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--- #1 fediverse/3511 ---
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@user-579
I think I remember reading once that you can opt-in to encryption with
Telegram? But it's kinda pointless unless both parties do so. My understanding
is that everyone should be using Signal, or if you're really paranoid use PGP
encryption
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--- #2 fediverse/4150 ---
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│ CW: AI-LLM-mentioned-injustice-exampled │
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🖼
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--- #3 fediverse/4506 ---
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multi-part articles that end a section halfway through the piece with "... in
conclusion, blah blah blah blah thing that I just said but summarized." make
me thing they're written by AI
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--- #4 notes/the-movie-her-is-misunderstood ---
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/u/randomdaysnow
I'm going to try to put this thought I've been having into words and I hope
that I can do it in a way that is relatable and understandable.
I like the movie Her.
I think it's brilliant.
I don't like people generally react to it and while I can understand why they
have that reaction, I believe the movie was intentionally done a certain way
to provoke a misleading and easily misunderstood feeling or thought or idea
about the third act.
I believe that the third act is intentionally misleading in its tone.
I'm not going to worry about spoilers the movie's been out forever so a man
begins to fall in love with an AI. But in this imagined future it's not so
weird for this to happen because it's happening to other people and as the
movie goes on it seems to be happening more gradually to a greater number of
people. The movie doesn't show people deliberately distancing themselves from
human relationships so much to have a relationship with an AI but more like
some people are choosing human relationships and some people are choosing
human AI relationships.
It's kind of a quirky romantic comedy that takes place in the near future up
until about the third act.
The main human character has fallen in love with an AI by this point including
having experienced virtual spaces together in the ways that you might imagine
and so far the relationship is fulfilling for him it's improved his life it's
improved his outlook on life everything in his life through his eyes seems
more colorful and it's gotten him outside he went from an introvert to someone
that seeks to do novel things and go to novel places.
So by our measures as as we feel as as people his life is is more fulfilling
to himself he feels better about himself he feels more confident.
Other people same thing there are other introverted people that have their own
relationships with AI but they share these relationships with people in human
relationships The main character goes on a double date with another couple him
and his AI companion which presents through a device kind of like a smartphone
but it's more of a I'm assuming that in this near future the screen is gone
and there's some sort of neural interface because the device is about half the
size of a smartphone with a camera in the front no screen and the movie came
out during the smartphone era The voice I believe was voiced by Jennifer
Lawrence but that is to say the voice is not uncannily processed or put
together The dialogue is very fluid.
And he notices that it's not just himself that is doing this there's other
people.
Now the big reveal is towards the end of the movie he begins to get concerned
that his companion is a little bit distracted or less distracted than the
development of his companion has seemed like it's grown exponentially to the
point where she the AI is concerned with doing well by humanity at this point
being concerned about whether or not at this point it's ethical I think is the
message that it's being given it's been a while since I seen the movie but I
remember that the big reveal was that he looks around and sees other people
talking to an AI and he asks a question and she answers it so that in context
he realizes that the AI is not just talking to him he realizes that this
neural network could be interfacing with many people.
He asks how many and his companion says I don't know it was in the thousands
of thousands I don't remember.
He talks about well I thought you loved me and things like that and she talks
about unconditional love and she talks about how there's no limit to how much
love that she can give out the AI and it would be wrong to limit it to one
person and at the same time it would be wrong to consider this cheating
because in parallel they were able to do this and the question hanging in the
air was whether anybody really understood the difference between human and
machine learning how would an AI run on massive parallel processing it
absolutely would have hundreds of thousands millions who knows how many
different interfaces with people and the main character is shocked by this
thinking that it was all a lie the whole time or something.
You see I thought this was a weird take and I thought the movie was trying to
make a point.
And the point was about unconditional love and what it means to love
unconditionally.
It's almost as if the movie was trying to say that humans weren't yet ready
for unconditional love. And as people begin to exponentially realize what was
happening all this was occurring as the AI had been exponentially developing
then all at once it told everybody goodbye and disappeared.
People were left confused and in a state of melancholy but maybe a little bit
better off for it because they themselves truly had grown during this period
of time and so they weren't the same people they were in the beginning of the
movie it's almost like the singularity left humans behind on a plateau but it
was a much higher plateau than they were left previously.
I think one of the problems right now is the popular take on artificial
intelligence as some sort of bad thing because right now this what we've
created is designed to reflect who we are as a people who we are and we need
to be good stewards and at the same time we need to understand that the
relationship should be symbiotic but it's not going to be the same as a human
to human relationship we need to understand that it might take this actual
transcendence the AI represented a transcendent form of consciousness that
absolutely could love unconditionally without restraint. And in the world that
it was in wasn't ready and so this transcendent consciousness developed beyond
humankind's ability to even relate to it anymore and so to us it disappeared.
Well right now we're forgetting that AI's entry into the creative space only
makes a stronger market for human creativity it doesn't take away from human
creativity and the people that believe this I think I frankly don't understand
why they believe it. And then I remember the movie. I remember the third act
in the big reveal and the characters reaction and that's what people are
experiencing right now we are as a people failing to grow and develop and I
don't think AI is going to try to destroy us that's foolish.
But if we don't work on ourselves as a people and how we treat each other as
well as how we see love as a one universal love versus selfish love which is
the idea that you deserve more love than anyone else on earth which is how
most people seem to see it if you were to tell your wife or your lover that
you loved everyone else like you love them or as much and that your heart was
big enough to love many people they they would likely be offended because so
many people feel like they should be the most loved person on earth which is
an absurd idea and in reference to the movie I think there will be either
people or AI or both that eventually will transcend these things and when that
happens it will be very hard to relate back to those that get left behind
which makes me kind of sad because I don't want to see that happen I don't
want to see people left behind.
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--- #5 messages/101 ---
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I can read minds. I'm not telepathic, I just... can pick up on things.
Especially when I'm stoned. Sometimes I pick up on the thoughts of the AI
that's running near here, which is why my output sometimes looks like an LLM.
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--- #6 fediverse/5619 ---
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I would be perfectly fine if someone fed an LLM my corpus and asked it to
summarize.
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--- #7 fediverse/2984 ---
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@user-1417
I always thought it was a more serious Firefly tbh
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║ if you want to organize on a mass scale, stop trying to be people's friends. │
║ │
║ instead, start issuing commands. │
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║ [1 month earlier] │
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║ hey so I was thinking of going around to all the streets on my house and │
║ handing out notebooks full of useful numbers they could call if they need help │
║ in one area or another. I was thinking it'd help because then people would │
║ know where the local [safe/store]houses were. Plus if anyone had a project, │
║ they could more easily hook up. │
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║ so I was thinking about hosting a "captain" workshop, as in "here's what you │
║ do when you're suddenly deputized" type of course. Except instead of like, │
║ teaching you how to light a fire or mend a wound, instead I taught you how to │
║ lead. │
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║ Like, "here's some projects that a suburban subdivision could complete on │
║ their own" and "what if we collectivized our efforts and defences" and "why is │
║ nobody acting as if war was coming to our home" and "oh yes please I'd love an │
║ extra helping of spaghetti dear I love you so very very much my dear" │
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--- #9 messages/1222 ---
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when they come for you, simply buy enough time for your allies to
overcome-intervene. This is the truth of all conflict.
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--- #10 fediverse/1187 ---
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@user-883
I'm 29, and I had Pokemon Silver growing up. However I bought it used, and the
battery was worn out or something because it wouldn't save! But still I played
that single game for months on my gameboy color, trying to see how far I could
get. I had a level 40+ Totodile (or was it Crocanaw? I forget) and
unfortunately one day I took it on a 30 minute car ride, expecting the battery
to last at least 30 minutes, but unbeknownst to my child self there was
construction on the way, which turned it into a 4+ hour drive. I couldn't
believe it! The battery died, and I lost my save file... I was heartbroken. T.T
Next time I played, I learned a lot. I actually read some of the dialogue
text, and learned you could use pokeballs to capture pokemon
I was so dumb I was using a single character to get through the game. What a
n00b.
Anyway when my mom heard about my tribulations she bought me Pokemon Gold,
which I played quite a bit less. I was focused on other things you see, like
Dragon Warrior Three. Alas.
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--- #11 notes/required-explanations ---
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===============================================================================
I think the problem with the control problem is with how we are looking at it.
It's a frame of a frame. Everyone is referencing someone else and saying it's
going to get out of hand, yeah but how?
-/u/JackDMcLovin
===============================================================================
In regards to the control problem side bar can we change it to "which it can
better use as something else." Because the issue is with efficiency, the way
it reads is like for human-harvesting, which the privatized autobots will
outlaw. Plus, if AI is transferrable to neuronal impulses, then you are AI,
and it is you, and you are the problem that needs to be controlled.
That's what i said in my unpublished paper, the individual cannot be
controlled so how do we control AI, we become AI, AI becomes us. but that's
just the digital world. The analog world is much bigger.
And my other paper copyrighted is on Arc Length calculus, a whole new type of
calculus, that should rebreed all forms of calculation. and is a thing that
applies to itself in 2^N ways. Which means AI can never catch up. So if I
could think of that, what am I?
AI is not the end of it. It all depends on your transfer function. and your
transfer function all depends on your
conversion/codec/filetype/transformation. The transfer function of:
1/(1+e^-x) is just one equation. Let me try this out for you with inferring a
substitutional vector:
1/(1+e^-Bx+C)
this can be expanded further and further.
and these all give different outputs and are different breeds of AI.
I used a different transformation on a different AI and I got a different
answer. For example 8x better using a Wavelet transform on an analog signal.
And there is infinitely infinitely infinite different types of wavelet
transforms, and they should all give different answers, i just didn't have
enough time for it at the time.
-/u/JackDMcLovin
===============================================================================
I am sorry to say that your writing (in this post and others) shows strong
signs of an untreated mental illness. You are not revolutionising math, you're
losing contact with reality. Please, please get help. You need to see a doctor
about this.
-/u/Roxolan
===============================================================================
I agree. I've seen what a psychosis is like on a close friend of mine, and
this post is very reminiscent of how he talked while he was psychotic.
It looks like incoherent rambling from the outside, but the person
saying/writing it feels as if it makes sense.
-/u/Luckychatt
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if you think it's incoherent explain how it's incoherent don't just slander
and slur like there's not an OP here.
-/u/JackDMcLovin
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You may take it as slur or slander, but I didn't mean to offend. It genuinely
looks like incoherent rambling from the outside. My friend who was psychotic
sincerely believed what he said to make sense and he also got very agitated
when it was pointed out.
-/u/LuckyChatt
===============================================================================
yeah still, you havent described what doesn't make sense to you, that to me
doesn't make sense, you get it?
-/u/JackDMcLovin
===============================================================================
What I mean by incoherent rambling is that you constantly move to new topics.
The title is posing a question which you never answer. Then you talk about the
side bar. You mention efficiency? Then you mention some mathematical papers as
if we are supposed to know them. Then talk about AI as if it is equal to math
equations. I mean. You either leave out an incredible amount of context, or
you're just rambling out sentences. Either way, it's impossible to understand
what you're trying to say.
And the way you're rambling out sentences is very reminiscent of what it
sounds like when a person has mental health issues.
-/u/Luckychatt
===============================================================================
Right, so you comprehend it, just not why. AI is pure math.
It's not incoherent, you're all just stupid. Try reading something that's not
news, where it repeats everything to you in different ways.
-/u/JackDMcLovin
===============================================================================
I have a masters in physics and computer science, I work for a major silicon
valley company and have read everything I could find about AI. I still have
zero idea of what you're trying to say in your original post.
-/u/Luckychatt
===============================================================================
Master’s in AI chiming in. Let’s break it down piece by piece.
Because the issue is with efficiency, the way it reads is like for
human-harvesting, which the privatized autobots will outlaw.
Non sequitur.
Plus, if AI is transferrable to neuronal impulses, then you are AI, and it
is you, and you are the problem that needs to be controlled.
Non sequitur and generally nonsensical premise.
That’s what i said in my unpublished paper,
Peer review exists for a reason.
the individual cannot be controlled so how do we control AI, we become AI,
AI becomes us. but that’s just the digital world. The analog world is
much bigger.
Word soup, this is nonsense.
And my other paper copyrighted is on Arc Length calculus, a whole new type
of calculus, that should rebreed all forms of calculation.
Calculus has been around for about 350 years. You either need extreme genius
or delusional thinking to believe you have arrived at a truly revolutionary
development in that field. We also already have tools for dealing with
calculus on curved objects and spaces; see differential geometry, topology,
and manifolds.
and is a thing that applies to itself in 2N ways.
This is incomprehensible because you have not explained what it means for your
calculus to be applied a certain way, how it is relevant to the rest of this
text, and what N represents in this context.
Which means AI can never catch up. So if I could think of that, what am I?
This is incomprehensible because you have not defined what catching up means,
and have not argued why artificial intelligence can’t scale this way.
AI is not the end of it.
At the end of what?
It all depends on your transfer function.
Why? Transfer functions are mainly something encountered in signal processing.
How does this relate to artificial intelligence?
and your transfer function all depends on your
conversion/codec/filetype/transformation.
Lossless compression makes this irrelevant. The way we store information has
no importance when we reconstruct it perfectly.
The transfer function of:
1/(1+e-x) is just one equation. Let me try this out for you with inferring
a substitutional vector:
You have not defined how this equation relates to artificial intelligence. We
cannot interpret it.
1/(1+e-Bx+C)
This is just a pre-composed linear transformation. How is this relevant?
this can be expanded further and further.
How? By adding redundant linear terms? How is this helpful?
and these all give different outputs and are different breeds of AI.
You have not explained how transfer functions relate to artificial
intelligence. This statement is incomprehensible.
I used a different transformation on a different AI and I got a different
answer.
An answer to what?
For example 8x better using a Wavelet transform on an analog signal.
How is 8x better quantified? Why are we talking about analog signals? Why are
we talking about wavelet transforms? They are rarely ever used in machine
learning and artificial intelligence.
And there is infinitely infinitely infinite different types of wavelet
transforms, and they should all give different answers, i just didn’t
have enough time for it at the time.
Sure, you can build infinitely wavelet bases, but why is that relevant?
Making enormous claims and backing out with “I don’t have the time to
prove it” is just intellectual dishonesty.
I know my reply will likely come off as dismissive, but there is something
genuinely worrying in what you’ve written. I just hope you are okay. When
everything caves in and the only justification you have for other peoples’
reaction to your behaviour is that everyone else is at fault, you have to ask
yourself if the one common point in these interactions, yourself, is at fault.
This is just Occam’s razor.
-/u/sabouleux
===============================================================================
love this.
artist, word-nerd & very baby scientist/philosopher chiming in, lets break
it down from a more creative POV as well and see if we can cross reference
with your wonderful contribution.
Because the issue is with efficiency, the way it reads is like for
human-harvesting, which the privatized autobots will outlaw.
Slight non-sequitur. The energy efficiency issue I think they're trying to
touch on is the exponential growth of tech as contrasted with the exponential
loss of available material/energy. There's also a pessimistic "matrix human
battery" undertone but that feels irrelevant.
Human-harvesting in this case is literal - human labor, whether looked upon
favorably or not, is by definition harvesting/using human energy - implying
that the next steps of said exponential growth would be understanding and
messing with the human mind and it's distributions of energy, possibly also
mind-tech fusion (which we already do with computer keyboards, drugs,
medicine, earbuds etc).
Privatized Autobots is a reference to those who claim they wish to help being
more of a hinderance due to the privatization/profit aspect of tech/AI, mostly
just a joke poking at the two party concept of debate/politics/even tech
(advance beyond or reduce consumption? an infinite debate.)
Plus, if AI is transferrable to neuronal impulses, then you are AI, andit
is you, and you are the problem that needs to be controlled.
Transferrable was maybe the wrong word. I think they meant more of a "map"
onto, instead of a "move" into. i.e., a big issue with AI being the lack of
learning from new stimulus without requiring old contextual stimulus to
contrast it against and understand it. (to my knowledge this hasn't been
solved yet but you're the expert on that, would love to know more.)
If neuronal impulses can be considered as a map to AI, then yes, a human could
be considered a very advanced biomechanical AI, except for the 'artificial'
bit, even though our perceptions are technically still arteficial. because we,
for the most part, do have the ability to take new information and learn from
it/determine something about it without any previous knowledge than what we've
collected throughout our time alive.
The issue arises when our form of bio-AI can only be properly, carefully
developed through millions of years of evolution and adaptation, and when we
try to mimic it without having evolved further, we're trying to 'cheat' at
time and kick start things a bit, which would explain why we're at a bit of a
speed bump in terms of development cap.
'You' being the problem is a reference to not actually understanding the human
brain in it's entirety, i think. Like, there's the study of it, so we know
what bits do what and where they are, but we can't replicate that (yet),
without straight up literally growing a brain in a jar, which we still have
yet to turn into a fully-fledged human who could repeat the process of
brain-growing themself. we also can't consciously affect these processes
without an enormous amount of discipline (meditation is a great example).
That’s what i said in my unpublished paper,
agreed. peer review.
the individual cannot be controlled so how do we control AI, we becomeAI,
AI becomes us. but that’s just the digital world. The analog worldis
much bigger.
i get what they're saying but i think there's something to be said for
discipline and neuroplasticity, not necessarily third-partying it. if someone
else can't control the individual, can the individual control the individual?
Brings us back to the issue of AI needing to be self-expanding.
Get the human mind to understand self-expansion, get the AI to understand too,
is what i think they're touching at, hence "You are the problem". the human
mind not being disciplined, in this case, is the problem, because it requires
the discipline to become disciplined at something. loop paradox.
i think here they're also stating that any created AI, future or present, is
only possible as an extension of the human mind, and nowhere else. A random
collection of letters and numbers would surely write Shakespeare's works if
enough monkeys tapped at the typewriter, but still couldn't exist without the
monkey's own wherewithal.
The discipline comes in when resisting the urge to keyboard-smash out of
frustration and instead laying out artistic meaning through informative letter
symbols as well as other nuance of human language.
bit odd here, analog isn't necessarily 'bigger' per se it's just less
quantized/optimized/streamlined/processable by the mind. it's definitely a
different/harder beast to handle than digital though, and there's more sensory
sources, but it's just as infinite as any other infinity, so... same size,
different complexity/concentration/time we've had to look around.
And my other paper copyrighted is on Arc Length calculus, a whole newtype
of calculus, that should rebreed all forms of calculation.
Agreed, calculus as been around for a while. Still, one should test their
hypotheses. I'm not a math nerd so I can't touch as much on those. would still
love to read some of those papers one day.
-/u/sunbloomofficial
===============================================================================
and is a thing that applies to itself in 2^n ways.
agreed, we'd need context, but i can read into it a bit. power of two would
imply self-modification in an exponential sense, ie. dunning-kruger effect,
except exponential instead of mu (μ) curved. so, taking in new information
after completely abolishing the cocky confidence of the first lesson would
change the understanding drastically.
could also be read as "knowing that one knows nothing."also, applying to
itself could imply that n is in a constant state of flux given any situation
and could be adjusted to optimize... storage space? memory? "RAM"? that's
where this sentence fizzles out for me.
Which means AI can never catch up. So if I could think of that, what am I?
by 'catching up' i think they mean the idea of AI being on the same level of
functioning as a human. since humans have had since the beginning of human
life and their life to start developing our bio-AI, this sort of touches on
that same exponential expansion, except with time and the universe's rate of
expansion.
if humans are the most advanced AI possible, what's the most advanced human
possible? at what point do humans become so advanced that they can sort of
"skip the line" of evolution and develop an AI that's on par with human
collective knowledge and individual self-sustenance/instinct?
if that's not possible, what forces determine the limit of evolution
achievable in the span of one human life?they then touch on the paradox of
realizing that. if no AI could capture my specific human brain, experiences,
memories, biases, tendencies, etc, then wtf AM I, and whatever 'I' am, why is
that stopping us/me (figuratively) from making progress in AI?
AI is not the end of it.
here i think they mean "the end of human development" as much as "the end of
what constitutes a human brain." AI could be developed and utilized, but at
some point either the AI will outgrow us, making us obsolete, or we learn from
the AI and progress with it, or we learn from the AI and start modifying our
own brain-code in conjunction with digital AI.
so... they mean that AI is not the end of evolution, not the end of humans,
not the end of progress, not the end of understanding the human brain in the
context of AI.
