sholomar

I try to tell people it's a human nature problem. It's not fair to scream "jews" to the 85% of jews that aren't in the power structure. Any ethnicity of people you get or any large enough "herd" of people or any one person that accumulates enough wealth and power will tend to act and lead in the same way depending on whether they are a psychopath or not. It does no good to target an entire ethnic group. I tell people to watch for specific individuals who support authoritarian or autocratic rule and make sure they don't get power. If they do, take them out. No need to involve innocent collateral damage. The main threat to the species are authoritarians. Left authoritarians. Right authoritarians. Doesn't matter. Autocracy doesn't work. The Chinese Communist Party under Xi would be a classic example of what we want to avoid when we are talking about global leadership. I don't care how good your intentions, checks and balances are the best way to keep human nature at bay. I find most leadership to be incompetent, but again that's just human nature. Our species needs some genetic engineering... see my post here: All the more reason to practice radical acceptance!

I can't find any competent leadership I want to fall behind in either party. The problem is they all push "narraitives" these days which creates polarization, echo chambers, etc. It's a human nature thing though. I recognize these are growing pains of the species, so I try to be sympathetic. In the end civilizations rise, and they fall. It is what it is. My ego still loves the "dirty laundry" ... it's something I'm still working on. Feed that "pain body" as Eckhart Tolle would call it. There's nothing I can do about the geopolitical policies I think are going to decay nations, but I still like to talk about them.

There's this rumor that goes on around conspiracy forums that when you go to donate your organs they don't give you anesthesia only sedate you and that there have been instances of the human body responding in ways that suggest that the person is actually conscious when their organs are being harvested which is why this big anti organ donation movement popped up online. There's also the conspiracy theory about organ donating being this big industry which engages in scrupulous practices especially in some Asian countries. I'm sure there's some truth to either of these or not.

This is really cool. I wasn't sure which thread to post it in but it's related to this topic. I particularly like one of the comments... "My extensive meditation practice has also made me realize this in my own experience. But lately I've had some new insights into the nature of consciousness and its even more baffling. When you descend the layers of perception, removing more and more filters, at some point perception ceases to exist and its all just vibrations and pulses, all the senses start collapsing into the same kind of vibrations and the whole universe is just vibrating into existence along with consciousness. In fact one could say that the universe is made out of consciousness. Not sure what to make of this, I guess its a thing now. Let me illustrate my point using this very sentence you're reading: Notice the screen these words are appearing on, the shape and color of the letters. Notice how you are aware of these shapes and colors. Notice the voice in your head, that appears as you read these words. Maybe also notice the image of yourself reading, as you hear them. Now notice that you are also aware of all of these things. See that you are aware of everything you percieve. Of these shapes and colors, the voice in your mind that is making sounds from the letters. You could say that everything you percieve is infused with awareness. But what is awareness? Start focusing on the shared quality of all these perceptions, this awakeness. What is it made of? Do not think about it, just look, feel. Do not focus on the content of experience, focus on the experience of awakeness."

Just finished this batch of decaf beans roasted on an inexpensive chinese made roaster. Decaf of course, because roasting of caffeinated beans involves chaf production, which is lacking in decaf beans. Most store bought decaf is repulsive, and most people in my opinion drink coffee wrong, using preground beans often with flavorings to mask the fact they are drinking old, stale coffee. Enjoy the taste and the antioxidant benefits and the fact it's a low calorie drink. Brew using a V60 with a Gooseneck kettle to heat the water so I can fine tune the temperature and get it hot enough for light and medium roasts, which most drip coffee makers do not do. My cheap roaster can't get all the beans perfectly even, but this would be classified as a light roast, which is what I generally prefer for the bright flavor and origin characteristics. If some beans make it to medium or city roast, that's fine. Tastes great. Buy the beans super cheap on ebay... $6/lb

I use an electric toothbrush with bluetooth connectivity that idiot proofs the whole process. It beeps every 30 seconds, beeps when the 2 minutes is done. I use "Plackers twin line" floss. Then I visit the dentist every 6 months and they say I have great gums and teeth for my age I'd rather not have receding gums and have to use dentures when I get older. You do you, bro. If I eat meat, it will get in between my teeth and start to smell like rotting meat after a day or three. I certainly wouldn't not brush personally just because I was zero carb.

