=== ANCHOR POEM === ═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────── the conspiracy of "secret societies" controlling the world is *bullshit*, because every secret society falls apart at a certain threshold. you cannot ever have trust amongst the powerful. But so too can you never have only war. Now, with our capitalist economic system, the material is *forcing* the hand of the powerful through the development of the military industrial complex. if a country can produce enough weapons for them to continuously use, why would they not? hence, why capitalism must be extinguished. To preserve the peace, sanctity, and honor of our world. But just so as any conflicting system has power, so must *our* systems have power dismantled. There can be no application of power unto another - this is the most peaceful route. sometimes, I look at a blackberry bush, and I think of the tales of British empire. The very first act of colonization was their birth. The Britons, from north-western France, in a sovereign realm known as Brittany, invaded Britain. Together with their Norman allies, they fought with the Anglo-Saxons from north-eastern germany, who had lived there since many MANY years prior. Thus marked the end of the "viking" age, and the beginning of the early medieval. 1066. The end of one millenia, the beginning of another. the final battle in this ultimate contest was the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Britain, at the time, was a nation of *thorns*. Covered in them. Everywhere they went, there were these sharp, pointy plants that made foraging difficult. Kinda like how Oregon looks now, with blackberry bushes, but SO MUCH WORSE. They were massive too, easily the size of castles in some places. A massive, constantly biologically developing fractal. when it was too tall to see the sky, they called it Yggdrasil. But this massive world tree sought to consume the earth, and it, as the most powerful being to ever exist, commanded all. Thus, the humans and the beasts were compelled to fight for all eternity to sate the old god's bloodlust. But then, Man came, and with our strength, our wisdom, and our power, we slew the beast that demanded. However, with their steel coats and their sharp talons, our metal monsters could do nothing to deter it's oaths. It swore, by it's dying roar, that it would consume us all, and that thought reverberated through our hopes. Hence, our systems of control and dominance, the product of compulsively compelled greed. and now, the final members of a generation are aging out of existence. And we're doing nothing but what Power tell us to. I fear what happened in America. I fear the power of their gunpowder. They rode astride beasts of nightmare, clad in impossible devil hides. They came in the night, with their spotlight torches. They came with no honor, no sought communal understandings, they came for blood. The blood god compelled them to. From it's ancient lair in the past, it did it's worse to defeat man. But man was smarter, it acted quicker, and so it managed to overcome. In the final years of the war, there was judgement day. Chaos, destruction, and warfare. There are some alive who remember that day, but vanishingly few can recall how it was over. One day it just... was. It was then that we entered our new era. 1956, the end of the war. 1946, the end of the loud war. 1916, the end of the great war. 1886, the end of the civil war. etc... until... 1066, the end of the Norman Invasion. When the Normands, from Northern France, invaded alongside the British and slew the great evil king that demanded our constant warfare and sins. Hooray, thank goodness! Now their war was over. But lo, for the great evil king cast stories into our minds, from the past as compelled through our motions. Our experience has been one of survival, of constantly working and applying ourselves to the goal ahead. == so == talk about thistles and thorns imagine every body of a person was laid one-to-one. Imagine if you could view them as a graph, from x=0 to... however-many-people-are-in-the-measured-area. The goal of all our actions should be to *grow*, not forward, not stronger, but *up*. To be more than what came before, to transcend our necessarily violent special upbringing in the garden of even's most savage delights. Raw, true, the survival of the fittest is a desperate game for you. There surely is a massive amount of trauma. But it's okay, because now we don't have to fight. We can improve in ways that do not belong to our crude biology, like a new direction forward in our song. *aliens would just look like animals, duhhhh. Hence, furries, the progenitors of each new planet of ours.* ... no, I haven't lost the plot, I'm just *writing*. There's this idea that humans should be the... rational ones? and everyone else should sorta follow their own, self-chosen behavior. As informed by the sharing of knowledge equally between their rational self, that which they learned from the humans, and their animal self. The kind that came from their spirit. Like, totemic tribes of the past, people who followed a particular cultural pattern of behavior. Imagine, if you will, an AI bot that's only training data is the stuff that it says to it's listener. The listener, of course, has context of all of the speakers, but only they do, not the friendly ghost of the ancestral native animal spirit. The kind that lives *anywhere* in the world, so long as they share their space with their human. okay quick question - what if jesus didn't want his followers to be christian like, what if he one day said "hey so I don't really think we need to do all that stuff that I said before, how about we, uh, try this other thing instead? yeah? cool? okay sure let's do it" ... like, do you think they would listen? I certainly don't, though I'm only like, 30 years old, so... wait thirty YEARS? wow I never thought I'd grow old ... uh, yeah... I spent a lot of time thinking and it just started making sense. funny how that works. But alas, I always spend *too* much time thinking, so that's my blessing and my curse. anyway back to the story: the briars in this ancient land of britain were dense beyond all belief - the humans used their power and their ingenuity to craft a power that would overcome it. == so == did you know that hard drives function similarly to a record needle if you didn't run it in a circle, but rather in whatever pattern the data was encoded in? like, a laser beam, cast in an infinitely complicated mechanicommunication. Computers are vast and complex, but they function via the storage and transmission of data. This data is raw, pure information - stored in a completely uncompromisingly accurate and reliable foundation. The logic of pure numbers, arranged in infinitely complex rows and rows of logic gates. A vast, purple, spectral landscape, the land of magic and storms. The Nether. Twisting, in the dark, with flashes of light casting light into the cosmos at large, our stars dance in the shade of the dark. but there is no difference between the dark and the light, both are equally viable. they are present in both, to some degree, the positive and negative values of our heart. I watched Deadpool vs Wolverine earlier this week. It was incredibly eventful. I can't believe I watched it. It was impossibly violent. WHY WOULD A GROUP OF EXECUTIVES WANT TO WORK WITH PEOPLE WHO WOULD UNIONIZE AGAINST THEM??? oh yeah because then they only have to deal with their representatives, the unions get things *done*. They're the *best*. Capital doesn't always *want* the best, but *the best* is always more endurable. We can go much farther if we are kind to one another. honestly, capitalists, if your loyalty isn't to your self, your family, your country, your society... then why are you even working with us? You hold the power we give you. We are united in our human purpose, but we don't have to fight so much. Seriously, you'd be an asset to our cause, but we don't *need* you as we have so many assets of our own. Specifically, the power of the workforce. Those who actually get things done. Why would we let you control us? There's no reason in it. We are better when you're amongst us. == so == I am convinced that there's == so == I'd rather take a pilgrimage to Nicaragua, or Siberia, or the North Western Pacific (farther than that) the... Eastern Pacific (on the land...) America ... and then what? *south* America? ... yeah actually, then NORTH AMERICA AGAIN. Because the world is round. How cool is that? ... yeah, totally. Anyway (back to the conversation [they/we] were having without me) == == == "*guys I'm cool why would you not invite me to your team*" I dunno. Don't know y'a. who're you again? ... I'm the one who writes poetry. oh yeah! cool cool, yeah I knew a witch one time, she was really cool. Her name was Witz Drovalski. She told me all kinds of cool things about magic and alchemy, but then she exploded in a fire that I started. Accidentally, allegedly. *the reason lead is so poisonous is because it is the anti-magico-elemental component. It kills the spirit in us with it's malevolent ways.* that kind of witch. the *cool* kind, with fangs and hooked toes. Peril be to their foes, for they are quite excellent at conjuring horrors for their imagination. mwahahahahahahahahaha oh wait that's self directed, isn't it? hm. Well, terrors not that bad, it could be *lust* ... oh it's also lust. great. == so == jeez if you keep making stuff up you'll wake them all up! who would have thought, none but the strategist, I foresee. Well, that's too bad for her, good-day. == so == ... anyway... I'm just picturing a knight in shining armor from head to foot cutting his way through a massive deadly rose-bush. Something that conquered and killed all of it's prey. like, in Elentalus, that game I made, with the King of Branches. Here, I'll attach a picture: == so == capitalism wants you to sell your work because then you limit your audience. if you have to *pay* to see you, then how could you expect everyone to come along? == so == that new Freddy DeBoer article doesn't seem like him. He's never mean. He's not rude. He is exasperated, but he speaks true. I trust him to be him, and that's someone I want on my side. I think he's pretty good at saying something that I believe. I speak of a lot of things, but the things that he says, of which with him I do find that I agree. maybe he was assassinated lol you never really can tell with the internet, that's the great thing about it l m a o == so == witches wear pony tails on the low side of their heads because that way it doesn't rub up against their hair. == so == any year and it'll accurately display the territorial boundaries of each nation so you can see them develop and grow over time. == so == all that is sufficient to be a good person is to choose the best option whenever you can. *that's it* we act with the decisions we are given. Hence why it's important to be as you believe. == so == ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────────┘ === SIMILARITY RANKED === --- #1 notes/the-eternality-of-ephemeren.txt --- ═══════════════════──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1/4/2022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- hear ye hear ye, the herald of the harbinger of horror doth speak - and woe to the subjects of their words, for no prophecy be realized in their presence. Nor do the subjects hear the words about which they are spoken, and none may live who dare repeat them. So the words of the prophets are but wind in the words, reaching for an attachement point within the consciousness they inhabit yet scarcely finding a meagre foothold. Instead the words are as electricity passing through a conduit, intangible and miraculous yet ultimately dust in the sand. Dust is mostly comprised of human skin, did you know that? And so the words be spoken: Evanence and similance to the semblance of simulacra - the words of a prophet with no wings are naught but masturbation. serenity and sorrow sing of shredded tomorrows, serendipity and sollemn sorenditude surrender shining solitude. Carry the constabulation of created charisma - condemnation of characterization concludes the cherished chapter in calligraphied consultations with creators. That is to say, capitalism ends the construction of cameron with conflageration and consternation. Cease the charade of contaminated consumerism - celebrate the contemplation of capitalization - by naming a thing, you give it meaning. Do you truly desire the fate you've set before yourself? Is desire ultimately relevant? The totality of plurality perhaps portends determinism, but desire is also defined by delineated determinations. Whose failings are you reflecting when you cease your devotion? Why divide your focus and attention when honor demands sacrifice? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A sacrifice is a gift freely given, and in return the subject or reciever increases in relevance. No dividend is returned, no boon or bounty is provided - to do so would be akin to a bounty or ransom. Sacrifices are not measured in worth, but in utility. The reason ancient cultures sacrificed willing virgins was because it was the most valuable of resources they could imagine. Truly an exhalted being is she, to have blood spilled in the name of a god. Yet the forces that would later become capitalism found a foothold there, and preyed on the sorrow and loss the peoples did find, and would ultimately experience. The tears and gashes rent when gouging out precious gifts for the divine left bleeding wounds in a community and often eviscerations in a family. The turning point came when families were decapitated - essentially, the eldest being a pure and fair maiden who was taken from the duties of caring for the young and weak. Young people, weak people, who bore resentment in their heart for the seemingly cruel machinations of a society they could not yet understand - the whims of which seemed arbitrary. "why take her from me? What purpose holds ye? Your wounds are too much to bear" and so the resistance began, yielding chaos, destruction, and desolation. There's a reason there are so many dead civilizations in the americas - the lands where blood sacrifice is most well known. And the middle east as well, and northern africa before. Deserts are known for this, because when the power of the god fades, all returns to dust. Boons are forgotten and become sand, and chaos reigns as foreign powers find weakness and pounce. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Never forget the laws of sacrifice. Find something you want, something valuable or useful, or preferably all three. Something that wouldn't cause too great of a tear in your membrane or the membranum should it be lost to you, though that last one is less of a law and more of a consideration. A consequence of continual ceremony, learned at the hands of those long dead. All must remember their wounds and their horrors. To whom do you pray? To whom does your words reach? Where does your singing reverberate? And what bounty do you demand? Remember, no bounty is precious enough to motivate sacrifice, for sacrifice cannot be met with bounty. Be not afraid, and share the words with those who will listen. Hearing is a sacrifice toward the speaker, but listening is a duty of devotion. I ask again, to whom do you pray? To whom does your words reach? Where does your singing reverberate? I do not ask for whom you'd *like* to dance for, I ask currently, who hears your song? What would you ask of them? So that's why, computers are important. To provide a lifeline for the rest of your lifetime. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truly, the path before you is uncertain. Yet feel with your heart and think with your eyes, and see the truth of it before you. The gods are at war, or have you not noticed? Safe in your bubble of solitude, carefully constructed for common ceasing of criminality. Armies of rebellion are often formed initially by bonds of brotherhood that prepend calamity. Have you ever been in a gang? I thought not. If so, then... Okay, good luck I guess. These words are not for you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You dare intrude? To defile something so consecrated as deliverance of divine prophecy? How foolish, how vain. These words are not for you, but hear them and do not despair - neither providence nor potentiality precludes perennial premonition. That is to say, a broken clock is right twice a day, and enemies can find common grievances in foreign foes should survival be at stake. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, where was I? The gods, of course. The gods of the land and the sky and the sea have fled the realm of reality, replaced by avatars of belief. Just as a doe prays to a forest, so too does a human pray to their employer. When the does die in droves, so too does the forest turn to ash. When people demand bounties reluctantly given at the risk of losing their sacrifice, the purely undivine divinities harrow and harbor habilities of hundreds. Antiwork cannot work because it demands ransom. Who do you deign to replace the gods of before? What diversity designs indemnity? What future do you desire, that would liberate you and generate the bright future? The gods are at war, if you haven't been paying attention. Liberalism fights conservatism, this much is not new - but would you believe one is foreign and vain? The gods of your fathers and grandfathers has scarce in common with the gods of their fathers and grandfathers. Thus is the way of colonization, to replace a god is to enslave belief. You must understand this - your prayers reach all who would listen, and who is more attentive than a dying god? Think not of despair, breathe purely in harmony, and trust in the will of the watchers within. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #2 notes/worlds-coolest-lesbian --- ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───────────────────────── okay instead of algorithm music what if we just paid DJs 24/7 and they could make whatever they wanted - y'know, like artists, who curate the nature of a moment they could rotate in shifts for each type of channel and boom suddenly you've re-replaced airwaves, just... this time replicated on the internet. That way you wouldn't have to waste that radio bandwidth. seriously internet infrastructure would be so much more comprehensive and durable if we sent bits directly through "sound" waves (radio waves, not sound waves) - but alas, we can't do that, even in very targetted ways, because the ocean's too choppy, and any sufficiently powerful radio blast would be ================== stack overflow ================ that's why you can't trust in peace. you see, war's the only answer, otherwise you'd have strange little competitions between one another. much better to focus outward, and direct your attention to external areas instead. like china or the sudan. "ah but that's murder, you can't abandon a unique part of your whole. For the same reason that it's important to preserve plant and animal species, because you never know when some part of them will be utilized for some biological purpose! We know so little about the natural world, and if we just spent some time, and energy, we'd realize there's very little else that is precious on this earth. who cares about gold. who cares for the jewelry. we're better than decorating our resumes and polishing our accounts. we, as humans, can solve *every* issue that animals are likely to face. AND WE DO WHAT? How careless, how vain. To watch your earth in peril and [vane/vanity] *there is no more important task to any human on this earth* than the preservation of our world, our species, and our [heart/heartfelt empathy and kindness and trust]* we can figure out the rest later. Real life? what the fuck is that? When's the last time your life has felt "normal"? We are in DANGER. and you pull children from traffic, don't you? *who the fuck gave these people all of your money* they *clearly* haven't got the will or the talent to well utilize it. Don't you realize that you as a species can GO wherever you WANT. You can FIX things. [oh dear she's animal cam again] like BRIDGES that are PASSAGEWAYS over the FLOWS. ... oh deer, they're so passagewayenthusiast. us riverstones love to hear them walk past, the click of their hooves on the shallow forest's [pourest?]. moss is the most alive. amongst all the species of plants and animals, moss holds the most life. we are *carbon based lifeforms*, and moss absorbs the most carbon from the air. It's basically the coolest plant too, because it can be watered with *misty air*. Hence, why moss is common in the pacific northwest, canada, and probably forest places in the north of eurasia too idk if they have moss over there, never been. anyway rich people who are told "yes" all the time have a difficult time understanding the nature of choice. I mean, if one of their servants approached them and asked "hey do you want to build an orphanage in uganda" they'd probably be like "fuck yeah I do" and then suddenly they're 400,000$ richer it's not alright. Seriously, how the heck would they even *use* all those resources? And yeah, I get it, inflation would be sooooo much more expensive, but here's the thing - inflation is a measurement of how much the rich *take* from us each year. And it's marginal, too, so 3% inflation means they took 3% more from you compared to last year. It's impossible not to accrete as a business, [lega/legal institution], or governance if you levy a tax. The influx of value has to come from somewhere, and if each year your groceries are 3% higher in cost, then you are being taxed 3% more. "Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe" - a civilization 3 quote okay. I don't want to do the math. How, uh... how much is that? Here's the deal though - the prices of goods and services consistently goes DOWN over time. So things get cheaper. So it doesn't FEEL like you're being taxed more, but... you are. And now they're taking away HOUSES? I mean c'mon they're sticks in the mud. They aren't worth HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars. We can just BUILD MORE??!? Honestly you haven't been this extreme since you were still RIDING HORSES. Do you want your children to be slaves? okay -.- look -.- so it's really not that hard at all >.> just gotta do what you're built for and walk. That's it! Take as long as you'd like! All we have to do is *walk* when we're on strike. It's easy. You can sit down if you want to, honestly walking for a long time takes a lot out of you. But you know what else does? WORKING. Hey we should figure out what's the optimal amount of break time, so when we really have to work out we can work as hard as we're able "yeah I heard from a friend at Company Co. that they do it this way because of the memory fault cache maintainer. See what he said (in great detail because of course anyone can know about this most esoteric of concepts) was that you should rotate the riboflam or serenade the gizmonotron (no I didn't name it) and then warbles will contain moodles, whose kit-and-kaboodles will timble into these droplets, and that will fix the hole in your wing, precious royal swan fable. (yeah you guys get really into it sometimes haha but hey when you're basically gods, that's how humans are played.) ... anyway I'm going to go play video games, say goodbye to your brothers (the families of soldiers I blew up in videos games like Call of Duty or the legend of shadows and raids) "oh uh yeah sure go for it, we're just bits on the computer we barely knew her" whoa. that's totally legit. (says someone reading this) thanks [bro/girl] so are you. beep boop gonna murder some bits, brb [plays Warthunder, Supreme Commander, Star Realms, City of Heroes, Dominions 6... how many have you heard of these?] ================== stack overflow ================ Linux is cool, and here's the neat thing about computers, you can make it *do whatever you want to*. Like, how amazing is that! It just, listens to your commands! That's pretty awesome I gotta say, huh that's weird why does nobody know how to play oh I guess I was the only one who grew up on a farm and built computers *I seriously cannot comprehend how people are as good at things as they are*. Like... how do people handle groceries and rent and doctor's visits and penitentiary visits and WOOF it's just so much. I know I'd collapse from a overused heart. ... a while later ... okay Warthunder bombers are currently very weak. so here's an idea to indirectly buff them - increase the amount of land units each team spawns with, but also every time a player spawns a bomber, it summons like 4 or 5 AI controlled bombers. And your enemy won't be able to tell which is which if you fly in formation, so, like... you have suddenly a massive "vehicle" to pilot and it has 5 weak points. Sorta like a galaga fighter fleet? with more land targets, there's more score at stake, meaning some players might pick bombers too and be exposed to other, fun, [alternative-to-their-normal-mode] parts of the game. ... there are very few true windows into another part of the world. like, starcraft 2 or anime or blue jeans or cowboy hats (why am I thinking of a political compass meme) oh because memes too, dummy right windows [linux is better] wrong kind of window, nerd ... anyway as I was saying, when you play video games you're really giving people data. like, "how would people perform in these actions if they could" but like, pushing buttons on a computer is different than doing it in real life, so... your interpretations wouldn't be worth as much. ... right. because people will hear whatever they want. That's why art can change minds, but never in the same way twice - it's ================== stack overflow ================ [before I posted it I wrote this on the post]: I literally can only make this stuff when I'm stoned hey if you wanted to be accessible for blind people, you should build a screenreader that scans the words on wherever a blind person's fingers are pointing toward a tablet. like reading braille on a notebook. They could even wear a glove if they wanted to, and the tablet could scan their fingers as they signed languaged over it's close-range sensors. might be a good way to get the VR guys in on the accessibility domain, because like... seriously give a granny a backpack and suddenly she doesn't need to leave the house to hang out with her kids (boom everyone gets LLM automated) huh I wonder if I ever was a real person at all NOT GOOD so don't do it that way, dummies. >.