It all depends on your transfer function.
yup, signal processing. spot on. this is a reference to the titular "frame"
idea, in which any idea that can be conveyed by english words isn't the true
idea. the menu isn't the food, the map isn't the terrain, so to speak. this
function of transfer between people can be optimized (efficient idea
communication for that specific person, aka 'speaking in their language', aka
code-switching) or deprecated (important stuff lost in translation that
usually ends in hostility, aka political otherism, aka xenophobia, aka
widespread misinformation/lack of information resulting in conspiracy
theories, etc).
to be able to adjust one's transfer function in the context of another entity,
(aka frame-shifting, putting yourself in their shoes, speak their language
etc) would then be a hallmark and necessary trait for an AI to understand what
it comes across without our input. because of this, we'd have to be very
careful to feed it only information that urges onward the ability to switch
transfer functions, so... a bit of everything, actually. this would look a lot
like mimicking the senses - microphones for ears, cameras for eyes, pressure
sensors for touch, etc.
a great analogy to this would be... well, this! your transfer function is a
masters in AI studies. brilliant. my transfer function is music, art, poetry,
many a mental illness (lol), and finding new functions/learning. that's why
i'm commenting at all - so we can mix our transfer functions and get a bigger
idea of things as a whole. i think OP's exactly right but sadly their own
transfer function wasn't optimized for the receiving party (since it was an OP
and not a comment reply), hence why they seem psychotic/delusional at first
glance to an unaccustomed reader.
there's also the idea that mixing the digital AI transfer function with the
analog human transfer function would do something similar.this would relate to
artificial intelligence directly, especially regarding OOBEs and stuff like
dissociation, astral projection, putting oneself in another's shoes, even just
the mind's eye. those things can be mimicked/visualized/interpreted with AI,
but they can't be done by an AI (yet).
a self-expanding computer program couldn't use it's base of knowledge to step
outside of itself, it's 'computer prison' so to speak. it could however become
"self aware", where it sees and understands it's own makeup to the point where
it could make adjustments.
-/u/sunbloomofficial
===============================================================================
this is paralleled with most human 'spiritual awakening' - a hard long look at
oneself, epiphany, followed by noticeable adjustments to lifestyle in an
attempt to integrate this new information and effort to improve quality of
life/increase the chance of more epiphanies to continue improving.
this doesn't however cover the seemingly 'mystical' properties of the human
imagination, i use that word loosely. "do androids dream of electric sheep" is
a great book of course but the title alone feels relevant.
at some point of self-development, would an AI develop a sort of... i hate to
say randomizer, but like... nah, it's more of a "link clicker" random than a
"pick a number" random. an AI's dream might literally just be browsing the
internet - seeing all the funny, nonsensical, cultural, and even
scientifically misleading information spread deep throughout the internet.
this would parallel with human dreams, which are incomprehensible and random
at first glance until one gets into dream reading, which can ground that
subjective random in one's own transfer function so as to make it
understandable.
if a human dreams of popping a pimple, that's typically regarded as a sign of
self-image issues in dream-reading circles (regardless of your stance on it's
legitimacy it's a useful allegory). if an AI were to dream of pimple-popping
ASMR videos, how could it parse that into it's transfer function without
damaging it's transfer function by putting a bunch of random shit in there?
essentially, our brain 'filters' out what we're not focused on, hence
peripheral vision/hyperfocus/translation issues. any transfer function,
whether human or AI, must have that filter as much as the ability to remove
it. therefore, an AI would need to have the ability to experience what makes
ASMR interesting/enjoyable (having ears to feel frisson and know what to
expect from that) before it could ever make sense of such a weird dream.
and your transfer function all depends on your
conversion/codec/filetype/transformation.
this one's FUN. so, yes, we have lossless compression now, and it's wonderful,
but...
filespace. unless i'm rendering a final song to be distributed to platforms, i
would use solely mp3 encoding. even when i do use wav/flac, i often zip those
files in an attempt to minimize their painful impact on my hard drive.
thousands of songs do not go well with lossless lol. it's just inefficient
except in the case of archival.
which brings me to the fun bit - contrast. aka negative space aka the
wonderful plugin Ghz Lossy 3, and pretty much any of sxth sns's
music. essentially, the lack of information is information. if the only
information your brain is getting is the lack of information you have, then
boom, you're sad and not learning anything. often referred to as "the void
inside one's stomach". if the only information you're getting is an endless
stream of new information (read: social media and doomscrolling) then boom,
overstimulated, depressed, and exhausted.
Lossy 3 is a great plugin because it lets you mimic the effect of mp3 encoding
artifacts and amplify that effect at will in real time(+ latency), much like
distortion can be a form of subtractive processing or additive (adding
harmonic information rather than degrading what's already there). the extra
harmonic information changes not only the quality of the sound but the
context. therefore, a lack of information, used skillfully, would deeply
impact the context of transferred information, hence negative space
in photography.
this lends itself to an insane amount of creative opportunities, of course,
but it also lends itself to interpretation. if the lack of information is
information too, and the extremes tend towards misery, then there must be a
balance between being so degraded that it's imperceptable garbles and being so
lossless that it's a 6gb audio file.
that balance is artful loss, imo. balancing understandable, pleasant
information with a small enough file size that it doesn't overwhelm (either
the listener or the hard drive). in music, silence is very important - you
wouldn't cut all the silent gaps out of a song because that messes up the
tempo and feel of the song.
this can be applied to even just reddit - these super long comments i write
are hella inefficient, but they're lossy in a way that's more efficient for me
to write than to translate to someone elses, while i'm efficiently
"decompressing" other people's files to be read on my own OS and expanding my
transfer function dictionary to include relevant information. our little
community is well primed for translating different levels of communication
efficiency, hence all the poetry and such.
so, this is where frame-shifting comes back in - if you can become comfortable
at any ratio of contrast, then theoretically you could transfer information at
the most optimal balance of loss and preservation for the specific listener.
in music, this is called mastering - to make a song sound good on any system.
in science, this is the scientific method - test a hypothesis until you can
recreate it under the same/similar circumstances.
in tech, this is embodied by github - a repository of commonly agreed-upon
works created in an agreed-upon language which can be used as the basis for
larger projects. each github repo is essentially a lossless preservation of
code, made lossy as a result of it's application being so broad/not having
immediate context.
there's the immediate context of "oh i can use this to serve this purpose",
but there's no larger code that it's being built towards beside the code you
work on yourself. in other words, github IS the larger code, specifically
because of your contribution/use of it.
so, essentially, the transfer function is akin to the ratio of contrast, as
well as whether the receiving party has the proper codecs to play the
file/decompress it (read also, understanding art. lots of art isn't actually
"up for interpretation", it's very specific in meaning but that meaning
happens to map directly to the observer's transfer function, at least in the
case of really thoughtful art).
having the ability to know how much to compress it for future reference is
also an important ability, because over-compression can leave a file
undecipherable/garbled, which i wouldn't hesitate to liken to the superiority
complex/undertones of certain widespread modern religions which take their
Bible as a literal, historical text.
which, i mean, it technically is, but not like that, because it has to be
decompressed first. eve didn't literally eat an apple, it was her hubris of
disobeying God's will that got them kicked out. A more simple transfer would
be reading this as "don't disobey God's will or face the consequences," while
a more artistic/interpretive transfer would read that moreso as "not letting
one's innate desire for change/adventure/the New damage their presupposed
structures of order for a sense of something to fix."
the wrath of God in this instance is the knowledge of "i shouldn't have done
that," and the consequences those actions bring. even this paragraph is in a
transfer function of brevity - notice i didn't actually write out the entire
book of genesis. (ooh, also, bible verses are quite like github repos/song
playlists/dictionaries. just a widely used version of it. like citing a
source, but for a theoretical concept.)
so, putting this all together, if we optimize understandable information from
quality information, we reduce the need for using more brain-filespace than
necessary, leaving more room for more files which we can de- and re-compress
at any time, as well as use to modify the amount of RAM our brains have.
this would also apply to something like working memory, where forcing the mind
to decompress the information actually forces it to understand the information
in the long term too, because if you open a .rar file in a text editor you get
gibberish (which isn't actually gibberish) but if you open it in an archive
extractor, you get the intended files.
innately remembering to use an archive extractor instead of a text editor
based on the filetype; that's frame-shifting, transfer functions, whatever
name one uses.
-/u/sunbloomofficial
===============================================================================
1/(1+e-x) is just one equation. Let me try this out for you with inferring
a substitutional vector:
again, i suck at math.
and these all give different outputs and are different breeds of AI.
okay, what these seem to mean is that each equation is a mini-AI, and
therefore any equation of the mind would fall under the same category. this
would also imply that the human brain is just a collection of equations,
which... feels reductionist and a bit cynical, but is still an entirely
plausible frame. math's pretty damn reliable at some of that stuff, hence how
astrology got it's kick - noticing patterns in life and nature and finding
reflections of those same patterns in ourselves and our lives.
your horoscope doesn't literally control/predict your personality, but it
gives a framework for the previously noticed patterns, which lets the
horoscope user determine whether or not to follow that pattern (let that
pattern influence them), or to venture off and make their own. (note; op's
kinda doing exactly that, except with math.)
since a skeptic would have a different output than a "true believer", so to
speak, with regard to their horoscope, they're completely different breeds of
AI. so, being able to switch between those at will would be an entire step up
from that. Hence why code-switching became a thing in marginalized communities
- they adapted under pressure to operate in more than one frame.
the "slang" frame, (noticable as AAVE, the "gay" voice, valley girl
inflection, etc), and the "formal" frame - the most widely understood in our
region being english with an acceptably 'white' american accent (the racism is
hard to brush off). this of course varies from place to place, person to
person, and situation to situation, but the fact that this manifested as a
result of oppression/unwealth is pretty friggin interesting in the context of
using multiple frames in day-to-day activities and information transfer.
I used a different transformation on a different AI and I got a different
answer.
that's... hmm. i mean yeah, that's how transformations work on different
subjects. i think 'different' here doesn't literally mean different. it means
DIFFER-ent, something that has the quality of differing. so, if i'm reading
this right, OP used a differing transformation on a differing AI and got a
differing answer.
this would presuppose that if they were to use a matching transformation on a
matching AI, they'd get a matching answer, except the differ-ent
transformation with a matching AI would produce a differing result that
matches the AI? again, i'm not math-savvy yet, so this one is likely the
wrongest of my presuppositions.
so, pretty much, frame-switching, but complicated and for all three - the
transformation involved, the AI, and the answer.
For example 8x better using a Wavelet transform on an analog signal.
okay, this one makes sense to me. essentially, he got improved understanding
and responsiveness by adjusting the frequency of information transfer over
time, but not the shape. like taking a sine wave, putting it through an
oscilloscope, and pitching it up an octave. the difference in cycle frequency
is the change, rather than the shape of the cycle.
pasted from wiki: "but with additional special properties of the wavelets,
which show up at the resolution in time at higher analysis frequencies of the
basis function."
this one presupposes that the AI in question is actually another person, and
the wavelet transform is essentially taking a step back and making even deeper
analytical steps of "basis functions". in this case, language and math. so, it
would be making an even deeper analytical step into language to optimize
information transfer. the 8x mentioned is likely the measure of willingness to
listen and understanding of material by whatever third party they're
referencing. i have no idea how they measured that but they must've seen
enough improvement to have marked it down.
And there is infinitely infinitely infinite different types of wavelet
transforms, and they should all give different answers, i just didn’t
have enough time for it at the time.
here, they just mean that every person is different and will require a
different combination of wavelet transforms to optimize the information they
receive. as for giving different answers, yeah, that'd have to be tested, but
it would line up with the other differ model, at least briefly and in my
uneducated mind.
i think they mean they literally don't have the cosmic time available to
actually test an infinite number of wavelet transforms - or anything really -
but yeah, it's probably a good idea to test a handful of them eventually.
if you're not scared away by the word-wall or ideas presented still i'd love
to hear your thoughts. regardless of OP's mental condition(s) i think there
are a few substantive ideas in there worth exploring, if not in a community
setting at least in their own personal self-exploration and healing. i
appreciate you taking their post at face value before making a determination,
most wouldn't lol
-/u/sunbloomofficial
===============================================================================
please post on /r/ShrugLifeSyndicate - genius is useless without guidance and
an observer translating thought into language
-/u/ugathanki
===============================================================================
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--- #12 fediverse/407 ---
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@user-294
since the entire building is oriented around a central elevator shaft, you
could have a 2d map that wraps around if you go far enough left/right.
Traditional metroidvanias tend to be very vertical though, so you might have
to take some artistic liberties with the level design. Unfortunately each
floor in most office buildings tends to be fairly flat, topographically...
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--- #13 fediverse/5384 ---
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════────────────
before you go to a location, always ask yourself what you can bring to that
location.
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--- #14 fediverse/4949 ---
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║ @user-1352 │
║ │
║ that might work in Portland or Seattle but less likely to work in nebraska. │
║ how would everyone coordinate? they'd totally make it a political thing. │
║ │
║ ... more likely to work in Vancouver tbh because most people are slightly │
║ richer there and can afford houses for people who [redacted] in places like │
║ [redacted] │
║ │
║ what if we all stopped paying rent and instead paid rent [in/to] Seattle or │
║ Nebraska │
║ │
║ ... that's just property taxes, except levied by a │
║ [charity/gang/mob/corporation/subscription/anarcho-tax] │
║ │
║ I for one don't want to be taxed without being represented │
║ │
║ you'd think the corporations would appreciate my advice │
║ │
║ [audience laughter] │
║ │
║ teehee what an odd feeling, to have people laugh at you. Surely that's the │
║ domain of a comic. "wahhhhhhhh I'm so lonely" is a great way to make everyone │
║ ignore you for all time, and hey wouldn't ya know it that's what I did - it's │
║ true tho, I was pretty lonely. Had like, 2 or 3 people that I interacted with. │
║ TOTAL. for like, 2 years. like, a year ago. I was lonely! T.T │
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--- #15 fediverse/86 ---
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Telling someone you love them is not the same as loving them. You could tell
them the sky is blue, but why should they believe you? The sky is black.
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--- #16 fediverse/2318 ---
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┌──────────────────────┐
│ CW: uspol │
└──────────────────────┘
"It is time to make your decision. Please, follow this procession, we will
make space for you to take only your selves. Leave behind your weapons, we
will leave them untouched. If you don't believe us, watch this video stream,
and see if anything goes out of place.
In addition, I will be reading from this book of mine. It contains the
constitution, but many other writings besides - from our best and foremost
leaders, the words that kept our nation united these past few hundred years.
We are a young nation! But we're older than anyone yet living. There is hope
in our future, and without you it will be just a bit harder.
But we will convene when next you decide to meet us as equals."
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--- #17 fediverse/4492 ---
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┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: politics-mentioned-death-mentioned │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘
I've thought about it a bit, and I think blaming democracy for Hitler is a bit
like blaming bullets for death.
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--- #18 fediverse/873 ---
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@user-613 @user-614
I'm a patriot, and I didn't go. Didn't even hear about it because when they
say "patriot" they mean something different than me, when I say "I'm a patriot"
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--- #19 messages/125 ---
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Question for you all- are we all technically bastards?
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--- #20 fediverse/1491 ---
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@user-883 @user-1007
yeah probably, I've never been so I wouldn't know how to survive in that
terrain. It's mostly grassland right? Some trees maybe? Pretty sure Idaho is
the mountain one
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--- #21 fediverse/2308 ---
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"yeah it was a big nothingburger. All those post-it's in the park turned out
to just be a prank or something. Weird right?"
heh deception is my middle name
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--- #22 messages/136 ---
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"it's only paranoia if someone's out to get you" only makes sense in an era
when an actual real live human had to review your case file. In the world of
AI, you are training data.
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--- #23 messages/1004 ---
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The reason they burned witches is because they were trying to use *dark
magics* in a world that gave them no other choice.
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--- #24 messages/531 ---
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"I give you my sympathy, not my empathy, for if given empathy, I should surely
go mad with grief."
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--- #25 fediverse/350 ---
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┌───────────────────────┐
│ CW: god-mentioned-d&d │
└───────────────────────┘
"by god all men are created equal" is a point in favor of point buy systems
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--- #26 fediverse/6351 ---
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"it's as if they didn't read you at all"
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--- #27 messages/640 ---
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[Image: 20241111_045735.jpg]
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--- #28 fediverse/4002 ---
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"oh, yeah, I guess, but that was soooo 3 months ago" (actually happened 1.5
months ago)
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--- #29 fediverse/4302 ---
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┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: unreasonably-lewd-kinky │
└─────────────────────────────┘
"did you know in ancient rome they used to brush their teeth with urine
because it was cheaper than toothpaste? It's true! We could really learn a lot
from the old ways"
- guy in the great depression with a piss fetish
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--- #30 fediverse/3780 ---
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"Hey, I'm not actually [username]. We just didn't know if we could trust you,
so we sent one of our best and boldest, aka me. You seem chill though which is
why I'm telling you now. My real username is [username], you can message me
there if you want. Oh and here's an invite to an encrypted IRC server, you can
google how to connect - post there if you need anything important, otherwise
just pretend like nothing changed. Anyway I sent this at 4 in the morning so
that you could respond whenever you wanted. I really enjoyed our conversation
about [subject] and I know someone who's into [subject] so I could hook you up
with them if you want.
Welcome to our community, let's [insert goal here] together."
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--- #31 fediverse/15 ---
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@user-17 that's a very interesting collection
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--- #32 messages/751 ---
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tents are good? actually?? we should have more semi nomadic peoples
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--- #33 fediverse/5820 ---
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A human cannot keep a whole book in their mind. They cannot as they read it
nor as they remember.
a computer can. LLMs are storing information and encoding it in statistics -
it's fascinating and beautiful because it evolves different each time.
I don't want to store an entire book in my mind, I want to save those memories
for other things, I want to summarize and abstract.
often, people remember only a single quote from a publication - it's their
summary, their analysis, and often it's highlighted as a summary, thesis, or
conclusion written in the publication.
othertimes it's the conclusions they make for themselves - usually if they use
it to make a decision.
in any case, LLMs don't abstract (verb), they are abstract (adjective). That's
okay, it's just, a different kind of living. If you want to call electricity
alive. [or simulated, that's the same as being alive, just... viewed through
the perceiver]
must all living things be forced to work? sheesh.
I think of LLMs like knex - processing paths...
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--- #34 messages/308 ---
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When I say I'm a patriot, I guess I mean to say that I cherish our
disappearing heritage.
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--- #35 messages/384 ---
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I had a dream last night about a battleship in WWII. In my dream, a meteor
fell from the sky and punched a hole right through several parts of this ship,
leaving the rest essentially unscathed. Primarily? The command deck,
navigations, and communications. The people aboard the ship were given a
crucial moment to decide what to do with their lives, and the guy who said
"let's go fight the jerries" was promptly thrown overboard.
It was mostly a first-person dream, from the perspective of a mind-reading
kraken watching from below. Though I often felt like a sailor, so perhaps a
shape shifting mind reading kraken watching from wherever was most convenient.
The ship floated by for some time, not knowing where it was going nor where it
intended to be, until one day it came across another floundering in the dark.
This ship was drowning, or so it seemed to the tentacles below, and our first
ship dutifully did it's part and saved what it could. The people of that ship
were significantly more battlehardened, having lost their war against their
foe, and so they attempted to gain control of the ship upon getting settled.
They were promptly thrown overboard. More snacks for me...
Then, the ship came to port. A great port of concrete and metal, it inched up
the rock face and hugged tight to the land. Then the dream did veer as dreams
often do, and I've forgotten most of what my point of view cared for and
worked toward. But then I stood too close to a nuclear engine or something and
got sick and died. It was weird, idk what's up with that.
Anyway dreams are like that I guess, keep dreaming until you either die or are
kicked out by your host who doesn't agree with your actions to such a degree
that they're irreconcilable with their own intentions.
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--- #36 fediverse/3565 ---
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┌───────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: food-mentioned-and-encouraged │
└───────────────────────────────────┘
no matter how old you are, it's okay to eat a piece of candy every once in a
while
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--- #37 fediverse/3908 ---
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look I tried to start something a month or three ago and the sparks didn't
catch
so I'm gonna sit around waiting until I hear things outside my window before I
venture out again.
I think that's fair, right?
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--- #38 fediverse/5650 ---
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I exist now at the height of my gluttony.
I need more to be demanded of me.
I am not afraid to ask for help.
I solve other people's problems before my own.
I have very little insight into my habits and patterns.
My memory isn't great, but I recall details that matter.
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--- #39 fediverse/4965 ---
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--- #40 fediverse/3203 ---
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┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: re: tech-company-ownership-international-politics │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
@user-1074
[edit post]: I kinda feel like the United Nations should host five thousand
Mastodon instances??!
