Bus lines, or trains, _could_ be very convenient. I've found them convenient for commuting, because I figured out the best route and stuck to it regularly, knowing what to expect. But I've found buses inconvenient for going to places I wasn't used to. But even that could be convenient if it were a really good bus system.

That's pretty good.

Verification's good when one can do it.

Trust is a more complicated topic.

One of the sayings I've heard on the Left (what I call the Left) has been "You can't trust the government." The Left is many things. The government is many things too. Examples: I am usually a lot closer to "Left" than "Right". I am doubtful about the CIA (so I might not "trust" that part of the government) but I am very much in favor of Social Security and Medicare (for which other parts of the government have performed well).

But even in Social Security (and maybe Medicare), a citizen has to discern which faction of the government is managing it. One faction wants to privatize it and the other wants to keep it as a public service owned by the public. The two factions might produce wildly different outcomes from each other. Think about their motivations.

Regarding chemicals and food and water and air:

I occasionally buy "pre-washed" spinach in a package at the store. I asked an older acquaintance whether he thought it was already clean enough so that I wouldn't have to wash it again. His opinion was that if it was USA spinach then it was probably safe enough (and I wouldn't have to wash it again) because the USA has standards in place to watch over that kind of food safety.

(But: Compared with what? We think Mexico produce would be less safe, so maybe I should wash it even if the package says "pre-washed". But I think some Western European nations regulate food safety better than the U.S. does.)

In the U.S. there are at least two big forces at play that affect the safety of chemicals, food, water, and air:

One of them is the government, those parts of the government that regulate these things.

The other is large corporations.

Do you trust large corporations to keep chemicals and your food, water, and air clean and safe for your family?

The "Anarchic" Ocean! Was that spelling deliberate?

The person I know in Vietnam told me that rising sea level is causing a lot of damage to the farms that are flat and right at, or very near, sea level. It makes too much salt in the soil.

People like Obama and Gore presumably would live on (A) a normal U.S. coastline which is not like (B) low-lying islands, and not like (C) the farms of a delta in Vietnam. A sea level rise would give people at (A) some years to move, but the same sea level rise would much more quickly be a problem at (B) and (C) because they are lower to the water and/or don't have as much space to where they can move or to where they can do the same kind of farming as they've traditionally done.

But if their livelihood is fishing, I'd guess a sea level rise, per se, wouldn't hurt their livelihood (as long as they have plenty of living space not getting flooded with big storms).

A supreme being would want you to be slower to disrespect people.

"...as if I have to meet your test..."

I agree; you do not have to meet another person's test.

Why do you think I "lack faith"? Do you have a definition of "faith" that somehow indicates that I would not have it? You use the word faith again: "they lost complete faith" -- "they lost complete faith and allegiance to the God who[...] created us." I think you're using some concept of faith which is too narrow.

In case anyone might care about it: I do have _some_ faith. I have tried to keep my assumptions simple; and I hope my faith is simple also. I do not claim absolute knowledge, but I have thought about how things work, and (after a while) one of the ideas I came up with, and believe, is that, if there is a supreme being, it is not malignant, it is not cruel, and it is not frivolous. That's a faith. I also have faith that the sun will come up tomorrow (not that I know it absolutely, but I feel sure enough about it that I can say I have faith in it). I have faith that the universe works in a logical way.



Thank you for the well-wishing.

When you write "They prefer everything beneficial to their own. But we have to balance our lives.", you have apparently made some assumption, about people who don't believe what you believe, that "they prefer everything beneficial to their own" and that they don't appreciate balancing their lives or don't have their lives in balance as well as your kind do.

I think you're assuming too much about too many things. You may have met some people who match such a description, but even if so, it still doesn't mean all of us are unbalanced or "prefer everything beneficial to their own".

One thing that maybe we can agree on is that 1 Corinthian 13 (from which you quoted) is a very good chapter.

Nicely said. I could agree with much of what you wrote here.

I hope you write more about "...then left the part of the world where that happened and over decades have become today impressed by other things...".

I am mostly agnostic, but feel compelled (because of a personal experience) to say that there is a god (also known as God with a capital G). I believe that this god allows us to be agnostic (and is quite tolerant of that) and might even approve of agnosticism. I really don't know why a god would exist, apart from our imaginations, but I admit that one does, or at least I think one does.

Thank you for indicating (in a later comment) that there's a difference between agnosticism and atheism. I've been around some atheists; and to me they're sometimes annoying in a way somewhat similar to how Christians are sometimes annoying. That is, both groups (or more literally, some of each group) act like they're so sure they know the absolute t***h. I think both groups should have some more humility and admit that they do not know so much about any absolute t***h.

As for me, I think God and nature are generally indistinguishable from each other, although I allow for the possibility that there could be exceptions to that. For practical purposes in everyday life, God and nature are indistinguishable from each other.

I think up theories, or ideas, about how things work. One of these ideas is that there's a really simple answer for what, if anything, lies beyond this life that we see here. I don't know what the really simple answer _is_, but I suspect that there is one. When we are near death, perhaps we will think: "Oh! Of course! It's been obvious all along."