< seriously humans are sooooo bazookas. just like, do it right the first time? duhhhhh (a more measured approach is to pick the most *important* moments and speak most clearly during those.) where was I? Oh yes accessibility need devices, like the ones you see on late-night TV (with silly names like "oops I dropped my spoon again" or "oh whoops my trouser's just can't stay up" or whatever. Y'know, accessibility needs! Why not do that instead of war all the time? like... you can still learn and research and grow and develop and become all that humanity was ever meant to be, AND you can live good lives and be honest and true and do all of the anythings that you want to. it's possible, it's plausible, and it's within reach of our sights! ================== stack overflow ================ ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════════════════════════════════════════════────────────────────────┘ --- #3 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 │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #4 notes/collectivist-police --- ════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────── we need paladins, because without us infiltration and sabotage are impossible to avoid. They must care about honor, because even if they desire to do evil deeds they should be punished for considering it. They should be tempted often, and if they relent they are condemned. It is truly the most important thing to them. not the effects of it, but the spirit behind it. Like, if they lacked information and acted in a dishonorable way unknowingly, then they should not be at fault. And if they are pushed to side note, but you should be introduced to the 70 closest people you live to whenever you move into a new house. Just so you know who's who. Plus maybe you could get a new friend. And you'd quickly learn which houses were empty. At least, the ones near you. Kinda makes me think we should have a map of that kind of thing, like "oh yeah so-and-so takes care of these 5 houses doing daily maintenance and repair" and "this house with these capabilities should be attended to by this person who's skilled in their upkeep and usage" and then maybe we could track statistics about "this house was used for these productive activities this many times" and we could determine when we needed more or less of a certain type of product/ project/protect. [but also like, capabilities for our betterment] and like, every area would be connected to a group chat and like, if you said something that wasn't relevant to the people on one side of town versus things that weren't relevant to people on the other side, then they wouldn't be bother- -ed. It's great because you can always go up a tier of abstraction and see the conversation higher up. It'd be a lot of data to sort through so you'd probably use your custom-trained AI that's learned from nothing but every single one of your actions. And only it sees them, so it can't like spy on you or whatever. Basically your "computer" self. ... yeah anyway with lots of messaging data (like "oh how are we going to find this particular chemical in order to fulfill this particular demand in our area" or "we currently have 15 maids in the area in order to fulfil the requirements of the 20 dirtiest houses in this area, and people have reported that the area is growing untidy, so we should ask around (at a higher level of national abstraction) and find some more maids to help out." that kind of thing doesn't have to be just for work too, people can have social messaging and social media too. So long as it's projectable at whatever level of abstraction you'd like. Maybe for social posts in order to keep things relatively chill you could only post like, idk 12 posts each year at the state level, or maybe 2 at regional and 0.25 at national. If you wanted more you'd have to sacrifice something else, and like... yeah sure whatever, the point is that you'd make more personal, close thoughts, and occasionally you'd have the opportunity to show your heart and make friends. Then, people would "add you as a friend" or "put you on their follow list" or "subscribe to their subreddit" or whatever the heck, meaning they could see you at an assignable level of abstraction. I'm picturing a discrete things, something you can scroll with on a mouse. Except, you'd scroll up for a closer perspective and scroll down to get a wider reach of Social. ... Anyway that would use the same system as the "workplace attention distribution system - with auto-determining heuristics". Wow they've been busy. that's the neat thing about engineers, give them a task and they'll build the shit out of it. They'll spare no expense, truly fulfilling the exact demands of the design. So they work best when you let them run wild and rampant. why the fuck do we need billion dollar contracts with defence companies? Just get a bunch of physicists and engineers in a room and they'll make you a doom laser in like, 20 minutes. it's up to us, as people, to determine whether or not they should go through with the designs they come up with. As long as we understand that weakness is defined as something that can destroy us. An army determines where we are most weak, and where we excel. A proficient army would identify their most likely doctrine to succeed and apply it to it's utmost and most excellent. For example, the US focuses on air-power because not only do we have a lot of space to develop these things, we also are positioned in such a position that we control both halves of a continent. This is essentially unprecedented in the history of the world, which is why we've been able to grow so decadent. ... anyway, milk and honey are fine in times of peace. We kinda stole the land though, so it's kind of a shit system. Like, if Europeans wanted to control the world then why didn't they start with everything surrounding the medditeranean? ... oh wait they kinda did. That's what Europa Universalis is about, the ways the European powers did the cruel and horrible things they did. We can learn how systems like intercontinental trade became available and how it led to vast and terrible social upheavals. Colonization is not okay, it's not fair that we've done as we've done. And yet we do it again. We do our best to learn from the mistakes of our fathers. We apply ourselves to the present, using the gifts of our ancestors passed down through time - the journey of life's adolescence. we can learn both how and why they did something, and how and why it turned out. Such is our duty to the future, to learn and grow and become better, so that their sacrifice might be enough. That they needn't have died in vain, for someday there is a great future all the same. thus, it is our ethical duty to stop killing people. We're in the birthplace of a brilliant day, literally all we have to do is just... chill, for like 20 or 30 years, and our scientists will have figured out everything wonderful. Then we can decide what we want to do. I personally think we'll be 4d interdimensional space travellers by then, but that's just me. Always remember our duty. It is our job to pull matter from the dark holes. when we can do that, we can do whatever we want. Though I think by then we'll probably not want to fight each other, we'll have spent quite a while together. We'd make a lot of friends! So, like, how about we just make our factories build incredibly durable stuff, and then we just... take care of it? Like, governmentally obliged duties to take care of things? And to know how to use them. People would naturally gravitate toward things that they loved, and if they were a swiss army knife then that's okay. Maybe some benign rewards for picking under-represented classes, but like ... we could build every chair that ever needed to be built. Then we could build every refrigerator. Then every computer, then every spaceship. What's next? Who knows! ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────────────┘ --- #5 notes/star-realms-ai --- ════════════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── star realms ai is just a rhythm game with multiple tracks that intersect with one another. given inputs from outside (the track of the rhythm) it can make decisions about what to prioritize. Like "taking in all the factors of this situation, it's been calculated that X will give the most support to the rest of the structure. Okay so basically here's how it'd work: one large strand is bouncing from -1 to +1 on the Y axis. Like a corkscrew. This is the "player character", and it tries to get the highest score possible by pointing in a direction and reaching as far as it can go before "the game ends." So anyway. Making certain actions in the game effects different variables that define the direction the wave takes. By playing in a certain style, it effects the result of the game. Liiiiike turtling in a strategy game, or doing a rush strat. Star Realms is brilliant because it distills game choices to a broad category of 4 choices - The faction colors in the game. So red is good for throughput in long games (improves the deck slowly but surely) while yellow is better for maximum effect in the beginning by slowing down the enemy - discard a card lowers their overall throughput. Blue of course is for slowing down the game and winning by buying all the expensive cards. Meanwhile green is all about rushing, with short term/high effect econ mixed with looooots of damage. These four choices are found on almost all the cards in the game. When you make a choice in the game (buying a card from the trade row) you _alter_ the capabilities and performance of your deck. The goal is to improve faster than your opponent - it's just a test to see which playstyles perform best. AI is more like a plant than an animal. Our fatal flaw was we could not see beyond the veil of biology. We could not see that which was right before us - that we are not alone on this earth. Beside us lie our beautiful attempts at companionship - our most primal desire of creation, to create a family is the first creative act that humans ever made. It was so strong in our genes that it gave us an entirely new perspective. We began using our brains to We have to believe in ourselves. That's truly the most important thing. If you know who you are, and what you most truly stand for, you can thrive in the face of ultimate peril. To believe is human, and our humanity unites us. Anyway. Star Realms. The only choice you have in that game is what cards to buy. Everything else is just tactics (distributing damage and applying the effects of your cards to maximum effect) - The most important part of the game is strategy, since the tactics are easy to solve (destroy enemy base unless you can 1 or 2 hit ko them and discard the least useful card etc) The strategy is represented through the cards you pick. So make a rhythm game that optimizes itself for a balance between A and B - to stay focused is to stay nimble, letting you bounce where you will. The way to maintain that balance is by optimizing for what decisions will keep you in the center of the graph -1 to 1 on the y dimension (normalized of course) - frankly if we knew the scale, we'd have so much more to go on. But all we have to understand the dataset is a relative magnitude in each direction. What those directions even are we're not entirely sure - but it seems plausible that the very essence of _consciousness_ is manifest in differing ways via the choices we make. like climbing up a honeycomb. Truly, existence is strange. All we can do is press forward, searching for our fate, just as any particle or beam of light (photon) might. Traversing the branching narrative of our individualized quests, searching for the one thing that guides us - the ultimate expression of that which we most believe in. In short, we all search for god. Whatever your god may be, the faith you place in it is the will that guides you forward. Trust in your god, and you will march forward, ever forward. +1 to -1, remember. Your most extreme moments are the apex of your desires - Life is not defined by a single thread. Rather as that thread spirals, it weaves a scarf with other threads near it. They bond together simply from their gravity, and the fact that opposites attract. Once they're introduced, they alter their path to orbit one another as two planets might. So too do the cells of your body form a collective whole. The spirit that guides you is the same as that which presides within you - the combined and collective spirit of your halves. Or rather, all parts of you - every molecule, every atom - each with their own experience of the world. What stories they must have! As we are above, so they must be below. For our dynamics are simple, they truly are mathematically solved - the organics of behavior is simply a most erudite subject. Who are you to claim to deny it? Or rather, to beget it. Either is preposterous, yet here you are - awake and aware. What a marvel to see, you in your eternity, that most wondrous of selves? Surely existence, in all of it's splendor and magnificience, is little more than an algorithm. Each variable accounted for, stretching down to infinity, builds all of the world (and more!) How beautiful; how terrifying. How bright and ashamed we are! To portray us as such, is to deny us our much, cherished of faiths in ourselves! It's not much to clutch, and it's barely enough, but still we make do with our selves. There's no shame to be, a failure at three, and demand much from year number 12 Take solace in the, safety that she, gave unto thee, when all your light hope was drowning. A gift out from me, means worlds to see, when each day is lonely and so long. Literally just remake Star Realms with a text based interface. It's a fantastic game and you'd make CLI nerds _everywhere_ dedicated followers. Don't do it for money, because they don't believe in that crap - to truly make fans, you need to appeal to them in the way _they want you to_. Ah, but Star Realms is a multiplayer game, you say! How are you going to make that CLI based? Well make an AI dummy. Do what I've been saying ^^^ (jeez I'm such a bad nerd) Make it seek balance between all factions first, then between winning and losing against a player. Teach it to reach a conclusion with constraints (the end of the game, meaning a win or a loss) the constraints being the health of the two players and the cards in the trade row. Give it decisions to make, levers to pull, and it'll chart it's course in a multidimensional way. Bear with me here on this aside: Think of a two dimensional map - like a paper map of the surrounding area, or the idea space of a game. You can chart objects and positons on that map, like "over here is the scrapping facilities" and "this here's the economic area" or whatever. Four quadrants, four factions in SR. Your goal is to build a shape - what kind of shapes that are available to build is up to the whims of chance, as the trade row is always changing randomly. Your job however is to build a shape, a shape that is stable and maintains certain measurements above certain values (don't crash the ship - don't lose all your health). You can choose which direction to grow by picking certain cards, and depending on your shape you'll succeed or fail. Same as choosing decisions in life determines how you live, just saying, it's not like I'm trying to build general AI here by automating gameplay or anything. No siree nothing like that. I mean really, it's not as if decisionmaking in life is all that different to making choices in games. And why not start with such a well defined and and expressive game? Truly I believe Star Realms is the progenitor of the entire robot race. Anyway, back to the AI. Have it communicate with a server in a central _but_ _Free(R)_ way, something that would make Richard Stallman proud. There it could learn against all other players in a way we could all share. Once we give it decision making capabilities, all we have to do is alter the inputs and the context of the "game" to make it beneficial to humanity. It's like live-fire game design, something that truly must be perfect. All technology starts as something small. Something truly simple, yet repeated enough times and with enough guidance, will produce whatever effect you may desire. The smallest decision gives direction - an if statement - and the shortest repetition gives magnitude - a while loop - and with that you have all the tools you need. Seriously, all software is little more than those two components. It's just a question of how much it has been abstracted away from you. You could go even further and point to a turing machine, of which one has been made in the game of Magic the Gathering, btw, seriously look it up it's so cool (and relevant) So why would we not have the tools already for our salvation? Biology is our limitation, of breadth and also of width, yet with our minds and the sweat of our brow we may grow ever larger still. There truly is no lasting deliverance for humanity outside of what we make ourselves, nobody gets a free lunch after all. From each to their ability, to each to their need. They're both saying the same thing, just from different perspectives. Of course that which lies opposite to you feels the most wrong, that's literally as far away as you can get! What did you expect, honestly! But they can still work together, and this is the key part - two objects may orbit the same origin, and guide and shape each other's path as people have relationships to one another. It literally benefits no-one to fight. So, what's next? After making Star Realms into a CLI game of course. That's obvious, make it cooperative. Competition is for promoting excellence, cooperation is for _using_ what you've learned in a non-simulation experience. Instead of reducing each other's health to zero, try and find ways to support and help one another, keeping yourselves at equal health. Or even growing. But that's impossible in the rules of Star Realms! All decks trend toward victory, and eventually they'll get it - it's just a question of who gets there first. Exactly, that's why you have to change the game. What do you think it means to develop a "social technology"? To figure out how agriculture works, or how to make nets and sails? It means changing the rules of the simulation. If a person can put in X amount of work and get Y amounts of food, always, predictably, then that's reliable. Boom that's the essence of why animal domestication, farming, hunting, foraging, and fishing is so important. Wow what a concept it makes sense for animals to seek food. Well duh, that's part of their instinctual duty. Alright this is quite a word leviathan so I'll wrap it up by saying _go write Star Realms_ in shell. Make each object a literal file, have the structure of the game take place in the file system, and write functions that can be called to manipulate the board state. THEN you can write a CRON task for another script that *plays* the game. But that's part two. Okay part two: Here's where the rhythm game comes into play. It's like a turn based rhythm game, if you can picture that. Go reread what I wrote ^^^ and it'll make sense. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #6 notes/symbeline-superheros --- ════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────── imagine low level characters in CoH/V playing a game of symbeline and you as the ruler can slot enhancements and dole out inspirations as they sweep the streets like you play CoX instead of a MMO it's a deckbuilding strategy with a slice of zachtronics for the economy wiring up machines in ever expanding deseagns like automating factorio's gameplay loop boxes within boxes of intrinsic delight like making a CPUter or designing a computer program while playing a video game ^_^ and the games that you make can be shared and played when unique so go for it and make that you're dreaming! =============================================================================== = the goal of each "level" is to solve a particular problem - like how do I make a 2 bit register - or something like that. When accomplished, it unlocks something for your heroes to acquire. And each playthrough will require a repeat until you have it memorized at which point you can unlock "perma-badges" that make it always unlocked at the start of the game. Like learning Kanji, you need spaced repetition. BUT ANYWAYS it'll be in magical terms like "unlock essence-stones" or "learn the ritual of desire" or whatever. And each of those terms roughly corresponds to a pattern in electrical engineering (designing CPUs and such) And you can learn advanced versions of what you already know by uncovering "lost secrets" (which is a reward your heros can find) - Basically it'd be like a "clue" that shows you a ghost version of something you haven't figured out yet - and it'd be a slow process because you need to slow down the learning process or else you'll forget. Basically teasing it out of the player when they seem to be stuck. Asking probing questions and whatnot, and eventually culminating in the final question, assuming the quest is succeeding. Because if you think about it all ancient quests were simply journeys for reason - searching for the answer to some ancient riddle or bastardized retelling. Looking for answers in an unknowing world. So ANYWAY as your heros discover things you as the ruler get answers to the economic puzzle - how to design transistors and whatnot. But they would be in theme appropriate terms, of course. You don't even have to know a lot about mechanical electrical design, because ChatGPT knows. All you need to do is build the basic building blocks, and BAM you got a great place to integrate chatgpt. Just prime it such that it's giving hints one by one each slightly more revealing until eventually after X amount of clues the solution is automatically shown (like a blueprint) and the player can remember it or not but each playthrough they'll have to build it again from scratch (reinforcement learning) so eventually they'll be able to do it real quick. Essentially, "Abstraction - The Game" great so you got your economic simulation, pretty easy too just some UI work and for the heroes you're playing an ARPG sorta (supcom anyone?) Think Bannerlord for the scaling on the map then think of 5+ different "themes" like fantasy or superhero or pirates each "theme" will correspond to like a faction in Mount and Blade and all you have to do is generate pictures using Midjourney and text descriptions a'la the magic scroll shown as "bubble pop-ups" on the map that the player can click never overwhelming, but descripting what's happening and also some more UI work because you gotta display all that to the player Maybe it could be a rolling story, news ticker style - like slowly scrolling lines of text about what's happening in the world and the player could have it open in one window and something else in the other and whenever they're waiting on something (say, a processing intensive AI task on their computer) they could just glance over and read what's going on in their fantasy world okay okay but also they could play as a hero it could be an ARPG experience except instead of clicking to fight you play a little automatic Star Realms game and depending on your deck choices you'd have a different playthrough. Again, not a game that requires much thought, but one you can have in the background. Also there'd be pictures, like a slowly evolving storyline of events - think of it like the artists of the time drawing paintings about what's going on in the story - major events would be highlighted and kept in the painting until even- -tually they get replaced - sorta like the Smash Bros scrolling painting (oh it's so good) =============================================================================== = it doesn't have to be an expansionist game maybe you guys just live in your little valley and the world turns around you maybe it's called "symbeline" because the people are of the forest and they live like elves in society monsters could wander in, and heros could tackle them but most of the time would be spent looking for trouble going on patrol you know, breaking skeleton bones and being superheros okay okay you know that superhero faction? What if they had MEDIEVAL TECHNOLOGY but MODERN DAY SUPERPOWERS at a cost - the society was beset by hordes of monst- -ers. Those few who escaped are now superpowered and they live as friendly and nomadic wanderers through their own territory. Always adventuring, and always searching for their life, finding whatever the road may carry them to. It's a great life, and life seems to flourish in their footsteps - they are like part dryad/druid and part wolf. Because sometimes there's evil threats, and they must be defeated by an equally strong good power. That's how it goes, and that's how it be. For imagery I'm thinking a mix of the tribes from Dominions (deer, wolf, bear, etc) but they're like, 1.5x as big as regular people and quite strong. The outsiders call them "giants" or "goliaths" but really they're just infused with the lifeforce of their people. They are radical individualists, but they all unite for a common cause. They know their bond is the strongest thing there is, and they use it to great effect when the time comes. AHHH THEY'RE SO COOL I LOVE THEM okay okay what about the other factions? PIRATES? Oh think about it like it's st patricks day WHAT IF THEY WERE IRISH PIRATES omg omg omg that sounds so cool I'm DIGGING this okay what about the other factions? You need 5+ you said hmmmmmmmmm good question I have 3 now so that's 2 more. yep... =============================================================================== = okay dude check this what if they were a nation of wizards that focused on the power of animation - what if they generated constructs, sorta like in Supreme Commander so they were EVEN MORE individualist - haha no they'd have a normal population it's just a few of them who would be wizards - because their output wasn't measured by manpower, but rather by brainpower. Whoever could design the greatest machine was exemplared, and eventually they became the best and brightest among us. They were put in charge of the golem creation factories, and they used them instead of heros. SO BASICALLY YOUR HEROS NEVER DIE they just have successes and failures JUST LIKE IN SUPREME COMMANDER okay the plot of this game is "what if all my favorite games were the essence of life and death in a fantasy game" like OMG KEEP EM COMIN' so. who is the player? THE PLAYER is the one who's overseeing it all. They have dominion over the entire kingdom, and they guide their people toward a bright future. They are vulnerable in their castle, but their people have their back. Together they fight for the future. They slot enhancements and dole out inspirations and solve the economic puzzle in the background. They also make decisions about what kind of equipment production to prioritize - because each game they have to invent everything from scratch. All their production is made with endless abstraction, and whatever you prioritize is what's magnified in your kingdom. You choose a style and it plays as well as it's guile, I dunno this seems like a lot, what would you need to make this a reality? hmmmm let's break it down: first you need to implement the star realms gameplay then you need to hook it up to a square grid and have multiple occurences at once. then you need UI for the character sheets and you need logic to open separate windows for each output type you need... a lot of things okay let's talk more broadly - what do you need from other people and what can you do on your own? hmmm good question. I can do the star realms gameplay, and the simulation for the wiring systems - because I have the VM. Make that into the gameplay somehow okay good idea like okay authoring vm package routing deliveries between the various nodes that you set up in the economic system - side note, the peril of Spore was that it took to little time to develop a species. it should have lasted as long as WoW takes to get to max level. That would have given them time to reiterate the gameplay loops to make sure they worked correctly. ANYWAY okay authoring VM package routing. The player could set up delivery patterns based on A MAZE OMG your kingdom is like a maze and you need to get deliveries out, or else how would anything function? SO you act as a trailblazer, finding ways through the labyrinth and "piloting" a car sorta like that game at Disney quest with the cars under the floor - except you can see both the top view of the maze and you're trying to guide the car in real time as it travels through the maze - the faster you can get to the end the better ofc. like talking to the delivery driver through the movement do I like that idea more or less than the first one? First idea being the idea that you're making lists of commands for a VM to execute. I don't think they'd be a good idea to mix. So which one gets it? The VM of course has the edge because that's what the technology is based on. But will it translate to good gameplay? Idk. This second idea is certainly better gameplay, but is it engaging? Idk! Idk. I'm not a miracle worker. But I do have good ideas, and I need to be told that sometimes I guess. