LemmeAtEm

*Just to be fully accurate, there is intent involved when people do selective breeding. Such as with pets or other domesticated animals. But usually that's separated out and not considered evolution, though ironically enough, it actually still is evolution.

I posted this as a reply to another comment from a user on another instance, but your instance doesn't allow you to see hexbear, so I'll reply here too.

Yeah, it's a bit unfortunate using the word design that way. However, it's not completely wrong, it's almost more a problem of the baggage that the word design carries, obviously "intelligent design" as a concept for evolution is bullshit and if you can't separate the concept of "design" from intent then you're still just as wrong. All that said, I think it's fair to talk about species being designed, there is just absolutely zero intent involved anywhere,* with no forethought, or any "thought" at all from the designer. A species is "designed" entirely by the forces of circumstance. The material conditions, if you will, of their environment.

Making this comment because I'm seeing some of these issues crop up in the comments, and in comments from different instances that can't see each other, so rather than reply individually, I'll just make a separate standalone comment.

It bugs me a little whenever people talk about how old a species is. There are different levels to how wrong it is possible to be about this. The worst level is where people think that it's the individuals that are somehow ancient. No. The individuals from those times are as long gone as all the other individuals from that time. Most people don't think that, but it happens. Another level is a bit less wrong, but still is. That the species itself is ancient because it somehow avoided evolution. Nah, it's just retained a lot of characteristics. Theses species still underwent evolution, it's literally unavoidable. It's just that the way they adapted to an ancient environment still works as adaptation to the current (and intervening) environments. They haven't gone through as many drastic visible changes because the way their ancestors lived still works for their modern iterations.

So it is definitely fair to say a species is old, but it's important to realize that that doesn't mean it's literally old in that it hasn't evolved. If they are impressed by species that haven't gone through a lot of apparent changes over the eons, they should check out stromatolites.

Yeah, it's a bit unfortunate. However, it's not completely wrong to use the word design, it's almost more a problem of the baggage that the word "design" carries. obviously "intelligent design" as a concept for evolution is bullshit and if you can't separate the concept of "design" from intent then you're still just as wrong. All that said, I think it's fair to talk about species being designed, there is just absolutely zero intent involved anywhere,* with no forethought, or any "thought" at all from the designer. A species is "designed" entirely by the forces of circumstance. The material conditions, if you will, of their environment.

I personally feel these are the end days of what’s left of the freedom internet.

I hope you're wrong. I guess that should go without saying. But I don't know, it seems like they've been trying to crack down and been consistently failing at it, which is hopeful. Like youtube's attempt to make adblockers not work anymore ending up just strengthening uBlock Origin and making it work even better than it did before. lol.

Obviously, google et al have all the power, but even so, they mostly keep losing battles, which is both hilarious and hopeful. I agree that we're seeing the further enshitification of all the big social media giants and they're corralling and enclosing the commons more all the time. But I haven't given up on all the little things that spring up to address that enshitification, like the frontends, like searx, and hell, even lemmy. You were 100% right, we need to evolve, but I would say these things are good mutations that are part of the process of that necessary evolution.

I don't know, I'm too high rn not to go off on tangents.

Lemmygrad isn't "hated" by most of the wider lemmyverse. There's just a loud and obnoxious minority of people that will rail and rant about lemmygrad. They loudly rant about lemmygrad because they aren't used to seeing their worldview get challenged and by its very nature as a radical leftist community, lemmygrad is a challenge to the typical background liberal perspective.

It's no surprise we all end up seeing a lot of threads about "those mean tankies at lemmygrad" (and hexbear too) made by people who can't take their worldview getting questioned, or even shown to be flawed, or just not standing up to their own scrutiny, and who get mad when that happens. There are also of course people with ideological reasons to demonize leftwing politics and will spread shit for that reason alone. But overall, I don't think most people care enough except to think "oh yeah that's that instance with those radical lefties, they're weird but they do make some great memes sometimes."

They're just pulling it out of their ass because "RuZsIa eBiL DiCtAtOrShIp!"

Thank you for this. Very helpful.

Definitely. And not just "out of touch," it's part of the reason why we have an ancient ghoul openly talking about how he has no empathy for the plight of younger people in that office right now.

The fuck are you talking about? There are all kinds of laws that make something legal or not based on someone's age, and they often vary by state or even locale. Hell, there's a minimum age for running for president for chryssake and it's well past any definition of adulthood.

Sure, geopolitics doesn't exist, it's all just this craaaaaayzee guy twirling his evil mustache. It's not like the Russian government has any say, or that almost everyone in it not only support the SMO but many of them think Putin is too soft on Ukraine and should commit much more of their military to it. It's not like over 70% of the Russian public also supports the SMO and Putin's decisions, saying they should never make concessions to return the Donbas to Ukraine. I mean, it's not like most of the world aside from the propaganda-steeped NATO countries also side with Russia with respect to the conflict. Nope. None of that. Just that one maniacal power hungry madman!

https://www.eiu.com/n/russia-can-count-on-support-from-many-developing-countries/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/30/negative-views-of-russia-mainly-limited-to-western-liberal-democracies-poll-shows

lol. It's so funny these fucking dweebs who can't understand the world beyond a simplistic Saturday-morning-cartoon kind of analysis with Putin being this season's villain.

Willing to engage? wtf I never stopped engaging. And the sources I sent aren't from one country that's making claims about their enemy. In case you didn't notice, the Guardian and RollingStone are not from China. lol On top of that, they aren't "my" sources, I literally just showed you something you could have googled for yourself and found out from American sources.

What a disappointment. I thought you might be a reasonable person for a while there, but that last comment just shows how obtuse you're choosing to be, and how unwilling to recognize bias when it doesn't suit you to do so. Typical, but still disappointing. Whatever, enjoy whatever picture you have in your head for how the world is as told to you by the apparatus that has power over you, I won't try to challenge it. I'm going to bed anyway. bye.