I could use my father as an example. He's 66 years old and ripped for his age. He still goes to the gym and does squats, bikes 35 mile rides on his road bike (we did one together when I visited last week). For him it all comes down to habits, habits habits. Healthy habits, and sticking to them even if he doesn't "feel like" doing them. If you don't develop a plan, and stick to it like clockwork, you may as well not even start. You'll be like those people who join the gym for their New Year's resolution and are gone by February. I am still working on achieving his level of self discipline. He eats a plant based diet based on the book "How Not to Die" and his main meat source is grass fed, grass finished beef. He consumes an antioxidant rich diet, including coffee in the mornings, whole grains, steel cut oats, various kinds of nuts, spices, fruits, vegetables, with light alcohol consumption in the form of craft beers, usually on the darker side. That's not to say you have to be into fitness to be happy, or even that you have to live to an old age, but I won't get into that here. It comes down to being able to sit there and mindfully observe cravings to do something, and then do the activity that you have planned and want to make into a habit. Leo's video on addictions and "subtle addictions" are handy for this. It's not bleeping easy if you are not used to it. It's torture, like quitting a drug.

Finally someone else saying it. There should be a global ban on real estate investment and speculation... you can own a certain number of single family residential homes, none of them used for rentals or AirBNBs if they are inside city limits. You can fix them up and sell them, or owner occupy them. That's the way it should be. The problem is a lot of wealth has been created and concentrated by central bank magic fairy dust (quantitative easing) so the top 5% are flush with cash, so seeing inflation they spend that cash on assets, pricing the lower and middle class out of asset ownership. People should not own 25 houses. Corporate entities should not own 300 houses.

I stumbled upon an informative website in my psychological and evolutionary research that may provide insight. Here's the article in particular that I would agree with from an evolutionary perspective: https://www.museumofplay.org/app/uploads/2022/01/3-4-article-gray-decline-of-play.pdf The website is the "American Journal of Play" "Over the past half century, in the United States and other developed nations, children’s free play with other children has declined sharply. Over the same period, anxiety, depression, suicide, feelings of helplessness, and narcissism have increased sharply in children, adolescents, and young adults. This article documents these historical changes and contends that the decline in play has contributed to the rise in the psychopathology of young people. Play functions as the major means by which children (1) develop intrinsic interests and competencies; (2) learn how to make decisions, solve problems, exert self-control, and follow rules; (3) learn to regulate their emotions; (4) make friends and learn to get along with others as equals; and (5) experience joy. Through all of these effects, play promotes mental health."

Personally I think parents should choose with vouchers that let them pick whatever public and private school they want is best. Let the schools compete with each other and let students go to the ones where they can excel the most academically. I don't believe in telling parents their kids must go to a public school. If they want to home school them, the kid will probably turn out better than a sizable percentage of public schools in the United States. We are depressed and anxious because our DNA isn't adapted to modern life in this planet yet. I still love this series of posts I found: It only worsens as you coddle people, give them safe spaces, and try to shelter them from everything. Emotional resilience requires discomfort, facing fears, and the like. Even then, our DNA wires us with high levels of neuroticism, and most people feel comfortable around strong leadership that is competent and ethical, something greatly lacking in society today. Then again, if you look back at history with an unbiased lens, you'll see it's almost always lacking. The nature of being an animal, and evolution itself. DNA cares about propagation. Everything else is fluff. The world has always "been a hell" or "been perfect" it really depends on context and perspective.

