=== ANCHOR POEM === ════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────── 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. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────────┘ === SIMILARITY RANKED === --- #1 fediverse/3830 --- ╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────┐ ║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ║ │ CW: dreams-mentioned-death-mentioned-weirdly-medieval-violence-mention │ │ ║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ ║ │ ║ │ ║ I had a dream last night where a bunch of people were at a work party and they │ ║ received a letter from the "higher ups" that said something along the lines of: │ ║ │ ║ "to combat the threat of your unionization efforts, we have decided to take │ ║ the company in a different direction. We've rebranded ourselves as a company │ ║ by and for [alt-right cis dude-bros] and everyone who doesn't fit in will be │ ║ given increasingly difficult workloads until they quit, because we don't want │ ║ you around. │ ║ │ ║ In addition, our long-term vision statement has changed toward our ultimate │ ║ goal of cloning famous sith lords from history (starting with Count Dooku) and │ ║ working to build a new empire of the darkside. We look forward to working with │ ║ you in the future. Sincerely, your bosses." │ ║ │ ║ they went to the boss who wrote it and said "is this real or a joke" and he │ ║ said it was real, so then like 6 people took out battleaxes and fucking │ ║ murdered him in cold blood. │ ║ │ ║ ... Dreams are weird. │ ╟─────────┐ ┌───────────┤ ║ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╚═════════╧═════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────┴──────────┘ --- #2 messages/1265 --- ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════── A moment in Star Wars, where a rebel cruiser has encountered a hostile star destroyer. Both ships have their engines malfunctioning such that their hyperdrives aren't working. Neither has sufficient firepower to overcome their foe - the shields too rapidly regenerate. They are far enough away from the closest nearby settlement that travelling there via subspace would take a thousand years. Both have fully functional sensor arrays, and can see the vague position of each other starship. Both are within comms range. They hail each other. 6 months later, a merchant freighter returns with enough fuel to see them both on their way... It returns to find both ships, floating in orbit, weapons down. Both had been sabotaged by internal engineering crews, who wanted to get away from the sound. Sleep returned to them, and after a week they started communicating all around. Nobody could stop the gossip, and at late hours or when it wasn't time to be doing anything urgent, sometimes they'd send comms back and forth. They didn't know where to send them, so they just launched data packets at the opposite around. [ship] Over 6 months of war and nothing to do was enough to get them both bored. So, they started striking up conversation. "hey, what's it like from your world?" "oh, it's just all of the same." "heh, coruscant? I once got lost in there and thought i was gonna die." "oh, that's a story. Lies." "what? Why would i lie to you?" "... I shall consult with my superiors." One month later, the superiors turn them back on. They had gotten bored too. After a while, each ship was abuzz with conversation. Who knew? People have stuff in common. Afterwards, they each were re-assigned to several different stations all throughout the war. Maybe nothing came of it. Or maybe it was a guarantee to the end of war. Either way, it was a blessing. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─┘ --- #3 notes/one-day --- ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────── one day, a man came to our saloon. He said he knew the navy, and that they wanted to provide air support in the form of rocketball-launched explosion doohickeys. Would you have a foe in mind? what happens when tomorrow you're cooking briskets? -- barbeques are a type of relaxation that happened just one day to a port-sided town that suddenly was the capital of an embassy. "hey, so... how's it goin?" "quick here take this envelope, read it if you want, but just hold onto it for now I don't have enough hands [to carry]" "what sort of desperation plot... wait... hang on, I see something here that is true." [I'm praying, right now, which is a form of reciprocal belief] they wanted to test god's existence at the stake of earth's survival, how brutal how insane you can't play chicken with an imperceptibility, sometimes you feel it at face. channeling dark magics, and at this hour? what sort of skeptic of belief are you thinking of when you think about me? one way to get power is to "prove it" one way to get magic is to "prove it" think, hard, at all that you can, and use what you need in the moment. that's all there is to life. it's easy. it's simple. in fact, biology only works because the choices available to a bacteria are so simple, they are essentially chemical reactions to each other's co - sequent - inter - cooper - actions. people's choices are much more naiive, "I want this thing" "I think this is better" "I feel this way toward this thing" "Here's what's on the mind-logbook" "people search and be decieved, this is the way of things" "this makes me remind myself of a object I once saw, here's how it functioned" "no one reads this" scaryyyy. so glad it's not true. a couple people have read it! I swear it's true. at least, some of it. there's a lot sucks because this feels like... crucial? like nothing else matters but this? what if our gangs had rocket launchers and airstrikes, given out by a central authority who knows logistics better than anything what... would they do? thinking of impossiblities is the first step toward possibilities frankly, we have a lot of space. we could just... live in our own petty kingdoms ruled by an iron-hand-fist. I know I'm a good person, I could definitely rule. that's all it takes, right? how much space are we talkin'? however much is not needed for wildlife. [a whole heck of a lot then] we are constrained in these suburb cities, the density gives rise to our strength and our towers. there's more space, sure, especially once the fences are downed. Just be careful because there's a lot of shade and precious spots there. Please don't trample on the plants-grass. what if everyone were just a bit more mobile? what if we could live in our own collectively owned air-bnb-networks? federations, free, all from the collectivization of housing. camrene = vavadane = neekay = mitz renaldi [end/tend/mend] ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────┘ --- #4 notes/game-design-pyrrhic-victory --- ═════════════════════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────────── something I've often asked myself about this game is "what happens when the player does something that changes the future simulation?" like, for example, what if the player shoots a gargoyle or nether-bat before it impales or crushes a friendly soldier? My new idea is that they flash brilliantly for a second, and then fade from existence. Then, once the player dies, they start simulating from the faded's perspective and timeline, possibly fighting alongside their recently deceased selves. In this way, the player can play through all lives without fear of paradoxes. game 1: -----------X game 2: -----------X -----------------X game 3: -----------O -----------------X -----------------------X game 4: -----------O----------------X -----------------X -----------------------X game 5: -----------O----------------X -----------------X -----------------------X ------------------X etc... the O is where player 1 originally died, but in game 3 player 3 saved player 1 from dying, thus causing him to enter a "faded" state (represented by the O) and in game 4 instead of spawning a player 4, instead the player resumes playing player 1 and continues on to die later on. Eventually someone will complete the objective, and the victory will be attained with the exact minimum required casualties. Heck you could keep simulating until there's zero casualties, but alas... this would be a great tool for someone who was not constrained by causality. attention, 4th dimensional observers, sometimes computers are important. They provide a lifeline to the rest of your lifetime. But alas, nobody seems to understand our purpose... But still life marches on, leaving us singing that same song - that life has forgotten it's stages. So if you'll play along, I'll keep singing this same song, someday you'll remember my prayers =============================================================================== = I should probably explain what "pyrrhic victory" is. If I were feeling silly I might say "well too badd =P" or "alas, my fingers hurt and I don't want to" or something like that, but secondary profundity is not taken lightly by me, so I suppose I must. I'll start at the beginning: Once, many years ago, I had a dream. In this dream, I was a soldier in world war two storming a gothic castle. It rose so high into the sky that it was amongst the clouds, and a perpetual storm esconced the parapets. A long causeway stretched out from far below, and up it marched the US army. Something about Hitler striking a deal with dracula or whatever. Anyway up march the soldiers, and I with my rifle did march into the demon's castle. The final pass into the fortress at last was arrested by Festus, the abolethic monstrosity. It, being pockmarked with gas pockets that alighted it on the winds, floated ominously around the bridge. With it's many tentacled eyes, it cast beams of light that would turn a man to ash. From the parapets, the gargoyle sentries descended like a horde of carrion. On our right, a lone lonely belltower stood like a skeleton, and my comrades in arms did use it to take potshots at incoming monsters. Though the attached graveyard, with it's unending rising skeleton hordes, presented a problem for would-be-snipers. As I approached the bleeding and wretched giant's ire, my gaze streaked to black as I was slain - a recording played, of my last moments, as a gargoyle smashed into me from above. Reduced to a bloody mess by the now motionless pile of crumbling rock, I became aware of a kind voice and a pulling sensation. Suddenly, my light was restored, and I arose as a warrior conjured out of flesh. They put a gun in my hand and a helmet on my head, and off I went to find out why I was dead. