You misunderstand, I am not saying “make sure he spends it responsibly”. Nobody has has “made” him do this at all, and I didn’t advocate for a policy of doing so. What I’m saying is that I don’t think this particular use is worthy of condemnation the way his other actions are, because in the long run I think that this specific thing will end up benefiting people other than him no matter if he intends for that to happen or not (even if the American healthcare system prevents access, which I’m not confident it will do completely, not every country has that system, and it’s statistically improbable that the US will have it forever, and research results are both durable and cross borders). That sentiment isn’t saying that it excuses his wealth, just that I think people are seeing only the negatives in this merely because of the association with Altman’s name and ignoring the potential benefits out of cynicism. The concept is just as valid with him funding it as it would be had he been condemning it instead.

The response to something beneficial being only available to the rich shouldn’t be to avoid developing that thing, it should be to make it available to everyone. The failures of the US healthcare and economic systems don’t suddenly make developing new medical techniques a bad thing. Human augmentation is another issue from curing genetic disease, though I’d personally argue that wouldn’t be a bad cause either, with the same caveat about it availability. It at least has more potential to improve somebody’s life somewhere down the line than just buying a yacht with his ill gotten gains or some other useless rich person toy would.

I’m not sure I get the universal negativity to this. Like sure, Altman sucks as a person, and an individual having enough money to significantly bankroll research like this is a sign of an economic failure, but surely curing or preventing genetic disease is just about the most uncontroversial use human genetic modification could have?

Tbf, the 10% that are real people still would represent more people than the handful of people I both know and can easily reach to talk to outside. And even then, what about when one gets home? Can’t stay out all the time

Microbes are still made of chemicals, it’s just different chemicals

The moral justification for upending people’s lives or worse based on the circumstances of their birth and what paperwork they’ve been able to complete?

Feel like God would have fit this sentiment better. There’s a decent amount of historical evidence for Jesus himself to my understanding (not the supernatural stuff attributed to him so much, but moreso that there was a guy the various stories were based off of). But an actual benevolent diety would probably make for a more pleasant world than what we have to deal with, probably why so many people care so strongly about the idea and want to believe it I’d imagine.

That’s another take of mine tbh, if clothes hold obnoxiously visible wrinkles, the fabric is too stiff to be comfortable in my view anyway. I try to avoid buying and wearing anything that needs to be ironed if I can get away with it.

Folding laundry is a complete waste of time and effort. If it’s been through the wash it’s clean, it’s not going to be any cleaner just because you spent half an hour doing laundry origami.

I don’t eat meat at all anymore, but growing up, whenever we had steaks I would always prefer it well done. It wasn’t really that I enjoyed it that way though, just that I did not like the flavor and texture of steak even cooked perfectly, my father did and kept making me eat it, and cooking it to a crisp and then covering it with ketchup and paprika was a way to make it not taste like steak anymore.

and not to mention, the tools required to create it (maybe not the best examples, but still) are already in the possession of virtually everybody.

Ive heard nice things about Amsterdam, though there’s the obvious caveat that the impression the internet gives of a place is rarely an accurate picture of how a place actually is.

Honestly, I don’t really believe people are fundamentally much different now than they were before the internet, I think people are just aware of negative events from a wider area now and that things that previously would have gotten blamed on something else get blamed on the internet instead.

Is the tower of London still an option?

I have to eat really quick on workdays, so I don’t always get anything, but usually cereal, or I’ll spread applesauce and cinnamon on homemade bread if I’ve prepared some the last few days. Or recently pan dulce if I happen to have bought any recently because there’s a bakery nearby that ive discovered sells it fresh for quite cheap.

I live in the US and even my walk to the library isn’t that bad. Ive done walks that long or a bit longer as a novelty or to get exercise, but in general no, about half an hour is about as long as I “normally” like to go without looking into a bus or something.

It’s kind of a relief in a way, of all the ways “fascists war department leader calls all the generals home suddenly for a meeting” could go, raving about aesthetics is probably one of the least immediately dangerous for everyone else.

Were it really true that letting people move between countries unrestricted causes some kind of serious problem, one might expect a similar kind of issue to arise from internal migration within a particularly large country like the US, and yet, one can freely move between states without it causing some kind of government failure. I don’t really believe modern society actually is different in a manner that makes larger populations disadvantageous, since demand for goods and services increases with population size, having more people in an economy should organically increase the number of jobs required to meet their needs, it’s not like we dig jobs out of the ground like oil such that a given place has a fixed number.

I do get that unrestricted immigration isn’t as popular with, say, the democrats or such, as anti-immigrant people like to claim. However, I am in favor of unrestricted immigration. For me to say that I want ICE abolished isn’t to misrepresent my stance on that matter; I can only truly speak for myself and whenever I say that I desire that organization dismantled, I mean it entirely literally.

I could see customs, but immigration? Honestly the more I think about it the more I conclude that the entire concept of immigration enforcement and a distinction between citizens and noncitizens is unethical

The side effects of using that thing would explain how crazy some of the billionaire types have been getting of late I suppose…