IUCN Misses One Critically Endangered Species … Us

Some of my formerly radical views seem to be becoming more mainstream. Click this first link to read the main topic of this post.

ALERT: Critically Endangered Species: Homo sapiens

You’re five times as likely to die in an extinction event as in a car crash

I’ve been talking about the Great Human Die-off for years and have felt like somewhat of a crackpot for doing so. I’ve usually qualified it as just my opinion based on hearing and reading a lot of environmental science.

Now, it seems that the idea of human extinction within the time frame of those alive today is no longer such a crackpot idea.

Human Extinction Isn’t That Unlikely

Proof of Evolution in our Vestiges

I doubt I get many readers who doubt evolution. But, some of these are kind of cool and might help if you end up debating nutjobs who think we were created by God in our present state sometime after the actual human invention of agriculture.

Is Humanity On the Verge Of Extinction?

New Alzheimer’s Treatment Fully Restores Memory Function in Mice

Since, to my knowledge, the buildup of the amyloids is also an issue in Parkinson’s Disease and Huntington’s Chorea, I would hope that this treatment might also help with those conditions as well.

New Alzheimer’s Treatment Fully Restores Memory Function in Mice

P.S. Do remember that until this treatment exists for humans, and possibly even after, studies have shown that regular consumption of coffee does dramatically reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. Prevention may still win, even with a 75% effective treatment.

Missile Silo Condos: How to Survive Climate Change or Nuclear Holocaust, but not why

Apparently, if you have the cash up front to buy one of these things without a mortgage, you can survive whatever humans do to the planet, theoretically. I can’t personally really imagine how many years of food they could have stored in there.

For me though, I’m not sure life under such conditions, even in a luxury condo, is necessarily better than the alternative. I think I’ll stick with an overdose of insulin if it comes to it.

Here’s the link for these missile silo condos.

Home

Here’s a write-up about them from AlterNet.

http://www.alternet.org/inside-underground-bunker-condos-where-1-percenters-plan-ride-out-apocalypse#.VLAUmQcp4iY.twitter

You won’t catch me buying one.

Why Does God Kill So Many Children in Idaho?

As someone with type 1 diabetes, I can assure anyone who thinks otherwise that the effects of undiagnosed and untreated type 1 diabetes are beyond unpleasant. I ripped a hole in a lung and a hole in my esophagus from extreme vomiting.

These have healed, though my doctor still checks carefully 26 years later.

Once diagnosed, it took some time to get under control. I was on nothing by mouth for 2 more days after vomiting my guts out for a day or two prior to the hospital. I got motion sickness in a wheel chair on my way to radiology. I passed out quite thoroughly on a cold, hard, metal x-ray table.

26 years later, I am a healthy diabetic in tight control with no complications.

Children of the Followers of Christ, Christian Scientists, and other psychotic morons who believe they should prey on pray for their children rather than actually doing something to help them regularly allow children (yes children) to suffer far more than I did at age 25. It makes me physically ill to think that such people exist and worse, reproduce.

https://www.vocativ.com/culture/religion/faith-healing-deaths/?page=all

Bible has Recipe for Abortion

For years, I’ve been saying that the Bible says nothing about abortion. Since abortion predates the Bible by centuries and was commonplace in the area where the Bible was written, I used this as an argument that there is no Biblical foundation for any religious objection to abortion.

However, someone just pointed me at a section of the Bible I’ve missed.

Numbers 5:11-31 actually mandates that women who are unfaithful to their husbands undergo abortion and even gives the recipe for making the Biblical version of RU-486. So, the next time some wacko religious freak who thinks that the government has more to say about a woman’s vagina than she does because … Jesus/God/Bible, point them at Numbers chapter 5. Read it for yourself here. It’s quite amusing.

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0405.htm

Here’s the New International Version if you prefer.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+5

Gilded on Reddit: A Christian Asks Atheists 4 Questions

This isn’t really a big deal. But, I thought it was kind of cool. I had been on reddit for about 10 months and had just broken the 1000 mark in my karma. Then I happened to respond to a Christian’s questions on the atheism subreddit. That thread got a lot of traffic. My single response more than doubled my karma. And, someone gave me reddit gold, which I had never had before.

So, I’m kind of pleased with the external validation and thought I’d share the post here.

Comment
byu/jansenmurphy from discussion
inTrueAtheism

[edit] For any who are unaware, reddit gold actually costs money. So, when someone threw gold at me, they were actually putting their money where their mouth was … so to speak. The thousand plus karma points are a big compliment to me, but clicking upvote on a post costs nothing. The gold was a real thrill. A month of reddit gold is $2.50 by the year or $4 by the month.

Fuck! – (Do I need to add NSFW for language?)

This is infuckingcredible.

Thanks Rodnikov for emailing me this.