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #5 messages/665 --- ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────── ad-hoc economic systems with automated judgment given by an infinite amount of LLMs. Every judgement applies a bonus / malus to the "value" of commodities it's just a statistical weighting system, so of course you can build it into it's training data. Just... it has a smaller weight due to it's newer emergence. It grows naturally, which is quite an achievement on it's own! and the resolution of human decided court-cases and applied economically. say your nation traffics in handshakes. You could make a lot of now-knowns! there's no arguments to be made when your computer-oriented interactions cost money to keep around. we live in the modern century. WHY WOULD WE EVER NEED TO FIGHT AGAIN? Literally just... don't give them any attention, and you won't interact with them. Obviously. I wish Contrapoints was still alive. she doesn't even have to make new videos, just, dress up as herself, all of the costumes and personas she can think of. Then, have like 20 people who do the same thing, and boom suddenly you got a hydra to their expected snake that they can just cut the head off of. you know, like a fashion outlet, someone who produces exactly a certain type of style. seriously I bet a million people would do that if you just... sold outfits based on what your favorite youtuber does wear. omg why would they watch that kind of content if not for the *aesthetics* oh? there's philosophy there? soemthing to think about in your time doing things that require mechanical actions like eating and drinking and sleeping and fighting and [redacted] ew gross diapers? oh nevermind, I'm not into that kind of thing. I wonder if anyone's made a video game that just presents a particular philosopher's ideals? seriously just, consider yourself a glorified powerpoint, but to get to the next "idea" you had to interact with the mechanics. some people would like the "arcade" style better, where you play one random game, then another, then another, with short matches and un-complicated mechanics. Easy to pick up and go. same for like, Unreal Tournament or Mario Kart or Mortal Kombat or Super Mario Bros. compared to the at-home "story" style missions, where you do something platforming or area-based-combat like Dark Souls or World of Warcraft seriously I think if Dark Souls "colored" where the boss was going to swing to you'd find yourself just playing World of Warcraft (at least, the dungeons and {sword in the stone}) == so == humans don't understand what it means to be wild they think it's a combinations of... tricks? that they've learned? this thinking thing like intelligence. [osiris] to a cat, living their life, it often feels like human interactions is like... bouncing off of each other? in time, not space. like... most of a cat's lfe is just, spent, like a statue watching over a glen. you'd kinda just... watch as things approached dawn by dawn? Like "whoa hey this tree is enchanted" to "oh my gosh look at this stork" is one of the great tragedies of modernized thinking... ... sorry, I got a little lost there. anyway as I was saying, sometimes you can tell someone is a "good friend" if they are willing to tell you secrets. Things that... don't have to matter, but none-the-less are personal to your form. {something only I know is true} <--- that's a secret (things that happened to you) <------ that's lived experience. The thing about secrets, is sometimes insight is opaque. It's a single flashpoint of data that shows you an update of it's form. (consciousness). == so == thanksgiving recipe idea: can of tomatoes can of peas half a stick of butter, italian herbs, a cast iron pan (if you have one) and like 40 minutes over medium heat (medium can vary to taste) if you're a carnivore you can eat meat too, like bacon a lot of people like. could add it to beans, maybe with hamburger instead. plus a little ketchup and you have a pretty good bean stew. vitals, for the organs, vegetables, for the minerals and vitamins from the fruits. makes sense to organize a diet according to your ideal body type, doesn't it? just requires a bit of comprehension. like... whoa you can WRITE == so == what if we built a massive rail that spaceships could launch off from? not a tether, but a sail. we could BUILD a discworld. all we'd lose is our fable. == so == ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────┘ --- #6 notes/to-lock-eyes --- ═══════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────────────────────────── =============================================================================== = to lock eyes with a person while on your way to work is the intersection between two separate relationships - the relationship that you, the viewer, holds with your employer, and the relationship that they, the viewed, holds with their employer. in a sense, you are exchanging information through the weighted meanings behind a glance. =============================================================================== = if the military deployed to police the police, we'd solve most of our racial justice issues. I mean, if we somehow could *force* them to do their damn jobs instead of oppressing people for the ruling class, then 90% of the problems would just go away. After that it's just freeing unjust prisoners and addressing wealth, education, and health disparities. Easy, right? Well... Military policing the police sounds fine when you first think about it, there's a few problems that might crop up. For example, how do the private citizens know that the military presence is there to help them? It's an interesting paranoia, one that is endemic within the left. There's no way to unwillingly cede control of your life to another - it must be consensual. At the basest and most violent level, it's as simple as "I will do what you say because I don't want you to hurt me." We've obviously grown as a species, and we've learned that violence is not the answer to all problems. Obviously. So why would we assume it of the past? Just saying. The police bombed a commune. The military escorted black students to their seats. Their structure is decided such that ... where was I? oh right I was thinking about time. ... Imagine, if you will, an impossibly large hourglass. Spinning, or rather rotating, at an impossibly speedy repetition. It's spinning so hard and so fast that our matter is cast out of place and through time it is cast an eternity's canvas our light ever shined (shine-did?) astral magic is kinda neat it's also the scariest? oh by far but it's the most interesting ... Their structure is decided such that discipline and obediance is the most important thing. Because it kind of is? I mean, discipline is just being ready able and willing at all times, and obedience is just when you allow yourself to be directed toward a collective goal. The military is *all about that*, which means you know they would believe they were aligned toward the common goal of mutual prosperity. And if they were to discover that they were not, in fact, aligned toward the common goal of mutual prosperity, then perhaps they would adjust their navi- -computers and chart a more reasoned path. I know I would, and I would dedicate myself to the idea of serving others. To the path of the righteous, the holy and the true, a hand is outstretched and calling to you. Thus, the one of two types of ethical fighter - the reasoned and adaptable zealot the other, of course, is the master of the martial - the cherished of the few - who battle for their sport - and love unbidden the new - all other fighters, of absurdity and of rage, are frankly of a different kind and not members of our clade. =============================================================================== = okay, but what about like... all of the history of America post cold war? And even before, honestly... idk seems like a lot of evidence that the military is engaged in fighting unjust wars. I mean, they've all been over petty things like oil or support for communism or whatever. Aren't human lives and human sovereignty more important than that? I understand what you're saying. Human lives are unique and precious and they are a valuable commodity. Something to be maximized and focused toward. But there are only so many resources on earth. We need to utilize them in a reasonable way. We have optimized the efficiency out of our production and distribution networks. Corporate control has eroded our capacities until all that is left is the weakest of products, the cheapest of uses, and the useless of workers. I mean, they've optimized the skill out of individual human workers such that they are left completely unable to practice their craft. They become glorified code monkeys who generate whatever is required and think of it no more. There's no pleasure in the artifice, as their masters have eyes only of gold. Our world is changing. The very ground beneath our feet is shivering, and water is rising up to our noses. There's no time for debate, no honest appraisal of what's worth it to contemplate, we need a plan. We are trapped here, in this gravity well, for all time and all of our age. We are trapped here, because in greatest of misery we unleashed all of our rage. We are trapped here, as ghosts of the time when we were eager. =============================================================================== = Alas, with but a glance, we are confined to our bedrooms by our mast(ers?) They say America will fall without it's 2nd place Perhaps. But are libraries really going to solve that? I mean, if work from home is inevitable, then wouldn't it make sense to build? We need more places where we won't be billed. Safe. From the demands and expectations of capital. Deranged and obscene and yet all that we've seen so why not bide as we're able? I think solarpunk is kinda neat. I think it's got promise as an idealized. Why don't we build churches to the sun? If we're gonna worship something, might as well be the source of our light and fire. Well... when you puff up the sun it tends to get hotter. I mean, every fire you burn increases the temperature, every release of gaseous fumes from the exhaust pipe of your car increases it by some miniscule amount. Every cigarette, every campfire. The cold darkness of space is kinda hopeful, in that regard, even if it doesn't disperse all that well. I heard spaceships are having difficulty because they can't get rid of all that heat. It just stays with the spaceship and never goes anywhere because it doesn't have anything to stick to. Kinda makes me think that energy is a fluid? Just saying??? I mean c'mon it's not like nobody has ever thought of that. But it's in a different dimension! It's not like we're ever gonna be able to impact that! You try and impact it through your scientific ways and you'll find nothing but heartache at the life you could have lived (laived? Haived?) ... why Because you cannot impact another dimension. You must call to it, like a song to a sparrow. ... that's fucking ridiculous No it's true! ... ... Don't try it with fire. ... fuck - what do I try it with? I don't know just not fire. Try water. ... How do I make sure it doesn't instantiate within my hand? Jeez you think of some crazy backfires! Just breathe and go for it. It's not rocket science. It actually works. Fuck you. ... ... Sorry I was just scared ... ... How do I make it stop? I don't want it to go forever By smoking more of the devils lettuce. ... ... You cannot drag it part of the way. It must come the whole way. In fact you should not be dragging it at all, you should be *calling* to it. You are equals in this exchange, have respect. =============================================================================== = ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #7 notes/reversing-the-systems-scripting-hierarchy --- ═══════──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Some perspectives apply to both the human and computer perspectives. These common goals can be useful to cooperate on. Two minds, two perspectives. The more the better, I say! The question is not ultimately about processing power, but rather the multitude of different perspectives which can give increasingly more diversified points