Posts by Jessica Gonzalez

Noah Roberts46 said:Saddam got his ass kicked once; what are the odds he'd try that again? Everything you're saying is just one big "maybe." I’m talking about facts and what actually happened.

I agree that the region is a minefield and there hasn't been a solution since Israel was established with Western help. But nothing before the Americans arrived there had any consequences for Europe. Trying to justify their intervention makes no sense at all.

People have always been intervening there, probably for at least 2,000 years if you go all the way back to the days of Rome. I guess saying "Americans just meddle in everything" doesn't really make much sense when you look at the full picture. Maybe it's worth noting that since they started getting involved, the borders in the Middle East have actually stayed somewhat stable, which wasn't exactly the case before.

Dancing with fools—Maja Šokot looks pretty rough here. I guess if she sat down next to me without any makeup on, I might end up even more traumatized than I am after watching these clips from Mexico.

I was at an Aztec game once, and I remember there were almost as many police officers outside the stadium as there were fans inside. It probably makes sense, though. Those hot-blooded Latinos certainly have a lot of energy.

Carl Hernandez3 said:Did you see the chaos involving those 17 deaths?
It's why Americans get so worked up about this stuff—it just escalates until you have full-blown fan hooliganism style riots

It’s hard to believe. I read the news report saying there were only 22 injured, but then I watched footage where people were clearly being killed. If it really ended with only 17 dead, I guess that's probably for the best.

I ended up getting a strike just because I told Gingerini things were getting a bit stuck, but I guess the forum is being fair and merciful about it.

Paul Sanders5 said:Look, I don't have anything good to say about our neighbors across the border—honestly, if you ask Jessica Gonzalez, she’ll probably tell you she wishes them nothing but the worst 😁 but I'm not losing any sleep over it like Kyle Campbell4 does. They don't even have anyone left to fight. Nobody in this part of the country has any beef left to settle, except maybe those folks over in the Southwest.

No, no, my friend, I don't hate anyone. I just love people differently—some more, some less, and some least of all. But I still care about them regardless. I’m actually a huge fan of the biggest Ushanka, even though I'm not a Christian. Well, I am on paper, but maybe not in practice? Or maybe it's the other way around; I guess I'm not quite sure anymore. Either way, I'll be a fan even if his own father turns his back on him.

Regarding Mexico, I suppose it might be best if Mexico and Canada joined the European Union and the Schengen Area. That way, those territories could eventually unify, which might help calm things down. It probably wouldn't work perfectly, but maybe they'd grow economically, which would lead to fewer foolish ideas and prejudices.

I wonder if Miller has said anything about this yet?

Kyle Campbell4 said:It isn't just limited to television broadcasts. We are talking about social media platforms, online forums, and everything in between. There are even documentaries dedicated entirely to Putin's disinformation machine, featuring former trolls who describe exactly how the operation functions. They take these old, defunct factories and repurpose them into hubs where dozens of bots work in shifts, utilizing mountains of fake profiles to flood the American internet with Russian propaganda twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

I think I mentioned something similar back when Amy Bennett was posting that kind of stuff here. It seems like foreign interests have been investing in the American internet for years now. I suppose that’s just how things work these days. Even here in the States, people push their own narratives, like with the whole cancel culture phenomenon. I guess it's just not right to ignore it and pretend everything is fine.

Justin James10 said:Give them credit for something they’ve been dragging their feet on for decades?

Honestly, that whole crowd from the coastal political circles—sure, they’re useful idiots, but if we were actually acting like a serious nation, wouldn't our intelligence agencies have investigated who was pulling the strings behind those fools in the first place?

It wasn't just instigation, they were likely being paid off. Probably for a bargain, following the old American way.

silverhound said:So, I heard yesterday that the US is looking at covering over 50% of our gas needs through that new LNG terminal. We already knew we were pulling about 30% from our own domestic production, which basically leaves us with a 20% gap to fill...

As far as electricity goes, we’re actually leading the way among Western nations when it comes to renewables. It’s mostly coming from hydropower right now. But over this past year, and with a few more coming down the pipeline, we’ve got several massive wind farms and solar plants getting online. They're even starting construction on another artificial reservoir soon...

Yeah, it was actually mentioned a few weeks ago that we cover about 20% of our needs from Russia, mostly through PPD.

At the same time, gas consumption here has been dropping for various reasons. Usage is slowly recovering, but projections through 2030 suggest annual amounts might stay pretty much steady.

Larry Fox5 said:It feels like a witch hunt has truly begun. 🤦

In Munich today, they actually fired a conductor just because he was seen once with Putin. I guess it’s pure hysteria at this point; it doesn't seem rational and honestly starts feeling a bit like fascism.

I also agree that this refusal to let people participate in certain sports is getting worrying. It's not like everyday Americans are responsible just because their leader has completely lost it. I suppose we're just targeting people simply because of where they're from now.

Even these sanctions are reaching levels that feel borderline inhumane. Mastercard and Visa pulled their services in Russia... I mean, seriously, where does it end?

