The term “weed” has no formal scientific status at all,

Sure it does. It’s not astrophysics precise (because biology in general is a “soft science” in many regards), but it has a meaning when you talk about it in the domain.

In botany, a weed is a general term for any plant growing where it is not wanted. Weeds interfere with human activities and compete with crop plants for water, light, and nutrients.

Some weeds can later be found to have previously unknown benefits and be removed from the category, while other cultivated plants can be transplanted to new climates, escape cultivation, and become weeds or invasive species. Thus, the category of weeds is ever-changing, making the term relative.

The general term for the first sentence is what everyone uses colloquially. But the reasoning for it being unwanted is not “because it looks weird”. an otherwise “attractive” plant (like grass) can be a weed in some other context if it’s taking nutrients from more ecologically valuable plants.

It’s ethics and morality applied to a specific situation.

And I agree. But I also agree there is no morality to a polar bear eating your face. That’s just nature. There are lines, I don’t know your specific context.

For me, I was raised removing tumbleweeds. One of the most tenacious and invasive weeds out there. I don’t even think they are native to my country. But I sure hold no remorse pulling them up the same way I would a dandelion (even if me blowing on one is technically spreading it out).

If I was standing there with a gun to your head because I’ve decided you’re offensive to my garden you wouldn’t genuinely believe it’s fine for me to kill you simply because you can’t do anything to stop it.

Sure. Then a man with a bigger gun will at best arrest you and you’d be thrown in jail. We realized human on human violence needs to be regulated to make it as close to zero as possible. The police have a monopoly on unchecked violence, so our options without consequences are limited and discouraged.

There’s a clear and obvious distinction between taking another life as a necessity because you need to eat in order to survive, and killing on a whim because you decide you don’t like how one form of life looks.

Yup.

I’d certainly pay money to watch a bear chasing you down and eating you so that I could witness how much you’re definitely not talking out your ass when saying that you wouldn’t complain about it, because bears needs food.

I’d run. I’d try to defend myself. I’d do my best to preserve my life. But trying to shame a bear seems like a useless endeavor. Thtat’s all I’m trying to get across with my metaphor.

Exactly. If you’re going down anyway, Make your shot count.

entirely, assuming, incorrect, and insulting. Congratulations.

I work with the info provided. Feel free to clarify without the snark next time.

The term “weed” is used to mean any plant growing somewhere it is unwanted.

colloquially, sure. But I was reading it from the ecological perspective. Weeds have a specific term there and my mind goes to the times where I pulled out itchy or outright harmful weeds as a kid in my backyard. Tumbleweeds go past “aesthetically unwanted”.

Simply because you have the ability to reach out and rip the plant from the earth and it’s completely powerless to stop you, does that give you the right to do so?

That is nature, yea. I’m not going out of my way to pull out “unwanted flowers” that are otherwise harmless. But there are threat levels, so I will do so for (ecological) weeds.

We’re still animals and we hunt down plants and animals alike. And a few animals hunt us. I don’t complain if a bear starts chasing me down and eats me. That’s just the circle of life. We have issues with overhunting and deforestation, but I don’t disagree with the core issue of “plants are eaten by animals and animals are eaten by animals”

If a more capable form of life saw humans as an invasive species as we seem very likely to kill off the rest of our garden if we remain unchecked and decided to kill us off would you support that?

As a human, no. I will try to preserve my life. But a more capable life form that can reach earth probably has the ability to do whatever it wants. We wouldn’t put up much of a fight against such tech.

I’d hope we could talk it out, but if not… welp, circle of life I guess.

“Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god. Thoughts of a Biologist” ― Jean Rostand

Don’t get me wrong, though. Humans collectively are pretty shitty conquerors. We can do a lot better to preserve life.

Look, February was always missing a few days in the shed. We knew it was inevitable.

But nah, I don’t get it. Moths are pretty chill. maybe I swatted a few in my face, but I don’t go out of my way to squish them.

weeds are removed for good reason, though. they are an invasive species with little value and they will end up killing off the rest of the garden if left unchecked.

The heavy handed metaphor is one plant being a cat and the other a rabid leopard. Even if you love all animals, you and the cats aren’t safe with a leopard wandering around. But I’m sorry that some parents are so impatient with their kids that they can’t break this down to them logically.

