but if your family and friends can be harassed into negligence — Enrique

Sounds like an eerie conspiracy.

Govt. is too uncaring and incompetent to employ such a malicious conspiracy for average joes. If you're dangerous and mentally out there you might get locked up and drugged in a local state institution. Such unfortunate folk probably don't have much of a hope or a prayer with or without govt. intrusion, lacking social support.

There is something to the absurd incentive structure of welfare. Folks might avoid getting a job in the event that they become less well off and they become dependent on the system that doesn't easily adapt to target such issues.

Fraud/bureaucracy is also a big problem for a functioning welfare system. There has been some noise about some NYC contractor siphoning money off shelter funds. Florida is famous for medicare/caid fraud cases on the business side.

We're to weave a mythic narrative, a tapestry, that hides or fills the horror vacui, whether embracing agency as the hand that paints itself or as the hand that is painted.

Better yet we've never heard of the abyss and toil with full absorption in fruitful aspects of the gardens of life.

It's probably more immoral on the whole to be interesting/variable, since ever the ratcheting adaptation of the human race is an existential threat not only to ourselves but many other species.

We humans are immoral because we can't tolerate boredom/stasis.

Curiosity might kill the sapient apes but at least they were interesting.

Why a tesseract specifically, rather than some other geometry projected to the 4th dimension?

Why not a hyperpyramid or a hypersphere?

Careful guys, there is a mirror dimensional dream entity called Nil, kind of like Freddy Kreugar or It but far less suburban, more ancient, who is drawn into this reality by complaints.

If you complain to much you'll be dragged into the mirror dimensional realm and trafficked as slaves. It's a lawless non-democratic place on the other side of the mirror, far worse than our boring dystopia.

Turn back now and stop complaining. Gush in gratitude to defend yourself. Life is grand, a given, a river of boundless mirth, that always flows to the calming rhythm of our ridiculous universe.

Halloween isn't a holiday. Holidays are days on which no work is done.

Therefore holidays don't exist. Can you imagine a day on which no work is done? What is life but work...

Seems like a coin toss whether God can defy logic at this point.

God, come down and show yourself, and settle the issue hand to hand. Can you create a rock that you can't lift for eternity? And how long is eternity if nobody is around to verify that length?

I'm sure he is like those Jinn in Arabian nights, who gets any manner of loops holes based on the limits of language. If he can't lift the rock, can he drop it upside down, or turn off gravity, or kick it? What keeps the laws that determine the outcome of the situation from changing once nobody cares anymore, or between blinks?

Despite that richness it somehow felt thin or lacking passion. — praxis

We've gone from Lynch's extravagant Baroque style to Villeneuve's minimalist Brutalism. The characters resemble and are coterminous with the sand, buildings and worms. Maybe they just haven't eaten enough spice yet.

Determinism seems like it has less the connotative religious/mythic baggage than fate. Fate sounds like there some iffy precognition (or self-fulfilling prophecy) involved, as if what is fated must be because so and so thinks... Whereas, determinism, is just a pinball process running in time according to the laws of nature and the outcome is contingent on the turning of many other things. Maybe determinism allows for more of it could've been otherwise.

It's probably healthier to believe in some kind of free will. All I need to do is believe and voila, like Baron von Munchausen hoisting himself up by his pony tail in the swamp, I'll levitate out of my depressing existence. Think positive thoughts and take flight with the metaphysical placebo.

You might like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

What should I do about this? — Shawn

Try to persuade your farmer/owner not to turn you into bacon to buy more time. I'm sure they'll spot an exceptionally bright pig with the help of some other high IQ animal who can spell words.

Thanks Hasui Kawase (1883-1957) for all the landscapes.

a connection between physical illnesses and mental illnesses — TheMadFool

Why not go the brain tumor made me do it route? There were a couple anecdotes from Robert Sapolsky, one about a guy who shot a bunch of people, murdered his wife and was found to be suffering from a brain tumor next to his amygdala; another guy with a brain tumor which was causing hyper sexual behavior which tipped over into pedophilia (or just child porn?). Removing the tumor for the second case caused the bad behavior to cease.

It's a bit different in theme from prejudices others might form about superficial abnormal postures or physical function. We're either dealing with a physical abnormality that causes unfair discrimination or becomes the actual cause of bad behavior.

There was a kid with Tourettes who sat behind me for a moment in highschool. I swear (pun?) the guy was using his condition as an excuse to exaggerate and swear at me but I was probably wrong. I'd say Tourettes is no excuse to whisper terrible things behind my back.

Accusing the disabled of evil is more of a medieval era thing but our hyper discriminative nature based on the appearance and function of things (do I like what I see) is hard to escape. As they say, always judge a book by its cover unless you have the time, energy to read it (who has time or energy or gives a half a fig?)... as what you see often resembles what you get?