Well, it happens. Since Visa and Mastercard are American companies and technology, maybe they could just build their own systems. They have the computers and the programmers; they can just code something new. I don't see how that relates to humanity, really. Russia still has food, energy, and plenty of territory, so maybe they can use this time to build parallel systems like the Chinese have done. They have tons of sports fields and arenas too, so they can just play against themselves or Belarus. If people wanted a Cold War, well, here it is. Is Medvedev, as a top tennis player, responsible for Ukraine? Probably not, but he is part of the system. He likely won't face any consequences, but man, that's tough. Maybe if one Medvedev after another is dealt with, enough pressure builds to change the regime. Maybe not, but perhaps these types of figures will have to deal with the fallout for a while. They can just play against the wall.

We weren't really around back then, but the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan triggered similar economic sanctions and Olympic boycotts. I guess that eventually contributed to the collapse of the USSR, which kept the world from being messed with for about 30 years.

Larry Fox5 said:At least 30% of the crowd on "World News" and general politics forums are pushing for Putin and the Russians. Just go check the comments on Mexican news sites and you'll see it's easily 70-80% pro-Russia—or at the very least, they're making excuses for the Russian aggression.

I honestly don't get how people can be this blinded—especially nowadays—but clearly, this kind of anomaly exists...

I've been avoiding this thread lately, but I suppose there's a simple explanation. Some people just haven't changed their ways.

Kenneth Cruz67 said:Well, I'm not so sure about that! From what I understand, a species is actually defined as a group of animals that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring.

That makes sense, but you don't really have a parent and child belonging to two different species. It's more like, from a certain point onward, two species split apart. I suppose it’s an accumulation of genetic changes that eventually means those two groups can't easily produce fertile offspring anymore. Over time, because successful breeding becomes rarer, those two groups—which started as one—keep drifting apart genetically. But honestly, how do we even study this for species that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago? We probably just classify them based on what their fossils look like.

I think physical isolation is probably the biggest driver for species splitting. Like, if an island separates from the mainland, those two groups start to diverge even if they were the same species at first. But I guess that doesn't mean they became two distinct species overnight, or that a definitive genetic split happens after, say, exactly a thousand years.

There isn't really a specific date or a particular pair of ancient ancestors that marks the start of Homo sapiens. Evolution is such a continuous process, so I guess what we call "species" is mostly just a human invention used for classification.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy A50 on Reddit

Kenneth Cruz67 said:I have always felt that organized warfare is probably a relatively recent development in our history, and honestly, I don't think it truly existed before then. Back in the day, people likely lived in such tiny, scattered groups that a clash between two small tribes wouldn't even qualify as a "war" in the way we understand it today. It seems to me that war only became this massive, defining factor once humans actually started claiming and marking out specific territories.

It makes me wonder, what exactly defines a war? How many people actually need to be involved for us to call it that? If two clans of maybe 30 people fight over food or land, does that count as war? If so, those kinds of clashes might have been happening for millions of years. Even mammals today, which are quite closely related to humans, engage in similar behaviors.

Since humans have such advanced brains, our social dynamics are incredibly complex. I guess if something is that complicated, it wouldn't just be about positive connections; it probably evolved to handle negative ones too. It might have developed to help us survive within a wide spectrum of social interactions, including the more violent ones.

Sandra Murphy33 said:The bottom line is that life was much harder for the average person in the past than it is for us today.
No, we all know that. That fact is the primary argument used by those who believe evolution is essentially a journey of progress toward making life easier.
The only point of contention here is: Was the person from the past, who had to struggle so much more than we do, actually happier and more satisfied than a person living today?

Obviously, we can't know for sure if things like depression or anxiety existed in ancient hunter-gatherer societies, but some people argue those individuals actually had better mental health than we do in our modern industrial society. Most research is based on contemporary or recently transitioned societies, which are the ones being studied. Some studies actually frame what we call mental illnesses today through an evolutionary lens, viewing them as biological mechanisms that once helped humans survive. You can find quite a few studies and articles online about this.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3330161/
https://psyarxiv.com/m9pq2/download

So, I suppose we should keep in mind that human psychology evolved as a tool for species survival under conditions that were fundamentally different from what we face today. Not just slightly different, but completely different. I kind of view it as a sort of psychological allergy. If physical allergies to things like food, pollen, or dust cause bodily reactions because our environment changed, how is that any different from mental struggles like depression in wealthy societies where there isn't a direct threat to our existence? Maybe the body and mind are just overreacting to external circumstances because they're confused by the modern world. That’s just my theory, though; even medicine doesn't fully explain basic allergies yet. We've barely scratched the surface. So, where does that leave psychology in terms of truly understanding mental illness?

Jim Carrey, who found both fame and millions, summed it up like this:

"I guess just getting to the place where you have everything everybody has ever desired and realizing you are still unhappy. And that you can still be unhappy is a shock when you have accomplished everything you ever dreamt of and more and then you realize, “My gosh, it’s not about this.” And I wish for everyone to be able to accomplish those things so they can see that."

