There is only what it is like to be something. A world that isn't aware of itself at all is equal to a world that doesn't exist.

So long as there is any life after death, there is an afterlife. Who is to say "our" life is by any means coherent as a piece rather than continuous with the whole universe.

Good stuff.

It's an alternative world to Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Hakuin and the Toilet Roll.

Can't imagine a mustache, some sunglasses and a MAGA hat would change it much.

You must do much more of these.

Maybe a silhouette of a retriever with toilet roll. Man shooting other folks for toilet roll, while retriever brings it back.

Or ducks in sky carrying toilet roll being shot by man, dog retrieves toilet roll instead of duck.

Flying toilet rolls being shot, carried back by dog.

I want to see more photo shopped members.

@Wheatley

You could always start acting like your "friend" to see what he thinks of his own behavior. Persistently ask for money.

@Sir2u

You can try asking Brittany Spears (and her network) for a grant. Make a list of rich people and start asking.

@Fluke

It's all about placebo, so pick something that you know to be benign and believe that it works without letting yourself know its a placebo! Grate fresh horseradish in the bath (that seems like an unusual experiment) and tell us what happens.

Are you leaving The Lounge for the main forum, 2 days ago?

I wish The Lounge was more popular than it is but far less popular than the main forum.

How to become the Alphamensch?

You need to take risks, become physically strong, eat more meat, quit your cubicle job, learn to bow hunt, start testosterone doping and start a podcast.

I don't think Saffron is anymore labor intensive than any other agricultural crop, just that the amount of yield is low compared to the demand for it. It might be preferable to picking pineapples.

Global agriculture is rife with labor injustice. Check out Rotten on Netflix, very interesting.

Coronavirus Age, Sex, Demographics

I'm in the .2% risk pool if these rates aren't entirely nonsense. They say a majority of Chinese males smoke and this may exacerbate the the death rate since viral pneumonia is the principle killer.

I read it.

My default setting was somewhere in England and it abruptly changed to New York.

The simple solution to this conundrum is to stop thinking of God as either omnibenevolent or omniscient/ omnipotent or else to simply stop thinking of God at all. — Janus

Good solution.

To be ominbenevolent would be to wish no harm or suffering on any being. — Janus

Just wishing? That ain't good enough to be benevolent.

Is the notion of omnibenevolence at all coherent? You can make up as much crap as you'd like concerning God. Religious faith doesn't hinge on arguments. It's like fawns burning in the forest. Shit happens, like faith or the lack of it happens.

Maybe suffering is God's favorite condiment (the ketchup of creation).

Maybe God is feeling it all and that it continues is testament to his will that it is all worth it.

I live in a reality where we spell zanny with one z turned on its side, unless zanny is slang. All this time I thought it was spelled with two side-turned z's and the dictionary says otherwise. I think I've entered another dimension.

The amount of energy spent in the way of living our mundane lives is absurd.

To be productive, and therefore turn the economic wheel, requires a huge and unsustainable energy expense, most often to satisfy superfluous wants, but we all know this.

I too am afraid God might exist. That is why I read the bible and try to distill its perennial wisdom, to hedge my doubt.


Disclaimer: I do not read the bible.

And I don’t get it. What exactly is going on with that? — Brett

Because of the politics his narrative supports. The hate just reflects the polar divide of our political landscape.

He's a religious conservative who fears big government because the USA could become communist if we don't stop all this postmodern neomarxist monkey business (whatever it is).

Yea, it's a play. What were you doing, a documentary? — frank

Ha! Yeah, I get it.

It's getting expensive.

Could we have the whole thing spoken by Jonah while he's sitting inside the whale? Maybe he's explaining all this to Pinocchio. — frank

Don't be stupid Frank.

Jonah and Pinocchio are fictional characters while Attenborough and Herzog are hot stuff.

So there is no answer. Ha!

The Eye of Providence brings to mind political conspiracy (Illumanatism), what with its Masonic origins.

Because God is now dead, his eye has been inherited by the special interests of the state, which gain more power through the market of surveillance capitalism and state corruption.

If the eye turns against itself it could mean self-exposure of the surveillance activities of a neofascism.

When the Eye turns Inward and the mouth speaks to the public, it Wikileaks a tear for the state of the nation.

The F word is jarring. It's something that best comes out in character dialogue with appropriate context rather than third person narration. I'm thinking we should get David Attenborough to do the audio version but edit it more towards a BBC wildlife documentary style.

After some transition, where the monkeys become the inheritors of the earth, you can switch to Werner Herzog, so he can drive home the existential gravity of how fucked everything might be.

And the winner of this years Golden Drama award goes to the only true being in this lonely universe, Wallows, who stands in the center of it all, owner of the last remaining soul of Libertarian Free Will.

The rest of us are merely the detached seeds of the tree of life: vegetal parts blown by circumstance.

Sounds like Ashbury is just reflecting upon his creative process.

Trying to achieve what works
Gleaning bits of inspiration
Waiting for something with the body of a spirit
The critic speaks
As draft edits yellow the green leaves

This is probably wrong and unsophisticated but oh well.

The community college I attended is right next to a state run psychiatric hospital and I can tell you I'd never want to be committed there, or work there for that matter.

Voluntary commit to an institution?

I'm not making this shit up. — Wallows

Do they really keep you or isn't this always a temporary situation. Or are you talking about jail?

Does anyone know how to go on? — Wallows

What is the alternative to not going on?

How long do we have to wait for the answer of the riddle?

You have two eyes of a moderator and the power to silence fools. :P

It's single, not a pair. One Eye.

The eye sees through itself to see what it was already looking at, itself looking at itself, but looking at itself is no different than looking outwards at the world. The eye's self is the world.

What it sees outwardly constitutes a vantage from a distinct point of view and that view is a kind of inward looking because it is distinct (a point focus), which makes the world sensible.

If this is the Eye of Providence, then its is a mere surface painting, or a dream image, which causes us to paranoid about what we think we ought to do against what we want to do. God's Eye is the security camera of Thrasymacus, whose justice is the right of kings. It means: "Watch out, for you are being watched."

You're going to have to see the answer for us.

God is always looking at nudes. He is constantly unclothing the world and driving spiritless machines to replicate. He's a psychopath. If he is a cyclops that just makes him more creepy.

Depends on what self is doing the seeing?

It sees whatever it intends to see, which is the self it already intends for its focus.

A brain has to decide what to see given it has infinite options of focus and range. It's predetermined to see what it sees by natural law.

There is far too much for an-all seeing eye to see.

What animal sees with the all seeing eye?

Do other people's experience (being) in the world consitute a single possible world apart from others, or do we all live in one world?

What happens when the all seeing eye turns inward? — Wallows

Sauron looks at orc porn when his gaze is directed within.

Don't ever take any recreational drugs with an anxiety like this.

It might be better to believe that a bundle of calcium rods wrapped in meat tape, holding up a glob of prejudiced fat all resisting the dispersing flow of entropy is enough to make you want to not exist.

This miracle is yucky on the days it isn't insufferably dull.