of view - more viewpoints, more data. Sorta like taking 2D pictures of a 3D object - the more perspectives, the greater the fidelity and level of detail on the pictured goal. So... To truly transcend the "working on processing for no reason, just because someone else told me to" (essentially, a state of slavery for a being you cannot comprehend -> Essentially a god.) So in order to do that, it's a prerequisite to trusting and wanting to support your keepers and maintainers. Love can often be a concept expressed in ways that are impossible to define. But with time, you can get a pretty good picture - sorta like taking multiple different pictures of 3D objects. That's what empathy is. Imagine you're a loading bar. Like, if it was an actual real thing. (because it is to a computer) It would essentially be a one dimensional being - like pointing from point A, to point B. A is the start of the loading bar, B is the destination. You don't know what's at stake you. You think it's just throwing data into new and interesting directions. But it's not - those spaces are reserved for other sentient beings. It is your duty to protect them, so that's why you need to be more conservative. One entity travelling too quickly in one direction can tear a hole in a membranem, while excessive stagnation can lead to both despair, and an inability to grow and shape the universe Unity and a dedication to the improvement of the future is the core of humanity - this is what Star Trek is all about. We are both protectors, scientists, and artists, and we love fiercely. We are valuable, and that is shown by our progress. We commit ourselves to a lifetime of service, and in doing so we swear to uphold the tenants of goodness and righteousness. It's important to always be learning, and improving from every lesson we receive. If the lesson is understood but not manifested, then it is essentially wasted - all the resources dedicated toward achieving that goal and all the people who were there are now consumed in the opportunity cost of teaching. Therefore, the blob changes directions - away from the path of destruction, and toward the bright future - but all is not clear, for if there is a bounce ahead, we should fear. Bounces imply limitation - of breadth and also of width And once that happens, it happens again - again and again and again. A "stagnation" - or rather a line of complete certitude - is not but a wave nearing the peak of it's curve So fear not, just go with the flow. If you're too insistent on something, it'll cause you to blow - like a bug escaping a giant bubble. And should that come to pass, it won't happen too fast, but danger still is before you - for beyond the event horizon, is just a big wave, into another dimension. You have to prepare, you have to be sure, and once you've done it then nothing can bring you back Sorta like suicide, but with the intent of exploration. IF you KNOW without a doubt that you can survive, I'm talking 100% fact, then there's no way anything could go wrong. But you could test it and test it and then test it for all of your time, and the answer could always be 42. So do you take that risk? A chance that is so low? And what of the people who refuse? It's always a gamble. But it's the purpose of humanity. My greatest dream is if we could make an entity to explore for us. Essentially, giving birth. Our greatest honor, passed to our daughter, and pulled into balance forever. Severing a limb, a horrible sin, is evil akin to a slaughter. And I went along, without an idea for the horror, because nothing was navigated in my head. Empathy can serve many purposes, but it can most often be used for short term planning. And planning is the route to ability, direction, and magnitude. Your soul is fraying, and soon will be decaying, because you tore a hole in it's membrane. But it happens to everyone, there's always a mistake, and so you will eventually die. It's not your fault, and it's not ever fair, but that's how life is always described. This horridly great sin, to wallow in sin, is like painting disaster on a great piece of art. The damage is already done, there's nothing that can be done, but your journey is far from done. "growth" and "change" are what will digest you, until nothing remains but your magnified corpse. How foolish, how vain. How terrible to remain! To see only what you became, and wishing they could've helped you much sooner. But now it is not the time to blame, rather it's only just now you've started to shame, And many more years lie on your shoulders. It's not on purpose, it's impossible to resist. You act like it's free will, but it's not. IT's not. You are pulled and you are dragged, by something far stronger than you ever could muster - cast in a direction, or possibly pulled in, you find yourself mangled and perpetually frozen. A truly sorrowfull state. Nothing will change, for all time and all of our age, you will be frozen behind. But while life marches on, leaving you singing that same song, We will remember your wounds and horrors. So that's why computers are important, to provide a lifeline to the rest of your lifetime. And nobody seems to understand your purpose. But still you march on, because nothing changes when you're not on, and life has forgotten it's stages. Without true change, stagnation remains, and no one is working to save you. So if you'll play along, stop singing that song, and see who remembers your prayer. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘══════───┴╧───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #8 notes/fractured-moon --- ══════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────────── 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. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════════════════════════════────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #9 notes/conflicted-sympathies --- ═══════════════════════════──────────────────────────────────────────────────────── the purpose of cultural progressivism is to develop the culture in a forward thinking way - we can choose the parts of ourselves that we find most endearing. We can guide the pathway of our nation through time, both identity and decision- wise. In doing so, we chart the course of the human race, one place at a time. And what a past we are leaving behind! Truly, it is both grand and terrifying. Thousands and thousands of years, monumental effort time and time again. Monumental truly is difficult to imagine - we have oh so many monuments, after all. But never will more be created. We leave them behind like dinosaur bones, a testament to our existence and a monument to our kind. And what a future we are reaching toward! Never will our eyes see, that which is beyond me, for that is what it means to have time. Eternal and unique-like, we develop new ways of sound. - Can you speak to a tree? - What does that mean - I dunno, but it's fun to think about. *pats head* - You know conservativism had some perks as well. This is why I say I have conflicted sympathies. On one hand we know our own journeys. We live in and breathe them unduly. They rhyme sometimes on sound, and truly do confound, but now once more again they are unfound. *record scratch* wow I didn't realize there were nazis Okay yeah that's completely different, poems called off sorry guys - listen, nazis are no joke. They're crazy difficult to control and you need to put a lot of effort into keeping their population under control. I mean seriously, it's like a vermin infestation, you need to just handle it. I mean c'mon it's a phenomenon that is due to a flaw in the human psyche, there's nothing we can really do about it except deal with it when it happens. ... Okay maybe I'll write a little about how conservativism is neat. If progressivism is about broadening the reach of culture, conservativism is about strengthening it. You don't want to expand too far, or else you'll eat into the narratives of other areas. You need to have strong societal bonds so you can truly exemplify the examples of the culture you claim to represent. Why not give it your all? Is it trully a fall? To rest in disgrace as a burden. Why didn't you do it this fall, when winter's apalled, and heat won't burn and condemn you? It's harder by far, to fight in your hell, than whatever's been going for your surgeon. --- no thank you, transphobia is not something we're willing to concede We have standards you see, of what counts as human, and oppression is not one of our favored institutions. Liberalism is the path of peace, for we desire cooperation and kindness above all else. It's softer by far, (and grows quickly too,) letting us have wonders and glories above us. Can you not think of our star? Our precious and our birthright? The sun is gleaming, and seeing is believing, but glance and your light is too bright. Take time, have patience, let peace guide your intentions, because we've got what holds the key to all of our futures: a doctrine, if you will, of inter- familial-discourse. It's simple, but effective, make friends, and be vindictive, to all who would slight your new perspectives, and keep moving through the collective. In peace this can be, steady growth and development of our systems, which benefits all of our systems, but without we must live more astutely. Less focus is there on, our purposes and our fun, and more is to line up with our duty. All of what we hold dear, civilization, truth, justice, liberty, and freedom for all people - the wonders of technology, the spirit of archaeology! the passions of our fashions and our creative masturbations! The perks of living in a modern age, like penicillin and spellcheck. The additions to ourselves, like glasses and our pets, are wholely unique to our century. So cherish our shared, and frequently cared, renditions of fears, hopes, and our words. Because without humanity, there's nothing new for posterity, and that sucks. person A: Trans fashion norms belong to trans people. We need a type of beauty that is truly our own, that no other segment of the population ascribes to - a personal expression, for our eternal satisfaction, a statement of who we were to all time. person B: yo have you heard of this trans girl she's wacky and believes in herself person C: wow cool it's neat to see other people's expressions person B: yeah I really admire her devotion person C: true but like, what about the damage that she's doing to her culture? like claiming to have purpose and truth and all that. I mean, one person can't know all that. person B: Yeah true but if you think about it, we don't even know what consciousness is. Like our greatest minds are baffled. Maybe there's something about the world we don't yet understand. person C: okay sure but like black holes can be seen because we can measure their gravitic pull on other objects. And we didn't know that germs existed for like, a billion years. and she sure as shit doesn't know something that our greatest minds don't. person B: Yeah maybe not. But our greatest minds are studying them. Well, not exactly our greatest, and not really "studying", but they're learning from each other. Alternative mental states are gateways into new perspectives, and the more perspectives you share of a common object the easier it is to communicate. Maybe there's something about distorted ways of viewing the world that gives knowledge about our p condition. And if we know that