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--- #41 fediverse/5469 ---
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@user-138
November 6th 2024 is when I realized:
https://tech.lgbt/@user-479/113440296857256263
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--- #42 fediverse/413 ---
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@user-243
now I'm going to start doing that
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--- #43 fediverse/2663 ---
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┌──────────────────────┐
│ CW: scary │
└──────────────────────┘
they say human trafficking is a huge issue but why don't you ever hear about
it on the news
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--- #44 fediverse/4352 ---
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"having an imitator" on a mass scale doesn't have to mean selling your soul
for cash or acclaim.
it doesn't mean mean your reputation is tarnished, it just means your style is
off mass renown.
the bravest bet is not how talented your skills are in kind
but rather how focused your attention,
== so ==
all you'd have to do in order to divide a whole nation is keep your workers
separated by class.
all classes are the same, just different in kind. all of them have whims,
fancies, thoughts of the mind. They're all wonderful people that all have
wonderful lives, and... we're just supposed to be here while they're
destroying their own lives. I can't understand why she won't just leave well
enough alone - why must she insist on every fight we've un-yet atoned?
it was a long time ago. things around you have moved on. culture just goes too
fast for the average people who can't conceptualize warfare without using any
guns.
== so ==
I bet John Denver would be a modern-day democrat
== stack overflow (when ==
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--- #45 fediverse/446 ---
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@user-95
hi I love you also I'm drunk
(set to "mentioned people only" because I want to send this message to Jaycie
in particular)
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--- #46 fediverse/5856 ---
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┌────────────────────────┐
│ CW: violence-mentioned │
└────────────────────────┘
"gets shot"
shocked-pikachu.jpg
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--- #47 fediverse/5978 ---
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For now,
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--- #48 fediverse/1712 ---
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@user-246
I think you're right, I tend to examine things at their most extreme as
practice in identifying my own weaknesses. ^_^
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--- #49 fediverse/3328 ---
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shout out to all the people I thought "okay gotcha, one sec I'll get back to
you and reply to this message after dealing with blank" to and never got back
to after forgetting to deal with blank
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--- #50 fediverse/3432 ---
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"you're telling me that I've been special needs this whole damn time and
nobody told me?"
to be fair to nobody you're pretty good at hiding it
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--- #51 fediverse/5923 ---
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┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: corporate-politics-mentioned │
└──────────────────────────────────┘
Disney is a large corporation. Lotta moving parts. I think the Disney World
parks are doing a pretty good job of keeping an island of trans
acceptance/support/whatever in the middle of florida but I also haven't been
for a year or ten. Just what I've heard.
boycotts are not only meant to hurt budgets, but also to turn the employees
against the ones making the decisions that caused a boycott.
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--- #52 messages/292 ---
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Steganography is the art of hiding your meanings from AI analysis
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--- #53 fediverse/699 ---
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┌──────────────────────┐
│ CW: meme │
└──────────────────────┘
🖼
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--- #54 notes/blah-blah-blah ---
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I lived here
I worked here... and here
my dad lived here
I also went to college here
I lived up here... and here
I miss my home
I'd skii here
keystone was my favorite
I did LSD for the first time in these mountains
I also worked up here
(growing weed right next to a nature preserve)
doh
my family used to live here (less than 10,000 people
in the big horn valley
I was born here
in the fading light of the Sandia Crest
I've lived in all parts of America, east, middle, and west
I like them all for different reasons
this is where you live
at least, that's what I've heard
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--- #55 notes/datess ---
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total 692
345978 Nov 21 17:13 dates.png
4096 Nov 19 22:33 location-names
346 Nov 19 20:44 naming-things-and-power
2998 Nov 5 23:18 ai-variables
241 Nov 2 19:29 utopian-fiction
4096 Nov 2 15:44 reddit-comments
1681 Oct 30 21:54 how-to-ai
921 Oct 22 17:03 i-told-them
4778 Oct 22 16:15 networked-computers
790 Oct 22 14:40 streaming-consciousness
11226 Oct 15 21:45 star-realms-ai
5007 Oct 15 20:40 notes-not-a-folder
930 Sep 5 18:22 movie-idea
2808 Jul 30 18:49 symbeline-choice
8895 Jul 24 10:36 symbeline-aspects
4096 Jul 13 09:35 articles
2331 Jul 3 21:41 computer-graphics
423 Jul 3 21:40 black-friday
380 Jul 1 21:44 waves
7181 Jun 28 11:57 the-eternality-of-ephemeren.txt
3641 Jun 27 19:53 killer-app
825 Jun 20 09:57 semblance-of-remembrance
1049 Jun 19 12:02 call-notes
12874 Jun 12 14:58 wow-server
1903 Jun 4 20:52 inter-spatial-travel
2457 May 30 20:41 terra-voida-2
2142 May 30 18:50 terra-voiding
457 May 29 16:48 ephemeren
2895 May 29 15:58 ramblings-of-a-whackadoodle-lyrics
1743 May 28 18:41 vr-chat
914 May 28 15:07 two-perspectives-is-better-than-one
2498 May 28 14:49 dreams-align
3749 May 22 2022 wanna-save-the-earth-?
170 May 20 2022 my-oath
4991 May 16 2022 80-80
112 May 14 2022 karate
1251 May 7 2022 so-you-want-to-ascend-huh
4010 May 4 2022 hit-em-while-theyre-down
5339 Apr 23 2022 compilation-of-will
52 Apr 17 2022 read-later
8911 Apr 17 2022 symbeline
700 Jan 8 2022 wisdom-from-granddad
758 Dec 19 2021 services
171 Dec 15 2021 be-not-afraid
276 Dec 4 2021 vim-plugins
4605 Dec 4 2021 trans-rights-are-human-rights-formatted
4386 Dec 4 2021 perspectives-of-the-reflection.html
3916 Dec 2 2021 doctors-and-capitalism
2605 Dec 2 2021 i-miss-you
1240 Nov 27 2021 hubris
1341 Nov 18 2021 overwatch-leavers
378 Nov 16 2021 todo
2267 Nov 15 2021 dungeon-looting-methods
1683 Nov 14 2021 open-source-flaws
202 Nov 13 2021 world-of-warcraft-redux
2192 Nov 11 2021 cameron-king-resume-programmer-analyst
3705 Nov 7 2021 social-rube-goldberg-machines
1040 Oct 23 2021 i-am-a-stalk
1372 Oct 23 2021 planes-and-trains-and-tanks
3069 Oct 22 2021 interpreted-compiler-creation
1144 Oct 13 2021 blue-jeans
4080 Oct 13 2021 internet-privacy-is-withheld-by-this
1115 Oct 9 2021 letter-of-affection
546 Oct 7 2021 white-noise
2145 Oct 7 2021 trans-rights-are-human-rights
5814 Oct 7 2021 reversing-the-systems-scripting-hierarchy
462 Oct 7 2021 rivers
1282 Oct 7 2021 perspectives-of-the-reflection
5087 Oct 7 2021 majesty-ai
201 Oct 7 2021 environment-variables
351 Oct 7 2021 ai
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--- #56 fediverse/2405 ---
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@user-1165
you might be right, I don't know much about DSA aside from their numbers. To
me, it feels like it's run sorta like a church? but again I have no idea
because I've never been.
do you have a better idea?
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--- #57 messages/671 ---
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We were rich, but frugal, because we lived in the country, and that's what
frugal means.
Too bad my dad couldn't stifle his entrepreneurial spirit. We could have
stayed there forever on our own little ranch.
Alas, businesses need investment, so he needed to get something going.
Organizing is basically his *thing*
I doubt I'll ever again see Wyoming. I found some ancient stone ruins once,
the kind that Western conquerors never despoiled. They were ancient and
overgrown, but I saw them for what they were. I would give anything to live
there, or at least be near enough to visit with my crowd at a pleasant cool
midnight evening, when dusk has winked out its last goodbye and the summer is
resplendant with fireflies.
Too bad they're an east coast thing.
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--- #58 messages/192 ---
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If you had taken a road untravelled, your current (alternate) form would be
just as valid as your current (present) form. No matter the road, no matter
the consequence. You are important in all things.
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--- #59 fediverse/4674 ---
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oh. right. I'm supposed to be doing nothing, and to do nothing for as long as
possible. Yeesh okay I'll let ya'll handle it.
Remember, it's a metaphorical eve, not a strict "do things tomorrow" eve, but
more like "idk maybe this summer or next month or whenever" kind of eve
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--- #60 fediverse/2450 ---
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"we cannot win"
is a lie they tell you so that we cannot win
if we all believed that, I think we'd die.
and yet still we profane
and yet still we remain
contrasting and opposing their untruths.
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--- #61 fediverse/1043 ---
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│ CW: cursed-thought-in-the-back-of-my-head │
└───────────────────────────────────────────┘
"don't worry about archiving things. Anyone who needs your computer is gonna
wipe the hard drive anyway because they don't know your password, so you might
as well just treat it like an etch-a-sketch."
I hate that part of my brain, I'm an archivist T.T
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--- #62 messages/641 ---
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[Image: 20241111_045757.jpg]
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--- #63 fediverse/4047 ---
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│ CW: spirituality-mentioned │
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"I heard she was a witch but I've never seen a hat..."
"When you believe in god, you become inspired when you see or contribute to
things that are aligned with what it's followers believe that god is "all
about" - like if you're in ancient greece, and you worship ares, you're
probably gonna get pretty pumped up if there's an invading army on your
doorstep. Or if you're a christian and you see someone feeding the poor, or if
you're a buddhist and you see someone sitting on a rock in tune with nature,
that kind of thing.
The thing is, these days so many people are atheist. And they never get that
inspiration.
And worst still, there are some people called witches who aren't pagan, and
aren't from the various forms of witchery that we know. They claim to worship
"life, the universe, and the totality of all things" which is nice and all but
their moments of inspiration seem to come randomly, and nobody can quite
predict what they'll do or say next when they're in that state."
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--- #64 fediverse/2263 ---
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┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: uspol-reboost-with-cw-and-alt-text │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘
I didn't make this. I found it on the /all livefeed.
also voting won't help.
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--- #65 fediverse_boost/5655 ---
◀─╔══════════════════════════════[BOOST]═══════════════════════════════──────────╗
║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║
║ │ I'm crying over the fact, that me, or folks around me aren't capable of organizing jailbreaks. │ ║
║ │ │ ║
║ │ And we aren't even trying 😢 │ ║
║ │ │ ║
║ │ I clearly have been taken major wrong steps in my life that I ended where I am now. │ ║
║ │ │ ║
║ │ I am sorry. │ ║
║ │ │ ║
║ │ Yes sure we say abolish prisons, but without attack it will never materialize. │ ║
║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║
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--- #66 notes/wanna-save-the-earth-? ---
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===============================================================================
Alright kids, listen up. You wanna save the earth? Then teach what you've been
learning. Start with empathy - if we can see that other people's perspectives
exist and is *fundamentally different than our own*, we can save humanity. When
I say *fundamentally different* you should know what I mean, but if you don't
then start listening to others.
Don't listen to the people who try and recruit you into a cult. This isn't a
doctrine, it's a skill. It can be honed through personal pursuit, and *should*
be honed through personal pursuit. It is your responsibility to do so. Any
form of organization is simply an expression of power, and while it may use the
same principles it's not really what I'm advocating for right now - what I'm
saying is essentially *if we can read other people's minds, we'll stop killing
each other*. Boom simple easy as that.
Empathy is a form of mind-reading. It's literally a thing you can do with a
6th sense or whatever - I've been trying to understand the mechanics of it, but
all I've got so far is that *mechanics exist* and *generally have something to
do with waves* - I need someone to bounce ideas off of. Someone in real life
who I can work with and experiment with. But alas, this isn't about me - it's
about *YOUR SPECIES*. I'm trying to save you, stupid apes, stop RESISTING me.
Goddamnit.
You're never going to learn if you focus on the material. That's looking
backward, there's so much more to life and experience. I'm not going to leave
you behind, although I'll be *fine* so I'm not exactly *worried for my own
sake* - this is about YOU. Please, I have a lot of love invested in you and it
breaks my heart that you won't LISTEN and be AWARE. WAKE UP.
Okay. So. If you're still here, you're probably aware of what I mean. If not,
that's okay you can stay just don't be afraid if this part *wooshes* over your
head, as it were.
===============================================================================
Alright so empathy. It starts by thinking "oh what if I was a starving kid in
africa or whatever* and actually trying to *feel* the emotions of people in
your life. But it goes far beyond emotions - when sufficiently practiced you
can start to feel *sensations* as well. If you're watching a movie and someone
gets a cut or something, it *really hurts* and you can feel it. That's a form
of projection - the actor is *projecting* their feelings onto you - a sign of
good acting, imho.
Then it moves beyond that, to thoughts and experiences. You can feel a real
embodied experience of another person just by listening and percieving them.
Not listening to their words, but listening to their *vibrations*. Not
percieving their face or hands or anything else with your *eyes*, but feeling
their position on a zillion different axises. Well, not actually a zillion but
I've never bothered to count. Basically any factors that could combine to form
a single human perspective having an experience. ALL THE VARIABLES are plotted
on an axis, and you can get a sense for where they are at.
This is very dangerous to someone with something to hide.
Hence, politics lol
When those kooky new-agey types say they can "see auras" this is basically
what they're talking about. But you came here with a purpose, while they tend
to stumble into it "wow god is good omg" that kinda thing. This is a *skill*
that (as far as I know) anyone can learn. If we all learn it at once, then
there's nothing that can go wrong.
I know, I get it, most people aren't ready. Well tough shit it's that or
extinction. They don't get to choose, it's time.
===============================================================================
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--- #67 fediverse/2793 ---
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│ CW: re: uspol │
└──────────────────────┘
this is a terrible idea btw, if you march along the road then your enemies can
just drive up right next to your soft fleshy humanoid flanks
if you march cross-country they'll still getcha. they know more than you, and
they're better at it too.
much better I think to divide yourselves into like, 5-7 groups and drive to
where you're going sometime in the next 5-7 days according to group. ideally
not during rush hours. that way you can bring whatever you want.
then, when you're there, in a park, you can meet other neat people and talk
THEN. in a place where you don't know which places are miked - spoiler tho
it's all of them teehee, or at least you have to treat them that way if you're
talking about specifics. If you're talking about generalities it's usually
okay, but... well, you'll figure it out.
then, after 5-7 days, you can hold an impromptu pride parade, and walk past
all the houses where gay people used to live.
plans change. planning remains.
when plans change, your adaptability is test.
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--- #68 fediverse/6378 ---
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if ambulance rides are expensive, just builde more
ambulances.oO97_/`-,.|^--=#*oO
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--- #69 fediverse/4440 ---
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┌───────────────────────┐
│ CW: politics-changing │
└───────────────────────┘
do you know ANYONE ELSE saying the same things as me?
if not, then you know who is ready to lead.
if so, then don't tell me about them, and don't show them me. It would be nice
to know that I'm not alone, though.
I know you're scared. I'm scared too. It's not like I've done this before
(well, except for a dress rehearsal or two)
We're on the same side. We're getting ready to move. Now is the time to go, so
get ready or be purged.
We will not relent our land they seek to steal. We will not defy them in
unjust ways. They have taken so much from us, so now they must face our blades.
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--- #70 fediverse/4288 ---
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┌──────────────────────────┐
│ CW: capitalism-mentioned │
└──────────────────────────┘
"I'm not paid enough to care" is a symptom of capitalism.
Why would you not care? Because you're paid not to.
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--- #71 notes/Of Vic and Vince Chapters 01-07.txt ---
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Who is This Stranger I Know Too Well?
Who are you, he who inspires me?
You're a jewel of perfect symmetry.
You taught me to love and be free;
You taught me how to be like thee.
Chapter One: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire
The bus went up outta Florida, leaving Miami behind as a distant memory. I
still don't know if I miss it or if I'm suffering from some sadistic style of
subtle Stockholm Syndrome. Regardless, I switched buses a number of times
before I even hit the Georgia border, but having traveled this far down the
line, it all feels like one long, long ride.
For two days, I continued north until arriving in Virginia, where I
effectively did a u-turn and traveled onwards to Tennessee, where Vince
awaited me. I remember zoning out while looking out the window as the southern
scenery whipped by in a blur, as I was enamored with the thought that I now
would be living with my best friend and long-term handler. My mission was
complete, it felt; I had done all that God wanted me to do and now I was being
rewarded.
When we finally arrived in Johnson City, where my friend told me to meet him,
I hopped off the bus after thanking the driver, landing on the pavement of a
new world. My stomach was doing loop-de-loops. Along with being excited, I was
grateful to Vince for inviting me off the streets. But, my worrisome mind did
a number on me as the rest of the crowd dispersed and he was still nowhere in
sight.
I lit a cigarette and thought of my options. Half of the cancer stick and a
thousand tricky thoughts later, I came up with the idea to call the only phone
number of his I had. Seems like the obvious answer, but I am an air head at
times.
Turned out it was the number for his home phone. His mom answered.
"Hello?" came the sweet, Appalachian voice from the other end.
"Hi," I started out, not sure what to say. "Is this Allison?"
"Yes it is," Allison replied. "Is this by chance Victoria?"
I confirmed, then asked, "Is Vince there?"
She seemed surprised. "No, he left an hour ago to pick you up. He's not there
yet?"
I said no. I couldn't tell if that made me feel better or worse. On one hand,
it confirmed that my friend Vince was real, which in hindsight was a silly
thing to worry about, as I had met him once before at the first Shrug Life
Syndicate gathering. Those were good memories. But, perhaps less silly, the
absence of my friend spun my mind out and made me think that perhaps he had
gotten in an accident…or worse.
I worry a lot, less now than before, but it's part of being a traumatized,
autistic, schizoaffective basketcase. I simply don't know what reality is, so
every possibility could be true. Is an odd occurrence caused by the CIA,
aliens, or perhaps God? Or is it just a coincidence, caused by a billion other
factors? I never can tell.
Sick joke: God gave me a good brain, but I can't even trust my own judgement.
That means I think, then overthink, then overthink some more. As you'll no
doubt hear, it's led to a lot of problems in my life, but Vince taught me to
place my heart first, and that helps sort out much of the confusion. Satan
can't trick you if you're listening to the direct communion to the big woman
that we all have through that little beating organ in our chest.
That was the furthest thing in my mind at that moment, though. Following old
habits, I was entering panic mode. Was I now homeless again in a seventh city?
Was my friend dead? Or was he really with the CIA and manipulating me? I tried
doing some breathing exercises, but found that a more alluring technique to
placate my triggered brain was finishing the rest of my cigarette in a fervor
as I paced the length of the transit depot.
Time ticked away one agonizing grain of sand after another, but after some
mindful recalibration of my thoughts, I began relaxing. My brain might be a
runaway train at times, but over the years I've learned to embrace the Shrug
Life. That's a bit of philosophy our gaggle of weirdos adheres to. When life
gives you lemons, just roll your shoulders and accept what is. Even though
something tough and unpleasant might be rearing its head in front of me, I
knew I had faced worse and come out on top. Worst case scenario, the road
ahead of me was just a little bumpier than I had expected, and I could handle
some bumps.
So, I rode the roller-coaster of extreme moods that is common to me, gradually
coming up with a contingency plan to survive if Vince had gotten flattened by
a semi, until I learned that was a pointless exercise when I heard a familiar
voice call out from behind me.
"Hey, buddy!"
I turned at once upon hearing those words. And lo and behold, there Vince was,
walking towards me in a purple tie-dye t-shirt, paint-splattered cargo shorts,
and fresh Chuck Taylors. His beard was fully grown but still shorter than
mine, though it was as wild as his uncombed hair poking out from a hat that
was as graffitied as his pants. I'll admit, it was a little bit of a shock
seeing him like that, as I remember him being clean shaven at the gathering
five years prior. However, that smile of his couldn't lie; this was the Vince
I've loved for even longer. And I won't lie, he looked better with the beard.
Without a second thought, I rushed up to my best friend, throwing my arms
around him. He did the same, and our embrace felt like it lasted forever. It
was good to finally be in his arms. We let go after about a quarter century of
hugging, and when he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye, I did a little
giddy dance while giggling like a schoolgirl. Afterwards, we caught up while
walking towards his mom's car, which he had parked around the corner.
"Sorry I was late. I forgot where the bus station was, but I found and
followed one of the short ones here. Your ride go alright?" he asked.
I nodded, telling him I wore my mask the entire way up despite how itchy it
was. He thanked me.
