#i have no idea why i capitalized math and not science

[cowboybuckleys]

[skyscrapergods]

i'm working on my own concept for my own mlp fanlore/au and i've been inspired by your take on alicorns to make my own more unique as well. my idea is centric around the concept that alicorns are ponies who acended into what's basically pony elves that get worshiped because of the mysterious way they ascended, but idk how to really make a religion set up that works cohesively with it. i am wondering if you possibly might have some tips and tricks for how to go about my alicorn religions.

The most important thing about religion is that it's made up. If it is based in observable fact, then it's not religion; it's just culture.

Paying taxes and bowing to the king is based on observable orders. Believing that the king has a divine right to be king, or that he has powers/blessings granted to him by birth/status is religion.

In skyscraper gods, things are different because believing something about a god actually has the power to make it true, or at least influence the god's form/powers in an abstract way. My gods are influenced/given power by belief and worship.

In the human world, you can believe whatever you want about any person or god, and that doesn't make it real. If there are gods about, they are unlikely to be controlled by human religion, and definitely aren't spawned by such (or we would have a lot more gods than we do)

In a normal world, religion is not based on observable fact, and it is designed and maintained by the people themselves.

So from my limited understanding of world religions, there are four "needs" that religion is designed to fill: Community, Ritual, Meaning, and Ethics.

I went off the deep end and wrote an essay about my philosophy. Whoops, hope you enjoy:

Community

Humans need community, and many religions involve gathering and doing activities together. This makes religion incredibly important to human social health, as we often fail to fill our need for community because we don't immediately die without it. Under capitalism especially, we are incentivized to ignore as many human needs as possible in order to be productive/survive. Religion makes itself more important than simple survival, and ensures we fill certain needs by promising metaphysical rewards.

Ritual

Ritual is also incredibly important to human health. We thrive when we have a consistent schedule to the day, month, season, and year. It helps us save our brain bandwidth if we already know what basic tasks will happen today. Instead of doing math to figure out optimum times to do so, we socialize, come of age, physically touch, meditate, sing, mourn, plant crops, travel, cook, keep records, hunt, celebrate, and more according to a calendar maintained by religion. These are all important aspects of life that we need to remember to fill, either by logic, community, or religion. Science even backs up the need for ritual, with brain pathways growing best in response to consistent habit-keeping. But brains aren't observable for most people, so we have culture and religion to keep time instead.

Meaning

Meaning is a tricky one. We ended up with brains big enough to wonder why we exist; a burden few animals share. Scientifically, we thrive in environments/jobs/roles where we feel that what we are doing has value. I look at every part of my life and see the value of being a person, observing and changing my environment. Many people on earth aren't sure that's enough, so they invent an unobservable force that assigns value to their lives and actions. Meaning is easiest to keep track of and believe if others share your definition. Culturally, you have a lot in common with your neighbors, you both probably work toward similar goals (housing, stability, connection with others, secular holidays) and are satisfied when those goals are met. Religiously, you have a lot in common with others in your religion (charity, proselytizing, meditation, celebration) and are satisfied when those goals are met. Religion also provides goals for your entire life and community which are helpfully defined for you, whereas you have to come up with that on your own outside of religion. Doing so can be frightening, frustrating, and difficult, so religion is very rewarding and calming.

Ethics

Lastly, there's Ethics. Not all religion deals with ethics, but many major earth faiths do. Humans desperately need to have a code of ethics to be healthy, and society works best when we all agree on some basics. That way when someone violates a law, you don't have to convince everyone around you that what they did was wrong; there's already a standing defined agreement. Ethics is about rewards as well as punishment. For example if you're the first one to read this whole thing I'll draw a pony for you just dm me. Community ethics are decided by those in power, and "those in power" can be: the people themselves via majority rule, chosen representatives, rich aristocracy, respected philosophers, religious appointees, kings and conquerors, holy mystics, sacred texts, etc etc.

Religion comes in with a code of ethics (written by the religiously powerful) and imposes it on its followers. This is useful and generally brings community harmony when they all agree on something. Religions based on ancient texts are tricky, because old, outdated ethics have to be reinterpreted to fit modern landscape. These interpretations split churches and create sub-religions, which mutate into cults, peter off into nothing, or go to war with each other. It's great fun. At the end of the day, having a group of people who agree on right and wrong within their community is the goal. We just got lost on the part that said everyone else in the world has to obey our ethics or else we're blowing up the planet.

...

Aaaanyway, this was about.... my little pony?

Does Religion Affect Gods?

The first thing you must choose is how much the religion is based on fact, and how much is made up. In my world, there's a lot of things that are made up by ponies, that either become true or influence the god's form/powers in some way. Luna used to be silver, but now she is dark blue.

You can do that, or you can be normal about things. Typically, religion does not actually do anything. Gods are gods whether or not they have worshipers. People believe things that gods tell them, and they make up their own lore as well.

What about People? What about this and that and everything?

You need to decide if your alicorns are participants in the religion about them, or just subjects. Do all/some/any of them take their place as religious figures and command the masses? Do they speak ethics? Do they inform ponies of the powers they have? Do ponies make up abilities they think alicorns have? Do they like being worshiped, or is it more like stalking?

Some alicorns may embrace godhood, while others flee from it. The ones that get the most involved will have influence over how the other alicorns are treated.

Is there a standard to which alicorns must live, failing which they can't be "real" alicorns in society's eyes and are thus shunned/killed? Do the alicorns ever give an opinion that is taken way out of proportion and suddenly became a major religious movement? Are marshmallows illegal because one alicorn doesn't like them? Do ponies get prosecuted for stepping on "sacred" flowers which are just regular lilies? Is there taxes/tithing to alicorns? Are alicorns promoted to political office for nothing except their nature?

How do ponies construct their sermons/temples/practices to fulfill the four tenants of religion? Does alicorn worship provide them with Community, Meaning, Ritual, and Ethics?

Do alicorns actually earn any of this? Are they regular guys that just look special? Can they abuse their powers? Can ponies abuse others in their name? Do the alicorns speak to the masses or to religious leaders? Do they have any control over their legacy or is it out of their hooves? Are they in danger of their worshipers deciding they need to be freed from their mortal bodies? Do religious leaders go power crazy and use alicorns to further their agenda? Are their schisms and wars over beliefs? do the alicorns command their followers to fight each other? Do they fight with each other? Does each alicorn have a different following or are they all part of a shared pantheon? Do they respect each others' role within that or struggle for change?

And remember, what is true for one alicorn/church/sect/country may not be true for another. Variety is the key.

It's all About the Questions

The trick to worldbuilding is to ask a lot of questions. You can answer them as you go, having the answers lead to more questions, or you can ask a bunch at once and answer them all later.

Every decision you make has consequences. Big social movements affect the environment, the environment affects food supply, food supply affects social movements. Everything is connected, and religion makes those connections more magical, for better or for worse.

[numbwhileintertwined]

(ongoing) Youtube videos to watch (uncategorized)

(note: most things here have links attached, but the ones that failed will have the channel name)

Overconsumption is keeping you POOR

Let’s talk ‘Tiktok made me buy it’ culture.

Code Orange Hysteria: Is Halloween Consumerism Out of Control?

The Terrifying World of Temu

How Dropshipping Ruined Online Shopping

TikTok Shop is a Nightmare

fast fashion has ruined media consumption

tiktok's obsession with the it girl aesthetic & consuming in the...

designer brands are for broke girls

How Consumerism Ruins Our Planet and Finances

Your Perfume Obsession is Keeping You BROKE!

Shawna Ripari

TikTok’s Rage Bait Problem..

