It’s a quote often attributed to Carl Sagan but I think it was around, or a quote like it has been around far longer.

I love the quote too and often remind people about it especially when they want to share information or knowledge that is extreme or not well known.

We do have to question the world and everything and everyone in it … but not to the point where we abandon reality.

I have sat and met with some mid level regional politicians and provincial politicians in the past. They’re all the same. There is something pathological with wanting to achieve a high office and then regardless of your political affiliation (I’m socially left and I always vote and support the New Democratic Party, left of the top Liberal left party in Canada) they all act in the best interests or influence of money and monied interests. I know they have to survive politically to do anything but at the same time, they’ll support monied interests even if it means the suffering of hundreds or thousands of people.

There is something fundamentally wrong with our modern mentality and social conditioning if our world is entirely based on the accumulation of wealth against everything including human comfort or even the right to life.

And that’s not even talking about the political figures who are conservative, very conservative or ultra conservative … they would rather dump entire segments of society if it meant it would advance their agenda.

It’s not fully evil … but it is a lot closer to evil than anything.

Don’t ask for permission … ask for forgiveness

The age old mantra of authoritarians and corrupt officials. What use is it to point out wrongs from the past if nothing will ever be done about it … and worse will be repeated again in the future?

In Vexillology (the study of flags), when you change the colour, symbols or any image of a flag, it’s a sign to everyone else that you’ve changed your allegiance from the first flag and now stand with the new flag.

This is the problem with the idea of the Thin Blue Line flag … it shows that they no longer stand with America, it shows they now only stand for themselves and their cop friends and not America.

Flags are important because they convey an idea without words which is important for those people who are illiterate … symbols and flags are easily understood by everyone regardless of their education.

So I think delivery drivers in America would be better served if they flew the flag that they would be most proud to stand by … which is …

Not trusting anyone based on feelings or emotions rather than through knowledge, experience and unbiased information is also a very dangerous thing.

It can lead people down a path towards cults, religions, and authoritarian leaders and movements that have all the “answers” for you.

There is no greater power for an individual to have than a broad range of knowledge and information from reliable vetted, openly available, openly shared and universally accepted sources. If your guru has secret knowledge that no one knows about, chances are that information is either no good or it is unacceptable for a reason.

And also remember “keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out”

I see American and Canadian politicians on TV news every day (I’m Canadian by the way)

The epitome of evil to me is in watching a group of wealthy affluent, influential people doing their absolute best day in and day out to keep their money and the money of those with way too much away from those who need it just to have a little bit of a life. They work to make us all miserable in order for them to keep having everything and to take even more from everyone else who have little or nothing.

The fuck is wrong with Americans?

If any other president had said the things he said over the past couple of months, the country would have exploded and a president either legally or through mass protest removed from office.

What’s so special about this orange nutjob?

The regular Coke is for a bit of sugar for nutrition

The irregular coke is to take the edge off

Surely you can’t be serious

Work hard enough to not get fired

but not so hard that it affects your health or your life

… and this guy doesn’t even work here

and just like Doritos, every once in a while you gorge on a bunch of doritos until you get totally sick of them and swear you don’t like them any more. A month goes by and you start snacking on them again because you hopelessly like them.

The greatest fear that government and our wealthy overlords have about UBI is the fact that it would create an entire population of thinking, creative people who would have time to think about how unequal the world is … and then move on to act on those thoughts because they would have the time and the energy to do something about it all.

It’s far better to control the population if you perpetually keep them on the edge of losing everything.

Same here … I’d rather be funding the study of an extinct human species … than in funding how to accelerate the extinction of our species

From barbarism to civilization requires a century; from civilization to barbarism needs but a day.

Will Durant

… by our nature we are dumb, frightened, superstitious animals but given enough time, effort, energy and dedication we can overcome our natural instincts of fear and ignorance.

Unfortunately, it is so easy for us to fall back into our old animalistic ways.

It’s also funny that one of the ongoing gags of the entire films series is just how terribly they shoot at everything … especially at the main cast.

A tech bro CEO cranking as hard and as fast as he can on that AI wedge apparatus … while telling everyone ‘THIS IS GOING TO BE GREAT!’

Nice … did you build the other half of the sword in the nether?

People like this are described by Charles Dickens … rich, wealthy, entitled aholes that talk about “The surplus population”

Could it be that we are just inherently a dumb species regardless of our environment, food, intoxicants or situation?