The next time you think that you’re a failure, you can take comfort in knowing that you haven’t failed as hard at the person that we’re laughing at, today.

That would be Guy Edward Bartkus, the suspect in the Saturday Palm Springs attempted bombing of a fertility clinic.

Guy believed that life wasn’t worth living, for himself or anyone else, probably because he was grounded when he wanted to attend a concert, or something about as mundane.

Guy had extreme nihilistic beliefs consistent with some anti-natalist cult. If you’re wondering what anti-natalism is, it’s the belief that life is so intrinsically painful that its considered immoral to bring more people into the world.

Guy took his beliefs to extremes, and attempted to destroy a fertility clinic with a car bomb. But he botched his efforts. Hard.

For one thing, he attempted to live-stream the bombing, but failed to properly set it up. When you see the kind of people who spout off their own naive ideas on how to run a society on social media, that puts Guy’s level of ineptitude into perspective.

Second, while his car detonated, he failed to kill anyone else nearby, and none of the embryos in the clinic were damaged. So, he failed in his endeavor.

Third, his own charred remains were found outside the car. This suggests an attempt to escape, which failed. As much as Guy hated life, he apparently attempted to spare his own, but failed.

If you wonder what I mean when I say “he rolled a zero”, that’s a D&D colloquialism. In that game, checks are often performed with a 20-sided die, with possible outcomes being the range of natural numbers from 1 to 20. Because a zero is impossible to roll without penalties, rolling a zero implies a disastrous failure that seems like it’s outside the range of possibilities.

Guy Edward Bartkus rolled a zero. Three times in a row.

He desired an infinite universe that’s devoid of life. But the only life he succeeded in ending is his own.

Also, his microbiome and whatever parasites which required his continued life to survive. Which was a bummer for them.

Look, it’s normal to feel sad from time to time. But there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the things that you like. For example, plushies. Also, grownup drinks.

While some of the things that you like might end up in a landfill one day, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying them in the time being.

But as for life, philosophers through the ages have struggled to understand it. I think it’s a valid question why some 25-year-old would claim to have it figured out, and conclude that there’s no purpose.

Through basic observation, it should be evident that life experiences the universe. Each life is a different vantage point through which the universe is experienced. One of the functions of life is the creation of new vantage points. If a person sees this, and still insists that there’s no purpose, they’re just not willing to see it.

But there are people out there who reject the universe as they see it because it has pain, or it doesn’t appeal to their sensibilities. For example, some object to the consumption of life by other life, which humans do to live. It’s best to come to peace with the universe as it is, which can come by appreciating that life went into your own sustenance.

As for what’s beyond this life, that’s something we can’t humanly perceive at this time. But I think it makes intuitive sense that there would be a continuity of life, even if in a different form, considering that if the universe were to continue onward, the continued existence of life would be needed for it to be experienced. And if the universe is not experienced, then it truly becomes pointless!

So, life is precious and valuable, even if only for its capacity to experience the universe.

Anti-natalists are wrong, and it’s a matter of basic observation.

UPDATE: It was brought to my attention that Guy was a vegan. Which would mean that he had yet another left wing fringe ideology, though not as much on the fringe as anti-natalism.

I don’t know for certain which ideology acted as a gateway to the other in Guy’s case, but either way seems plausible: perhaps he embraced anti-natalism in the interest of reducing suffering, then determined that veganism would be a natural choice by the same reasoning, or perhaps veganism was the pipeline to anti-natalist extremism, expedited by mental decline by reason of nutrient deficiency.

In either case, it seems like it’s a fringe leftist yet again, and I’m getting sick of it.

Sometimes, you just gotta adapt. That’s the hard lesson learned by a restaurant in the UK which previously offered a strictly vegan menu, but has recently made the decision to offer meat on it’s menu in an effort to remain open.

You know that annoying friend who doesn’t know which restaurant she’s comfortable with, even after everyone else in the car has already suggested nearly every other restaurant in town at least twice, because she’d rather have something vegan to eat? Apparently there aren’t enough of her kind around to keep a restaurant like The Mango Tree in Taunton, Somerset open.

Which is ironic, considering just how vocal they are, which creates the illusion that there are a lot more of them than there really are. Kind of like the gay community, which has long insisted that they made up 10% of the population, which was a popular belief until recently, when the CDC determined that they actually make up less than 4%.

It seems like a vocal minority just didn’t have what it took to keep the restaurant open. And that’s a really important lesson to learn for companies considering going woke in an effort to placate the vocal few who demand representation at the expense of the product being offered. What is it that makes them so sure that the overly-vocal communities who are demanding disproportionate representation are present in great enough number to offset the base who would feel alienated with the offering?