Gen Alpha is Absolutely COOKED

Millennial Parenting Videos Keep Getting Crazier...

performative cleanliness & the hygiene olympics

Gen Z Has a HUGE Problem With Commitment..

kids ACT like adults because they want to be TREATED like adults

Why Do We Hate Women After They've Cut Their Hair Off?

poor spoiled rich kids on tiktok

the scammers of manifestation tiktok

you’re 12, not 21

Let's talk social media's 'aesthetic' obsession.

Gen Z's Aesthetic Obsession & Search for an Identity is Tiring...

the cult of unschooling

How World War 2 Began

Exploring The Old Internet

How to Perform an Exorcism

why Brandy Melville can't be cancelled

The Conspiracy Theory Iceberg

CC Suarez

Disturbing Internet Anomalies

Is CRAB the final form?

Advice for time traveling to medieval Europe

The Weirdest and Most Obscure Side of the Internet

Government Cheese Tunnels & The "Got Milk?" Conspiracy

How to Eat a Human Being

Something Strange Happens When You Follow Einstein's Math- Veritasium

The Beautiful Horror of Deep Space- Curious Archive

The Complete Extraterrestrial Encounters Iceberg Explained-Zoanfly

Math's Fundamental Flaw- Veritasium

Midsommar - The Complete Guide (Everything Explained)

Entertainment Made By North Korea

BobbyBroccoli

Plagiarism and You(Tube)- hbomberguy

Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History- defunctland

Evermore: The Theme Park That Wasn't- jenny nicholson

The Amberlynn Reid Show! 8 HOURS STRAIGHT DELUSION!- lil cringe

ImAllexx's History of Controversy & The Current Allegations- Mike's Rhetoric

Reviewbrah: Food for Thought - Documentary- Mr. Snowflake

Anna Stubblefield & The Pygmalion Delusion- Andrew van der Vaart, MD, PhD

The Internet's Most Notorious Scammers- TheGamerFromMars

Who's Lila? - Story Explained- Flawed Peacock

The Religion & Cult Iceberg Explained- Wendigoon

The Mass Hysteria Iceberg Explained- Wendigoon

The Cult of Scientology- Philion

Sinking in Scandal: A Canadian Tragedy- BobbyBroccoli

The Monsters Beneath Us: The Monument Mythos- Wendigoon

The Entire History of Video Games

The Biggest Ideas in Philosophy

Life's Biggest Paradoxes

The 8 Greatest Philosophical Theories You Need to Know- Aperture

Here is Everything We Don't Know (Extended)- Arperture

The Lost Books of the Bible- Wendigoon

100 Strange Cases of Lost Media- ShaiiValley

Your Entire Human Existence from Birth to Death- Arperture

The Bizarre World of Fake Video Games- Super Eyepatch Wolf

10+ Hours of Backrooms Level Explanations... (400+ levels)

536 AD: The Year That The Sun Disappeared | Catastrophe | Real History

The Siege of Ruby Ridge - An American Standoff, Story, & Controversy

The Complete History of Rome, Summarized- Overly Sarcastic Productions

The Mass Extinction Debates: A Science Communication Odyssey- Oliver Lugg

These Paradoxes Keep Scientists Awake At Night!- Destiny

Foundation: Are We Predictable?

The Paleozoic Era (That We Know Of) Compilation | Lindsay

How capitalism destroyed community for profit || Motherhood In Progress

Let's talk Water Bottle Culture.

Money: Humanity's Biggest Illusion

End of the Road: How Money Became Worthless

why is everything so bland now?

Thrift Store Prices ARE RUINING Thrifting..

How Dollar Stores Quietly Consumed America

How Central Banks have Seized Power over our Societies

The Return of ElsaGate | It’s Worse Than I Thought

The MOST ADDICTIVE Snack: Flamin' Hot Cheetos

Toxic, Tasty, and Targeting You: Dark History of Fast Food

The Horrible Aftermath of the SHEIN-pocalypse

1984 Tried To Warn You- Moon

Disney World is a Dystopian Nightmare

Let's Talk About The Horrible State of The Internet- Tsunul

Inside China‘s T*rture Camps for Teens- fern (the title isn't censored)

Fear of Forgetting

Why Quantum Computers Will Break Reality

What Is The Biggest Thing In The Universe?- History of the Universe

The Star That Can't Exist

What Is Beyond The Edge?- History of the Universe

Beyond the Observable Universe [4K]

The Mystery of Spinors

Two robots debate the future of humanity

[then-ponder]

Truthfully, I am critical of most arguments that urge people to learn math. This is in particular because most public defenders of mathematics and math education argue with the implicit assumption that you should learn this if and only if it is useful. They will argue that because we can use all of our math to travel the stars and save our dying planet it is worth learning.

I do not blame them for this. After all this is a common practice under capitalism. The constant need to prove useful is a hellish practice in which all professions participate even if some have it easier than others. But it is harmful. It separates us from seeing math for what it is. Want it wants to be.

Many people would call math a science and there is a truth to that. Much of mathematics is a process of learning cold hard facts, even if the idea has been proven a million times over, but that ignores all the bits of it that we tend to not include. The parts about logic and reasoning, the parts about discovery, the parts that suggest a deeper explanation, the parts where intuition feels like magic and reality feels fake.

At the beginning of this post I said that “arguing math is useful is a harmful argument”. This is why. There is no discovery of facts. Logic, what should be the foundation of all mathematics, is not taught and proving that a statement is true goes ignored and is deathly fatal to students who seek the answers, yet are obscured. Worse, the facts we teach in math are plainly obvious to the student in a way that destroy any merit of the claim “ math is useful” because why would I use math when I could use logic. Why would I use the Pythagorean theorem when I know that two sides of a triangle are longer that the hypotenuse when I’m path finding and why the hell would I use a polynomial to describe anything. You use the language of usefulness you should be teaching useful things, but math can’t teach useful things. It’s math not a trade or a science.

And in truth mathematics isn’t useful. Nothing you point to that most people understand are useful things and the vast majority of research is on problems that most people either don’t care about or find utter nonsense. Truly I don’t mean this to be cruel, it’s just that the proof for 1+1 = 2 is a books worth of pages. And that’s the thing people can’t possibly be bothered to ask questions that a mathematician would lose years to. They just want a fucking answer and that’s fine, but this more explicit explanation is why Mathematicians don’t like ‘applied’ math. It’s because assholes take our prized possessions, our meow meows, and our blorbos and they throw them in a shredder and mangle them up till they have a thing that they like and then they give it to another person who fucking hates math because they got their degree in “I hate math but I love problem solving so I became a [insert stem field here]” so they can blow up that thing so that they can use it to solve something.

The truth is that math is a humanity because it is a reflection of our own reality. Quite like art. And the reason for studying art is the same reason you should study math which also happens to be the reason why math and art education sucks. You should learn about these things because you want to. No amount of money can justify it. You have to want it. And the thing is art is best taught as art. It’s not a just or simply a tool for people to make money. It’s an expression of the self - The very people who created it.

Many fear that if we allow people to stop studying the math people won’t. Fair, but high school math is not reflective of math. It doesn’t teach foundations, it doesn’t teach about the different sub-disciplines. It refuses to teach any math that can’t be directly applied to science and engineering. Of course people don’t want to learn that. You’ve ripped out the meat.

[handsometimr]

The biggest mystery in zero escape: wtf did Junpei study???

Ignoring Uchikoshi's suggestion that Junpei studied bitcoin in college. In this ramble, I'll be Over Sharing My Headcanons©. The good stuff is under the cut.