Meanwhile, it's usually sensible to just allow that "I don't know" is a good answer to many questions.

Oh, I didn't know that word. I suppose chemtrails might contribute a little bit to g****l w*****g but not as much as the much greater amount of oil-based greenhouse gases.

When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area it was in July 1981 and they were just starting to spray malathion, which was a surprise to me. It was to combat medflies. According to news reports, it left a sticky residue on cars. I didn't have a car. But I left town for a couple of days, to get away from the spray. I thought such things might pose health risks for people, but I never thought of them in connection with g****l w*****g.

Perhaps.

But if you were looking for _first-hand_ observations, which might somehow _corroborate_ or _bolster_ the idea that g****l w*****g is happening, I might offer those about the wildfires, since I don't live where I can notice sea level nor polar ice and don't live where people died from a very unusual heat wave.

Two-century droughts, huh? I didn't know about those. I would think a two-century drought could be called "climate".

Chemtrails! I think you are joking. Are "chemtrails" those lines in the sky that jets make? I want to reply, but if you're joking then I don't know how to reply.

People are right to want a college education, and right to try to get one. One big issue is how much a college education costs. It wouldn't _have_ to cost that much. A university teacher in Vietnam told me that students get university educations for free in Vietnam. (I think: The government pays for their educations. Is that a good investment? I think it is.)

In the U.S., people can get a K-12 public education for free. That may not be the case in the future; it depends partly on policy.

I don't know how much a college education costs in most other countries.

One interesting (though possibly not strictly relevant) thing is that, after having gotten a Bachelors degree, some people can get Masters degrees without having to pay anything for them; the universities pay for them, or whoever finances the universities (the state?) pays for them. 50 years ago, my college education to get a Bachelors degree was expensive. (I went to a private college because I could get a small scholarship and a small grant, there; and I paid most of the rest of it by a student loan and part-time jobs). But when I got a Masters degree (which was at a public university), the university paid my way! I had what was called a graduate assistantship, in which my main work was to teach a class. About 40 years later, one of my children told me that universities pay for most graduate school education, and indeed, she did get a Masters degree and the university paid for it.

Another thing, which _I_ think is relevant here, is how much housing costs. Who is benefitting from the very high price of a college education, and the very high price of housing? Lenders, that's who. I think that the very high price of housing and the very high price of a college education have something in common: and that is, that lenders benefit, and are probably influencing public policy to help keep prices high, so they can make so much money receiving interest payments. (I think: Is this a good idea for the nation as a whole? Is it a good thing for most people? And I think "No", to both questions.)

You said "caused" and you said "defined". "Defining" takes a little extra effort. For at least a few fires, the power company has been blamed for providing the initial sparking of some individual wildfires, by some problems with power lines and trees. Investigations were done and this blaming was substantiated and seems to be generally accepted as true. But this is not the only "cause" of the wildfires nor is it the only cause for why they're so hard to get under control once they get started.

Heat is the main reason, for wildfires, and for the frequency, size, and intensity of them, which connects to g****l w*****g. That is, wildfires generally are a problem for two or more reasons at once, and heat is usually one of those reasons. It's hotter than it used to be.

Another cause for the wildfires is dryness. Much of California is naturally dry, and we have a lot of droughts, and we're in a long drought now, only partially alleviated by precipitation a couple of months ago.

Another cause is the "fuel" (like underbrush) for wildfires: the crowdedness of forests and the underbrush in them. The people who manage forests have had a policy of stopping all wildfires as soon as possible, and now that's regarded as a misguided policy. It's misguided because it allowed the underbrush and crowded growth of forests to build up rather than being naturally burnt off periodically. Note that more than half the forests in California are managed by the federal government. So, if you have heard a high-ranking federal official blame wildfires on California, don't forget that more of the forest area in California is managed (or perhaps neglected) by the federal government than by the state government.

I think the two most interesting (or relevant) causes for the _trend_ in wildfires are (a) how forests are managed or mismanaged and (b) more heat than before.

I've lived in California about 40 years. The first time wildfire smoke was even noticeable to me was only about 5 or 6 years ago. Then one day I looked up and saw a red sun, which I had never seen before. It was because of smoke in the air. I had been living in the South Bay (60 miles south of San Francisco) for more than 30 years.

Smoke from wildfires was a big problem, keeping people inside and needing air purifiers, in large parts of California 3 years ago, and 2 years ago, but not quite as bad 1 year ago. The wildfire season is in the summer and fall, but seems to be lengthening.

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Addendum:

If it were only that _one_ thing, I wouldn't call this "evidence" of g****l w*****g; instead it is partial evidence which is linked to g****l w*****g after having already seen reports of unusual reductions of polar ice and other indications of g****l w*****g (e.g., sea level rise), plus some logic. I personally wouldn't know about sea level rise nor about polar ice, but I've been seeing these things in the news for a long time, and related information.

Probably not in California, but maybe in some other places like Antarctica, because they can get information from ice cores.