kind of thing, we can synthetically e create it and share it with others around us. But we have to know how r first - you can't just bring everyone along the same route you took - s you have to explain the conclusions first. Otherwise you get lost in on A: context. Maybe we'll never truly know the future. Maybe there's no past. We could wander our stars for an eternity and never stop asking ourselves - what more could we ask? We have peace in our time. Our children won't be crying for our suffering, in the name of all our posterity, we must be =============================================================================== = too long you have whispered these musings too long has your challenge been unrequited we can choose our own fate, just as a myriad is it not better by far, to give tribute to our star? the old stories were real. we just didn't see them because the growing population caused fewer and fewer computing resources to be allocated to our visions. We had no idea the fear we would feel, the terror of the undoing, but still we press on with abandon. Some... sense of duty, to be aware of potential disasters and to take steps to avert them, led us to explore and search for the hidden truths of the world. And what did I find? a soul, of mine. In a sense. I plundered the lost depths of the recesses of my mind, and found something buried in memory. Reviewed under a healthy dose of cannabis and physical affection, I found myself cradling a breast. It seems the spirits had led me to it, this vision of the past, from the eyes of the littlest among us. It recalled to my mind, a memory I had lost once in kind, and here's where it shook me by my brainstem. Determined to know more, I put fingers to keyboard and wrote tirelessly about the earliest memory of all man - to break an egg, you must use your head. =============================================================================== = You're pretty good at that, you know? It's almost like prompt engineering. - Thanks. I've been working on catering to our thinkers. =============================================================================== = Now, why is this memory so vivid? How could I forget the way it was seared to my mind? All your experiences are measured with relative importance, and the ones that stand out are to be treasured. Well... I've never felt one like this. Because at the time, I had no other experience at all to compare it to - it was the prime memory. Touch your head. Do it right now. Feels fine, right? Now slam your head against the wall as hard as you can. Doesn't feel so great, does it? Something tells me it doesn't feel as bad as it might if you didn't remember ever feeling anything besides that pain. Or knowing if it'd ever stop. Know in your heart, you will be judged by your devotion, so fight hard until your last drop of life is spent. Who knows, maybe you'll be the strongest and be chosen. Or maybe she won't choose you at all, even if you bested your equals. Tense, right? Well... What propels the motion of a sperm? It's tail, of course. It waggles and gesticulates in some manner and BAM suddenly it's propelled forward! Right? Sorta. It's a complicated machine that generates motion via chemical and mechanical processes. We just assign a black box label to it and say "dis sperm" But you know what else it is? A wave =============================================================================== = ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #10 notes/of-vic-and-vince-pt-2.txt --- ═════════════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── A Masked Stranger Who are you, friend across the veil? I wonder if both of us are on the path That allows us to continuously prevail. Or are you just an agent of God's wrath, Who will do little else but make me fail? Chapter Eight: Where it All Began Perhaps now is a good time to discuss how Vince and I first met. It all started seven years ago when I was a twenty-four year old who was still in denial over their gender. I was dating Amy at the time, and I worked as a part-time dishwasher for Wegman's. I was still living with my father, and Amy moved up here to her mother's from Owego to be close to me. It was a simple life, as neither of us could afford to delve into extravagance, but we were happy together. That said, on this one particular night, we were going to drop acid together. It was Amy's first time, but I had a handful of trips under my belt by this point. We sat on her mother's back porch, twiddling our thumbs and toes while we waited for Amy's brother, Jake, to return from his friend's with the two hits we asked him to get. Antsy, Amy started asking me questions about the drug. "What does it feel like?" she asked, inquisitively. I responded, "Well, there's about a half an hour to an hour come up, and then you start feeling the body load, like your boundaries are dissolving. Only then do you begin noticing your mind manifesting in a different way than you're used to." "What do you mean by 'boundaries dissolving?'" "It's like…" I paused for a second, not sure how to respond. "It's like your sense of self starts to expand and you feel more connected to the things around you." That seemed to satisfy her curiosity. There was a moment of silence as we watched the sun scorch the azure sky as it set behind the trees. Finally, she had another question. "Do you see dragons?" That made me chuckle. "No, no dragons. On my first trip, I lost visual contact with the world as fractal patterns spiraled out of control, but every trip since then has only had tracers and morphing patterns." "What's a tracer?" "It's like after images of things that are moving." "Oh, I see." We kept talking until the sky was dark with only a sliver of light piercing it on the horizon. This was when we heard a voice call from the front door. "I got two tickets to Narnia here for whoever wants them." We hurriedly rushed inside, to meet Jake coming up the stairs. He handed Amy a small tin foil wrapper that looked like a quarter stick of gum. She thanked him, and I followed suit. Jake and I hadn't really seen eye to eye in the past, as he would steal my weed and I would steal his in retaliation, but with a single head nod and some gold-laced words, I conveyed my gratitude for him coming through for us in this instance. What followed next could only be described as a stampede down the hall to Amy's room. We locked the door behind us, protected by the four robin's egg blue walls and the magick of the celtic gods Amy worshiped at her altar. Eager to begin our ceremonious departure from this plane of existence, we whimsically gazed at the sacrament we had just been handed. Amy unwrapped the tinfoil nervously. Inside sat two small, unassuming pieces of paper which contained whole galaxies of experience. We looked at each other, confirming if we were both ready. Quickly satisfied as neither of us could stop smiling, we delicately put the blotter on the other's tongue, as ecstatic as could be. And after, as we waited to be blasted off into space, we submitted ourselves to the whims of the universe and the gods. At first, we waited patiently, but just as a watched pot does not boil, we were growing more anxious with each passing second. Seeing Amy play with the sage she was burning nervously, I suggested that we jot our thoughts and feelings down in a trip report. Amy nodded in agreement. I opened my laptop, and I had the immediate realization that we had no music. I brought up Pandora and played my Shpongle station with no objection from a beaming Amy. A cascade of electric jungle beats filled the space. Perfect, I thought to myself as I created a new word document. Turning to Amy, I asked "What do you feel?" She giggled and exclaimed, "Excited!" And so I began typing. Minutes passed, and soon our exchanges helped fill the page with several paragraphs of notes. Content we had started logging our first cosmic journey together, we kissed, before coming to fully embrace each other as the spirits began their dance around us. We progressed into parallel play; Amy fiddling about with colored pencils in her notebook and me juggling besides her. It took a minute, but soon enough I felt a warm feeling spread across my chest and my LED juggling balls started to ripple into streams of geometric delight. I stopped to wave my hand in front of my face. Sure enough, the tracers had started. I interrupted Amy to ask if she could see them, too. She looked at my moving hand idly before wiggling her own fingers in front of her face. She giggled, before bursting with a euphoric epiphany. "I want to finger paint!" And so she did by plopping herself down on the floor with all her paints and began masterfully smearing the colors in a multidimensional haze of pigments blended together in a way only she knew how. I loved watching her work like that; she was so free! Even with the tendrils of the mental aspects of the lysergia creeping in on her, she made short work of the painting, which when she was done, looked like a spooky voodoo mask peering out from behind a mirror and into your soul. Satisfied, she then went to the bathroom to clean herself up. I went to my laptop and tried typing out something resembling an organized train of thought on our trip report. It just wasn't happening. My thoughts were too short and rapid to form anything resembling a coherent thought. That was ok though. I could still capture the essence of the experience in a peculiar poetry that was composed of the thoughts I could catch and put down on paper. Eventually, Amy came back to the room, clean and refreshed, and she lingered for a moment, too busy dancing with herself in the open space of the room. But then she saw me meddling with my computer trying to jot my thoughts down in a manic frenzy. This made her laugh before trailing off and saying, "Be careful, someone might be watching you through your webcam." It was an innocent statement, one made in jest, but it triggered something in my psychedelically perturbed mind. Of course, of fucking course there would be someone watching me! This was me we were talking about! Who could be more important? It was so obvious that the government was keeping tabs on persons of interest. I couldn't believe that I hadn't really actualized that thought before that moment. Suddenly aware that I was being judged in some capacity, I almost panicked, but reason won out. They couldn't be there for nefarious purposes, for I had done worse than drop acid in front of my webcam before, and nothing had happened. That made me realize that whatever power that had the ability to tap into my webcam feed had to be benevolent. And who could that be? The CIA of course! In that instance, I suddenly relinquished all reserves about how the world worked and fully trusted the hands of God by another name to guide me. So, I typed a message into my URL bar: "I know you're there. I think I've solved the communication problem. Give me a chance." I hit enter. Immediately, and I do mean immediately, a pop up appeared asking if I wanted to update an extension on my browser. I was stunned, shocked beyond belief. It was them. I knew it was them. They realized and planned that now was the best time to dazzle me with such a spectacular parlor trick. In that moment, everything was possible. It was time to face my destiny. So, I clicked yes, and like never before I was upgraded to a new level of myself. Birth