=== ANCHOR POEM ===
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  |       Thoughts on Cultural appropriation of spiritual traditions?         |
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  |       - /u/divestfromfossilfuel                                           |
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    /u/ugathanki
 
    Would it be more alright if you believed in the traditions of your
 ancestors? Why or why not?
 
    The world today is very different than the mythic past. It's possible that
 you share more with the people alive today than the people of the past - even
 those who live on the opposite side of the globe.
 
    So to me it makes more sense to believe in the things that unite us all -
 past, present, future. The most essential thing I can think of is our humanity,
 and spirituality of all forms is inherently a celebration of that - what
 divides us from the rest of the world if not our capacity for faith?
 
    A tree is alive, but trees just are - they exist and obey natural laws. An 
 animal is alive, but it obeys it's instincts above all else. A human is alive, 
 and a human can be so much more because they believe in their existence - I 
 think, therefore I am. Put another way, I believe I exist because I think.
 
    So what unites all religions? All faiths and all mythologies? Only our 
 humanity, that essential faith in ourselves. Sharing that with others is not a
 crime, or a sin, and embracing the common experience can unite divided peoples.
 
    Have you ever wondered why religions often form after calamities? It's the 
 shared experience that bonds people together. Just as a people feel the trauma 
 of a painful collective experience, so too do they bounce back into a bright 
 future of shared tradition. Animals don't do that, because they don't have wide
 enough social nets to develop a feeling of living in a society together with 
 others. Even animals who live in herds, packs, and other close knit 
 "organizations" do so with reasons closer to family than society.
 
    I believe the development of all civilization is due to a chance occurrence
 that united one of those "organizations" far in our distant past - 
 specifically, the fact that we "conquered" the world. Truly, a marvelous fate, 
 to be the animal that won the game of survival? But what a fleeting feeling, 
 this thrill of accomplishment, as no victory is claimed by posterity. Just as 
 the deeds of the father make way for the story of the son, so does time advance
 - and with it fades the feeling of accomplishment.
 
    The people of that society, that global network of humans, living as a
    human
 should in plenty and pastoral celebration - are primed for another development.
 Peace begets progress, and soon we have towns and then cities and then 
 kingdoms. Follow this exponential curve of progression and you'll find yourself
 in the present day - debating faith yet again as if it wasn't something we've
 shared since the beginning.
 
    A culture cannot remain stagnant. It grows and changes every time it passes 
 from mother to daughter, father to son. There's no use in slowing it's descent 
 as the fundamental truth of our individualized experience ensures that no 
 information can be transmitted 100% accurately.
    
    Therefore, religions change. They alter themselves in response to the
 actions of their followers. Do you follow a religion of peace? Then it will 
 beget peace in your life, and the lives of others. It's often worthwhile to ask
 "what dangers has my religion caused? What actions of it's followers have
 defined the way it is today?"
 
    If a culture cannot prevent itself from changing, and it's direction is 
 defined by the actions of it's followers, and if every person swims in a 
 cultural context that is also always changing, then wouldn't it make sense to 
 steer that culture in a direction that suits you? To truly express yourself, 
 you need control over your life and the world around you. (Happy people are
 often self actualized for this reason) And if people don't have control over 
 the direction of their culture because someone else is driving, then that's
 going to make them pretty unhappy.
 
    So, cultural appropriation is bad. But sharing culture is good! Nobody is
 born  with culture, they gather it from the world around them. So therefore
 people cannot refrain from appropriating culture without completely isolating 
 themselves from external influences. In it's most extreme form, solipsism,
 which is even worse than atheism because it lacks faith in anything except the 
 self.
 
    The solution is balance, between the internal beliefs and the external 
 traditions. Steady yourself on the waves, and you can ride the current into the
 future. Appreciate the culture of others, but realize they're riding a 
 different current - if you assume too much of their patterns, beliefs, 
 traditions, then you risk losing your own momentum.
 
    If you take anything at all, take the results and methods - see how they 
 inspire themselves, how they thrive in the world, and find a way to instill
 that feeling within yourself. Everyone's journey is different, so find your way
 to shine. Be yourself and be essentially you, and wherever you find yourself is
 where you're meant to be.
 
    Humans share our humanity. Surely we can build bridges between all else.
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=== DIVERSITY RANKED ===

--- #1 messages/455 ---
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 I don't understand why modern software isn't error correcting. We shouldn't
 have any bugs in this day and age.
 
 For example, if you're missing a dependency then why doesn't your program try
 to, I dunno, download that dependency to the program's installation directory
 and use it there? Seriously there are very few problems that are unsolvable!
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--- #2 fediverse_boost/6405 ---
◀─[BOOST]
  
  maybe i should just work on my memoir...                                    
  
                                                            
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--- #3 fediverse/5807 ---
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 I'm wasted on this century.
 
 nobody even believes in magic anymore
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--- #4 fediverse_boost/3789 ---
◀─[BOOST]
  
  Some wisdom from a Japanese gamer. As a designer I thought about it in the context of UX. But, really, it can be applied to most any challenge in life.  
                                                                              