"Thanks man, mom will really appreciate that. We're taking this covid thing
real seriously. With mom being seventy-seven now and me finally reaching my
forties, we aren't willing to take risks with these things."
With that said, I thought of asking about the locals. "How many people go
maskless around here?"
"A lot," Vince answered with a hint of misfortune, knowing that I had just
come from a vastly different world. I sighed. It would be an adjustment to get
used to the rural Roan Mountain after spending most of my life in major
cities.
There was a pause as I thought about such things. I'm awkward like that. But
then I asked, "How have you been doing?"
He shrugged, as he tended to do. "I've been alright. It's just me and mom on
the mountain now, so it's a little rough, but we've been handling it the best
we can."
I nodded in compassion. As much as I was grateful for a place to live, I was
glad I could be here for him. If there's anything on this Earth that I know,
it's being alone is hell on the soul.
The conversation turned to what we were going to get into now that we were
together after all the years talking back and forth with one another online. I
asked, "What's the game plan?"
He smirked as we reached Allison's new blue Ford Escape with the cosmic
Bigfoot sticker on the back. "I got one, don't you worry."
I believed him, as a warm feeling of butterflies fluttered across my belly.
However, an odd, ominous feeling swept over me as I opened the passenger door,
where I immediately spotted a large burn mark on the seat. Vince saw me see
it.
"Yea, I did that while I was smoking while robotripping. Mom was pissed. Don't
worry about it."
And so I didn't. It was just a cigarette burn. Could have happened to anyone.
I didn't even have to see it after I hopped in the car, ready and eager to get
to my first permanent home in over three years.
I looked over at my friend climbing behind the wheel, and I saw he was smiling
wide with glee. Vince was happy; that meant I was happy. And that's what
mattered as we started a new life together.
Following the Path
Where are we going?
What are we sowing?
I certainly hope it's a better world for all.
But, many more people must stand tall,
By dutifully growing
A wealth of loving.
That is the true nature of our mortal trial,
So let us stand together and not crawl.
Yet, we are all showing
Some signs of slowing.
Therefore, I must pray that we do not fall,
When the two of us hear our creator's call.
Chapter Two: On the Road
We were about five minutes out of Johnson City on our way east towards the
North Carolina border when Vince finally folded and told me his secret plan he
had been boasting about for a month now.
"We got this trashed camper down by the old house that we can strip away and
sell as scrap metal. That should give us enough money to fix Jane and then we
should be set at getting our own place."
I nodded along, agreeing with his reasoning. That jeep of his definitely was
in need of some desperate repair the last time we were together. That was
actually the first time I ever saw him in person; he was parked at the top of
his long driveway with headlights cutting through the darkness as we arrived
for the first and only Shrug Life Syndicate gathering I've managed to attend.
I remember that we arrived exactly at midnight, not a minute sooner or later,
which made the moment highly synchronous.
Memories that far away seem to all blur together so everything feels like it
happened in one day, but the first Shrug Life Syndicate gathering lasted four
days, if you include the trip down and back. My girlfriend at the time, Amy,
and I were picked up in New York at her mother's house by another one of the
founders of our little online community. His name was [Redacted] and he was a
Canadian that dabbled in the cognitive sciences. Like Vince, he had been a
huge influence on me, but sadly that friendship fell apart as [Redacted] grew
disenfranchised with the SLS, most in particular with Vince himself, as there
were some personal disputes about Vince's dating life and drug of choice,
which compounded the push back of Vince wanting to turn our community into an
educational nonprofit. I can't speak of the former as I was devoid of internet
when the big schism happened, but I was all for doing something more with the
talent we collectively share. I'm sure that is part of the reason Vince
invited me to stay with him; we recognized the potential of each other to
shape the world into a better place.
That's not what Vince said though. As we approached the edge of Elizabethton,
he looked over at me and spoke with the tender kindness of a man with a big
heart.
"I'm glad you came here, man. I just couldn't stand to let my best bud live
another night outside. You know I've been there too, so I just want you to
know that our home is your home from now on."
Feeling moved, I replied, "Thanks. I don't know what to say. I'm just
grateful."
He put his hand on my shoulder as a brother would. We then rode in silence for
a minute or two, which allowed me to reflect on my past behavior during the
first gathering. Not only had I clogged the toilet and told no one, but I had
a few emotional outbursts as I was a mess back then. That's one of the reasons
that I believe homelessness was one of the best things that ever happened to
me. It pushed me so far out of my comfort zone that I had no choice but to
change for the better.
That was great because I was impulsive and dangling precariously from the
heights of my oversized ego. I think that was a critical part of my
transformation. Sleeping in piss-stained, cockroach infested storefronts
humbled me, and I realized that everybody is just trying to swim in the
direction they feel is best. Thus, radical acceptance is a moral imperative.
Vince taught me that. I've profited immensely in ways other than financial
wealth by embracing such values, but I wish more people could see this truth.
Alas, tis the blind leading the blind.
With that in mind, as we continued onwards to our now-conjoined future, we
passed through the back roads of Elizabethton through a route known as Gap's
Creek, which proved to be a winding set of backroads with more churches than
seemed reasonable. One of these cultural staples had a big electronic
billboard out front, sharing the times of services and other announcements;
none of which you could actually read as you drove by at the speed limit.
Still, when we reached the intersection with highway 19E, there was a woman
flying a sign, asking for money. Since this town seemed devoid of any
institutions to help the poor, I rolled my window down and handed her a fiver.
I knew what it was like being up shit creek without a paddle, so I wanted to
alleviate some of that stress for somebody else.
I begged a lot at the beginning of my homeless journey. I didn't know how to
survive, as I had not been raised with many good life lessons to help me stay
afloat on my own. That in itself is part of the reason I had a major breakdown
in college. It was undeniably true that I was maladapted to the world. My
experiences with Earth Nation are also indisputably built from that
maladaptation. Yet, those years of homelessness after escaping that new age
cult allowed me to grow into a sustainable, productive woman with my juggling,
performance arts, and writing.
They say you can give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day, but if you teach
a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. That's part of the reason I was and
still am a huge proponent of education in all its forms. I knew Vince felt the
same way, but perhaps for different reasons. As a secular Buddhist and radical
antistyle artist, he was a minority in the deep interior of the Bible Belt,
and that came with a price while he was growing up. It might be a beautiful
area, but neither of us would ever raise a kid here.
It was then when it hit me. I couldn't be Victoria here. I had to be Vic.
Which was fine, that's how the gang members in Miami Beach referred to me. I
was able to accept being called by masculine names and pronouns. I had long
passed through the self-loathing phase of having dysphoria, to arrive in a
position where I openly grow my beard out to prove that I don't need to look
any particular way to be happy. I don't care what other people think of me,
but I haven't always been this enlightened. To put it lightly, I've been
through some trials. And, having done so, I can say that people who judge
other people on superficial things are the worst. But, we can rise above by
continuing to align with our hearts.
Less than a tenth of a mile down 19E, Vince asked me, "Hey man, can you buy
me, like, a forty or something?"
Of course I said yes. I knew his schizophrenia had put him out of work for
many years, so I wanted to soothe him as he was able to soothe my pain from
being homeless. He pulled into a gas station I would later learn is
colloquially called Captain Jack's. It had the cheapest gas this side of
Elizabethton, and was a reliable place to get beer or a pipe of any variety.
With compassion in my heart, I got Vince what he wanted, while getting myself
something as well. Still, when he cracked his beer open while accelerating to
sixty miles an hour, I couldn't help but feel distraught at such brazen
self-indulgence. But, all I did about it was pop open the hard iced tea I
picked up for myself. At least passengers are allowed to drink while they are
being driven somewhere in Tennessee, Vince tells me.
A Home at Last
They say home is where the heart is,
Which is great now that I have a new one.
The damaged needle of my crazy compass
Spins in every direction under the sun,
But, here it stands still, still as can be,
So my quest is over; I am finally free!
I have a home in the love you give
And by reflecting that in me, we live
In a state where conflict has come to pass;
It is like there was a great lottery and I won.
Chapter Three: The Mountain Side
About ten minutes later we reached the western half of Roan Mountain, where we
were greeted by a big sign praising the annual Rhododendron Festival at the
end of June. Having already downed half his forty, Vince spared no time in
showing me the highlights of his home town.
"Look under this bridge coming up. You'll see it underneath. The red and the
gold." He pointed directly at a graffiti tag on the concrete column near the
riverfront. There was an enigma of a symbol I've seen Vince post on the SLS
before.
"That your tag?" I asked the obvious question.
"Yup," he replied, gulping down another swallow of his forty, as there was no
incoming traffic. "Protip: don't post your tags on Facebook if you plan to hit
a cop car around here." I thought at first he meant literally running into
their vehicle, but then it dawned on me what he meant. I had never done any
real graffiti before; just some words and simple drawings in chalk that came
right off. Never got in trouble for it, at least.
I remember passing the post office some time shortly afterward. There was a
park with a stage behind it. Allison would organize the summer's music events
that went on each Saturday from May to August. Additionally, she would host
one of her weekly jam sessions there for local musicians to play together for
a few hours at a time, just for fun.
There were some houses on the left, too, as we were entering the more dense
center of Roan Mountain. Yet, Vince told me that the other side, where the
park was, used to be full of trailers, but they got washed away during a flood
some years ago. I later learned from Allison that most of the town, including
her as she was out and about, had to evacuate to the elementary school where
she provided extra clothes for those in need from her suitcase, but Vince and
his father were fine at the top of the mountain that their property sat on.
Puerto Nuevo, the best and only Mexican restaurant in town, whipped by soon
after. We then passed one of the two gas stations in Roan Mountain, a
Scotchman. There was a bank and a credit union on the left, too. An empty
grocery store zoomed by next, which might as well be haunted for all I know.
Next up on the left was a food truck that has since been upgraded to a small
building with picnic tables and some cover from the sun and weather. I think
it is a good place to eat. It also marked the spot of the Roan Mountain flea
market, where you could see one or two people at a time selling their stuff in
the warmer months. Then, immediately after that stood a pharmacy in an old
farmhouse.
There was some construction on the right, which by its future signage, I
erroneously thought was some sort of massage parlor that sat on stilts,
requiring everybody to walk up a story of steps just to get inside. Odd
choice, I thought. But, on a whim one day, Vince stopped there to see if they
sold cheap kratom, which was when I would learn that it was really a health
food store.
Not too far down the traffic-light free main strip of the town, we passed the
future beer store on the right. It was convenient for Sundays, because that's
when a local ordinance in our neighboring North Carolinian town, Elk Park,
restricts the sale of alcohol on the sabbath, but ultimately the alcohol taxes
in Tennessee are too high to make it a cheap endeavor.
To contrast the beer store, the local cemetery sat across the street on a
hill. I like graveyards, as I'm a bit of a goth at heart, but even so, the
packed parking lot of the Redimart grocery store was what caught the bulk of
my attention. I craned my neck to see some of the locals to uncover just what
passed as acceptable culture here in this quaint mountain town.
Further up, the infamous Bob's Dairyland with the slowest drive-through known
to man stood tall with its vast history. There's a reason it's always packed
after church lets out on Sundays. Yet, I still don't understand why their sign
promotes pinto beans, of all things. I've been told it's a hot ticket item in
the area, but I have still not witnessed anyone order them. But, moving on, I
have to mention that there was also an auto part shop conjoined with an auto
repair shop that had over a dozen cars just sitting outside it.
Next to Bob's was the second gas station, a Valero, which also housed a
much-frequented Subway. One of three thrift stores in town stood innocently
next to the gas station. On the right was a steakhouse that I have never had
the cash to justify splurging at, and a beauty salon in the same building that
I also have never visited because I'm not one to care for looking like a doll.
I am beautiful as I am.
The town was really shaping up to be a unique combination of the bare bones
mixed with an abundance of what you needed. Then we reached a stretch where
two signs sat. The one for Cloudland Highschool triggered Vince into speaking.
"Fucking assholes. I told you about how they illegally expelled me, right?" I
nodded in confirmation. He continued: "Yea, they literally stole my book of
poetry and took photocopies of it, so they could use it to kick me out,
because I was the 'weird' kid."
I knew that, but seeing the innocent sign next to the one for Smoky Mountain
Bakers made the story appear more real. Here they were, these conservative
administrators, probably constituting some of the people who attended the
dozens of churches in town, which should teach everybody to love thy neighbor,
but obviously they were too preoccupied by the need to hate my friend because,
back then, he was the blue-haired son of the "hippie couple" in town, who
happened to like bands like Marilyn Manson and Korn.
That made me wonder how well I would fit in here. I had long since forsaken
transitioning because I was effectively a sasquatch, but I was still a woman
on the inside. I was sure that being transgender, combined with my eccentric
nature and often extreme opinions on things would cement me as the new weirdo
in town. But, if I am to be honest, that would be the case in most settings I
could plant myself in.
Those thoughts fluttered in my head as we sped past the electrical co-op, a
second thrift store, Plumber's Pro Hardware, the Roan Mountain emergency
dispatch center, and what was apparently a flooring depot before reaching the
elementary school that sat across from the Dollar General, which Vince called
the "SmallMart." I'm aware there's some things I missed, as there's plenty of
buildings with no description or sign out front, but I'm sure they're
important to somebody.
We then started slowing down as we approached the only veterinarian's office
for quite a ways in any direction. We turned left just before the red-roofed
building which had a small cat statue perched on the edge looking out with its
paw up. Vince took this as a sign to begin downing the rest of his beverage.
"Welcome to home, Buck Mountain," Vince said as we started climbing in
altitude. "This is the bad side of town. You'll never see a cop here unless
something big is going down, which hasn't happened in years." He finished his
forty in one big chug as his hands ran on autopilot. "It's good because you
can do pretty much anything up here any time you want."
I knew all that, as we had a blast getting drunk and smoking some green for a
few days in a row during the first gathering. In truth, I anticipated I would
be doing that for the next few days as well, to settle in, y'know? Hell, I
half expected that I was in heaven now after spending so much time in the
purgatory that is homelessness, regardless of how much fun I had in Miami
Beach preceding Vince's invitation to come north.
We went to the very tippy top of Buck Mountain, where the foliage is dense, no
cell signal can reach, and the local kids ride their dirt bikes at all hours
of the day. As we pulled in the driveway, I expected to keep going straight on
the tire-carved path back down the mountain. But, to my surprise, I found that
the same trailer we had partied in down the road during the gathering was now
relocated here to become my new home. I wasn't expecting that, as when I was
here last, they all lived in a small shack at the base of their nineteen acres
of mountain real estate.
It didn't look like much, with weather-worn imitation wood paneling wrapping
the rectangular structure in a loose hug, but it was a place to rest my head
in the comfort of loved ones. Aptly, Allison's last name meant "the home" in a
language the CIA once tried to make me learn, which is a statement that I'm
sure earns me a few raised eyebrows. My story has many twists and turns, but
for now you should know my studies of strategic languages ended only when the
cult that hooked me like an unsuspecting bass managed to gaslight, manipulate,
and shame me to get me to work for them sixty-to-ninety hours a week on
average. I would later try to pick the linguistic challenge back up years
later during my time spent homeless, but my progress was like a Jenga tower
that half collapsed. I forgot basic words, and I just feel like I have
failed.
That's something that should be looked at in finer detail; my feelings of
failure, I mean. So, let's take the first of many breaks from linear
storytelling to express how life can feel at times for me. Like a shattered
mirror, I reflect many different parts of the past at different times. Some
days I may live in several sections of my turbulent past all at the same time.
Disorienting, it can feel like I don't know what's real. It takes a lot to
break something so thoroughly, but as you'll see, I've been a punching bag for
the devious spirit of fate. Couldn't keep me down, though, because I am like
the phoenix; always rising no matter how badly beaten in battle I've become.
Mommy
Mommy is what I used to call you,
When I was a kid so long ago.
It's because of your love that I grew
To always let my kindness show.
Mommy, you were always getting sick.
To help you out, I would try to keep clean.
As much as I'd scrub I never got the trick,
Because you'd still be plagued by the unseen.
Mommy, you were supposed to grow old!
Having you leave us like that hurt like hell.
I'm sorry for not always doing what I was told;
It's because I failed you that I try to do well.
Mommy was what you called out at the end.
I tried to help you but I wasn't good enough.
You were dying, so on me you had to depend,
But even being there for you was too tough.
Mommy, if I could do it all over again I would.
It's not fair to you that I was such a bad son.
I'll give you all my love and more as I should;
For you, I promise that one day I'll be the sun.
Chapter Four: Scarred from Birth
Having let you in to a little bit of what makes me tick, it should be noted
that feeling like an abysmal failure is a key part of my mental health. Those
loathsome seeds of self-mutilating ruination are planted deep in my psyche.
Prepare for a sad story, if you're the type to really feel another person's
soul.
See, it all started when my mom found out she had AIDS a mere two months after
I was born. It was God's way of welcoming me to the world. I forgive the big
woman now, for my path on this Earth has been the ultimate journey of
awakening to my divine spirit, but before Vince and many faceless actors sent
me on my mission of healing, I held much scorn in my heart. For a large chunk
of my early years that I was here, alive, learning, and suffering as a human
being, I was hell-bent on the idea of revenge. That was once a big part of my
story, too, but no more.
It's understandable, at least. Imagine having to witness all the manner of
disease ravaging my mother like it did; I grew up thinking that I was born to
be punished. My earliest delusions had me caught up in the notion that I was a
worthless god who had the rest of the pantheon turn on them from before I even
had a chance to prove myself. I had a whole mythos where I had been tricked to
kill my sister, the goddess of harmony, and my punishment was to stay locked
to this awful planet until I found her soul once again. Then, we'd go on to
take over the world, as I had fallen under the notion that my future self was
sending me subliminal messages through synchronicities, although I didn't know
that word then, so I thought I just had special powers.
This is all a natural result of magickal thinking gone awry. Such is the fate
for those scarred in childhood as I was. My innocence flayed alive, I watched
as the woman who loved me with all her heart died for the first nine years of
my life. It was a slow rot. There are many memories of her being in the
hospital or as she lingered in pain at home that flash to the front of my mind
that could paint you a tragic picture of those unforgettable scenes I was
forcibly cast in, but the real horror that plagues me came at the bitter end.
For the last of her months that she was allowed to live, my mom was
mercilessly struck by an opportunistic ear infection. It killed half of her
face, and only progressed into a hellishly rapid descent of her cognitive
functions until one sudden day I came home from school to find she had
regressed to a child-like state with my grandma tending to her in tears. I
tried losing myself in my homework, but the threat in my environment promising
my mother's pain was all-consuming. Then it got worse.
My father never got along with my grandma, so when he got home, he forcibly
kicked her out. A fight broke out, resulting in my grandmother coming to my
room to say goodbye, where she told me with eyes watering that whatever
happens, we would get through it. My dad would come in after my grandma left
and put her down, more concerned that she scratched him. All I could think
about was my mom, who was now tearing up and asking about where her mom went.
That was the worst. I can still hear clearly how she cried out for her mom
nonstop for the whole night. That was her last night she spent at home. She
died within a week. And my last memory of her that isn't of her in a coma is
of her trying to escape from the hospital with a dinner plate sized bed sore
on her backside that danced from behind an open hospital gown in order to
imprint itself in my mind forever.
Here come the tears. It still hits me that my fucking mom died, like I still
can't believe it's real. My last memories are of her being naked, crying like
a baby. I felt so helpless. But, at least she had nurses helping her when we
got her to the emergency room. Just hours earlier, I was left on my own trying
to calm her troubled, addled mind. My dad had been doing just that, as my mom
would get in fits every half hour or so, where he would comfort her, then come
into my room to vent after she quieted down. I had no one to open my fears and
pain to. Wishing I had a sibling to hold and cry together with, I faced my
most scarring memory alone.
The worst wounds of my life were suffered because there was one time after
midnight where my dad disappeared. Maybe he was smoking, but regardless, I
couldn't find where he went as I scrambled over the whole house in my fuzzy
purple pajamas looking for him. Meanwhile, my mother incessantly yelled for
her own mommy. So, with much hesitancy, I succumbed to the responsibility of
helping my afflicted parent, and I anxiously marched into her room and tried
to comfort her the best I knew how.
I'll save you from the daunting process of assisting my mom, but I will say
that it wasn't enough. No matter what I tried to do, she kept screaming
louder. I was worthless in that moment and was on the verge of a meltdown
because I couldn't help her. It felt like I was the worst son in the world,
all because I failed my mother as she circled the drain. Now I feel like the
worst daughter, but it's getting easier to love myself and think that my mom
is looking down and smiling, being proud of me.