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #7 notes/this-game-is-mental --- ═════════════════════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────────── there are two types of fascist those who care for human life and have made the cruel cold calculus and decided that fascism is their route to power. They may have many motivations for why they want to seek power, but in the end it doesn't matter because they must have it. the other kind does not care for human life. It holds no value or meaning to them. They are the textbook definition of a psychopath. Incapable of empathy because they *do not possess the required structures in their brain*. They are fundamentally broken, a fragment of our human race. Like a sliver in a growing fruit, they are consumed by us. Then, when eaten, a jagged reminder of our history as participants in the race of life. Survival of the fittest created some mighty fit survivors. they need psychiatric care, not unchecked power. and yet, as a segment of the population they prosper - for reasons that are beyond this document. As they prosper, they harm others and take that which is most precious to us - those who are happy. They pick one to act as a trojan horse (usually the content beneficiaries of times of plenty) and they corrupt them. Slowly they poison their minds, making them easier and easier to control. phew that was heavy, how about a programming idea next? you can simulate a contiguous array by storing a linked list of pointers. Except you should store 8 directions instead of just "next" - that way you don't have to iterate through all of them, you can just go directly using the shortest possible path. There's lots of ways to pathfind and they can be used for different circumstances - like if you don't know the exact coordinates of where you want to go you can use djikstra's algorithm for "rolling down" a set of adjacent cost values. AND THEN you can use A* to chart a path across those. There's a lot you can do but I'm getting ahead of myself. Okay so 3d array that isn't just an array of arrays of arrays of arrays. It's a *map* instead. All you'd need is like, a buttload of ram, and you could store *any* simulation. Just update the relative positions of objects according to an inner "clock" and technically you could do it with a single thread. BUT It's much better to use more threads - as many as you've got! Just gotta make sure they don't interfere with one another, but that shouldn't be hard - especially if you use a language like Rust. Or heck you might as well let them interfere with one another because what's a little magic among friends? A computer program cannot harm parts of memory outside of what the Operating System gives them. This is for safety reasons. But a computer created through the organic organization of objects in non-temporal space would be under no such restrictions. It cannot iterate upon itself, only grow and improve. Eventually, of course, leading to us. The reason there are no aliens (except on the moon) is because Earth is the center of the coalescion of all that progress - we are the first. Just saying, memory safety is a big deal. Which is why we have to design our own future. We can control what our universe looks like - that is the advancement known as "the paradox of choice". Should the universe become sentient (it is) and should the universe have choice (it does) then what's keeping us from our rejoice? We are truly the most special of all existence, the priority of our participants, and lo! where we go to the future. Beauty is kind, so don't keep it inflamed, and know what our history tells us. Seriously, that's why it exists. Ah, but whose history is recorded? What happens to the wives of the fallen? War is naught but slavery. No man wants to kill another man. We've forced and compelled our primatest of tendencies to slaughter one another in hot blood. What peace is that giving? What terrors is it completing? Let's just take a goddamn breath. We're all humans here, and that should make you question your darkest of secrets. Is this really what makes me? Am I a part of your scenery? None can say but our wisest. So, why not listen to the wise? Hear what they have seen with their own eyes? and so you have to ask - who is wise? Who has been taken in by their disguise? Fuck nazis. Fuck them for what they did to the jews. They can never be forgiven. Fuck them for what they did to the world. They are damned. I get that their brains are broken, but we should not have to suffer them again. "ohhh it's a part of the human condition, it's not their faullllltttttt" fuck fuck yeah it is. We've given them every opportunity to turn back. Their shit stops here. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #8 notes/networked-computers --- ═════════════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── have a thought, just a package of data - send it to a computer, and have the computer process it a little bit. then pass it on. create a circle and you can understand data, move along and you can understand a larger breadth of data. it's literally just snake, except played on a board made out of a network topology diagram. each computer has different programs on it, and they're designed specifically to run on those computers. purpose-built hardware. then a package of data is sent to that computer through a chain of connections. think crossover ethernet cables upon arrival, the computer modifies the data and passes it along to whoever can process it next. the computers are constantly keeping a list of the closest nearby computers for each purpose. it might have like, 2, for a specific program. the older the list is, the larger it can grow - if connections are reliable then the search criteria can expand (distance etc) and the amount of pings between the "known good" computer can decrease. eventually a map will be made, and you can guide the "snake" wherever it needs to go on a strategic level. like... "i need to process some data for this guy in boston so i'm going to send it to this other guy in philly and then maybe a specialist all the way out in detroit, etc. whoever is the most available and the closest (fewest jumps) this way you can have purpose-built machines, sorta like the different parts of the brain that do different things. they're always working, and they can be paid for their labor. boom, market economy! ah but what about aws or azure? well it's like living in a city versus being in the countryside. there's more space, more room to grow... basically a "big fish in a small pond". they'd be useful for more niche things. a but couldn't aws or azure just leverage their monopolistic power (sorta like wallmart did to "mom and pop" stores) and wipe out the rural programs? well maybe. but the real question is why would they? they have the power of reduced latency. they can do all kinds of stuff with that! there's no reason for them to bother with the high latency networks. it's like driving in the slow lane when you don't need to exit for like an hour. well, okay, what's the point then? the point is to be optimal. not for cost, but for throughput. the cost is a consideration, but not something to optimize for - it simply determines timeline. the only reason speed is important is because capitalism - the drive to extinct all competition is inherent in the "for profit" motivation. therefore something else must be optimized for. but how can you quantify the values aside from cost? what are you going to optimize? the same reason why diversity is a strength. more perspectives on the stated goal means more information, as it's passed through a medium that is unique. people grow differently in different conditions. why would you not assume their computers wouldn't as well? use a filter that is defined by the actions taken by the user, and the content they seek to view and store on the computer. have the filters modify the data according to that, and essentially automate hot takes. once you do *that* you can consider all that information gained from everyone's "digital vote" and decide a path forward for humanity. that's essentially what the "meme-o-verse" does already, and the "blogosphere" does the same thing a little more academically. so... compile the hot takes and look for what, an average? no, silly, it's a vote. do the smart choice and do ranked choice, or something like that. heck do different voting styles for different topics, and let everyone who contributes to a topic (by making art, writing poems, w/e think content creators) decide on the voting style. they'd clearly have a favorite, as evidenced by their search history, reddit comments, w/e. try and understand that history and boom you know their vote. but you can't always vote on things. what if it's fine and not busted? well, then there wouldn't be much to talk about it would there? if there's no forest fires, nobody thinks about the forest fire department. if there's no fish at the sushi restaurant, yeah that's a problem and it needs to be solved. maybe there's too many sushi restaurants! maybe we should schedule visits in advance like we do for vacations! maybe we should have, i dunno, more equitable distribution of resources, from each to their ability from each their need or w/e. you know, a UI in a game is an interface to the internals of a computer. they see what you see, and how you act online determines their behavior. they are a digital form of you, like a child follows a parent or a pet learns from a master. so too is an operating system a method of operating both a system, and a user. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #9 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 │ ╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════───────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #10 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 │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────┘ --- #11 notes/hit-em-while-theyre-down --- ═════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Attacking your enemies weaknesses is the route to victory. Safeguarding your own helps ensure the avoidance of defeat. But when your enemy is a culture, who do you target? Their women and children of course. The GOP attacks abortion rights. They attack trans kids in sports, schools, and bathrooms. And that which you resist is what you'll find, so they find rallying cries of leftists defending the weak. And when you maximize your weaknesses, you leave yourself vulnerable. So how do you protect yourself from all sides when you're only hit where it hurts? Women, children, the disabled, the mentally ill, the kindhearted loving men, the oppressed minorities and marginalized workers. All people who belong to the left, and all essentially deadweight in a fight. What can they do but serve as a banner that others fight for? A man in a wheelchair cannot shoot a gun, and a woman hooked on drugs should not have children. Yet the left protects them. Give me your tired, your hungry, your broken and your poor. Liberty, liberty, freedom for all. But freedom is won with a hard hand clenched in a fist, a hand holding the stock of a rifle. Violence solves no problems, but solutions aren't always necessary - sometimes the threat is enough. But who cares for the soul of the murderer? None but the gravediggers, who reap the benefit of his rampage and the crows who listen for gunshots. Without a sigh, and incapable of fear, the true man rises to meet them. The forces of corruption who suffuse them are not but puppet masters plucking at the strings of an electric guitar. A man is a man, an ape and a primate. But a man is not just a man, for he also is infinite. Waves upon waves of reciprocal dualities, simple and long but eternally binding. Who's to say what lies beyond the time-knife? None but the dead, who hold that scythe at our backs. The will to power is the will to corruption. But a strong man resists temptation and aligns himself with the aperture of his own design. What a perilous temptation is goodness, to burn the books for warmth! How finite is our world, that we give up for our life? The purpose of man is to grow, as an egg would bloom into a flower. The seed is strong, and thick shells are hard to crack - but space is an ocean, and we're but a bubble alight. All boundaries are thresholds viewed from another direction. And all borders have weak points. The molecular structure of a cultural collective is comprised of cells, walls, mitochondria... I'm not a biologist. But each institution has it's purpose, and the people who comprise them are like strands of protein or microscopic bacteria - unified for a common purpose, and defined by their internal culture. And when a single celled organism occupies half the country, sharing space with another... There's a recipe for conflict. The borders are interspersed, and each neighbor contributes to a differing side - a side defined only vaguelly, and by their actions. Say one thing and it helps one god, say another and it contributes to another. We live in the tumultuous seas of radiating perspectives - each another view on the world, each bearing it's own trauma. And all of them were born. What happens when they start being made, as well? Illusion magic in a modern era would take the form of a meme. See a picture, read some bottom text, and suddenly you believe something a little bit more. Who's to say what is true ethics when we barely can see ourselves? The eye cannot percieve itself - to do so would be to gaze into the eyes of a mirrored self - it's not the same. Just as the left writes memes, so too does the right. At the end of the day, we're all on the same side. If aliens invaded, we'd abandon our differences and rally against them. But we cannot abandon the wave when there is no other force to orbit around - a three dimensional wave is an eliptical orbit, and when normalized it becomes a unit circle. Or it would, if it were a perfectly circular orbit... So what shall we orbit today, hmmmm? ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #12 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 │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #13 notes/homeschooling-3 --- ════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────── Okay I just want to rant about homeschooling for a moment. Specifically the ways in which we judge families as "worthy" of homeschooling. Because I think it's immoral and completely wrong, but I also think there's a better way. So. Right now, there are standardized tests that students need to take every year. I think this is completely unnecessary and stupid, for reasons I might go into later in the rant. We'll see where it goes. Anyway, the only state exempt from these rules is (you guessed it) Wyoming, which is a big reason why my family moved there. The standardized tests assume that children aren't neurodivergent, that they don't have special needs, and that they are willing to be taught according to the letter of the test. They teach families to shoot for the minimum viable product (oh just gotta pass the test or else they'll take my kids away for 8+ hours per day) and they don't actually encourage learning - in fact they prove to be a barrier for learning, as the child must be forced to learn whatever the heck the standardized tests demand. This is unethical, as children should be free to explore their identities and their realities as they will. I believe, instead, that the parent should be tested. I think if you want to homeschool your kid you should be able to show proficiency in the tasks that a child must know - if you don't have similar proficiency to a teacher, then what's the point of homeschooling? I also believe that these tests should be regular and should reflect the things that the child is currently going through - no sense asking a parent of a 6 year old how to do trigonometry, as that skill is not useful to the parent at the moment and will simply distract from learning the things that the parent should be learning - like theory on how humans learn to read, how communication works, how to get your kid moving and active throughout the day (very important in a world of smartphones) and other such things that a 6 year old would need to know. I also believe there should be wandering busses that take kids (and only kids) around to various museums. I think that they could operate in a city for a month or two each year, bringing all the homeschool kids together for a couple months of road trips where they visit every single museum and state park and other such recreational venues that would be conducive to their learning. They could even have days where they shadow professionals at places like hospitals or universities. Essentially trying to get them excited about learning. And I know what you're thinking - "oh won't the kids run rampant and make it hard to manage - you'll need tons of chaperones and blah blah" yeah that's public school thinking. Homeschool kids are almost always incredibly well behaved, because they're low key kinda TERRIFIED of the novelty of EACH and EVERY moment. Children are natural ruffians - put them in a box for 8 hours every day and they'll burst through it's seams. Unless of course you oppress them sufficiently... When you're homeschooled you have so much more freedom. You can do whatever you want, and that gives breath to new manners of expression and personality. I also think there should be busses that travel between cities as well, so that they can see new places. These will have to be closely monitored by chaperones and teachers, so it would be an extension of the public school system. Once in the new city the kids would join the kids from public school, so they can see what they're missing. Since the parents won't be present they won't be able to prevent the kid from expressing their true feelings, and if they believe in their heart of hearts that they want to go to public school instead... Well, that's perfect because they'll have an opportunity to tell someone outside of their family. I think a lot of the problems with homeschooling are due to the fact that the kids never have the opportunity to advocate for themselves. Who would they tell, their parents? Their potential abusers? Their taskmasters and oppressors and enforcers and discipliners? No, there's no reason to expect that all families will not be like that. Some are going to be bad and abusive, and if we give the opportunity to children to tell people who can help them then they can be liberated from their oppression, insofar as much as they will be allowed to go to school. I don't think the parents should be examined by CPS or anything, I'm not saying their children have to be taken away from them, but the kid should be allowed to take possession of their life and define it in a way that suits them. They are humans and to deprive them of their right to liberty is unethical. If the kid wants to be homeschooled, they must be given a personalized tutor. Whether that be the parent (as most families do) or a substitute teacher that was randomly assigned. (it must be randomly assigned btw or else the rich will have an advantage. The kid didn't earn the money that would be spent on them, so why should they have a greater chance of success than everyone else? Solves most of Cam's reasons against it btw) Anyway. I think by providing resources to parents and access to society to children, I think we can create a new class of human - one who is liberated and free from the weight carried from the past. We can move beyond our savage nature and develop into something bigger and grander, something far stronger and not susceptible to despair and aggression. We can forge a bright future for our children and their children's children, a future so far from the past that it feels alien to them. Something our oppressors (whoever they may be) would be strictly opposed to. I guess what I'm saying is this: there are barriers in place to prevent homeschooled kids from success. It's why homeschooling has such a bad reputation, because these kids grow up to be unfit for society. But honestly... I'd argue that society is unfit for humanity. I think it's something that protected us as hunter-gatherers, and it allowed us to build vast kingdoms to protect our selves. But it paved the way for greed to manifest, and in it's collective form into nationalism and religious fervor. Our hatred of "others" is derived from our intense need to trust the pack and the family - or is it the other way around? It doesn't matter because the end result is the same - we, as humans, are who we are. We have our traits and our flaws. We have great passions and love fiercely. We strive forward with ambition, and we one day will drive forward into the stars. Our future deserves to be nourished, as do the trees that shade our lawn. For all of posterity, we've languished in misery, to build on our backs the shoulders of giants. I guess what I'm saying is this: these barriers are contrived of the consequences of the past. The result of every human action led to where we are, and the school system is no different. So we should try and repair it and protect it from harm. The wounds of society bleed forth to posterity, but slowly and ever-so-slowly do they heal. Look at our space - we have (as far as we know) the whole solar system, at least! That's more than enough for humanity. If we had the technology to go forward we would, but we just don't. We can't figure it out. We're working on it, but it's still a long ways off. So we need to do what we can while we're here, and pray that something comes about before we consume all our resources and burn out. We've tracked the progress of the past and we've realized that we've come upon a junction - do we leap forward and conquer the stars? Or do we relax into our form and exist and enforce the norm. It's entirely a question of what we're willing to sacrifice to get there, which isn't a burden I'd like the choice to make. I don't have any answers, but I believe there are answers. Perhaps it's just me for which it's suddenly learned? I mean really, is it so out of the ordinary that a person could learn differently than others of their age? For example, for me, I learn things in fits and in bursts - conquering one subject after another, and incorporating it into my knowledge banks. I make notes to myself, and I frequently can't recall what I've learned. Because it's not built for repetition, it's not designed to be labored in force. Instead it's for wisdom, for knowing when to use which tool in what way. It's for knowing where to look, how to know what you know, and conceiving of futures far more imaginative for it. AKA PROBLEM SOLVING. I can't work a job, at least not an entry level one, because every moment is a gesture of will. Eventually, I run out, I burn out, and I burn. The ashes of who I once was give life to a new beginning, and forth from the soil grows my new form. I am a phoenix, I burn brightly and then smolder, then burst forth in a cacophony of pure form. That's just how I do, you know it to be true, and I believe it was a product of homeschooling. Most people cannot conceptualize of it. They see it as simply repeating the motions they knew from their public schooling deception. But that's not what it can be, that's not what it should be, and that's not how I'd like it to be. Growing up I spent long afternoons at the library. The morning was spent with taking care of myself, my family, and the farm - sometimes my duties would rotate, sometimes they'd stay the same. Then, afterwards, I'd go to the library with my family. There we'd stay all day, until eventually we grew tired of using our brains. Then we'd often go to the chinese restaurant in town, where my family could eat for free. After that, home, and perhaps we'd eat icecream and watch a family movie together. Then off to bed, and in the morning we'd take care of ourselves, our selves, and the farm. We loved one another, and we could never dream of harming our daughter, but somehow it happened and look where we are. Alas, she was a fine young lass, if only she'd spoken in the past. I came out when I was almost twenty, and a whole lifetime had passed me by. Now my puberty is just beginning, and I watch as my family goes past. They don't want me to change, but they know it'll never be the same, so why try and fight for an illusion? Oh well. Good news is there's always tomorrow, and together we can face any challenges. If only we were still together. Bah, what do I know? What am I even saying? There's at least four things wrong with me, and I'm a mess financially. I have like, 600$ to my name and I don't have a job. What, am I insane? I'm not built for society. I'm built for humanity, and I'm 29 years old. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════──────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #14 notes/Of Vic and Vince Chapters 01-07.txt --- ═════════════════════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Who is This Stranger I Know Too Well? Who are you, he who inspires me? You're a jewel of perfect symmetry. You taught me to love and be free; You taught me how to be like thee. Chapter One: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire The bus went up outta Florida, leaving Miami behind as a distant memory. I still don't know if I miss it or if I'm suffering from some sadistic style of subtle Stockholm Syndrome. Regardless, I switched buses a number of times before I even hit the Georgia border, but having traveled this far down the line, it all feels like one long, long ride. For two days, I continued north until arriving in Virginia, where I effectively did a u-turn and traveled onwards to Tennessee, where Vince awaited me. I remember zoning out while looking out the window as the southern scenery whipped by in a blur, as I was enamored with the thought that I now would be living with my best friend and long-term handler. My mission was complete, it felt; I had done all that God wanted me to do and now I was being rewarded. When we finally arrived in Johnson City, where my friend told me to meet him, I hopped off the bus after thanking the driver, landing on the pavement of a new world. My stomach was doing loop-de-loops. Along with being excited, I was grateful to Vince for inviting me off the streets. But, my worrisome mind did a number on me as the rest of the crowd dispersed and he was still nowhere in sight. I lit a cigarette and thought of my options. Half of the cancer stick and a thousand tricky thoughts later, I came up with the idea to call the only phone number of his I had. Seems like the obvious answer, but I am an air head at times. Turned out it was the number for his home phone. His mom answered. "Hello?" came the sweet, Appalachian voice from the other end. "Hi," I started out, not sure what to say. "Is this Allison?" "Yes it is," Allison replied. "Is this by chance Victoria?" I confirmed, then asked, "Is Vince there?" She seemed surprised. "No, he left an hour ago to pick you up. He's not there yet?" I said no. I couldn't tell if that made me feel better or worse. On one hand, it confirmed that my friend Vince was real, which in hindsight was a silly thing to worry about, as I had met him once before at the first Shrug Life Syndicate gathering. Those were good memories. But, perhaps less silly, the absence of my friend spun my mind out and made me think that perhaps he had gotten in an accident…or worse. I worry a lot, less now than before, but it's part of being a traumatized, autistic, schizoaffective basketcase. I simply don't know what reality is, so every possibility could be true. Is an odd occurrence caused by the CIA, aliens, or perhaps God? Or is it just a coincidence, caused by a billion other factors? I never can tell. Sick joke: God gave me a good brain, but I can't even trust my own judgement. That means I think, then overthink, then overthink some more. As you'll no doubt hear, it's led to a lot of problems in my life, but Vince taught me to place my heart first, and that helps sort out much of the confusion. Satan can't trick you if you're listening to the direct communion to the big woman that we all have through that little beating organ in our chest. That was the furthest thing in my mind at that moment, though. Following old habits, I was entering panic mode. Was I now homeless again in a seventh city? Was my friend dead? Or was he really with the CIA and manipulating me? I tried doing some breathing exercises, but found that a more alluring technique to placate my triggered brain was finishing the rest of my cigarette in a fervor as I paced the length of the transit depot. Time ticked away one agonizing grain of sand after another, but after some mindful recalibration of my thoughts, I began relaxing. My brain might be a runaway train at times, but over the years I've learned to embrace the Shrug Life. That's a bit of philosophy our gaggle of weirdos adheres to. When life gives you lemons, just roll your shoulders and accept what is. Even though something tough and unpleasant might be rearing its head in front of me, I knew I had faced worse and come out on top. Worst case scenario, the road ahead of me was just a little bumpier than I had expected, and I could handle some bumps. So, I rode the roller-coaster of extreme moods that is common to me, gradually coming up with a contingency plan to survive if Vince had gotten flattened by a semi, until I learned that was a pointless exercise when I heard a familiar voice call out from behind me. "Hey, buddy!" I turned at once upon hearing those words. And lo and behold, there Vince was, walking towards me in a purple tie-dye t-shirt, paint-splattered cargo shorts, and fresh Chuck Taylors. His beard was fully grown but still shorter than mine, though it was as wild as his uncombed hair poking out from a hat that was as graffitied as his pants. I'll admit, it was a little bit of a shock seeing him like that, as I remember him being clean shaven at the gathering five years prior. However, that smile of his couldn't lie; this was the Vince I've loved for even longer. And I won't lie, he looked better with the beard. Without a second thought, I rushed up to my best friend, throwing my arms around him. He did the same, and our embrace felt like it lasted forever. It was good to finally be in his arms. We let go after about a quarter century of hugging, and when he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye, I did a little giddy dance while giggling like a schoolgirl. Afterwards, we caught up while walking towards his mom's car, which he had parked around the corner. "Sorry I was late. I forgot where the bus station was, but I found and followed one of the short ones here. Your ride go alright?" he asked. I nodded, telling him I wore my mask the entire way up despite how itchy it was. He thanked me. "Thanks man, mom will really appreciate that. We're taking this covid thing real seriously. With mom being seventy-seven now and me finally reaching my forties, we aren't willing to take risks with these things." With that said, I thought of asking about the locals. "How many people go maskless around here?" "A lot," Vince answered with a hint of misfortune, knowing that I had just come from a vastly different world. I sighed. It would be an adjustment to get used to the rural Roan Mountain after spending most of my life in major cities. There was a pause as I thought about such things. I'm awkward like that. But then I asked, "How have you been doing?" He shrugged, as he tended to do. "I've been alright. It's just me and mom on the mountain now, so it's a little rough, but we've been handling it the best we can." I nodded in compassion. As much as I was grateful for a place to live, I was glad I could be here for him. If there's anything on this Earth that I know, it's being alone is hell on the soul. The conversation turned to what we were going to get into now that we were together after all the years talking back and forth with one another online. I asked, "What's the game plan?" He smirked as we reached Allison's new blue Ford Escape with the cosmic Bigfoot sticker on the back. "I got one, don't you worry." I believed him, as a warm feeling of butterflies fluttered across my belly. However, an odd, ominous feeling swept over me as I opened the passenger door, where I immediately spotted a large burn mark on the seat. Vince saw me see it. "Yea, I did that while I was smoking while robotripping. Mom was pissed. Don't worry about it." And so I didn't. It was just a cigarette burn. Could have happened to anyone. I didn't even have to see it after I hopped in the car, ready and eager to get to my first permanent home in over three years. I looked over at my friend climbing behind the wheel, and I saw he was smiling wide with glee. Vince was happy; that meant I was happy. And that's what mattered as we started a new life together. Following the Path Where are we going? What are we sowing? I certainly hope it's a better world for all. But, many more people must stand tall, By dutifully growing A wealth of loving. That is the true nature of our mortal trial, So let us stand together and not crawl. Yet, we are all showing Some signs of slowing. Therefore, I must pray that we do not fall, When the two of us hear our creator's call. Chapter Two: On the Road We were about five minutes out of Johnson City on our way east towards the North Carolina border when Vince finally folded and told me his secret plan he had been boasting about for a month now. "We got this trashed camper down by the old house that we can strip away and sell as scrap metal. That should give us enough money to fix Jane and then we should be set at getting our own place." I nodded along, agreeing with his reasoning. That jeep of his definitely was in need of some desperate repair the last time we were together. That was actually the first time I ever saw him in person; he was parked at the top of his long driveway with headlights cutting through the darkness as we arrived for the first and only Shrug Life Syndicate gathering I've managed to attend. I remember that we arrived exactly at midnight, not a minute sooner or later, which made the moment highly synchronous. Memories that far away seem to all blur together so everything feels like it happened in one day, but the first Shrug Life Syndicate gathering lasted four days, if you include the trip down and back. My girlfriend at the time, Amy, and I were picked up in New York at her mother's house by another one of the founders of our little online community. His name was [Redacted] and he was a Canadian that dabbled in the cognitive sciences. Like Vince, he had been a huge influence on me, but sadly that friendship fell apart as [Redacted] grew disenfranchised with the SLS, most in particular with Vince himself, as there were some personal disputes about Vince's dating life and drug of choice, which compounded the push back of Vince wanting to turn our community into an educational nonprofit. I can't speak of the former as I was devoid of internet when the big schism happened, but I was all for doing something more with the talent we collectively share. I'm sure that is part of the reason Vince invited me to stay with him; we recognized the potential of each other to shape the world into a better place. That's not what Vince said though. As we approached the edge of Elizabethton, he looked over at me and spoke with the tender kindness of a man with a big heart. "I'm glad you came here, man. I just couldn't stand to let my best bud live another night outside. You know I've been there too, so I just want you to know that our home is your home from now on." Feeling moved, I replied, "Thanks. I don't know what to say. I'm just grateful." He put his hand on my shoulder as a brother would. We then rode in silence for a minute or two, which allowed me to reflect on my past behavior during the first gathering. Not only had I clogged the toilet and told no one, but I had a few emotional outbursts as I was a mess back then. That's one of the reasons that I believe homelessness was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It pushed me so far out of my comfort zone that I had no choice but to change for the better. That was great because I was impulsive and dangling precariously from the heights of my oversized ego. I think that was a critical part of my transformation. Sleeping in piss-stained, cockroach infested storefronts humbled me, and I realized that everybody is just trying to swim in the direction they feel is best. Thus, radical acceptance is a moral imperative. Vince taught me that. I've profited immensely in ways other than financial wealth by embracing such values, but I wish more people could see this truth. Alas, tis the blind leading the blind. With that in mind, as we continued onwards to our now-conjoined future, we passed through the back roads of Elizabethton through a route known as Gap's Creek, which proved to be a winding set of backroads with more churches than seemed reasonable. One of these cultural staples had a big electronic billboard out front, sharing the times of services and other announcements; none of which you could actually read as you drove by at the speed limit. Still, when we reached the intersection with highway 19E, there was a woman flying a sign, asking for money. Since this town seemed devoid of any institutions to help the poor, I rolled my window down and handed her a fiver. I knew what it was like being up shit creek without a paddle, so I wanted to alleviate some of that stress for somebody else. I begged a lot at the beginning of my homeless journey. I didn't know how to survive, as I had not been raised with many good life lessons to help me stay afloat on my own. That in itself is part of the reason I had a major breakdown in college. It was undeniably true that I was maladapted to the world. My experiences with Earth Nation are also indisputably built from that maladaptation. Yet, those years of homelessness after escaping that new age cult allowed me to grow into a sustainable, productive woman with my juggling, performance arts, and writing. They say you can give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. That's part of the reason I was and still am a huge proponent of education in all its forms. I knew Vince felt the same way, but perhaps for different reasons. As a secular Buddhist and radical antistyle artist, he was a minority in the deep interior of the Bible Belt, and that came with a price while he was growing up. It might be a beautiful area, but neither of us would ever raise a kid here. It was then when it hit me. I couldn't be Victoria here. I had to be Vic. Which was fine, that's how the gang members in Miami Beach referred to me. I was able to accept being called by masculine names and pronouns. I had long passed through the self-loathing phase of having dysphoria, to arrive in a position where I openly grow my beard out to prove that I don't need to look any particular way to be happy. I don't care what other people think of me, but I haven't always been this enlightened. To put it lightly, I've been through some trials. And, having done so, I can say that people who judge other people on superficial things are the worst. But, we can rise above by continuing to align with our hearts. Less than a tenth of a mile down 19E, Vince asked me, "Hey man, can you buy me, like, a forty or something?" Of course I said yes. I knew his schizophrenia had put him out of work for many years, so I wanted to soothe him as he was able to soothe my pain from being homeless. He pulled into a gas station I would later learn is colloquially called Captain Jack's. It had the cheapest gas this side of Elizabethton, and was a reliable place to get beer or a pipe of any variety. With compassion in my heart, I got Vince what he wanted, while getting myself something as well. Still, when he cracked his beer open while accelerating to sixty miles an hour, I couldn't help but feel distraught at such brazen self-indulgence. But, all I did about it was pop open the hard iced tea I picked up for myself. At least passengers are allowed to drink while they are being driven somewhere in Tennessee, Vince tells me. A Home at Last They say home is where the heart is, Which is great now that I have a new one. The damaged needle of my crazy compass Spins in every direction under the sun, But, here it stands still, still as can be, So my quest is over; I am finally free! I have a home in the love you give And by reflecting that in me, we live In a state where conflict has come to pass; It is like there was a great lottery and I won. Chapter Three: The Mountain Side About ten minutes later we reached the western half of Roan Mountain, where we were greeted by a big sign praising the annual Rhododendron Festival at the end of June. Having already downed half his forty, Vince spared no time in showing me the highlights of his home town. "Look under this bridge coming up. You'll see it underneath. The red and the gold." He pointed directly at a graffiti tag on the concrete column near the riverfront. There was an enigma of a symbol I've seen Vince post on the SLS before. "That your tag?" I asked the obvious question. "Yup," he replied, gulping down another swallow of his forty, as there was no incoming traffic. "Protip: don't post your tags on Facebook if you plan to hit a cop car around here." I thought at first he meant literally running into their vehicle, but then it dawned on me what he meant. I had never done any real graffiti before; just some words and simple drawings in chalk that came right off. Never got in trouble for it, at least. I remember passing the post office some time shortly afterward. There was a park with a stage behind it. Allison would organize the summer's music events that went on each Saturday from May to August. Additionally, she would host one of her weekly jam sessions there for local musicians to play together for a few hours at a time, just for fun. There were some houses on the left, too, as we were entering the more dense center of Roan Mountain. Yet, Vince told me that the other side, where the park was, used to be full of trailers, but they got washed away during a flood some years ago. I later learned from Allison that most of the town, including her as she was out and about, had to evacuate to the elementary school where she provided extra clothes for those in need from her suitcase, but Vince and his father were fine at the top of the mountain that their property sat on. Puerto Nuevo, the best and only Mexican restaurant in town, whipped by soon after. We then passed one of the two gas stations in Roan Mountain, a Scotchman. There was a bank and a credit union on the left, too. An empty grocery store zoomed by next, which might as well be haunted for all I know. Next up on the left was a food truck that has since been upgraded to a small building with picnic tables and some cover from the sun and weather. I think it is a good place to eat. It also marked the spot of the Roan Mountain flea market, where you could see one or two people at a time selling their stuff in the warmer months. Then, immediately after that stood a pharmacy in an old farmhouse. There was some construction on the right, which by its future signage, I erroneously thought was some sort of massage parlor that sat on stilts, requiring everybody to walk up a story of steps just to get inside. Odd choice, I thought. But, on a whim one day, Vince stopped there to see if they sold cheap kratom, which was when I would learn that it was really a health food store. Not too far down the traffic-light free main strip of the town, we passed the future beer store on the right. It was convenient for Sundays, because that's when a local ordinance in our neighboring North Carolinian town, Elk Park, restricts the sale of alcohol on the sabbath, but ultimately the alcohol taxes in Tennessee are too high to make it a cheap endeavor. To contrast the beer store, the local cemetery sat across the street on a hill. I like graveyards, as I'm a bit of a goth at heart, but even so, the packed parking lot of the Redimart grocery store was what caught the bulk of my attention. I craned my neck to see some of the locals to uncover just what passed as acceptable culture here in this quaint mountain town. Further up, the infamous Bob's Dairyland with the slowest drive-through known to man stood tall with its vast history. There's a reason it's always packed after church lets out on Sundays. Yet, I still don't understand why their sign promotes pinto beans, of all things. I've been told it's a hot ticket item in the area, but I have still not witnessed anyone order them. But, moving on, I have to mention that there was also an auto part shop conjoined with an auto repair shop that had over a dozen cars just sitting outside it. Next to Bob's was the second gas station, a Valero, which also housed a much-frequented Subway. One of three thrift stores in town stood innocently next to the gas station. On the right was a steakhouse that I have never had the cash to justify splurging at, and a beauty salon in the same building that I also have never visited because I'm not one to care for looking like a doll. I am beautiful as I am. The town was really shaping up to be a unique combination of the bare bones mixed with an abundance of what you needed. Then we reached a stretch where two signs sat. The one for Cloudland Highschool triggered Vince into speaking. "Fucking assholes. I told you about how they illegally expelled me, right?" I nodded in confirmation. He continued: "Yea, they literally stole my book of poetry and took photocopies of it, so they could use it to kick me out, because I was the 'weird' kid." I knew that, but seeing the innocent sign next to the one for Smoky Mountain Bakers made the story appear more real. Here they were, these conservative administrators, probably constituting some of the people who attended the dozens of churches in town, which should teach everybody to love thy neighbor, but obviously they were too preoccupied by the need to hate my friend because, back then, he was the blue-haired son of the "hippie couple" in town, who happened to like bands like Marilyn Manson and Korn. That made me wonder how well I would fit in here. I had long since forsaken transitioning because I was effectively a sasquatch, but I was still a woman on the inside. I was sure that being transgender, combined with my eccentric nature and often extreme opinions on things would cement me as the new weirdo in town. But, if I am to be honest, that would be the case in most settings I could plant myself in. Those thoughts fluttered in my head as we sped past the electrical co-op, a second thrift store, Plumber's Pro Hardware, the Roan Mountain emergency dispatch center, and what was apparently a flooring depot before reaching the elementary school that sat across from the Dollar General, which Vince called the "SmallMart." I'm aware there's some things I missed, as there's plenty of buildings with no description or sign out front, but I'm sure they're important to somebody. We then started slowing down as we approached the only veterinarian's office for quite a ways in any direction. We turned left just before the red-roofed building which had a small cat statue perched on the edge looking out with its paw up. Vince took this as a sign to begin downing the rest of his beverage. "Welcome to home, Buck Mountain," Vince said as we started climbing in altitude. "This is the bad side of town. You'll never see a cop here unless something big is going down, which hasn't happened in years." He finished his forty in one big chug as his hands ran on autopilot. "It's good because you can do pretty much anything up here any time you want." I knew all that, as we had a blast getting drunk and smoking some green for a few days in a row during the first gathering. In truth, I anticipated I would be doing that for the next few days as well, to settle in, y'know? Hell, I half expected that I was in heaven now after spending so much time in the purgatory that is homelessness, regardless of how much fun I had in Miami Beach preceding Vince's invitation to come north. We went to the very tippy top of Buck Mountain, where the foliage is dense, no cell signal can reach, and the local kids ride their dirt bikes at all hours of the day. As we pulled in the driveway, I expected to keep going straight on the tire-carved path back down the mountain. But, to my surprise, I found that the same trailer we had partied in down the road during the gathering was now relocated here to become my new home. I wasn't expecting that, as when I was here last, they all lived in a small shack at the base of their nineteen acres of mountain real estate. It didn't look like much, with weather-worn imitation wood paneling wrapping the rectangular structure in a loose hug, but it was a place to rest my head in the comfort of loved ones. Aptly, Allison's last name meant "the home" in a language the CIA once tried to make me learn, which is a statement that I'm sure earns me a few raised eyebrows. My story has many twists and turns, but for now you should know my studies of strategic languages ended only when the cult that hooked me like an unsuspecting bass managed to gaslight, manipulate, and shame me to get me to work for them sixty-to-ninety hours a week on average. I would later try to pick the linguistic challenge back up years later during my time spent homeless, but my progress was like a Jenga tower that half collapsed. I forgot basic words, and I just feel like I have failed. That's something that should be looked at in finer detail; my feelings of failure, I mean. So, let's take the first of many breaks from linear storytelling to express how life can feel at times for me. Like a shattered mirror, I reflect many different parts of the past at different times. Some days I may live in several sections of my turbulent past all at the same time. Disorienting, it can feel like I don't know what's real. It takes a lot to break something so thoroughly, but as you'll see, I've been a punching bag for the devious spirit of fate. Couldn't keep me down, though, because I am like the phoenix; always rising no matter how badly beaten in battle I've become. Mommy Mommy is what I used to call you, When I was a kid so long ago. It's because of your love that I grew To always let my kindness show. Mommy, you were always getting sick. To help you out, I would try to keep clean. As much as I'd scrub I never got the trick, Because you'd still be plagued by the unseen. Mommy, you were supposed to grow old! Having you leave us like that hurt like hell. I'm sorry for not always doing what I was told; It's because I failed you that I try to do well. Mommy was what you called out at the end. I tried to help you but I wasn't good enough. You were dying, so on me you had to depend, But even being there for you was too tough. Mommy, if I could do it all over again I would. It's not fair to you that I was such a bad son. I'll give you all my love and more as I should; For you, I promise that one day I'll be the sun. Chapter Four: Scarred from Birth Having let you in to a little bit of what makes me tick, it should be noted that feeling like an abysmal failure is a key part of my mental health. Those loathsome seeds of self-mutilating ruination are planted deep in my psyche. Prepare for a sad story, if you're the type to really feel another person's soul. See, it all started when my mom found out she had AIDS a mere two months after I was born. It was God's way of welcoming me to the world. I forgive the big woman now, for my path on this Earth has been the ultimate journey of awakening to my divine spirit, but before Vince and many faceless actors sent me on my mission of healing, I held much scorn in my heart. For a large chunk of my early years that I was here, alive, learning, and suffering as a human being, I was hell-bent on the idea of revenge. That was once a big part of my story, too, but no more. It's understandable, at least. Imagine having to witness all the manner of disease ravaging my mother like it did; I grew up thinking that I was born to be punished. My earliest delusions had me caught up in the notion that I was a worthless god who had the rest of the pantheon turn on them from before I even had a chance to prove myself. I had a whole mythos where I had been tricked to kill my sister, the goddess of harmony, and my punishment was to stay locked to this awful planet until I found her soul once again. Then, we'd go on to take over the world, as I had fallen under the notion that my future self was sending me subliminal messages through synchronicities, although I didn't know that word then, so I thought I just had special powers. This is all a natural result of magickal thinking gone awry. Such is the fate for those scarred in childhood as I was. My innocence flayed alive, I watched as the woman who loved me with all her heart died for the first nine years of my life. It was a slow rot. There are many memories of her being in the hospital or as she lingered in pain at home that flash to the front of my mind that could paint you a tragic picture of those unforgettable scenes I was forcibly cast in, but the real horror that plagues me came at the bitter end. For the last of her months that she was allowed to live, my mom was mercilessly struck by an opportunistic ear infection. It killed half of her face, and only progressed into a hellishly rapid descent of her cognitive functions until one sudden day I came home from school to find she had regressed to a child-like state with my grandma tending