  #Psychology #Gaming #Life #MarioBros #Japan                                 
  
                                                            
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--- #5 fediverse/2470 ---
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 │ CW: cursing-mentioned │
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 damn I gotta get more blue for my wardrobe
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--- #6 messages/534 ---
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 War is hell - each casualty bids farewell to a wholely unique treasure from
 this world - war is hell - there is nothing that cannot be resolved with
 words. And yet we fight, and yet we pillage. War is hell, and those who demand
 it must do so only to resist evil, elemental evil, the kind that wars on the
 innocent and pillages the bounteous. War is hell. Fucking kill the ones who
 make it.
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--- #7 fediverse/1582 ---
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 @user-698
 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9EKV2nSU8w
 
 This video is 5 years old but it's relevant
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--- #8 fediverse/6047 ---
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 camouflage in an urban environment is not camo. rather, regular clothes of
 black or white.
 
 don't wear sports glasses, you look like a dummy.
 
 revolution is when they murder everyone but your friends. this is what
 happens, ya dingus not ideal. "okay who are the bad guys here? okay let's go
 shoot them to death with our bullets and guns."
 
 violence as a first aspect, cause as a third spark. "I have a strange urge to
 play video games?"
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--- #9 fediverse_boost/6270 ---
◀─[BOOST]
  
  I am once again begging people to understand that “the government” already knows you’re queer whether you do elaborate online opsec dance rituals or not, and if they decide to just start shooting people for being gay, they’ll do it whether the evidence is airtight or not. is that grim? yes. but you can stop giving yourself undercover superhero identity PTSD about it  
  
                                                            
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--- #10 messages/74 ---
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 https://www.reddit.com/r/leaves/comments/uqzz33/can_anyone_give_me_some_pros_of
 _quitting_smoking/
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--- #11 fediverse/4850 ---
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 people: "you need to be more direct!"
 
 me: "I'm hiding from our enemies"
 
 people: "who are they?"
 
 me: "y'know, the bad guys."
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--- #12 fediverse_boost/4008 ---
◀─[BOOST]
  
  External post: https://tech.lgbt/users/RadioAddition/statuses/113292494727215042  
  
                                                            
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--- #13 fediverse/4773 ---
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 @user-1352 
 
 ... why is that unfair? I would hope that taking a break is allowed. otherwise
 you burn out. cortisol overload.
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--- #14 fediverse/4149 ---
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 │ CW: cursing-mentioned │
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 "trick or treat" doesn't mean "give me a trick or a treat"
 
 that's awfully presumptuous and demanding.
 
 No, it means "give me a treat or I'll trick you" meaning "give me my candy tax
 or I'll fuck up your lawn"
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--- #15 fediverse/1028 ---
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 there's this really fun video game I like to play called "Legion TD  2" - it's
 based on a Warcraft3 mod.
 
 In this game, you make tactical and strategic decisions on a fixed term - a
 competitive game between 4 or 8 players with an incredible array of randomness.
 
 it teaches you to work with what you got, and to make decisions based on your
 opponent's weaknesses. Good luck figuring out what they are, though, as you
 can't just memorize them out of a book. You need to adapt, in the moment, to
 the decisions of your foes, while primarily focusing your attention on
 accomplishing a different task.
 
 I really like it because it's taught me to be strategic in plenty of other
 ways. I used to love the game Overwatch because it required adaptibility. The
 game was always changing, so no strategy stuck forever, but every match you'd
 play against a slightly different opponent.
 
 but then Blizzard changed the game because they wanted to make more money, and
 it got worse and worse at what I liked about it. Sadface. : (
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--- #16 fediverse_boost/6357 ---
◀─[BOOST]
  
  External post: https://tech.lgbt/users/paleblueyedot/statuses/115644789217659891  
  
                                                            
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--- #17 fediverse/1999 ---
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 sometimes you need to regress in order to move forward from pain
 
 ... which is why I dropped out of the "Paladin academy"
 
 no I will not elaborate
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--- #18 fediverse/1181 ---
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 @user-171 
 
 Hi, I wanted to say that all the posts you boost significantly improve my time
 on the fediverse. I appreciate you and value you, and my feed is made more
 engaging due to  the things you find interesting enough to share. Thank you.
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--- #19 fediverse/240 ---
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 │ CW: game-design      │                                                         │
 └──────────────────────┘                                                         │
 i like to design games. my darling is a game based on Majesty (2000) the         │
 Fantasy Kingdom Sim. you can think of it like a management strategy game where   │
 you control the knobs and levers that a fantasy monarch might have -             │
 allocating funds, placing quest bounties, hiring heroes, and organizing the      │
 peasantry. the important part is that your units are not controllable - they     │
 just do their own thing.                                                         │
 unrelated, but I think we should design games as APIs that a user's preferred    │
 tool could interface with and render as they will. it'd help a lot with          │
 cross-platform compatibility and would allow people to customize parts of the    │
 game to their desires.                                                           │
 unrelated, but I think if you could design an AI that could play games           │
 (perhaps through an API) that it hadn't been trained on, I think you would       │
 have a pretty convincing argument for abstract "problem solving" capabilities.   │
 unrelated, but games like the one I described are good for situations where      │
 people don't have to trust their monarch. to it you are AGI                      │
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--- #20 fediverse/267 ---
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 the unluckiest person in the world failed the most wisdom checks.
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