One would get the idea that companies need to learn how to ignore those who, for all the noise they make, aren’t really interested in becoming their customers.

The Mango Tree learned the hard way that, as loud as they may have been, vegans aren’t present in great enough number to keep their restaurant above water. The solution that they came up with was what we see from the natural world: adapt to survive. However, we’ve learned something about The Mango Tree’s management, which has now alienated the few vegans whose attention they held. What has become evident is that veganism isn’t really their sincerely-held moral position.

If a person is sincere in a moral position, they must be willing to stand by it, regardless of the circumstances, whether positive or negative. There is no “well, just this once”, and there is no “the ends justify the means”. A Sabbatarian auto repair shop won’t be open on the Sabbath, and a Kosher deli won’t start serving pork, even if it means their businesses face shuttering, if their managers hold on to their integrity. I once knew of a Christian who believed in resting on Sundays (not a rare belief, considering his cultural frame of reference), but when his employer threatened his job because of his Sunday observance, he eventually caved, and decided to work on Sundays. He kept his job, but didn’t have anyone’s respect.

The Mango Tree decided to stop offering a strictly vegan menu. Maybe it’s because they’ve learned a few things about the world we live in, but it’s also possible that they viewed making more money as being of more importance than their indicated stance on veganism. In so doing, they’ve become a byword among the general community, and lost the respect of the few who were previously in agreement with them.

Whether they stand to profit from the change remains to be seen. They might actually benefit from the publicity that they’ve been getting, which is valuable considering how competitive the restaurant business is.

In any case, an omnivorous diet is one that humans are better adapted to, and is therefore a virtue that is difficult to deny. One thing that can be said for The Mango Tree is that they’ve managed to learn their lesson before it cost them too dearly.

If you’re a fan of real food, you’ll agree with me that this is a win. Overpriced coffee vendor Dunkin’ Donuts has discontinued a Beyond Meat breakfast sandwich in all but 10 states.

If you’re a vegetarian, and you’ve done your research into the risks of the vegetarian diet, and aren’t smug about it or seek to impose your diet on anyone else, I’m not judgmental towards you.

But one thing I’ve noticed is that vegetarians tend to go crazy trying to eat something that they’re not. They miss hamburgers, which is why there is such a market for vegetarian hamburgers. Of course, they don’t want to be left out when there’s a cook-out, even when they get neurotic in insisting that their veggie patties aren’t grilled on the same surface as regular hamburgers. They then wonder why they are being excluded when they’re no longer invited to functions, when they made themselves more difficult to interact with.

Beyond Meat, along with Impossible meat, are the most sophisticated attempts to imitate life to date, using happy magical chemistry to make meat patties that pass for the real thing. But Beyond Meat is not the real thing, and I don’t accept it as such, for the same reason that if you mixed seltzer water with grape juice, I’m not going to accept it as champagne if I understand the fraud for what it is.

Lived experience can be imitated, but it can never be replaced. Which is why when a breakfast sandwich was imitated, it was only a matter of time before it was taken from the menu.

As much as I’d like to credit this development to the better judgement of people, on Sunday mornings, people line up at a Dunkin’ Donuts near here for overpriced donuts and coffee. The hypnotic effect of Dunkin’s marketing is such that the lines even extend well into the road, cars deep into a major highway. What is wrong with people?

In any case, the sandwich has eggs, so that flimsy sponge in particular doesn’t endear itself to vegans. Many vegetarians are going full-on vegan, which is easy to understand when you consider that most cults encourage embracing their extremes.

While it’s easy to feel bad for the few outliers that are going to miss this sandwich offering, it was easy to see coming when you consider that it was sharing a menu with a bunch of items that people would rather eat.

It was actually earlier this year in which Texans were driven to stockpiling meat products for fear of supplies running out, when Texas suffered from power outages when they found out that wind energy wasn’t reliable.

But as for imitation meat products, they didn’t bother.

Shelves are empty, people are starving, but plenty of Beyond Beef and Impossible Burgers to be had. pic.twitter.com/8J61CvaZpY

— (((tedfrank))) (@tedfrank) February 19, 2021

Fake meat products such as Beyond Sausage are weird and gross. It’s as simple as that.

A study conducted in the UK has found that vegans take twice as many sick days as meat eaters.

Source: Daily Mail

The findings of this study goes against conventional thinking, though I’ve known for some time that veganism is not a healthier lifestyle. The difficulty in obtaining protein and the near-impossibility of finding alternative sources of necessary B vitamins (a deficiency of which can result in irreversible neurological damage) makes veganism a disastrous lifestyle choice.

