Hopefully,

"Pride goeth before destruction, and an high mind before the fall."

Proverbs 16:18

I do appreciate a being with a sense of humor.

The number of times pride destroys those who indulge it in history, the bible, and in fiction beggars belief.

• lucifer's great sin was pride. He believed he was above God's creation 9f man, and decided to rebel against the almighty. God taught him quickly why this was a less than spectacular move, and now he's languishing in hell.
• the Russian campaign of napoleon failed due to his pride and believe in his invincibility. The Russian winter proved him wrong, as it tends to do for all invaders of Russia (save the mongols) during the wrong season.
• nebucanezzar was cursed with insanity due to his pride, as written in the book of daniel. He was freed from it when he finally accepted the divine providence of God.
• the pride of the white star line, the titanic, was declared unsinkable. We all know how that went.
• also with the titanic is the sub titan that went to explore the wreck and went pop. the owner believed his will would be enough for a carbon fibre sub to survive natural forces of pressure. Alas for him and 4 others, the sea proved to be a very harsh mistress, with the probable result being 5 puffs of red mist being dispersed with the wreckage.
• midas was proud of his great wealth and of his certainty that a divine gift from a god granting him infinite wealth was a good idea. And it worked for him right up until he turned his daughter into gold with a touch.
• oedipus famously was proud of his ability to solve any mystery after solving the riddle of the sphinx, but was driven to tragedy by trying to solve the murder of his father. One should be careful of repeating that endeavour.
• Macbeth was so certain he would rule that it became his Achilles heel, which not so coincidentally is another story about pride and belief in one's invulnerability.
• continuing Shakespeare, the pride of shylock springs to mind. So confident he was in his contract of a pound of flesh, he never made any provisions for his victim's blood loss, or that a judge would be impartial to the point of permitting murder.
• Xerxes I believed himself able to punish nature itself when he ordered the sea whipped for having a storm, then assumed he was so powerful he could never lose. Once again, the Greeks had much to say about this, with the battle of salamis being the mic drop moment.
• let's take a more recent figure of history - Robert scott, the explorer. Took a 5 man crew to the north pole to be the first to find it. Failed as a Norwegian beat him. Died on the way back home. Most of the failures were due to believing in an innate superiority of British methods rather than doing what would work: ponies instead of dogsleds for hauling, having limited contingencies, not planning for bad weather, etc. In the end his belief in 'Britain does everything better, and 8m british" lead to his failures in many ways.
• mussonlini was a big example. I've seen some of what he did that showcased his self aggrandisement, like writing dux on a mountainside, however his constant attempts to one up Germany and his ignorance of the realities oglf his armies led to his defeat.
• let's hit a favourite of mine: Pol Pot. He believed his ideology was so perfect, he could redesign society. And he did, though not into a utopia, but a he'll scape. Glasses? You die. Watches? You die. Educated? Guess what happens. All because he was certain beyond reason that his way worked, and any challenge to it could only be eliminated. In the end he provoked the Vietnamese, and that ended the reign of the khmer rogue, and showcased what happens when you think you know best and kill anyone who disagrees.
• let's go more macro: when Spain conquered the aztecs, one could say they had good reasons to be proud of their endeavours right? They conquered a warrior empire in the name of christandom, and on top of that they got a literal mountain of silver. Like seriously, there was a mountain with more silver in it than anyone had ever seen. They thought they were rich beyond the dreams of avarice. The results? They stopped investing in themselves, bought everything abroad, and tanked thselves economically with inflationary policies. They thought "hey we will now always be wealthy" but ignored the economics of such activities, and lost their great armada to a few upstart Anglo-Saxon islanders in the process, killing their military might and economic might at the same time effectively.
• finally a recent set of examples: theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. One can say this was just a fraud, but it was enabled by unfounded confidence in a technology that didn't work. There is also FYX and Sam bankman freid, who thought the rules didn't apply to him. He also thought he could trade Bette r than anyone. And that he could take the money and run.
• Boeing believed it knew better than anyone when it made the 737 max. High risk, no reward use case of a plane that barely held together at all, and had some of the worst safety incidents around.
• Facebook decided that vr was the future and everyone would follow them if they bigged up their new brand name meta. They created a whole universe, the metaverse. This has been as successful a product as lead balloons, cheetos lip balm, and Colgate kitchen entrees. Yes those last two did exist. Imagine cheezy lip balm, frens.

The moral is pride is a sin and a lesson of history of something to avoid. Even one of the most popular games today, crimson desert, has a continuous theme of humility being the true source of both strength and enlightenment, one that is reiterated over and over throughout the story. The best heroes are humble about their prowess and capability, only using their power when it is necessary, and only when they let the power go to their head do they move towards a villain arc.

This is why I never understood the attraction of the pride movement, save that these are people who believe something synonymous with evil and failure is something worth trying or celebrating. And like anyone who uses pride to justify bringing forth their darkest desires, such people will fall from grace, if they were ever in a position experience that specific gift of God at all

Favorite comment on the internet today: "Rainbows are fucking badass"🐸💖🌈

I was wondering about that.

Does a Rod-of-God appear as a meteor ?