Thank you for the clarification, I did not know that there was such a stark contrast between kill and murder. I am very aware of the linguistic issues with old religious texts. In my experience though anyone willing to take an extreme ("fundamentalist") stance or even go as far as to support violence towards other people and use the Bible as a justification for it is probably not aware of these nuances, so in all honesty sometimes I just like to poke fun at people like that. It definitely is more complicated than what my original comment said and there are more cans of worms here than in a fishing supplies store so I won't get into all of that, but as always I appreciate your nuanced view, you can explain things more eloquently than I ever could.

I'm not a biblical scholar or anything but I remember there being a "thou shalt not kill" passage somewhere in there? Idk man, my gut tells me that's somewhat more important than judging who a person has a consensual relationship with.

To paraphrase a scene from Good Omens: "What did he say that made everyone so mad?" "Be nice to each other." "Oh yeah, that'll do it."

Yeah but since restrictions are loosening and places are slowly opening up, a lot of people think that it's over. If Covid follows the patterns of the Spanish Flu, the second wave will be much bigger than this one.

Idk man. While that can often be the case and the "outcast" just turns out to be a massive douche, I'm sorta bad at social situations (I think I have Asperger's but haven't gone to a therapist for a diagnosis yet) and can be a bit awkward at times but I do my best. Most colleagues are cool about it but some colleagues are clearly happy at every opportunity to rub it in when I made a mistake because I misread the situation. One lady in particular is always so passive aggressive about it too, saying stuff like "well it shouldn't happen again" or "well it's obvious to me" even when it's a teeny tiny misunderstanding that I can resolve in a minute. Interestingly enough she's also kinda bad at communicating, always very "rough" and not very tactful. I think she might have the same insecurities as I do, and she takes it out on me because pointing out the weirdo's mistakes makes her feel normal.

Well any soap is in principle better than shower gels, for environmental reasons because solid soap usually doesn't involve plastic packaging.
According to Wikipedia, it's a variation of the OR6A2 gene which influences our sense of smell. The most prominent influence which has been observed is the cilantro thing. Interestingly enough the same chemical is also present in cinnamon but I haven't really noticed cinnamon tasting like soap (the citation at that point is not verified though so maybe that part is BS). Idk, apparently there are a bunch of variations of this gene and different people perceive cilantro differently. Some people even associate cilantro with worse things than soap, apparently to some people it even smells like stinkbugs or vomit. So it turns out I'm actually one of the luckier ones.

Ha! Good one, but actually it really is a gene that about 10% of people have. Or maybe everyone has it but for most people it's not strong enough to bother them, idk. It also doesn't help that I have a heightened sense of smell which also enhances certain tastes lol

Good point! With experience you learn what amount adds flavor but not so much that it becomes overwhelming. Which is why it's important to experiment with spices and herbs so that you know what effect they have on the food and what they go well with, as well as to understand your own taste. For example, I've learned that I absolutely cannot stand cilantro because of a rare gene that makes cilantro taste like soap to me so I know not to use it.

Yeah, apart from a few cases it's really wholesome. I've been looking into the Tiny house movement as well, which partly overlaps with cottagecore because tiny houses are often off-grid and a sort of return to a simpler lifestyle without a ton of possessions and useless space. I'm hoping to build myself a tiny house some day ^^

The fact that he's on Fox News makes me think he didn't really learn. Those guys have never met a war they didn't like.

Yes, Barbara seems like a badass lady with her heart in the right place. I'm just saying that her demographic has a relatively high number of Karens and "never mess with a southern woman" can be overridden when the southern woman in question is being a Karen.

But what if she's being a Karen? In my experience, southern boomers can be some of the biggest Karens.

Pointing out problematic aspects of a country's past is anti-American? Soooo free speech is anti-American? Damn. "The first amendment is anti-American" is a hell of a hot take.

Ha, very true. It's always awkward waiting in the dressing room with no pants on. But they can help you a lot. My periods were absolute hell and I had terrible acne before my gynecologist recommended getting me on birth control. Now my skin is clear and my periods are a lot less hellish.

Have you watched the show? It's so good.

That said I'd like to see evidence that "what doesn't meet an approved narrative is altered, buried, or ridiculed". Maybe by politicians but definitely not by any scientific magazine worth its marbles (or however that saying goes). The scientific community does vet itself quite rigorously as I've mentioned.
As for your point about eugenics and the rest, the point of science is to change with new information. The point of science is progress. A non-falsifiable hypothesis is a bad hypothesis. The fact that we know that people in the past were wrong is a good thing.
There definitely is a discussion to be had about the relationship between power and knowledge. There is also a discussion to be had sbout the politicization of health itself. Unfortunately the character limit is a thing here and I don't want to have to write 20 comments in a row. But both of those topics are probed by Foucault, I think you should give some his stuff a read, it's pretty good. (2/2)

Okay, so your issue isn't with scientists or research institutions but politicians using power to either undermine or uplift certain research for political reasons? If so, I wholeheartedly agree, this is why you always assess who the research is coming from, why they're concluding what they're concluding, who's above them, and why you push for freedom of research, which in my opinion is as important as freedom of the press, if not more.
The WHO unfortunately doesn't operate in a vacuum. The Taiwan situation, as shitty as it is, happened because China is a pretty important player in the international system right now, and at least in the beginning had the best conditions to study how the virus acts due to the number of cases and lack of control. Now I still think it's stupid to trust China at all, seeing as they lied from the start and still do, but it sorta makes sense within the broader international context. (1/2)

If you wanna get philosophical, then yes all humans are equally flawed. But have you ever done research? Like, formulated a research question and used scientific publications and data to find the answer to it? Because it's actually pretty hard to create your own conclusions and twist the data to support it. Much more so if you want to have your work published in a magazine, that shit is vetted like you wouldn't believe.
It's good to be critical towards the things you read, no doubt. Question everything, take nothing for granted. But using "eh a scientist can be wrong too" as a justification for giving the same platform to a guy who spent 30 years doing rigorous research and a guy who dropped out of middle school and watched some YouTube conspiracy videos is not the right way to go.