AdamSmith

PS You will know he did not "own that estate." But only rented an apartment from the father of his late lover (always denied, but still), one Hector Ekaniyake. it was a nice main house occupied by said owner, + outbuilding rented by ACC, but "estate" is a bit ridiculous overstatement.

Whose sock-puppet do you think was really whose? I'm not gay, merely very cheerful.' But then a number of delightful openly queer characters in the later novels. With a fairly broad wink & a nod.

Especially as this, that or the other event gets our back up against the wall.

But OTOH (revising my previous absolute pessimism just a little bit), as Karellen, Supervisor for Earth, observed in Childhood's End: 'Human beings are remarkably ingenious, and often very persistent. It is never safe to underrate them...'

The whole truth. You just need to be situationally aware. Us Yale undergraduates routinely drove down into NYC Chinatown and the Bowery and etc etc every Saturday. And never got mugged/robbed. For the reasons said above. Except it was VERY dangerous then. But we knew how to dodge the danger. Not that complicated.

There is actually a razor-thin chance that a globally united scientific effort to mount a geoengineering 'Manhattan Project' could ferret out, from existing science, enough things to do that we could survive. But of course the twin obstacles are (1) doing that itself and (2) getting those Entrenched Interests you mentioned to give up their short-term-gain goals and pitch in and commit their material resources to actually delivering. Ah, well.

Like that will counteract cows' flatuincilincilincillincinc alone?

Details!

I concur with every bit of that. Our only faint hope of species survival is global-scale geoengineering. But all the best ideas for that to date suck shit, and look as like to make the thing much worse as to maybe mitigate it a little bit. Been nice knowing y'all! My only realistic hope now is that the food chain does not collapse before I do.

repost The Geography of the House (for Christopher Isherwood) Seated after breakfast In this white-tiled cabin Arabs call the House where Everybody goes, Even melancholics Raise a cheer to Mrs. Nature for the primal Pleasure She bestows. Sex is but a dream to Seventy-and-over, But a joy proposed un- -til we start to shave: Mouth-delight depends on Virtue in the cook, but This She guarantees from Cradle unto grave. Lifted off the potty, Infants from their mothers Hear their first impartial Words of worldly praise: Hence, to start the morning With a satisfactory Dump is a good omen All our adult days. Revelation came to Luther in a privy (Crosswords have been solved there) Rodin was no fool When he cast his Thinker, Cogitating deeply, Crouched in the position Of a man at stool. All the arts derive from This ur-act of making, Private to the artist: Makers' lives are spent Striving in their chosen Medium to produce a De-narcissus-ized en- During excrement. Freud did not invent the Constipated miser: Banks have letter boxes Built in their façade Marked For Night Deposits, Stocks are firm or liquid, Currencies of nations Either soft or hard. Global Mother, keep our Bowels of compassion Open through our lifetime, Purge our minds as well: Grant us a king ending, Not a second childhood, Petulant, weak-sphinctered, In a cheap hotel. Keep us in our station: When we get pound-notish, When we seem about to Take up Higher Thought, Send us some deflating Image like the pained ex- -pression on a Major Prophet taken short. (Orthodoxy ought to Bless our modern plumbing: Swift and St. Augustine Lived in centuries When a stench of sewage Made a strong debating Point for Manichees.) Mind and Body run on Different timetables: Not until our morning Visit here can we Leave the dead concerns of Yesterday behind us, Face with all our courage What is now to be. WH Auden https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-geography-of-the-house/

Again, yes. These mugger kids are not stupid. They know that if they actually cut (or worse) any of their victims, that person will call 911 and go to the hospital and the hospital will then have to report it. And then the police will come out and pick up the perp (because the police are not stupid, they know who the perps are in any given neighborhood) ,and then the perp will get sent to prison. Thieves are smart. They will rob you, but not hurt you. Unless you give them unreasonable resistance. 'Lay back, and let your mind think on England.'

You know there is elsewhere here an entire crapulousness thread. I am in no wise Mencken, but just possibly a little bit Benchley-esque.

And HEEERE we go... We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGthlslH6p8

Yet again...

Exactly. Oneself was robbed at knife-point in genteel old Boston, MA because I was, late at night in Chinatown, pulling a fat rolling briefcase that must have bespoke affluence. They took my iPhone, laptop computer, and wallet cash. Stuff can happen anywhere. It should not make one paranoid to proceed fearlessly enjoying one's normal life business, as @Latbear4blk and @likeohmygodwisely observe above.

Exactly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmHVCaXpjw

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0pivW2ae5BE

Pitch-perfect.