sanity_is_maddening

Oh, absolutely. Biomagnification is inherent to the logic of raising through the trophic levels. So even if we forego the zoo experiment as a setting, in theory any time there's a toxin or a man-made hazardous chemical due to pollution in the wild, we are bound to find higher levels of either due to the concentration effect alone.

We can even point that back to the study, as the zoo animals were eating domestic raised animals by humans and the inherent hazards of that practice surely increase the risk of cancer, not lower it. Maybe they can even start a lab grown meat trial with carnivorous zoo animals and see if the cancer rate actually lowers from that alone. In theory, it should.

No, you don't need to "grow up". You're right in feeling the way you do. Growing up in relation to that sounds like giving up. If anyone needs to grow up or give up is the people destroying Nature and people's lifes just so they can get more tokens in a rigged game that always benefits them.

Thank you!

If anyone here can find it, a few years ago there was also a meta study that evaluated the aggregate information provided by zoos and found that carnivore animals are a lot more likely to develop cancer than omnivore animals and herbivores. Herbivores, the least likely. Which from a trophic balance makes absolute sense. Given that a large predator without self regulation would require other population control occurrences to be in place from a meta-space perspective. And amino acid density doesn't really discriminate what is growing, anyway. So, it all makes sense. As it's supposed to.

And speaking of this, us Humans have to develop our own self-regulation at an individual level and species level combined or we'll continue to predate on the environment and each other as a result of our own devised resource scarcity. The fact we fight viruses and cancer better and better only makes it more necessarily so. Lack of self regulation always leads to scarcity. It is how the initial predation systems were formed to begin with. Ambulant organisms reproduced and consumed without any inhibitors or restrictions, leading them to prey on each other when the lower trophic levels were no longer available to sustain their numbers and consumption. Again, it all makes sense. As it's supposed to.

Just have all athletes measured in an index of height, weight, muscle mass and bone density, and redistribute them in even categories disregarding sex entirely as a categorization. For the first time we would have fair sports. Sports were never really fair, and anyone who understands just the simple notions of physics has always pointed this out. They just don't like it when nerds prove jocks don't understand the very games they play. And that's all sports trully are in the end. Games.

The part that boggles me is how this takes so much space in the broad conversation when competitive sports are truly an inconsequential part of existence. None of that affects life outside of it. None whatsoever. And I'm sure even athletes want this situation actually solved, instead of just dumbing it even more.

And by the way I'm speaking of sports, not exercise. For some reason, people conflate the two.

Exercise is essential.

Sports are not. They can be fun. But people surely know how to ruin the fun out of it.

I'm looking forward to moving on to the next important issue. Which to them is probably going to be if there should be male vs female acting categories in award shows. No, there's no reason for it. But caring about award shows is even dumber than that dumb distinction in them. The Arts would be better off without them. Competitions in Arts is as silly as it sounds.

You're in the awful moment after college. I'm 40 and this happened to anyone I know as well. Older people than me will tell you the same. It really sucks.

So, I'm gonna give a few suggestions where you don't have to spend any money and don't involve clubbing, which is not cheap either.

Plenty of group activities don't cost anything and are the most fulfilling...

Just one quick note. Don't concern yourself too much with age groups. People are organised by age groups in school. Everywhere else the organisation is mutual interests or common goals. And then you'll go there and find people of all ages.

So...

Find projects of your interest where you can volunteer.

If you like animals, give some of your time to local animal shelters and animal associations.

If you want to give Nature a hand, volunteer to go plant trees on the weekend, plenty of groups outthere always asking for more to come.

Check the activities at your local library, most of them are state funded and free of charge to participate in.

The same goes for Cultural Associations. Plenty of them have state funded events that are free of charge to attend.

There are also amateur groups that you can join. Just find anything of your liking. If you like to draw, almost any place has a "drink and draw" event or an Urban Sketchers group. Nobody will care if you don't consume at these events. And if you think you can't draw, nobody cares. People of all levels of skill show up. I know this because I go to them and nobody cares how well you draw. As long as you like drawing, looking at drawings or watching people drawing you're always welcomed at them.

