other kinds of monsters too, but in vain, since with each, Nature frowned upon their growth; they were not able to reach The flowering of adulthood, nor find food on which to feed, Nor be joined in the act of Venus.

For all creatures need Many different things, we realize, to multiply And to forge out the links of generations: a supply Of food, first, and a means for the engendering seed to flow Throughout the body and out of the lax limbs; and also so The female and the male can mate, a means they can employ In order to impart and to receive their mutual joy.

Then, many kinds of creatures must have vanished with no trace Because they could not reproduce or hammer out their race. For any beast you look upon that drinks life-giving air, Has either wits, or bravery, or fleetness of foot to spare, Ensuring its survival from its genesis to now."

Trait inheritance from both parents that could skip generations (book 4):

“Sometimes children take after their grandparents instead, Or great-grandparents, bringing back the features of the dead. This is since parents carry elemental seeds inside – Many and various, mingled many ways – their bodies hide Seeds that are handed, parent to child, all down the family tree. Venus draws features from these out of her shifting lottery – Bringing back an ancestor’s look or voice or hair. Indeed These characteristics are just as much the result of certain seed As are our faces, limbs and bodies. Females can arise From the paternal seed, just as the male offspring, likewise, Can be created from the mother’s flesh. For to comprise A child requires a doubled seed – from father and from mother. And if the child resembles one more closely than the other, That parent gave the greater share – which you can plainly see Whichever gender – male or female – that the child may be.”

Objects of different weights will fall at the same rate in a vacuum (book 2):

“Whatever falls through water or thin air, the rate Of speed at which it falls must be related to its weight, Because the substance of water and the nature of thin air Do not resist all objects equally, but give way faster To heavier objects, overcome, while on the other hand Empty void cannot at any part or time withstand Any object, but it must continually heed Its nature and give way, so all things fall at equal speed, Even though of differing weights, through the still void.”

Often I see people dismiss the things the Epicureans got right with an appeal to their lack of the scientific method, which has always seemed a bit backwards to me. In hindsight, they nailed so many huge topics that didn’t end up emerging again for millennia that it was surely not mere chance, and the fact that they successfully hit so many nails on the head without the hammer we use today indicates (at least to me) that there’s value to looking closer at their methodology.

The DLC is really the right balance for FromSoft.

The zones in the base game are slightly too big.

In the DLC, it’s still open world and extremely flexible in how you explore it, but there’s less wasted space.

It’s very tightly knit and the pacing is better as a result.

It’s like Elden Ring was watching masters of their craft cut their teeth on something new, and then the DLC was them applying everything they learned in that process.

Can’t wait for their next game in that same vein (especially not held back by last gen consoles).

I hate that the Smithscript weapons can’t be buffed.

Especially for the daggers.

Wanted to pew pew little bolts of lightning buffed daggers doing an additional 200+ damage per hit. 😢

No historical record that the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt even exists. In fact, there’s no record of these Hebrew slaves, period.

As I said in my earlier comment, this narrative was probably appropriated from the forced relocation of the sea peoples into the southern Levant. The Egyptians do have extensive records of conflict with them, who they note in that conflict were without foreskins (as opposed to the partial circumcision more common at the time), and there’s an emerging picture of Aegean cohabitation with the Israelites in the early Iron Age along with Anatolian trade with an area where the Denyen were talking about their founding leader Mopsus.

Here’s the source for the Noah’s Ark as originally a famine narrative: https://scholar.harvard.edu/dershowitz/publications/man-land-unearthing-original-noah

You’re welcome to find the material as you like, but I’m telling you that there’s a lot more value to careful analysis of it within it’s broader context than you (and many others) seem to think. Whether you find that stance condescending or not.

Actually, the book of Job is nearly verbatim a combination of the opening of the Canaanite A Tale of Aqhat where Anat petitions El to kill the son of Danel as the lead in to a near copy of the dialogue on suffering of the Babylonian Theodicy. With what appears a sloppy edit to make it monotheistic later on, changing Anat from being a different god to simply ‘adversary’ and spawning fanfiction for millennia.

Understanding the context helps a lot in meaningful analysis.