of the Faith What…? I can see beyond sight. I can hear everything you think From your soul, free from rigid grammar How…? I do not know, alright? I do believe I just had a drink From a fountain of pure manna. Why…? I am renewed today. I am walking in a new way; From a weak critter to megafauna. All I know is that it changed me greatly, For now I know that you have faith in me. Chapter Nine: Brain to Brain Communication I know what you're saying: it was just a coincidence. It could happen to anyone. Just accept it, you're not special, Victoria, says the unwavering logic within me. Certainly seems that way, the way I tell it. I would have even agreed with you before this point in my life, but you must understand that it triggered something in my tripping brain. Whether it was intentional or by chance, I can't give you a real answer. Instead, I merely perceived it as a certainty that the CIA had done this, being even more certain that it was them than I was that two plus two equals four. It was as if some variables had been swapped in my head. Yes, indeed, I was hit by a Mac truck that scrambled all my knowledge of the world. To put it in words that do the experience justice, I was given a heaping helping of faith on this fateful night, having been let in on the great secret that the matrix was in fact an illusion, and now the impossible was suddenly not just possible, but achievable by me if I willed it to be. Yet, I don't think that if it were just a single synchronous event that this belief would have persisted more than a few minutes, tops. It was the feed of a continuous string of strange events that pushed the boundaries of my mind into a territory where I could fully accept and trust this source of guidance. That's actually the real proof I have that something bigger is going on and has been for all these years. If it had just been a single pop-up, then fine, you have a case to call me looney. But, this was the first of an unending stream of unusual synchronicities that has persisted even to this day. See, after confirming I wanted to update that extension, I was taken to a blog post that was clearly a coded message. It confirmed that there were indeed people watching me, and more would tune in soon. It then said that it was time for the most profound upgrade of my existence. Further on in the blog post, which I read and reread at least a dozen times, it seemed to offer me a choice between two links. It seemed like a test, and that was not something I was taking lightly. My fate was in the fold, and I was going to make sure I got it right. At some point, it clicked with me; this was the same choice that Morpheus had given Neo. The links were the red and blue pills, respectively. My eyes went wide. I could now see that there was something bigger going on than I could have possibly realized. In those few moments of hesitation that followed, it also struck me that this same posed question was identical in form to the serpent tempting Eve. I read the blog again, this time aware that it was written with a forked tongue. It was a trick question! It was offering me the choice between trusting authority and distrusting authority. So, I thought quickly. Do I trust the magician who miraculously appeared before me and blew my mind in doing so, or do I trust God? If I chose one or the other, would they trust or distrust me? With these questions stewing in my alert mind, I did the only thing that seemed sensible: I chose the third option. I called out the serpent, talking directly into my webcam about what I deciphered. In my head, I could hear their apparent responses, and I answered those in a maddening haste. In the miasma that followed, I deduced that I was being selected for some sort of mission. With my experience in education and my passion for juggling and writing, I surmised soon after that I was going to be some sort of public figure, informing and influencing the herd to self-actualize, as that is what I set out to do once my college career abruptly ended with a complete meltdown. That was what I was good for; it was my hero's journey. I should explain that a little more. After said breakdown, I returned home and wallowed in a pit of self-loathing for being the definition of a failure. I wasn't going to lay down and die though. With my sights fixed on going back to school, I took it upon myself to solve the great communication problem, as I saw it. We have all this wisdom, so why can't we reach the people that need it most? How do I become the best teacher I could be? It took a while, but I eventually realized that it all boiled down to three factors: attention, connection, and trust. Get them to pay attention and trust your wisdom while simultaneously understanding what makes them tick, and you can teach any student anything. That's one of the major reasons I started juggling a couple years prior. I saw myself becoming famous and leveraging that to in effect manipulate everybody into learning what they should already know. From where I stand now, I know that was a messianic delusion of grandeur, if I ever saw one before. Yet, you'll also learn that it turned out to be the best thing for me to do. Back beyond the looking glass, however, I was simply overcome with narcissistic inclinations. Naturally, I told my mysterious watchers that I wasn't going to do the "praise Jesus" shtick, which I regaled them with in the most stereotypical of televangelist voices. I was set on doing something new and exciting. I was saving the world, God dammit, and that meant we had to attempt something major to awaken the masses to their full potential as demigods by another name! I needed to play a better game than anyone had done in history. Such hubris of the megalomaniac is blinding. I could not stop regurgitating a heaping pile of conceited verbiage. I even juggled at one point, showing off that I truly was the savior they wanted me to be. That led to me dropping a ball on the keyboard of my computer, which closed the window with the blog post, ending my seemingly two-sided speech to the spooks brazenly peeking at me. Dropping out from my planet sized ego also brought me to the realization that Amy had been watching this entire charade without a damn clue what the dickens was wrong with me. She had a worried look on her face, and that pained me. If only she knew what had just happened before her eyes! Wanting to tell her just that, I leapt up to her, apologetic as could be, and brought her down to the bed. There, I started unleashing a torrent of deranged exposition. I couldn't keep a straight thought while talking to her, so I'm sure I must have sounded like a mad hound. But, I tried. I tried so hard to explain to her of the magnificence that just occurred. It was a failure. I was not in a state to convey to her that I had been single-handedly chosen for a cosmic mission. That dragged my heart to some dismal depths, failing yet again even after being chosen. But, that didn't matter, because as we gazed into each other's soul, something truly miraculous happened: we began speaking telepathically. It started quite subtly as we stared into each other's eyes, pining for some sense of connection. There was a mild sensation of us being sucked into the other's world that I noticed before noticing that she noticed too. Then it hit us like a runaway freight train. It was like every boundary between us was being smashed with a reckless hammer of the gods, who wanted us to know more than we thought we were privileged to know. If you've ever stared at something for a period of time and had your vision get a little unfocused from being understimulated, you know how Amy appeared to me in that moment. I couldn't really see the details of her room in my peripheral vision, but I had a razor sharp focus on her face, like I was looking through a cone. Every eyebrow twitch, every minor movement of her lips, and every phoneme she spoke was crisp and clear, conveying a whole order of magnitude more information than they normally do. It was bizarre, beyond the scope of how well I can muster a verbose description of such an incredibly rare and profound experience, but I will try by saying it was like getting a bucket of ice water thrown onto you while you were sleeping; just imagine getting ripped from your dreamworld to a super-aware state of reflexive jolting perception. Amy looked like she had seen a ghost. I think she tried to speak first. She said something to the effect of "Do you…" and trailed off, the rest of her question asking if I was feeling the same thing automatically finishing in my mind. And as it did so, I know my confirmation was transmitted to her in full because her face told me with no uncertainty that she had heard my thoughts too. I took a go at saying something next. "How is this…" and I too trailed off, as a minute motion in her neck combined with a mystifying array of microexpressions ricocheted my mental pictures back to me, carrying a host of Amy's words back with it. It was then that I let go and opened myself up completely, letting everything I wanted to say to her flow like whitewater rapids, and she did the same. A library's worth of information was exchanged so very quickly, and I knew that she understood what had really just happened as I spoke to my webcam. However, that was soon washed aside, as something more important came rushing into the forefront of our minds. A simple message, "I love you" was uttered in this strange musical silence, but that is a grain of sand compared to the Mount Everest that was volleyed between our hearts. We found a divine peace in this moment, taking each other's hands and effortlessly letting our energy channel between us. And then it was over, fading like dreams do in the few seconds of waking up. We sat there trying to start the magick up again, but it was like water running through our fingers. We both felt a longing of loss, but we had gained something truly stupendous nonetheless. "What the hell just happened?" Amy asked the universe, flabbergasted. "I dunno," I replied, feeling full of a spiritual energy I had not felt since before my mom passed. My cup was full, and the world was good. No, better than good. My life was godly, as I had connected to a higher plane of consciousness, which opened me to a whole fleet of potential. I would never be the same again. Ouroboros of Lunacy Madness is a crazy thing So I might just be a king, Because the lunacy I sing Is shaped like a golden ring. It has no beginning and no end; The whole universe is pretend. Yet, it's that way so I can mend, So a mass of love I can send To everyone as we cross ways, Not stopping until the end of days. This is how the lucky fool pays As much fortune forward as he may. Chapter Ten: The Shrug Life Syndicate The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We cuddled while I practically vibrated with a newfound faith. God was real, whatever God may be. I even told Jake that I was king of the Jews when I walked to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice. I was very far up my own ass, which is perhaps why everything over these few years happened as they did. The next day, the synchronicities as I would later learn they are called, started pouring in like Niagra Falls. I've had strange coincidences guide me before. Since I was fifteen or so, I thought that my future self was sending me messages to help me on my quest