#sceptics

[kenyatta]

To our modern minds, scepticism is normally associated with frustration and sceptical conclusions are usually taken to be disturbing because they seem to stand in the way of certainty about the world and our place in it. But famously, or rather infamously, those people in ancient Greece who called themselves Sceptics – meaning ‘investigators’ – were pretty happy about it. They thought of their scepticism as a way of life – as a way of reaching ataraxia or tranquillity. In their view, having beliefs is the ultimate cause of anxiety, and therefore the best way to avoid anxiety, to achieve peace of mind, is to get rid of beliefs altogether. The Sceptics in this sense are often called Pyrrhonists after Pyrrho, the ancient Greek master Sceptic who lived in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. [...] Sextus differentiates three schools of thought: ‘When people are investigating any subject, the likely result is either a discovery, or a denial of discovery and a confession of inapprehensibility, or else a continuation of the investigation.’ The first group of thinkers, whom he calls the Dogmatists, believe that they have discovered the truth, and that they know things about the world and the human beings who live in it. The two most famous thinkers from this school are Plato and Aristotle, but scholars often maintain that it is the Stoic school of thought that is the major target of Sextus when he talks about Dogmatists. The second group are those who are called the Academics; they are opposed to the first group and believe that, so to speak, we know that we know nothing. The third group, with whom Sextus identifies himself, are the Sceptics. These people, contrary to the Academics, do not deny anything, they just withhold their assent from beliefs: they continue their investigations and maintain that this continued investigation leads them to tranquillity.

Four scepticisms: what we can know about what we can’t know | Aeon Essays

[idunnomemes]

What I need you to do is take all your brilliant criticisms and put them in the skeptic tank where they belong.

[kaitkingthewriter]

Shadow Boxing

You walk among us Very Shadow-y Some of us are skeptics and some of us will see Kait King 2020

[oposssumsaucee]

Listen All Systems Red is so so funny from Gurathins perspective imagine you grew up with Space Socialism and was hired to go help some pal with science but you weren't allowed to go unless you rented AmaTeslas Torment Nexus Alexa Dot and then when you get there you find out a whole continent of people got annihilated by their Tourment Nexus rentals so you take a moment to check yours quickly and find out it already had disengaged its Don't Kill People box, the only thing you've ever been told prevented them from mass homiciding their clients, something that LITERALLY just happened to people you knew a day ago, and when you say to your fellow socialist doctors HEY I think our Tourment Nexus is fucked up and it's files said it killed dozens of people barely a year ago and we should probably get the hell away from it the same doctors are like look at what you're saying. You're hurting the Tourment Nexus' feelings. The Tourment Nexus is just a little construct who likes Netflix Gurathin stop antagonizing it on the plane ride.

[sheikfangirl]

Goddessdammit Linky, pull yourself together!! I headcanon that after the "The Dragon's Tears" and "Crisis at Hyrule Castle" quests, Link's behavior is so erratic and self-destructive that Purah and the sages strap him to chair and make an INTERVENTION!! They are WORRIED!! 😢 Poor Link misses Zelda so much💔💔💔

But! he has FRIENDS and they CARE FOR HIM ♥♥ ------

PS: Yup, it's a shameless homage to Edna Mode

[c-schroed]

Ira Steven Behr, during season six of Deep Space Nine: For this season, I invented Section 31 as a cautionary tale.

Current Star Trek producers: At long last, we have created a lovely little action flick based on Section 31 from the classic DS9 episode Don't Make a Lovely Little Action Flick About Section 31.

[kqtebishop]

[partlyironic]

hey guys. remember this.

[dykealloy]

[intuitive-revelations]

While the difference in scale isn't really big enough to fully explain it, part of me is so desperate to somehow connect Sutekh's "evolution into a Titan" with the TARDIS police box's gradual increase in size over the years, if he really has been attached to it for so long, in the same way people have joked about him shrinking with it in Flatline.

If Sutekh did change size with the TARDIS it also has potentially quite horrifying implications for the size-leaked TARDIS in The Name of the Doctor.

If he was indeed there, then I wonder what became of Sutekh in this time track...?