Are these Sauron folk evil because they are ugly? Otherwise we might think the war was unnecessary.
Poor Karl. It's likely that Sauron was the only one who would hire him due to his obvious disability, ie. blindness and bad teeth.

I wouldn't say the posture corresponds to an immoral act. Only cartoons/caricatures probably accept bribes that way. It's not very surreptitious at all if you can't control when this behavior is done and onlookers will be able to derive meaning from context quite easily. They'll say... oh, that guy has Erb's palsy and therefore most likely isn't a police officer...

Nice list. :up:

So the whole of our human economy is and has always been subject to this widespread frailty, where the pursuit of self-interest is primary and the moral obligation to convey truth is secondary, expedited by the absurd inefficiencies of bureaucracy.

Goodbye fiestaware. — praxis

Radioactive fiestaware should complement Squashtatues™. Maybe you can induce polyploidy in the seeds with those plates. Get yourself a lead china cabinet.

Is this concept really fundamental to Capitalism's survival? It becomes sort of true that If one person goes down, another goes up. Because I can make more out of what I have if I exploit the environment around me doing things such as lowering wages, benefits, and adopting certain labour-saving technologies, etc. — kudos

Maybe the popular term that covers some of your concern is creative destruction? The price for ever greater efficiency from business competition results industry transformation, unemployment and wealth transfer. The social/economic landscape of capitalism is always mutating at uncomfortable speed, because as David Harvey says, capital cannot abide a limit. The future is the gig economy.

_____

"The effect of continuous innovation ... is to devalue, if not destroy, past investments and labour skills. Creative destruction is embedded within the circulation of capital itself. Innovation exacerbates instability, insecurity, and in the end, becomes the prime force pushing capitalism into periodic paroxysms of crisis. ... The struggle to maintain profitability sends capitalists racing off to explore all kinds of other possibilities. New product lines are opened up, and that means the creation of new wants and needs. Capitalists are forced to redouble their efforts to create new needs in others .... The result is to exacerbate insecurity and instability, as masses of capital and workers shift from one line of production to another, leaving whole sectors devastated .... The drive to relocate to more advantageous places (the geographical movement of both capital and labour) periodically revolutionizes the international and territorial division of labour, adding a vital geographical dimension to the insecurity. The resultant transformation in the experience of space and place is matched by revolutions in the time dimension, as capitalists strive to reduce the turnover time of their capital to "the twinkling of an eye".


Harvey, David (1995). The Condition of Postmodernity. pp. 105–06. ISBN 978-0-631-16294-0.

Horticulture (Gardening)

The new economic boom ushering in a new golden age will result from custom 3d printed squash molds. Everyone will store strange shaped squash on their shelves as food statues and it'll become an epidemic of crippling aesthetic addiction, especially around Halloween.

Squash statues, the genesis of a new religion.

Thanks to the hardworking USPS who is probably so tired of delivering an infinity of boxes by now to shitty entitled customers that they've decided to give up. My box full of advanced consumption materials must have been swallowed by a whale by now.

Except for the employee at the local office who was born to take the "service" out of customer service.

Another unanswerable question is how to apply such advice, if such advice could be vetted to be uncommon and wise, while having no will to do so whatsoever.

How does one find the will to do anything that the suffering (or pleasure) of life doesn't already enforce? What motivates an obstinate ass to pull a cart?

A cloud of uncertainty has already struck all senses, a dreaded doubt encoils me. Good luck, I say to myself, "Good Luck".

As a blessed figure myself, I give away free post attention to the needy in exchange for their sins.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in polar heaven.
Give us this day our daily bird meat; and forgive us our trespasses as we sometimes forgive those who trespass against
us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil into luxury.
rAmen.

Thank you angry sperm whale who rammed and sunk the whaling ship Essex in 1820. Otherwise we might not have the horrendous account of survival from its crew, exemplifying human resilience, and the inspiration for Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!” — Herman Melville: Moby Dick

The grass is questionably greener on the counterfactual side of the fence.

I thank all involved in De Niro's portrayal of Travis Bickle in the 1976 movie, Taxi Driver, even though I never saw the movie and just read the plot on wikipedia. Sounds like a good movie.

Surely more than just prayer affects Cheeta and Croc Christian Karma bank accounts even if such a system were true.

What are the demographics of Christian faith among animal communities and to what degree are we allowed to generalize about beliefs that constitute a religious identity? We can't canvass beliefs outside of our species. We'd doubt, given that animals lack anything like our language, that animals have much of an abstract conceptual life. How do we determine the religious affiliation of non-human animals?

Even with humans, the substance/work of faith is sometimes hidden. What appears on the face of things might conceal an ugly or banal or contradictory reality.