Like Leo said in his video on gaslighting, it's up to you to find your own truth and let other people find theirs, and stop relying on other people, belief systems, gurus, or whatever as an authoritarian source of information on anything. There is no perfect diet for everyone, no optimal eating frequency that lets you be closer to God. God doesn't care if you eat an animal... study natural selection. Evolution is cruel. I see animals killing other animals ALL THE TIME and homo sapiens are another species of animal. I believe within the next 20 years we are going to see certain animal species like Geese start to attack us because we are giving up our spot as apex predators by not harming animals. I've seen more aggressive action by birds, Geese, and deer this year than ever before. Geese along the bike trail are increasingly ignoring my presence, not moving out of the way, making aggressive moves. If you don't go and strike one and kill it when it doesn't move out of the way, their DNA won't learn to fear humans. That's how nature works. I see this planet and universe more as a matrix with built in rules, laws, and DNA as the computer code. There is no "right or wrong" to it, just interactions between mathematical variables and computer code that make up the simulation. As the DNA of these animals realizes humans are not a threat, they are going to act more bold and/or aggressive towards us in future generations of offspring. It will happen. It will fly in the face of people who think nature is pure, innocent, and that all species can live together in harmony. That's not how this planet and universe work. We "should do this" and "should do that" ... more should statements. There are no concrete rules for incarnating on this planet. Good post though! I appreciate hearing your perspective... all perspectives. There's a lot to "agree with" in your post for those who choose to integrate some of it into their belief system.

I voted no because my nervous system was sympathetic dominant from a young age due to overall lack of friends and being bullied. This caused gastroparesis which caused LPR which caused post-nasal drip which caused a coating on my tongue that gives me bad breath that's still persist to this day. The breath can cause a small room to have a musty smell after a period of hours. I continue to work on cultivating a stronger parasympathetic nervous system through healthy habits but given how long I've been wired to be in this emotional state it's a slow and gradual process. It remains to be seen if my body can reach a state where it's totally healthy I believe it will happen within the next 12 months. It's just a matter of implementing everything I've intellectually absorbed and turning it into into subconscious programming at this point. Having a healthy parasympathetic system is necessary to keep the stomach emptying quickly which is necessary to keep food from pressing up against the lower esophageal sphincter which then causes LPR or silent reflux. When you go through a deep trauma your stomach tends to shut down and if it becomes chronic then it will cause these sorts of symptoms. Most people who have idiopathic gastroparesis suffered some sort of trauma or are in a heightened sympathetic dominant state. It's another one of those stress-induced illnesses. Psychological state is more important than one's diet in the overall grand scheme of body health. Unhealthy psychology and Trauma tend to cause the very autoimmune problems that people blame on diet or environment or pesticides or whatever.

That's really cool. I avoid pizza because of the vast amount of simple carbohydrates in its crust for the most part. I'll have to give this a try.

I get the vaccines because I believe in vaccines as a person of science and plan to get another updated booster in October with my flu shot but I will not be forced to put on a mask or lock down again. I'm not one to believe in conspiracies but I do understand human nature and a sizable percentage of the population would be fine with authoritarianism if it was for something they supported. To me that is unacceptable. There's also a sizable percentage who supported the lockdown simply so they could get paid for months to sit around and do nothing which is also unacceptable. The long-term consequences of these policies due to supply chain shortages and inflationary pressures harm the entire global population more significantly than the virus would have. We don't want to be doing this nonsense again. The vaccines are around so what would be the point in doing this? I have a number of family members who are anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists and I just let them believe what they want to believe. I get why the right believes this stuff because the left were turning into authoritarians there for a while. It's a reactionary response of being mandated to do something and our species DNA doesn't like to be forced to do things. They let themselves be run by their fear. When Homo sapiens sympathetic nervous systems are activated and their fight or flight response is triggered they will often justify all sorts of activity they wouldn't otherwise justify. This goes for both sides the left and the right when they start flinging feces at each other or groups of people who try to get people to do things "for their own good" ... the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If conservatives die in higher numbers because they don't get the vaccine then what is the left worried about? It's less competition for them. Human beings just like to try to control each other. Being a control freak to a degree is wired into human DNA. People tend to think others are stupid for not doing things the way they do them. Try not to take anybody's actions personally because it's just programmed DNA firmware doing what it's genetically obligated to do through a million years of evolution. It doesn't matter which political side you are on. We're all subject to the same genetic firmware and it's not optimized for dealing with life in the 21st century. As far as Sean Penn goes Wake Me Up When the ruling class stop using their private jets. When they start following the rules they try to impose on the rest of us maybe I'll take them seriously. ( They won't. People in charge Never follow their own rules. Genetics. Rules for thee, not for me.)

