A sidebar from the post. I’m curious if you have ever gone over any epistemology. Particularly thought explorations like Boltzmann brains, Descartes demon, last Thursdayism, Plato’s cave, or Chung Tzu’s butterfly.

In the study of knowledge it becomes clear that what most call knowledge isn’t as absolute or concrete as at least I personally would prefer it to be and that which is seemingly solid is quite limited. For instance I assume all previous moments before now actually happened and reality didn’t just start as is like a video game booting into some programmed state. I don’t mind axioms such as that but it’s worth being aware it is an axiom/assumption/faith and not something I absolutely know to be the case.

In some occultic and gnostic philosophy there is a being known as the demiurge which believes it is the ultimate creator of reality but in actuality is a lesser being who only brought the physical reality into existence and is seen as ignorant, arrogant, or malevolent.

In some forms of Buddhism and Hinduism there is samsara or a cycle of rebirth which in some versions includes beings we would typically call Gods including the Christian/Jewish/Muslim God much like the demiurge falsely believing it is the ultimate being.

In short they are seen by other religious structures as lesser beings who create / influence the material world while there are yet higher states of being for more benevolent beings. The material world itself is often portrayed as one of the lowest realms through which practices of letting go of one’s desire or ego can free ones self and allow passage into higher states of being.

Sidebar, y’all remember spiders on drugs?

Hollywood is a business like any other and they are concerned with making money. It’s rare that someone’s given name is marketable. People get their names different ways but it’s often their agent or some producer who picks them up who names them.

The article addresses that actually. Says it was around 1/6 in 2013.

Alright the information seems to be from reputable sources, the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIACC) and the conference board of Canada. It’s not that people are illiterate but that they struggle with a high school level English reading comprehension test. It seems it was more like 1/6 back in 2013

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The ISS uses UTC but they have a sunrise and sunset every 45 minutes so it’s not really connected to the sun like us terrestrials.

First and foremost I can suggest meditation. You don’t have to personally save the world, do what you can when you can and that’s enough, honestly more than enough. I can suggest figures like Pema Chodron and Ram Dass, they’ve been extremely helpful for me in extreme moments of life. I think Pema’s book Welcoming the Unwelcomed is pure gold.

Also don’t mind taking a break from it all. The world will keep on ticking. One day the sun will run out of fuel and vaporize the earth, one day the last star will go dark, one day the last black hole will evaporate. Nothing is forever besides change. That’s not to say it’s all pointless, more so to say enjoy it and if you can even enjoy the unpleasant things along with the pleasant ones.

Left home with nothing but the clothes on my back. Thankfully my HS girlfriend and her parents let me stay with them. Had to buy clothes with the $400 I had and was riding my bike to my minimum wage job. It was simple times but good times.

The line between trolls for the lolz and the ones that are getting trolled sure is blurry these days.

Yeah Putin wants those massive natural gas deposits and so does Ukraine. There’s not much of a deal to be made.

If you’re technically inclined you could support some free and open source software project.

This joke really vibes with my sense of humor. Some jokes hit different but this one buzzes. Life is better when the humor has a charge.

I’m not sure it’s clean and easy like that. A rose by any other name smells just as sweet. I see it more like a classic battle between two very similar yet different individuals over ultimate legitimacy, like the fight between Romulus and Remus, although this will likely have a different ending.

The political and cultural history of mainland China and Taiwan is really interesting. It’s easy to say they just want their fabs but I feel like the struggle is more so about legacy. The CCP gaining control over Taiwan would indicate they are the one and only true China spiritually and philosophically at least to themselves. It’s a fundamental split and both consider themselves the real or true China.

Scams on scams in scams. I’m not saying all business is dishonorable but the more one learns how much money is actually in the world and what it’s mostly being used for it can be quite disheartening. So many minds and hearts so deep into an ignorance preventing them from compassion for others, from seeing the costs of their actions.

I’m a bit shocked this wasn’t happening sooner. We’ve more so seen people salting the fields so to speak to get back at AI / data collection companies. Makes sense corporate types would do the same to push their products or services. That said doing it to advertise their brand of hormone replacement therapy is a tad disturbing, seems like something important enough that one wouldn’t want their information manipulated when researching. Same to anything medical really.

There is actually some science behind this. People’s perception of time literally speeds up as they age. Our youth feels like forever, our young adult years still feel long and at that point it all feels like it will be forever, and then you blink and you’re 56 wondering where the time went. It’s a really well known phenomenon.

It seems most air travel is avoiding the Persian gulf right now. I often fly through the UAE and most routes are now going through Ethiopia or direct to Europe and then onward.