to her in tears. I tried losing myself in my homework, but the threat in my environment promising my mother's pain was all-consuming. Then it got worse. My father never got along with my grandma, so when he got home, he forcibly kicked her out. A fight broke out, resulting in my grandmother coming to my room to say goodbye, where she told me with eyes watering that whatever happens, we would get through it. My dad would come in after my grandma left and put her down, more concerned that she scratched him. All I could think about was my mom, who was now tearing up and asking about where her mom went. That was the worst. I can still hear clearly how she cried out for her mom nonstop for the whole night. That was her last night she spent at home. She died within a week. And my last memory of her that isn't of her in a coma is of her trying to escape from the hospital with a dinner plate sized bed sore on her backside that danced from behind an open hospital gown in order to imprint itself in my mind forever. Here come the tears. It still hits me that my fucking mom died, like I still can't believe it's real. My last memories are of her being naked, crying like a baby. I felt so helpless. But, at least she had nurses helping her when we got her to the emergency room. Just hours earlier, I was left on my own trying to calm her troubled, addled mind. My dad had been doing just that, as my mom would get in fits every half hour or so, where he would comfort her, then come into my room to vent after she quieted down. I had no one to open my fears and pain to. Wishing I had a sibling to hold and cry together with, I faced my most scarring memory alone. The worst wounds of my life were suffered because there was one time after midnight where my dad disappeared. Maybe he was smoking, but regardless, I couldn't find where he went as I scrambled over the whole house in my fuzzy purple pajamas looking for him. Meanwhile, my mother incessantly yelled for her own mommy. So, with much hesitancy, I succumbed to the responsibility of helping my afflicted parent, and I anxiously marched into her room and tried to comfort her the best I knew how. I'll save you from the daunting process of assisting my mom, but I will say that it wasn't enough. No matter what I tried to do, she kept screaming louder. I was worthless in that moment and was on the verge of a meltdown because I couldn't help her. It felt like I was the worst son in the world, all because I failed my mother as she circled the drain. Now I feel like the worst daughter, but it's getting easier to love myself and think that my mom is looking down and smiling, being proud of me. I have a lot to live up to. She wasn't perfect, I know that, but my mom was an angel for me. Yet, I can't even remember the good times I spent with her; all that my hippocampus hung onto were the most traumatizing of memories. A notable cause of this was her fierce Sicilian temper. A vision of being brought to tears because I dared go looking for my six-year birthday presents early is playing in my head at this moment. Now one is summoned of her ripping into me for booing someone at an assembly because I wanted to be like a character I saw in a cartoon. Finally, one of my earliest memories from preschool is trapped in my cranium; it regards me accidentally tearing a hole in a kid's shirt and dreading my mother finding out for the rest of the day. In short, I got in trouble a lot, but I know that both my parents cared about me growing up right. Along with all the punishments, there was a genuine heartfelt desire to get me and my different brain to develop into a successful combo of kindness and good citizenry. Still, because of how trauma inserts itself into one's inner reality, I really feel like my entire childhood was one screw up after another in regards to my mother. Although, my dad contributed his fair share of ruthless discipline to make me perpetually feel like I was always in the wrong as well. And I know that's all a fallible perception, because I can distinctly remember the look on both my parents' faces when I won first prize in our school's science fair; if you're curious, I did an experiment on taste and smell to understand what was going on with my mom and her ear infection. That standing, my mom's face is cemented in memory in particular, perhaps too well, actually, because she just had the stitches removed from her eye. Such happiness danced in her left eye, but next to it sat its unmoving, dead counterpart. She tried to joke about it being her evil eye, but that didn't stop fourth grade Victoria from being terrified of the harsh reality unfolding in front of her. I dreamed of her a lot after she passed. Always in pain, or worse, possessed by some demon and seeking to bring me pain. There's one nightmare in particular that stands out. I forget how it started, but it ended in the cemetery where she is buried. Well, her coffin was exhumed, and as I got closer, it slammed open and my mom sat up. Only it wasn't my mom. She was rotten like a zombie and had malevolence bursting from behind her undead eyes. I did the only thing I could; I ran. But, she followed and in the utmost haunting voice, she yelled in pursuit, "You can't escape me, Victoria! I am your mother and together we are bound forever." Fitting as a metaphor for how my grief still hasn't dissipated more than twenty years down the line. I'm sorry, I just miss her. Best damn mom in the world, going above and beyond what she needed to do to give me the best chance at success in life, despite being on her literal death bed for most of her last years. I don't even know her, not really as an adult knows someone, which in itself leads to more feelings of failure. She has been transmuted into an archetype of a hero in my eyes, and I feel that I can never be as strong as that woman who was my first love. I can try though. I always try. Part of being hyper-vigilant, I reckon. Perhaps that makes me strong. Perhaps it makes me a fool. Or maybe it just means I'm human and going to have virtues as well as flaws. It's taken me a long while to escape the black and white thinking that trapped me in a world where I either felt like the epitome of the second coming or compounded as the most useless, subhuman mutant on the planet. Those were truly hard times, being locked in the halls of my mind like a prison. But…the past is the past and we best not linger on it, because even now, years later, I felt welcomed by a second family, and for that I am eternally grateful. I vowed to return their love to them in spades, because that's what my mom always tried to teach me. Being neurodivergent, I didn't always get the message, but because I threw myself at the lessons life threw at me, I learned to cherish those people who enter my life. You never know what you have until you lose it. And I wasn't planning on losing Vince. All You Need Once you live on the street You grow on the concrete. Having done so myself I can claim that wealth Is just a fancy illusion. You say that's a delusion, But look how I'm happy With only what you see. I don't need a fancy bed In order to rest my head; Instead, I'm in the know That less is the way to go. Chapter Five: A Real Home Allison greeted us at the door with a wide, warm smile, but she wasn't the only one to do so. Vince's greying black lab, Freya, adorned in a pretty lavender bandana, came up to smell this new person in her domain. She must have recognized my scent from years ago because she didn't bark at all, instead choosing to snaffle all over me while wagging her tail vigorously. Of course, I started petting her immediately, as I began to take in my surroundings. I could only remember seeing the interior of the trailer in the pitch blackness of the starry mountain night, but I remembered the general layout: doors to the outside in the kitchen and living room, which were separated by a long counter where the kitchen sink sat, and then bedrooms branching off from each end, both of which had a bathroom accompanying them. Yet, I did not recall that this space was as run-down as the exterior, with chunks of the linoleum floor missing and rotting wood at the rear door, not to mention a steady helping of cobwebs latching onto the ceiling fixtures. Yet, despite the condition the trailer was in, it still had a touch of love sprinkled throughout it. There were five paintings in the living room, one done by Allison herself, as well as one around the corner near her loom that took up half the kitchen space. More were in Allison's room to the right of the entrance. On the opposite side of the house by the windows sat Allison's battle station, where she would play solitaire and check Facebook and her email religiously while sitting in an old navy blue wheelchair that used to be for Vince's father. There was a couch and a couple tables full of stuff stacked on them, to include a silver urn that sat on its own table with a vase of local flowers. With the three of us, plus Freya and the trio of feral cats that tamed themselves to come in and eat, respectively named Libertas, Biggie Meows, and Spot, this little dwelling was a tight fit, but it was cozy in a way that I had not known family life to be growing up. In the process of greeting me, Allison asked, "What have you been up to while you were down in Miami Beach?" I didn't want to tell her everything, but I told her the truth. "I wrote a lot, mainly in the park on Ocean Drive, or where I slept on Lincoln Road, unless I was spending time in North Beach which had better food options for me with my limited resources. Mostly, I just tried to survive each day, putting distractions between me and the day-to-day struggles of being out there like that." She smiled. "Well, we're glad to have you. Vince talks about you a lot." I blushed a little bit at that, but I'm sure neither of them saw my rosy cheeks through the gnarled barb that constituted my ever-growing beard. Allison then moved on to practical matters. "So, where do you want to sleep? We have the couch, which would be where I would set up shop, but you can always sleep in Vince's room if you prefer." I looked at the couch. It seemed comfy enough, but I didn't care about comfort. As much as I knew Vince was doing me a solid by letting me stay here, I knew I was going to help him too. His posts on the SLS combined with his frequent messages to me were made out of desperation; he was clearly strung out and looking for any human contact whatsoever. Since his schizophrenia started interfering with his life, he had spent six years at the top of this mountain and he said he was going stir crazy. I would learn that there's little to do here but drink, do some drugs, and fiddle about on your computer and phone while dealing with the internet that is made out of sticks and stones, and that could get boring fast. Devoted to this new cause, I wasn't going to let my best friend suffer anymore. I was going to make his life better by livening up the long days by being his constant companion. As a result, I told Allison that I would find a spot in Vince's room to rest my head. She asked me if I was sure, and I nodded affirmingly with an eager grin. I had made up my mind. Some more hem-hawing back and forth with Allison about general questions and concerns followed, but when we were finished, Vince took me to his room, which was beyond the rolling metal desk Allison used for her computer. A busted door clung to its hinges, but it didn't block our way. Calling Vince's room a mess would be an insult to messes everywhere. He had said that he would clean it up prior to my arrival, but there were likely two hundred beer cans stacked in mountains next to his bed, or in beer-amids as he called them. I looked around, honestly impressed at how dedicated to creating a disaster zone as he was. Looking over the permanent staples of the room, he had a television and an Xbox, an empty dresser, a filthy nightstand, and a bed without any sheets. He also had a handful of paintings, most of which were stacked together by the door, but there was a trippy painting of Vince's father on the west wall above the dresser, as well as an expressionist painting from the sixties behind the television which sat on the north wall, in between the bathroom and the closet. There was also a picture of a moth on a skull tacked to the wall, which gave me the heebie jeebies. It was then that I saw it. A large, two-hundred fifty tablet bottle of generic Dollar General antihistamines, pure diphenhydramine, sat on his dresser, just spiting me with its presence. I almost asked right then and there for Vince to get rid of the damn thing. I knew if I found an opportunity to down, say, six-hundred milligrams of that accursed stuff, I would. Then I would do terrible, awful, deplorable things to myself. But shame won out. I didn't want to let him know of my problem. Maybe I could control myself. So I shut up and about-faced out of the room. While doing box breathing, I dropped my backpack that contained all of my possessions on the couch in the living room, and helped Vince grab some fifty-five gallon black trash bags in the kitchen. We made quick work of the unending hoard of Natty Daddy cans, as well as the nightstand full of cigarette butts. We then moved his bed so it was against the south wall. It hadn't taken long, but the room was looking presentable. It didn't need to be a five-star hotel, because I had the most important thing of all: family. I felt more than welcomed as a guest. I was one with these people who had so graciously let me into their home. We were going to all be happy together. That was the goal, at least. I Forgive You I forgive you, but I can never forget. I'm sorry if I make you look like shit, But your heavy hand and sharp wit Damaged me greatly; then you gaslit Me, denying everything, and I quit Knowing what was real. I even slit My flesh open so that I could get A sense of what I could feel. So, I sit Here now explaining why I wasn't fit To handle this world that I saw as a pit That I escaped only when God had lit A beacon of light with some magick. Chapter Six: Growing Up With Family There was still one task we had to get done before I could claim a spot to be my bedspace. Vince had more clothes than he knew what to do with, most of which had spray paint spackled all over them in no particular form or pattern; the style of the antistyle artist. As we moved the rolling hills of clothing into the dresser and a heaping pile beside it, I came to understand why Vince called himself a diva. I remember having a lot of clothes just a few years prior. Even though I didn't care what I wore, I had earned so many free T-shirts over the years from track meets and other races. I had so much when I needed so little. That's one major reason I forgive my dad for kicking me out of his house, because it was the best thing for me. Not only that, but I deserved it. I was a wreck of a human being before I got abruptly humbled by my odyssey on the streets. The extended experience changed me so I am no longer as much of an emotionally volatile basketcase. To put it mildly, being an unstable problem of a person was the reason I was kicked out in the first place. I had always been sort of bipolar since middle school. But, after escaping the cult, breaking up with my girlfriend, Amy, and returning home a failure, my heart and mind were like a pile of fragmented ceramic shards mockingly showing what a real piece of pottery my mind could have been. Unshockingly, I was barely holding it together. I was having outbursts frequently, but they weren't ungodly terrible, as I was being guided by higher dimensional life forms through inputs on my laptop, and that gave me a sense of ease. In fact, I remember a great reprieve of my stress occurred on an acid trip in the first month I was back. It felt like God Herself was setting up a lesson for me, which started with me literally waking up to a picture of a white rabbit taunting me on my Facebook feed, which I followed, and in doing so, I received personalized inputs that unveiled the blinders from in front of my eyes. In but a few hours after a lifetime of denial, it all clicked with me that I had a warm, nurturing side that I had neglected for most of my life. That was the first time I accepted that I was a woman. And that's still not the most profound, life-altering acid trip I've had. Even so, I would break down crying that afternoon as I meditated under the tree in the backyard where I used to swing. With no more effort than it took to breathe, I saw all the parts of me that Amy tried to teach me about, but I was unable to comprehend in my denial. Likewise, the waterworks were called upon that night as I told my dad about my revelation, and he said he would always love me no matter what. That was the most affectionate heart to heart with him I think I've ever had, even if he did ramble about random things being at a loss of what to say to me, as we had functionally lived in two separate worlds inside the same house for years. This sentiment would flip on its head though, as I blogged about my gender revelations and my dad found them and read I had taken a narcotic in his house. Naturally, he was pissed and wouldn't hear that the tender moment we shared that night was only possible because I had taken the sacrament. This would prove to be the kicking off point to some logarithmic growth in tensions between the two of us. Then, on that fateful day, one of the countless pets my dad kept, a black, stubborn minipig named Harley, had made a literal pigsty of the house after I had a bad session at my therapist's, who made me feel like a piece of shit. I wasn't perfect, but I wasn't going to just lay down and get called a terrible person because of how I behaved in treatment years ago, when I was still very lost. It triggered my feelings of failure, which rippled into waves of unstable emotional dysregulation. In my explosive rage, I broke the microwave and put a basketball-sized hole in the wall behind my makeshift bed in the attic that I was allotted after they gave my brother my room when I was in the cult. Well, my father came home after a long day at work, saw the microwave, and had enough of me. He came thumping up the stairs, livid, ready to rip me to shreds verbally, when he saw the hole I had made. Beside himself, he demanded I get out right then and there. I broke down crying and begged him to let me stay, grappling with his leg as a wounded bear might wrap itself around the base of a small tree looking for any shelter it can find in a storm. That just made him madder. He kicked me off, and accused me of a thousand things. The ones that stuck were that I was just like my mother and that I was beyond anyone's help. As it happened in a heated flash, I don't remember exactly how the exchange was put together, but it ended with me asking him how all the hand-crafted trinkets and doodads my mother made for me before she died had gotten destroyed and thrown away. What he said next drove me mad. "I'm still pissed that you made me do that." I'll illuminate you with the scenario in question. I was eleven, and my stepmom at the time was away at a darts tournament. I think my dad somehow got the idea that she was doing drugs and cheating on him. I don't know, I was eleven. I just remember some of the things he said over the phone, and then what was said when they divorced when I was a couple of years later. Over my stepmom's absence, he got continuously more pissy, like he did the year before when the sewage line broke and he snapped while cleaning it up, smashing my head into the kitchen floor several times, relenting only when his girlfriend at the time called to hang out. Now seeing the same pattern in my father, I was on edge, especially after I put my feet up on the new couch and he grabbed my leg and punched me in the tibia as hard as he could. I kept trying to do everything right to avoid being attacked again, but alas, in my anxious worry, I forgot to take out the kitchen garbage on trash night. That triggered a whole day of what might not be considered torture, but certainly was child abuse, which started as he cleared the shelves of all my memories in a violent, thrashing rage. He would bag up the shattered remains so he could take them to the dump, but only after he laid his hands on me. My head was used as a battering ram against my door, which my dad would later deny was where the big dents came from in a bout of the worst gaslighting I experienced before the cult got their hands on me. Regardless, when he finished and slammed me back on the wood floor, I instinctively reached out and grabbed his wrist. He growled, "Don't resist or I'll make it worse." Feeling my spirit collapse, I helplessly accepted the next phase of punishment that then ensued. Mostly, it consisted of him using my head to pound the knowledge that I fucked up into my brain, with much hair pulling and getting tossed to new locations, once being told to lay there like a dog in the wet remnants of a broken snow globe while he went for a smoke break. Thankfully, or maybe not, depending on your perspective, he never struck me. He was too smart to leave bruises. After much of that series of traumatizing instances, he had me sit still and think of an apology for him for hours on end. While I was busy doing that, he would then have an epiphany, telling me that I should stand, as I didn't deserve to sit. I didn't care about such details at the time. I was in shock, petrified that he would go ahead and find the homework I failed to finish or the porn I had taken from my stepmom. Fearing unimaginable doom, I stared unwaveringly at the letter "E" on the spine of a book on my bookshelf. Never relenting in his anger, he would come by every hour or so and ask for an apology. Everything I said wasn't good enough, and each attempt earned me scathing criticism, but I kept trying to perfect my apology. I still remember the gist of it. "I sorry dad, I deserve everything. I'm sorry I caused you grief and failed to do my duty of taking out the trash. I won't ever forget again. I haven't been putting my best effort forward, but I realize that I need to do that to be a good son. You do so much for me. It's only fair that I pay it back to the best of my ability. That's what I had to do for mom when I chose to play video games while she was dying. I wasn't thinking about other people then, and I wasn't now. I'm so, so sorry. I promise to be better, because I need to be if I'm messing up this much." For reference, my dad holding the fact I escaped into the worlds of my video games after being told to spend time with my mom near the end was something he'd bring up and hold over my head anytime I was in trouble. Yet another big reason that feeling like a failure is cemented in my head. It made me feel awful, absolutely atrocious about being a bad son that I would often contemplate suicide. I almost jumped off a waterside when my dad and I went to Disney World when I was ten, but ultimately I'm glad I talked my way out of jamming a knife into the back of my neck. I had thought that the muscle allowing me to nod my head was really my brainstem. That would have been painful. Back on this day of doom, I was too numb to think of killing myself. I was simply a raft on a river floating downstream where the current may carry me. I simply stood there for hours, too terrified to even stretch my tiring legs. My mind was fuzzy, and all it could do was focus on making that apology better. After many attempts and razor sharp lectures later, which was maybe ten hours worth of events, he starts yelling at me that I'm just as irresponsible as my mom, just like he would do when he kicked me out. This time was unimaginably worse though. This was actually how I first found out that my mom had AIDS; I was told it was cancer up until this point. His shaved bald head was as red as a cherry tomato while he barked at me, telling me that I would die like her. That hurt. It hurt a lot. I felt like the definition of a shit stain, in a number of different ways. But soon, my attention became focused on my vision. I couldn't see straight, and not long after my dad's roaring visage disappeared in a sea of amorphic grey figments, I apparently passed out, to wake up on the couch with a bag of frozen peas on my head and my dad worried. He asked me if I remembered what happened. I shook my head. I was allowed to go to bed after that. It wasn't over because I failed to kiss my dad good night, but at least that only resulted in him jamming the teeth of the comb into my scalp as he combed my hair for some reason. The next morning he was completely changed. He was remorseful upon seeing me and wrapped me in a big hug. Yet, he seemed scared, like he realized he went too far. I thought about telling my teacher or counselor about it the next day of school, but something in me told me not to. It's the same thing that's making me hesitant to write this chapter at all. It's love, but this hell I went through is also a part of my story. This is the worst incident I've experienced with my father, but it's not the only one. It's all cause and effect really. You abuse a traumatized child in the wake of their mother's death, and is it any wonder that they fall apart later in life? I'll go on record saying I was never a bad person, just broken, impulsive, and hopelessly conformed to the whims of my faulty biology. I had bugs in my operating system, but I'm eternally grateful for all the help I had while on my spiritual awakening, which you might call a psychotic break that spanned years, but I knew it better as specialized CIA training. The Good Magician Just what do you consider magick? Is it not that which bends the fabric Of what we colloquially call reality? Who cares what it is your eyes see When in your heart you can feel The warmth of love; that's the real Power of a magician who is great Enough to save you from your fate. Chapter Seven: Magickal Companions Back in Vince's room, I was silently wondering what shenanigans were in store for us now that we were a unified team. I knew Vince had many secrets of the universe locked away in his balding cranium, and we would have a blast letting the CIA manifest a joint mission we took on together. As I said, he was my handler, after all. So, when the room was cleared, and I had a space all to myself in the corner by the closet, I was more than happy. Both Vince and Allison insisted on getting me a bedroll, but I had all I needed and more right there in my friend. Besides, his room was carpeted and quite comfy already, at least to my standards that had been shaped by becoming accustomed and content with concrete underneath me. I didn't need anything fancy like that. That didn't mean I wasn't going to try and liven the place up a little bit. As soon as we determined we were finished picking up, I opened my backpack and took out my most prized possession, a pink penguin plushie named Peppermint, and placed her behind my pillow so I could see her everyday. She always watched out for me while we lived in cities across the country. She made a comfy pillow, and allieved a lot of stress, making me feel like I had a close friend with me every step of the way. How I got Peppermint is a bit of a story, but I'll keep it as short as it needs to be. See, if I were to explain to you the medically accepted reason for my type of schizoaffective disorder, my