No. This is the republican party playing politics. They support it because it annoys the other side and people in politics tend to lean towards being psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, and Machiavellian. For them its a chess game and every move is calculated. Most people find this obnoxious and just want to be left alone so they are not into politics, but they should be if they want to see the change they desire. Politics is a horseshoe. The extreme left and right have more in common than anyone in the middle. Without lifetime term limits and campaign finance laws it's also an opportunistically driven venture where certain power driven people are disproportionately represented which is unfortunate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

The family and the institution of marriage were formulated because they are instruments of social control. A person who is on their own has nothing to lose; they have no family that can be threatened by an enemy (the government); a person with a family will always be an inert soul who supports the evil "system". The state loves the married person; a married person is 100 times more likely to be an obedient serf & subject. He or she doesn't have the time to ponder the shit show going on all around him; he has a family to support! There are probably not even five great philosophers who were not bachelors. This is why a bachelor is Never elected. That said a Puritan style system with the nuclear family probably works better than any type of system we've had to date. The alternative is anarchy which is an inferior choice or collectivist authoritarian systems which don't work either so mixed capitalist systems with Democratic elections it's the best we have right now until we can alter our genome through genetic engineering.

This post was taken from another forum, posted here for my future reference. It could be pasted into half the threads in this subforum and is one of the most informed posts on human nature I've ever seen. "I guess I could say that I hate the human condition and the human body, but I cannot possibly bring myself to hate humans themselves. I love them and pity them. After all, they're trapped here in these prison cells of flesh on this god-forsaken planet along with me. Our bodies were designed to make us weak and stupid, suppress our True Will, defile our intentions, and blind our spiritual vision. There can be no fixing humanity until the Homo Sapiens genome is altered and all impurities removed. The limbic system must be made subservient to the prefrontal cortex, the fear response must be attenuated, the sex drive diminished, and numerous metabolic and oncogenetic defects addressed. These vessels are little better than the troglodyte apes they were fashioned from and we retain our primate cousins' drive for war, wanton violence and dominance over others. Look at what chimps do in the wild, free from the troubles of civilization. Remind you of anything? In the case of chimps, our closest genetic relatives, you can't blame culture, education, poverty, or poor character - only genetically embedded behavior. Those same genes control us, although to a much lesser degree. If we want to ensure a future for our species, we must kill the chimp within us. Imagine who you would become if you were free from all your urges, your laziness, your addiction, your genetically preset emotional valence (depression), your social anxiety, and your brain's pesky tolerance to continuous drug use. Imagine a world where you controlled your brain instead of it controlling you. If you wanted to act on your dreams, you could force your brain to produce dopamine and norepinephrine, spurring you to action. Your anxiety could be turned off and moved into a purely rational risk-reward calculation. Boredom and fatigue could be staved off with a mere act of willpower, and targeted emotional salience would encode new memories with greater precision and ability to recall. It would be a world where humans are free to become our best, authentic selves, loving life and embracing our greatest shared dreams." "Getting rid of sex would indeed be a colossally stupid move, but that is not what I'm proposing. I'm talking about diminishing the sex drive to the point where it serves the rational mind, not the other way around. You probably know people in your personal circle who have made regrettable mistakes due to being hijacked by their libido. Do you not see the benefit in being able to consciously turn your sex drive off and on at will? Sexual arousal is the linchpin of psychosocial control and can be used to manipulate your behavior at the subconscious level. How many stupid politicians now have a dossier of blackmail hanging over their heads because they listened to their dick instead of their rational mind? How many young women find themselves with an unplanned pregnancy because of their libido? How many men lose everything in a divorce because they ignored the red flags on their gold-digger wife, preferring instead to stare at their breasts? I'd even be willing to gamble that the demand for human trafficking would be greatly reduced if only our libido was dialed down. The libido is one of the most self-sabotaging urges we humans deal with, as reproductive instinct is evolutionarily optimized to prioritize the continuation of your gene-line over your own well-being. It's the one instinct doesn't care if your life falls apart as the result of a bad decision, it just wants your genes to propagate. The sooner we get it under control, the better." "I concede that compared to other life on earth, the human body is remarkable in many ways. The issue is that it's not designed to serve our mind/soul, rather evolution has tried to make our mind subservient to "selfish gene" principles, using our innovation and intelligence to ensure the propagation of genes by solving problems in the environment. Unfortunately, modern man's plight is even worse, for in mastering control of the environment, we have removed ourselves from the very selective pressures that would ensure our ability to adapt and improve. Even those of us with the lowest evolutionary fitness are all but guaranteed to reproduce and pass on genes that are maladapted to the modern world. We've got a 21st century mind running on stone-age genetic hardware and neural firmware, and it's causing a plethora of problems. Our hard-wired instincts are still fundamentally "caveman" priming our behavior to deal with threats that no longer exist. This leads to resource hoarding, tribal aggression and racism, overclocked sex drives, heightened anxiety, bad diet habits, and constant paranoia. In the environment our bodies were optimized to survive in, threats were everywhere and survival was a full-time job. We were not the apex predators, and faced just as much a threat from neighboring humans raiding our camps or stealing our land. Today, we have the means to become an almost post-scarcity society, yet we still think and act like it's the stone-age."

