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This in regards to my distaste for other peoples voiced sexual preferences and inclinations.
While I loathe to disagree with Conservatives on anything, in this they are right. There are only 2 genders. You are born either Male or Female. A sex change does not alter your birth gender. If you have a sex-change - for example from male to female - that does not give you the right to compete against women in the Olympics.
Now, to clarify - Gender is indeed a construct - from a social perspective - but there is no disputing that Men and Women are born different. The only exception or caveat I would qualify this with is in those - albeit very rare cases - where gender is uncertain and so assigned at birth by a Doctor, who gets it wrong.
Everything else is a matter of taste. You are a man who likes men? You're a Mr. You're a Man. You are a woman who likes women? Ms. or Mrs. You're a woman.
No additional pronouns or "Other" categories are needed.
The fact is - no matter what your taste or preferences, an excess of liberality has allowed us to "Gender" you based upon these preferences. This is first of all
A) Irrelevant
B) Wrong.
There are very few social situations in which I need or even desire to know your preferences. The vast majority of my friends and acquaintances I have no desire or inclination to sleep with. They don't need to know my preferences. For me to embarrass them with lurid embellishments of my sexual exploits or demand they conform to MY "NON-BINARY" (mis)Understanding of the world is as offensive as them demanding I listen to their exploits and conform to their expectations of the world.
Non-Binary is simply a means of assuming that your fluid tastes make you a far more colorful person than your neighbor. This may be true, taste is an idiosyncratic and peculiar thing, but as soon as you feel the need to elaborate upon it it also makes you a bore.
Now for a few words regarding "Gender".
There are 2 genders - which are described by an abundance of gender pronouns. Mr, Mrs, Miss, He, She, His, Hers, Etc. Not all cultures use them - for example Finnish, Estonian, Chinese, Etc. I will accept arguments against gender pronouns on the basis of a historical power imbalance - the patriarchy has embedded within language a deep seated power imbalance, that by implication prejudices the reader or hearer of the pronoun.
So, instead of creating more gender pronouns, create fewer. One. Accept people in personhood will be bigger step towards equality than creating a mass of pronouns to describe what should be regarded as a personal and intimate part of their lives. To emphasize any gender - or preference - makes it a bigger thing than it needs to be. No one - no whole person - should be defined by their taste in what is a relatively small and unimportant part of their lives and relationships with others. Therein lies true equality.
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A common assertation by anti-vaxxers, that they're put at risk by being in the presence of vaccinated people due to "shedding" - vaccinated people "shedding" the virus.
Nevermind most anti-vaxxers will assure you that the virus doesn't exist, or that if it does it can't harm you if you're healthy, or it's a microchip, will make you magnetic, charge you with the 5G, etc, etc. So much bullshit.
Anyways, here's the scoop on Covid 19 "Shedding" from the CDC website:
Do any of the COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the United States shed or release any of their components?
No. Vaccine shedding is the term used to describe the release or discharge of any of the vaccine components in or outside of the body. Vaccine shedding can only occur when a vaccine contains a weakened version of the virus. None of the vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. contain a live virus. mRNA and viral vector vaccines are the two types of currently authorized COVID-19 vaccines available.
So - there you have it. Useful information found, read and digested in under a minute on Google. Which should tell you just how long these anti-vaxxers invested in their research.
Natural Selection is here, and I for one - while I despise the inconvenience, look forward to the results.
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Recalling an interview with Stephen Fry, in which he denounces the existence of God because what God would allow a child to (...die of leukemia, suffer abuse, etc, etc).
And - on first reflection you would agree with him. Certainly it's fashionable to disagree with God - at least the God of Roman Catholicism - and even as such it's less the "God" than the interpretations and intermediaries they've appointed on the subject.
But - here I disagree - to even name "God" is to anthropomorphize him - make him in our image. This so that we may more readily understand him (or her).
This is by it's very nature absurd.
We can imagine - albeit poorly - what it would be like to be an ant. If we err it is more than like that we project too much of our own consciousness into the ant - imagining it capable of a bigger portion of consciousness than it has. Think of a popular cartoon starring Woody Allen. But an ant has a finite relationship to us - we can measure the difference in size, in our brains, in our relative scope of duties and perceptions.