Junpei is a social sciences degree guy 100%. I've seen other headcanons in fics where he's a business major, which I mean he really does with a capital D fit the vibes for, socially sciency and all. The way he (in 999) laments having no friends / job / money screams social science guy (I would know).

Now, personally, I'm inclined to think that out of all the social sciences, he's a linguist. His wordplay, references to pop culture, and puns across all the games suggest he's a man of many big words, enough so that he can twist his words to his favour (see: manipulating the other characters sometimes. Junpei "yeah I never said I would open the door myself" mf Tenmyouji). Perhaps his wordy wit is most epitomised by the conception of the funyarinpa on a whim by assembling random Japanese sounds. And God he must've loved the idea of codenames in 999. Too bad he could never give himself a smartly thought out codename based on his bracelet. The cherry on top of this is explaining that Japanese idiom to Carlos. Assume everyone you meet is a thief. Finally he gets to put his knowledge of culture and words to badass use.

Linguistics!Junpei also fits with his whole thing of being Just A Guy who lost his faith in humanity. Studying linguistics, how humans have evolved languages to describe love. Hate. All sorts of human-ness. He really was just a man who thought that people were awesome. But as a detective he learned that humans have a common language in death, showing that words do NOT speak louder than actions. First it was akane sweet talking him and then ghosting him, now he doesn't know how to convey his thoughts honestly because of the horrors of his job.

So here is how the headcanon fully goes. Junpei, since grade school, was always good at picking up other languages and picked apart their meanings in comparison to his native Japanese. He liked learning English and Chinese in school when growing up in the suburban part of a small Japanese city. So when he got older he just accepted that maybe linguistics was for him, since that was what he was good at.

He was average in science and maths, history and geography. His best subject in high school was, as expected, English. So when he applied to college he went for linguistics. His classmates went for Medicine or Law or Politics but Junpei didn't want the responsibility over people's lives like that. So he just accepted that, hey, might as well study something I'm good at. I'll just become a high school English teacher or something. His parents were fine with whatever, he's their only child, at least he's good at something.

So then he went to university, and in his second & third year lived abroad in America as part of his linguistics degree. He lived like the average student in in the US of A, which unfortunately was like his only useful life experience immediately after the 2nd Nonary game [*]. At some point he watched Back To The Future to study how English was some decades before he was born, history of language yadda yadda (I've never spoken to someone who did linguistics so sorry if this sounds off). He's back in Japan for his fourth and final year and had a pretty exhausting day in a boring seminar when he returned to his dorm and got kidnapped.

After the whole second Nonary game fiasco, Junpei was travelling the world speaking the languages he learned: Japanese (mother tongue), English (fluent), Chinese (conversational), Spanish (picked up while in America). This took him far since he managed to hit the bullseye on pretty widely spoken languages it just so happened, but still he couldn't explain in words why he wanted to find Akane. If he loved her or not. After a while he needed money so he joined that detective agency™, it'll also help him find Akane, two birds one stone. Well, we saw how that turned out. Now he was both globetrotting AND traumatised!

He probably settled in America upon becoming a detective, dual citizenship ftw, and better not make mom and dad disappointed in his choice of job. They knew he dropped out but they knew his son was smart, he didn't need a degree to let his language skills flourish. They assumed he got a pretty good legal-related job and managed to talk himself into high wages. Oh, the wages were high alright, to make up for the shit he saw. Mr and Mrs Tenmyouji are just worried about their boy, who after November 2027 didn't really open up to them about anything. Sometimes mom would bring up That Girl You Were The Best Of Friends With but Junpei would just shrug. Dunno what happened to her.

After the decision game, Junpei just accepts how cool he is for being a humble polygot. Explaining the cool etymology of his astronomical family name to Astronomy major Phi (another headcanon for another day) is one of his favourite party tricks. He also wrote a think piece on Puns and the linguistic significance of cats after Sigma meowed too close to the sun.

TL;DR (I don't blame you if you didn't read all that yap) I like to think Junpei was a linguistics major. I'm a strong believer that he's a servant to social science because he's just like me fr.

[*] I think all the 2nd Nonary Game participants assumed they all got kidnapped from Japan. They probably all spoke Japanese during the Nonary game. Hence after the reveal that they're in Nevada, Junpei was designated How Tf Do We Get Back To Japan guy and What Do We Do In America expert.

[pierayanna]

watching smallville is helping me unpack the ethos of white America.

They completely misrepresented human nature in order to perpetuate capitalism and colonialism.

Instead of the reality of humans being and existing as animals within nature and noting that our evolution and beginning of society was because of our innate sense of empathy and drive for community, our first sign of civilization being that of a healed bone showing that someone protected, fed, cared for, etc. someone else while they healed, we developed sciences, math, art, healing practices not simply for ourselves but to connect and enjoy one another, we have a manufactured reality that we are “born in sin,” innately greedy, selfish, yearning for power. This manufactured misrepresentation is because we are only “allowed” to study white men. Value and humanity is only allotted to white men who now represent human nature. We ignore and devalue indigenous teachings and practices. This makes us accepts the ideas and implications of capitalism and colonialism. We accept the idea that we need to be policed and governed despite the fact that crime diminishes without poverty (why aren’t white neighborhoods as policed and still safe and functioning??) and our accountability to community is what kept society safe and functioning. We accept imperialism and European paternalism. We accept individualism over collective. It endangers us. We accept racism: “there’s always going to be an in group and out group. An us vs them.” Something I’ve heard from peers in “anti-racist” classrooms. We accept this murder of the earth.

We accept the idea that we have to do things. I just realized how powerful the joke, “all I have to do is be Black and die,” is: all we have to do is be and then stop being. We most definitely don’t have to live this uniform, crappy, traumatizing life. We now believe our deserving of love and rest is depending on our productivity. We accept uniform lifestyles despite how unique we all are. We accept unlivable wages, no access to healthcare, inflation, having to pay to exist (food, shelter, water, etc.), horribly lacking miseducation systems, the majority of our lives dedicated to bringing wealth to 1% who spend it on sick shit. We accept wage slavery. We accept chattel slavery (mass incarceration). We accept the fact that children must be enslaved and maimed to give us phones and clothing. We blindly accept propaganda. We accept the fact that America can not fund any of these things for community but can fund wars and ethnic cleansing. But if they were to do anything remotely similar here, we would meddle in their continent for years!! We claim the existence of first world countries and this world countries when our “first world country” is surviving on the land, labor and people of “third world countries.” We accept food apartheid that prevents a lot of people from boycotting heinous companies. We accept the alienation and are lonely with no sense of community.

We accept the idea of anarchy as unbridled chaos, raping, pillaging, murder. No. That’s what’s happening now under this policing institution. Under capitalism and colonialism. Smallville ended an episode about a child veteran who lost his life in combat with the line that he sacrificed his life [in the US military] “saving the world.” Nevermind the fact that he enlisted because he was too poor to pursue college and football like he wanted, but to equate, unequivocally, the US military with saving the world was a powerful statement. How unchecked our propaganda media is. To end an episode with this assertion, left no room for it to be questioned: no thought into why the boy was in this foreign country or what he was doing there and how was it “saving the world.” No room for knowledge. I recall photos and accounts that resurface much later detailing what Americans really do in these foreign countries. What they do to the people. “Winners write history.” For the first time, I am able to see just how one-sided mainstream news outlets are. They show, and now force Americans to live in, a false reality. Journalists are supposed to be protected. But apparently only the ‘winner’s’ journalists are.

People like to claim tv shows, social media, etc. isn’t important and shouldn’t be taken serious. To focus of politics in government. This is art. This is what people are spending most of the free time allotted them consuming. This is an institution. Just as government. Just as religion.