Without the context, yeah, a lot can go over your head and it just seem pointless.

Edit: And Noah’s ark was likely originally a famine story before being turned into an adaptation of the Babylonian flood mythos.

Edit 2: And the eating of the fruit by the first two people was probably adapted from the Phonecian creation myth around the first man and woman with the woman discovering the technology of eating fruit from the trees.

There’s actually a lot of interesting stuff in the text when you learn how to spot it between the lines of the revisionism. Both OT and NT.

The problem is you basically only have two camps.

One, that thinks the text as it exists today represents an unadulterated divine transmission.

And the other, that thinks anything to do with it is worthless nonsense.

So there’s very few people actually looking at it in between those two extremes, with most engaged with the material clustering around the former, or at very least with an anchoring and survivorship bias around the former cluster.

We’re left with audiences for the text that on both sides would be incredulous at the idea that, say, the Exodus narrative was in part an appropriation of the LBA/Early Iron Age sea peoples history when they were forcibly relocated into cohabitation with the Israelites, or say, that Jesus was taking about evolution with the sower parable.

Even though both those things have very compelling cases that can be made given emerging available evidence, the discussion is all about the acceptance or wholesale rejection of canon with little to no discussion of what actually exists in the absence of the BS.

It’s most disappointing for the latter group though. While I kind of get the way the trauma of proselytizing and indoctrination turns minds off to anything connected with the material, it’s very frustrating that what should be the healthy opposition cedes so many claims of authenticity to the faithfully blind.

Hillary raised $90 million in the entire month of July.

Harris raised $89 million in a single day in July.

Ah yes, the mythical white woman who would have raised $250 million in 24 hours instead of just a record breaking $100 million.

I really, really, really want to see campaign ads calling Trump out as a coward and chicken.

Dodge the draft.

Dodge the debate.

Like a typical cowardly bully, running away from any fights he doesn’t know he can win.

Just 30 seconds of “Is Trump a yellow bellied coward? Clip of him backing out of debate. Followed by the rest of the air time of just a chicken running around clucking.”

There’s another reason I think too.

In 2016, it was embarrassing to be for Trump.

But after 2016, it became a purity test.

There’s likely households being called up where the person on the phone is legit scared of saying they aren’t MAGA if the other people in the house hear.

That’s likely far less common for any D households.

And after a $50mm fundraising day, I just have a really hard time seeing it end up as anyone else.

I don’t like that it’s the case, but at this point it’s probably over 90% odds that it’s going to be Harris.

I agree Whitmer would be the best chance at beating Trump in general.

But I do think that Harris can still do that job and that there’s logistical reasons why it’s going to be that.

I wish we’d have Whitmer, but I’m not terrified of it being Harris the way I was if Biden stayed in the race.

And if she picks a good VP that helps round out the ticket with the middle of the country, I could see the new ticket getting momentum.

IIRC she and Newsom said they are not interested in being Harris’s VP. Didn’t see her saying she wasn’t going to be looking for nomination, but open to seeing a source.

Edit: Ah, it’s rumored that she said that: https://fortune.com/2024/07/21/gretchen-whitmer-michigan-kamala-harris-democratic-presidential-nomination-gavin-newsom/

Or when she still throws her hat into the ring if delegates are unpledged and people want a more healthy competition for the nomination.

I do think others would be stronger (I especially think Whitmer would be a strong candidate), but I think people underestimate just how weak Trump actually is as a candidate right now.

It just hasn’t been capitalized on because Biden was a fucking mummy, but Trump is old and tried. His RNC speech was just exhausting to even watch, and he is falling asleep in most drawn out public appearances.

He’s surrounded by yes men who peddle QAnon conspiracy theories and rambles on about things only his most loyal fan base even understand, playing the encore for his fans but leaving any independents or less politically engaged folks bewildered.

None of this was able to be capitalized on by an ailing and addled Biden, but as long as Harris can be halfway coached to focus on these points and juxtapose them, she’ll be fine (even if I agree there could be much better options than a previous CA senator and law enforcement pick).

Gravity is where the whole continuous singularities are, so yeah.

Using a rubber band around the lid of a jar to open it effortlessly.