If it depends on how you view it, then it's not a moral obligation, it's a personal preference. Which is fine, but just acknowledge that.
- Posts
- 3
- Comments
- 75
- Joined
- 4 mo. ago
- Posts
- 3
- Comments
- 75
- Joined
- 4 mo. ago
This is a much better reason, frankly.
"I couldn't bring a child into a world like this" is a bit of mental gymnastics that people use to convince themselves that they're being noble and selfless with this decision, when in reality it's neither noble nor ignoble, neither selfless nor selfish. Every child eventually hits their parents with the classic "I never asked to be born!", and while it's certainly true, NOBODY asks to be born, and life has ALWAYS sucked in some way or another. Should pre-humans have refused to have kids because it would be cruel to bring them into a world where they have to kill to eat? Nonsense.
If people simply don't want to have kids, they should simply say that and own it. They don't OWE it to anybody to have kids - but they don't owe it to anybody to not have kids, either. It's not a moral decision in either direction. It's simply a case that some people don't feel up to the responsibility, and that's fine: not superior, just fine.
And before anyone says that not having kids helps to keep the surplus population down: no problem on Earth is a result of the population being too high. There's enough food for everyone; the problem is distribution. There's enough land for everyone; the problem is that some people are hoarding. If the population starts using renewables and just generally going green, corporations build more data centers and invent other novel ways to waste resources.
Obviously the canon explanation is now that it was all caused by the Augment Virus. However, what they SHOULD have done for the explanation was say that the Klingon Empire is an EMPIRE, composed of many planets across vast regions of space, and that the Empire therefore included many conquered species, all of whom shared the demonym "Klingon" in the interests of imperial unity. TOS Klingons could then have been explained as one of the conquered species who embraced their new Klingon culture wholeheartedly, and the redesigned Kelvin Timeline Klingons could have shared that same explanation.
Acceptance of diversity could then be said to be why Klingons and the Federation get along so well, since they both share the same vision of galactic harmony, but the Klingons simply believe this can only be achieved through conquest.
- JumpFeatured
[Discussion] HOTD S03E04 "Tumbleton"
During the Small Council meeting where Daemon brought the head of "Sheepstealer's rider", Rhaenyra stared at it while the Small Council continued to discuss other matters. Among these other matters was Mysaria (ED: Torrhen) mentioning that the Iron Bank wasn't returning their calls when they asked about a loan. Seems safe to assume that that's gonna come up later.
- JumpFeatured
[Discussion] HOTD S03E04 "Tumbleton"
Putting Daeron on the throne seems to be an adjustment to the original plan, and Ormund seems to only have come up with it in response to learning that Aemond would not be bringing Vhagar.
Bold of you to assume I'm gonna be able to afford a back yard.
- JumpFeatured
[Discussion] HOTD S03E04 "Tumbleton"
With this, it seems that we can conclude that Gwayne is some sort of ubermensch, managing to turn out decent and normal after being raised in that psycho family.
Perhaps Otto never wanted to actually usurp Rhaenyra's throne, and only did so because the "main branch" of the Hightower family ordered him to. The way Orwyle describes the correspondence, it almost sounds like Otto was a servant delivering daily progress reports to his boss.
Back in Season 1 when Otto's older brother (and Ormund's father) Hobert was alive, I seem to recall that in the one conversation we saw between them, Otto seemed to be trying to tell Hobert that Viserys was steadfast in his decision to keep Rhaenyra as heir, and Hobert was having NONE of it.
- JumpFeatured
[Discussion] HOTD S03E04 "Tumbleton"
I think Larys keeps a lot of plates spinning and fires lit just in case. Keeping Otto alive in the black cells, for instance.
That one actually has an explanation. Apparently by the time of TNG, nobody actually speaks French anymore. Picard gets annoyed when Data describes French as an archaic language. Maybe the English language became the primary language of the European Union? It already is, to some extent.
Why did Neelix have an American accent? Why do some Cardassians like Gul Dukat and Elim Garak have American accents and other Cardassians like Gul Madred have British accents?
Something tells me that the High Septon's comment that dragons are a profane magic "born of lust" wasn't actually about dragons.
It's worth noting that at this point in history, King Baelor the Blessed (the king who Tywin mentions to Tommen when Tommen thinks holiness is what makes a good king, and the namesake of Baelor Breakspear) hasn't been born yet, and therefore the Great Sept of Baelor (which Cersei eventually blows up) hasn't been built yet. So if the Great Sept of Baelor doesn't exist yet, then where is the HQ of the Faith of the Seven? Where is Westeros's "Vatican", so to speak?
The Starry Sept... in Oldtown.
Once you realize that Oldtown is the very heartland of the Faith of the Seven, a lot of things start to make sense. It makes sense why Alicent is always leaving the castle to light candles in the city's sept and pray. It makes sense why Alicent covered the Red Keep in the iconography of the Seven when she was ruling in Viserys's name. It makes sense why hearing about Rhaenyra's adultery with Daemon in the brothel, and then with Cole, and then with Harwyn Strong, disgusted Alicent so much. It makes sense why nobody of House Hightower has ever considered for even a second that the realm could tolerate a woman inheriting ahead of her brother, or that her bastard sons could ever be worthy of the throne.
Aegon's not dead. Aemond's not dead. Daeron's not dead. The war is still very much ongoing. The High Septon is telling Rhaenyra that Aegon has been annointed king in the sight of the gods, and that - as far as the Faith of the Seven is concerned - she can't be queen unless he's dead. But really, that's just an excuse. The Faith doesn't want her as queen, period. There's every likelihood that if she wants a coronation, she's gonna have to execute this High Septon and appoint another one who'll be more compliant. And that's not gonna be a popular move.
Rhaenyra already has a difficult enough time with the Faith - she doesn't want to develop a reputation as "the queen of bastards".
Is that Peter Serafinowicz? AKA the original, pre-Witwer voice of Darth Maul? AKA the live action The Tick? AKA the inventor of the Butterfield Diet Plan? It's hard to recognize him sometimes.
Ultimately we're just gonna have to switch to EVs whether it's convenient or not. Life is life and sometimes you just gotta suck it up and adapt to changing conditions. We'll figure out all the little tricks for keeping batteries working the same way we figured out all the little tricks to keep diesel engines working: through trial and error and lots of cursing, followed by revelatory "ohhhhhhhhs" and word of mouth - sometimes even intergenerational word of mouth.
And we can talk and talk about which type of engine performs better but at the end of the day, humanity's gonna keep starting wars over fossil fuels for as long as they're valuable, driving the prices up higher and higher, so sustainable energy is the only path forward with any future, not just environmentally speaking but financially speaking. If you're a self-employed haulier and you're approaching retirement age, I could see why you'd wanna try and make your combustion engines last you to retirement. But anyone who's buying, needs to buy electric or they're sabotaging themselves. Because the big companies are gonna kick and scream against EVs and solar for as long as they think they can squeeze a little more profit out of fossil, but as soon as they make the switch to electric they're suddenly gonna start lobbying government to tax the fuck out of anyone still running fossil. If you haven't made the switch by then, you're gonna be fucked.
It happened with the banking crisis: the entire system was geared towards keeping that game of musical chairs going as long as possible. But once one or two big names started to offload their CDO and CDO ^2s, things all changed very quickly and suddenly the players that already had chairs were eager to get the music to stop as quickly as possible. It'll be the same way with fossil fuels: it'll look like it's gonna last forever until suddenly it's dead.
If he's capable of resurrection after being dead for 46 years, I'm certainly going to listen to Jean-Paul Sartre.
300kg is slightly less than four average-weight grown men.