Even in their falsehoods, we can still see the truth. Speaking of this institution that has been weaponized by those in power, didn’t Jesus save us? By your own logic, did he not free us from this so called evil human nature? As someone who has descended from people who were enslaved during chattel slavery, my lens for Christianity has always been different. I never identified with the whitewashed, white supremacist, policing, institutional state force misrepresentation of Jesus and questioned the attempts of the Black church to make him so. Why would he subscribe to the made up idealogy of gender that only exist to reinforce white supremacy? Why would he want me silenced? Why do I have to wear a dress? Why is being ladylike important as a Christian? Why would homosexuality be considered wrong while murdering and spreading hatred was not (mistranslation closer to pedophilia and mostly mentioned in the Old Testament)? I learned to contextualize and understand the history during the Bible and its translations over time. I identified with the wooly haired and “burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace” Jesus that was yelling and flipping tables. I identified with the Jesus that was about listening to sex workers and against policing. I identified with Jesus that ate with people deemed unsavory by the white regime and others of his own people that were hypocrites. I identified with the Jesus that sacrificed for his community, died young, and was about love for oneself and one’s neighbors. Religious trauma has pushed many Black spiritualists away, but I urge people to learn from the theology and not from what it has been weaponized to propose. God is in us. We are made in their image. We are reflections of one another. I feel this when I observe nature. When I experience humanity. I see the patterns throughout other religions as well that seem to reinforce this same premise. I recall indigenous cultures that “worship,” another westernized concept, or express gratitude to things in nature by name. Why not if you see these living things just as valuable as you are? Christians express gratitude for these specific things in nature to One being.

I implore people to alchemize their anger and frustration and guilt. Allow these things to radicalize you. What other purpose right now besides liberation?

[pb-dot]

Let's talk about the MBTI

If you've heard me speak on the subject before, it may not shock you to hear that I'm not a huge fan of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or as it is more commonly known, the MBTI. For those that haven't had the pleasure yet, I find the MBTI to be little better than a horoscope, what descriptive power of one's personality or mental processes are concerned. It's a reoccurring weakness of psychology, frankly, that we seem to struggle so hard with finding any reliable metrics for measuring the human mind, maybe that's a feature and not a bug.

The one factor that the MBTI that I find personally useful, though, is the Introversion/Extroversion dichotomy. I, myself, am pretty introverted as these things go. I need time to decompress after being social, I'm not particularly outgoing as these things go, that whole situation. That said, I don't consider myself antisocial. I love people. I love talking to them, learning from them, figuring out how they tick, or just shooting the breeze and spending some time outside of my own head. I've always scoffed at self-declared "ambiverts" because it appeared as self-evident to me that introversion does not mean being asocial, and that being somewhere on the scale between the two extremes was quite normal.

As I read up on the damn thing, though, it appears I have been too charitable with the MBTI. As it turns out, the MBTI operates on the assumption of a bimodal distribution, which is to say that the majority of test scores would fall close to the two extremes, and not be distributed evenly around the mean as in a Standard Distribution

Where I'm from, there's a satirical observation, or perhaps a very dry joke, stating that "There are two kinds of people. People who own a boat and people who don't." (my translation) This is meant to mock binary sorting systems, as even the untrained "folk psychologist" can plainly see that any such dichotomous categorization of the human animal is plainly ridiculous. And yet, here is the MBTI telling the same joke but four times over and meaning it every time.

Me and my interpretation of local witticisms is, however, not the only one to have picked up on this little inconsistency between the model and what we can observe in reality. A conga line of researchers, see this and this for examples, have looked at the MBTIs assumption of distribution of results and found the dichotomies to be considerably less dichotomous than advertised.

So, without even getting into the other criticisms of the model, let's just say this thing is shaky as fuck from an actual scientific perspective, and the model doesn't have many, if it has any, defenders among the labcoat crowd.

So, why is this important to me at all? Partially because it annoys me on a personal level when junk science circulates in a field I actually know enough about to pick it up, but also because I find it shady as all fuck how this test still lives on in the popular conscience. Part of it is mine and younger generations desperately seeking identity footholds to cling onto in this post(-post?)-post-modern world we flounder around in, but our dearly hated nemesis Late Stage Capitalism also has its share of the blame. You see, while the Tinder profile-havers and Ted:x talk-enjoyers of the world do their part to keep this particular piece of failed psychometrics going, it's a comparatively small push compared to recruiting and business factors.

Businesses love Metrics, and it's easy to see why. In a world where everything is about increasing one number, namely the bottom line, it's immeasurably easier to evaluate the effect of actions and choices if they come with their own tidy little numbers. If spending X dollars on this or that decision ends up increasing the profit by Y%, that's a considerably easier piece of math for evaluating whether doing this was a good idea than if there were no numbers attached and you had to go partially by gut feeling.

Hiring and other personnel decisions are tricky from a business perspective partially because there are considerably fewer good metrics by which to evaluate an actual person than, say, a change in office supplies. Psychometrics is a notoriously tricky field, and although there are some metrics that supposedly covary with productivity or other words the C-suite likes hearing, many of these can be pricy to administer and generally give results with more nuance than fits comfortably in a spreadsheet.

In that context, I can easily see the MBTI standing out as a more attractive option. It doesn't take long to test for and it gives everyone a convenient combination of letters that you can tell yourself means something significant. Granted, it doesn't really tell you anything useful and has terrible test-retest validity, but that's apparently not enough of a deterrent, and if that doesn't tell you a lot about how nuts recruitment has gotten lately don't you worry, I have plenty of other thoughts about the matter.

Those are for another day though. This little rant was originally going to be about introverts and extroverts and how there should be room in a healthy society for both, but then I came across the actual state of the MBTI while making sure I knew what I was talking about, and then that was suddenly all I could write about. Life takes you on some journies at times dear friends, and sometimes you just have to buckle up and ride it out.

[kingdomofgratia]

15 questions, 15 mutuals. thanks @toro-y-noir~

1. Are you named after anyone?

My birth name was something my mother had written in her bible since before I was even a consideration, that's all I know? Could be yes could be no. Was taught early not to ask questions at home~

My current name was sort of given to me by my characters back when we used to talk far more than we do now, so no there too.

Wait does taking my partner's family name count???

2. When was the last time you cried?

Couple months ago when I stumbled across a song that showed me a certain character's death scene and their partner's emotions overtook me.

3. Do you have any kids?

Nope!

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

No. Absolutely not. Why would I ever use such a crass form of communication???

(yes)

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people?

I honestly have no idea. Being autistic and all, I pick up on A Lot, Very Quickly. Whether I'm conscious of what I've picked up on before it becomes Relevant is another story.

6. Eye colour?

Dark brown <3.

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

Scary movies can't have happy endings?

8. Any special talents?

Writing? Patterns. Predicting things based on observed patterns (and not being believed until they come to pass)? Hyperfocusing.

9. Where were you born?

New York.

10. What are your hobbies?

Writing, reading, gaming, competitive cycling.

11. Have you any pets?

No, but I want so many. Snakes, birds, so on.

12. What sports do you/have you play(ed)?

A surprising number, considering I was Very Large up until I moved to Japan after Uni. (Then again, I was forced to during my youth, as though making me do something I hated and felt terrible would magically make me healthier somehow~)

Baseball, soccer, wrestling, cross country (distance running), track and field (discus, shot put, 50m), volleyball, tennis, rugby, road cycling.