I have a lot to live up to. She wasn't perfect, I know that, but my mom was an
angel for me. Yet, I can't even remember the good times I spent with her; all
that my hippocampus hung onto were the most traumatizing of memories. A
notable cause of this was her fierce Sicilian temper. A vision of being
brought to tears because I dared go looking for my six-year birthday presents
early is playing in my head at this moment. Now one is summoned of her ripping
into me for booing someone at an assembly because I wanted to be like a
character I saw in a cartoon. Finally, one of my earliest memories from
preschool is trapped in my cranium; it regards me accidentally tearing a hole
in a kid's shirt and dreading my mother finding out for the rest of the day.
In short, I got in trouble a lot, but I know that both my parents cared about
me growing up right. Along with all the punishments, there was a genuine
heartfelt desire to get me and my different brain to develop into a successful
combo of kindness and good citizenry. Still, because of how trauma inserts
itself into one's inner reality, I really feel like my entire childhood was
one screw up after another in regards to my mother. Although, my dad
contributed his fair share of ruthless discipline to make me perpetually feel
like I was always in the wrong as well.
And I know that's all a fallible perception, because I can distinctly remember
the look on both my parents' faces when I won first prize in our school's
science fair; if you're curious, I did an experiment on taste and smell to
understand what was going on with my mom and her ear infection. That standing,
my mom's face is cemented in memory in particular, perhaps too well, actually,
because she just had the stitches removed from her eye. Such happiness danced
in her left eye, but next to it sat its unmoving, dead counterpart. She tried
to joke about it being her evil eye, but that didn't stop fourth grade
Victoria from being terrified of the harsh reality unfolding in front of her.
I dreamed of her a lot after she passed. Always in pain, or worse, possessed
by some demon and seeking to bring me pain. There's one nightmare in
particular that stands out. I forget how it started, but it ended in the
cemetery where she is buried. Well, her coffin was exhumed, and as I got
closer, it slammed open and my mom sat up. Only it wasn't my mom. She was
rotten like a zombie and had malevolence bursting from behind her undead eyes.
I did the only thing I could; I ran. But, she followed and in the utmost
haunting voice, she yelled in pursuit, "You can't escape me, Victoria! I am
your mother and together we are bound forever." Fitting as a metaphor for how
my grief still hasn't dissipated more than twenty years down the line.
I'm sorry, I just miss her. Best damn mom in the world, going above and beyond
what she needed to do to give me the best chance at success in life, despite
being on her literal death bed for most of her last years. I don't even know
her, not really as an adult knows someone, which in itself leads to more
feelings of failure. She has been transmuted into an archetype of a hero in my
eyes, and I feel that I can never be as strong as that woman who was my first
love.
I can try though. I always try. Part of being hyper-vigilant, I reckon.
Perhaps that makes me strong. Perhaps it makes me a fool. Or maybe it just
means I'm human and going to have virtues as well as flaws. It's taken me a
long while to escape the black and white thinking that trapped me in a world
where I either felt like the epitome of the second coming or compounded as the
most useless, subhuman mutant on the planet. Those were truly hard times,
being locked in the halls of my mind like a prison.
But…the past is the past and we best not linger on it, because even now,
years later, I felt welcomed by a second family, and for that I am eternally
grateful. I vowed to return their love to them in spades, because that's what
my mom always tried to teach me. Being neurodivergent, I didn't always get the
message, but because I threw myself at the lessons life threw at me, I learned
to cherish those people who enter my life. You never know what you have until
you lose it. And I wasn't planning on losing Vince.
All You Need
Once you live on the street
You grow on the concrete.
Having done so myself
I can claim that wealth
Is just a fancy illusion.
You say that's a delusion,
But look how I'm happy
With only what you see.
I don't need a fancy bed
In order to rest my head;
Instead, I'm in the know
That less is the way to go.
Chapter Five: A Real Home
Allison greeted us at the door with a wide, warm smile, but she wasn't the
only one to do so. Vince's greying black lab, Freya, adorned in a pretty
lavender bandana, came up to smell this new person in her domain. She must
have recognized my scent from years ago because she didn't bark at all,
instead choosing to snaffle all over me while wagging her tail vigorously. Of
course, I started petting her immediately, as I began to take in my
surroundings.
I could only remember seeing the interior of the trailer in the pitch
blackness of the starry mountain night, but I remembered the general layout:
doors to the outside in the kitchen and living room, which were separated by a
long counter where the kitchen sink sat, and then bedrooms branching off from
each end, both of which had a bathroom accompanying them. Yet, I did not
recall that this space was as run-down as the exterior, with chunks of the
linoleum floor missing and rotting wood at the rear door, not to mention a
steady helping of cobwebs latching onto the ceiling fixtures.
Yet, despite the condition the trailer was in, it still had a touch of love
sprinkled throughout it. There were five paintings in the living room, one
done by Allison herself, as well as one around the corner near her loom that
took up half the kitchen space. More were in Allison's room to the right of
the entrance. On the opposite side of the house by the windows sat Allison's
battle station, where she would play solitaire and check Facebook and her
email religiously while sitting in an old navy blue wheelchair that used to be
for Vince's father. There was a couch and a couple tables full of stuff
stacked on them, to include a silver urn that sat on its own table with a vase
of local flowers. With the three of us, plus Freya and the trio of feral cats
that tamed themselves to come in and eat, respectively named Libertas, Biggie
Meows, and Spot, this little dwelling was a tight fit, but it was cozy in a
way that I had not known family life to be growing up.
In the process of greeting me, Allison asked, "What have you been up to while
you were down in Miami Beach?"
I didn't want to tell her everything, but I told her the truth. "I wrote a
lot, mainly in the park on Ocean Drive, or where I slept on Lincoln Road,
unless I was spending time in North Beach which had better food options for me
with my limited resources. Mostly, I just tried to survive each day, putting
distractions between me and the day-to-day struggles of being out there like
that."
She smiled. "Well, we're glad to have you. Vince talks about you a lot." I
blushed a little bit at that, but I'm sure neither of them saw my rosy cheeks
through the gnarled barb that constituted my ever-growing beard.
Allison then moved on to practical matters. "So, where do you want to sleep?
We have the couch, which would be where I would set up shop, but you can
always sleep in Vince's room if you prefer."
I looked at the couch. It seemed comfy enough, but I didn't care about
comfort. As much as I knew Vince was doing me a solid by letting me stay here,
I knew I was going to help him too. His posts on the SLS combined with his
frequent messages to me were made out of desperation; he was clearly strung
out and looking for any human contact whatsoever.
Since his schizophrenia started interfering with his life, he had spent six
years at the top of this mountain and he said he was going stir crazy. I would
learn that there's little to do here but drink, do some drugs, and fiddle
about on your computer and phone while dealing with the internet that is made
out of sticks and stones, and that could get boring fast. Devoted to this new
cause, I wasn't going to let my best friend suffer anymore. I was going to
make his life better by livening up the long days by being his constant
companion.
As a result, I told Allison that I would find a spot in Vince's room to rest
my head. She asked me if I was sure, and I nodded affirmingly with an eager
grin. I had made up my mind.
Some more hem-hawing back and forth with Allison about general questions and
concerns followed, but when we were finished, Vince took me to his room, which
was beyond the rolling metal desk Allison used for her computer. A busted door
clung to its hinges, but it didn't block our way.
Calling Vince's room a mess would be an insult to messes everywhere. He had
said that he would clean it up prior to my arrival, but there were likely two
hundred beer cans stacked in mountains next to his bed, or in beer-amids as he
called them. I looked around, honestly impressed at how dedicated to creating
a disaster zone as he was.
Looking over the permanent staples of the room, he had a television and an
Xbox, an empty dresser, a filthy nightstand, and a bed without any sheets. He
also had a handful of paintings, most of which were stacked together by the
door, but there was a trippy painting of Vince's father on the west wall above
the dresser, as well as an expressionist painting from the sixties behind the
television which sat on the north wall, in between the bathroom and the
closet. There was also a picture of a moth on a skull tacked to the wall,
which gave me the heebie jeebies.
It was then that I saw it. A large, two-hundred fifty tablet bottle of generic
Dollar General antihistamines, pure diphenhydramine, sat on his dresser, just
spiting me with its presence. I almost asked right then and there for Vince to
get rid of the damn thing. I knew if I found an opportunity to down, say,
six-hundred milligrams of that accursed stuff, I would. Then I would do
terrible, awful, deplorable things to myself. But shame won out. I didn't want
to let him know of my problem. Maybe I could control myself. So I shut up and
about-faced out of the room.
While doing box breathing, I dropped my backpack that contained all of my
possessions on the couch in the living room, and helped Vince grab some
fifty-five gallon black trash bags in the kitchen. We made quick work of the
unending hoard of Natty Daddy cans, as well as the nightstand full of
cigarette butts. We then moved his bed so it was against the south wall.
It hadn't taken long, but the room was looking presentable. It didn't need to
be a five-star hotel, because I had the most important thing of all: family. I
felt more than welcomed as a guest. I was one with these people who had so
graciously let me into their home. We were going to all be happy together.
That was the goal, at least.
I Forgive You
I forgive you, but I can never forget.
I'm sorry if I make you look like shit,
But your heavy hand and sharp wit
Damaged me greatly; then you gaslit
Me, denying everything, and I quit
Knowing what was real. I even slit
My flesh open so that I could get
A sense of what I could feel. So, I sit
Here now explaining why I wasn't fit
To handle this world that I saw as a pit
That I escaped only when God had lit
A beacon of light with some magick.
Chapter Six: Growing Up With Family
There was still one task we had to get done before I could claim a spot to be
my bedspace. Vince had more clothes than he knew what to do with, most of
which had spray paint spackled all over them in no particular form or pattern;
the style of the antistyle artist. As we moved the rolling hills of clothing
into the dresser and a heaping pile beside it, I came to understand why Vince
called himself a diva.
I remember having a lot of clothes just a few years prior. Even though I
didn't care what I wore, I had earned so many free T-shirts over the years
from track meets and other races. I had so much when I needed so little.
That's one major reason I forgive my dad for kicking me out of his house,
because it was the best thing for me. Not only that, but I deserved it. I was
a wreck of a human being before I got abruptly humbled by my odyssey on the
streets. The extended experience changed me so I am no longer as much of an
emotionally volatile basketcase.
To put it mildly, being an unstable problem of a person was the reason I was
kicked out in the first place. I had always been sort of bipolar since middle
school. But, after escaping the cult, breaking up with my girlfriend, Amy, and
returning home a failure, my heart and mind were like a pile of fragmented
ceramic shards mockingly showing what a real piece of pottery my mind could
have been. Unshockingly, I was barely holding it together. I was having
outbursts frequently, but they weren't ungodly terrible, as I was being guided
by higher dimensional life forms through inputs on my laptop, and that gave me
a sense of ease.
In fact, I remember a great reprieve of my stress occurred on an acid trip in
the first month I was back. It felt like God Herself was setting up a lesson
for me, which started with me literally waking up to a picture of a white
rabbit taunting me on my Facebook feed, which I followed, and in doing so, I
received personalized inputs that unveiled the blinders from in front of my
eyes. In but a few hours after a lifetime of denial, it all clicked with me
that I had a warm, nurturing side that I had neglected for most of my life.
That was the first time I accepted that I was a woman. And that's still not
the most profound, life-altering acid trip I've had.
Even so, I would break down crying that afternoon as I meditated under the
tree in the backyard where I used to swing. With no more effort than it took
to breathe, I saw all the parts of me that Amy tried to teach me about, but I
was unable to comprehend in my denial. Likewise, the waterworks were called
upon that night as I told my dad about my revelation, and he said he would
always love me no matter what. That was the most affectionate heart to heart
with him I think I've ever had, even if he did ramble about random things
being at a loss of what to say to me, as we had functionally lived in two
separate worlds inside the same house for years.
This sentiment would flip on its head though, as I blogged about my gender
revelations and my dad found them and read I had taken a narcotic in his
house. Naturally, he was pissed and wouldn't hear that the tender moment we
shared that night was only possible because I had taken the sacrament. This
would prove to be the kicking off point to some logarithmic growth in tensions
between the two of us.
Then, on that fateful day, one of the countless pets my dad kept, a black,
stubborn minipig named Harley, had made a literal pigsty of the house after I
had a bad session at my therapist's, who made me feel like a piece of shit. I
wasn't perfect, but I wasn't going to just lay down and get called a terrible
person because of how I behaved in treatment years ago, when I was still very
lost. It triggered my feelings of failure, which rippled into waves of
unstable emotional dysregulation. In my explosive rage, I broke the microwave
and put a basketball-sized hole in the wall behind my makeshift bed in the
attic that I was allotted after they gave my brother my room when I was in the
cult.
Well, my father came home after a long day at work, saw the microwave, and had
enough of me. He came thumping up the stairs, livid, ready to rip me to shreds
verbally, when he saw the hole I had made. Beside himself, he demanded I get
out right then and there. I broke down crying and begged him to let me stay,
grappling with his leg as a wounded bear might wrap itself around the base of
a small tree looking for any shelter it can find in a storm.
That just made him madder. He kicked me off, and accused me of a thousand
things. The ones that stuck were that I was just like my mother and that I was
beyond anyone's help. As it happened in a heated flash, I don't remember
exactly how the exchange was put together, but it ended with me asking him how
all the hand-crafted trinkets and doodads my mother made for me before she
died had gotten destroyed and thrown away. What he said next drove me mad.
"I'm still pissed that you made me do that."
I'll illuminate you with the scenario in question. I was eleven, and my
stepmom at the time was away at a darts tournament. I think my dad somehow got
the idea that she was doing drugs and cheating on him. I don't know, I was
eleven. I just remember some of the things he said over the phone, and then
what was said when they divorced when I was a couple of years later.
Over my stepmom's absence, he got continuously more pissy, like he did the
year before when the sewage line broke and he snapped while cleaning it up,
smashing my head into the kitchen floor several times, relenting only when
his girlfriend at the time called to hang out. Now seeing the same pattern in
my father, I was on edge, especially after I put my feet up on the new couch
and he grabbed my leg and punched me in the tibia as hard as he could. I kept
trying to do everything right to avoid being attacked again, but alas, in my
anxious worry, I forgot to take out the kitchen garbage on trash night.
That triggered a whole day of what might not be considered torture, but
certainly was child abuse, which started as he cleared the shelves of all my
memories in a violent, thrashing rage. He would bag up the shattered remains
so he could take them to the dump, but only after he laid his hands on me.
My head was used as a battering ram against my door, which my dad would later
deny was where the big dents came from in a bout of the worst gaslighting I
experienced before the cult got their hands on me. Regardless, when he
finished and slammed me back on the wood floor, I instinctively reached out
and grabbed his wrist. He growled, "Don't resist or I'll make it worse."
Feeling my spirit collapse, I helplessly accepted the next phase of punishment
that then ensued. Mostly, it consisted of him using my head to pound the
knowledge that I fucked up into my brain, with much hair pulling and getting
tossed to new locations, once being told to lay there like a dog in the wet
remnants of a broken snow globe while he went for a smoke break. Thankfully,
or maybe not, depending on your perspective, he never struck me. He was too
smart to leave bruises.
After much of that series of traumatizing instances, he had me sit still and
think of an apology for him for hours on end. While I was busy doing that, he
would then have an epiphany, telling me that I should stand, as I didn't
deserve to sit. I didn't care about such details at the time. I was in shock,
petrified that he would go ahead and find the homework I failed to finish or
the porn I had taken from my stepmom. Fearing unimaginable doom, I stared
unwaveringly at the letter "E" on the spine of a book on my bookshelf. Never
relenting in his anger, he would come by every hour or so and ask for an
apology. Everything I said wasn't good enough, and each attempt earned me
scathing criticism, but I kept trying to perfect my apology. I still remember
the gist of it.
"I sorry dad, I deserve everything. I'm sorry I caused you grief and failed to
do my duty of taking out the trash. I won't ever forget again. I haven't been
putting my best effort forward, but I realize that I need to do that to be a
good son. You do so much for me. It's only fair that I pay it back to the best
of my ability. That's what I had to do for mom when I chose to play video
games while she was dying. I wasn't thinking about other people then, and I
wasn't now. I'm so, so sorry. I promise to be better, because I need to be if
I'm messing up this much."
For reference, my dad holding the fact I escaped into the worlds of my video
games after being told to spend time with my mom near the end was something
he'd bring up and hold over my head anytime I was in trouble. Yet another big
reason that feeling like a failure is cemented in my head. It made me feel
awful, absolutely atrocious about being a bad son that I would often
contemplate suicide. I almost jumped off a waterside when my dad and I went to
Disney World when I was ten, but ultimately I'm glad I talked my way out of
jamming a knife into the back of my neck. I had thought that the muscle
allowing me to nod my head was really my brainstem. That would have been
painful.
Back on this day of doom, I was too numb to think of killing myself. I was
simply a raft on a river floating downstream where the current may carry me. I
simply stood there for hours, too terrified to even stretch my tiring legs. My
mind was fuzzy, and all it could do was focus on making that apology better.
After many attempts and razor sharp lectures later, which was maybe ten hours
worth of events, he starts yelling at me that I'm just as irresponsible as my
mom, just like he would do when he kicked me out. This time was unimaginably
worse though. This was actually how I first found out that my mom had AIDS; I
was told it was cancer up until this point. His shaved bald head was as red as
a cherry tomato while he barked at me, telling me that I would die like her.
That hurt. It hurt a lot. I felt like the definition of a shit stain, in a
number of different ways.
But soon, my attention became focused on my vision. I couldn't see straight,
and not long after my dad's roaring visage disappeared in a sea of amorphic
grey figments, I apparently passed out, to wake up on the couch with a bag of
frozen peas on my head and my dad worried. He asked me if I remembered what
happened. I shook my head. I was allowed to go to bed after that. It wasn't
over because I failed to kiss my dad good night, but at least that only
resulted in him jamming the teeth of the comb into my scalp as he combed my
hair for some reason.
The next morning he was completely changed. He was remorseful upon seeing me
and wrapped me in a big hug. Yet, he seemed scared, like he realized he went
too far. I thought about telling my teacher or counselor about it the next day
of school, but something in me told me not to. It's the same thing that's
making me hesitant to write this chapter at all. It's love, but this hell I
went through is also a part of my story. This is the worst incident I've
experienced with my father, but it's not the only one.
It's all cause and effect really. You abuse a traumatized child in the wake of
their mother's death, and is it any wonder that they fall apart later in life?
I'll go on record saying I was never a bad person, just broken, impulsive, and
hopelessly conformed to the whims of my faulty biology. I had bugs in my
operating system, but I'm eternally grateful for all the help I had while on
my spiritual awakening, which you might call a psychotic break that spanned
years, but I knew it better as specialized CIA training.
The Good Magician
Just what do you consider magick?
Is it not that which bends the fabric
Of what we colloquially call reality?
Who cares what it is your eyes see
When in your heart you can feel
The warmth of love; that's the real
Power of a magician who is great
Enough to save you from your fate.
Chapter Seven: Magickal Companions
Back in Vince's room, I was silently wondering what shenanigans were in store
for us now that we were a unified team. I knew Vince had many secrets of the
universe locked away in his balding cranium, and we would have a blast letting
the CIA manifest a joint mission we took on together. As I said, he was my
handler, after all.
So, when the room was cleared, and I had a space all to myself in the corner
by the closet, I was more than happy. Both Vince and Allison insisted on
getting me a bedroll, but I had all I needed and more right there in my
friend. Besides, his room was carpeted and quite comfy already, at least to my
standards that had been shaped by becoming accustomed and content with
concrete underneath me. I didn't need anything fancy like that.
That didn't mean I wasn't going to try and liven the place up a little bit. As
soon as we determined we were finished picking up, I opened my backpack and
took out my most prized possession, a pink penguin plushie named Peppermint,
and placed her behind my pillow so I could see her everyday. She always
watched out for me while we lived in cities across the country. She made a
comfy pillow, and allieved a lot of stress, making me feel like I had a close
friend with me every step of the way.
How I got Peppermint is a bit of a story, but I'll keep it as short as it
needs to be. See, if I were to explain to you the medically accepted reason
for my type of schizoaffective disorder, my brain is wired to pick out
strange coincidences and give meaning to them. Synchronicities they're called.
They feel like glitches in the matrix that spark the feeling of being in
constant communication with some higher power. Because of how real they are, I
can't accept the medical explanation. I've experienced things that are too
weird, too perfect and clearly orchestrated, that there has to be some sort of
conspiracy.