[nicomoon69]

the moment Bernard found out that Tim tried to clone Kon he demanded to look over Tim’s research and with a red pen started writing down corrections

Tim who didn’t think too much of it (big mistake), shrugged it off and forgot about it until roughly three weeks later there was a pile of papers on his desk with a sticky note on top that said ‘pro tip: get good at science first, then clone your totally platonic best friend’

[estie-posts-shit]

reminder canon grantaire is bourgeoisie. He lives in furnished quarters near the musain, has a specific waist coat for revolutionary occasions, and enough money to drink two (three?) bottles of wine in one afternoon.

[thoughtsofapessimistttt]

Don’t make the mistake of being so understanding that you overlook the fact that you’re being disrespected. You’re worth more than that.

Don’t ever let anyone take your kindness for granted my love 🩶

[hedgehog-moss]

The story of my 3-year-long quest to identify a very rare bird

So I've been trying almost since I moved here to figure out what bird made this strange call that I sometimes heard near my house:

I tried to google "european bird that sounds like a laughing hyena?" and also to imitate the noise over the phone for a friend who once took an online bird course, but she had no idea. (Well, she said "that's a hyena." I said, "but I hear it all the time! Near my house!! Wait I'll do it better." She said, please stop making a hyena noise :(( and I stopped because the cats thought I was losing my mind)

Eventually I managed to record the actual bird call on my phone, and used a Shazam app for birds—but once again, no luck. The first app I tried just assumed it was being trolled and was like "it's you, isn't it? That's not a bird that's your stupid human laugh, you're making fun of me. I'm not an idiot"

The second birdsong app was more insecure and apologised a lot for failing to identify my bird. I thought it must be a rare bird! (The only uncommon bird I know of in this region is the vulture but it sounds less like a hyena and more like if elephants were birds.) Every time I heard the call (usually during the day) I opened the window trying to a) get a better recording so my app would finally have an epiphany, and b) see something flying off a tree.

At one point I was cutting brooms in the pasture and heard the call very loudly, as if the bird was just a few metres away, and it wasn't coming from the sky. I googled every possible version of "flightless (?) bird that nests in thorny bushes?" and found nothing, and started wondering if it was actually a mammal. But I couldn't think of any plausible local mammal that would make this sound—definitely not a fox or badger, who say WAOOHHH, and nothing like the polite whistle of marmots. We've got pine martens in the woods and I found a video called "mating pine marten scream bark" and thought oh!! that must be it! ... but then I listened to it and it sounded like yiiiaaaaaeeeeee, like if you stepped on a baby banshee's toe, nothing at all like the heheeheuruurhh of a hyena who just heard a good joke.

Anyway, this morning I was in the pasture and I once again heard the hyena laugh! I was standing by the moose butler tying up the hay net, away from any trees or shrubs and the call came from just behind me. I turned around thinking there was absolutely no way for the mystery bird to hide, it had landed on the ground behind me and this time I was going to see it!

And

it was HER:

Absolutely no doubt. I saw Pampy's throat vibrating along with the last echoes of the hyena laugh. All these years I've been saying that llamas are very quiet animals who just make cute little "hum-hum" sounds (I rarely hear adult llamas humming to one another, it's mostly for mother llamas to communicate with their baby and with me) and I had no idea that the shrieking hyena-bird I occasionally heard outside my house was Pampelune! I googled "llama alarm cry" and immediately found youtube videos featuring llamas making this exact sound. There was a stray dog nearby this morning that Pandolf eventually chased away, so maybe Pampy was the first to hear him and sounded the alarm. Maybe she uses this cry to tell Pan to go do his guard dog job, because he left the pasture and ran into the woods when she made the sound (while I was turning round like "aha! you can't run, hyena-bird!")

I wanted to share this discovery! I've had llamas for nearly 4 years and I'm only now finding out that they can laugh like hyenas when the situation calls for it. I feel bad for the poor birdsong app that I've repeatedly gaslighted feeding it a llama call and insisting that it identify this bird for me while it hung its head in shame like "I swear I don't have your bird in my database. I'm so sorry. I'm a bad app."

Llamas are fascinating creatures. Please experience their majestic alarm call again, and be alarmed:

[revlushaun]

finally moving my room around so the first thing i put up was my blanket from @alexsiple

it looks FANTASTIC 🥰