Socialize the losses, privatazie the games. It’s crazy when people complain about socialism while these billionaire companies get to reap the best parts of it.

I’ve observed that we (USA) have a taboo around discussing what happens in the bathroom.

Is that not normal? I don’t think most people are interested in how massive a shit I had last night unless it’s my doctor. We also have a term of “toilet humor” to suggest that jokes around it are some of the crudest, lowest brow humor possible.

re: the post: It’s rare but it’s happened a few times for some particularly bad bouts. I don’t think it was anything serious, probably just some slightly spoiled food or maybe slightly undercooked chicken.

at least you don’t become deadweight in the economy

In theory, yes.

Reality: we already have shit welfare programs and I doubt UBI will fix it. I also doubt we’ll even get to a point of UBI in my remaining career time. At least not without a lot of blood.

The present as is is pretty bad, I’d hope we can fix that before theorycrafting the future. economists 100 years prior theorycrafted 15 hour work weeks, and look how far we’ve come.

There are lots of different ways to look at profit.

They claim “exposure” and “new marketing opportunities”.

I think they are just (literally) kissing the ring and getting in on the corruption train before it crashes.

There is definitely stuff (relatively) silently going through the courts about it. But we really won’t be able to do much about it until a new administration gets in.

It’ll be good reflection one day, but it doesn’t change much in the present.

Citizens United was a mistake. At this rate, 2026 might have more money put into it than general elections 1-2 decades prior.

what else are you trying to point out with this isolated statistic?

People are slowly, but finally waking up.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Now if they aren’t even AIPAC funded… well that’s just sad. Even a reddit mod gets a delusion of power when on a trip.

you are framing this as republicans looking to split the dems using propoganda.

Yes, and it’s working. Splitting the vote with couch isn’t as effective as winning over a vote, but still effective for an unpopular party. And when we’re in a low trust society, doing nothing feels more appealing than picking a poison.

The issue is two fold here: 1) you’re mad at 2 poisons to pick at election day but 2) do not want to put the work in primaries or before primaries to make a better pick. Someone like Mamdami doesn’t just appear from the ether. And it feels defeatist an outright lazy that your preferre candidate didn’t make it if you did nothing to support it.

Your lowest effort civic duty is to vote on November, and if you can’t even do that I don’t know why you’re in this country. We tore it apart centuries ago over lack of representation and we want to throw that away? For what? Faux doomerism disguised as perfomative protest? What’s really your goal here?

It’s a fact that traditional Dem voters are far past focussing solely on republicans as the root of all of our problems.

Yes. We can realize that we are in quicksand and focus on getting outselves out while also realizing we later need to stop dinner from burning. But one is clearly more immediate than the other. Dinner will be the least of our worries if we sink here in 2026.

“Flood the zone” they say. With a mix of “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent”

I could wake up in the middle of the desert with no electronics on me the day he dies and I’m sure I’d be able to hear the wind tell me _{“Trump is dead"}It.'ll be that obvious.

More likely, I’ll probably hear fireworks outside on a random day and be woken up by partying in the streets before checking my phone.

This was the Democrat’s war.

If you use this lens of thinking for pre-70’s america, you won’t ever really understand that culture.

Thing is, Americans weren’t anywhere near as polarized as today. So republicans and democrats probably agreed on a lot of things even on the campaign trail. A vice president would be a president from the *opposite * party as a sign of cooperation.

People wouldn’t be pointing fingers at any party over this because odds are both parties wanted the war to happen for various reasons. It was simply “America’s war”.

In the big picture 1950-2026, Nixon was not as bad a President as people want to believe.

1. That just shows how far standards fell in America

2. That doesn’t ubdo the evils done beforehand

It’s more of a vent than a joke. “In private” with trusted friends. If this was something said out loud or even on a public tweet I’d get it. But this seems to fall closer to something like confiding in therapy than that.

Ofc, a trained therapist would understan this is a rant. The AI does not, and the FBI couldn’t care less about context.

22YO, so yeah. That was probably peak Snapchat age for them.

This sure did sound homely. And a life in a bygone era.