Don’t worry. The photo is staged. The deer didn’t die like that. The skeleton was found and the photographer staged it. A close examination of the picture also reveals clues that the deer was not in fact incinerated.

Most people don’t wake up everyday and think about how lucky they are to have their pants, their breakfast, their car. We miss them when they are gone- not while they are here. Even people who don’t care about the site can empathize with the loss of those who do, and the loss to humanity of a cultural, historic, religious and fiction icon that has stood through ages of human history and is one of not so many historic buildings in heavy conflict zones to survive WW2. And as you aptly and wisely say- it’s never too late to learn

@spookykink57- lol. No offense taken. f I told half the stuff that’s happened in my life people would probably think I was just making stuff up. But yes. I’ve been around the block a few times. I think that having kids is hard, lots to worry about. Caring about people in general can be hard emotionally. Not having much in life makes everything harder as well. So I think it’s good for people to really think and soul search about having kids- I don’t think people should have kids so they can “take care of you...” or for ego or impulse or because they’re cute or because of a legacy or a biological drive or because you’re “supposed to.” I think people should be more careful and really take the responsibilities of parenthood to heart. But I think it ultimately has to be a decision made for other reasons than our economic situation.

@vitklim- if you skipped the rest at least please read this part. To oppose a law we see as unjust is a duty of a citizen and a human. In this country we have an imperfect system but a functional system that will allow you to oppose the law many ways. Sometimes a law is so wrong and the harm so immediate that a hero breaks it. we have to remember some laws aren’t “bad.” They can be used by bad people to do bad things but serve a legitimate purpose in actually protecting the innocent. We must weight the actual harm and harm to the fabric of society against the actual good- not any intention of good. Let’s say you illegally get evidence the president murdered a single mom for fun and covered it up. Great. Now we all know the truth. But that evidence is tainted and can’t be used in a court now so the prosecution may not have enough evidence for a case and the bad guy gets away- there are hidden costs to such actions.

We start getting real shakey when we get to a place where individuals decide either not to bother with the law at all, or to take what they see as a failing of the law and correct it. The system of law is create by votes and actions of the collective citizenry, through generations of law makers and subject matter experts and trial and error. For one person to determine they “know better..” is a level of arrogance that hints at a type of megalomania that probably shouldn’t be trusted.

We have laws specifically about what burden of proof must be met before a judge will grant a warrant to search or do surveillance. Nuances exist- but the system isn’t perfect. It’s designed by people in power and the people passing laws are the ones hiding secrets, so of course there is bias and red tape. So.... let’s look at the nuances of vigilantism. If you expose corruption through strictly legal means- pretend you are wearing a badge and will be held to a chain of evidence and other matters of jurisprudence- you are a hero in my book. Period. If your actions as a vigilante would stand up to the tests of peer oversight and the limitations set by law to protect the rights and freedoms of people and the integrity of your investigation and to mitigate corrupt investigation or abuse of power.

@vitklim- there are some key points. What is “no one is hurt?” If I pick the locks to your home without damaging anything and walk around your house- you have not been hurt physically or financially. So what is the harm? If I read through your texts or emails I haven’t hurt you have I? Well... Maybe not. I doubt you’d be very happy about it. So- let me provide some scenarios. What if I suspect you of doing wrong? So I search your home and your emails without telling you and without any permission from you or any agency appointed by and recognized by you? And what if I find nothing after all that? And let’s say this sort of thing is normal- then what stops me from going through your documents because I’m mosey or because I have ulterior motives and CLAIMING I was trying to catch you in a crime? The nuances exist. They exist in the law.

See- that’s the problem. Many leaders break laws and then use power such as the ability to stamp it top secret as a way to hide their crimes. If we give people the power to subvert the law at their own discretion whenever they decide it is “for the greater good,” we aren’t bringing truth and justice but we are creating another weapon that can be used to justify breaking the law for ones own ends under the guise of it being for a greater good. You are trading one person abusing power for one agenda, for another doing he same thing for a different agenda. The cause may change but the rest stays the same and you just change who has the power, not actually restrict how they use it, and in doing you actually weaken the ability to enforce law.

Death is always a possibility every moment of life, but you only get one shot at being born. If you don’t like being born that’s much easier to fix than someone who doesn’t exist deciding they want to be born no? There can be beauty or purpose in any life, and the joy we take from life may be much easier to have if we are born rich and or powerful than if we are born with nothing- but ultimately our ability to find purpose or beauty or happiness is more on us than on our circumstances. We only know the lives we have lived of course- so it’s all relative.

The world will hurt everyone. Few if anyone will not have a hard time in their life, will not lose a loved one, go through a divorce, feel their life is falling apart, or have the things they love most taken away. It’s no different than saying people prone to genetic conditions shouldn’t have kids because there is a good chance they’ll pass that on. Not everyone will enjoy their lives but most people seem to enjoy being alive enough since every moment of every day any one of us could take our own life if we saw it as such a curse. But even among the poorest and those with the least opportunity to escape we don’t find mass suicide a regular phenomenon. You can kill yourself in more ways than straight suicide- from drinking and fighting and takin risks and more. You can die for a cause or risk your life to try for more.