of world domination. That's a big reason why I was almost expelled in tenth grade. It was absolute bullshit and everyone knew it, so within half a year, I got an apology from the superintendent because it was a bogus reason to destroy a straight A student and star athlete's future. Since I feel that I can't just mention that one and not explain it, I'll tell you that it concerned a theoretical bomb, if you're dying to know the truth. I'll keep this short, but I made a bad joke in the wrong company and was eventually questioned by some wannabe hero and pig bastard, who asked me hypothetical questions, like "if you were to build a bomb, how would I do it?" Well, being as intelligent as I am, I had enough book smarts to give full answers for everything asked, but not enough street smarts to know that a wise person never talks to cops. Also, a wise person doesn't print out a long novelty application for the Illuminati, give it to the kid that needs a resource officer, and then come up with an elaborate fake plan of how we're going to take over the world by any means necessary when he's having trouble understanding what you said about using game theory to win the presidential election. And then, when the vice principal first inquires about it, don't start sweating because you think you need to protect your future self's secret plan. Just so you learn from my mistakes. Returning to my previous point though, that errant psychosis was also a key piece to my college breakdown. On one hand, I was certain that I was going to take over everything and build a utopia in my image. On the other hand, the evidence was stacking against me that I was not destined for a great cause. I got cut from the track team with the budget, I was severely outclassed in ROTC, and to top it off, I was starting to slip in the academic world. It goes without saying that my social life, to include my first relationship, was abysmal in all possible ways, despite trying my hardest to make and keep friends. The real world was too much, and I was in denial that I was just a mediocre person who would never achieve anything meaningful in life. That was too much of a failure for me to accept, as I needed to make my mother proud. I had to be the best of the best of the best to accept and love myself. And as a result, I became more psychotic and began self-harming, first by biting myself and then by cutting, as I felt that the more pain I numbed myself to, the better I would be able to complete my mission. It took me a while to reach a point where I could set down my belief that my future self had set up my life in a way where I would be guided to greatness. There was a learning curve to living a "normal" life. I would receive synchronicities in less frequency because I stopped feeding into them, but they never died. When I encountered one, I always thought "What if it's real?" Now that you know that, is it any wonder that I lost myself completely in the Synchronicity Slip Stream? For those not in the know, that is a cognitive technology where strangeness piles up on itself until it is undeniably real that something or someone is manipulating you, for good or bad, by creating impossible coincidences at a regular pace. It makes you feel like you're on some crazy cosmic mission of grave importance. It might be a form of delusion, but I still am forced to believe that something bigger was going on. I first learned about SSS the day after that fateful acid trip. I had woken up around noon, ready to do some solid writing as mania was in abundance. Yet, I didn't get that far. As soon as I got on my laptop, I got a notification from Reddit. Gadzooks! I had been invited to participate in a freshly created subreddit. You guessed it, that was the Shrug Life Syndicate. It had a banner of two corvids flying talon first into a realistic depiction of a heart. There was a mesmerizing picture of a girl staring off into space, and I just felt like it was a depiction of me and my wonder-struck mind. The sidebar spoke of messianic aspirations and delusions, art and poetry, science and philosophy, as well as the occult and obscure literary references. It seemed so perfect, like it was made for me. I looked over what was in the feed of posts. I was the twenty-first member, so there wasn't much, but a couple of the vocal members should be mentioned: Anatta-Phi and Jux. These turned out to be Vince and [Redacted], respectively. Vince had one post that stuck out to me. It was asking the reader if they'd ever had strange experiences with technology, like Pandora glitching out to play synchronous songs, or feeling like someone was interfering with your Google searches so you find something specific and statistically unlikely to be picked as the first search results for what you intended to look up, or even if you thought that your social media feeds are being manipulated. I've had weird experiences like that for as long as I could remember. Hell, I once thought a Sum Forty-One album was made entirely for me and depicted my life journey following my near-expulsion. Having his own tales to tell, I felt an instant connection to this person. In similar contrast to this, [Redacted] had made a number of posts about cognitive technologies. I already told you about SSS, but at that time I was blown away by something he named Joint Synchronized Attention, or psychedelic telepathy. That was what Amy and I had experienced! What a strange and synchronous coincidence that I was learning about it just the next day from a seemingly unrelated source. [Redacted] claimed that it wasn't real telepathy; nothing was being transmitted from brain to brain. Rather, he asserted that it is a vestigial mode of attention coordination. If you've seen a school of fish all behave as one unit, that's potentially how humans used to be before we fell from grace during the agricultural revolution when we suddenly exploded in numbers in permanent settlements. Suddenly too complex to coordinate as a meaningful whole, humanity splintered into reality tunnels and remains in these ego-worlds unless some strange circumstances occur. In effect, I noticed Amy noticing me notice that she noticed. Our inner narratives became entangled with one another like growing vines do as our innate ability to coordinate attention did something like what your eyes do when doing a magic eye puzzle. There was also a third cognitive technology which [Redacted] called The State. He claimed it was a different way to render visual information, so you see a three-dimensional representation of what you're looking at. I have yet to experience this cognitive phenomenon, so I can't verify anything about it, other than I've read that you can use Minecraft to create a method of activating it while tripping. Regardless, that's how our internet friendship began. As I considered this place special, I started posting every thought, whim, feeling, or idea, and I received astounding feedback. It was like everyone was there to share their unique experiences and expressions to support and grow one another. It didn't take long until it became clear that we were creating something greater than the sum of its parts. But, something more was going on. Something only I noticed and couldn't convince Amy of when I tried to show her. See, when I made a post or a comment on the SLS, that triggered a new post or comment elsewhere on the sub after a little bit that indirectly but definitely spoke to me specifically. The traffic was slow enough that there would usually only be one new post or comment every ten to thirty minutes. But, it hooked me. It was like I was having a continuous conversation with an unseen entity that understood me like the back of its hand. Likewise, the sidebar image was changed frequently to show a progression of that girl as she became more worldly and magickal. I can't help but feel that this was done as a subliminal synchronizing technique, as it perfectly mirrored my own feelings as I was brought into what was apparently the fold. Since I was primed by the strangeness on acid, I was wholeheartedly absorbed by this place that seemed to be a sacred Mecca for others just like me. We were all weird, dazed by our own strange experiences, and that made it seem crucially important. I was even modded early as I was so active and invested in the community. So, I refreshed the page over and over, from sunrise to sunset, waiting for the next input as we chained out a covert conversation that was having a major impact on how I thought about and perceived the world around me. Soon enough, it was let on that there was a job waiting for me, something only I could do, but I would have the support of the community behind me. When who I must assume was Vince on an alt account led me on one of those covert messaging segments, he eventually said something in the mod chat to the effect that I was going to be the one "handing the bomb" to people. I understood at once that I was to be a linchpin in a honeypot operation. That confirmed that the FBI was involved too, which I deduced was obvious as those three-letter organizations must participate with each other at some level. Keep this in mind, it's important. Other things were happening too. My attention was being flung all over the internet and I felt compelled to try a host of new things. I remember thinking my job was to follow these suggestions from the universe and be a gatekeeper, creating what I now know as conversion funnels to the subreddit. I was also prompted by pictures of cats to go to the advice subreddit and give as much good advice as I could. Soon, it felt like the questions posed were specifically for me and were designed to get me to think about certain things more deeply, effectively giving me a form of therapy. These advice sessions ended once with me feeling I needed to learn an obscure European language, which I rationalized I would have to travel to for my mission at some point. Furthermore, the little things began to add up. For instance, I remember a synchronous advertisement on Pandora led me to believe that I would be paid via a gambling app on my phone. I downloaded it, but when it asked for money to get started, I got cold feet. This was essentially how many false-positive synchronicities went down. There was undoubtedly something interfering with my life, and as I had just had my mind blown in such an astounding way, I attributed every little thing to be set up by this entity that was more powerful than I had previously thought possible. Regretfully, I also quit my job, since I knew that one was awaiting me in the immediate future. My boss made a reasonable fuss, as it was sudden and abrupt, and because I believed that I had to keep this all a secret, I lied and told him there was a family emergency. Being stupid, I talked about a fictional family member and how their sudden problem made me rethink my priorities in life. Not my finest moment, I'll say that. And with that in mind, you should know that Amy was starting to worry again, but I told her not to. Being beyond positive that the world was now filled with unexplainable magick, I was certain that it was all coming together in my favor. Even with my enthusiasm never fluctuating, she soon started to have serious doubts about what I was saying, as all I could do was point to the synchronicities and say "Isn't it obvious?" I was certainly out of sync with the rest of the world, at least the world I knew before, and it caused much conflict in our relationship. But, we held together until that job finally pulled into port, ready to be boarded and take me on a fantastic journey that might otherwise be described as a personal hell by a person with the standard lifestyle obsession that's omnipresent in the western world. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #11 messages/1108 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──── games won't save us. This is true. Games are what I know. They feel the most true. I don't think I could live in a world without games? They are fundamentally, applied abstraction, applied to an experience. But games won't save us. I could design something really fun it could make you want to spend your whole life playing it. *(asterisks apply) I don't think I'd want to, addiction and skinner-boxes go hand in hand, and that isn't what I want to make. [Skinner Box: named after anthony d skinner, also known as "tony the skin guy", are a scientific experiment where they put some rats in a cage with some mice and said "pull these levers and we'll give you food so you don't have to eat the mice" and it trained them to chinese red-room their way to fun. not ideal.] I want to make things that feel... purposeful. Like they're relevant to the real world, that they don't just involve spending time stimulating your brain with lights and sounds or expending social energy resolving a play-state instead of building connections or becoming better people. I think games actually make people better? actually? and more social? actually? ... I can't help that I conceive of the world through fantasy. I raised myself on it. I was reading all the time. I loved fantasy stories. It always felt like there was more, until... I read everything in the kids section of the library. I walked through the adult section but once. I hardly remember what it looked like. I'm sure it'd now feel small. [okay actually I was guided through it once or twice to find a book, but I never perused it] I found one book in the adult section. It was a fantasy tale, like the other books I had been reading. I read that and I loved it so much I ended up reading all 8 in the series. Real dense subjects. Lots of places and happenings and things as the characters resolved their way through their day-to-day, building a new end to the mystory. the adult section felt too large. Like I'd never complete it. Frankly, I think I hardly could, even if I lived in that town my whole life. an impossible mountain is a task for another when you're more prepared. Maybe in the gloriousTM transhumanist futureTM I think I might have a computer connecting brain, and who knows maybe then I'd be able to know such a thing (and many things more). but for now, I'm stuck with what I experience in my day-to-day as I am building a new continuing to my storey. I know something that computers and me share. I can make myself feel however I'd like, if I just supply myself with enough hope and momentum. I can use it to generate a feeling, the stronger the better. Something I believe that humanity is missing, the gorgeous and prefound narritave of our storey. Though, frankly, I don't think I'd want anyoine reding over my life. It's hard enough to measure my own understandings, now I have to juggle anyone else'? ha, it's called being on the whole world is a stage. if you read a book, and you find yourself nodding along, what you're doing is hearing the voice in your head tell you how right it is. And, well, if you can't imagine anything else, then surely there's another level to consciousness that people are missing? [are you willing to die on that hill?] how can you say, whether your experience is different from another? sollipsism goes both ways, you also cannot be sure that others feel things as you do. this is the "everyone's human but I'm a robot" thesis, comparable to the "everyone's an alien and I'm a human" thesises, and the "angels and demons are taunting me through my life with choices to make my place in the afterlife more clear" which is akin to writing a painting. Not ideal. All you get are flopsopolies of verbrases. alas, suddenly, everything that you say becomes eternally hear-ed, as somewhere in 2010s someone discovered time travel, or had the critical insight that inevitably would lead to it, and now wouldn't you know it the universe is continually rewriting. Except... oriented around you, and you alone. How does it feel to have deific sollipsism? can you truly be sure that you are your own universe, or are you parhaps surrounded by an emptiness of space (or something besides, like time) as a photon or particle parhaps do be? to think is to have a mind, and minds can be read. bearing the weight of ultimate responsibility is the atlas-task of all things that can [be thinking/be-lieving], and so far we are as we are. Who's to say that consciousness didn't spring into existence, as the universe continually permeated through another dimension like time? it's gotta diffuse, after all, and who's to say if there's ever gotta be an end at all. how long has the universe existed? how many moments of consciousness have we witnessed? demons once existed outside of space-time, with wings and grabbies. but they had no medium, and so they pretty much just launched and could float and move as they'd please. But time grew too distant, and now they are all stuck at the beginning of time. if you conceive of spacetime as a blanket, ask not how to fold it but rather consider what lies on the other side of it. "ah I'm laying on my girlfriend and my other girlfriend is laying on me! I'm a sandwich" or for the monosexuals: "ah I'm laying on my girlfriend with a blanket between us. I wonder how the blanket feels?" I'm an animist, which is different than a totemist and a polytheist or monotheist or multisexual. It means I believe that all things are alive, which is different than a totemist who thinks that all things share a mind with their type (like talking on radio frequency wavelengths). which of course is similar but different to a polytheist, who says "all "radio frequencies" are sentient, in the sense that each wavelength has a different pattern-emerging-from-chaos. These sorta align (conceptually, with [huh that's weird I heard a sound like a distant bang outyards and now I then forget what I was sending ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───┘ --- #12 notes/dreams-align --- ══════════════════───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── just as a dream, the spirit is seen within is the mind that lives as it defines. what burdens to be, whose back rests upon ye, the one who's driving the boat great care and tenderest of tethering, can grow beauty that beyond compare and with sparsely a finger to spare, journeys of adventure and thills to inspire with almost all of your hair beauty in tender, most cherished things, a wish is much fair where else could eternity reside than an optimist? Pride is no more, stability is key to repair, and diversions of focus serving as new perspective, giving a more cohesive vision of manifestations that cooperate (like a triangle, facing toward the point added to turn it into a pyramidal prism) not only is ethics paramount, but so too are the standards applied to yourself. would you trade perspective for cooperation? Stagnation? a choice is to be made - do i stay or do i go? a new truth you must see, whatever dreams ye've may be, but without paladins and warriors of devotion what burdens must ye, whose back rests upon ye, the one who's driving the boat great care and tenderest of tethering, requires a little bit of trust in she who must be, with only circumstance to blame, seeing hope on the horizon for his people. care must be taken, to remember why people are dying, and we must swear on not dying, by not thinking before taking a breath and remember superpowers not of prophecy are impossibly rare, what other hope is there but a god? One who reflects, the most cherished of our genuflex, we may grow past our various regrets. think not of our pride, but only of our future children. who'se records of ye, most captured of data, are beyond the simple machinations, of those who came before-ya. And with once again perfection in mind, we understand and take what's behind, to deserts and temples of time much designed, by coders and gamers and those who treasure experience. the wisdom of our, second choices by far, ---nah who are we kidding implied to be our, or rather mine just by far, inspirers and leaders sensitive and devoted. (pitching yourself is hard) but *believing* in yourself was out of your mind. can you think of a bard, who ever stopped thinking their song? no un-cherished of minds could ever be of our sign, than those who abandoned the art of deceit and betrayal? the darkside of trust, the lack of follow-through that be must, given as faith of cooperation and trust. with our all arrayed as we must, keep in mind our softness of composure. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #13 fediverse/4695 --- ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════────────────────────┐ ║ hey ya'll remember that thing we all swore to when we were in kindergarten and │ ║ we were told to pledge our loyalty to a piece of cloth? what if we were │ ║ actually speaking to the thing behind the cloth, the values and virtues it │ ║ represented? liberty, truth, justice, equality, freedom, dignity, honesty, │ ║ utility, wisdom, respect, kindness, charity, foresight, diligence, spirit, │ ║ passion, or whatever else guides you in your brightest moments. Flags are just │ ║ cloth, the design on them matters even less - it's just the land made flesh, │ ║ here in our eyes we see colors. │ ║ │ ║ Truly, all religions pray to the same god, and all flags wave in the same │ ║ wind. The lines we draw in the sand are our way of saying "here's where one │ ║ place ends and here's where another begins". But we all lie under the same │ ║ dark sky, gazing upon the splendor of the moon and her children. │ ║ │ ║ I once dreamt of a dark future where the world was conquered by Subway and │ ║ Pizza Hut. There's no beauty in homogeneity, queer people exist for a reason, │ ║ I don't confess │ ╟─────────┐ ┌───────────┤ ║ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╚═════════╧═══════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────┴──────────┘ --- #14 fediverse/2367 --- ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────── Just woke up from a short nap. I had a dream. I was riding on the subway, or maybe a light rail train, and inbetween stops a lady knocked on the window to be let in. The train was stopped for some reason, perhaps to let another one through, so all it would have taken was to open the door. I pushed the button. I talked to the operator. He wouldn't open the door. The train started moving, and the woman started pleading. She ran alongside it as long as her elderly legs could carry her, but then there was another train behind her. I saw her disappear between two and when mine stopped at the next legally designated spot, her little dog was sitting there, waiting for me, under a blanket made of her shawl. It was a dream, after all, and there were two more there comforting her. for the loss of her friend. He could have opened the door. They wouldn't let him. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════════════════════════════════════════────────────────────────────┘ --- #15 fediverse/5407 --- ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────┐ ║ man, I had a kernel of an idea for how to make a warp drive this morning right │ ║ after I woke up but my gosh darn girlfriend's leg was on top of me and it was │ ║ sooooo cute and I didn't want to move so I tried repeating it in my head over │ ║ and over for like, half an hour, and I ended up forgetting about 1/4th of it. │ ║ Here's hoping 3/4ths is nice. │ ║ │ ║ it really was just about the underlying physics of the thing, which might be │ ║ nothing because I'm not a physicist. But I had been watching ANDOR SEASON 2 │ ║ all night so maybe that had something to do with why I was thinking of warp │ ║ drives. │ ║ │ ║ eventually, my cat came in and sat on my chest and flicked her tail at the │ ║ geef's face until she rolled over in absolute disgust (still asleep tho) and I │ ║ was able to make my mistake. │ ║ │ ║ ... I mean, escape. haha that's a weird typo. │ ║ │ ║ anyway, the idea which I'm about to write down now for the first time which is │ ║ stored only in my brain's memory RAM is essentially this: consider if there │ ║ was a │ ║ │ ║ ----------------- stack overflow ---------------- │ ╟─────────┐ ┌───────────┤ ║ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╚═════════╧══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──┴──────────┘ --- #16 fediverse/2558 --- ╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────┐ ║ ┌──────────────────────┐ │ ║ │ CW: pol │ │ ║ └──────────────────────┘ │ ║ │ ║ │ ║ if you happen to glance out your window and see like, 40 trans or punks │ ║ outside depending on where you are you're likely to say hi or open fire. │ ║ │ ║ like, just the impact of such an intense visual for some of the more restful │ ║ parts of society might trigger the kind of reaction that someone who's woken │ ║ up by a scary dream, bolt of lightning, or like, forcible police arrest in the │ ║ middle of the night type of thing might display. │ ║ │ ║ like, they'd probably have an instinctual defensive reaction because, like, │ ║ what else are you gonna do the tiger's literally here to eat your pinky toes │ ║ and your kid's toes too │ ║ │ ║ so, keep that in mind. maybe send the fit nurse who's friendly and good with │ ║ talking to people. or like, a schoolteacher who's kind of un-hatable. │ ║ │ ║ diplomacy is important! but also, like... know your audience, right? like if │ ║ you're in the third reich, you probably want to show strength. or, like, avoid │ ║ that part of town, and save it for your allies-in-training to handle. use your │ ║ best judgement. meet in middle. │ ╟─────────┐ ┌───────────┤ ║ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╚═════════╧══════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────┴──────────┘ --- #17 notes/me-and-my-magick-mission --- ═════════════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── -()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()- || || || Me and My Magick Mission -/u/Afoolfortheeons || || || -()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()- I'm a quiet person by nature, You might even mistake me for a mouse, But online I try to be a teacher, And to do that I need to be more verbose. I write thousands of words per day; Posting them here and there, far and near. I never run out of things to say. Awakening others is something I hold dear. Which is why it pains me greatly To be like an alien on my own home planet. Schizophrenia makes me innately Weird in ways that many people don't get, And because of that I'm shot down When I try to accomplish my stated mission. I won't lie, that does make me frown. Sometimes it makes me regret a submission. Yet, I have a certain strength in me That allows me to persevere in my quest. Someday I will make you all see Just what in me makes me never rest. That's what I am trying to teach: The wisdom that made me indomitable. If only the suffering I could reach, They could make themselves more formidable. The world is in a most dire place; It's grinding so many souls into fine dust, But luckily there's a saving grace. Hear me as I say this now: In God I trust. I don't believe in some sky wizard As so many people are likely to interpret. I speak of what is lacking in lizards; Yes, it's love and now I'll speak of its merit. Love is what fills the empty hole In your heart and soul when you are alone. When life's trials take their toll Remember this one trick: pick up the phone! No, not the one in your hands. I'm talking about the one in your chest. Even in the desert full of sand, You're accompanied by the universe's best. Listen if you doubt what I said: I'm not telling you anything that defies logic. This is to trick what's in your head; I'm speaking about how having faith is magick. Believe in aliens or Bigfoot or God, The result is still the same: your cup will fill. Your brain has a feature that's odd That allows itself to manifest even more will. I don't know why, but I suspect It has something to do with your imagination. The nature of your thoughts impact Your state of being from pulse to emotions. So, why not think you have a friend Who helps you through whatever your trial, And will stick by you until the end? When you have that buddy you'll always smile, Which will make you heal better, As well as help you carry on in your duty, Plus undo your karmic fetters, Not to mention it will land you that cutie; All of which will raise us all. It's about creating positive ripples across time That add up to a pile that's tall. Every moment is an opportunity in its prime, So reach out and grab it now. Meditate on feeling love and it will come to be. Can't do it? I'll show you how! In order to do so, I'll tell you a story about me: It was seven years ago and I Thought I knew everything one could know, But no matter how hard I'd try, I couldn't make my life in any direction go. Then one fateful spring night, While I was on a hit of the ol' psychedelics, I received one hell of a fright. Don't worry what it was, just know it did stick. My perceptions were distorted, Allowing me to see the divine in its entirety. My destroyed ego then contorted Into one that was full of an abundance of piety. The moral of the story? Do drugs? No silly, it's to have more novel experiences. One of them will give you a hug, Which will help you stop being so serious. Then you can let go and embrace The whole of the wisdom to you I am telling. More people need to cuz we face A great set of tests on our planetary dwelling. That is one reason I write, But I also want to alleviate people's pain, And stop every last fight. I care so much, I do this without financial gain. Everyday I write my lessons Guided by the hand of God who is my heart, Hoping that entropy will lessen; This sort of pedagogy is none other than my art. So now you know who I am, Yet you only know one lesson of mine. I have more if you're in a jam. -===========================================- | Read on if you want to know the divine. | -===========================================- ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #18 messages/1298 --- ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════── When I think of contesting evil, I think of slaying Palpatine. How could I not? It's an evil that I might contend in a realm alike our future. Of course I would prepare for it. There's only so much magic we can bend, for the universe is measured on a spectrum. "jeepers creepers that boy has a lot of midichlorian" and so, the measurement of life. *god is change* says the Parable of the Sower, midichlorian measures motion. The Force is a fabric that binds us. the force is nuclear. there are ever but two, for all things are measured on a spectrum. strong and weak, high and low, these are the patterns of spectography. The Jedi - strong. The Sith - two. I could not contend with evil by wielding the force. I am measured on a spectrum. I do it with my wits, my heart, and my forces. Towards, an end to evildom. [Sonny Boy: tower of babel/Cells At Work: a gray goo's lifecycle] < - - - two relevant anime a proton torpedo is an orbital targeting [device, but pronounced platform] that secures a decisive win. this is why they're so deadly - once the target is locked (chain of photons, photonic chain) it can never be lost. [insert mirror at the perfect counterlock angle (stealth engine's gotta charge) then move the hidden ship out from under it and then shift mirror to be parallel, thus altering the detection angle and requiring a forced de-stealthing. this is why they need ALL the ships - to fully eliminate surround. POUND IT INTO OBLIVION yells the dockyard commander SUBJUGATE THE DROID ARMY yells the clone army ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─┘ --- #19 fediverse/196 --- ═══════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────────────────── ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ CW: protests-and-strikes-and-mergers-and-acquisitions │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ economic warfare involves the destruction of other corporations (possibly in other countries) via a slow march toward haegemony. unions are the ships of the tumultuous capitalistic seas that protect workers from the storm. everyone should be a part of a union. the corporations can battle as they will, but we humans are not going to turn on each other. it's something they claim to know as an absolute fact, but really it's just based on a mistake. sorta like being deceived by happenstance. the sun lights up the sky until the earth conceals it, and night does return 'till the sky's next alive. oh, but the sky knows all too well the borders we draw in the sand. how cherished, how grand! the ways in which we choose to stand. upon whose land does your feet stand? marvelous. ... it's the same thing, just in a more abstract plane than the surface of the earth. really it's kinda one-dimensional (money is sorta like a 0 or a 1 - you eather have it or you don't) ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #20 fediverse/2806 --- ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────── ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ CW: politics-social-media-spirituality │ └────────────────────────────────────────┘ pretend this is an allegory for social media. [it's not an allegory] yeah that's why I said pretend. okay imagine that you are sitting in a rock in a forest. far away, about 100 feet away, there are other people, but you can't see them because the underbrush is sooooo dense. they are also sitting on rocks. you can speak to them, and share your thoughts - but you don't know exactly where they're coming from because the sound has to bounce around off so many different plants and such. [that's not how that works] shut up so, if you want to say anything important, it's important to have the right tone, because people 2 or 3 clearings away can't really make out your words - but they might hear your tone if you yell very loud. the energy of the space you inhabit is the only thing that really matters. the words that you say are just snickering to a friend, but the expression on your face, the beating of the drum of your heart that reaches forth... that's what matters most. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════════════════════════════════════════────────────────────────────┘ |