No one would believe for a moment that an ant could in any way imagine what it would be like to be ourselves. The difference is too gross, if an ant could imagine being anything other than being an ant, most surely it would become that.
Now, compared to the breadth of the universe as we have perceived it - and the breadth, spanning billions if not trillions of light years, the age - billions of years - and these - to be sure - are no crude approximations of it's size or age, merely the upper bounds upon which we are able to measure them. It is most certainly much vaster and older than we can comprehend. Yet - in our arrogance - we think that we can understand it.
Understanding it, being able to predict and control it would make us Gods.
Clearly we cannot.
The difference in consciousness between us and the universe as we have so far perceived it is of an infinitude of orders of magnitudes greater than that of the consciousness of an ant versus ourselves.
If you take the universe to be conscious, a living organism of sorts - and if this is in fact this is the case, then are there other organisms out there on a similar scale? And - how would we know?
People know that they are a part of society (Most people. No, many people. Some people.) Do your cells know that they're a part of the ecosystem that is your body? Do your cells grieve the deaths of neighboring cells, and if so, of what business is it to you? Certainly no one pays attention to the deaths of their cells, which happens millions of times per day, nor could they be expected to and continue at the level of functioning expected of their organism. A certain callousness must accompany any increment in evolution, the countless daily deaths of my cells is of little to no consequence to the well being of the organism as a whole - in fact - take cancer for example - the death of your cells may be crucial to the well being of your organism.
In any event, while I appreciate his arguments against "God", I don't think they're valid. I don't argue that there is or isn't, only that if there is a God, or higher consciousness, than by necessity it's intelligence and motivations must lie beyond our comprehension.
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You see the signs - some crazy old hippie camping out somewhere near 12 Mile, large hand-painted signs warning of human induced climate change, "The Anropocene", most people dismiss him. Last year his signs were 3 mile, he's a seasonal visitor.
Most people dismiss him as a lunatic.
I'm not so sure.
Every year we're breaking more and more heat records. Less and less precipitation. Milder and shorter winters.
Tomorrow, the next few days, forecast at 40 degrees Celsius or greater.
I've never seen it that hot out here. Even in Saskatchewan, or the Drumheller Valley.
Never, not once. And it's not even July. And it's going to get worse. Up to 50 degrees Celsius in Kamloops, if you can believe it. 42 in Nelson.
***
Note that "Climate Change" has almost entirely shifted - this is a "Heat Wave" - there's no mention of how Climate Change might have driven or impacted this. We hit new records - year after year, the classic climate change hallmarks - yet now, for some reason, it's off the table for discussion.
This Pandemic, it was just the toe in the door - there's a world of trouble coming. There's a theory of climate change that talks about "Tipping Points" - how - once past a certain tipping point, it's almost certainly irreversible, and the change will only accelerate. We're there.
Think of ball rolling down a slope. Predictable, you know when it leaves, you know when it arrives at the bottom. Simple formula.
But this, this is more a ball starting to fall off an incline, into the abyss, and the scientists, they've foretold it, predicted it, but were silenced, but there's good information out there that were at a critical time in human history. World history - not just ours - and that shit is about to go sideways fast.
And so lockdowns end, eat, drink, be merry, for the Pandemic is over but the end of the world is upon us...
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I mean, the abundance of fringe theories regarding Covid. By which I don't mean the Wuhan Lab Leak theory, that was mine own theory shortly into the pandemic, discredited largely by Trump's support, and back again in fashion. Nothing destroys credibility like having an idiot agree with you. No, I mean the people that think it's all a hoax, an attempt by the government to seize control, "New World Order" and all that.
It is boggling to me that - given the abundance of news from various sources, people should choose to believe that it doesn't exist. That the lockdowns are an attempt by the government to control the populace. I mean, we have examples of countries that did it right - Australia, New Zealand. And how is it possible that politicians - whose intelligence ranges from minute to diabolical, depending on the country you live in - could orchestrate such a thing? I mean, to believe it's a hoax requires far more faith in government than believing it's legitimate.
Anyways, it's almost over. Breathe a sigh of relief. For the time being.