To be fair... Zen is HARD. And it's a relatively primitive technology, invented with no firm knowledge of the actual structures of the human brain.

But that only increases my cynicism, because if even people who genuinely devoted their whole lives to killing their worldly delusions regularly failed, how the hell are we going to fix any of this?

And our body politics just doesn't care at all. It's actively working AGAINST a fix. I'm just done waiting.

@zebratron2084 if there’s a silver lining to how shitty things have become, it’s easier to believe in humanity, for me. Our elites are working to persecute people, neglect other people, and ignore huge environmental issues so their cronies can make bank, and people largely HATE it. There are horrible flaws in how things work but “everyone actively likes this” doesn’t seem to be one.

@Leucrotta I'm actually kinda with you on that. As cynical as I've gotten, I still think America has had a fairly decent immune reaction to proto-fascism, by historical comparison. I still hold out some hope that Trump is gonna turn out to be bad-like-cowpox (still bad, still potentially lethal), but not bad-like-smallpox, and if we survive this, our civil society might actually be more robust to these threats than it was before...

@Leucrotta Again, I mean... I've been reading up on Hitler's rise to power, and while his 80-90% support figures obviously aren't trustworthy since they were probably coerced, well... Trump can't *even* coerce a good rating out of this country. And that pension fuck-up is showing Putin's got weaknesses of his own, which pleasingly mirror the same weaknesses of the Late Soviet Empire. We still MIGHT get through this particular threat.

@Leucrotta I just look at the huge, huge gauntlet of OTHER things we'd have to fix just to get a decent society at this point-- or an acceptably healthy planet-- and that's where I really start to think we might just wanna start training up the raccoons and coyotes. >_>;;

@Leucrotta There is definitely a hope within me that if we lose the elections, ESPECIALLY if we can prove any malfeasance from the GOP afterwards, the real fun will just be starting.

I mean, not even the actual dictatorships in actual Orwell had good fundamentals. I would be surprised if, in that alternate universe, O'Brien wasn't hanging from a lamppost ten years later, because The Party could no longer even feed its own soldiers. But what comes next?

@Leucrotta (ntm, and thanks for putting up with this rambling, I keep getting this nagging feeling that I've seen every damn one of the Trumpists' tactics before... in the form of the anti-furry trolls who used to give us so much shit. They lost, good and hard, because all their trickery just couldn't stifle us. And because we were nicer and smarter and cuter. :) so maybe, just *maybe*, Trump's supporters will grow up, give up, and go away too :p )

@zebratron2084 I figure the hope is, it’ll be like a lot of other dark bits of history. Like how nobody mentions that was the Jewish part of town before 1936, or how of COURSE your teachers and neighbors wanted Black people integrated back in the 60s. With luck it won’t all get whitewashed like Reagan or Bush II.

@JulieSqveakaroo Me either, sis. Me either. *hug*

@zebratron2084 @JulieSqveakaroo Same on all accounts.

Then again, I'd've fled Terra long ago if I could. *hugs both of y'all*