I actually got into cycling thanks to a family bike shop in Japan not treating me like a gross tub of lard and inviting me to join their local club and ride with them on weekends after I went to them for a bike that would actually support my weight. Turned out I liked it so much (and had enough talent in it) that I ended up losing about 50kg and going semi-pro.

13. How tall are you?

6'0" / 182cm

14. Favourite subject in school?

Science, music/band (never learned to read music, learned all my parts by ear :3c ), math (when I wasn't forced to "show your work")

15. Dream job?

Author, professional cyclist, teacher for special needs children with adequate resources to properly support them.

Or, none. Because "work" in the capitalism sense doesn't make sense to me and always becomes a struggle to perform eventually no matter how much I "enjoy" it because brain no get why do the thing for to live when there are plenty of resources for everyone to comfortably not do the thing and thrive.

Tags – You. Yes, you. No, not them, you~ <3

[alpaca-clouds]

MINT vs Humanities

I wanna talk about academia again this week - and specifically about how academia deals with the humanities. Mostly because I have been thinking a lot.

See, I found some stuff in my basement I have written in the 6th grade. And I did unlock some memories from this. I remember how in 6th grade I was already very firm on one thing: I wanted to study history when I go to university. To me this was never up for discussion. When I learned to read, one of the first things I did was hyperfixate on ancient egypt, and once I got the internet I learned about the late medieval period. And I wanted to do that for a living.

However, there was this tiny problem. I was "gifted". Meaning, I was really good at taking IQ tests mostly due to being autistic and undiagnosed. And because IQ tests mostly measure how good you are at math-shit, my mother and my teachers were very firm on this: "You are gonna study something real like math or physics or IT." So, when I got to my final three years of high school and I wanted to focus on math AND history, I was made to focus only on math and physics.

I obviously am studying IT related shit now, too. And I am desperately trying to get it organized that I can actually visit some seminars in anthropology. Because that is what actually interests me. >.<

The reasoning of course is the same reasoning always given with this kinda stuff. Everything that falls under "the humanities" is considered "not real science". Mainly, because a lot of it also cannot be used to serve capitalism quite as much, as everything MINT can. MINT will find new technologies that allows capitalism to sell more and save money doing it. Humanities can tell you ten reasons why that is wrong.

It is because of this, that on most universities the humanities departments are underfunded, because some MINT department needed another new laboratory, which was 100x as expensive as the new books the history department needed, but also got some help from some local companies.

And it is like... more than anything this shows that academia is broken, right?

Call me naive, but I think academia originally was meant to persue knowledge for the sake of the knowledge. But right now it is mostly just: Build knowledge that serves capitalism or can somehow be used to make money. If you can't... perish.

And I am sorry, but... This is just not how any of this is supposed to work. We are being held back by it. Especially as we can also see how the two general areas are being kept apart.

Again, I want to do a project that goes into anthropology + informatics. But even so much as getting the contacts there... I need to contact the guy, who does "digital humanities" at the university, which is after all the overlap area. And then hope that he likes my idea.

But the thing is... If I wanted to do something with biology, the hoops to jump through were much easier to accesss.

[dbunicorn]

Explainer: what is surveillance capitalism and how does it shape our economy?

People call it surveillance capitalism. Bullshit. capitalists typically are die-hards about privacy. It's sophisticated shiny propaganda. You're just idiots or batshit crazy.

This is actually socialism masquerading as capitalism. All those bailouts point to it. Do your math. BE COMPETENT! Not for me but at least for your children/grandchildren. Your behavior is embarrassing anyway you spin it.

I'll say it again. We're not equals. You don't get a free ride off of other people's ideas, labor, inventions, suffering or data asshole. 🖕

You overstep your actual abilities. Like we're equals in equity. Logical retard.

As far as the degrowth movement. Let's see you imbeciles live without creature comforts.

There is nothing, NOTHING I hate more than having my intelligence insulted by morons or hypocrites that hide behind anonymity. Gutless.

Idiots, power hungry assholes, largely men, cowards are why we are in this predicatament. Not capitalists.

For the record. I'm a staunch capitalist, humanist, ethicist, moralist, science leaning with some socialist tendencies. Ask me about it respectfully. I read a lot and have a ton of life experience. I'll answer in non crazy way. 🤩

DpK??? - Oregon plates, my sister's street, old women and small children. Pig.

[jamesvin-varsity]

i left zookeeping for architecture because i became interested in how the built environment beyond the zoo could better serve local wildlife. how could we design our architecture, infrastructure and public spaces to work with natural environmental processes and build positive multispecies partnerships? how does the design of the building change when you consider the sparrow as your client? the coyote? the soil micro-arthropod?

this is obviously no new concept. cultures past and present have been living successfully with nature for millennia, but modernity has smothered much of the real human symbiosis within local ecosystems in favor of limitless growth and profit and oppression. take "sustainability", which in architecture often (though not always) results in renderings of luxury condominiums with Capitalism-Approved-Green photoshopped onto every balcony.

in my architecture studios i communicate through image. drawing. i try to separate myself from this lazy greenwashing aesthetic, researching local species assemblages to get my planting schemes somewhat accurate, considering hydrology on the site, considering local communities and how Something Green could drive up real-estate and force people out.

i try to, but at the end of the day my project is still an image and i’m still photoshopping plants onto a building. most architects aren’t really making buildings. they’re making drawings of buildings.

don't get me wrong, the image is a powerful thing. design is a powerful thing. ultimately though, i see myself doing the research that supports the decisions of the designer and not working as the designer directly.

being back at school has helped me rediscover my passion for science, and more specifically, physics. last year i took a hydrodynamics class and remembered why i studied it in the first place. because i like math and mechanics, and it's with these tools that i want to answer questions about design, conservation and multispecies community resilience.

the connection may not be obvious at first, but now, somehow, my work unites these three passions of mine -- a combination of environmental fluid mechanics, wildlife zoology, and design. broadly, i'm exploring how to incorporate marshes and other coastal vegetation into the design of physically, ecologically, and socially resilient urban waterfronts. the marshes can physically attenuate wave energy, preventing erosion and wave-driven flooding. they also provide important habitat for local wildlife like birds, crabs, and larval fish. social resilience is perhaps a more diffuse subject, but by grounding these nature-based coastal management solutions in community stewardship, we can start to rebuild relationships with our non-human neighbors. how? not sure yet, but i have some ideas.

yesterday i was accepted into a masters program in the department of civil and environmental engineering to research some of these questions (specifically regarding wave-structure-vegetation interaction). i'm not leaving the architecture department, but instead continuing in both programs as a dual degree student.

i don't identify myself as an architect, but I do as a designer. and as a scientist and educator. these titles are arbitrary (every problem is interdisciplinary when you get down to it), but they help me connect the person i am now to the person i was then.

physics-major-in-a-us-naval-officer-program turned zookeeper turned architecture-student turned science-and-engineering-student-studying-the-codesign-of-climate-adaptation-with/by/for-coastal-ecologies? my transition happened in there somewhere lol i'm also 5 years on T this week.

things will keep changing naturally, but really enjoying the ride so far :)

[missblissy]

hi!! how are you??

if you are still accepting applications, I could ask you for a headcanon for Alastor x fem! reader, where the reader is the daughter of another capital sin (similar to what Charlie is), she may be the daughter of satan, but she is calm, kind and even a little shy but still knows how to defend herself. maybe he meets her when she goes to visit Charlie at the hotel, she doesn't believe in redemption, but she knows there are people who can be kind and still be sent to hell, please?? 👋👋

((Not a problem Nonny!! Sorry for the wait :') This one took me a little longer than the others to do. Thank you for asking, and I hope you enjoy!!))

