This is (in my opinion) one of the single biggest achievements of humanity.

Image of Sagittarius A* black hole at center of our Galaxy, taken by Event Horizon Telescope team. This one is also refined with magnetic field lines.

I don't remember what was the exact source for me, but one of the possible ones is https://s3.amazonaws.com/cms.ipressroom.com/173/files/20247/66c7d3d62cfac2492a9bdd54_Sagittarius+A/Sagittarius+A_hero.jpg. I just made it grayscale, some dimming, and resizing, to not cover whole of screen.

I don't want to write a very long post, but I just wanted to remind everyone about this.

I recently learnt about protest on February 5th, and just wanted to spread this. The wiki page has a huge table of non-violent protests.

I know many people are disheartened, and in such circumstances, people often resort to violence (sometimes to send messages, sometimes in response to another violence, sometimes in catharsis).

I am from land of Gandhi, and a huge admirer of his work. Many people even in my country today feel Gandhi was useless or found him problematic for n number of reasons, some partially valid, many not, but this post is not about him. What I want to highlight is his idea of Satyagraha - it is essentially a exercise in (and for) truth. 2 famous non violent movements of his time being civil disobedience and non-cooperation. Names give the core ideas away - but essentially - break laws peacefully. To elaborate - 1 of them was against a salt tax law. They just made salt, and did not pay tax. It was both literal and symbolic, in the sense that they stopped paying taxes - and EIC were hit both financially and political power wise.

And these are not the only peacefully protests our land, one of the most recent ones was a farmers protest (for context, in India, majority people are still employed by farming), and roughly after a year of protest, they got there demands met.

I wanted to add a US specific example, and I can't think of anything better than Stop War protests regarding Vietnam War.

TL;DR - Peaceful protests work, you just have to be persistent

Dreams are basically simulations of our lives that we run, sometimes with different physical constants, resulting in different worldly behaviours. Fever dreams (not necessarily during a fever) are when we are sweeping over a range of constants, so behaviour keeps on changing.

Old title - Tolerance - Is violence ever justified?

For reference - https://lemmings.world/post/19791264 and all comments below the post about tolerance and non-tolerance

is it too naive for me to believe any and every lives matter? I do understand if someone is coming for my life, and i stop him by retaliating back, most nation's laws would deem me innocent, maybe even most people will - but was it right?

It has not happened with me yet, and this is post is not politics related, a general discussion about tolerance, but I dont know how will I respond to such a situation, Is there a correct approach?

I know in a imaginary utopia - we can have a society where everyone thinks any violence, or for that matter, any evil deed is evil. And I know real world is far from being a utopia, but i believe most people can differentiate between good and bad. In my opinion, most people who do such acts are not really doing it because they enjoy it, some do because they have to, some think they have to, and they have been brain washed.

I also think if we ask a binary (yes/no) question to everyone - Is violence justified" - most people will vote no. I know there would be some exceptions (even in perfect utopia's like N. Korea, lords only get like 99% majority)(/s).

Now if we change question - "Is violence ever justified" - many will now vote yes, and start listing out situations where they think it is valid.

This question was also brought up in Avatar. For people who don't know - should Aang (a person with firm opinions, and more importantly a child - 12(112) years old) kill Lord Ozai (for now, consider him embodiment of evil for simplicity, but still a human). Many shows get away from asking, by basically having monsters (non human) as the opponent, so it is does not feel morally wrong. But here the question was asked. His past lives (in this world reincarnation exists, and aang is the Avatar - person who can control all elements) also suggested he should kill him, and he is tethered to this world, and this is no utopia ......... In the show they got away with basically a divine intervention.

Maybe here is my real question - Is it correct to have your morals be flexible?

Now for my answer, I have almost never felt correct labeling people good or bad, I have almost always treated people depending on what the situation expects me to (maybe how I feel I should be treating). In some sense I have a very flexible stance, and in some others, I dont. For example - I never cheat on exams or assignments - I can't justify cheating, If I am getting poor marks, then I should prepare well. But If someone else asks me to help them cheat (lets say give assignment solutions) - I dont refuse either, as I have understood, even though judging people by a few numbers is bad, world still does that - mostly to simplify things, and in that sense, a higher grade for anyone is better for them.

I dont even know what can be a answer. I dont know if it exists, or it can exist, I am not really trying to find it either, consider this just a rant at clouds.

edit - I am not asking a binary question - you are not expected to answer a yes or no, see the line just above this edit. It is not even really about violence - it is about morality

edit 2 - Changed title, old 1 is still here for full context. I dont know why I chose that title. I am not blaming anyone who answered on the basis of title, It was my bad to have some title, and ask a "not really orthogonal but generalised question" in the middle, hoping people answer that, some one did, I thank them. Many people have written (or in similar vein) - violence should be be avoided, but not when it the last thing. I understand this general sentiment - but according to me - having a excuse to ever do violence allows you to have loop hole, just blame the circumstances.

Someone gave a situation where they would do violence - someone trying to assault a kid - and I agree I would too (If I would be in such a situation).

I had a small back and forth with someone about morals - my stance is morals are frameworks to choose if a action is moral/immoral. And then the question is really how rigid should your moral framework be, and should it depend on background of people in consideration?