Human Language Should Not Be Traced Like Computer Code

I found myself saying the title in an online conversation over on reddit. It was an admonition to myself regarding trouble I often have in communicating with humans both online and in meat space. I tend to be very literal minded. So, I read and listen to human language the same way I would read computer code. Even worse, I expect others to do the same with my speech and especially my writing, which I’ve had time to edit and make it say exactly what I want. (Though, yes, sometimes I’m less careful.)

Anyway, on that reddit post, I suggested that I should write “human language should not be traced like computer code” 500 times on the blackboard, or until I believe it. So, here goes. There’s more of this post below, so please scroll.

[EDIT] I’m updating this post because, as ECA pointed out below, this may not be clear to everyone. To trace computer code means to follow paths through the program and imagine how the computer will execute each line of code. It is a very literal and exact way of reading the program. Often, doing this before running the code can find bugs before they even happen. Programmers in good programming environments often hand their programs to each other to review. Or, they might work together over a single screen with the person not typing reviewing and tracing the code as the other person types it. This last is not a quiet or unnecessary exercise. I promise. Thanks ECA for helping me with exactly the type of communication with which I have trouble.

Reversible Male Birth Control Without Condoms by 2017

I had to add reversible to my title because I’ve been using condomless male birth control since 2001.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/09/we-ll-have-male-birth-control-by-2017.html

Obama Pursuing Climate Accord

President Obama is seeking an international climate accord that would not require cooperation from either the Senate or the House of Representatives. I don’t love the idea of completely going around our political system on this. But, with the survival of humanity and most of the multicellular life in the biosphere and in fact, the health of the biosphere as a whole on the line, it may be necessary.

We all know that if he tries to get this through even the senate, he’ll never get the required 67% for a treaty. After all, the repugnicans have proven that they would rather kill off humanity and cause another Permian/Triassic level extinction (where 95% of all multicellular species go extinct) than actually allow Obama to accomplish so much as brushing his teeth.

So, for now, with the means being not too bad and the ends being necessary for survival, I’m going to go with the ends justify the means on this limited case, even though I strongly disagree with the philosophy for most issues.

Why is there someting rather than nothing?

This is probably the best explanation of this going around. It is lengthy but highly worth watching.

“God is unnecessary or at best redundant.” Great quote and well demonstrated in the more than an hour lead up.

Humanity: Guilty as Charged on at least 177 Counts of Megafauna Speciescide

Photo credit: Jennifer Carole via flickr

There has long been a scientific debate about what caused all of the extinctions that just seemed to follow humans wherever we went. Some said climate changes, despite the same species of animals having survived about a half dozen such changes previously. To me it has long been obvious that those arguing that we were innocent were simply insufficiently misanthropic and were in denial. Most scientists from whom we hear tend to be human themselves after all.

Now there’s a new study showing, of course, that we’re guilty as charged on all counts. And, this is just the relatively large species. It’s not even counting all the cute little critters we bulldoze over before we even know they’re there. OK, the speciescides referenced here predate bulldozers. So, maybe we didn’t kill off as many little species when we were still using clovis point weaponry, not as many as we are now anyway.

Anyone still wondering why I hate our species?

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/humans-not-climate-change-blame-ice-age-animal-extinction

Self-Delusion: The Key To Happiness

Warning: This Dilbert comic may not be safe for your brain. If you already have suicidal tendencies, I would strongly recommend that you click away, far away and very quickly.

On the other hand, I had a coworker at the time this strip came out (2001) whose response was, “Cool!! Now I have a goal.”

Source: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-02-15/

Angry Atheists — Greta Christina Explains

Yes, the video is 48 minutes long. It’s worth it. I’ll wait for others to comment, if any bother to watch the whole thing, before adding my $0.02. Seriously, do watch it. It’s well worth the time. And, I don’t say that about a lot of 48 minute videos.

Observed Evolution In Recent History

I had no idea there were this many examples of evolution caught in the act in a human time frame. I had heard of 3, the recent finch evolution in the Galapagos, the recent lizard evolution on Cypress, and the color change of butterflies (or was it moths) during the industrial revolution when tree bark blackened from coal soot.

Anyway, this is a great page full of examples, including new speciation and even whole new organs evolving. Cool stuff.

http://phylointelligence.com/observed.html

If anyone actually asks you “were you there?” The correct answer is “Yes. I was there.”

Wordification: Fundalentilist (noun)

I’m creating a new word. Let’s see if it takes off.

Fundalentilist: (noun)
1. A human being who thinks with an organ of the size and complexity of a single lentil bean, a living dal.

Note that a young earth fundalentilist only has half a lentil and is twice as dangerous.

Given a Time Machine, When Would You Go?

The when in the title means to what time period would you go, not how soon you would leave the present. I’m using when with respect to time travel the same way one might use where when taking about space travel.