I mean, it’s supposed to be.

Probably still won’t stop future humans from opening the vault, sadly.

We used to have a thriving rail and trolley system in the US; in most major cities especially. The automakers destroyed it. When they were caught, they got a slap-on-the-wrist fine and the nation went with the automaker’s suggestion of building the highway system up.

So yes, there is a fundamental reason we can’t. It’s the auto makers and the politicians they own.

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ― Stephen Roberts

Yeah, a couple family members converted a few decades ago and the Mormons sent us all a request to list all our ancestors so they could retroactively ‘save’ them. Most of my family being Lutheran, that didn’t go over well lol.

My grandpa, my uncle, and a few other family pranksters got together and gave them the most outrageous list they could come up with. I had a Mormon kid as a friend when I was young, and some days I wonder if they looked me up, and actually believed I was related to the King of Sweden.

Wow. Even Trump thought they went too far. Damn.

And the CEO who brushed that assault off ‘suffered’ a ‘delayed promotion’. Poor thing. For saying that stuff about anyone, let alone a customer, he should have been fired, no golden parachute.

I think the doctor’s patients should have sued the airline too, since no doubt having their doctor pounded to a pulp caused them to miss their appointments.

By any chance did you drop an /s?

Hahahahahaha

Go to any place Christian nutters have ‘missionaried’ in over in Africa and you can see them with the masks off.

The only reason that sort of shit doesn’t openly happen in most of Europe anymore is it isn’t a popular idea with secular people, and religious leaders don’t have enough power to force it down people’s throats - yet.

Meanwhile the one I was in out in the country was all potlucks and ‘how do I do this?’ and notes on roaming pets (neighbor had a Great Pyrenees that loved to visit everyone on the mountain).

I wonder if the madness cuts in at a certain density.

Citation needed

Because I’m pretty sure puberty blockers do literally none of that.

Oh, don’t worry; they definitely want to ban them for cis kids too (or at least girls). The one thing Conservatives the world over have in common is they like their women young.

Then you’d just have the police knocking whenever you used an aftermarket part. They’ll just force everyone to agree to them enforcing those contracts when they buy the product. After all, the EULA is given to everyone, has terrible shit in it, but people sign it anyways because if you don’t, you don’t get to use the product.

Source? From what I’ve heard, recent studies are showing the opposite.

I wonder if there’s a bit of not wanting to believe what people can accomplish if a massive number of us all teamed up to do something.

Because then they’d feel guilty for not getting up out of their armchair and going to support whatever cause they claim they’re supporting from the comfort of home.

That depends on what you mean.

Did a giraffe stretch its neck longer and longer, and then pass that long-necked gene onto its kids? No.

Can an embryo that gets a random mutation while developing in the egg/womb pass it on to their children? Yes.

This gets a bit more complicated if you really dig into it, though. Environment does change the expression of genes, and that particular sequence of genes that have been activated/shut-off/whatever can be passed on to children too.

Hence why children who were born to two shorter parents will often grow much taller than them if given much better nutrition. Or why obesity often shows up chronically in families that were poor or had limited access to healthier foods in other ways; their bodies had adapted to grab and store every extra calorie they could to guard against starvation, and unfortunately shutting that gene expression off naturally takes multiple generations.

It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.

-Mrs. Goose, Her Book

Alright, but…

When you’re arguing on an online space large enough for a position that doesn’t yet have overwhelming support, you’re always going to get some pushback of some kind.

Why wouldn’t the safety of women have overwhelming support? Why are we always on the back foot when it comes to discussions like these? Why is this such a ‘small position’ that women find themselves making ludicrous arguments about bears in the first place?

I would hope that a discussion of safety for any group would have majority support.

And we do know it’s not all men. There are many men who would never do such a thing. Or who have even been abused themselves.

But, according to the CDC, over half of all women have experienced sexual violence, and 1 in 4 women have experienced attempted or completed rape. With those numbers, it’s not all men, but it’s not just a few men either.

With those statistics, we can’t afford to just… trust. And the fun part? Many times, it’s someone the woman knows. So we can’t always believe we’re safe even with friends and family.

And sadly, nature hasn’t supplied us with psychic powers to know when the big burly guy leaning in too close to talk is just socially awkward, or up to something more unpleasant.

So I ask… please be understanding. Men are, on the whole, bigger and stronger than women, so a bad encounter has a much stronger chance to go very, very bad for us.

Okay, but, speaking as a woman, we try to explain these issues nicely, with gentle terminology and a big helping of ‘not all of you, but some of you…’ and we get ignored, dismissed, belittled, or flat-out gaslit.

So, we try going for the shock value to get you to at least pay attention instead of dismissing what we say as background noise or ‘us silly little women worrying our silly little heads over nothing’. And then we get told we can’t talk like that, that it’s insulting, that no man would listen because we’re belittling them, that it ‘doesn’t foster discussion’.

Although at least you heard us say something so many of us take it as a small win…

So, honest question. How do we explain it to you, so we don’t offend you, but you actually hear us? Actually get an idea of what it means to be afraid of footsteps behind us when we go out at night? To get leered at when all we’re trying to do is get a good workout at the gym? To have men just take liberties, like touching us, grabbing us? To not want to mention that we are a woman online, especially in gaming circles, because of the sexist bullshit and dismissive attitudes that will inevitably show up and run us out of a group we just want to be in because we like the game, damnit?

To weigh the decision to even make a post like this, because I know it will be brigaded and will attract sexist jerks who will try to shout me down? Or even attract stalkers who will follow me across instances to harass me?

Please, tell me how. Because we want you to understand. We don’t want to chase people away from discussions. But it’s so hard, and gets so discouraging…

Exhibit A, right here.

The Bible is a wonderful book; you can prove anything you want with it. ~Mark Twain

Boy, rules for thee but not for me. The wife can’t kill a woman she finds sleeping with her husband?