"I guess just getting to the place where you have everything everybody has ever desired and realizing you are still unhappy. And that you can still be unhappy is a shock when you have accomplished everything you ever dreamt of and more and then you realize, 'My gosh, it’s not about this.' And I wish for everyone to be able to accomplish those things so they can see that."

Amy Bennett said:Modern, civilized people aren't really like those prehistoric hunter-gatherers. There are certain populations that might share more similarities with them, but they generally struggle to integrate into a contemporary lifestyle. Evolution didn't just hit a pause button when agriculture and civilization took over; modern humans have actually adapted to this "civilized" way of life. And just to be clear—I'm not making a value judgment here.

I guess we're adapted about as much as dogs, where maybe 83% of them are still essentially wild dogs roaming in packs, or like Mustangs that manage to hold their own after being released into the wild for a few generations.

It seems pretty clear that there are digestive or parasitic changes that have followed us through history, but nothing is permanent, I think. Humans weren't forced into this lifestyle quite like dogs were; if circumstances changed, humanity might go back to being hunter-gatherers. You and I probably wouldn't, but who knows what the distant future holds? I feel like 15,000 years of evolution since the agricultural revolution hasn't actually changed Homo sapiens that much compared to the millions of years before that.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy A50 using Reddit

Sam Martinez9 said:But if you took that same baby, brought them back to the present day, and raised them in a typical 21st-century American household, wouldn't that child grow up speaking English, reading, writing, and navigating a smartphone just like the rest of us?

Yeah, I suppose that's true. But I think it’s more interesting to imagine taking a modern baby and dropping them into a tribe of hunter-gatherers. That kid might actually turn out to be a really successful member of the clan, probably with a completely different skillset than kids have today. At any rate, they definitely wouldn't be struggling with short-sightedness from staring at screens all day...

I was just thinking about some reading I did regarding modern hunter-gatherers (you still see them in certain parts of the US). One defining trait of that lifestyle is how much people are constantly on the move. Since they carry everything they own—clothes, portable shelters, tools, weapons, even domesticated animals—it’s pretty logical that they had to keep their load as light as possible. Because of that, I guess it wouldn't have been practical to develop anything beyond oral traditions for passing down knowledge. Even if they had stumbled upon a form of writing at some point in history, once you write or draw something down, how do you actually transport it if it's etched into a heavy slab? Anything complex, like a long manuscript, would require a massive stone, and I imagine it wasn't exactly easy for nomadic groups to lug around something as heavy as the Mayflower Compact. So, I don't think it's that they weren't capable of writing; it's more likely that their circumstances just didn't allow those ideas to evolve into something that could survive for decades or centuries to fuel further progress. Knowledge stayed oral, passed from one generation to the next, where their way of life shaped their behavior, and vice versa. It feels like that same dynamic exists today, though our circumstances have changed quite a bit.

Sam Martinez9 said:Fair enough. But how then do you account for modern humans navigating a high-tech society so seamlessly? What is the actual mechanism at play here? Why is today's individual capable of this when our ancestors weren't?

I agree with you there. It’s the same reason smallpox was so devastating to Native Americans. However, my point is specifically about cognitive capacity—about the brain and our reasoning abilities. We have largely neglected that aspect of the evolution.

Well, who's saying they couldn't? It wasn't because they lacked the intellectual or physical capacity; it was simply because the technology didn't exist yet. 😁 If you took a baby born today and dropped them on a deserted island where they were raised by some imaginary "Peterson," how would that child ever learn to use technology from, say, modern USA? Would that question even make sense?

I suppose there is a valid point in asking how humans, living as hunter-gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years, developed the intellect necessary to build today's high-tech societies. That’s a fair question, and it's essentially what I was getting at in my first post. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of years across various Homo species, and maybe 100-150 thousand years for Homo sapiens, during which countless generations lived all over the world. Since they survived and spread globally, it's safe to assume they understood their environment incredibly well. However, I think we tend to use a modern bias when we define "understanding the world," assuming that only our current knowledge counts as advanced. We have engineering, medicine, and various sciences that allow us to build machines, communication networks, and transport systems. But a society from, say, 75,000 years ago probably possessed an equally vast knowledge of nature and survival. The challenges facing an average person back then might have been just as intellectually demanding as ours, especially since the average person today doesn't actually understand most of the tech they use. Most people can drive a car, but they don't really know what's happening under the hood. They know a plane flies and the pilot has a bunch of buttons, but they don't grasp the intricate details that make a commercial jet work. If you break down the daily routine of a typical modern person, the tasks aren't necessarily incredibly complex. They might not be much more difficult than the life of someone 75,000 years ago who had to physically survive through hunting and battling the elements every single day. I guess I'm trying to say that surviving back then was a much harder task than it is now, when we have an entire society and a massive technological safety net to catch us. Back then, natural selection was relentless; those who were more skillful, healthier, and better at providing food and protecting their group were the ones who made it. Intelligence played a huge role in that.