Not many people knew your name, nor that you even existed. You preferred to keep it that way. It made it easier to mingle amongst the rest of hell without them fearing you. At some point, anyone would get tired of people running from them in fear. Sure it was funny at first. Now it was just a little sad. But thankfully, with time, people forgot anything about you. Which was foolish on their part really, because who would forget about the daughter of Satan himself? Sure, you were daddy's little princess, the precious hell child born from the blood of angels.

But you had one friend, a childhood friend that spanned back hundreds of years. Charlie was an odd one but she amused you with her quirky personality. It was hard for you to visit though, you lived in the frozen wastelands in the center of hell, trapped by miles of mountains encasing your father's castle in the hunk of ice that prevented him from leaving. Little did he let you leave either seeing as how important you were to his legacy. However, when you had the chance to leave, you would.

And that's how you found yourself in a much different version of hell than you remembered. Pride had changed a lot in the last few decades since you were there. You heard a rumor that Charlie had moved back into the dank old hotel that her parents use to run ages ago. Something about reforming sinners into redemption, whatever it was it sounded stupidly impossible and not worth the effort. You wouldn't tell her that though, you'd just support her in whatever crazy idea she had this time.

You found the hotel eventually. The second you walked in the door you were already met with chaos. Tenants scattered the halls and others filled a bar you didn't remember being there before. Some people argued with one another over little things, others passed the time by watching the argument.

"Why Hello~!" You spun around and saw a man standing behind you. His demonic smile gave of a faint glow as he grinned at you, "I don't think I've ever seen you here before? Come for some cheap pseudo-science and false redemption attempts as well?”

The way he asked made you giggle behind your hand. What an odd way to ask such a question, "No," You chuckled, and toyed with the idea of excitement that this poor fool didn't know who you were, "I just came for a visit." You told him.

The man stared at you, gazing at you up and down. From your shoes to the way your hair curled above your head, "You aren't from around here, are you?" He asked, but before you could answer he asked again, "You must have recently died, I'm guessing?"

Again you laughed at his lack of knowledge as to just exactly who you were. You were going to tell him but you were interrupted by a yell. You both turned your gaze across the hotel lobby. Across the way was Charlie, with stars in her eyes and waving her hands like a freak.

"(Y/n)!!" She cheered before rushing over. The next words out of Charlie's mouth were enough to make the grin of this man fall so low that you could barely call it a smile, "I can't believe you made it out of The Frozen Lake! How long did it take you to get here all the way from the center of Hell?"

First, you laughed at the shock on his face, then gracefully giggled and said nonchalantly, "It only took a few days. You know how my father is, though. I had to put up a strong fight to convince him to let me leave for a while."

Charlie noticed who you were standing with, and smiled, "Oh! You've met Alastor!" Then she dramatically gasped, "Oh!!" She exclaimed again, "You haven't been here for... what? A hundred years, right?" You nodded your head, "Then you haven't been around to meet Al then!"

There was a sudden silence that fell over the three of you. Charlie was mostly oblivious to it, but you felt a sinister joy and let a horrid grin grow on your face as you watched Alastor connect the dots and do the math in his head. The realization that he was talking to the daughter of Satan nearly blew him over. He had to plaster a new stronger smile on his face to replace the stunned one.

You held your hand out to Alastor, "The Radio Demon, right?" You've heard stories of him before. He cleared his throat and did a little fix-up of his bowtie. He took your hand soon after and firmly gave it a shake, "I prefer Alastor, these days." He gave a firm dig of his claws before he let go of your hand. You ignored his microaggressions and smirked at him, knowing you were superior to him no matter what he thought.

"Oh, yes I remember," You teased, "I heard you were retired now,, right?" You could practically see the glass shatter in his eyes. You had gotten deeply under his skin in a matter of seconds. It was obvious that you were jabbing at his ego.

Charlie let out a weak laugh and shyly chuckled out, "Ahaha--..uuhhh... W-why don't I give you a tour, (Y-Y/n)!" You took this as a chance to leave Alastor there. You didn't want to give him the satisfaction to defend himself or to egg him on any further. You made it very clear that you were above him at this point, and that he was nothing but dirt at your feet. As you walked away, you gave a little glance over your shoulder, peering at Alastor with that frustrated and forced smirk on his lips. Oh, how you thought to yourself, you were going to enjoy visiting this silly little hotel.

[dapurinthos]

still obsessed with those trillionaires leaving the planet and now entertaining the idea that they didn’t actually survive that long post-planet fleeing because of thee way numbers and society works.

“The economy tanked. It hadn’t been in great shape to begin with.”

“[O]ur kill-fee money was suddenly worth nothing and what if the banks crashed and that nothing went too?”

“John, there is no second wave. There is no third. They’re escaping. The trillionaires have converted everything to material resources. Half these passenger manifests are made up, these aren’t real people. They’ve fucked everyone, even the governments. There’ll be one single ship of internationals who think they’re on Wave One to Tau Ceti, and everyone else will be corporate, or have bought a ticket, or be useful. They’re leaving us to die.”

scenario one, pre-launch: you bought a ticket. it cost you everything, but you bought a ticket. you’re out of here but now you’ve got nothing but the clothes on your back. what are your skills? what is your contribution for the future?

scenario two, in-flight: you’re leaving earth, you’re leaving your life where you’ve had everything provided for you, your money just keeps making money keeps making money and now that the earth is finally give up its last gasp, you’re leaving after finally being able to spend all that money—you’re on an ark, a space ark. it’s c. 2060*. meat can be cloned, robots once built can do a lot of things, people will do things for you if you pay them and the money can be used for goods and services. if you pay them. but you’ve spent all your money on getting off this dying planet, converting everything to the material resources you need to get to tau ceti (where, by then, we’re assuming they’ve discovered one of the planets to not be 68°C or -50°C like e or f). you are part of why this is all happening. you have financed saving your species. how much gratitude does this buy you? on this new world that you have paid for, this new world that you own because you have made it possible for people to make it here, who believes that they owe you anything?

scenario three, arrival: you’re a boss-ass cloning scientist. you’re a team of construction workers who can build robots who can build so many things. you’re the people who have figured out the best way to create new habitats for humanity. you’re good. you’re great. you can do things. you are here because you are useful. but. who are you useful to? why are you being useful to them? there is no money now. there is the old, earth order, but how long does that last when you’re not on earth? what is your use for, now?

scenario four, the foundation: what is capitalism? what is your old life worth? there is no redundancy in this system. this is the same as families moving to upper canada in the victorian era and doing things they never thought they would to survive—there are no tea parties here, you are out there chopping wood, you are weaving your own fabric, you are doing what you have to to survive. why are you doing this?

scenario final, look upon my works, ye mighty: who is the burden, now? who has nothing to contribute, now? who can no longer buy their way our of anything, now? congratulations, you are in ur now, and not just as the name you’ve re-christened your system with, where you have a standard unit that everything must be pinned to to have any sort of transactional system in order to survive. why should those who had power in the old world, the worse world, have that same power, now? who owes who? who owns who?

* stand back i’m trying math: john’s mother was playing with hollywood hair barbie in 1992. i was playing with hollywood hair barbie in 1992, being seven years old. let’s have john’s mother born in 1985, seven years old in 1992, twenty-five in 2010, and we’ll say john was born in that decade, sometime between 2010 - 2020. hell, make him a covid baby. undergrad at otago? medical school at auckland? or the single year health sciences 1st year programme and medical school at otago but final clinical year in auckland? so, graduation range of 2045 (b. 2020)  - 2048. off to corpus—corpus christi in cambridge—for something, one year or more. + another year abroad. so we could be anywhere between 2047/8 (one year for corpus, and nothing getting between anything) or 2050-something by the time john begins working on the cryo project. adding some wiggle room so it’s not the tightest timeline ever, let’s go with c. 2055 - 2065.

