Whoever owns the fountains owns the money.

If someone throws money into a fountain and then wishes then that in itself is a complete transaction with whichever supernatural entity is being bargained with.

I am assuming that any entity which is powerful enough to grant wishes is also powerful enough to hang onto the money if that should be its wish.

Alternatively it’s a quaint custom that people engage in as a form of custom and the pleasure comes with a link to the tradition.

The periodic clearing out of the fountains is both necessary maintenance and a form of income that pays for said maintenance. No one is really harmed by this.

If you look at the dietary laws, the injunctions to monotheism, and the laws concerning sexuality and marriage it suggests that the prime concern was with providing the numbers to outcompete other nations, and I am using the word in its original meaning of an alliance of closely related tribes or clans. Israelite Nation, who are the people we have to thank for the Abrahamic religions, could see that it was a pure numbers game. If you could prevent food poisoning and other biological hazards and could also provide an extensive system of laws to adjudicate disputes without the need for violence within the tribes, then you could get everyone faced the same way. You had a growing population so that once the warriors killed the neighbours you could then quickly settle and colonise with the civilian contingent who could then produce more supplies for ever bigger military campaigns.

Letter from Charles Darwin to Asa Gray (22nd May 1860)

With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me.— I am bewildered.— I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I shd wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.

Source

Lasagne - I got layers.

If you’re browsing Lemmy, on your phone, in work then really you should be curating your feed a bit better.

Well, I agree that everybody is different in certain ways but one of the main lessons of being in group was the revelation that broadly speaking we all want the same things and a lot of the mis-aimed strategies we’d adopted was stopping us from getting that stuff. A lot of people came through that community throughout the course of a year and while some of the stories were absolutely horrific, the problems were much the same, person to person.

Yes, the therapy was less effective for some than others and drugs absolutely should be available as a first-aid but I think that people should be moved on to other therapy as soon as they can use it.

I’m particularly hopeful about the results we are now seeing from psychedelic research into treatment resistant depression as I think that there are people for whom talk therapy won’t work but if you look at recent research into SSRIs it seems that some are barely improving on the placebo effect.

So yes I’m in favour of multiple approaches but it seems that SSRIs are outcompeting other treatments because the decisions are being made on the basis of cost and that means that those other treatments simply will not exist in the future.

Worked for me.

The last decade has seen a particularly significant increase in depression in the United States, with prevalence rates increasing by 33% between 2013 and 2016, with the largest increase among youth and young adults

Back in the day we used to try to address depression with various talk therapies and group therapies. This wasn’t perfect and was also relatively expensive but at least it offered a sense of connection and tried to tie people back into society.

Now it’s all about pills, which are a huge money-spinner and are cheaper than talk therapy. When things make money you tend to see an increase in them.

It’s a funny thing, I used to a werewolf but I’m alright noo^oooooow.

I’m beginning to think that Homo sapiens sapiens are not the good guys.

I sure hope so.

Offensive language.

Needs this to be in the middle.

Back in the day you would have asked for a flattop.

You could always save a picture to your phone and then ask them to do that. They’ll probably still ask if the length is alright but it’s up to you to instruct them from there.

Man, fuck that site. Won’t allow you to decline cookies.

It’s all very well people going on about accordion man’s impatience but if you also had a leg hose full of okra to empty you’d soon see how it feels to be clowned on by a glam rocker with a bucket.

A site-blocking law would let copyright owners “request, in court, that Internet service providers block access to websites dedicated to sharing illegal, stolen content,” he said. Rivkin claimed that in the US, piracy “steals hundreds of thousands of jobs from workers and tens of billions of dollars from our economy rich people’s yacht money, including more than one billion in theatrical ticket sales.”

Back in the day I was told:

The volts give you the jolts
But the amps give you the cramps

Probably not, but they’d definitely patent the method.

The beoseu unjeonsa came in ten by ten, hurrah, hurrah!