Agreed, that’s my whole point. It was not the ideal way to get where we are, but it’s how it happened. There was a… I don’t want to say purpose, but “benefit,” might be the right word.

If we were designing things from scratch, then obviously religion would be left out. But it’s an unfortunate accident of the evolution of consciousness and evolution of civilization that certain societal benefits were included with the magical thinking. Just like the health of the human gut biome is tied to the existence of the appendix, even through the appendix doesn’t provide much in the way of direct benefits these days and can become inflamed and kill us.

The supernatural claims are just a byproduct of the mechanism that passed along the creation myths and cultural norms. It would be great if that wasn’t how it happened, but it did. Rational people can agree at this point that the magical thinking is a net negative for society, but IMO, to ignore that there were some positives to come along with religion is the same sort of blind denial that religious folks use.

It was a collective delusion to soothe ancient fears of a world we could not comprehend

Agreed, but can’t you see that that was an advantage during the formative ages of society and civilization?

I’ve said that, word for word. When I actually sit and think about it though, I think it’s more like appendicitis. Religion once served a purpose (passing on of useful cultural norms and expectations), has become vestigial, and is now inflamed and likely to kill us (as a society and individually, in some cases)

We share a birthday! Here’s to one more trip around the sun

Those people are strangely quiet when it’s a conservative-leaning meme, so I’ve learned to, as you say, tell them to get bent.

I can think of no better situation for the phrase “fuck you and the horse you rode in on”

That book… Was the Bible

We use Roll20 as a VTT, but we all run a zoom meeting at the same time because we live in different states and continents and it’s good to see their faces (and their kids and partners). Shrug It’s a pretty wide range of technology skills and preferences, so we went with the stuff people know best.

The Paradox of Tolerance writ large in real time

Mörk Borg? Other Fria Liga? Other Borg-likes? Other Kickstarter games? Is that just me?

Don’t get me wrong, I love PF2 and I mostly actually play 5E with my friends on zoom (that bunch of Philistines), but I can’t be the only one obsessively finding niche games online like Into the Odd and Forbidden Lands and Frontier Scum and Inevitable and porting them into system-agnostic hex-flowers that could support Dark-Tower-esque realm crawling and West March-ish living worlds that I can never find anyone that wants to play and…

Do I have a problem? Am I out of touch? No, it’s the D&D players that are wrong

you’d be shot for sure

Do you think it’s a coincidence that MLK was only shot once he started speaking out against the rich and unifying the lower class (of all races)? I’m not saying there was a conspiracy (though I wouldn’t rule it out) or that MLK was the second coming or a prophet, but it’s pretty clear he started making the ruling class nervous once he started talking about class war.

In the end, every last one of them burns.

If there was a just god, they would all burn. But if there was a just god, they wouldn’t get to be billionaires in the first place. Billionaires aren’t worried about hell or the afterlife because most of them know deep down that there will be no repercussions for their unethical behavior.

Turn down for what?

So sayeth Little Jon the Wise, Prophet of the Crunk.

A light in the darkness; his sage words bring hope in harsh times and bring booties to shake like amphorae filled with salt.

At least Bowie and Dylan aren’t as bad as Jerry Lee Lewis, who married his 14-year-old cousin…

ahh, jeez. If I’d known you were into vinyl, I’d have thought twice about these recommendations ;)

Glad to spread the good news. I think I found them in a listicle about “the best non-metal satanic groups” along with Amigo the Devil, Twin Temple, and Dorthia Cottrell, among others.

I found a lot of good music from that list, and it wound up sending me down a three-year rabbit hole when it mentioned psych doom and stoner rock, which I had never really explored (and now stoner/doom is one of my favorite genres).

So, clearly I have pretty positive memories of that particular article; I’ll see if I can find it again, because if you like Bridge City Sinners, there’s a lot more to explore

Edit: found the link and it’s just as good as I remembered from when I first found it 3-4 years. I still listen to a lot of these bands

Edit 2: It seems like the Sinners aren’t actually in this list directly, but I have a vivid memory of discovering them through this article, so I must have dug into the “People also listen to” sections in Spotify

That’s fair. Psychobilly tends to have more punk/progressive tendencies, but like most music scenes, there’s a wide variety of people who self-identify into that group, not all of whom share the same values/politics. With Rockabilly in particular, you get considerable overlap between the nostalgia for the fashion and music of early rock’n’roll and the nostalgia for the politics and society of the same era.

Libby Lux, lead singer of the Bridge City Sinners, fits the bill pretty well, but as you say, no mohawk. I feel like once you get into the folk-punk/psychobilly scene, the default is more often rockabilly greaser/pinup than punk but there’s exceptions to everything.

Edit: Also, their particular flavor of satanic folk-punk is particularly good, if you’re into that sort of thing. I think they do a pretty good job of writing catchy songs with a mashup of B-movie pulp (a la The Cramps or the Misfits), occult themes and imagery, and modern relevant topics like mental health issues and substance abuse. 9/10, highly recommend, especially their first 2 albums, the first of which has my all-time favorite version of “St. James Infirmary Blues”

Fria Liga (aka Free League) has lots of niche tabletop games, although iirc, they focus much more on the RPG side than the wargaming side.

There’s lots of good stuff in the UK that I’ve found by browsing Kickstarter and small independent game shops online. I don’t what you’re into specifically, but there are lots of grimdark Mörk Borg inspired stuff out there right now that use system-agnostic minis for wargaming. Forbidden Psalm is one I’ve been pretty into for a bit, and I think they’re out of the UK.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what the gaming scene is like for a lot of these; I just have a bad habit of collecting indie games I’ll likely never play

And Data’s got that devilish flow, Worf with the Bat’leth, no halo

or “water closet” in the UK