@hex@kolektiva.social2026-03-23 08:15:09
This becomes especially interesting when you understand the history of the church as a quasi-revolutionary organization. One could describe early church history as a mostly-successful attempt to overthrow the Roman empire. I say mostly successful because, in the end, the Roman state mutated the church for it's own ends and basically pulled a Lenin.
The early church was a religion of women and slaves that set up alternative institutions. See, the Roman economic system basically ran through the temples. Temples were basically the banks of their day (thus money changers in the temples and all that). So when the church set up their own institutions, they were actually attacking the economic system of the Roman empire. *That* is why the empire tried to destroy them. The Romans didn't really care about the gods. They would just mutate their beliefs to pull other pagans in. No, it wasn't about the gods. The Christian were fucking with the money.
The whole church as an institution was about dual power, and Paul (one of the early founders of the church) was central to organizing this into a political machine that could actually threaten the dominant order. One could argue that he saw the potential of the church, and used it to solidify his own power.
It all basically worked, right up until Constantine figured out how to flip the whole thing against the most radical elements. He had his people collect up different books of the Bible and modify them in such a way that it favored Rome. The trick here was to highlight the existing antisemitic threads of early church, and destroy the anti-Roman ones. Anti-authoritarian sects were killed as heretics, and centralized sects became aligned under the church.
This strategy of controlling internal dissent probably feels quite familiar. It's basically how the US works.
But this whole time, during the whole lead up to this, Christianity was illegal and it was continuing to grow as a system of dual power. When Romanism merged with Christianity, it created the most authoritarian institution in human history that brutally destroyed all opposition. Even still, several hundred years later it's power broke.
Today Liberalism has separated banking and the church, and has created the illusion of separation of church and state. But the same dual power strategy that allowed the first church to gain enough power to merge with the Roman power structure have now allowed Christian Nationalism to fully merge with Americanism into the Christian Fascism we see today...
@cdarwin@c.im2026-03-22 22:57:02
As the temperatures soared to 105 degrees on Saturday in Phoenix, Ariz., the third-straight day the weather has topped the 100-degree mark,
more than 400 people attending an airshow in nearby Glendale were treated for heat-related illnesses, authorities said.
At least 25 people attending the Luke Days Airshow at Luke Air Force Base were overcome by the sweltering weather and had to be hospitalized for various heat-related illnesses
@cowboys@darktundra.xyz2026-03-23 19:49:34
2026 NFL Mock Draft: Where Would Arch Manning, Jeremiah Smith Be Picked in All-CFB Draft? https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/2026-nfl-mock-draft-where-would-arch-manning-jeremiah-smith-picked-all-cfb-draft
@arXiv_physicsaccph_bot@mastoxiv.page2026-02-24 08:05:08
Nanometer-scale pre-bunched electron beams generated from all-optical plasma-based acceleration
Zhenan Wang, Zewei Xu, Qianyi Ma, Yuhui Xia, Letian Liu, Chenxu Wang, Thamine Dalichaouch, Xueqing Yan, Xinlu Xu, Warren B. Mori
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.19081 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.19081 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.19081
arXiv:2602.19081v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: High-quality and prebunched electron beams can produce coherent x-rays with high intensity and narrow bandwidth, which is essential for modern light sources. An all-optical scheme based on plasma-based acceleration to produce bright electron beams that are pre-bunched on nanometer-scales is proposed. By using a density modulation created by two low intensity counter-propagating lasers, the phase velocity of the plasma wake excited by an intense driver laser in a uniform plasma can be modulated at a frequency twice that of the colliding lasers and thus turn the injection on and off. The injected electrons are micro-bunched at the Doppler shifted wavelength of the modulated wavelength using the corresponding phase velocity of the gradual expansion of the wakefield. It is demonstrated that by controlling the properties of the drive and colliding lasers, that beams with exotic pre-bunched structures can be produced, which may have critical applications in ultrafast high power x-rays. This extremely compact, all-optical scheme to produce ultra-bright pre-bunched electron beams may therefore enable novel applications for ultrafast x-ray users and arouse general interest in various fields.
toXiv_bot_toot
@raiders@darktundra.xyz2026-03-23 19:58:38
2026 NFL Mock Draft: Where Would Arch Manning, Jeremiah Smith Be Picked in All-CFB Draft? https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/2026-nfl-mock-draft-where-would-arch-manning-jeremiah-smith-picked-all-cfb-draft
@kurtsh@mastodon.social2026-01-24 18:08:14
Star Control 2... my favorite game in the early 90s. At UCLA, I had college football players begging me to play it on my computer.
▶️ How Star Control II Was Almost TOO Realistic | War Stories | Ars Technica
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZgN4Mta86OE&si=zuiQ8iiDQCirMYkd…
@jswright61@ruby.social2026-03-20 19:56:09
RE: https://vis.social/@infobeautiful/116262784472526985
Actually the brown car was me 5 years ago, now I just park in the back of the lot. No congestion, The extra steps are good for me.
@Sustainable2050@mastodon.energy2026-03-22 06:59:37
Trump keeps escalating his war against Iran. Sets deadline on Monday, shortly before midnight CET. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-nuclear-facility-fourth-week-us-troops-9.7137298?utm_source=flipboard&utm_me…
@cdarwin@c.im2026-04-21 21:58:01
The US military has significantly depleted its stockpile of key missiles during the war with Iran
and created a “near-term risk” of running out of ammunition in a future conflict should one arise in the next few years,
according to experts and three people familiar with recent internal Defense Department stockpile assessments.
Over the last seven weeks of war,
the US military has expended at least 45% of its stockpile of Precision Strike Missiles;
at least half …
@leftsidestory@mstdn.social2026-02-20 00:30:01
