Worst case scenario is Venusification, where runaway climate change forces make earth literally uninhabitable for all known lifeforms. If we continue on our current path this is a likely outcome.

Your less-apocalyptic scenario is one where our global economy collapses. If this happens, no area of the earth will be safe. Food production will drop by 80-90%, which means that human population will have to drop by 80-90%.

Your assumption that the West will be a safe haven is incorrect. The West’s economic advantage relies on imports, and in a collapse scenario those imports will stop. We can see a small version of this during the current Hormuz crisis- without middle east oil, weatern farmers have limited access to fertilizer, therefore crop yields are down significantly. Without fertilizer imports, the West cannot farm. Without natural gas imports, the West cannot heat its buildings.

In the collapse scenario, the violence won’t be localized in places like the US border. Humans, even in western nations, will be desperate. Your neighbors will be watching their children starve to death. They will be willing to break down your door and beat you to death if you have food.

Perry Bible Fellowship is not low effort, newspaper quality, nor rage bait.

Maybe OP is a repost bot or plant or whatever, but PBF is a top-tier internet comic.

Coffee is a diuretic, it is beneficial to the kidneys and hard on the stomach.

A large percentage of cats die from kidney issues, not many die from stomach issues. So coffee is good for cats makes sense imo.

The leaders of the New Atheist movement are not heroes; they are certainly imperfect. I agree with all of your criticisms, but you say nothing of the bulk of their work.

Hitchens’ God is Not Great will stand the test of time; his Islamophobia will not.

Dawkins’ The God Delusion is still correct, despite his late-in-life transphobia and “cultural Christianity”.

When Luigi killed that UHC oligarch, the company responded by lowering their claims denial rate by 1-2%. UHC processes hundreds of millions of claims every year.

Do the math- the slaying of Brian Thompson meant that millions of claims that would have otherwise been denied were approved.

By killing one oligarch, hundreds of lives were saved. Perhaps even thousands.

We know this because Investors Are Pressing UnitedHealth Group to Deny More Care

There is currently widespread violence. It is the structural violence of poverty. Hundreds are being socially murdered everyday.

Killing an oligarch is a certainly a violent act, but it reduces the overall violence in the system.

You are asking an interesting philosophical question, I feel a little out of my depth trying to answer.

But yes, I believe every meme is an idea, every idea is a meme, and there is a 1:1 relationship. The word “meme” is just an idea that is viewed through the lens of evolution.

Now as for the second question- should a screenshot of Twitter be allowed on this “meme” sub? - I don’t have a strong opinion, but I lean towards no

My apologies, I confused you with the other commenter Sonotsugipaa, and I spelled your name wrong. :(

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Your insist that memes must change or recontextualize at every step, but this is your personal interpretation and is not supported by any definition. This is analogous to saying “genes are only genes when they mutate, otherwise it’s just a bunch of amino acids”.

An exact copy of a gene is a gene. An exact copy of a meme is a meme.

It is not worthless at all. Studying cultural changes through the lens of evolution is very useful and enlightening. That’s why I referenced the books that go into this in depth.

I would argue your narrow definition of “meme” is worthless because we already have a term for what you are describing - they are called “image macros”.

Well the definition is correct, it is Antagonistic’s narrow interpretation of that definition that is incorrect.

The key is evolution. For something to evolve, it must have the ability to be transferred, to be changed/mutated, and to be stored. Both genes and memes have these properties.

Literally any idea is a meme. If you can think it, it’s a meme.

If you break a gene in two, the result is two genes. If you break a meme in two, the result is two memes.

The name “Antagonistic” is a meme. The letter ‘A’ is a meme. The sound you make when you say ‘A’ is a meme. The idea of air vibrating to make sound is a meme.

In one sense this is very true- the wealth of the American worker has been stolen over time by capitalists.

But the truth is that one person supporting a family of five has never been sustainable. It was only possible in an era when the American lifestyle was heavily subsidized by the rest of the world through post-WWII economic domination.

As worker productivity continues to rise, we can hope for a future where 1 person’s work can support 5. But, at least for the near future, the math simply doesn’t work out.

Example 2 is a meme, no doubt about it.

If you go any deeper than the surface-level Google definition (that you are pedantically picking apart), then you will find literally any idea or unit of culture is a meme.

Read the last chapter of Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. Actually please read the whole book, it’s a masterpiece of science popularization. Or read Susan Blackmore’s The Meme Machine, it explains the concept of memes and how they evolve in further detail.

Any self-respecting “meme historian” would refer to themselves as a memeologist.

They would know the history of the word “meme” and that it is explicitly intended to be analogous with the word “gene”.

We don’t call them gene historians, we call them genealogists.

“Now, people, rise up, and let the storm break loose!” - Joseph Goebbels memorializing Horst Wessel, 1932

“…And the warrior whispers back, I am the storm. Erika is the storm. We are the storm.” - Steven Miller memorializing Charlie Kirk, 2025

Steven Miller looks just like Goebbels too, those dead eyes scare me.

It’s as if God is doing a (history, colorized) meme on us, but the colors are just the black, white, and red of the Nazi swastika.

Under lots of pressure, Bono recently released his most forceful statement on the subject

“Hamas, release the hostages. Stop the war. Israel, be released from Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right fundamentalists that twist your sacred texts"

This statement perpetuates two Israeli propaganda lies: 1) Hamas is able to end the war by releasing hostages, and 2) The genocidal project is the sole responsibility of Netanyahu and Likud, and not the greater Jewish supremacist movement that has controlled Israel since it’s inception.

And to be clear, this is Bono’s best statement on the subject. You can Google his earlier statements to find more genocide denial and Hasbara propaganda.

He doesn’t have to be an activist for every issue, but it is a giant stain on his legacy of activism when he runs cover for an ongoing Holocaust.

Most activists are motivated by humanist ideals, but the issue of Gaza makes it obvious that Bono is not an ethical humanist, so his activism must be motivated by other desires.

“Great activist” Bono has been mostly silent on the ongoing genocide in Gaza for the past 20 months.

The “great activist” has been releasing tepid statements running cover for genocidal Israel as he continues his strong financial ties with the country doing ethnic cleansing in broad daylight.

Those many “private, personal” benign religious people form a strong foundation upon which the crazies, cults, and conmen build their structures.

In my experience, these benign people are one tragedy away from metastasizing into the malignant religious type.

I have cousins who were benign-religious for most of their life, but after a death in the family they started following a new sect of christianity. Their children have never seen a doctor, nor a vaccine.

I agree people are entitled to their personal freedoms, but we would be much better off as a society if we could educate our way out of the cancer that is religion.