[intjpersephone]

🧠Since memorizing everything is some hard shit, allow me... 🧠

Science has my entire back on this one...

Now, I'm gonna be talking about three techniques, two of them are gonna help if you have a test really soon the other one is in for a long run.

"The Generation Effect"

being tested is supposed to help others evaluate your progress, but it turns out that testing isn't a very good evaluation tool.

It actually functions better as a learning tool but only if used properly. This may seem Counter-Intuitive but first, you should test yourself before you even know the material. For example, start with the practice test even before you started studying it. You'll get answers wrong, But your brain is forced to generate answers, you'll be creative, panicked and end up priming your neurology to learn the correct new answers. This technique works on "The Hypercorrection Effect": when you make a mistake on some type of general information and later find out you're wrong, you're much more likely to remember the correct answer. For example, you're certain the capital city of India is Mumbai but later find out it is in fact New Delhi, you are much more likely to remember that forever compared to somebody who was just simply told the answer New Delhi.

Your brain Hypercorrects. One theory behind this states that surprise and embarrassment play a role, That's why you probably remember everything embarrassing thing that happened to you so far 😂(😥)

Now My Personal Experience: On this one, in April, I had a 20 marks test every week and so my teachers would ask us questions related to the test during classes and I used to get most of them wrong, and after the embarrassment, the test came I actually did better than my classmates.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

"Spacing"

This one is the one for the long run now...

For spacing, you're gonna wanna practice and then almost forget the material and then practice again.

One particular study had students learning Spanish, each group had eight hours to study. The first group studied intensively for eight hours in one day while the second group studied for four hours one day and then one month later studied for another four hours and an entire month later.

So both groups had the same amount of study time just distributed differently. After only getting 8 hours of practice they tested them 8 years later.

Both groups were tested on their Spanish vocabulary and by now you probably guessed the group that spaced their studying over a month gap performed 250% better. Remember this is 8 years later that they're being tested.

My Personal Experience On This: So, in 4/5th grade, I used to jump from learning greek to french to Spanish and so on, so last year staying inside I picked french again, remember this is 4/5 years later, and remembered all the basics very well! I was surprised but now it makes sense!

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

"Interleaving"

So, what studies have found is that instead of studying the same thing over and over again, if you mix up or vary the challenge the benefits are huge. At the moment this process might be a lot more frustrating and you may even think that you are learning more slowly but that's why it's so counterintuitive.

Let's take a look at some examples that could apply to your life. All of which have come from a wonderful book called "Range" by David Epison. if you have any interest in high performance and improving skills, this books will change your perspective so I highly recommend it.

First, we are gonna talk about motor skills like piano, so a particularly tricky thing to do is jump "A", big inter violin-piano really quickly so say starting at "C" and then jumping 20 keys really quickly, it takes a lot of coordination and muscle memories to do that quickly without thinking about it without accidentally hitting other keys along the way.

So this study had one group practised the 20 keys jump over and over and they have gone relatively good at it pretty quickly. But the second group had practised not only the 20 key jumps but also mixing a 15 key jump and 10 key jumps

So, ultimately they had to practise but the 20 key jumps but had interleaved or mixed practised by using a bunch of different intervals obviously it would have been a lot more frustrating to be learning multiple intervals at once the 20 key, the 15 key, the 10 key but when they brought the groups back what they found was that the group that practised interleaved or mixed practised was better every single interval including the 20 key jumps. Even though they technically had less practice with it the same has been shown in mathematics. Rather than practising one type of problem over and over, mixing different kinds of problems in between makes the process harder but develops stronger skills.

It's very shocking how bigger difference this type of interleaving makes.

Looked at math skills in grade 7 students. Those that used interleaving or mixed practice saw an effect size of approving someone's from the 50% of skill to the 80%, that is like being an average student to being someone who is definitely something brown parents will dig, which is an ultimate math god.

If you're using cue cards makes sure you're mixing up different themes within those cue cards.

My Personal Experience On This: Now, I have never really tried this before, so that's why I tried my best to elaborate on it as much as I could. But while researching on this, so far this one deeply impressed me, and my mom was a mathematics teacher before my brother was born (she also taught commerce but that's irrelevant) so, she was a middle and high school teacher and she ALWAYS keeps suggesting me, but hey, there's a reason I say relatable to a meme which is about being a disappointment 😐, anyway, I do really look forward to trying this one.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

All this research is incredibly significant because of evidence-based solutions especially in space like education.

And the idea for today's post was suggested by my wonderful girl, @agents-of-shield-fan

and if you want me to make my next post on something you have in my mind, tell me!

Now go ahead and ✨ S H I N E ✨ babe 🤗🌿💕

[iceglade]

long thoughts i had while listening to dreams 🤓podcast🤓

obsessed with the idea of saving time like with the wayback machine and traveling to select saved/marked/preserved moments like that

get me in the ring coach i wanna talk to dream about it. gonna hit em with the "yeah we can but Should we" just to see what he does

im a big advocate for putting together an ethics committee cause we're only gonna need one More as time goes on and hardware/SOFTWARE advances.. especially software

cApItAlIsM LeAdS tO iNnOvAtIoN yeah when they want to empty the clouds before a big sports event, but the simultaneously dumbest and most important question here is whos gonna pay for using it where people Need it not that they Need that when there are simpler tech options to fix stuff like world hunger and global warming literally we could solve every single problem listed right NOWWWWW its just that NOBDOY WANTS TO FUCKING PAY FOR ITTT CAPITALISM IS SO GOOOOOOD .. OBVIOUS SARCASM ...

hes talking about technically everything being useless except for your brain.. yeah dream the only reason thats the case is we dont understand how the brain works. if we understand how the brain works we wont even need the biomass there too

im allowed to say dreams dumb because im smarter than him and i also love all these topics

"DIE EARLY I DONT CARE"

hfjgj hes just wow'ed by the possibilities open to us huh... hes also totally stuck at step 1 bc chat is so so miserably stupid

well. having muscles and spending the energy to move around helps regulate our system. its like when you go onto space and 0 gravity ..

i mean yeah you can drug yourself with endorphins too. is that as valid a way to live as any?

why do we need all this? it CAN be made but there are so many more things to consider than just innovation innovation innovation fast fast fast. a genuine question to consider is, when does convenience start cutting out things that can't be calculated? but yknow what AI struggling with soft sciences is like the whole big question right now so im gonna move on

"METEORITES"

that seems so painful to have to crack open meteorites to fulfill future water demands. why cant we just maintain the cycles instead? i mean like yeah i can think "ai does the math automated controlled detonation system" but thats doing too much. i'd just occams razor that bitch. earth has its own system why do we have to make our own less efficient system other than just to just be able to say we did it. like its cool but inefficient you might as well program your grocery delivery bot to perform a musical number before it lets you touch your food. its dumb

climate change fixing, actually i was on tiktok and someone made a video about how they fixed the acid rain from the 60s i think. which was deincentivizing companies by putting a cap on pollution levels, giving them buyable passes, allowing them to buy them from Each Other, and then making it more monetarily profitable to invest in green energy and sell off their pollution passes. like. thats FUNNY. and that WORKED.

trueeee change and development takes time but it also takes money. time for the people below, money for the people above 🤓🥸

i personally want horses to come back.