What's insane is I can see so much of other self-help authors in both the Master Key System and how to win friends and influence people. Even A Course in Miracles which claims to be channeled from Jesus was clearly derivative of the works of Carl Jung and other self-help authors of the early 1900s . What's insane is that modern Works don't really bring a whole lot to the table and are mostly derivative of earlier works which is insane to me. There's a whole self-help industry out there and I suppose it's great if it brings more awareness of personal development to the masses but you're right doing the work is the hard part because cravings habits and compulsions are so powerful they tend to keep people stuck in their routines. That's all well and good if you can reach Enlightenment and then are content with mediocrity but for most people that's not how it works they have a midlife crisis instead. What I see in this forum and on a lot of Internet forums is a lot of people creating narratives about the state of the world and then getting depressed about it. They make up this excuse to stay depressed or angry because they say the world is going to hell and then making excuses for their life circumstances rather than taking ownership of their own psychology. I suppose we all do this from time to time. To the degree a person does this they are a sheep who's projecting their own inner problems on the external circumstances granted there are some real problems out there we have to worry about such as the rise of authoritarian rule by such entities as the Chinese communist party. However, the mistake people make is they think that simply having these negative emotions towards perceived circumstances accomplishes anything when it doesn't. You either accept what is or take action to change it... ruminating over it doesn't really accomplish anything it just makes you miserable. Just read the first five pages of the Master Key System and it's amazing. So many books from so many different authors all derivative works. I suppose that's how we grow as a species though we're always looking at what others did before us. The drive for personal gain also drives our ability to want to try new things and see if they stick that's why capitalism as a system is generally more successful than other systems aside from the fact that it tends to promote more personal freedom. Collectivism can't and won't ever work long term no matter how much idealists like to think it would and I am objectively right about that so accept it. The laws of this Matrix in which we incarnate dictate that. It would be interesting if you could piece together self-help material going back to say the time of Buddha and find text written hundreds of years ago say. However one thing you'll notice about the Master Key System is it benefits from modern scientific understanding of our animal psychology and the inner workings of the nervous system. However, even the Romans seem to understand human nature to some degree or another one you look at the writings of some of their most famous people. Makes me want to research past authors and more philosophy but I don't want to get caught up in this cycle of more and more intellectual knowledge I know what I need to do it's to gain the life experience which is why I'm always torn between more reading versus doing and being.

