The closest thing I have to a religion is Buddhism. I practice it. I meditate daily. I read about it. As far as belief goes, though, it doesn’t ask you to have faith outside of believing that if you follow the practice you will see the results they say you will. The millennia old texts that it’s based on are called Suttas. One of them, the Kalama Sutta, explicitly tells the villagers of Kalama not to believe it just because they are told it is so.

"Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.

Personally I have seen the results of my meditation in my life. I’m still early on the path, but it seems to be progressing as they say it will. I have developed, through a few years of practice, the ability to focus on the present moment and still my mind to the point that, at least for a short time, thoughts don’t arise. I’m fully aware of where I am and what is happening, but my mind is still. It doesn’t last for long, but with more practice it will. I’m developing what’s called samadhi, a type of concentrated focus where, eventually, nothing interrupts your concentration and you can maintain it as long as you like. I have a ways to go, but it appears to be progressing as expected.

So to answer the question, I believe it because I have experienced it. Many of the parts I haven’t yet experienced I suspect are true, though I will only understand and believe them when I do experience them for myself.

Well, I didn’t mention tomatoes. And I’m slowly replacing my grass with a sort of food forest. It may not be native wildflowers, but I don’t think I’m lost.

The point in the article assumes you are solely reliant on rain for watering your plants. Where I live it doesn’t rain for like three or four months in the summer, so that argument is invalid. I use irrigation in my orchard every couple of weeks to deeply soak the area around a tree. The wood chips around the trees do help prevent the soil from drying out because they keep it cool. It takes heat energy to evaporate water. And since the mulch blanket keeps the soil cool I only have to water the orchard once every two or three weeks.

I’m 57 and I started running this year. Overtraining is the biggest issue for me. I’m up to about three miles maybe four times per week, but most of those miles are zone 2 HR, really slow and easy runs. On the weekend I’ll do a tempo run, or intervals, alternately. If I maintain that schedule for more than a month or so I end up a little more sore every time I go running and my time starts to drop. So I have to take most of the week off every four or six weeks. I also take a lot of supplements; creatine, L-carnitine, Beta-Alanine, protein, etc. They help. I feel I can exert myself more since I started taking them. I also take EFAs for joint health, collagen for connective tissue recovery, and sometimes MSM, though evidence on that one is spotty.

Also relevant as a fallacy of argument.

The motte and bailey fallacy is a rhetorical tactic where an arguer retreats from a controversial claim (the “bailey”) to a more defensible one (the “motte”) when challenged, without admitting defeat on the original point. This tactic is named after a medieval castle’s defense, where inhabitants could retreat from the exposed courtyard (bailey) to the fortified tower (motte) if attacked. An example is someone arguing that “Trans women are not women” and, when challenged, shifting to the more palatable “I’m just saying biological sex cannot be changed”

They are, but then you’re pooping out of your vagina, and that’s something that one would notice.

But that’s not the goal of the health care system, at least in the US. Pharmaceuticals, hospitals, insurance companies, they are all part of a larger capitalist system that prioritizes profit above all else. It’s a conflict of interest, with the owners of the business on one side and the customers on the other. One guess which of those two gets to make the decisions on how the business runs. So, no, it’s not designed to keep you healthy, it’s designed to make a profit. And if the largest profit comes from making us healthy, then good for us. But either way we don’t get a say.

I played The Last Campfire recently. It’s a small puzzle game and the only voice is the narrator, Rachel August. Maybe it’s just her accent but I think her voice has a haunting otherworldly beauty that just makes the game.

I wonder if that includes drug overdoses.

I think the shooter was good, but not a professional. They knew enough to sight in their scope accurately, but not enough to account for bullet drop. Nobody aims for the neck. Odds are he was aiming for the head. If you zero in your sight for 100 yards, the bullet can drop 3 or 4 inches once it gets to 200. And he seems to have disappeared without a trace, so he planned it well. I assume he cleaned up after himself. Odds are they’ll never find him.

When I hear Nazi I think of concentration camps and killing Jews. Kirk was a big supporter of Israel. Does Nazi just mean conservative fascist now? And if so is B. Netanyahu a Nazi? That seems weird.

Probably Thai and Indian, since they both have a strong vegetarian side.

Buy all the corporations and convert them into worker-owned conglomerates a-la Mondragon. End global capitalism. Sponsor legislation in all governments to end the wealth disparity plaguing the world.

Newly discovered? I get that it’s Australia, but how could they have missed a two foot long insect that hangs out in trees?

So, what do they do when they run out of people to deport?

Don’t feed the trolls.

Why do you reincarnate? Let’s take the Buddhist view. The cycle of birth and death (rebirth) ends when you let go of craving for existence, craving for sensual pleasures, and ignorance (not seeing things as they truly are). (aka the Asavas.) So, that means these things are the conditions for rebirth. And they are the source of karma in your current life. Do you dream of being rich, healthy, strong, pretty, etc? That’s the first one. Do you have fantasies of sex, dream of the next meal you’re going to make, or just want to see the sunset from a mountain top? That’s the second one. Or are you convinced your individual self is separate from everything else and/or has some permanent existence? (a rough inaccurate summary of ignorance)

If any of these things are true they are probably focused on your current life. You probably don’t have fantasies of sex with odd slugs in proxima centauri. You probably don’t dream of being a brain parasite. The conditions for the next rebirth are set up by your cravings. And, most likely, you crave something distinctly human. Ergo, the next birth generated by your karma will most likely be human.

Yup. That was exactly it. I was thinking “I know how to do these” and not even paying attention to the instructions at the bottom.

Why live? What’s the meaning of life? What’s the purpose of life? I hope I don’t have to explain that people have been asking this question since we first were able to form words and start thinking. You’re going to get as many different opinions to answer this question as there are people to write a response. You could spend a lifetime studying philosophy and not find a definitive answer. And in the end you just have to decide for yourself which answer most speaks to you. Are you atheist, materialist, spiritual, philosophical? Take your pick.

Personally, I like Buddhist philosophy for these kinds of questions. And I suspect the Buddha would say that we are here because of craving for sense pleasures, craving for existence, and ignorance of our true nature and the true nature of reality. We live because we want to exist, we want to have experiences and feel the things that are available to us as living beings. Whether it’s food or sex or money or adventure or admiration or love we feel like getting the things we want will make us happy. The flip side of craving is aversion, where we feel like achieving separation from those things that are unpleasant will make us happy.

Volumes have been written about this and it’s impossible to summarize well in a single post. But if it speaks to you there’s a lot more to say about it.

Why do all of these look inverted to me? Like, what should be a mountain is a deep hole in the ground.