After reading Nagarjuna, I realized I basically already have the beliefs about the world that he's arguing for. Clearly I gotta start meditating, I've got a head start on the road to Buddha nature.

I'm concerned that two things are true simultaneously. 1st that the postmodern skepticism of metanarratives is correct and 2nd that people need metanarratives to be motivated to actually do any socially valuable change.

I've learned the importance of making sure the container says VEGETABLE shortening when grocery shopping. In a related question, what would you do with a batch of beef flavored sugar cookies?

William S Burroughs on intelligence. Excerpt from The Place of Dead Roads.

Last night I slept like the dead... Which is to say poorly, constantly on the verge of waking up with a terrible hunger

I finally went to see the new Christopher Nolan film and I was disappointed. the film made no mention whatsoever of Leibniz's response to Bayle's pessimism regarding the problem of evil. also the costumes were historically inaccurate for 18th century Europe. worst adaptation ever.

Species 8472 is pretty clearly inspired by the titular alien from the horror movie Alien. While the Hirogen are clearly inspired by the titular predator from the action horror movie Predator. That makes Voyager season 4 Episode 16 into a Star Trek version of the movie Alien VS Predator.

Someone needs to let studio executives know that Fungi from Yuggoth is still available

Jesse Hawken@jessehawken.bsky.social · last wk.

Studio execs are going to want to adapt more poems for the big screen now

A good Moby Dick adaptation would give audiences the experience of reading the novel by being 50% documentary about whales containing facts of dubious veracity.

I can't believe John and Locke didn't kiss until the Second Treatise of Government. So much queerbaiting until that point.

Crazy how much of the economy at every level is driven by FOMO

Mixed feelings about Obsession. I had a great time in the theater, but I don't think it's a film that stands up to analysis in the cold light of day. It feels like the film doesn't trust the audience very much and ends up getting in its own way.

Just got to Seven of Nine in Voyager. Yup, that's another one.

Fopling@fopling.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Star Trek can't stop inventing new metaphors for Autism, there are two or three new ones in each series.

When an ancient philosopher had a good idea they gave him a school filled with adoring fans. When I have that same idea today it's "unoriginal" or "plagiarism", some people have all the temporal luck.

ʤan~ʤɑn~ʤɔn@languagedoodad.bsky.social · 2w ago

cave man saying "working hard or hardly working" would have him resting on his laurels for generations it was like Hamlet to those schmucks

the reason it took so long for language to develop was not enough time had past for things to be cliché so there wasn't anything to say during the lulls. everytime you spoke it was a banger insight into the universe that everyone had to contemplate for awhile.

Socrates: I am a himbo Crito: But you are the wisest man in Greece! Socrates: No thoughts, head empty Alcibiades (visibly offended): You don't even think about me?!?

Fopling@fopling.bsky.social · 3y ago

Doing an archeology of my Twitter. I'll be posting my favorite old tweets here

The problem with getting into world cinema is that much of it is impossible to find. There are now two Bhutanese films I desperately want to watch but cannot be streamed or purchased at any price.

Honeygiver Among the Dogs is the first and only neo-noir I've seen to use the Bön religion of the tibetan plateau as scaffolding for its plot. If you love slow movies about spirituality that are for some reason also murder mysteries I highly recommend it.

Guy who gets confused about the term "enlightenment" and thinks Rousseau is a bodhisattva (he's right)

Pig at the Crossing is a delightful film about the bardo state between death and rebirth, I highly recommend it! If you don't mind slow movies I think you'll get something out of it.

I wonder if my profile picture makes people more likely to be condescending to me on here. I don't get in arguments very often, but when I do my interlocutor brings that energy more often than not.

I can confirm that they get better as they go along, but unfortunately they also pick up more and more annoying characters, so it's give and take. Also it probably shouldn't take until book 6 for a series to be truly emotionally effecting.

Fopling@fopling.bsky.social · 4w ago

Dungeon Crawler Carl is the literary equivalent of a fun but bad anime. It's extremely easy to read, doesn't have a ton of redeeming qualities, but is just good enough to keep you consuming it at a rapid pace. I'm blasting through the books and having an acceptably ok time.

Saw some JK Rowling and Harry Potter discourse floating around again, so I thought I'd re-up this. It's good to get clear in our heads what actions we take on principle vs what actions we take because we expect them to have a material impact.

Fopling@fopling.bsky.social · last yr.

Boycotting anything that could give JK Rowling money is the right thing to do on principle, but we should probably deal with the fact that materially it does nothing. If she never made another dollar she could still donate well over a million a year the rest of her life and die wealthier than God.

Boycotting anything that could give JK Rowling money is the right thing to do on principle, but we should probably deal with the fact that materially it does nothing. If she never made another dollar she could still donate well over a million a year the rest of her life and die wealthier than God.

“Philosophy was a form of terrorism, unable to live and let live. It demanded of men and women an impossible purity, and bewitched by the lures of its language they plunged into madness and despair.” – Terry Eagleton, ‘Saints & Scholars’

A fun Zizek style solution to the AI cheating problem is to let the students submit AI generated work, then let an AI grade the work so the big other is appeased. After that you and the students are freed up to do actual pedagogy disconnected from ideological demands.

I will say, jumping into DCC immediately after reading a couple Gene Wolfe books solidified my opinion that Wolfe is an excellent writer. The most and least literary writing the fantasy genre has to offer back to back.

Fopling@fopling.bsky.social · 4w ago

Dungeon Crawler Carl is the literary equivalent of a fun but bad anime. It's extremely easy to read, doesn't have a ton of redeeming qualities, but is just good enough to keep you consuming it at a rapid pace. I'm blasting through the books and having an acceptably ok time.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is the literary equivalent of a fun but bad anime. It's extremely easy to read, doesn't have a ton of redeeming qualities, but is just good enough to keep you consuming it at a rapid pace. I'm blasting through the books and having an acceptably ok time.

That's why we gotta embrace process. Become nomadic in your metaphysics and kick out the ontic landlord in your head.

Jana H-S (she, like a knife)@jana-aych-ess.bsky.social · 2mo ago

ontology is a real estate scam

So many times fiction is a better source of truth than nonfiction. I think almost any time you are exploring the psychology of an alien experience it will almost always work better in fiction than nonfiction.