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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • Son in Law is one of my partner’s favorite movies, and even being introduced to it in the late 2000’s, I can see the appeal. Peak Pauly Shore. Plus, there really aren’t that many Thanksgiving movies, so it’s right up there with Planes, Trains, and Automobiles for the Mount Rushmore of Thanksgiving movies.



  • I’m sure someone will come along and point out that the 90s were no more or less peaceful than any other decade

    Not to be that guy, but there was the whole Bosnian Genocide thing from 92-95 and the Gulf War from 90-91 that really legitimized the US practice of inference in the Middle East in the eyes of many US citizens. Up until then, most Americans still saw intervention a la the Iran Contra Affair as a negative.

    Plus, the Troubles in North Ireland were still in pretty high gear until 1998, most of Africa was involved in civil wars and ethnic cleansing for a large chunk of the 90’s, and the collapse of the USSR, which was viewed as a positive in many parts of the world, did leave a power vacuum that resulted in numerous civil wars and militant separatist movements throughout eastern Europe and western Asia












  • Agreed, that’s my whole point. It was not the ideal way to get where we are, but it’s how it happened. There was a… I don’t want to say purpose, but “benefit,” might be the right word.

    If we were designing things from scratch, then obviously religion would be left out. But it’s an unfortunate accident of the evolution of consciousness and evolution of civilization that certain societal benefits were included with the magical thinking. Just like the health of the human gut biome is tied to the existence of the appendix, even through the appendix doesn’t provide much in the way of direct benefits these days and can become inflamed and kill us.


  • The supernatural claims are just a byproduct of the mechanism that passed along the creation myths and cultural norms. It would be great if that wasn’t how it happened, but it did. Rational people can agree at this point that the magical thinking is a net negative for society, but IMO, to ignore that there were some positives to come along with religion is the same sort of blind denial that religious folks use.

    It was a collective delusion to soothe ancient fears of a world we could not comprehend

    Agreed, but can’t you see that that was an advantage during the formative ages of society and civilization?