like yas i hate gas cars

bring back the horse

its true that prices lower as tech gets less and less expensive to make and mass produced, all ethics on THAT topic aside, but this makes me think of going to the store and seeing massive, beautiful tvs that would have been thousands in 2010, selling for 400 just sitting on the floor. the opulence of this fucking era occasionally hits me when im in a grocery store surrounded by food just sitting there...

empathy huh.. off topic tangent, but i'm a firm believer in that hereditary inherited trauma/genetic memories, i completely believe thats an actual thing, and when i have to think about humanity i think about how we're all beings made up of layers upon layers of ideas that Worked. if it didnt Work we would not have Been here. thats how evolution works, yeah? if we were to program a robot to feel empathy and to have consciousness, would we follow that same process to have it generate its humanity? how else would we create consciousness? or maybe we could follow the octopus format of having multiple computation centers that communicate.. is that any less or any more valid a form of consciousness than anything else ... i wonder what dream would say on these topic. and yet ALL OF THIS is totally moot once ai develop to think faster and bigger than us because i cant

i think ai would have as many limits as humans do. its a hardware vs software situation just like everything else

i wanna be like "living as a robot is just another way to live, chase your happiness" but do i really wanna get into the social when dreams already moved on in the podcast okay

ROBOT REPRODUCTION.. ELIMINATE BABIES ENTIRELY .. though i agree, there's still developing to do even if you could download worldly knowledge and experience directly into a newborn's head.

oh he circled back around to it, but i also really appreciate having the option to do it even if i dont. or to Not do it even if i Do. just on principle. but that's MY view on the world

life purpose and meaning huh ...

i like that dream optimistic, though. its one of the things that makes him matter so much to me.

the people who are causing climate change can be MADE to care, though. it's possible.

well. asking this question to the universe but do we really have to hit rock bottom before anything gets done? why does everything have to be a tragedy? cant we just solve the problem before its the World End? why does it always have to be this way?

i hope dream is enjoying his ice 🥺

i agree. humans are cockroach-like. we really are the biggest threat to ourselves.

disaster events always gets everyones priorities in order. but i really wish it didnt have to be so dire for that to occur. why does this always have to be the case

OH HERE WE GO AGAIN. GHOSTS ARE SCIENCE

THATS THE PROBLEM DREAM BELIEVES IN HEART BUT HE DOESNT BELIEVE IN SPIRIT. "they could. anything's technically possible i dont think my view is the only right view but based on my worldview i dont believe in ghosts because theres no evidence pointing to it whatsoever so i dont have any reason to believe it" YOU'LL SEE. YOU'LL ALL SEE

"so whats up" nothin much man whats up with you

the fucking word hunt sounds im crying

okay post over thanks for reading guys

put me in the ring coach id love to talk with you!!!!!!

[awed-frog]

Hey, I saw your post about unschooling and have a question. I'm training to be a teacher and enjoy it an awful lot. I have a great deal of respect for the profession and think it's an important job but have seen a number of Americans share horror stories about school- how they wake up in cold sweat in the middle of the summer holidays 17 years after leaving school thinking they'd forgotten to do their homework, talking about how school has no merits but to prepare children for a life of /1

work under capitalism and that fear is the underlying mechanism which makes the whole operation work and the school to prison pipeline. Now, I don't dispute that there are things we could do differently. (I also have no affiliation to the US and think of it mostly as a failed state but that's a separate issue.) But? am I insane to think that free and compulsory schooling is a good thing? Cause it's the only way to get mass literacy and therefore... access to art, critical thinking, history....

Hi, first of all kudos for training as a teacher! What a great job, congrats!

As for your question, yeah - it’s a complicated issue, and the one system I know well is my own, so I can only offer a half-assed opinion here, but if you’re insane, then so am I, because compulsory education for a number of years (ideally up to sixteen)? Yeah, that’s definitely the way forward.

Now, obviously there are some parents out there who want to (or need to) homeschool and do a great job, but I believe that’s a very small minority, and that homeschooling should still be monitored in some way to check that kids are okay and are actually learning something.

Beyond the obvious, which is access to basic literacy, I believe there are two big reasons why good, free and compulsory education is absolutely fundamental:

It shows kids their family is not the entire world and the way they do things at home is not universal. For lucky kids, this ‘simply’ means learning more about others, discovering other point of views, and learning to relate to different people; but for unlucky kids, it’s 100% necessary to get them in contact with the outside world so they can see what their parents do is not normal and hopefully teachers can also realize those kids need help. The idea a random adult (because if you have biological children, you’re literally that: a random adult, nobody ever checked to see if you’re fit to raise kids, and in some countries nobody asks if you need help either) can keep a child at home for eighteen years or more, strictly control their access to the outside world, and tell them whatever about anything...that’s terrifying, tbh, and 99% of the time people who actively want to do this do not have their child’s wellbeing in mind.

Another thing is that even in superficially non-abusive situations, the decision not to follow a normal curriculum can have devastating consequences. As flawed as it can be, school is meant to give you an idea of all the things you can possibly learn and help you understand what it is you’re good at and interested in. But as an unsupervised parent/teacher, or - even worse - an unsupervised faith-based school, you get to decide from the start what matters and what doesn’t, what a kid should be learning and what should be ignored. In the long run, what this means is that you’re making it more difficult for your child to leave you - and I mean, this is difficult for any parent but something every child must at some point do. So a homeschooled kid, or someone who grew up in a strict religious or ideological web, ends up being 100% dependent on his family or community for a job. If you’re taught no literature, no math, no basic science (and if you’re told universities are sinful, or government propaganda, or not for the likes of you) - how the hell are you going to survive in the world without your family? So this is a subtler form of abuse, but abuse nonetheless. And public school, for all its faults, gives a fighting chance to every kid to have the life he actually wants, and not the one his parents chose for him. 

So, yeah, I would change a lot about schools and as a hormonal new mom I’m daydreaming about homeschooling my kid in a darling little home-made classroom full of kittens and terraria (and hopefully move to the country and raise goats and forget about society entirely, because look at this mess), but I still believe compulsory education protects children and helps children to develop their full potential. This is why it’s so infuriating to see American Manichaeism at work on this issue - how the reaction to a bad system is homeschooling, unschooling, religious schools, and not teaching kids at all (I know I mention this, like, once a week, but I’m still shocked by this new idea Black kids shouldn’t learn math because math is now violence or something). Bad systems need fixing, but the very opposite of a bad system is not necessarily a good system. And what’s dangerous rn is that social media are connecting all sort of extremists to one another, so a common response to those unschooling problems I keep seeing are more insane parents chirping ‘Oh, don’t worry, my son is 14 and doesn’t know the days of the week! Just plays COD 24/7, but it’s fine! He will learn the alphabet when he’s ready!’ and that’s terrifying, it’s honestly so easy to fall into a hole these days and just keep falling, I was talking about this the other day with my partner and how I truly miss the days we had facts, you know?, real facts you could base an opinion on and have an argument about, whereas now 90% of the heated discussions I have with people is just us throwing links at each other and if you want to believe kids are better off living upside down inside a giant teacup, I’m sure you can find an ‘expert’ who’ll support that view and statistics you can use and entire communities offering tips on how to build giant teacups and ‘My toddler loves his teacup! Here is how to customize it so it won’t look girly!’ and my God. 

(Man I hope we’ll all be alright, what a dystopic timeline this is turning out to be.)

Anyway never mind all this noise, you’re doing the Lord’s work doing something you’re passionate about and helps people to boot - my only advice would be, remember to listen to kids who have trouble with school because very often teachers are people who loved school, so it’s important to understand what ‘bad students’ go through and take the time to help them as much as possible. But really, that’s it. Getting rid of formal education helps no one but billionaires and profiteers and bad, bad people.