Not everyone will be as lucky or blessed. Not everyone can break the cycle. But simply being poor isn’t a reason not to have kids. Life is hard. For some it is harder than others. Long ago before technology- and still today in many parts of the world- for most people in a given area just barely getting by is all there is. For some people they will never have enough that they won’t be scraping day to day. If those people all say they can’t have kids because things are so tight- those people all disappear. So long as a person has the desire to live they will live- regardless of the circumstances. The world is dangerous. There is violence, cruelty, a million ways we hurt each other every day. If we were to say “it’s better to not have kids and save them the pain the world they are born into is sure to cause them...” there would be no more kids.

Certainly. My parents couldn’t support themselves. My mother still can’t. Sometimes we had no place to live and lived outside. Sometimes someone allowed us to stay. Sometimes we had no food, my father would hunt and trap animals and we would eat those if we could. We didn’t always have clean clothes growing up and the neighbors often gave my mother clothes their kids outgrew. My older brother wore underpants that were given to him from a neighbors child after they were too old and stained for that family to keep. My father assembled my first bike from parts he found at the dumps and around. We were not middle class poor and I often watched other kids have things I couldn’t. I played with the toys I had, I worked and did chores and missed lots of school. I did side hustles and worked shitty or not quite... everyday jobs to make money for myself. I worked hard and picked up skills that later on helped me to get better jobs and kept going....

Punsubstance.

There are WAY more people I can list. Almost everyone on that list above is a billionaire. These are artists and industrialists who have changed the world and pushes commerce and development. All grew up poor. Not enough food, no homes, sleeping in cars, government housing, foster care, etc. etc. history is FULL of inventors and politicians and innovators and doers who by this logic should never have been born. My parents couldn’t take care of themselves let alone kids- yet here I am. They gave me the tools to make myself a better life than what they could give me. I didn’t have the easiest or most fun childhood but I am happy for my life and living very well. It wasn’t selfish of my parents to have me. They gave me life and I made something with that and have done what I could to help others. By this logic how would people in underdeveloped countries or in wars have kids? Who rebuilds then? Giving a person life isn’t selfish.

Yeah. It looked pretty bad. I’m glad they’re ok.

In short- there are laws to protect the privacy of individuals and to uphold the integrity of evidence and help prevent abuse. You aren’t supposed to be able to be searched any time anywhere. You aren’t supposed to have every aspect of your private life open for investigation by anyone who decides you might need “checking up on.” So when you say you stole information to uphold the law and protect the people, but to do so you walked all over that law and all it stands for, you have done the same thing. You aren’t upholding an ideal- you are merely deciding who the law applies to and who it should protect on your own. You have put yourself above the law and without oversight or being placed there by the people and trusted with that responsibility have appointed yourself in your own self righteousness as the gatekeeper of right and wrong for all. That can be a very dangerous thing and a very slippery slope. Who do you answer to? Who polices you of not the police and not the people?

There are some very nuanced details to the whole thing. A corrupt government has no legitimate right to enforce law- especially when that government is founded on principals for the people by the people. It’s legitimacy comes from its service to the people and the laws they have agreed upon, laws which also bind their government. So a government which breaks the laws it has been given to guide its operation and reach is a rogue- a government of force not laws. However- things are seldom binary. A simplified example is a police officer selling drugs. If it is part of an undercover operation and if you go telling the world, you could ruin an investigation of get someone killed. You lack the complete picture- but if they made the information public, the whole thing becomes pointless.

- I suspect but cannot prove you are right that even if she were the “quarterback” of the project without any politics behind it- that the same controversies might be widely discussed where if a man- like the head of the project- had been made the face of it. I also want to recognize that there is an inequity simply in the fact that it wouldn’t require a special effort to try and “get out in front” and make a man the face of such an achievement. But I think much of her attempts at humility are also her way of trying to steer the debate back from politics and put the focus on the incredible scientific achievement.

@ewqua- there’s a good chance you’re right. However- it’s somewhat inherent to her being made the “face” of the project. The reason she became a viral personality to begin with was political. In cases like Armstrong- an old boss always used to say “the whole team works hard but the quarterback gets the attention.” Or the old saying- “offense gets the glory, but defense wins the game.” So usually we associate a large team effort with a single relatable and prominent face. A president for example gets credit and blame for the ideas and work of many others. In this case- many early spreaders of the image chose it as a way to forward STEM and recognition of women. I’m not saying that is a bad thing- I’m just saying that it isn’t entirely unpredictable that a political move might cause political discussion. That said-

The woman who everyone is crediting for this has gone out of her way to ask people to stop. She is thankful for appreciation but has been very clear that it is a team effort. It doesn’t matter who did what- one guy traveled to the South Pole several times to make it happen. It was a diverse team of many nations and cultures and genders who worked for years to make it happen, and without everyone involved the project wouldn’t have come together how it had. It’s enough to say that- to say: “here are the faces that made this possible.” It isn’t a competition. Science elevates all.

They sign a contract and cannot leave whenever they want- a soldier is a soldier until their word has been fulfilled or they have failed to uphold it. The government is supposed to be for the people and by the people, with its people’s best interests at heart, and soldiers protect and secure those interests. In reality it doesn’t always work that way. The government may have corruption and its own agendas. That’s not on the soldiers- they follow orders because they do not have the whole picture and are trusting that what they are doing is vital and for the good of their countrymen. That is the fundamental flaw in your argument. Soldier is not just a job. What jobs ask you to completely give up your basic rights and possibly die if the job requires it that aren’t some sort of law or peace officer or soldier?