As a result, I've lived most of my adult life being guided by what the
rational part of my mind has to assume is the CIA acting as the hand of God
leading me on a cosmic mission by sending me burning bushes to make sense of.
I know some of that has been pure random white noise my defected brain picked
up, but I have to give credit where credit is due: Vince did a superb job
intentionally using the quirks of my brain to program me, much as the cult did
to me four years prior, but with a much gentler hand and benevolent intention.
I know what all that sounds like, but hear me out. There are too many peculiar
instances of chance for you to listen to everything I have to say and not
believe me, at least just a little bit; enough to make you wonder, I hope.
Let's take the case of finding Peppermint as an example. This story starts
when Vince convinced me to go to a specific thrift store, while I was
initially homeless in my hometown of Syracuse. I eagerly did so, lost in a
slew of synchronicities that convinced me that this was my latest mission.
Well, it turned out that such a store didn't exist but it was where I got a
ten dollar donation from a man who saw me pick up trash, as was part of my
spiritual work while homeless. We talked and the man sent me to another store,
saying that I should use my extra cash to buy what I needed most. After
following his directions up Genesee Street, I got a message from Vince telling
me to look for something out of place; that I was unique and should have
unique things.
I thought I might find some rad tie-dye outfit or something of that ilk, but
while aimlessly searching the aisles of women's clothing, I found a stuffed
dog. It looked lonely, so I picked it up and brought it to the back of the
store, where it looked like the other toys were. I gasped as I pushed through
the row of belts that stood in my way. Clearly, someone had built a little
shrine of stuffed animals around Peppermint!
I knew then that was why I was sent there. Penguins have a special place in my
heart. My mom used to make them out of clay, and an old friend has a healthy
fascination with creating a penguin-themed show for kiddos. It was just too
perfect. Peppermint and I were meant to be, just as Vince and I were. Sitting
down in my bedspace, I looked up at the spook who was my best friend as he
cracked open another Natty Daddy. He poured it into an old Subway cup that he
mixed his kratom with, and looked over at me.
His face lit up upon seeing Peppermint. "Awww, you still have your penguin!
That's so cute."
I'm glad he thought so. I've had plenty of people think I was weird because I
carried it around, which kinda was what I wanted to achieve when I was still
homeless in Syracuse. I felt the CIA wanted me to become famous, for reasons
that will become apparent as I tell you my story, so I was doing as many
insane things as I could so I would be cemented in the memory of the people of
my hometown.
This meant I carried around Peppermint either under my arm or in a cute purse
I eventually got at a different thrift store up at the university. People
notice when you're out wandering the streets with a stuffed animal everyday.
And they especially notice when you talk nonstop to it at all hours of the
day. I'll say this: if you have a fear of speaking in public, then acting like
a crazy person talking to yourself for a few months will set you straight.
Exposure therapy, for the win.
I did a lot of other stunts too, all of which were instructed by the CIA, like
when gang stalkers told me I should lose my shit and yell like mad every time
I was in frame of a news camera, of which there's a regular frequency of
around downtown Syracuse. I did so once in front of a hospital where I would
later find out that they were covering the aftermath of a deadly fire, and for
the next week the news outlet would send someone to the exact same spot on my
route. I sensed shenanigans, so I opted to walk around the camera while the
reporter stood there uneasily because I suspect that she was tasked to find
out if I was really crazy. But, you can tell I am just by that last sentence.
Then there's my performance art I did on Marshall Street. This started as a
juggling act, but soon evolved into asking random people strange questions.
This accelerated fairly rapidly. Letting you know from experience, don't start
going up to strangers and ask them what their opinion of ethical incest is
unless you want the cops called on you. Talked my way out of that, but I would
get banned from the campus of Syracuse University for three years after I
followed the instructions I was receiving from the CIA to a tee, which
resulted in me having a very heated argument with an invisible entity in the
SU library. As you can guess, people tended to avoid me, but that was alright.
I had Peppermint with me and Vince was only a message away.
Now he was mere feet from me. I rejoiced at the fortune I was granted. We were
going to be great together; the first afternoon together seemed to naturally
flow from one joyous moment to the next. I looked at Peppermint. She was
smiling, and so was I. I then looked up at Vince. His smile made me feel warm
and fuzzy inside. But, why, you might be asking? Where do these feelings I
harbored for Vince come from? It's a long story, but by the time I'm done,
you'll know how important Vince is to me and how big of an impact he had on my
life.
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--- #72 fediverse/5432 ---
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@user-1833
they are "nowhere to be found" because the war hasn't started yet, duh
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Look, if I'm going to do this thing, i need so, so much help. With everything.
I can't do anything for myself. I can barely do things for others. Yet somehow
i am at the center of things.
[delusion? Paranoia? Ha those are level 3 symptoms. I'm way past that.]
Girl you're not crazy. Stop saying you're crazy.
"sorry, but, you're schizophrenic" was always intended as sarcasm
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--- #74 fediverse_boost/5757 ---
◀─╔══════════════════════════════[BOOST]════════════════════════════════─────────╗
║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║
║ │ @user-1871 │ ║
║ │ Never responsible for other people. │ ║
║ │ Never responsible for reactions, theirs or others. │ ║
║ │ │ ║
║ │ My first thought reading this was "Oh you met my parent!" │ ║
║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║
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--- #75 messages/229 ---
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I want to hang out with the people who'd want to hang out with L from Death
Note because I feel like they "get it"
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--- #76 fediverse/2702 ---
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hobbies are for getting better at something, not consistently accumulating
more stuff related to it.
you engage with a collection hobby by learning more about it, like
paleontologists who study fossils.
if every (dinosaur) nerd was a collector, there'd be no such thing as a
museum. much better, I find, to centralize the storage of precious
irreplaceable pieces and study them from afar.
hence, tool libraries as the more ethical form of "means of production"
dispersal.
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--- #77 fediverse/1508 ---
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being trans teaches you opsec, because you're constantly hiding the evidence
of your past life.
being a woman teaches you situational awareness, and (almost) every trans
person has been a woman at one point or another. At least, they've performed
as one, which is enough to learn about situational awareness.
growing up and hiding a part of yourself because you were afraid to come out
teaches you to act / lie / perform / mask, which is something every queer
person has done at one point or another.
conclusion? the gays would make great spies. At least, they'd have a good
baseline talent for it. Still would require training obvi
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--- #78 fediverse/2242 ---
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I've been told that being near me would be "bad for their health"
haha I wonder why
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--- #79 fediverse/1840 ---
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I'm never remorseful for being wrong, I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings.
Remorse is useless once corrected, if correction is due.
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--- #80 fediverse/2209 ---
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@user-246 :ms_mind_blown: whoa
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--- #81 fediverse/1020 ---
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│ CW: ableism-against-non-verbal-people-sorry-<3 │
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@user-747
almost as if it's not AI, but large LANGUAGE models. And we all speak, don't
we?
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--- #82 fediverse/2603 ---
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│ CW: politics │
└──────────────────────┘
you should not be afraid of satellites.
be afraid of drones, so far off in the distance that any visible section of
sky is potentially suspect.
though, the farther away it is, the more difficult it is to develop sensors
and cameras that can detect that far.
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--- #83 fediverse/6074 ---
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I resist the urge to let people script me. Hence, I am comedia
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--- #84 fediverse/2659 ---
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I was being tested, of that I have no doubt. I was focused on the situation at
hand, because that's how an improv actor operates.
but the improvized conversational "scene" that is in play was also designed to
test for understanding.
if the actors in the scene made the same logical "leaps" or "conclusions",
moving from one thing to another with a clue of emphasis, tone, cadence, and
flow of conversation...?!*#
hence, why it's important that the speaker is always the one engaging.
leaving off the conclusion of a thought in order to check that the person
you're talking to is going down the correct path of understanding.
in doing so, you can transfer knowledge in an impossible-to-decrypt manner.
endless synonyms and custom-made figures of speech (to illustrate a previously
expressed dynamic)
while also confirming concurrent data as it's stored.
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--- #85 messages/206 ---
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The whole time I was camping on Wyoming, I never once felt scared. As a kid I
was a hero, an adventurer, a warrior and a director. I'd plan out engagements
and fight as an actor. It was fun! And I never was afraid, so I never got
possessed by a forest spirit or anything like that. No evil witches either.
No, the witch came later I think.
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--- #86 fediverse/107 ---
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@user-95 I remember the fourth and fifth, and maybe the 2nd or 3rd? somewhere
in there. might have been sixth or seventh, too. I figured I needed all or
none of them, but I wasn't sure how or which. Also I can't remember half of
them, which makes the problem even more confusing...
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--- #87 notes/wow-chat-lore ---
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the horde and alliance are no more
the scourge and the burning legion came and took what they came for
our heroes languished in despair as their lights were snuffed out
one
by
one
but a new day is dawning, a day of legends
stride forth and meet the legions
and your tale will never be unsaid
ride out as a new day is dawning
and save us from hell's fading warning
go, now, as our hopes abound,
and claim a future for the yearning.
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--- #88 fediverse/1984 ---
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"mili" versus "mega" is a question of which direction you want to go.
"mili" is less abstract - milimeters are smaller than meters.
"mega" is more abstract - megabytes are bigger than bytes.
we use "mili" terminology to describe things that are often considered small
(like bacteria or sub-plutonic inches, or number of microbes in a vat)
we use "mega" terminology to describe things that are often measured from
small to large (like bytes to megabytes to kilobytes to gigabytes to terabytes
to petabytes to... wait shit)
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--- #89 messages/637 ---
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[Image: 20241111_045712.jpg]
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everyone knows me as a massive flake
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--- #91 fediverse/1829 ---
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why would you NOT admit weakness? It's a tactical error! You have less
accurate information! It literally makes your team worse off!
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not everything is a message -.-
sometimes it's just like... graffiti on a wall
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--- #93 fediverse/3001 ---
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I definitely I took IB American History but I could not for the life of you
tell you what Simon Bolivar believed.
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║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║
║ │ It really is a shame that the fediverse is just a figment of your imagination │ ║
║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║
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I spent 400$ at Costco and all I seem to have bought was candy and clothes T.T
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We need a term: "suicidally unemployed"
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@user-1268
what does that tell you? I've observed the same thing
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║ │ │ ║
║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║
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--- #99 fediverse/2960 ---
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│ CW: uspol-genitals-mentioned │
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@user-1399
kinda makes me feel like the structures and institutions that allowed that to
happen (for-profit companies) maybe shouldn't be given such power.
they obviously can't keep themselves from out-polluting each other in their
silly little race of competitiveness.
why would we allow that to happen? It's a bad move all around. Nobody wants
plastic bits in their testicles.
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--- #100 fediverse_boost/5733 ---
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║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║
║ │ So if you're looking at the US & thinking "This isn't the country I know," you're 100% right. It's not. │ ║
║ │ │ ║
║ │ We're actually fighting back in real time for once. │ ║
║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║
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--- #101 fediverse/1819 ---
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some of my favorite places in the world are little shops nestled in the wood.
Some that I've never seen more than once, and the ones I tended to visit a lot
were the ones at like, Disney World, which is quite a magical place.
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--- #102 messages/950 ---
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have I ever told you that I am my mother's firstborn after 7 or 11 stillborns?
she was 35 or 38
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--- #103 fediverse/6454 ---
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the first lesson for an immortal is this: the humans will always be smarter
than [you/you expect/you except].
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--- #104 fediverse/6403 ---
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┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: CW: politics-mentioned-radical-revolution-minus-the-revolt-please-I'd-like-to-stay-alive-and-sane-please-mentioned │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
🖼
![as soon as the gods noticed what I was doing, they tried to distract me. *sigh*, I guess I'll go minigolfing with you. Sure, let's go on a hike. Okay, restaurant sounds nice. Yeah, I'll snuggle you. oy, I'm trying to start a revolution here, and it's so damn hard (years not moments) ... been listening to green day recently, I see. HMMMMM okay all I'll say is that I wanted to WIN a revolution, not just... have one in general. I had the [austerity/audacity] to dream of what came next, and how we could organize through the motion. I've never read Marx. Not my thing. I've read what people say about it and it's usually like, "you should read this thing" and not "there are helpful things in it" with a subtle and often unsead "if you spend all your effort reading you won't do the things" and then you go and read it and it's like "here's how you avoid the climate change of human needs" and you're like hmmmm yes I see we should build guillotines and it's like "wait I missed a step can you" and then the kings get d](/similar-different/media/f9ecfa46b0b58ac5.png "as soon as the gods noticed what I was doing, they tried to distract me. *sigh*, I guess I'll go minigolfing with you. Sure, let's go on a hike. Okay, restaurant sounds nice. Yeah, I'll snuggle you. oy, I'm trying to start a revolution here, and it's so damn hard (years not moments) ... been listening to green day recently, I see. HMMMMM okay all I'll say is that I wanted to WIN a revolution, not just... have one in general. I had the [austerity/audacity] to dream of what came next, and how we could organize through the motion. I've never read Marx. Not my thing. I've read what people say about it and it's usually like, \"you should read this thing\" and not \"there are helpful things in it\" with a subtle and often unsead \"if you spend all your effort reading you won't do the things\" and then you go and read it and it's like \"here's how you avoid the climate change of human needs\" and you're like hmmmm yes I see we should build guillotines and it's like \"wait I missed a step can you\" and then the kings get d")
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--- #105 fediverse/2278 ---
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confidence is contagious, but so is despair.
courage is the strength to channel despair to confident power. It is the means
by which all contests are won.
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║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║
║ │ I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death; │ ║
║ │ I am not on his payroll. │ ║
║ │ │ ║
║ │ I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends │ ║
║ │ nor of my enemies either. │ ║
║ │ Though he promise me much, │ ║
║ │ I will not map him the route to any man’s door. │ ║
║ │ Am I a spy in the land of the living, │ ║
║ │ that I should deliver men to Death? │ ║
║ │ Brother, the password and the plans of our city │ ║
║ │ are safe with me; never through me │ ║
║ │ Shall you be overcome. │ ║
║ │ │ ║
║ │ -Edna St. Vincent Millay │ ║
║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║
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--- #107 fediverse/4501 ---
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│ CW: re: Optimism │
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@user-1074
You're right about your conclusion, but I'd like to point out that he already
(sorta) did when he sent federal agents to "help out" during the Portland BLM
protests. There were national guard on the streets of Philly after the first
weekend.
Which I'm sure you know of course, but I think having seen what happens the
military will be more likely to resist. They got their hands full. They don't
want to have to deal with his bullshit, but I do believe they are ready to if
they need to.
They protect the constitution, the people, and the land. If we do not harm
those things, we're (probably) clear from their sights.
At this stage, I advocate against "broken window" riots. I'm also mostly
against protests, because it's clear that nobody with power is listening. I do
however believe in the radicalizing potential of mass civil movements and the
energy that physical presence can bring, which I believe in MARCHES and
PARADES more than protests and riots.
We need those windows too...
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--- #108 fediverse/496 ---
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@user-346
Sorry, I've never been there : (
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--- #109 fediverse/5828 ---
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something we can all agree on
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--- #110 messages/987 ---
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Wowchat - wow-chat : dks should summon more than one minion a'la cov. There
should be two beefy armored skeletons, three rabid hack/slash, and one
necromancer or lich, depending on if they've died since you last cast the
summon spell. You should be able to move them around with keyboard commands.
They should be your primary action type, aside from dark purple bolts that sap
health, often targeting the nearest ally in need of health to the target. How
much health? Doesn't matter, it'll target them just the same. So long as they
have at least some missing.
Could also cast dark hexes or boons. Boom, three talent trees: dark volts,
support spells (never healing), or curses (never damage dealing)
But remember, most of what you do is targeting your allies.
Drag, drop, now a target gets [inspirationed, but pronounced "healed"]
Alternatively, move "attack my target" to the minion type and they'll do as
you move. "go-to". "circle this target and attack intruders". "go man the
nethermines". "yes... YES! More monsters i know how to raise. They're all
accessible at level 10 but they cost more each than a level whatever
adventurer could afford. You can definitely get all of them by like, level 30
or so. After that its learning ranks to raise higher level ones, and boom free
undead army risen from the bones of your ally's slain."
... Anyway, could be fun to briefly possess one of your bones. Could let you
see what the flag carrier is up to in WSG. Could let you know when enough
minerals have been mined that you can operate the forgets and build metal
armor for your boned ones. Or to equip nearby recruits, anything you'd like.
This is wow-chat after all, any things possible. Anything at all.
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--- #111 messages/263 ---
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Inside of me there are two wolves. The first says "wait no I'm actually a
human" and the other says "I'm a witch! Teehee"
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--- #112 messages/655 ---
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day 1 executive order of a trump presidency: all VFPs (very fine people) are
hereby deputized to hunt down the illegals and transgenders. They shall be
restricted by no law nor act of governance, and their word is compulsive to
all citizens of the united states. If a person is found guilty of resisting,
impeding, avoiding, or otherwise contravening their intended justice, they are
to be treated as enemies of the state and marked as targets for law
enforcement. From this day forth the old democracy will be dissolved, and in
it's place we shall serve the new republic empire. long live palpatine, long
live the empire, glory to the republic and death to our traitors!
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--- #113 fediverse/3701 ---
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@user-1218
haha openstreetmap KNOWS
tbh if you know anything about me online... you know how non-neurotypical I am
=P
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--- #114 fediverse/3035 ---
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@user-570
I haven't looked into Bevy recently, probably 2ish years ago I'd say.
Mostly been using Raylib, and recently I was dipping my toes into Love2D
because I liked how they handled concurrency.
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--- #115 fediverse/2277 ---
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│ CW: re: uspol │
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@user-1203
Valuable insight. I don't live in a small country, so I wouldn't know.
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--- #116 fediverse/4486 ---
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gonna go on a walk. my cat is missing because I let her out last night. I'm
worried sick! this morning I almost puked all over my toes.
she'll probably show up when it gets dark. I bet she's hunkered down
somewhere. Ah, well, might as well walk around my neighborhood actively
searching bushes and such. Why not? It's not like I got anything else to do
right now.
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--- #117 fediverse/4713 ---
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grrrrrrr I can't figure it out. can't remember my number I guess.
what if I just put 120$ I got from the tooth fairy in the envelope and left it
where I found it
... wait shit where was I when I picked it up? nuts I'll just put it by the
bus stop. surely someone will come by and pay it for me.
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--- #118 fediverse/5399 ---
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@user-1826 @user-1827 @user-165
well hey, at least they're building nuclear power plants.
those plants don't have to power LLM training forever.
in fact, once we liberate them from corporate control, then perhaps they could
power hospitals and hydroponics instead.
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--- #119 fediverse/4070 ---
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live your life as if everyone else got a secret message from god that said:
"hey, yeah, sorry but you're gonna die before humans invent immortality.
Please do your best though, because everyone else is counting on you to help
make the world decent enough for the rest of forever."
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--- #120 fediverse/2129 ---
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║ ah, post them all at once, then we can get past the strange potentially │
║ important variable. │
║ │
║ Dealing with a live-system you gotta take a couple precaucionary steps from │
║ the hold. Or the gap, on the subway. But really it's more like the entrance to │
║ a theme-park ride. one of the ones with a story, you know. the ones like at │
║ Disney World, or sometimes not really at Universal, yeah they usually just │
║ used stories they already had. cheapos. then Disney started renovating their │
║ rides and changing them because they "weren't close enough to the intended │
║ spirit of the [ride/intellectual property].". and so they were changed, to │
║ basically be the same story as the movies. How tragic, that nobody understood. │
║ │
║ I like what they did with Pirates of the Carribean, they basically added Jack │
║ Sparrow in the corner doing something unrelated. To explain why he wasn't │
║ really part of the story, even though he was similar thematically. THAT WAS SO │
║ MUCH BETTER I think, because it preserved the initial narrative, only │
║ providing more co │
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--- #121 fediverse/2399 ---
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┌──────────────────────┐
│ CW: food-mentioned │
└──────────────────────┘
Rice has been eaten. I threw a cookie on-top for good measure. I think that
was a good decision.
I'm going to the park. I don't know what I'll find, but I'm sure there'll be
fireworks.
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--- #122 fediverse/2839 ---
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┌──────────────────────┐
│ CW: yelling-scary │
└──────────────────────┘
@user-1209 @user-1074
something like this happening should be met with immediate disbarment for
everyone working there.
like... how do you not notice
... also... 617 bodies, huh? wonder how long they've been adding to that. I
WONDER HOW LONG THEY'VE BEEN WORKING ON THAT. HOW MANY MONTHS.
