Wanting to live in the end times is kind of cowardly since it absolves of you of the burden of building a better future. Some great compelling force will come down from on high and sort it all out.
Since you don't really know what times you face it's more responsible and brave to live as if these are the "Beginning Times" instead. And with great effort you may do a tiny bit of good that lasts a few decades beyond your grave.
@futurebird This. A thousand times this. ✊
As the saying goes
A society grows great when old people plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.
@ireneista When the revelation is really good, you won't even have to deliver the disaster.
“Do justly now. Love mercy now. Walk humbly now. You are not required to complete the task, yet you are not free to desist from it.”
might be found in #PirkeiAvot
@MarcusMASTO @futurebird That particular quote is (slightly rearranged) from R. Rami Shapiro's interpretive translation of Pirkei Avot, "Wisdom of the Jewish Sages : A Modern Reading of Pirke Avot" (p. 41, 1993) --
The elaboration on it "Do justly now. Love mercy now. Walk humbly now."
is likely derived from Micah, where it appears as "You have been told, mortal, what is good,
And what GOD requires of you: Only to do justice, And to love goodness, And to walk modestly with your God" ( https://www.sefaria.org/Micah.6.8?lang=bi )
with the crucial ", now."s being likely from R. Hillel's famous quote from Pirkei Avot I "He also used to say: If I am not for myself, who is for me? But if I am for my own self alone, what am I?
And if not now, when?" ( https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_Avot.1.14?lang=bi ).
R. Tarfun's original quote, that this is an interpretive translation of, is translated directly as the second sentence and is from Pirkei Avot II:
https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_Avot.2.16?lang=bip
Thank you sir! (If sir it is).
@MarcusMASTO @futurebird bio: "[she / her / hers]"
(And, you're welcome.)
@tricotfeelya tell that to Archy. He’s stayed busy writing about social evils.
@futurebird Seems to me that anyone who *wants* to live in the end times hasn't read the Bible very carefully.
Interestingly, there were in Bible times people who gave up on earning a living because they were so certain the world was going to end pronto.
The Bible makes it clear that such behaviour was not to be enabled by others. "If anyone won't work, don't let them eat."
Jesus' followers are meant to be blessings to the world around them, not parasites.
@futurebird "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only."
Those who anticipate the immediate arrival of the End Times are directly contradicting the word of Jesus. Though it's hardly the _only_ part of Jesus' teachings they ignore...
@futurebird this video makes a similar argument: how we might really only be at the beginning of the human story.
"I am pretty sure we are experiencing the beginning of the end of the Industrial Age"
I don't know about all that. We are accustomed to 'growth' and technological progress. It may slip back or stall. It may even simply fail to grow as fast as it has previously. But I don't think we're going back to a previous age, even if we fail to do our best to address challenges like the climate.
No, what we do risk is that millions will die needlessly. And without them we will achieve less.
We have created an interconnected world economy that requires billons of educated and skilled people to function correctly. What I fear most that that there are far too many who don't understand that we don't have any people to spare. We don't have any children we can afford to fail to educate or any communities that we can let fall to waste without the whole system shuddering and breaking in ways that may even reach the best insulated.
those who cheer armageddon or "accelerationism":
so you're happy to see your grandchildren die?
the essential conceit with such people is they have main character syndrome
they believe they will survive
the reality is:
cut your toe, oops sepsis
or they have a cache of gold: dude with a gun gets that
or they have a bunker: you mean your head of security has a bunker
or they believe in their holy purity: their judgment of themselves can be quite flawed, sometimes cringe level
I love the modern world and I will fight about it.
I love my antibiotics and clean drinking water.
with you 1,000%
i ran into something that made me laugh recently:
anti-iodine posts
someone genuinely against putting iodine in table salt
i laughed because it dovetails perfectly with the ignorance of vaccine denial
they never saw cretinism. someone with a goiter. someone with extreme physical and mental deformities due to iodine deficiency
it's all about ignorance and obliviousness to what we have, and zero education and awareness of what we need to do *to keep what we have*
@dragonfrog @ralph058 @futurebird
what if you try to help and they slap your hand away. or what if they spread disinformation that puts more people in danger
you help who you can. you try and fail with many, and that's just life. you're not a god with infinite time and money, and it's not your fault someone else's stupid choices
finally, in the spirit of your concern, you don't help you actively fight those who put innocents in danger by spreading prideful willful ignorance and indecency
@benroyce @dragonfrog @ralph058 @futurebird The airlines always remind parents to put their oxygen masks on first, before helping their children.
Sometimes the (adult) "child" refuses to cooperate, and that decision should be respected.
Those who do not wish to be rescued cannot be saved from their own stupidity.
@c_merriweather @dragonfrog @ralph058 @futurebird
We do what we can. We extend all reasonable, practicable help
And that will not reach everyone
That's just life
Other people's irresponsibility is not our responsibility, and we're already demonstrating sterling altruism with our attempts to help, going as deep as we can before we hit those truly toxic veins of prideful ignorance and indecency out there
Oh heavens. Shockingly, though, unlike antivaxxers, I'd be fine with letting someone who's anti-iodine have as much non-iodized salt as they want, and allow them to experience the consequences of their own ... educational failings. So long as it doesn't affect anyone else, of course!
You'd probably have to go far and wide for that, though, maybe going way back to a quote-unquote 'paleo diet' (which I'm sure they'd be thrilled to do).
the tragedy is, the ones who suffer the most with iodine deficiency (also much like anti-vaccine ignorance) are their children
with their adult fully formed bodies and adult immune systems, that modern society gave them, they can weather their ignorance, mostly
but their children will experience hardship, death, debilitation, or deformity
they will probably construct narratives where its not their fault, its bill gates putting 5G in table salt and vaccines, or whatever
@benroyce @futurebird
I'd swear I can taste the faint iodine in salt when using it on some mild foods. And it's not exactly a flavor I love.
That said, I'd rather iodine in my salt than goiters.
@the5thColumnist @futurebird well, you just don't need a lot. seafood is an excellent source, dairy and eggs are good too. for vegans kelp is an amazing source of iodine
everyone needs salt though, even with low salt diets. so i *think* there's enough iodine in that
this is just a personal rumination: i'm not a nutritionist nor a doctor. this is not medical advice
good approach. our modern diets are showered in salt and fat and sugar
if you have a varied diet, you should be fine
of course our biologies can be very different
some people can have extra salt no problem, others if they have extra salt it's a big problem
millions of years of evolutionary history have made our bodies very good at dealing with scarcity
but our modern world is overabundance, and we don't have biological protections for that
@benroyce @futurebird I sent my kid to a cooking camp next door to Chez Panisse. He came home saying we have to use non-iodized salt because iodine is bad, but he couldn't remember why. They made chili and cornbread.
I didn't have the energy to call them and have a chat about children and nuance. I did talk to my kid about goiters. We continue to use iodized salt.
i can't understand standing against iodized salt on "people have more varied diets"
yeah maybe they do, and yeah maybe most of us do
but not everyone, and even if iodized salt is of benefit to only a few percent of us (nevermind pregnant women when it's most vital), there's no downside, so why stand against it
The best part of these idiots is that they don't even know un-iodized salt is already available in every grocery store. They spend energy and time railing against iodine in table salt instead of just buying kosher salt.
@cazabon @benroyce @futurebird
I can't eat kosher salt! Who knows what (((they))) have put in that? /s
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