sanity_is_maddening

I just caught your comment. Sorry for the late reply.

Yeah, looking around as you said brings me nothing but a sense of loss.

I’m 40. And I’ve been at this for what it feels so long now… what it’s about 20 years of this to me probably feels like a blink to you. But anyway, to me it’s not the ignorance that upsets me the most, it’s the people who know what I do and even share the anxiety of it, and do nothing differently.

I hope wherever you chose to move to, that you found peace of mind and a more tolerable climate.

Definitely. Good isolation is paramount for both harsh winters or summers.

Thank you for being so considerate.

I live in the south of Portugal. In the Algarve to be more precise (lots of Americans started moving here since covid by the way). It’s hot and humid because of the proximity with the ocean. Nights don’t cool off when it’s this bad and that is the shitty part.

I can’t say that I’m not used to it. It happens every year. But I can’t say that I’ve ever gotten used to it either.

It has gotten worse over the years, though. I’m entering my middle age now and when I was a kid the temperatures here would go up to maximum of 33 °C (91,4 °F), and now we get 40 °C (104 °F) and people think “it’s just another one of those days”. My girlfriend caught 43°C (109.4 °F) in the thermometer in her car this weekend.

Anyway, I use most of your suggestions every year, and they’re all helpful to anyone who’s not used to this kind of heat.

I would say my most unusual ones is to remain covered when I go outside, not only a hat, but long sleave overshirts and pants, both so that the sun doesn’t directly hit my skin, which both dehidrates us faster and raises our core temperature as well. Then when I get to the shade or indoors, I remove the shirt and the hat and let the cooling begin. It’s essentially the same idea that people did and still do traversing deserts. They’re all wrapped up to preserve humidity and keep their bodies from heating in shade. This works much better in dry climate than humid, but still does work. It’s not the most pleasant feeling though that’s for sure. The other one that everybody thinks I’m nuts is to never shock my temperature with too much cooling. That means no cold beverages or ice-creams. Or cold showers. Why? While they provide relief, I find that my body then doesn’t stop the craving effect, and it gets harder to sustain the periods in-between those “shock reliefs” as I call them.

But yeah, salty snacks and drinking water continuously rather than too much at once would be my top suggestions.

And keeping an eye on the elderly of our family and community too.

I’ve been barricated in my room with the Air Conditioning for as long as it is possible over the last few days.

And while it brings me some relief, it also burdens my conscience to know this relief is also contributing to the problem that makes seeking this relief necessary.

Just shoot me already.

Good to know that that’s better now.

Thank you for answering my question.

It checks with everything else. I’ve never seen this level of overt neglect to public health from any government of any country in my lifetime.

From vaccines to healthcare research and healthcare access and even food inspection safety… from climate research, to weather monotoring to natural disaster prevention… they’re readying a level of catastrophe that I can’t even fathom what’s to come.

I’ve already met a lot of terrified Americans who migrated to my country in Europe to avoid so much of this. I can already see a lot of more of them to come, and it frightens me the global health crisis that will erupt from it.

And by the way, isn’t asbestos still legal to use in the US? I’m genuinely asking. I remembered being told so and was shocked that it still was. But that was a while ago.

And not just in California. Or just the U.S. But the whole wide world.

One can dream.

But seriously, Android users from all over the world who haven’t degoogled should sue and keep extending the precedents.

And then use the money from the settlements, if they get them, to buy a degoogled phone.

Or just degoodle the one they have and install Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish OS, Graphene or /e/os depending on the hardware they have. That way they’re not even spending Google money to get rid of google.

deleted by creator

Yeah, RFK does sound like he believes the craziness he’s spewing. He’s gonna get a lot of people killed, that’s for sure. He already has. But the people who believe that he’s only gonna get the dumb side of Americans who believe him killed are so wrong. That’s not how this works. I get a lot of Americans on vacation where I live in Portugal. And it’s also true all over Europe and the rest of the world. And it is terrifying to think of the very probable outbreaks and who knows what else to come.

And thanks, I’ll use Wikipedia to read more about Lysenkoism over the weekend.

Thank you for the reply.

Thank you for clarifying. I’m sorry if I jumped in with my interpretation. I know who Lysenko was. But not much more than that he was a biologist who kept denying science in behalf of the state. So I didn’t know if that was what you meant and that is why I apologised in the advance if I was misinterpreting it.

But yeah, state dictating science. And the U.S. really seems to be headed to that level of catastrophes you described. I need to read more about Lysenkoism. Like I said, I didn’t know much about Lysenko other than he was a scientist betraying science for the state propaganda. I don’t even know if he believed the nonsense he was spreading. But then again, I don’t even know if the ones doing the same now do either. And I have a hard time reading up on people like that. Makes my stomach turn in revolt.

But as a permaculture enthusiastic and someone who has a project with his girlfriend that uses syntropic theory, I’m very curious to read about what kind of nonsense were they applying to farming back then. Do you have any suggestions to read? Like a book or an article? Or should I just put Lysenkoism in a search engine and eventually find the farming part? Would love to know more about this, so if you have some pointers, I would much appreciate to learn more about this.

I think it is comparing the Soviet’s movement spearheaded by a biologist named Trofim Lysenko to the the current lobbying to destroy science’s credibility. It was akin to the current lobbying against scientific integrity that started in the U.S. and bled everywhere else. People will immediately think of the hacks that move through the podcasts these days, I’m sure you can think of a few too. It’s using a veil of pseudoscience to confuse the layman and advance the purpose of a few under another veil, one of an ideology. Lysenko was very much like the figures of today like that kermit the frog imitation that passes for scientific expert on the “dumbtube”. I don’t want to name these horrific hacks. They’re already taking too much of the bandwidth as it is and for far too long. And I hate that most people that think they’re too smart to fall for their crap, fall right into the next trap, which is to go argue and generate more visibility for them. These people never learned the old online code “Do Not Feed The Troll”. We spotted them and let them starve. But I compared them more to Gremlins, because they multiply. The grifers spot the grift and chime in for the take.

I hope I didn’t misinterpreted the comment you asked about. But Lysenkoism is a great shorthand to describe it all indeed.

deleted by creator

I agree with you. I’m a middle aged fart and I have heard of the upcoming tipping point too many times since the 90’s. Still waiting on it.

However, I can’t help but stating that either we deal with both at the same time or we’ll have no chance to deal with either.

Maybe the collapse of the current form of civilization is inevitable. There’s even people who believe it should be accelerated. Me? I don’t know what to think. I know the solutions. I’ve known them for a long time. It’s the people I don’t know what to do about. The complacency, the apathy, the ignorance and arrogance…

What I do know is life is miserable without hope.

Beautifully said.