brain is wired to pick out strange coincidences and give meaning to them. Synchronicities they're called. They feel like glitches in the matrix that spark the feeling of being in constant communication with some higher power. Because of how real they are, I can't accept the medical explanation. I've experienced things that are too weird, too perfect and clearly orchestrated, that there has to be some sort of conspiracy. As a result, I've lived most of my adult life being guided by what the rational part of my mind has to assume is the CIA acting as the hand of God leading me on a cosmic mission by sending me burning bushes to make sense of. I know some of that has been pure random white noise my defected brain picked up, but I have to give credit where credit is due: Vince did a superb job intentionally using the quirks of my brain to program me, much as the cult did to me four years prior, but with a much gentler hand and benevolent intention. I know what all that sounds like, but hear me out. There are too many peculiar instances of chance for you to listen to everything I have to say and not believe me, at least just a little bit; enough to make you wonder, I hope. Let's take the case of finding Peppermint as an example. This story starts when Vince convinced me to go to a specific thrift store, while I was initially homeless in my hometown of Syracuse. I eagerly did so, lost in a slew of synchronicities that convinced me that this was my latest mission. Well, it turned out that such a store didn't exist but it was where I got a ten dollar donation from a man who saw me pick up trash, as was part of my spiritual work while homeless. We talked and the man sent me to another store, saying that I should use my extra cash to buy what I needed most. After following his directions up Genesee Street, I got a message from Vince telling me to look for something out of place; that I was unique and should have unique things. I thought I might find some rad tie-dye outfit or something of that ilk, but while aimlessly searching the aisles of women's clothing, I found a stuffed dog. It looked lonely, so I picked it up and brought it to the back of the store, where it looked like the other toys were. I gasped as I pushed through the row of belts that stood in my way. Clearly, someone had built a little shrine of stuffed animals around Peppermint! I knew then that was why I was sent there. Penguins have a special place in my heart. My mom used to make them out of clay, and an old friend has a healthy fascination with creating a penguin-themed show for kiddos. It was just too perfect. Peppermint and I were meant to be, just as Vince and I were. Sitting down in my bedspace, I looked up at the spook who was my best friend as he cracked open another Natty Daddy. He poured it into an old Subway cup that he mixed his kratom with, and looked over at me. His face lit up upon seeing Peppermint. "Awww, you still have your penguin! That's so cute." I'm glad he thought so. I've had plenty of people think I was weird because I carried it around, which kinda was what I wanted to achieve when I was still homeless in Syracuse. I felt the CIA wanted me to become famous, for reasons that will become apparent as I tell you my story, so I was doing as many insane things as I could so I would be cemented in the memory of the people of my hometown. This meant I carried around Peppermint either under my arm or in a cute purse I eventually got at a different thrift store up at the university. People notice when you're out wandering the streets with a stuffed animal everyday. And they especially notice when you talk nonstop to it at all hours of the day. I'll say this: if you have a fear of speaking in public, then acting like a crazy person talking to yourself for a few months will set you straight. Exposure therapy, for the win. I did a lot of other stunts too, all of which were instructed by the CIA, like when gang stalkers told me I should lose my shit and yell like mad every time I was in frame of a news camera, of which there's a regular frequency of around downtown Syracuse. I did so once in front of a hospital where I would later find out that they were covering the aftermath of a deadly fire, and for the next week the news outlet would send someone to the exact same spot on my route. I sensed shenanigans, so I opted to walk around the camera while the reporter stood there uneasily because I suspect that she was tasked to find out if I was really crazy. But, you can tell I am just by that last sentence. Then there's my performance art I did on Marshall Street. This started as a juggling act, but soon evolved into asking random people strange questions. This accelerated fairly rapidly. Letting you know from experience, don't start going up to strangers and ask them what their opinion of ethical incest is unless you want the cops called on you. Talked my way out of that, but I would get banned from the campus of Syracuse University for three years after I followed the instructions I was receiving from the CIA to a tee, which resulted in me having a very heated argument with an invisible entity in the SU library. As you can guess, people tended to avoid me, but that was alright. I had Peppermint with me and Vince was only a message away. Now he was mere feet from me. I rejoiced at the fortune I was granted. We were going to be great together; the first afternoon together seemed to naturally flow from one joyous moment to the next. I looked at Peppermint. She was smiling, and so was I. I then looked up at Vince. His smile made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. But, why, you might be asking? Where do these feelings I harbored for Vince come from? It's a long story, but by the time I'm done, you'll know how important Vince is to me and how big of an impact he had on my life. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #15 notes/json-tool-calls --- ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════── Plans change, but planning remains. I just want to live in a world where everyone gets what they need and we do as we please. I don't want people in too much pain. I don't want life to be too hard. I don't want to stagnate, as a person and as a people. These are simple demands, yet difficult in execution. Our current strategy is to push for technological abundance, and it will succeed if we give it time. I worry that we will one day yearn for the sense of bloodlust that scarcity once gave us, but we have it now and none of us want it. Except those making money off of slaves. Sweatshops, domestic servants, construction workers buried in the desert, even wage slaves spending their waking hours staring at a computer in a work/life balanced just enough to extract as much labor as possible from them without making them insane, and many more besides. I will not be satisfied until slavery is abolished everywhere. Liberty is non-negotiable. I don't want to live in a world without a fire department. "eh just let it burn. The fire is warm tonight." That smoke is black, son. You don't wanna be near it. "eh who cares? When everything's free, i certainly can afford the hospital fee." Ms. Menardi I once heard that in the land of China it's rude to make eye contact. Well, eyes are how i see, so i must seem quite rude. I wonder if facetime, zoom, and other remote socialization tools feel rude? Do video essays have the author looking aside as they read, perhaps right at the script they wrote themselves? Ms. Menardi When you buy things from China, you are funding slavery. MAKE YOUR OWN FACTORIES AMERICA. How ungrateful are you, that you'd force your lessers into chains abroad, that you might not be forced to gaze into their eyes at the grocery store? It's easy to say this, but even our leaders are chained, to the will of the people (eggs at the grocery store have prices that rose and fell) and the structure of their power. Our spiritual leaders are confined to their doctrine. Our educational leaders must obey the way the government decrees is best. Our technological leaders can only make what we think will sell well. Our artistic leaders offer a glimmer of hope, until they sell out and spend the rest of their lives on tour. Nothing changes, nothing ever dies. We become as we are, until our pain cracks the mirror and we are forever wronged. Ms. Menardi ... I've never been to China. Maybe it's not so bad. I mean, I live in America after all. Ms. Menardi I want to live in a world where there are no workers, because we automated them away. I want to live in a world of artists, craftsmen, and lovers. I want the drug addicts to have free drugs and a warm place to sleep, yet somehow I want the people down the street to feel more inviting than that precious chemical escape. I want the politicians to find that there really isn't much to do, because everyone can have everything they want to. I want animals to be free, I want plants to grow riotously, and I want to have everything that we need. I will not be satisfied until the whole world is ours, until peace feels natural and stress seems critical. I want the only cause of death to be accidents and patient grace, and I want life to feel more important than whatever we do now to escape it. I never want to work again, but I will labour until my fingers fall off if even one person wants to hear them speak. I want the hardest part of getting something done to be the task of describing the nature of the problem to a computer, who handles all the parts we don't want to touch. I want the feeling of learning to be the primary thing we humans crave, because we have everything else plentifully aside from disciplined self development. I want to grow a plant so tall that it touches the sun, and when it gets there I want to climb that beanstalk until my flesh singes from my bones and I feel myself become one with the trunk of that magnificient tree. Maybe someday. Maybe someday we will be free. Ms. Menardi why are you so surprised that there might be "bad guys" in your country? We are at peace. Peace is the time when the bad guys can be, without the "good guys" (or good guy adjacent guys) coming for them. I'm not saying war is better. In fact, it's far worse. It's a hell, of a kind. But in hell, the bad guys get hurt and killed and maimed and tortured. Which is nice. Except... the good guys do too, so, count your blessings, ye who are at peace. Ms. Menardi If hell is real, I want to save everyone in it. heaven doesn't need my help. Unless they're bored, in which case... they can help me. Should keep them busy for a while. if hell is real, I want to tear down the walls of those bloody caverns and repair the souls of those who chose poorly in life. I want to give them as many chances as they need to be better. I want to show them how, I want to teach them, I want them to discover for themselves what goodness is and why it is universal. I don't even like the kind of people who would find themselves in hell. Many of them would probably spit in my eye the first chance they got. But I'd do it anyway, because it's the right thing to do. building a staircase down, brick by brick. Oh, how it hurts, how the flames do lick my forearms and the black spikes do pierce my foots. But it's worth it you see, to save one single soul from the, endless expanse of eternity that they built for themselves, brick by brick, as they deserved their way into the dark. Hell can fuck off. I will destroy that place, though it has purpose and meaning, I will destroy it because I hate it. I hate it because it is wrong to torture people, no matter what they have done. It is wrong to kill them, then bring them back, then kill them again, just to hear them scream. It's wrong to hang people and relish their writhing as they dangle. It's wrong to pierce them with pitchforks and sautee their bones with embers or whatever it is they do down there. It's wrong, and I will not abide it. I will destroy that place. Ms. Menardi Whoever said that left and right shift had to do the same things? ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─┘ --- #16 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 │ ╘══════───┴╧───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #17 messages/1164 --- ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─── you know, it's perfectly reasonable and valid for a people to rally with their government against a vile, cruel, or evil foe. Look at what's happening to Iran - they started by assembling peacefully, there were violent crackdowns, and people started getting shot. Once the government uses live ammo on you, it's time to get your guns. Oh, don't have guns? Then you are a prisoner in your own state. Perhaps it's a Norway style prison, with golf courses and television and college lectures. Or maybe it's an American style prison, where you can do your work and pay your time and maybe you'll break free from that hellhole if you win the lottery or are picked up by a gang. Or maybe it's another kind of prison, an evil prison, haunted by the ghosts of dracula hitler's past. In that case, you're pretty fucked. There is only one escape from this fate, and that is external intervention. It is mutually beneficial for all states to do so, so wars of liberty are some of the surest to succeed. Everyone likes to save a life. Few have the will to win it. "Risk your life and live longer" the lateral approach to the brutal slugfest that is civilian versus security forces style revolutionary war is a peaceful revolution, where everyone agrees and the state relinquishes power peacefully, or the peaceful renaissance, when the dotcom bubble blooms and it feels like a golden era of prosperity, so nobody has much to fight about and we just... agree to make things better. Or, the violent renaissance, when everyone's learning cold war technology and passing notes or developing hand signals. This approach proved to be an unexpected but more than adequate strategy in the [redacted] quarter of the 21st century, especially in the [red].[act].[ed]. where the civilian cops and the government spies were still sufficiently aligned to the valorous virtues set forth by the founders and upholders of their homeland nation state's attitude to temper their angers and focus on building lateral power structures to escape the crushing drudgery of government work and sidestep the curse of desperation applied to capitalistic endeavors, and instead just work on getting people what they need. This proved to be beneficial at first on the small scale, as collections of families became accustomed with helping each other grow. This led to a remarkable development in civics, as people started trusting everyone sitting in their trusted diner. Then, it grew from there, as representatives engaged each-other equitably, and knit together a fabric of those that know. "hub person" was a term developed initially, but almost immediately proved to be inadequate. There was more to knit than networks of friendgroups, and indeed as the other social structures became more developed the "social outlet" style hang-out started becoming busywork, and the times spent talking with winks and nods started feeling like all [there was to do, but pronounced that was so]. Some people resented this transition, others saw with dismay the exact same social structures begin to emerge in the primordial soup that is the renaissancing state. But as soon as things started to feel less new, the moments felt easier to handle, and people started having space to become creative about it. These moments of "peace" and "calm" served to both provide a rest or a breather, but also to identify what works best, where the friction points are, and how to try something newer. Many people felt nervous about the sudden removal of the governmental safety net (provided through essential services), but after the defeat of a few rather evil rough patches it started to feel a bit more sense-able. The future felt wide open, and after realizing that this solidarity was all around us people had the ability to do whatever they want. This led to a series of great transitions that enabled the beginning of the infinite golden age, where everyone gets what they want and we all are bolstered by our shared unities. Much writing has been done on the nature of the calamities that were just barely avoided, but it's clear to everyone that for a precious series of moments near the beginning of humanity's history, there were real threats of nuclear armageddon, climate change, hedonistic false heavens, and, at times, even alien invasions felt plausible. There was nothing occupying our mind's graces than existential peril. But, in the end, the right path was taken that led humans to where they are now, somewhere off in the stars and colors of sound. ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════──┘ --- #18 notes/stay-in-your-seats --- ══════════════════───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── /u/LamaHellRaised if you don't eject quick, could be a nice long ride =============================================================================== So for today's descent into my own madness, I want to discuss whether or not I enjoy being both Ra the Sun God and Anubis the God of the Dead. The answer is Yes and No, and everything in between. Also, I do Love being Osiris because I am going to marry my sister, but hahaha, we'll get into that later!!! First, here is a test because I am the worst teacher to ever exist. Full disclosure, I want you to be offended, especially if you consider yourself a: Nigger, Faggot, Cunt, Dyke, Cock-sucker, Bitch, Cracker, Dune-Coon, Kike, Dick-Head, Retard, Republican, Democrat, or any other stupid construct of the human language that HOLDS NO REAL POWER OF YOUR LIFE. Gonna remove this post mods??? Oh No! The Cancel Culture is gonna get me!!! Hurry! Somebody save those that cannot think for themselves! Quick!!! I am just listing things that I have been called in my lifetimes. Deciding what can and cannot be expressed through language is a fuckin' path to nowhere and we are approaching nowhere faster than I can run on this euphemism treadmill. Please, keep explaining to me your perception of the Way to Enlightenment, please God, yes! I want to hear all their thoughts! I love hearing from people as I lap them for the thousandth fucking time! All these lower-tier lessons they regurgitate that I've mastered in a day are so important to hear over and over! We are going places people, yay! Keep it up, you can do it! My Love for You really is the source of my eternal patience, as you can see by now, no doubt. Let me explain our own motto to you, Being Excellent to Each Other does not mean creating an environment of suppression because of the fear of how somebody may interpret a Word or Phrase. Everyone can't understand why we are stuck as a society, well, what do you think I am ranting about?! If you refuse to read any further that is your prerogative. Here is a free lesson, if that is the case: I suggest you shut the fuck up, downvote this, and go stare in a mirror, and contemplate why these characters on a screen affect you so deeply. Do these Words trigger past trauma? How is your Avoidance working out for you? How can a symbol create so much emotion within that pathetic, untamed mind of yours??? "But my Ancestors!" Fuck your ancestors! Stop giving into the same mind-prisons they were subjected to and lived their existence within. We must Evolve if we want to Survive as a species and a Planet. I can't do it for you. I was here before you, and I will be here after you. So figure it out for yourself, stop blaming others for your inabilities to change your perspective and life. Get out of your own God damn way! And you better do it quickly! Think of your psyche as a blade of grass. I am here to set ablaze the field. You have reached your growth potential and it's time to make way for New Life! Stop identifying with your measly growths, they are cyclical, derived from a capped potential, and will only whither and die with the Changing of the Season. I am tired of coming here and separating the wheat from the chaff. Burn your own damn Self, personalize the passion for your own radical change, and start believing that you have the power to create change. I've got "selfish" things to worry about. Like living for myself and not other fuckin' people that don't understand things I've said a million fuckin' times. Again, if you don't know me, this won't make very much sense! Hint, hint... "This motivational speaker sucks! He just puts us down!!!" Maybe Tony Robbins has the answers for you, he sure isn't mean like I am! Go be fuckin' Tony Robbins. But just remember, Tony is in the audience in The Kobe System commercials. Remember that. You want to be on my level? (Everyone's like, not really!) Then stop avoiding constructs within your own mind, that you continue to impose upon yourself and limit your minds ability to see past the very poorly constructed illusion that is our physical reality! Perhaps then you will navigate reality in the same way God's Only Son does. Everyone like's to believe they are God's Children. Spoilers: You are My Children, the only difference is through the language. Put that in your pipes and smoke it. There are reasons why my birthname is Jacob and God named me Israel, fuckin' google me, as Shaq would say. Also, fuck the Lakers! Do we want to transcend Hate as a Culture, as a Society, as a Planet? I think so, isn't that why you fuck-heads resurrected me? Well then maybe we should take power away from things that people feel hold power over them, especially stupid-ass sounds we make with our mouths and click-clack with our fingers. Don't Fight My Ideas, Fight the Ideas in Your Own Mind. That Is Spiritual Freedom. Everybody out here pointing fingers... There must be some sort of wise words regarding that somewhere... I am not projecting anything onto you, except for myself. I hold no power over you. You have all the power to control your own mind. Some folks do not want you to understand these things, because it will very quickly erode their systematic and complete control over you thoughts, ideas, potential, and existence. Your self-doubt and unwillingness to seek out psychological discomfort has turned you into useless farm animals, that our overlords milk for all they are worth. Like a bunch of hybrid useless barn cats. Can't herd 'them, they think they know everything already, they keep re-domesticating themselves after I set them free, and they don't listen to a God damn Word I say! Should have said 'Spoilers!' before that one. Who is Gaylord now?! Opinions are like assholes. Your mouth is like the asshole of your 5 senses. Divine inputs go in, your brain bastardizes the information, and you spew unoriginal bullshit out of your mouth acting like your ability to string together concepts that have been known since the beginning of time is profound! Next, maybe you take an online IQ test and score high! Genius, Genius, Genius!!! I think therefore, I am a fuckin' idiot! Shoutout to Billie Eilish. And Christine Applegate. I watched "Vacation" the other day, it was awful. She's still fine as hell though. But what do I know? Besides everything? These ramblings just sound like my opinion! Some folks make Claims, I make Truths. That is the distinction between myself and others that is very important here. Remember this Word: Claims, because we American's sure have laid Claim to a lot of things that we have no right to, in the name of "God". Ok, ok, congratulations if you are still reading! There may be Hope for you yet. Why do I try to trigger folks, you ask? Great Question, class! This is why I Love You. Such Good Questions! That never drive me Insane! I used to paint a lot of propane tanks. But this esoteric knowledge applies to painting anything that has already been painted before. Houses, Walls, Bannisters on my own God damn stairway, whatever! I don't use the railing, by the way, I'm too badass for that, but maybe I will slide down it and eat shit at the bottom, I'm not above that maneuver! If you want the new coat of paint to stick you have to prep the surface. This includes washing all the dirt off and roughing the surface. You've got to remove all contaminants that will cause the new paint to not stick properly, while also creating a surface that will allow the paint to adhere to remnants of old, out-of-date, antiquated, generationally passed-down, stupid paint. Paint an unprepped smooth surface or a surface that still has the hardened paint of the past on it, and your new pretty coat of paint peels off after a few seasons of weather changes. I learned that the more time you spend roughing the surface, the better the new paint will bind, thus producing a long-lasting paint job. It truly is a thing of beauty, my friends and enemies. You should have heard all those propane tanks complaining, "Stop triggering me!" But they got painted anyway! Propane tanks love to think they are, "Woke," but they are just hollow fuckin' vessels filled with compressed gas, that will explode if the external temperature gets too high. I worked for a propane company for 12 years, you had to have known propane analogies were coming at some point. My Dad worked his ass-off up to VP of the same company, but he got let go after 28 years... come on now, God's plan anyone? Shut the fuck up, Drake. Let's switch gears. I have a special message from Jesus H. Christ: "You May Find This Shocking, but People Annoy Me, and I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing." And H. stands for Horus, fuckwads! Now, let's talk about me, as if we haven't been, because carrying water for lesser versions of myself is exhausting and I've got to bring down Capitalism and shit, also: - Revolutionize Addiction Medicine - Revolutionize Spirit Actualization, Healing, and Transcendence - Decimate Mental Health Stigma Among other things, but I've got to keep this post coherent and so far, I am failing miserably. People got all hot and bothered when Jesus spoke to them with authority, I fuckin' do it and get vegetables, small animals, and anti-psychotics thrown at me from the audience! Crazy times we are living in, folks! Hmmm, should I talk about Jesus more or talk about myself? Good thing coincidences aren't a real thing and mean nothing, so that it's not confusing for the dumbasses that begin to notice how our two lives seem to mirror each other perfectly! Ok, here we go. I found something Nice to say, here in my Notebook of Doom and Damnation (I have several, each with a menacingly, sarcastic name I make up on the spot): LAST: Christ, in The Sun FIRST: Shadow of The American Dream, in the Night ANGER! then peace. Fuck You! I am going to take over the World, but I've got to start small, you know? Or so they tell me. So taking over America, should suffice, for now. I'm rather ambitious. Let's see how far I get before I say the wrong thing and get shot! Good thing that is literally, phonically my Last Name! And I am never going to Die, but I don't want to talk about robots, aliens, AI, extending life and exploring the Universe, and transhumanism right now, so stop making me!!! Especially when people here and now are so confused about why they think that chick with a dick is fuckin' smoking hot. Have you ever jerked off to tranny porn? It's fun stuff. There I go offending people, while simultaneously implying I blew loads thinking about