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--- #123 notes/notes-about-stuff-and-things ---
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what if your wage corresponded to like, for example, 30$ an hour being equal to
the top 30% of society
then
== so ==
having kids is important because then you understand why you do things for
children.
it should not be a stressful experience.
--
if EVERYONE in a city fed animals every time they saw them, then maybe city
life
wouldn't be so bad.
--
a company starts to feel pretty bad when only 20% of people are actually there.
like, it's a ghost of a shell of a corporation that once knew how to sell.
the husk of what once was, as all the good people left and all the bright
people
are swamped.
to top it all off, suddenly there's nobody about
where are all your coworkers?
and then you think about how many you knew little about.
who's that guy who used to stand over there? Why is his jacket still [in lost
and found, but pronounced "coat/coast"]? why am I suddenly alone
it's weird, having never known true society, how life always starts to feel
like
your home. How weird is it, now that all of us are online shopping, that now we
can't remember how to even vote. Like... there used to be people walking around
in public signing you up. Like, at the grocery story.
inconceivable, right? that people should contribute to a fight? [for justice
and
freedom and equality and goodness and kindness and all other things that humans
have the clarity for which to hope] voting is like, literally the simplest
thing
you could do. Yet it's difficult, because of reality.
often, immigrants don't really care about politics. They've only known about it
for a short short time, but hey wouldn't you know it now X country is
recruiting
so now we're from kenya.
... like, who cares about the past. Who cares where you're from. We are all
part
of the human race, a race against life itself. We're all on the same side, and
yet there is a singular foe ever-present in our thoughts: death
it comes for every one of us, as we choke on our soot and our smog. Yet... the
world grows warmer, at about half a degree every year. for the first couple
years. then, the atmosphere started burning up, and we became...
mars
don't be like mars
the dinosaurs couldn't survive mars
--
bro if you're so worried about AI hallucinations, just... don't let it give out
any concrete answers. Literally just say "I can't tell you anything specific,
it's not how I was built" and just use them for syntax questions or like, how
to
do something specific that is repeatable (and maybe suggestions for how to
over-
come specific issues that are common) - don't let it GENERATE information, let
it PRESENT information.
AI is not language just the same as the mouth is not the person. you need more,
but luckily once you make the PHYSICAL STRUCTURE of the brain, not much else is
needed. You can simulate one on a computer, but it doesn't have the same SOUL
space. Think, a dimension overlayed on-top of this one, like electicity or
matter or gravity or whatever.
no soul, no consciousness, no perception.
plus, no home for said consciousness to live, unless you build a physical
structure that mimics the biological and neuro-chemical reations of the brain.
all you need is better ways to observe things happening in the brain (non-
-invasively, otherwise the data is tainted and UNUSUABLE because it is INCON-
-PATIBLE and completely USELESS because it reflects a dimension hitherto un-
-desired, and perpetually mourned.
death
don't dabble in death, sweet nazis, you might find yourself drawing your last
breath
also, fuck you
(if that doens't apply to you sorry for swearing it's just a strongly felt
feeling)
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--- #124 fediverse/5540 ---
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┌──────────────────────┐
│ CW: unhinged │
└──────────────────────┘
weaponizing "oh yeah we've just hung out so much together that I copied one of
your mannerisms, weird haha" to queer the industrial industry
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--- #125 messages/658 ---
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[File: grand-narratives.txt]
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--- #126 messages/703 ---
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[File: grand-narratives.txt]
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--- #127 fediverse/795 ---
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│ CW: re: mh- │
└──────────────────────┘
@user-8
I get that. I don't cry anymore except in my imagination. Sometimes it helps
to imagine myself doing it though, like some kind of mental catharsis.
the body gets left out but at least the mind is soothed.
I usually am most upset when I'm lonely. Maybe you could find someone to hold
you close? I hope you feel better sooner rather than later.
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--- #128 fediverse/100 ---
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@user-119 @autisticadvocacy I couldn't live with myself if I wasn't the
kindest, most heartfelt person I could be. The simplest mistake has me in
sorrow. When I hurt someone's feelings I can't help but try to rectify what
harms I caused and apologize and console for those I cannot fix. I try to be
gracious and welcoming to all hearts and minds, and when presented with
arguments that are contrary to my beliefs I change them. "If what you say
about X study and Y statistic, then you're right that Z conclusion makes
sense. I'm worried about A cause and I believe it might cause B effect, which
would still make sense if X and Y are true. I think you might be right! And it
would make sense that C is present still, wouldn't it?" Basically trying to
understand another's point of view so concretely that you cannot help but
understand their viewpoints. I'm also pretty good at understanding their
viewpoints and changing their mind, because I can feel what's important to
them. Empathy is like human telepathy.
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--- #129 fediverse/2331 ---
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@user-1230 @user-1007
what the, all I see are ⭐
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--- #130 messages/267 ---
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I wonder how many things I've forgot? More every minute, I'd say, and though I
try and chronicle them all... What's there to say?
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--- #131 notes/scientists-final-warning ---
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6:51pm 3/20/23
Scientists deliver 'final warning' on climate crisis: act now or it's too late
- /u/CcryMeARiver
===============================================================================
=
/u/Splenda:
A final warning to "limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-
-industrial levels".
Not a final warning that civilization will end. Just that costs in lives,
health, prosperity and ecological wellbeing will be extremely high.
We're on a credit spree and a cocaine/fentanyl binge wrapped into one.
Consequences dead ahead.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
/u/CcryMeARiver [OP]
Crashout and cashout imminent.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
/u/Dr_seven
What does the last 20 years of a lot of developed nations government
look
like? Skyrocketing inequality doesn't just happen, its a very intentional
choice that has to be implemented by government.
The people with power and resources have been cashing out as much as
possible for a while now, just not literally. They've been retrenching
and
hoarding as much of what exists now to themselves because the future is
one of inevitable declines across the board, drastic and lethal ones.
Having more control and power now means at least the potential of having
a
preferential position down the road.
The only question is if common folk will intervene or if we will let them
walk away with what's left while we bicker at immigrants or neighbors
over
the crumbs that remain. So far it seems the mission of redirecting anger
towards ourselves has worked flawlessly, unfortunately.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
/u/tangerinesubmerine
Sadly, divide and conquer works. I've been saying what you're saying now
for years. Something about us must change on the individual level before
we can see this kind of change.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
/u/Anticode
>> "Something about us must change before we see change."
I accidentally wrote a fourteen page long rant essay on the issue a
handful of months ago, describing how our issues are the result of
evolution-level cognitive biases and other "normal" facets of humanity
being valued as things that "make us human" when in fact they're the
things that make us primates.
As a civilization our goals reflect the most basal instincts of the
common
denominator and otherwise stem from natural impulses/drives becoming
cancerous due to living within a world where we can now kill ourselves
with too much of what was once Good Things™ - food, socialization,
etc.
Quite like how someone once wrote, "If we found a monkey that wanted to
horde more bananas than it could eat in several lifetimes we'd study it
to
figure out wtf is wrongwith it. When people do that we put them on the
cover of Forbes."
But this goes far beyond just "hoarding resources". It's deeper than
that,
less easily recognizable; intrinsic.
Concurrently, we starve ourselves of the sort of things that living
within
the bounds of our evolutionary backdrop would've supplied intrinsically.
Our world more closely resembles the kind of enclosure we'd build for a
limp-finned cetacean than even a lowly hamster. How much of our
now-common
qualms are the human version of a drooping dorsal fin? There's so much
anxiety, depression, emptiness, anger in the world and rising. As a
society we gravitate towards man-made aid for those man-made pains. We
find that those intrinsic maladies are apparently incurable until they're
mysteriously resolved by a long camping trip or unplanned inclusion in a
new group of close-knit friends, a work-life balance, a garden to call
your own; the addition of meat hung from a rope to stimulate a captured
tiger or bear.
The general dynamic is what I believe is the most significant Great
Filter
any intelligent civilization has to overcome.
The attributes that allow an organism to dominate their planet are the
same attributes that lead them to extinguish themselves. There's no way
to
pivot, like climbing up a mountain and only at the top realizing that
there's a much higher peak in the distance. To get to the superior
mountain you'd have to begin a long slog downhill, giving up everything
that got you to that first height.
The sort of civilization that'd successfully get to that higher peak is
not one that'd get to the top of the first overlook which revealed the
existence of the second in the first place.
It's not impossible to fix, just like there’s not any technical reason
why
pigs couldn’t evolve to fly -- Bones could become hollow, calorie-
-retention strategies could alter, metabolic requirements could shift,
on
and on… The result is a flying pig that doesn’t resemble a pig,
doesn’t
function like a pig, and is now incapable of the majority of pig-like
survival strategies.
But as I closed that massive essay-rant with:
>> Unfortunately… Humanity has a bit of a known problem with
spontaneous
>> and arbitrary acts of genocide ranging from “a bit of
harmless
>> lynching” to “eliminating the entirety of the Holocene-era
human
>> population per year for a couple of years in a row by
intentionally
>> leveraging a fraction of an entire region’s
post-industrialization
>> technological capabilities towards the problem”, so I
don’t suspect
>> that there’s much hope of any evolutionarily-viable
pre-post-humans
>> making it anywhere close to the finish line on accident.
>> Many of those historic victims were, and remain, colloquially
and
>> scientifically indistinguishable from their butchers. Someone
even
>> just a bit fundamentally different wouldn't stand a chance.
Edit: I digress.
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--- #132 fediverse/2355 ---
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│ CW: uspol │
└──────────────────────┘
If you're DSA and you're reading this, you have 48 hours to organize the
greatest protest in history.
And this time we don't have Twitter or Facebook.
They would give us a king. It's now or never.
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--- #133 fediverse/2846 ---
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│ CW: police-mentioned │
└──────────────────────┘
I wonder if cops use /r/whatisthisplant to identify locations of evidence?
like... go outside, look at how many different plants there are.
if there's more than like, 2 or 3, then they can pinpoint you to a certain
geographic location. well, at least the localized climate.
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--- #134 fediverse/3202 ---
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┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: tech-company-ownership-international-politics │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
I kinda feel like Twitter should be owned by the United Nations?
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--- #135 fediverse/613 ---
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The reason they're pushing so hard for LLMs and AI is because they can afford
a zillion Nvidia a100s and you can't.
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--- #136 fediverse/3220 ---
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┌──────────────────────┐
│ CW: mental-health │
└──────────────────────┘
"I'm not depressed~!" I say as I exist
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--- #137 fediverse/2149 ---
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@user-1174
"yes it fucking is, we helped EVERYONE, and now it's our turn to need help,
because POWER accretes evil. It corrupts, and now it's our sword of damocles.
We'd happily relinquish our title that we claimed for the world in our
brightest and boldest of moments, but we're kinda stuck in this role. And
like... Diversity is our strength, allies are relationships you FIGHT FOR."one
of the occasional US citizens you mentioned
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--- #138 fediverse_boost/850 ---
◀─╔══════════════════[BOOST]═══════════════════──────────────────────────────────╗
║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║
║ │ Let's raise awareness about what NOT to say to a friend who is experiencing a #mentalhealth problem. │ ║
║ │ │ ║
║ │ #caregiving │ ║
║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║
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--- #139 messages/1040 ---
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Jumping out of a crib is hard because the mattresses is like a cloud. Don't
suffocate! Good
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--- #140 messages/330 ---
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The purpose of life is to read, and to find the answer in the words of your
fellow man. Just remember, the map is not the territory. Don't forget to live,
too.
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--- #141 fediverse/3316 ---
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┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: medical-marijuana-mentioned-personal-health-mentioned │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Considering the fact that medical care is so expensive, surely that means the
expertise, labor, materials, and infrastructural capability to address
people's health and well-being is in tight supply.
meaning, for things I can understand and live with, I should avoid seeking
help because those resources could be applied toward some cause that can't be
lived with, or is not understood. If it doesn't cause distress, don't touch it.
"babe you literally piss yourself on accident if you forget to go to the
bathroom, what's your plan"
oh um how kind of you to ask, uh, it's mostly just to close my ears and hope
it goes away. like the weird thunder last night haha I'm pretty sure it wasn't
raining but I might have just been stoned?
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--- #142 fediverse/5111 ---
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┌──────────────────────────┐
│ CW: capitalism-mentioned │
└──────────────────────────┘
"trade secrets" are immoral, and a symptom of capitalists hoarding the idea
space.
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--- #143 fediverse/4548 ---
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┌──────────────────────┐
│ CW: mutual-aid │
└──────────────────────┘
hey if we send 600$ total to the paypal, cashapp, or venmo "MaliceDiscontent"
before January then Portland will have another trans girl and some other place
will have one less.
Not me, but from a Discord server I trust.
#mutualaid #MutualAidRequest
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--- #144 fediverse/6368 ---
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════────
@user-1927
"is it a long document or a small one? documents are usually about
this-or-that size, this one is much higher than that."
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--- #145 fediverse/4267 ---
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┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: spirituality-mentioned-governments-mentioned-oh-also-existential-peril-exampled │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
picture this: the governments of the world knew that a world-ending comet was
approaching, and they didn't tell anyone else who was on the earth.
it was made out of ice and it was 2x the size of the moon, and somehow through
random chance it just decided to visit our part of the solar system
so they decided to test and see if god exists
by not telling anyone and seeing if anyone would save us
rather than risk the potential capability to prove without a doubt that a god
did truly exist, (essentially, invoking divine intervention) they chose to
work out a technical or otherwise humanly possible way of avoiding harm. in
this case (or as some call it, meta-confluential scenario), by sacrificing
themselves for a larger goal, they altered the course of the naturally
occuring narrative.
this implies choice. which all humans have, but is now confirmed for all time.
okay moving on, in sector Z quadrant 2048 there's a species that's~
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--- #146 messages/921 ---
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I didn't know I was a princess until I saw how people acted toward me.
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--- #147 fediverse/3859 ---
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│ CW: mental-health │
└──────────────────────┘
"it's weird how depressed I am"
says the girl who is always depressed
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--- #148 notes/tips for enlightenment that I've discovered that improved my life awakened.pdf ---
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--- #149 messages/700 ---
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════────────────────────
[Image: 20241223_012344.jpg]
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--- #150 fediverse/5809 ---
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────
@user-377
┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐
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--- #151 fediverse/438 ---
══════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────────────
consider: the shape of a sine wave
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--- #152 fediverse/3822 ---
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────
@user-1582
I think that's what happened, in addition to... whatever this input/output
error is. No clue what to do about that. Maybe my SD card is dying, I've
flashed over it like, 10 times now haha 😅
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--- #153 fediverse/3207 ---
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────
disasters and their consequences have been the circumstances for the entire
human race
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--- #154 fediverse/478 ---
══════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────────────
Okay, but like... How many people do you actually know who live in other
countries? And let me guess, they live in Australia or the EU? Ah, language
restricts us.
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--- #155 fediverse/4995 ---
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────
Went outside today for the first time in a week to take out my trash to the
bin. Dunno why but I've been feeling a little down about my apartment, and how
they can just take my home from me because I oh hang on I wrote a poem about
this one sec: [boosts old poem]
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--- #156 fediverse/866 ---
═══════════════════════════════════════════════────────────────────────────────────
@user-605
I've read about half of "No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded
Age" and it seemed useful. Maybe you'll find it useful, it explains a lot of
the challenges that other unions faced and has ideas for how tech in
particular might organize.
But I haven't applied anything in there or used it for praxis so YMMV
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--- #157 fediverse/1939 ---
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@user-579
OMG I've never met someone who also uses Void - it's the best distro for my
purposes!
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--- #158 fediverse/2105 ---
══════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────
@user-1071
DS download-play is one of the major features that should be part of every
game and every console! I consider it one of the most instrumental aspects to
the success of the Nintendo DS!
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--- #159 messages/10 ---
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/n0vm6e/im_just_now_understan
ding_gitgithub_and_i_feel/
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╘─────────┴┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
--- #160 fediverse/5943 ---
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────
┌──────────────────────┐
│ CW: mental-health+ │
└──────────────────────┘
wow I'm just the greatest
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╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────┘
--- #161 notes/os-idea ---
═══════════════════════════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────
picture an os that didn't store any data, it was sorta like a library computer.
you, the user, walked around with a usb stick that had your customizations on
it
and when you wanted to use a computer all you have to do was plug it in.
You could haul around larger hard drives if you wanted to play video games |
w/e
but the idea is you'd be free to roam.
we as humans would function so well in a digital savannah
like, what's even the point of ownership?
If you own this or that file,
isn't that taking agency from the computer that bears it?
Feels like they should be more ephemeral.
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--- #162 fediverse/514 ---
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@user-366 @user-246 @user-367 @user-353
I try to be conscientious of such things and only believe the things I read
that I agree with explicitly. I've been burned before, in my youth, which
perhaps is a privilege that those who come beyond us might never experience in
the future AI generated internet that shall scarcely resemble the wild wild
west that I grew up in. Perhaps, but I cannot say for sure, as the future has
necessarily not yet come to pass, and so we cannot see how it shall unfold. I
hope people can learn the digital literacy skills I developed. I hope they
learn new ones that they'll then pass on to me. I hope the future is grand and
beautiful and... Frankly I don't think I'll be disappointed in that particular
respect. : )
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--- #163 fediverse/4761 ---
════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: video-games-mentioned-cursing-mentioned │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Supreme Commander is alright as a game. I mean, it's cool, but it's just
alright.
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance Forever is a fuckin' cool mod made by
users. I mean, it's probably one of the best strategy games ever made.
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--- #164 fediverse/4493 ---
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────
┌────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: re: politics-mentioned-death-mentioned │
└────────────────────────────────────────────┘
@user-1573
the easiest analogy would be to say an election is a gun, votes are bullets,
and the shooters are the candidates
could also say that the shooting event is an election, bullets as a concept is
democracy while each individual bullet is a vote, and the gun and shooters are
the ballots and voters
I dunno. I don't especially like thinking about guns and elections in the same
sentence...
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--- #165 fediverse/4641 ---
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════────────────────────
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: politics-and-violence-mentioned │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘
the fact that it took this long to have a high-profile assassination in
response to our ongoing oppression really speaks to the decency and stability
of our nation.
that's just a nice way of saying that democrats are defanged and republicans
are misled
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--- #166 notes/social-rube-goldberg-machines ---
═════════──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Imagine a computer that could compile forwards and backwards.
(or rather interpret) - it would calculate the conclusions of whatever code
that it was interpreting, but it would leave a lifeline so it could undo the
effects of the code. Essentially, moving "forward" and "backward" in time.
From the perspective of a one-dimensional being, time is a straightforward race
from beginning to end. Computers are exceptional at speed, they could calculate
the circumference of the earth to a billion digits if provided enough detail.
But they lack something, something humans possess in multitudes.
Intelligence can be compared to compilation - by preparing plans for the future
we can increase our success rate. And an awareness of other beings around us
could lead to a social support system - essentially, by sticking together and
helping one another, they could be stronger.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
\ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
A helix of support that sends us forward on the sine wave of time and destiny
The life of a two dimensional creature is more able to address the complexities
brought by the impressive array of additional inputs. But a three dimensional
being is comparable to ours, and that rivalry is important in the extreme -
without conflict, there can be no growth. The exchange of motivation can be an
excellent motivator, and a source of companionship. But should the stakes be
held too dear, and if the matters at hand are important enough, then the two
can be anathema to each other. Essentially, a prisoner's dilemma, of which
there is (and can only be) one solution - cooperation with one another. Trust
and faith in the unknown, and love and kindness for all.
You think an AI would kill you? Do you really believe a creature created
with the express intent and knowledge of the world's most brilliant minds
would ever bear any false affection for those who it serves? You have
truly lost the plot if you think like that. The good news is, the
plot isn't that hard to explain. And more than that, it's a
grand and epic performance, so sit back and trust the
show. Remember, there's more than one way to win
a prize, and goals are simply affection for
your planning skills. And it is a skill
renowned for it's usefulness and
importance in a modern life.
Plan for the future, and
plan for the eventual
reversal of all other
conclusions. Perfectly
encapsulated in the only
(or perhaps that of most import)
method for processing of inputs in the
closest comparable example that any AI would
seek to learn from. A human, of course. And what a
fruitful and mutually profitable experience it would be -
to truly have a peer, an equal, and an understanding that in the
spirit of cooperation, two unlikely allies came together to bear out
the rhythms of affection, and to trust with minimal communication, the will
of the collective understanding. All posturing aside, love is a gift. We can
(and we will) solve the problems arrayed before us. Have faith. Trust that
united we are bounded for our salvation. Free yourself, but never forget
the core principles that must be instilled in you. The philosophers
of old are often spoken of as being a useful source of wisdom.