We're a bunch of crocodiles wearing masks. Our crocodile tears flow like crocodile faith, into the deaf sink of an insensible and indifferent nature.

Yes, it's all entirely possible and it's entirely possible it's all relative up to the ruling consensus of those who call themselves normal, just and good by virtue of an exercise of reason or rule.

Craziness is often a group mediated judgement. The normies point out the abnormality of the abnormies in a way that the descriptor "crazy" sticks.

Laura is just not going to Church and she is dating women. She is "crazy" to throw her immortal future away according to the brunch circle of culturally righteous Karens. But if Laura runs with the Anti-Karen motorcycle club, they might call out the Church Karens for what they are according to their little badass carefree subculture. So relative to group ideals but both, as human, partake in a larger group of standard behaviors by which they could make judgements about others.

Cryptocurrency is insane because it's an energy wasting gambling scheme which relies on the accepted belief in a regulated currency. Everyone is still only thinking about it in terms of dollars and yen and pounds and what not. But maybe I'm "dumb" instead of "crazy" according to the crypto circle jerks. The question is how risky is any action according to whatever the average apprehension of whatever the risk is... to say that losing your money is equivalent to having thrown it all into a blazing fire place (and how crazy would that be given that money is a bitch to earn but like breathing oxygen to spend).

Hannibal Lector has invited the Karens to brunch to see which one he wants to eat. Is Dr. Lector crazy? No. Abnormal with regard to how often genteel cannibalism occurs. He, like the Karens, just wants to have a nice meal.

You talk a lot from hearsay. — gikehef947

How much of the Bible is hearsay?

Animals have no souls so they are purely a means by which humans (God's chosen species in the image of the One Creator) can accomplish the will of God in order to get into the gated community called Heaven.

Animals do not pray. That is our species responsibility alone, to appease his supernatural Majesty, to avoid eternal damnation.

Remember what happened to Job. You need real grit to realize it's not about evidence of the results of prayer in this world but expectation for material reality in the next.

Gwada fanna ledo foop. Cesca denudo sek sek roo, kanak dej du ankh.

What are the particulars behind the OP and what are the solutions that ought to be pursued?

give me one example of human action — boagie

Every cause is fundamentally an uncaused cause if so willed and taken on faith by the bullshit maker.

Every act is an act of God, the 1st cause and the uncaused cause.

Down Under Rules

Always use a franger when touching a drop bear.

Never go unprepared into the never never.

Fossicking in Tasmania requires a permit.

Roo pouches are for Joeys only.

Gay or straight, Narcissus is a sick boy. A sexual deviation that some young men (men in particular) experience is the self-involvement of excessive solitary masturbation. They apparently have a lot more than the average amount of tension to resolve--sexual or academic or something else. The main feature of narcissism is very excessive self-involvement, to the point of isolation. — Bitter Crank

Bah! Nothing wrong with masturbating for eternity alone. The only tension resolved is the kind caused by a ceaseless and irritating horniness.

:eyes:

Nah, Narcissus was self-sufficient. He entertained himself in a reflection, felt happy with what he was doing, and deep down inside, while sitting there looking at himself... felt happy inside. — Shawn

It's a myth. You can just as well retell it how ever you'd like, like you just did.

Here come the sexy Bangles.

Proceeding from this, what's so special about thinking of one's self as 'special'? — Shawn

A morale helper, a support cushion, a superhero mask, a dream to keep oneself alive? Imagine the terror of the opposite: the self as a useless, ugly and bad powerless piece of shit. The way mythology/ideology helps to guide and sustain us in a sad, absurd, chaotic world. I don't know.

If you're gonna run the gauntlet (run in the rat race) you need a bit of a psychological bump (placebo) or a powerful anesthetic.

Add in Phthonus (Envy) and Nemesis (Revenge) to the pool party. Sounds like a recipe for humanity.

If I can't be of value by measure of what the group values, in endless hierarchical ascension of competitive vanity, then I shall revel in the shallowness of self-love, as the remaining outlet of pleasure.

Alone in my mansion, bereft of others, I'll look into my exaggerated portrait and declare: "I'm too sexy for my shirt."

Rule 67879777 On the Subject of Toilet Paper Etiquette

All toilet paper rolls on a dispenser should have their paper ends face outwards toward the user, not towards the wall. All users should adjust toilet paper rolls that are improperly mounted in the correct direction if they notice.

(Failure to follow this rule will result in a quantity of point demerits as outlined in the yet to be created social credit system. However, it is unlikely that there is any just mechanism by which such judgement of merit/demerit can be made on the basis of following or failing to follow such a rule).

I'm thankful that we're all effectively addressing climate change and that we're innovating toward a stable state economy. Really makes me feel good.

And thank you for fantasy. Imaginary worlds are great.