True Left

https://streamable.com/0jnp4f

"I did not ask to be born, and the world is not suited to me, nor me to it."

(I realise that this is likely not the best place for this post but I am not sure where would be preferable - please move or delete this post as you see fit)

Excellent 2010 video from The Onion mocking the needless cruelty and pointlessness of Western animal testing.
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=CJkWS4t4l0k

Reminds me very much of the experiments in "Learned Helplessness" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness#Early_experiments) in which animals were subjected to repeated painful stimuli with no ways of making it stop until they lost hope and were conditioned to just accept the pain. I first heard of these experiments a few years ago from Kaczynski's writings, in which he claims the technological-society conditions humans similarly in regards to psychological suffering. One thing that his mostly-rightist followers never comment on though is the cruelty of the experiment itself. Nobody remotely empathetic needs the results and implications of the experiments to be disgusted by technological progress, the fact that such experiments can be conducted at all is disgusting enough.

I think the go-to content for this thread would be the lifecycle of Ichneumon Wasps (the wasps that supposedly made Darwin lose his faith) and perhaps some reading on "Traumatic Insemination" and "Parasitic Castration".

"I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichneumonidae#Darwin_and_the_Ichneumonidae
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacculina#Life_cycle

This isn't a constructive topic to dwell too much upon, but itis important to keep a few examples such as these in mind when False-Leftists preach of conservation and sustainability - and when Demiurge worshippers give their opinion on anything at all.

I'm getting a slight anti-cryptocurrency vibe just scrolling briefly through here. That's a complicated subject I am not fully decided on.
My understanding of cryptocurrencies is that they are supposed to be un-inflatable as the currencies themselves have a known, unchangeable rarity*. This makes them analagous to gold. Adding to this analogy, Bitcoin is expensive and inconvenient to transfer for small payments (like gold) so there exist "Layer 2" cryptocurrencies: easier to exchange and representing a value in larger cryptocurrencies like BTC - analagous to a gold standard as an alternative to Fiat.
Other cryptocurrencies such as Monero improve upon the technology that was used to create Bitcoin to eliminate the need for layer-2s, simplifying business further.
Bitcoin is stupid, unusable and basically just a way to possibly get rich from other people falling for it. Cryptocurrencies as a whole probably shouldn't be dismissed outright. They're not ideal since the work used to generate them is non-productive, but this is better than the current system, right?
We're all familiar with the environmental damage done by Bitcoin miners, but some cryptocurrencies such as Chia attempt to work around this by avoiding using Proof Of (non-productive) Work in the first place, instead relying on time and dedicated computer space.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chia_(cryptocurrency)
Do be aware that Chia was developed by Bram Cohen (need I say it?).

*: Of course new coins are mined+introduced, but with a set limit and "difficulty". Or, in the case of some cryptocurrencies, there is no limit but this is known by everyone using the currency. More cannot be magicked into existence when it is convenient.

I did think there was a lot of benefit to the site as it was. I understand that people reading-rather-than-doing is frustrating, but re-reading certainly isn't a waste of time if you want to better absorb the ideas, and better memorise the arguments that converted us to help convert others.
If anyone has backups of the text+images I would happily put together a pdf version (for example) assuming you no longer want that content making up your website.

What footwear would you recommend wearing? Especially for if doing lots of walking. At most shoe shops I tend to have difficulty finding boots that are both small enough and leather-free, so I don't have much flexibility getting footwear conventionally (I do have leather-free boots, but they're probably not ideal since they're the only affordable ones I was able to find). Is there a nostalgic approach to this?

long-time lurker with conflicted feelings here, but since you asked

90sRetroFan might be on to something when he said:
>It seems that different people can recover it to different degrees. The further back into your childhood you can remember to, the more of it should be recoverable.
I seem to remember further back than other people I speak to, who of course do not share my feelings about the world. I am confident that I still have memory of my 3rd birthday - and even the night before. I also remember the feelings of innocence very clearly (such as being horrified by the idea of scary films and tapes with 18+ stickers on). I know that we're not really supposed to hold memories back that far but they feel very very real to me.
I've always been reminded of my Original Nobility by my parents, they like recalling the time when I was 4 and confronted another child much older than me for picking on someone else I didn't know - and how I was still furious about it for the whole day afterwards. That helps even though I don't remember those events well enough myself.
I don't want to get too specific with the examples I remember, but there were quite a few incidents I remember where I'd argue with teachers in school for things I'd see as unfair. I remember those cases well.

I'm sorry if this all sounds really self-congratulating from me - that is not the intention. I feel lucky to have had the right conditions to remember these feelings, which is the main reason I am conflicted about this forum (which really isn't so forgiving to those who don't feel this way). That's not meant to condemn this forum - I certainly wasn't very forgiving when I was little either!

One last thing is probably spending time with children - whether that's as a job or whatever. I'd been living with young children throughout my time living with parents - so I never forgot about tantrums or how it feels to throw a tantrum. There is no reasoning toddlers out of tantrums - they won't accept evil and nor should we.