By the looks of it, science is increasingly backing up the understanding that veganism is terrible for one’s health. This understanding may make it more difficult to conduct studies on the topic, as one can certainly question the ethics of asking someone to undertake a particular diet with the potential of causing neurological damage for science. However, the information we already have access to is sufficient to conclude that a vegan lifestyle should be avoided.

Still, those pushing the vegan lifestyle do succeed in winning impressionable minds to their cause. Among the selling points are treating vague symptoms like “brain fog” or “fatigue”, or appealing to an inordinate sense of guilt. “Brain fog” is a concept that is vague enough that one can easily make the case that just about anything can be blamed for it, and “fatigue” is a natural consequence of doing stuff. After going on a long hike, fatigue is normal. One can even experience fatigue after a few hours of typical activities. It’s not realistic to feel alert and focused all day, every day, no matter what your diet may be.

And the guilt thing a person should easily get over with a simple dose of realism: human beings are biological constructs suited to a predatory lifestyle. We’ve hunted and ate meat over the course of aeons, and our bodies are well-suited to this.

When a person goes against what’s worked well over the course of human history, it shouldn’t be surprising when things don’t go very well for that person. For example, that person may get to be in poorer health and require more sick days for convalescence as a result of their impractical diet.

What’s more, the study showed that vegans took more time off from work to recuperate from the cold or flu, minor ailments that most people just shrug right off. That vegans have a much more difficult time with what most of us consider a mere inconvenience doesn’t really make their diet seem very effective.

While vegans imagine that the rest of us like meat just to be mean, we eat it because it plays a critical role in maintaining good health. It certainly helps that it’s delicious.

A YouTube personality named Mari Lopez made the claim to have been cured of her breast cancer, and said that she owed her recovery to her vegan lifestyle.

You could imagine that vegans would jump all over this, considering that they trip over themselves in the rush for any evidence that their hokey diet makes them superior to the general population, with mainstream media outlets enabling them by publishing anything attention-grabbing that doesn’t go against their own narrative. Mari also claimed that her diet cured her homosexuality, but media outlets don’t seem to have much to say as far as that goes.

In a stunning turn of events, Mari’s breast cancer had returned. To Mari’s credit, she did seem to figure something out, because she started eating meat again after her cancer returned. Obviously, her vegan diet wasn’t really doing anything for her, and she might have benefited from the iodine and B vitamins that she would have been missing out on as a result of veganism. Sadly, Mari Lopez didn’t make it.

The show’s co-host, Liz Johnson, was quick enough to throw Mari under the bus. Johnson blamed Mari’s death on her becoming inconsistent with her diet and spiritual life. Also to the fact that she underwent radiation and chemotherapy, which have been helping people to battle and survive cancer for years.

As you’ve probably pieced together by now, their channel was one that peddled all-natural remedies.

Liz also opposed Mari using a microwave to prepare her food, which was something that Liz was against. The idea that microwaves do any more damage to a food’s nutritional value than traditional cooking or somehow makes food worse to consume is another idea that gullible people buy into, but it’s not as virulent a brand of nonsense as veganism, because it doesn’t eliminate necessary nutrients and an entire food group from one’s diet. But it’s still something to watch out for when you want evidence that someone is terrible at thinking for themselves.

While natural remedy sites thrive on the business that they get from morons, there’s more to it than that. I suspect that these sites are so popular because people don’t want to visit doctors. With how expensive a visit to the doctor can get, it’s easy to understand their reluctance. There are people out there that wouldn’t go to the ER with an emergency, as doing so can easily cost a person as much as a year’s wages, and the prospect of making repeated calls to an insurance company to beg them to honor their commitment is more than a little daunting. And through it all, the stress might have an even further negative impact on their health. Then, suddenly, that sewing kit starts to look mighty attractive.

People become so desperate for an alternative that they begin accepting any that is presented to them, including the vegan diet, which is among the most persistent of fad diets. As veganism is criticized, vegans double down on their stance, and they attribute every health benefit that they can imagine to the diet in an attempt to justify it.

Considering this, is it any surprise that there are vegans that actually believe that their diet can cure cancer? And as the recent death of Mari Lopez has demonstrated, it’s not a harmless misconception.

The question at this point is, how many more lives need to be devastated by the widespread misconception that veganism is a healthy lifestyle? And why aren’t more people doing something about it?

Sources:
The Fox News article
The Yahoo News article