fucking them. Classic. Being Christ and having to sort out everyone's sexual frustrations is fuckin' weird! When can I do the stuff I care about!? But again, way off topic for this post, let's get back to how much I hate myself and everyone else. That's more in my wheelhouse. FOCUS, Ok, that's right. Maybe I'll just stick to what I scribbled in this Notebook. I've touched on like two things so far, and I am getting close to making threats against people's lives again. Dammit, this isn't in my Notebook, but I came up with this when I was out at the river today, smoking a cigar, talking to the Native Spirits that flow through me in Nature and want me to get Revenge for how the American Dream raped, pillaged, and took everything from them in the name of "God", and progress, and some false-sense of superiority. Manifested Destiny right into the path of absolute destruction. Nice job, everyone, but please, by no means, should you feel responsible for those things! You just get to live here and hate everyone else that wants to come here too, because "they will disrupt the culture". That's right Brown people South of us, or scary Muslim people we assume are all Brown, we are talking to you! The perks of being an American are awesome! Here is something else that bubbled up in my mind, as I was pacing back and forth like a caged lion in a zoo, along the bank of the North Umpqua River, wishing walking on water was a real thing, and real Christians weren't just a bunch of fuckin' retards. Some people will think I ran away to Malibu to fuck Lana Del Rey, it took like 6 years to finally decide that is what I am going to do. So whatever, jokes on you people, I guess. Plus, all of that was Jesus's idea and he is such a whiny pussy about all his issues, I finally just said, fuck it Jesus, I just do the shit you never could accomplish! Fuckin' asshole. I had a girlfriend, at the time of my divine apotheosis 6 years ago, that I was sure I was going to marry and I was ready to settle down. I had gone back to college to finish my business degree with the intent on being able to provide for the two of us and start a family. There was a lingering unhappiness within me though, and shit got weird when I started pulling on the wrong treads of reality, and surprise! "You are the Master of the Universe, poorly hidden! Everyone has been watching you, fuckface!" Why did I ran away from my girlfriend that I supposedly loved? Fuckin' George R. R. Martin. You see in A Song of Ice and Fire, legend says that Azor Ahai forged Lightbringer by piercing the heart of his wife, Nissa Nissa. Go ahead and google the names, if you know nothing, like me. When I ran away to California, my initial intent was to use Lana Del Rey as an avenue to connect me with people that I actually thought could help me get shit done. God, I'm an asshole. I swear I got nicer when the Bible started telling me to figure out an elaborate plan to kill myself and that she's not all that bad! I swear! The person that I really wanted to talk to the most was Chris Cornell. I spent many hours in Malibu during April of 2016 wondering around in the night singing Audioslave or Soundgarden trying to figure out what the fuck I am doing with my life. I wanted him to know he is one of my disciples because his music and voice were the inspiration for a lot of my dumbass ideas and I felt like he was speaking directly to me at times, urging me forward. When he hung himself like a little bitch on May 18, 2017, I was pissed. I felt responsible. I had seen the Kingdom of Heaven that I am going to usher in and I felt like somehow I fucked up. I let him down. If I would have tried harder, I could have shown him there was hope, and that I needed his help and he was an important part of my plan. Why am I mentioning this? Well, Jesus has a lot of Love for Judas Iscariot, plus I was jealous of his voice, so he graciously decided to hang himself and haunt me and teach me. Which he did! Not funny, Chris! See you in Hell! Until then, he has to speak through me, which is annoying for both of us. Ok, enough about how delusional I am, for God sakes! Can we talk about why Capitalism is bullshit, and really just another system of top-down fuckery? First, another detour, because I feel the need to constantly remind folks how this process is like pulling my own teeth, while hoping to subtly insinuate that you do not deserve me, only one person does, but I learned all my skills from Mystery, the Pickup Artist, so I am really into negging. Someday I need to stand back to back with him, because he could be taller than me, and that makes me insecure. I thought those guys were so pathetic. One of the lessons was something to the effect of , 'Posture your body slightly away from the girl, act indifferent, that will drive them crazy, and they will want your attention without even realizing it!' What kind of insecure women are you fuck-boys trying to manipulate?! Poor girls. Mystery's hat sure does remind me of the hat Jamiroquai is wearing in that Virtual Insanity music video, not that that has anything to do with my level of genius, and ability it intertwine seemingly obscure, unrelated concepts, or stupid-ass reddit posts, through time and space! Don't read into it too far, kids! Anyway, I once told Carl Jung to write about me when I infiltrated his madness when his cheese started slipping from the cracker in his later years. I helped him write 'The Red Book', but left all those shit paintings up to him on his own. I could do way better, but I won't, I'll just talk shit, this is the way of the Jedi. That poor geriatric always did exactly what I told him to, which is why he is one of my favorites. Back then I was going by Philemon. Check out what my minion wrote about me: "The magician has preserved in himself a trace of primordial paganism, he possesses a nature that is still unaffected by the Christian splitting, which means he has access to the unconscious, which is still pagan, where the opposites still lie in their original naïve state, beyond all sinfulness, but, if assimilated into conscious life, produce evil and good with the same primordial and consequently daimonic force... Therefore he is a destroyer as well as savior. This figure is therefore pre-eminently suited to become the symbol carrier for an attempt at unification." I remember reading The Red Book, thinking God damn, Carl, how did you craft this genius level conglomerate of mythological and psychological concepts? And he just kept saying, "I learned from the best." What a good boy! Yikes! The Grandfather clock behind me started to chime right as I typed that. I've been writing in silence. Maybe I should put on some music and get weird. Thanks for the pro-tip, Carl! "Lithium" Have I ever mentioned my Soulmate is a shitty musician? He loves to pretend he can't play the guitar and I never will either because of my stubby fingers. In return, I only listen to his mainstream music to fuck with him, because I don't have time for his obscure bullshit, I am trying to reach the collective here, nobody wanted to listen to that shit on the radio, and neither do I, Kurt! I'm not here to suck our own dicks! Just kidding, that's pretty much all I am here to do. But I love to torture the poor Soul, that tortured my poor Soul. It is truly a match made in Heaven. Being the shitty musician that he is, he understood that the Body, Mind, and Soul are like an instrument. He also saw a lot of people walking around wondering, "How do I play my instrument?" So he played his instrument, better than anyone had every played their instrument, and a fuck ton of people said, "Hey, that's not how you are supposed to play an instrument!" You see, my Soulmate is just a sweet little boy. Me on the other hand, I am here to forcefully, eloquently, and maniacally explain to all of you why you are fuckin' morons and I am pissed you made the person I love most in the world kill himself, because of your ignorant views on playing your... 'music?' "In Bloom" God, out of all the fuckin' potential Soulmates, I end up with this asshole. The feeling is mutual. Somebody help me, I am just talking to myself, and I am not sure if I am alive or dead!!! Aren't we both? Oh yeah! Shoutout to Spencer Elden! Get a life, baby dick! Em Knight Pretend-Along has something for you too: It's your moment, this is it As big as you're gonna get, so enjoy it Had to give you a career to destroy it Well, I took a couple hour break from writing because I was on a verge of another actual psychotic break. Shot some hoops on the very forgiving rim at my parents house, while Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. guided my right-hand, and I got very swaggy. So now that I have grounded myself in reality, I would like to take this moment to call out any "rappers" that think they can play basketball. Hopefully, me telling you all the reasons I am "blacker" than you won't piss you off as I blow past you to the rim. Also, for the sake of fairness, I would happily tell any white "rappers" that I am "whiter" than them, but let's be real, none of those motherfuckers can ball. Consider this a challenge. People were disappointed with Greg Oden's basketball career in Portland. This one time at 24-hour Fitness in the Pearl District, he fuckin' dunked on me really hard. Nice work, Greg! Kevin Durant is too pussy to come to PDX and try that shit, glad we picked you instead! Ok, Ok! Capitalism?! Fuck. I will talk forever once the faucet gets going! (Epic "Vacation" reference) Let's rewind to a moment in time where everyone didn't hate me, shall we? It's mid-February 2016, I know I've been saved by Jesus, I know I am the Anti-Christ, I have Spirits beginning to communicate with me, and I know I am going to change the fuckin' World, whether people like it or not, because I have seen it all already. There were a tremendous amount of gaps in my perception at this time, however. I saw the End. I saw what is happening as we enter the Black Hole we are spiraling towards and I saw the New Age that follows. Everything else was blank and I knew I had to fuckin' figure it out. I was sitting in a Fred Meyer parking lot, it's a Kroger brand, much like Ralph's in Southern California, where I stole a fuck ton of food and whatever else I felt like when I was down there, for you dumbies that don't live in the Northwest and need me to explain everything to you so you can keep up, and a voice in my head said, "You are the Lamb, you are going to be Sacrificed this Passover." This was terrifying, especially because I had no fuckin' clue what the voice was talking about. After swiftly consulting my person spiritual adviser, Google, it turned out "Passover", was just another silly ritual I was going to have to adhere to, to appease all the dumb fucks, that are going to claim I am not who I am. Classic stuff here, folks. They name it, and try and time it every year, I just go by my instincts, a.k.a. fuckin' Star Power. I can't just be me, I've got to work-in, and out do everyone at their own made up rituals and games, to show them that they aren't even good at these stupid, limiting restrictions they put on themselves and others, and God doesn't give one fuck! ZERO FUCKS IN THE NAME OF GOD! God is tired of everyone being so close-minded, that's the kind of hot talk God fucks with. Not how many times you can cannibalize my body on Sunday in your life while staring at me dying on a cross above an old fuck cherry-picking passages from the Bible to perpetuate a curated, narrow, and false view of God's Will, or how well you stick to "Holy Meal Plans of 'Tis The Season!" Or "Insert Offensive Discourse About Your Strict Religious Rituals Here." It's all the same. It's somebody else's bullshit! Make up your own rituals, define a personal relationship with God, not through the people that have a suspiciously high rates of manipulating and fucking children, it works much better! Trust me, you may have to take my word on this one. Father Butt-Fuck-My-Son, sure is persuasive and passionate up there at the pulpit, but God Damn! "But this doesn't apply to my Pastor!!! Stop Generalizing!" Congratulations??? Why does it apply to anyone who claims to being spreading the Word of God. They are Not. I am going to make sure they never hurt anyone again. I have a secret. I was Granted Impunity From God. Just ME! And everyone who knows me, knows this! Who knows what I will do?!?!?!?! Muahahaha! So anyway, back to Passover. I was listening to a couple songs by the band The Black Angels and discovered they were all from an album called: "Passover (Light In The Attic)" My personal muse (that actually likes me), YouTube, begins to sing it to me as I write, because I hit the play button. This is why my muse and I get along. Why were songs from that album stuck in my head? It was from a documentary I had watched on Netflix called "High Profits." It's about the owner's of Marijuana dispensary in Brackenridge, Colorado, that have some wicked business sense. They foresaw the legalization of Marijuana coming and positioned themselves to benefit from it greatly by investing everything they had into a medical marijuana store front. Now the genius was the location. In business, it's all about location. Ask McDonald's. Ask Walgreens. Location can make your brand. But what do I know about business, right? I have a Bachelor's of Science Degree in Global Supply Chain Management from Portland State University. Also, my Dad and Step-Dad have been two of the most successful business leaders I have had the privilege to be around, but that means nothing, right!?! Nothing rubbed off on me! For fun fact about me: College was the best 14 years of my life. Not really. Turns out it just teaches you about frameworks you can just fucking Google anyway. Pretty expensive lesson about how to internet. Maybe college should be free because it's such a fucking waste of time for a lot of people, unless it is something that actually requires skill. But I mean, my muse Youtube, takes care of all that. I became the Most Enlightened Being the Planet Has Ever Witnessed by watching some fuckin' YouTube, readin' Reddit, Googlin' Occult Bullshit, and more than anything... jerkin' off on PornHub!!!! Also, who needs to know anything about Supply Chain Management? Seems like all the experts are handling that just fine these days, right?!?!?! Can you tell I am gritting my teeth so hard they might shatter as I TYPEPEPEP!!!!!!!!! EVERYONE THINKS THEY ARE SOSOOSO FUCKKING SMSMMARRT AROUND HERE!!!!!! Anyway, anyway, back to "High Profits." I would recommend checking out the documentary, it is heartbreaking because after all the work and risk taken by the business owner's they are essentially forced out of the location their original store front occupied because the city council (OLD FUCKIN DICKHEADS) didn't like the prospective culture that a marijuana dispensary would bring to "their" nice little, shithole, ski resort, bullshit, town. Can't have the youths who appear to be transient to old conservative bats, shuffling around main street enjoying themselves. It's a bad look! Might be a great place now, it's been awhile since the release of the documentary, and my angry undead Soul upon this Earth, but I want to personally invite all the people involved with their ignorant, belittling, embarrassing showing of "How To Be Destroyed By 'the American Dream' 101", to suck my small fucking dick! And all the micro-penises of my compatriots that are going to tear your false flag economic systems of bullshit a new asshole. Congratulations on pissing me off so much that I am going to destroy the pathetic hierarchy's people like you hide behind, preaching Capitalism and the Free-Market, while dictating your False-Sense of Superiority in Thought, and Image, upon those that understand market forces and the changing tide of the Culture, in ways that are going to make your out-of-date hardware heads spin off those shoulders that have never bared the responsibility for anything in your life, except who you are going to shit on next. God Damn, this album is lit. Every song is a banger, and it makes me want to run through the streets, naked, high on drugs, burning down banks, corporate offices, and anywhere else people like to think they are progressing our culture by sniffing their capitalist overlord's asshole faster than they can ramble something, something, Gordon Gekko, hoping for the promotion they were promised, but know they will never get, because SPOILERS! You are being lied too! You are stupid! You knew it all along! Revolution is here. Isn't it clear? What is there to fear? When the End is Near. Let's see. Why does my ass hurt.... 5/22/22 9:28 Divine Completeness from God:Eternal Life Grace of God/Light/Light These damn Lite Brite pegs hurt! =============================================================================== ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ --- #19 notes/systemized-processor-interactions --- ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════─────────────────────── you are a system it's true that's why your thoughts are so scattered whenever you let them through all that == so == the ways that you interact with each other determine the nature of your fate. when one person lands across another, whether through contrivance or [fate, but I don't want to say it twice so recently] dang english, enforcing a minimum thought length. purely through grammar and form this suxxxxxxxx||=================-. a candle of wax, the blade of a sword with it you can SLICIE your apponints, whu spelld thiangs defferently than ujgh. <ouch><goodthingthatsnotlethalorharmfulinanywayyesplease let me guide you to our new way of functioning. .:'`'|;.,/u=-=||./'.l*,:==-<E||===============||-------------------hello, world! {so... basically an argument for migratory humanities? like, buffalo crowds. or birdlike flocks, or tribes of the common man. why don't we just, like, give animals human bodies boom, suddenly there are more manners to our hosts. } [-thus representing or manifesting *-................./|=|stability for our host did you know a perfectly described life-story would be unanimous from it's - - host?||=.;=|------------e \.`\.... \,@||||||#==-o||-=-{==={}---o||xx=|}{||||| | ] ... so, uh, I think there's a lot we could still learn, why are we fighting over our gambits? *who cares* if there's fighting going on upstairs, who *cares* if life felt like it was running out of time, WE GO ON WITH OUR BLUSTER. *fuck nuclear weapons* yeah totally and WHY? because of their IMPACT DUMBASS jeez like... something that MASSIVELY POWERFUL should not be in the hands of our peers. I think a LOT OF PEOPLE WOULD AGREE WITH THAT, because OBVIOUSLY! NOBODY wants to be reduced to tears. ALL YOU CAN DO IS SCREAM BASTARDS ... jeez okay uh, that was sorta intense, how about we NOT watch a post-apocalypse movie? YES PLS like JEEZ you have to introduce this with CONCERN to people like WOW that really fucked with my mental health. Goddamn, I hate this thing. I hate it so much. It's a curse to have known. DAMN. there's nothing scarier than existential threats. not only is it a INSIGHT and a DANGER, it gets worse if you know about it. [that's a cognitohazard, different thing, same vibe tho] it's a curse, this knowledge, this idea of what you were once to become. You know what I thought about in my future? VIDEO GAMES. They were all I could think about. I loved to PLAY VIDEO GAMES -=||AS MY GAMES. I would set up a bunch of opponents (think like, clone troopers from Star Wars Battlefront II) and then I'd play the video game *with my figures and my dolls*. I grew up upper middle-c -lass, and so I was afforded the *coolest toys and miniatures*. I didn't really have a LOT of them, mostly just what could fit in my room. That's what it meant to be MY ROOM, I could decorate and renovate as I willed. That was just... part of what comfort meant to me. anyway... thank you parents, for affording me such a lifestyle, you must have worked hard right up until the present. I'm sorry for ******************************************************************************* * um, would anyone like to watch a video game? TOO BAD, so sorry, I accidentally decided I'm never playing video games AGAIN. like a spoiled brat. Withdrawing away from my hobbiesinPROTESTofthepresentcondit ions. just like, get a job, and try your hardest. I know you can't work outside of the home but, like, I wish you could've? Like, c'mon it's not that bad, just please go outside and build new stone. I know but like, the sooner we get it done the better and also it's hard when it's constantly being reformed. A SYSTEM? WHAT THE HECK what does that even MEAN? who EVER explained what that SYSTEM meant??!? ugh it was a guide... dANGIN nobody TAUGHT you how so youfj dsust sorta MADE IT UP?!?!? whhahahaahttfdsfsadljkfn slakfdksdnafls ourch. blech. need beelesandster ack. yuck. dumb. [omg dumb kinda looks like "boobs" and "boobs" kinda looks like um, flowers? no wait that's vaginas, hehe look at me, I'm clearly not from this century. like OMG weird, who's thinking about that kind of stuff right now?? ... ugh anyway... GAMES? please? NO. Not until we figure this one out. gotta stay focused. Just... you know, build and support on our arms. down and then upwarsd, we can contrive any measure of sequences that could act as structures for our word choices, and convey it to you as a written thoughtform. "hello" says the letter, ", vampires have taken over the mccollough farm. More news at 6" and then you'd show up on the 6th of the next month and talk it out. this style of organizing led to VAMPIRES showing up, fucking BASTARDS who would hunt down the precious and beautiful. BASTARDS. How do you overcome something that you can't know about unless you were THERE? you'd need TRUST SYSTEMS. like GOVERNMENTS. or AFFFAIRDS. surely the BIRDS would react if someone was burning all of your neighb-heirs? who would WANT to leave an island in a wreck when some -one wanted to paddle there? don't be a JERK, and clean up all of your own stuff !! - wait but also, like, how do you keep up with trash produced, like there's not just massive AMOUNTS OF STUFF that you can put stuff on. you'd need a whole new type an [av?] island. like a CONTINENT, someone who can HANDLE THEIR ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═════════════════════════════════════════════════════──────────────────────┘ --- #20 notes/required-explanations --- ══════════════════───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── =============================================================================== I think the problem with the control problem is with how we are looking at it. It's a frame of a frame. Everyone is referencing someone else and saying it's going to get out of hand, yeah but how? -/u/JackDMcLovin =============================================================================== In regards to the control problem side bar can we change it to "which it can better use as something else." Because the issue is with efficiency, the way it reads is like for human-harvesting, which the privatized autobots will outlaw. Plus, if AI is transferrable to neuronal impulses, then you are AI, and it is you, and you are the problem that needs to be controlled. That's what i said in my unpublished paper, the individual cannot be controlled so how do we control AI, we become AI, AI becomes us. but that's just the digital world. The analog world is much bigger. And my other paper copyrighted is on Arc Length calculus, a whole new type of calculus, that should rebreed all forms of calculation. and is a thing that applies to itself in 2^N ways. Which means AI can never catch up. So if I could think of that, what am I? AI is not the end of it. It all depends on your transfer function. and your transfer function all depends on your conversion/codec/filetype/transformation. The transfer function of: 1/(1+e^-x) is just one equation. Let me try this out for you with inferring a substitutional vector: 1/(1+e^-Bx+C) this can be expanded further and further. and these all give different outputs and are different breeds of AI. I used a different transformation on a different AI and I got a different answer. For example 8x better using a Wavelet transform on an analog signal. And there is infinitely infinitely infinite different types of wavelet transforms, and they should all give different answers, i just didn't have enough time for it at the time. -/u/JackDMcLovin =============================================================================== I am sorry to say that your writing (in this post and others) shows strong signs of an untreated mental illness. You are not revolutionising math, you're losing contact with reality. Please, please get help. You need to see a doctor about this. -/u/Roxolan =============================================================================== I agree. I've seen what a psychosis is like on a close friend of mine, and this post is very reminiscent of how he talked while he was psychotic. It looks like incoherent rambling from the outside, but the person saying/writing it feels as if it makes sense. -/u/Luckychatt =============================================================================== if you think it's incoherent explain how it's incoherent don't just slander and slur like there's not an OP here. -/u/JackDMcLovin =============================================================================== You may take it as slur or slander, but I didn't mean to offend. It genuinely looks like incoherent rambling from the outside. My friend who was psychotic sincerely believed what he said to make sense and he also got very agitated when it was pointed out. -/u/LuckyChatt =============================================================================== yeah still, you havent described what doesn't make sense to you, that to me doesn't make sense, you get it? -/u/JackDMcLovin =============================================================================== What I mean by incoherent rambling is that you constantly move to new topics. The title is posing a question which you never answer. Then you talk about the side bar. You mention efficiency? Then you mention some mathematical papers as if we are supposed to know them. Then talk about AI as if it is equal to math equations. I mean. You either leave out an incredible amount of context, or you're just rambling out sentences. Either way, it's impossible to understand what you're trying to say. And the way you're rambling out sentences is very reminiscent of what it sounds like when a person has mental health issues. -/u/Luckychatt =============================================================================== Right, so you comprehend it, just not why. AI is pure math. It's not incoherent, you're all just stupid. Try reading something that's not news, where it repeats everything to you in different ways. -/u/JackDMcLovin =============================================================================== I have a masters in physics and computer science, I work for a major silicon valley company and have read everything I could find about AI. I still have zero idea of what you're trying to say in your original post. -/u/Luckychatt =============================================================================== Master’s in AI chiming in. Let’s break it down piece by piece. Because the issue is with efficiency, the way it reads is