If drawing is not of your interest but you like singing, there's for sure an amateur singing group near you. My girlfriend met a group of funny and energetic elderly ladies this way. She loves their company. And nobody young or old is there to make it to a stage. They just enjoy singing and each other's company.

If you don't like singing but you play an instrument, plenty of Jam sessions around and in some the musicians that play don't pay for their drinks. And the ones where they do, you can just not consume anything. They know you're there to play. But there's a few who even pay some musicians to be there. It's a matter of finding out.

There's dancing groups.

There's film clubs.

There's book clubs.

There's poetry gatherings. A lot of the poetry there will be awful and that's fine. It's part of the charm.

And the reason why I know of all these events I suggested so far is because I go to them and I even help organise some of them with two of my local cultural associations. The next event I'm helping out on is an Animation festival that is now in its fourth annual edition. Although not all, some of the screenings are free. But the ones that aren't are dirt cheap anyways.

These are some examples, there are so many more. And in almost if not all of them you'll find people of all ages, including yours and younger.

Don't go out looking for a romantic partner. Go look for a community. You're also more likely to find a partner in a community of people anyway.

While you were in school, you were in a secluded and rigid environment.

Welcome to the shit.

Where everyone is as clueless as you probably think you are.

I wish more people thought like you.

And I wish I gave answers as swift and succinct as yours. I wrote a reply that is too looooong. Yours is better.

Well, the DVDs and Blu-rays do not have to be of American media, but if they are, they can be of the several European special boutiques and distributors that can merely license the media you specifically care for. Although I'm sure that there are many American Filmmakers and artists we all still want to support and even increase visibility amongst the current circumstances. This allows one to have that level of targeting and to have specific and personal input, instead of just contributing to giant conglomerates that screw the artists out of fair revenue before moving to screw their costumers at every turn, which is what streaming services are and do.

With physical media, one can also borrow or lend amongst each other at leisure, check them for free from libraries or buy them second hand. This is also about cultural sovereignty and increases the resiliency in communities when it comes to culture. And in times of instability and economic hardship it becomes even more necessary.

Media is like anything else, the more people owning it the better. We don't want culture to be in the hands of just a few. That is the wrong direction for everything.

But I'm suspect because I've never stopped this habit and I prefer European cinema and World Cinema to American in the first place.

I also enjoy going to screenings in my local cineclub. There's a wonderful sense of community and great discussions to have. And it's so much cheaper and fulfilling than going to the Multiplex which is impersonal and encourages mindlesness.

If you're more into TV series, the U.S. does have the monopoly of interest. But I assume this is much more about visibility and a failure of venues to publicise TV series of other places. The absence of TV Series Festivals like Film Festivals that can obtain visibility for them is partially the answer that is missing. But I still remember the craze with the Scandinavian output, which had hits like "Forbrydelsen" (The Killing) or Bron (The Bridge), and both got American Remakes that were quite disappointing in comparison. But the biggest hit that came out of that was probably Borgen. Wonderful show.

But even in English, I much prefer to watch shows coming out of Britain than the U.S. And with BBC, you only need a VPN to access their shows and documentaries for free. It's public domain there. If you are from the U.k. than this is an unnecessary step.

Some people have suggested that we should push the E.U. to start a streaming service that would make content created by European Public owned Networks and Radiostations available to all countries in the EU for free. It's already free. It just needs distribution. It's a great idea. Although the BBC is Brittish and therefore not EU, a deal could probably still be achieved to include them.

Anyway, I will still always suggest for anyone to not get too stuck in algorithmic suggestions of Cinema, Music and Art in General. It gets stale, and doesn't force us to challenge ourselves in any form and in any new directions. Part of the problem we have in civilization right now is precisely stemming from this lack of broadening personal horizons and challenging individual perceptions that comes with the feedback loop that algorithms reinforce and cause the so called "bubbles" and "echo chambers" that so many like to point out, but so very few actually enjoy breaking out of.