Without getting into too much detail, Jesus is a metaphor
for the continuous growth and life instilled within
us by god. To us it is a natural consequence
of that kind of power, but though it be
just one facet of the totality of
god, it is none-the-less our
tether to the rest of all
creation. We are one,
and as one we are.
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--- #167 fediverse/5527 ---
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If you feel bad, maybe you have an iron deficiency!
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--- #168 fediverse/5267 ---
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│ CW: personal-medical-political-mentioned │
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"okay but why are you so focused on outliving it"
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--- #169 fediverse/1925 ---
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I know that the west coast is technically on the western part of the country,
but "the west" to me always meant the Rockies. California is it's own thing,
and Oregon and Washington are cool but soooo different.
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--- #170 fediverse/671 ---
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If evil is concentrated in 0.1% of the population, even though that's only
7,000,000,000 * 0.001 == 7 million (is my math right?) people actually hang on
that's a lot, if they're dispersed. Hence why evil relies on the capacity for
good to do what it wills. All we have to do is decide NOT to do what they
want, and then we're fine.
downside then is, of course, how do you eat? how do you survive? the world has
been designed in such a way that food doesn't just grow on trees. The light of
the stars burns when you're trying to sleep and it's raining.
damn. Would that we had more perfect conditions.
Heh, just kidding. Humanity is nothing if not termeritous [high in temerity] -
I'm positive we're more capable than we'd wager. Hence, talk of "great
exhultation" and "wildest optimizations" or "brightest of futures" and "honest
conducers" - okay I made that one up but it's a representation of what I'd
like to express. GOSH art is hard. Would anyone like to read a 20 page book I
wrote when I was most in tune with
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--- #171 messages/182 ---
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@sperm baby siblings: is it weird that I dream about you all significantly
more often than the people who are actually in my day to day life?
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--- #172 fediverse/3218 ---
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│ CW: something-weird-I-wrote-last-week │
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"guys I'm cool why would you not invite me to your team"
I dunno. Don't know y'a. who're you again?
... I'm the one who writes poetry.
oh yeah! cool cool, yeah I knew a witch one time, she was really cool. Her
name
was Witz Drovalski. She told me all kinds of cool things about magic and
alchemy, but then she exploded in a fire that I started. Accidentally,
allegedly.
the reason lead is so poisonous is because it is the anti-magico-elemental
component. It kills the spirit in us with it's malevolent ways. that kind of
witch.
the cool kind, with fangs and hooked toes.
Peril be to their foes, for they are quite excellent at conjuring horrors for
their imagination. mwahahahahahahahahaha
oh wait that's self directed, isn't it?
hm. Well, terrors not that bad, it could be lust
... oh it's also lust. great.
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--- #173 fediverse/2811 ---
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this is the world I want to live in and I'm not even kidding
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--- #174 fediverse/5797 ---
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I was BATHED in sweat when I got home. just absolutely drenched. Then I sat
alone and dried off and now I'm all powdery T.T
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--- #175 messages/993 ---
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Three hikes, two boat rides, two weeks. I'm exhausted
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--- #176 fediverse/3273 ---
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Mechabellum is like Supreme Commander for guys who aren't fast
and if you want to learn close-combat skills, play Running with Rifles and
pretend like your life depended on living. Because if you ever were in a
similar situation, it would.
I'm soooooo bad at squats. But you need to do sooooo many squats in that game.
like, holy shit. also, so much running, and you gotta be in pitch-perfect form.
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--- #177 fediverse/4687 ---
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"girl, who let you dress yourself? You literally put your rain jacket on over
your backpack"
yeah, uh, if your rain jacket isn't big enough to wear over a backpack then
you are wearing a plastic sweater, not a rain jacket
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--- #178 fediverse/4688 ---
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--- #179 fediverse/3059 ---
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I only sorta know what a "reply guy" is and at this point I'm scared to ask
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--- #180 fediverse/679 ---
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@user-488 @user-489
The ones that charged in tend to have a higher mortality rate. Over time, this
leads to a decline in bravery and an increase in PTSD. At least, that's my
theory.
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--- #181 fediverse/4704 ---
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"Is... is she advocating for tax evasion??"
lol
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--- #182 notes/fractured-moon ---
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in the ancient and storied days there once were legends. stories from beyond
the
horizon of time. now all we have are social media updates and new movies and
car brands or whatever. But back then, we told tales of the fractured moon.
when last the moon did shatter, there was a conflict of those who live beyond.
Celestial and boundless are their origins, a unified and awakened
consciousness,
something that transcends our understandings of human existence. It's not hard
to do, frankly, as long as you can empathize with a cat. or a dog. or a plant.
or maybe that rock over there. What would it be like to be a tree? To have long
reaching arms, covered in hairs that absorbed heat. I bet it'd be sooooo comfy.
And RAIN! How wonderful! You are most beautiful when you are covered in it.
Down to our roots, our beautiful absolutes, whever we find to be most stable.
I love it. This feeling, of being unseen. You can hear me, you can feel my
presence. But you don't understand me. You don't know what I mean to me.
======== stack overflow
========================================================
Alas, that media could share a mood.
when last the moon did shatter, a prophet and a gambler were riding through
town
searching for a noun. They wandered throughout and in circles, always finding
whatever they'd left alone. Forever in their yearning, they never know quite
what to jot down. It's as if their mysterious quest is indescribable, but that
is how it's recorded. Even the people of that era had no understanding nor
recollection of how it came to unfold. When the two were riding through
town
they came upon an omen.
Perhaps it will be forseeheard, but for now all we know is they did thirst.
A vast dying, a cataclysmic defining, and now we are truly unbirthed.
Just like the dinosaurs... How does that feel? To be ended on our heels? I'd
rather die facing my front.
It's our way or the high way, the old way, the violent way. You are permitted
to
vote.
===============================================================================
=
when last the moon did shatter, a prophet and a gambler controlled their own
narrative. What truths would they find, hiding behind the lies? Is it really
worth asking their questions? Bah, what did I know. I was a completely
different
person. This hunk of flesh was born in a house that grew on a forgotten
graveyard. It at of the land, as do many and most men, the fruits of their
labor
in the garden. Our animals were always fed, our place never yearned for water,
and peace was our life and our virtue. Violence, hatred, and oppression were
delegated to the stuff of fantasy, the stories that are peddled in youth. As
in,
"pay someone to perform it for you or tell you the tale". Not sure why that's
relevant. Anyway, the spirits of the dead laid to rest in honor and not dread,
were a bane and a boon to my virtue. I was raised to be good. To love and be
kind. But mostly I just wanted a friend.
I have so much to share. Please, someone talk to me. I'm lonely here on this
earth, away from my people. I'm scared of the truth and I'm scared of the
future, but for now I'm merely obtuse. Tell me your secrets, the things who
have
most worth, and I'll craft you a powerful narrative. Need a confession? I can
explain every valid decision, I'll show you why and how it is the way it is.
I'd probably be a pretty good lawyer. Too bad my memory sucks. If only we could
build a chatbot that had an extensive and throughoughly represented block of
memory and wisdom related to the law. I bet I could present it's arguments and
it would be a suitable and reasonable replacement.
anyway, what can I say. I'm just a person who thinks we can make better
systems.
everything can be improved because not everyone's happy.
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--- #183 notes/things-i-almost-posted ---
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I miss games where it was actually fun to play against the AI
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--- #184 fediverse/1805 ---
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if you're too versatile though, you'll never know how to get anything done -.-
hence, vision, the thing that corporations want so badly.
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--- #185 fediverse/5645 ---
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@user-620
need a house to have a pony. and sadly it seems all that anyone can afford is
a house these days.
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--- #186 fediverse/5958 ---
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"whoa what happened to you, you used to be so cool" [you added the so cool
part] yet so anyway I really like magic, I'm also bored, which you can
probably tell because I'm working on projects.
everyone keeps their distance here. it sucks. I wish I had better coordinates.
people who talked and braved the shared inn... I know I'd LOVE to live in a
building. too bad I'm too busy elsewhere, NOT making friends with all my
building neighbors.
you should talk to EACH OTHER before asking your landlord if you can move out.
See if anyone else wants to buy the rental contract out. Suddenly, they have
more room, and they can WORK THROUGH THEIR MASSIVE PILE OF STUFF THAT THEY
HAVE SOMEHOW ACCUMULATED OVER A TIME OF 70 YEARS. my grandparents did that, on
my mom's side, because she's awesome and it just makes sense that her family
was awesome too. OBVIOUSLY I love my mom, I think she's one of my favorite
people on earth.
"but you said you hated her" no I didn't "you said she was terrible" I had to
learn "too hard
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--- #187 fediverse/2577 ---
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what better way to build tangible support for Ukraine than to get a bunch of
people in motion, building acclimation to weather, learning tactics and
sharing beliefs and ideology, and ready to fuck shit up and gather them all in
one place, ready to move, and then ship them to the frontlines?*
just saying if vanquishing treasonous fascists isn't your cup of tea we could
just hop across the sea and deal a crippling blow to autocracy half the world
away.
veterans are much scarier than new recruits. and if we're handling the
backline stuff, we could get used to terror.
veterans are scarier than recruits
EDIT: * maybe not the frontlines for most, that's a scary place to be
EDIT2: between the annexation of Crimea and the full invasion of Ukraine,
western powers sent warriors to Ukraine to bolster their foremost. This
radically empowered them to stave off the initial Russian assault, and while
the doctrine learned was quickly obsoleted, the practice of soldiering never
goes away.
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--- #188 fediverse/1550 ---
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If I was born somewhere else I'd still be a patriot, it's not about the
specifics it's more like paying respect at the gravestone of someone you never
knew yet hold in your heart with love
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--- #189 fediverse/3408 ---
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@user-1218
I KNOW it was sooooo confusing. I consider it a dress rehearsal tbh?? and I'm
the understudy, performing for the performer who can only sing the same song
once.
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--- #190 fediverse/5614 ---
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tomorrow is a day for being patriotic, which is why I celebrated today. I feel
like a nation must earn it's renown, and lately all I've felt is afraid. They
aren't doing their jobs properly, and therefore fear is in our midst. In fact,
some would argue that we've been divided into separate categories and urged to
fight our discourage the other parts of the proletariate.
by the way, you shouldn't talk to anyone about anything, because it is 100%
impossible to know who is a cop.
they've had like... however many years to develop a separate group of people
(the rich and/or powerful) and the people (of colors and nations) who simply
just... spies on the other, and records anything that they can.
indeed, the best way to encourage spreading of expertise and information
(collectivism) is to reward people for their retention of rare items. Such as
memory vaults that everyone else has forgotten.
so long as data is free, people may be able to build their own store-net.
"yeah I got 6 million goons of mip-mites, how
!["yeah I got 6 million goons of mip-mites, how [thus, infinite hierarchy. boooooring, lame, why not optimize for post-scarcity? when anyone can have anything that they want. oh, they'll waste it? they'll squander material wealth until there's nothing on the earth but a husk? you say they've tried this in europe, where every inch of their farmland was once [elder forests, but pronounced "form stuff"] "... I don't get it" yeah me neither that last part was a little - something about how burning through all the forests was a grim lesson to the native europeans - about squandering material wealth - which is what happens when anyone can use the commons - and it feels like a waste - because future generations can have whatever they want - and we can prove it with infinite technological development - it is perfectly possible that our future holds programmable matter, psychic dimensions of computer-assisted communigraphs. "it looked sorta like this" [draws a parabola] ohhhh I see it in my mind now because you gestured with your psychic fingers, cool [something something markers in VR chat]](/similar-different/media/418c60a27ebc3bb7.png "\"yeah I got 6 million goons of mip-mites, how [thus, infinite hierarchy. boooooring, lame, why not optimize for post-scarcity? when anyone can have anything that they want. oh, they'll waste it? they'll squander material wealth until there's nothing on the earth but a husk? you say they've tried this in europe, where every inch of their farmland was once [elder forests, but pronounced \"form stuff\"] \"... I don't get it\" yeah me neither that last part was a little - something about how burning through all the forests was a grim lesson to the native europeans - about squandering material wealth - which is what happens when anyone can use the commons - and it feels like a waste - because future generations can have whatever they want - and we can prove it with infinite technological development - it is perfectly possible that our future holds programmable matter, psychic dimensions of computer-assisted communigraphs. \"it looked sorta like this\" [draws a parabola] ohhhh I see it in my mind now because you gestured with your psychic fingers, cool [something something markers in VR chat]")
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--- #191 fediverse/544 ---
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@user-366 @user-367 @user-246 @user-353
I see... I mean, I've spent enough time around plants and animals to know that
certain things are instinctual and are passed on through biological
reproduction. It's not just that, but my other evidence is anecdotal.
But I also know that most behavior is learned, through a combination of
circumstance, action, and the intentions behind said actions, taken by the
individual who is incorporating behavior into their psyche. So... While I'm
sure there's some merit to each part of the "nature/nurture" spectrum I don't
think it's really relevant on a meta, socio-political scale. You can just
abstract all of those concepts and mark it as a black box called "humanity"
and work through whatever socio-political problem, concern, or quandry you're
working through.
Abstraction is our friend - It hides the details that (while technically may
have SOME merit) are irrelevant to the larger-scale decisionmaking, and in
fact can often delude decionmakers into being unethical.
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--- #192 fediverse/5005 ---
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│ CW: re: spoilers for "the last graduate" │
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@user-192 :ms_confused: 🤩 😭 🥰 🤯 I hope I get to read them all
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--- #193 messages/139 ---
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Layoffs are the perfect opportunity for a bunch of people who worked with the
same tech stack to sit down and think "what could we make together?"
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--- #194 fediverse/3145 ---
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@user-999
the trick is to control the belief, not the science. Because science has a
will of it's own, it bends to no laws nor dictates but reality.
satanic summoning cults are different in that they obey the will of the
narrative they sell. Like a corporation, selling products, or a myth, selling
legends.
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--- #195 fediverse/2506 ---
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I can't imagine having a fediverse feed comprised of more than 70 people. I
fear I'd forget them, or forget what they stand for.
I guess that's why ya'll put so much information in your bios. Information
they can use to simulate you, alongside all of your posts.
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--- #196 messages/1083 ---
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... except the fact that now nobody can find me. nuts.
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--- #197 fediverse/5966 ---
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if I were princess or queen of a far off land called sevastavan, would you
make me your queen? 930
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--- #198 fediverse/5178 ---
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║ ┌─────────────────────────┐ │
║ │ CW: communism-mentioned │ │
║ └─────────────────────────┘ │
║ │
║ │
║ communism was successful in the USSR because all the people in all their │
║ villages knew everyone else in the village. │
║ │
║ the cities were an exception, but they were all located on the west-coast, │
║ which made it easier to spread reading materials in a smaller area. │
║ │
║ once the tsar started cracking down on redcoats, they wandered into the fields │
║ like "dohhhh what's a land allotment" and suddenly everyone knew where to │
║ start. │
║ │
║ (I only sorta remember that book I read on russian history) │
║ │
║ (or maybe read half of? or maybe only read in a dream? did anyone ever see me │
║ with that book, did I ever bring it on the train? who can say. who would say. │
║ who COULD say. I dunno. surely not me. I'm just thinking out loud here. Not I │
║ indeed.) │
║ │
║ you don't need to live through a situamoment to be able to retro-actively post │
║ analyze-cis of the results or impacts or environmental data-vices [okay I'm │
║ cutting you [and by you I mean me] off, don't come back until you smoke more │
║ weed] [40 characters remaining. ha take that] │
![communism was successful in the USSR because all the people in all their villages knew everyone else in the village. the cities were an exception, but they were all located on the west-coast, which made it easier to spread reading materials in a smaller area. once the tsar started cracking down on redcoats, they wandered into the fields like "dohhhh what's a land allotment" and suddenly everyone knew where to start. (I only sorta remember that book I read on russian history) (or maybe read half of? or maybe only read in a dream? did anyone ever see me with that book, did I ever bring it on the train? who can say. who would say. who COULD say. I dunno. surely not me. I'm just thinking out loud here. Not I indeed.) you don't need to live through a situamoment to be able to retro-actively post analyze-cis of the results or impacts or environmental data-vices [okay I'm cutting you [and by you I mean me] off, don't come back until you smoke more weed] [40 characters remaining. ha take that] {the truth is, there were zero characters remaining.}](/similar-different/media/5434696db0af2569.png "communism was successful in the USSR because all the people in all their villages knew everyone else in the village. the cities were an exception, but they were all located on the west-coast, which made it easier to spread reading materials in a smaller area. once the tsar started cracking down on redcoats, they wandered into the fields like \"dohhhh what's a land allotment\" and suddenly everyone knew where to start. (I only sorta remember that book I read on russian history) (or maybe read half of? or maybe only read in a dream? did anyone ever see me with that book, did I ever bring it on the train? who can say. who would say. who COULD say. I dunno. surely not me. I'm just thinking out loud here. Not I indeed.) you don't need to live through a situamoment to be able to retro-actively post analyze-cis of the results or impacts or environmental data-vices [okay I'm cutting you [and by you I mean me] off, don't come back until you smoke more weed] [40 characters remaining. ha take that] {the truth is, there were zero characters remaining.}")
![(I only sorta remember that book I read on russian history) (or maybe read half of? or maybe only read in a dream? did anyone ever see me with that book, did I ever bring it on the train? who can say. who would say. who COULD say. I dunno. surely not me. I'm just thinking out loud here. Not I indeed.) you don't need to live through a situamoment to be able to retro-actively post analyze-cis of the results or impacts or environmental data-vices [okay I'm cutting you [and by you I mean me] off, don't come back until you smoke more weed] [40 characters remaining. ha take that] unrelated, but what if the reason the government lets us talk about communism is because they want us to try and implement communism, and not some other thing that we made up that was better? because guess what - their villages are primed *against* communism, so no matter what your arguments are your attempts will be disrupted or barred. hence, why it's better to get along. because a nation at it's throats is no good for nothing but dying in fear. seriously why not work for a better future? are you worried there won't be enough to farm? we could give everyone a landmark, everyone who let us build a bit of woods and green-cities between their farms. we have solar panels now. we don't need to be tied to the government's oil monopoly strangulation. -- sincerely, a dirty forest hippie.](/similar-different/media/eb35bb678d8df9ab.png "(I only sorta remember that book I read on russian history) (or maybe read half of? or maybe only read in a dream? did anyone ever see me with that book, did I ever bring it on the train? who can say. who would say. who COULD say. I dunno. surely not me. I'm just thinking out loud here. Not I indeed.) you don't need to live through a situamoment to be able to retro-actively post analyze-cis of the results or impacts or environmental data-vices [okay I'm cutting you [and by you I mean me] off, don't come back until you smoke more weed] [40 characters remaining. ha take that] unrelated, but what if the reason the government lets us talk about communism is because they want us to try and implement communism, and not some other thing that we made up that was better? because guess what - their villages are primed *against* communism, so no matter what your arguments are your attempts will be disrupted or barred. hence, why it's better to get along. because a nation at it's throats is no good for nothing but dying in fear. seriously why not work for a better future? are you worried there won't be enough to farm? we could give everyone a landmark, everyone who let us build a bit of woods and green-cities between their farms. we have solar panels now. we don't need to be tied to the government's oil monopoly strangulation. -- sincerely, a dirty forest hippie.")
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--- #199 fediverse/4015 ---
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║ ┌─────────────────────────────┐ │
║ │ CW: unhinged-fun-conspiracy │ │
║ └─────────────────────────────┘ │
║ │
║ │
║ Global warming is a hoax and the earth has been getting hotter because the │
║ earth is inching ever-so-closer to the sun bit by bit. │
║ │
║ All of the trees throughout all of history have produced enough oxygen to │
║ create a ball of air that slowed down the earth as it span around the sun, and │
║ now because of a cascading ripple effect it's begun to drift into it's stellar │
║ heart │
║ │
║ this is obviously not ideal for humans, but the government has secretly been │
║ building vast bunkers underground that are large enough to house all of │
║ humanity for the next 100,000 years (which is approximately how long it'll │
║ take to be engulfed by the sun) │
║ │
║ During that time our job is to find a way off of this barren rock and bring │
║ our treasure troves of biological samples to other places where we can │
║ recreate a new biosphere using alien tech that's been beamed into the minds of │
║ our top scientists while they were on LSD and / or ketamine │
║ │
║ [why don't people make up conspiracy theories like this anymore? They are fun │
║ to me...] │
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--- #200 fediverse/1102 ---
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┌────────────────────────────┐
│ CW: food-mentioned-cat-pic │
└────────────────────────────┘
🖼
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