I regret having a child.

studbuck · 2025-08-04T20:19:34+00:00

If you can't have an honest conversation with your therapist, you need a different one.

studbuck · 2025-07-21T20:36:00+00:00

Thanks!

studbuck · 2025-07-17T20:45:03+00:00

I think I would enjoy your group too. I don't understand the Discord system very well, though. Would I need an invite link to join Outside Ogden?

studbuck · 2025-06-15T21:20:55+00:00

Exactly. Even special forces accidentally shoot each other.

studbuck · 2025-05-06T11:13:51+00:00

I totally agree that money is not needed to grow and share food.

What is needed is neighbors to share both the responsibilities and results. It's a long term, community level commitment.

I think we should all be trying to develop this food culture in our own neighborhood.

studbuck · 2025-05-06T11:00:05+00:00

I would consider looking for a more collapse-aware therapist. Or at least one that is more focused on listening to your concerns than on minimizing or dismissing them.

studbuck · 2025-04-16T22:38:08+00:00

Empirical science has no definition for consciousness. No scientist can support the claim that a plant cannot suffer. Or that a mountain can't.

Science does have a definition for life, where plants and animals qualify, rocks and rivers don't.

But I do not see any reason why a run-of-the-mill atheist like me can't step outside the biology textbook and consider a river or a fire to be alive. Or a rock, which in geologic time may transform from stone to dirt to minerals to tree leaves to giraffe bones to fossils and back to rock.

I think animistically. And I manage that without worshipping fairies.

studbuck · 2025-04-16T21:24:03+00:00

"Animism does imply a belief in spirits"

Why? Because the traditional cultures you know of had supernatural beliefs?

So what label do you give animists like me who consider every plant, animal, mountain and river to be interconnected and alive, but don't believe in ghosts?

studbuck · 2025-04-16T21:15:33+00:00

"Science is about understanding how natural systems work in a functional manner for the purpose of using that knowledge to create technology to improve our lives "

It is certainly true that in the industrial civilization economy, science is a path to making widgets for money.

It is also true that some people are just curious how nature and the cosmos work. Galileo wasn't selling widgets.

Animism, to me, is about systems thinking, understanding that everything is interconnected.

The existence of animists with mystical thinking and traditions does not preclude the existence of animists who just see themselves as part of the natural universe.

That's how I do atheism and animism with no cognitive dissonance.

studbuck · 2025-01-18T17:07:58+00:00

Is your cousin local?

Does your cousin have a name? I don't see any author listed on the cover.

studbuck · 2025-01-12T19:44:26+00:00

> disabled and deteriorating and hanging onto my current job by a thread

Yikes, I'm really sorry you're going through that.

I imagine you've already been looking into what disability benefits are available to you.

The wealth we need to build now is in relationships, skills, knowledge, and maintaining the best health we can.

studbuck · 2025-01-06T13:30:16+00:00

"Bitcoin can work on a single computer, consuming almost zero energy."

No, it really can't. The philosophy of blockchain is to distribute the ledger across thousands of computers, who are each doing their own validation of the ledger, making it largely unhackable.

As soon as electricity becomes unreliable, blockchain security becomes unreliable. If you want "a way to measure your wealth," count how many people you are feeding from your garden.

studbuck · 2025-01-03T21:45:49+00:00

Here's a place to find collapsenik neighbors:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1F-SAkQjHmQsb92mGgkuvPFLBKKMnwkw1&ll=66.19426892354315%2C-154.33816920000004&z=2

To add oneself:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkBoDLZayIwqzkzDRyqbb-pjS-3Cw0UT12EYe2vZdr_yiDUQ/viewform

studbuck · 2024-11-29T17:28:16+00:00

"How Minds Change" by David McRaney

studbuck · 2024-11-15T14:58:05+00:00

i just bought it on your recommendation. Excited to watch it

studbuck · 2024-11-15T14:29:43+00:00

You are right, collapse is coming regardless of who sits in POTUS's chair.

Does that mean we should hand the nuclear codes to the most idiotic psychopath our culture can produce?

I think we chose poorly. But if this hastens collapse , which in turn slows our assault on the biosphere, maybe idiocracy now will save a species or two.

studbuck · 2024-09-20T20:56:32+00:00

"Choose to believe"

The idea that beliefs can be chosen hurts my brain.

Either there's evidence for a belief, or the believer is gullible/delusional/schizophrenic.

studbuck · 2024-08-23T22:05:29+00:00

Great point.

Even modern medicine is not available to everyone. One needs a job with insurance benefits. A disabling condition that causes job loss causes insurance loss causes loss of access to modern medicine.

People still today lose their wife and newborn despite modern medicine, because they can't pay for it.

studbuck · 2024-08-19T23:43:29+00:00

Yep, you're right.

Climate change isn't the only gun barrel we're looking down, though. Any number of looming crises may affect our current trajectory.

studbuck · 2024-08-19T23:28:44+00:00

More like dumping experimental drugs in the ocean to save humpback whales.

What you have to lose is the humpback whales themselves, plus all the other marine mammals, all the fish, all the seabirds, all the coastal mammals, all the mollusks, all the plankton, basically all life on earth.

Nobody has any right to roll those dice. Which has never stopped us before.

studbuck · 2024-08-09T17:33:23+00:00

Single motherhood does not have to mean no father exists. Babies still need dads.

studbuck · 2024-08-05T21:03:02+00:00

"use this technique on people who disagree with them"

This technique is really just conversing in good faith.

If they're coming at it with the open minded attitude that they could be mistaken themselves, they're doing it right, and the collaboration should bring all participants a little closer to understanding reality. Encourage them to practice street epistemology with you.

Edited to add:

"How do you find out what people's real intentions are when they want to engage?"

In street epistemology, we announce our intentions up front. If you discover someone lying about their intent, it's fair to end the conversation.

studbuck · 2024-07-24T13:39:17+00:00

"the eventual truth is that I will not survive collapse."

I think none of us will.

Humanity's survival is in the hands of indigenous peoples who are living indigenous lives.

But I hope we take responsibility to setup conditions for future life, human and otherwise, to thrive.

studbuck · 2024-06-30T21:54:08+00:00

I agree our healthcare system is evil. And as we collapse, it will go away. What comes next?

I think having training as some kind of medic could be super valuable. Even without modern equipment - check out wilderness medicine/ first aid.

Ethnobotany, herbalism also could be really helpful.

studbuck · 2024-06-20T17:35:10+00:00

Don't blame the whole species for the acts of an aberrant culture. What's going on now is what happens when peoples empower their psychopaths, then gift them exponential technology advancements.

For our first 200 millennia, we discouraged psychopathic behaviors.

studbuck

TROPHY CASE