Picking something and getting really good at it would be positive motivation, as opposed to "dabbling" where you kind of take an interest in a variety of things but never get good at any one of them.... taking that DLSR camera you bought and becoming a content creator, or using that flight simulator game to actually start flying and become a commercial pilot (something I wish I would have done, to go back in time. Sigh.) .. something that gives you a sense of achievement for having grown to the point where you can monetize your efforts. I would say as a young person you should find something you love, get really good at it, to the point where you can monetize your efforts. Some youtube examples.. Willjum... makes Rust videos Camomo ... makes Rust Anti-Cheater Videos Reed Timmer ... chases tornadoes, including live streams... he's done this for a long time. Marcus Veltri ... plays piano extremely well The Doo ... plays guitar extremely well Rob Landes ... plays violin extremely well ANATOLY.. a powerlifter who makes youtube content. Maximili ... does voices, goes on Omegle, streams GTA. I thought he took over the voicing for a couple of family guy characters but may have mistaken, but he can do the voice of Mort and Herbert extremely well. Time plus repetition equals habits. Grinding away the hours of practice leads to skill mastery in time. Skill development tends not to be a straight line, but takes sometimes unexpected jumps. See the book "Atomic Habits" Put another way, it's better to be a content producer than a content consumer. A producer will generally have a more fulfilled life than a consumer. If you give more than you take, your fulfillment level generally rises. As humans we tend to not want to make big life changes until our bad habits cause us so much pain they almost force change on us. Preferably it's best to not reach that point. Negative motivation leads to positive motivation.

I feel humans are burning themselves out from over-stimulation... sympathetic dominant nervous system. This includes sitting around and watching TV all day, playing video games, or in general staring at a screen, which might seem relaxing, but it's actually not. There's also increased stress levels from being programmed by all the narratives peddled by social media and our leaders. Garbage inputs tend to create garbage outputs. The goal of personal development as preached by authors like Eckhart Tolle and David Hawkins is to deprogram negative belief systems, or as David Hawkins says in his books, remove the clouds so the sun can naturally shine. The more negative programs you hold, the more belief systems you have that limit you, the less peace of mind you can naturally have.

Leo's right on this one. Good health is around 50% genetics, 25% diet, and 25% lifestyle. The obesity problem is less genetic and more the fact we simply eat more calories, otherwise everyone 100 years ago would have been as obese as we are now. Foods today are more addictive because of unlimited access and variety. I happen to disagree with vegans because some people react negatively to eating lots of plant material. There's definitely a genetic component that creates differences in dietary requirements and optimal foods to consume. Consider this article... https://nautil.us/fruits-and-vegetables-are-trying-to-kill-you-234982/ For people prone to allergies or other autoimmune issues, meat is probably the least reactive food group they could consume. That said, I can eat basically anything with no allergies. I eat lots of meat and vegetables. The lifestyle argument comes from people not exercising and sitting for long periods of time. The way genetics works is if you don't use it, you lose it. People who don't ever exercise (in moderation) will see their body give out on them sooner as they age, or find it easier to say break a bone from a fall. The same argument is made not exposing the immune system to pathogens, which is why I get vaccines... they work out the immune system without actually having to get sick. OTOH, I don't live in a sterile bubble... I expose myself to undercooked food and other common sense stresses for my immune system.

Coffee really is a large source of antioxidants. Laugh all you want but it's documented truth, if you believe in the power of antioxidants for reducing oxidative reactions in the body. https://www.emedicinehealth.com/what_foods_have_the_highest_antioxidants/article_em.htm I'm not a caffeine addict. I only drink decaffeinated. Literally coffee is beneficial like tea. If you believe in the power of plant based eating, it's a silly product to vilify and for what reason? Caffeine isn't really inherently bad either... I just have an overactive sympathetic nervous system still so I prefer to avoid stimulants for now. As far as "drugs" go it's fairly harmless though. Maybe if I quote right from Harvard I'll see less skeptics? https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks-full-story/ "After water, tea and coffee are the two most commonly consumed beverages on the planet. Drunk plain, they are calorie-free beverages brimming with antioxidants, flavonoids, and other biologically active substances that may be good for health. Green tea, especially the strong variety served in Japan, has received attention for its potential role in protecting against heart disease, while coffee may help protect against type 2 diabetes." If you are interested in turning into a coffee snob, the coffee subreddit or this youtube channel are what you are looking for: https://www.youtube.com/@jameshoffmann

The big problem with drugs like meth and heroin is the dopamine spike is far beyond anything that is naturally occurring. Once addicted it's going to be hell getting off these drugs. Do we let people do whatever they want if they aren't hurting another? It's a question for the ages. With the rise of screens more people are addicted than ever. This is where Leo's sitting in an empty room and doing nothing comes into play. It's a form of dopamine reset, to break the time wasting cycle of chasing short term dopamine hits. It will cause discomfort, because the brain craves the stimulation. http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/addiction/berman/neuro/dopamine.html https://www.utahvalleypsychology.com/pornography-addiction-science-fact-or-science-fiction-2/

The drive for gain is a motivating factor within the DNA of our species. You can't get rid of capitalism entirely and expect a system to work. Ask me this: Why should everything be free? Where in evolution or natural selection does such a system make sense or seem sustainable? Why do we let people with inferior genetics breed? If you feed undeveloped groups of people they tend to breed like rabbits as an example leaving you with a larger problem in a generation down the road. Infinite compassion has it's limits. People don't learn and grow as individuals by being coddled. They tend to appreciate things less that they are given vs what they work for. Discomfort is a basic requirement for incarnating on this planet. Period. That said, there's a global cost of living crisis from the top 5% being allowed to buy up all the assets combined with reckless monetary policy (quantitative easing, inflating of the M2 money supplies globally.) There should be a global ban on owning homes as "investments, to turn into rentals." R-1 zoned (or equivalent) real estate should not be allowed to be owned by corporations or rental agencies in any way, shape or form unless it's for the purpose of renovation and immediate resale. AirBNB should not be a thing when it comes to using single family housing as a source. If you are doing it, you are part of the reason for the cost of living crisis going on. I suggest nobody use AirBNB, and don't feed this system by staying in places that should be people's homes. In reference to the post above mine, religion and government are two sides of the same coin... attempts to control the masses. I recommend the BBC video series "Century of the Self." Anarchism isn't possible due to our nature. People will always form large groups and those large groups will always try to get others to join them and consolidate their power in time. There's no stopping it. It's probably less viable as a system than autocracy or authoritarian systems, which themselves tend to not work due to human nature. You'll never have isolated groups of people minding their own business... not with our genetic makeup. There's always strength in numbers.

Coffee is the largest source of antioxidants in most American's diets. It's healthy for most people who don't have acid reflux. I roast my own decaf coffee or buy freshly roasted decaf beans. It's the only way to make decaf taste good. I enjoy the taste and want the antioxidants but don't really need or want the caffeine. The nice thing about roasting decaf is there's no chaff, so easy cleanup. Just get a bit past first crack and I'm done. I prefer a light to medium roast with around 40 grams of coffee to around 650 grams of water, with a water temperature around boiling for a light roast, gradually decreasing in temperature to around 185 degrees F for a really dark roast. Most drip coffee makers are only suitable for dark roast coffee as that's the typical temperature they roast at. I brew with a large style V60 brewing device and a gooseneck kettle. My mother and grandmother are both case studies that coffee works. They both look way younger than their age and both drank a pot of coffee daily basically their entire adult lives.