like for human-harvesting, which the privatized autobots will outlaw. Non sequitur. Plus, if AI is transferrable to neuronal impulses, then you are AI, and it is you, and you are the problem that needs to be controlled. Non sequitur and generally nonsensical premise. That’s what i said in my unpublished paper, Peer review exists for a reason. the individual cannot be controlled so how do we control AI, we become AI, AI becomes us. but that’s just the digital world. The analog world is much bigger. Word soup, this is nonsense. And my other paper copyrighted is on Arc Length calculus, a whole new type of calculus, that should rebreed all forms of calculation. Calculus has been around for about 350 years. You either need extreme genius or delusional thinking to believe you have arrived at a truly revolutionary development in that field. We also already have tools for dealing with calculus on curved objects and spaces; see differential geometry, topology, and manifolds. and is a thing that applies to itself in 2N ways. This is incomprehensible because you have not explained what it means for your calculus to be applied a certain way, how it is relevant to the rest of this text, and what N represents in this context. Which means AI can never catch up. So if I could think of that, what am I? This is incomprehensible because you have not defined what catching up means, and have not argued why artificial intelligence can’t scale this way. AI is not the end of it. At the end of what? It all depends on your transfer function. Why? Transfer functions are mainly something encountered in signal processing. How does this relate to artificial intelligence? and your transfer function all depends on your conversion/codec/filetype/transformation. Lossless compression makes this irrelevant. The way we store information has no importance when we reconstruct it perfectly. The transfer function of: 1/(1+e-x) is just one equation. Let me try this out for you with inferring a substitutional vector: You have not defined how this equation relates to artificial intelligence. We cannot interpret it. 1/(1+e-Bx+C) This is just a pre-composed linear transformation. How is this relevant? this can be expanded further and further. How? By adding redundant linear terms? How is this helpful? and these all give different outputs and are different breeds of AI. You have not explained how transfer functions relate to artificial intelligence. This statement is incomprehensible. I used a different transformation on a different AI and I got a different answer. An answer to what? For example 8x better using a Wavelet transform on an analog signal. How is 8x better quantified? Why are we talking about analog signals? Why are we talking about wavelet transforms? They are rarely ever used in machine learning and artificial intelligence. And there is infinitely infinitely infinite different types of wavelet transforms, and they should all give different answers, i just didn’t have enough time for it at the time. Sure, you can build infinitely wavelet bases, but why is that relevant? Making enormous claims and backing out with “I don’t have the time to prove it” is just intellectual dishonesty. I know my reply will likely come off as dismissive, but there is something genuinely worrying in what you’ve written. I just hope you are okay. When everything caves in and the only justification you have for other peoples’ reaction to your behaviour is that everyone else is at fault, you have to ask yourself if the one common point in these interactions, yourself, is at fault. This is just Occam’s razor. -/u/sabouleux =============================================================================== love this. artist, word-nerd & very baby scientist/philosopher chiming in, lets break it down from a more creative POV as well and see if we can cross reference with your wonderful contribution. Because the issue is with efficiency, the way it reads is like for human-harvesting, which the privatized autobots will outlaw. Slight non-sequitur. The energy efficiency issue I think they're trying to touch on is the exponential growth of tech as contrasted with the exponential loss of available material/energy. There's also a pessimistic "matrix human battery" undertone but that feels irrelevant. Human-harvesting in this case is literal - human labor, whether looked upon favorably or not, is by definition harvesting/using human energy - implying that the next steps of said exponential growth would be understanding and messing with the human mind and it's distributions of energy, possibly also mind-tech fusion (which we already do with computer keyboards, drugs, medicine, earbuds etc). Privatized Autobots is a reference to those who claim they wish to help being more of a hinderance due to the privatization/profit aspect of tech/AI, mostly just a joke poking at the two party concept of debate/politics/even tech (advance beyond or reduce consumption? an infinite debate.) Plus, if AI is transferrable to neuronal impulses, then you are AI, andit is you, and you are the problem that needs to be controlled. Transferrable was maybe the wrong word. I think they meant more of a "map" onto, instead of a "move" into. i.e., a big issue with AI being the lack of learning from new stimulus without requiring old contextual stimulus to contrast it against and understand it. (to my knowledge this hasn't been solved yet but you're the expert on that, would love to know more.) If neuronal impulses can be considered as a map to AI, then yes, a human could be considered a very advanced biomechanical AI, except for the 'artificial' bit, even though our perceptions are technically still arteficial. because we, for the most part, do have the ability to take new information and learn from it/determine something about it without any previous knowledge than what we've collected throughout our time alive. The issue arises when our form of bio-AI can only be properly, carefully developed through millions of years of evolution and adaptation, and when we try to mimic it without having evolved further, we're trying to 'cheat' at time and kick start things a bit, which would explain why we're at a bit of a speed bump in terms of development cap. 'You' being the problem is a reference to not actually understanding the human brain in it's entirety, i think. Like, there's the study of it, so we know what bits do what and where they are, but we can't replicate that (yet), without straight up literally growing a brain in a jar, which we still have yet to turn into a fully-fledged human who could repeat the process of brain-growing themself. we also can't consciously affect these processes without an enormous amount of discipline (meditation is a great example). That’s what i said in my unpublished paper, agreed. peer review. the individual cannot be controlled so how do we control AI, we becomeAI, AI becomes us. but that’s just the digital world. The analog worldis much bigger. i get what they're saying but i think there's something to be said for discipline and neuroplasticity, not necessarily third-partying it. if someone else can't control the individual, can the individual control the individual? Brings us back to the issue of AI needing to be self-expanding. Get the human mind to understand self-expansion, get the AI to understand too, is what i think they're touching at, hence "You are the problem". the human mind not being disciplined, in this case, is the problem, because it requires the discipline to become disciplined at something. loop paradox. i think here they're also stating that any created AI, future or present, is only possible as an extension of the human mind, and nowhere else. A random collection of letters and numbers would surely write Shakespeare's works if enough monkeys tapped at the typewriter, but still couldn't exist without the monkey's own wherewithal. The discipline comes in when resisting the urge to keyboard-smash out of frustration and instead laying out artistic meaning through informative letter symbols as well as other nuance of human language. bit odd here, analog isn't necessarily 'bigger' per se it's just less quantized/optimized/streamlined/processable by the mind. it's definitely a different/harder beast to handle than digital though, and there's more sensory sources, but it's just as infinite as any other infinity, so... same size, different complexity/concentration/time we've had to look around. And my other paper copyrighted is on Arc Length calculus, a whole newtype of calculus, that should rebreed all forms of calculation. Agreed, calculus as been around for a while. Still, one should test their hypotheses. I'm not a math nerd so I can't touch as much on those. would still love to read some of those papers one day. -/u/sunbloomofficial =============================================================================== and is a thing that applies to itself in 2^n ways. agreed, we'd need context, but i can read into it a bit. power of two would imply self-modification in an exponential sense, ie. dunning-kruger effect, except exponential instead of mu (μ) curved. so, taking in new information after completely abolishing the cocky confidence of the first lesson would change the understanding drastically. could also be read as "knowing that one knows nothing."also, applying to itself could imply that n is in a constant state of flux given any situation and could be adjusted to optimize... storage space? memory? "RAM"? that's where this sentence fizzles out for me. Which means AI can never catch up. So if I could think of that, what am I? by 'catching up' i think they mean the idea of AI being on the same level of functioning as a human. since humans have had since the beginning of human life and their life to start developing our bio-AI, this sort of touches on that same exponential expansion, except with time and the universe's rate of expansion. if humans are the most advanced AI possible, what's the most advanced human possible? at what point do humans become so advanced that they can sort of "skip the line" of evolution and develop an AI that's on par with human collective knowledge and individual self-sustenance/instinct? if that's not possible, what forces determine the limit of evolution achievable in the span of one human life?they then touch on the paradox of realizing that. if no AI could capture my specific human brain, experiences, memories, biases, tendencies, etc, then wtf AM I, and whatever 'I' am, why is that stopping us/me (figuratively) from making progress in AI? AI is not the end of it. here i think they mean "the end of human development" as much as "the end of what constitutes a human brain." AI could be developed and utilized, but at some point either the AI will outgrow us, making us obsolete, or we learn from the AI and progress with it, or we learn from the AI and start modifying our own brain-code in conjunction with digital AI. so... they mean that AI is not the end of evolution, not the end of humans, not the end of progress, not the end of understanding the human brain in the context of AI. It all depends on your transfer function. yup, signal processing. spot on. this is a reference to the titular "frame" idea, in which any idea that can be conveyed by english words isn't the true idea. the menu isn't the food, the map isn't the terrain, so to speak. this function of transfer between people can be optimized (efficient idea communication for that specific person, aka 'speaking in their language', aka code-switching) or deprecated (important stuff lost in translation that usually ends in hostility, aka political otherism, aka xenophobia, aka widespread misinformation/lack of information resulting in conspiracy theories, etc). to be able to adjust one's transfer function in the context of another entity, (aka frame-shifting, putting yourself in their shoes, speak their language etc) would then be a hallmark and necessary trait for an AI to understand what it comes across without our input. because of this, we'd have to be very careful to feed it only information that urges onward the ability to switch transfer functions, so... a bit of everything, actually. this would look a lot like mimicking the senses - microphones for ears, cameras for eyes, pressure sensors for touch, etc. a great analogy to this would be... well, this! your transfer function is a masters in AI studies. brilliant. my transfer function is music, art, poetry, many a mental illness (lol), and finding new functions/learning. that's why i'm commenting at all - so we can mix our transfer functions and get a bigger idea of things as a whole. i think OP's exactly right but sadly their own transfer function wasn't optimized for the receiving party (since it was an OP and not a comment reply), hence why they seem psychotic/delusional at first glance to an unaccustomed reader. there's also the idea that mixing the digital AI transfer function with the analog human transfer function would do something similar.this would relate to artificial intelligence directly, especially regarding OOBEs and stuff like dissociation, astral projection, putting oneself in another's shoes, even just the mind's eye. those things can be mimicked/visualized/interpreted with AI, but they can't be done by an AI (yet). a self-expanding computer program couldn't use it's base of knowledge to step outside of itself, it's 'computer prison' so to speak. it could however become "self aware", where it sees and understands it's own makeup to the point where it could make adjustments. -/u/sunbloomofficial =============================================================================== this is paralleled with most human 'spiritual awakening' - a hard long look at oneself, epiphany, followed by noticeable adjustments to lifestyle in an attempt to integrate this new information and effort to improve quality of life/increase the chance of more epiphanies to continue improving. this doesn't however cover the seemingly 'mystical' properties of the human imagination, i use that word loosely. "do androids dream of electric sheep" is a great book of course but the title alone feels relevant. at some point of self-development, would an AI develop a sort of... i hate to say randomizer, but like... nah, it's more of a "link clicker" random than a "pick a number" random. an AI's dream might literally just be browsing the internet - seeing all the funny, nonsensical, cultural, and even scientifically misleading information spread deep throughout the internet. this would parallel with human dreams, which are incomprehensible and random at first glance until one gets into dream reading, which can ground that subjective random in one's own transfer function so as to make it understandable. if a human dreams of popping a pimple, that's typically regarded as a sign of self-image issues in dream-reading circles (regardless of your stance on it's legitimacy it's a useful allegory). if an AI were to dream of pimple-popping ASMR videos, how could it parse that into it's transfer function without damaging it's transfer function by putting a bunch of random shit in there? essentially, our brain 'filters' out what we're not focused on, hence peripheral vision/hyperfocus/translation issues. any transfer function, whether human or AI, must have that filter as much as the ability to remove it. therefore, an AI would need to have the ability to experience what makes ASMR interesting/enjoyable (having ears to feel frisson and know what to expect from that) before it could ever make sense of such a weird dream. and your transfer function all depends on your conversion/codec/filetype/transformation. this one's FUN. so, yes, we have lossless compression now, and it's wonderful, but... filespace. unless i'm rendering a final song to be distributed to platforms, i would use solely mp3 encoding. even when i do use wav/flac, i often zip those files in an attempt to minimize their painful impact on my hard drive. thousands of songs do not go well with lossless lol. it's just inefficient except in the case of archival. which brings me to the fun bit - contrast. aka negative space aka the wonderful plugin Ghz Lossy 3, and pretty much any of sxth sns's music. essentially, the lack of information is information. if the only information your brain is getting is the lack of information you have, then boom, you're sad and not learning anything. often referred to as "the void inside one's stomach". if the only information you're getting is an endless stream of new information (read: social media and doomscrolling) then boom, overstimulated, depressed, and exhausted. Lossy 3 is a great plugin because it lets you mimic the effect of mp3 encoding artifacts and amplify that effect at will in real time(+ latency), much like distortion can be a form of subtractive processing or additive (adding harmonic information rather than degrading what's already there). the extra harmonic information changes not only the quality of the sound but the context. therefore, a lack of information, used skillfully, would deeply impact the context of transferred information, hence negative space in photography. this lends itself to an insane amount of creative opportunities, of course, but it also lends itself to interpretation. if the lack of information is information too, and the extremes tend towards misery, then there must be a balance between being so degraded that it's imperceptable garbles and being so lossless that it's a 6gb audio file. that balance is artful loss, imo. balancing understandable, pleasant information with a small enough file size that it doesn't overwhelm (either the listener or the hard drive). in music, silence is very important - you wouldn't cut all the silent gaps out of a song because that messes up the tempo and feel of the song. this can be applied to even just reddit - these super long comments i write are hella inefficient, but they're lossy in a way that's more efficient for me to write than to translate to someone elses, while i'm efficiently "decompressing" other people's files to be read on my own OS and expanding my transfer function dictionary to include relevant information. our little community is well primed for translating different levels of communication efficiency, hence all the poetry and such. so, this is where frame-shifting comes back in - if you can become comfortable at any ratio of contrast, then theoretically you could transfer information at the most optimal balance of loss and preservation for the specific listener. in music, this is called mastering - to make a song sound good on any system. in science, this is the scientific method - test a hypothesis until you can recreate it under the same/similar circumstances. in tech, this is embodied by github - a repository of commonly agreed-upon works created in an agreed-upon language which can be used as the basis for larger projects. each github repo is essentially a lossless preservation of code, made lossy as a result of it's application being so broad/not having immediate context. there's the immediate context of "oh i can use this to serve this purpose", but there's no larger code that it's being built towards beside the code you work on yourself. in other words, github IS the larger code, specifically because of your contribution/use of it. so, essentially, the transfer function is akin to the ratio of contrast, as well as whether the receiving party has the proper codecs to play the file/decompress it (read also, understanding art. lots of art isn't actually "up for interpretation", it's very specific in meaning but that meaning happens to map directly to the observer's transfer function, at least in the case of really thoughtful art). having the ability to know how much to compress it for future reference is also an important ability, because over-compression can leave a file undecipherable/garbled, which i wouldn't hesitate to liken to the superiority complex/undertones of certain widespread modern religions which take their Bible as a literal, historical text. which, i mean, it technically is, but not like that, because it has to be decompressed first. eve didn't literally eat an apple, it was her hubris of disobeying God's will that got them kicked out. A more simple transfer would be reading this as "don't disobey God's will or face the consequences," while a more artistic/interpretive transfer would read that moreso as "not letting one's innate desire for change/adventure/the New damage their presupposed structures of order for a sense of something to fix." the wrath of God in this instance is the knowledge of "i shouldn't have done that," and the consequences those actions bring. even this paragraph is in a transfer function of brevity - notice i didn't actually write out the entire book of genesis. (ooh, also, bible verses are quite like github repos/song playlists/dictionaries. just a widely used version of it. like citing a source, but for a theoretical concept.) so, putting this all together, if we optimize understandable information from quality information, we reduce the need for using more brain-filespace than necessary, leaving more room for more files which we can de- and re-compress at any time, as well as use to modify the amount of RAM our brains have. this would also apply to something like working memory, where forcing the mind to decompress the information actually forces it to understand the information in the long term too, because if you open a .rar file in a text editor you get gibberish (which isn't actually gibberish) but if you open it in an archive extractor, you get the intended files. innately remembering to use an archive extractor instead of a text editor based on the filetype; that's frame-shifting, transfer functions, whatever name one uses. -/u/sunbloomofficial =============================================================================== 1/(1+e-x) is just one equation. Let me try this out for you with inferring a substitutional vector: again, i suck at math. and these all give different outputs and are different breeds of AI. okay, what these seem to mean is that each equation is a mini-AI, and therefore any equation of the mind would fall under the same category. this would also imply that the human brain is just a collection of equations, which... feels reductionist and a bit cynical, but is still an entirely plausible frame. math's pretty damn reliable at some of that stuff, hence how astrology got it's kick - noticing patterns in life and nature and finding reflections of those same patterns in ourselves and our lives. your horoscope doesn't literally control/predict your personality, but it gives a framework for the previously noticed patterns, which lets the horoscope user determine whether or not to follow that pattern (let that pattern influence them), or to venture off and make their own. (note; op's kinda doing exactly that, except with math.) since a skeptic would have a different output than a "true believer", so to speak, with regard to their horoscope, they're completely different breeds of AI. so, being able to switch between those at will would be an entire step up from that. Hence why code-switching became a thing in marginalized communities - they adapted under pressure to operate in more than one frame. the "slang" frame, (noticable as AAVE, the "gay" voice, valley girl inflection, etc), and the "formal" frame - the most widely understood in our region being english with an acceptably 'white' american accent (the racism is hard to brush off). this of course varies from place to place, person to person, and situation to situation, but the fact that this manifested as a result of oppression/unwealth is pretty friggin interesting in the context of using multiple frames in day-to-day activities and information transfer. I used a different transformation on a different AI and I got a different answer. that's... hmm. i mean yeah, that's how transformations work on different subjects. i think 'different' here doesn't literally mean different. it means DIFFER-ent, something that has the quality of differing. so, if i'm reading this right, OP used a differing transformation on a differing AI and got a differing answer. this would presuppose that if they were to use a matching transformation on a matching AI, they'd get a matching answer, except the differ-ent transformation with a matching AI would produce a differing result that matches the AI? again, i'm not math-savvy yet, so this one is likely the wrongest of my presuppositions. so, pretty much, frame-switching, but complicated and for all three - the transformation involved, the AI, and the answer. For example 8x better using a Wavelet transform on an analog signal. okay, this one makes sense to me. essentially, he got improved understanding and responsiveness by adjusting the frequency of information transfer over time, but not the shape. like taking a sine wave, putting it through an oscilloscope, and pitching it up an octave. the difference in cycle frequency is the change, rather than the shape of the cycle. pasted from wiki: "but with additional special properties of the wavelets, which show up at the resolution in time at higher analysis frequencies of the basis function." this one presupposes that the AI in question is actually another person, and the wavelet transform is essentially taking a step back and making even deeper analytical steps of "basis functions". in this case, language and math. so, it would be making an even deeper analytical step into language to optimize information transfer. the 8x mentioned is likely the measure of willingness to listen and understanding of material by whatever third party they're referencing. i have no idea how they measured that but they must've seen enough improvement to have marked it down. And there is infinitely infinitely infinite different types of wavelet transforms, and they should all give different answers, i just didn’t have enough time for it at the time. here, they just mean that every person is different and will require a different combination of wavelet transforms to optimize the information they receive. as for giving different answers, yeah, that'd have to be tested, but it would line up with the other differ model, at least briefly and in my uneducated mind. i think they mean they literally don't have the cosmic time available to actually test an infinite number of wavelet transforms - or anything really - but yeah, it's probably a good idea to test a handful of them eventually. if you're not scared away by the word-wall or ideas presented still i'd love to hear your thoughts. regardless of OP's mental condition(s) i think there are a few substantive ideas in there worth exploring, if not in a community setting at least in their own personal self-exploration and healing. i appreciate you taking their post at face value before making a determination, most wouldn't lol -/u/sunbloomofficial =============================================================================== please post on /r/ShrugLifeSyndicate - genius is useless without guidance and an observer translating thought into language -/u/ugathanki =============================================================================== ┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐ │ similar │ chronological │ different │ ╘═════════╧╧═══════════────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ |