This is a counterthought of a much older post of mine where I called upon the statistically-expected geniuses of the world to Get Up And Do Something Already: with 6 billion people alive, we should have about as many Great Artists / Scientists as there have been during the last several millenia, yet we don't, so I shall blame them for their own inaptitude at living up to my mathematically-backed expectations of them. This text thakes the opposite stand: that we do not have those many geniuses, and why. Maybe playing on those two conflicting views can bring something up in unsuspecting readers ?
What does it mean being a distinct entity from other similar entities around you ? Apart from occupying a specific vat of flesh and some volume above a chair at the moment you're reading this, where's the contrast coming from ? How's the seperating between That Guy / That Other Guy based on ?
If your mind and memories were pulled across and put into another humanoid bag of protoplasm would the result still be "yourself" ? Deep down to the bottom, what is "you" ?
I PROCLAIM THE NONEXISTENCE OF SOULS
If "being you" means making the choices that you make, then you probably got millions of dopplegangers out there behaving just like you, eating the same breakfast cereals or drinking the same brand of coffee. Oh the fraternity !
And trying to get away from the choices you make, by making other choices, is little less futile than trying to get away from yourself. You're stuck with your identity, you're doomed to being yourself, just deal with it.
Your memories ? Do they define you or did you actually get to define them, really ? Apart from recollections of more choices you made, there's nothing there unique about you except for accidents you or anyone had no control over. Contemplate and weep: all that is really "you" is nothing more than a particular series of accidents.
Your ideas ? Are they really yours, or did you get them from someone else, actually ? Did you ever come up with something no one thought up before ? Think hard: with 6 billion domestic apes on the planet and growing, what's the chance you got even ONE unique idea that you can define your entire identity around, which no one ever had before ?
Face it: everything that passes through your brain is really someone else's identity-froth, collected and passed on until it got stuck there somehow. It means you're not a specific "someone", but really a mix of other people's identities poured by accidents in that particular blob of greasy neurons in your head. You're not even really living yet. You're not someone, yet. You're not, yet.
STOP JUST PERPETUATING THE EXISTENCE OF OTHERS
GET STARTED EXISTING YOURSELF BEFORE YOU DIE
The old, "This is Your Life" speech from fight club. :D
Anyway, the intro actually got me thinking:
Quote from: Jesrad on July 23, 2008, 12:48:14 PM
This is a counterthought of a much older post of mine where I called upon the statistically-expected geniuses of the world to Get Up And Do Something Already: with 6 billion people alive, we should have about as many Great Artists / Scientists as there have been during the last several millenia, yet we don't, so I shall blame them for their own inaptitude at living up to my mathematically-backed expectations of them. This text thakes the opposite stand: that we do not have those many geniuses, and why. Maybe playing on those two conflicting views can bring something up in unsuspecting readers ?
I'd say the problem is that it is too hard to collaborate, sure together all the genius's may stand a chance in a revolution, but unfortunately it is much too difficult for them (us maybe?) to come together. Plus add to the fact that even the great minds of the world have shrapnel in them that will stop them agreeing on issues, everybody has had some level of brainwashing performed on them.
QuoteThe old, "This is Your Life" speech from fight club.
Hmmm. I hadn't realized. The ultimate hidden point of the text is to offer insight in Actual Immortality through the continuation of one's identity through others. If thousands of people continue to do whatever you were doing when you were alive, just as if you were still doing it, then you're still there and kicking, for all it matters.
I mean, Discordianism should be able to make offers of Afterlife, too, if you stretch it hard enough.
QuoteI'd say the problem is that it is too hard to collaborate, sure together all the genius's may stand a chance in a revolution, but unfortunately it is much too difficult for them (us maybe?) to come together.
Eh, who ever said anything about coming together and collaborating ? Stigmergy works regardless, it can even make telepathy look awfully impractical and clumsy. The Revolution will be decentralized (and profitable).
Good rant!
I love this line:
Quotewith 6 billion people alive, we should have about as many Great Artists / Scientists as there have been during the last several millenia, yet we don't, so I shall blame them for their own inaptitude at living up to my mathematically-backed expectations of them.
Quote
..so I shall blame them for their own inaptitude at living up to my mathematically-backed expectations of them.
my wife says the same thing about my naughty bits.
I have a soul.
It's just very, very small.
Quote from: Jesrad on July 23, 2008, 01:30:07 PM
Eh, who ever said anything about coming together and collaborating ? Stigmergy works regardless, it can even make telepathy look awfully impractical and clumsy. The Revolution will be decentralized (and profitable).
Yeah, but The Machine uses stigmergy as well.
Discordians should stick apart ?
Quote from: Rumckle on July 24, 2008, 03:28:26 AM
Discordians should stick apart ?
Why? Because some filthy old beatnik said so?
That's what the ? mark was for, because beatniks are generally too high to take seriously, except about the brown acid
Quote from: Rumckle on July 24, 2008, 03:37:51 AM
That's what the ? mark was for, because beatniks are generally too high to take seriously, except about the brown acid
What? :lulz:
The Beatnik era was LONG dead when Woodstock hit.
Wrong decade altogether.
(http://home1.gte.net/res09cc9/beatnik.jpg)
Beatniks wrote pretty much everything worth reading in the 20th century.
Ray Bradbury and Tolkien were Beatniks?
Tolkien is worth reading?
Tolkien makes my brain hurt.
Bradbury is the only real person in the world, the rest of us are robots, or something.
I suppose that depends;
How many semi-colons does Bradbury use?
From my recollection, not many.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on July 24, 2008, 03:39:51 AM
Quote from: Rumckle on July 24, 2008, 03:37:51 AM
That's what the ? mark was for, because beatniks are generally too high to take seriously, except about the brown acid
What? :lulz:
The Beatnik era was LONG dead when Woodstock hit.
Wrong decade altogether.
fucking history,
-5 points for me
Quote from: Nigel on July 24, 2008, 07:22:40 AM
Beatniks wrote pretty much everything worth reading in the 20th century.
wut
Quote from: East Coast Hustle on July 25, 2008, 05:15:37 AM
Quote from: Nigel on July 24, 2008, 07:22:40 AM
Beatniks wrote pretty much everything worth reading in the 20th century.
wut
:lulz:
Not actually true, but if you take a 20th century lit class it will APPEAR to be true. Also, I was going to add modifiers but then my statement lacked teeth.
Quote from: Jesrad on July 23, 2008, 12:48:14 PM
Face it: everything that passes through your brain is really someone else's identity-froth, collected and passed on until it got stuck there somehow. It means you're not a specific "someone", but really a mix of other people's identities poured by accidents in that particular blob of greasy neurons in your head. You're not even really living yet. You're not someone, yet. You're not, yet.
I don't this as the problem. If true living is defined as being a source of unique or different concepts then we're all fucked and have been for a great while. I would agree (up to a point) that its statistically likely that every possible idea has already passed through the mind of a sentient creature at some point. I'd also find it likely that one individual, given a normal lifespan, could not possibly come close to thinking of each of those ideas on their own, even with a limitless body of data to expose themselves to. Furthermore, for each of those idea that our collective species has thought up, how many have we tried? Of those, how many have succeeded? How many of the failures were done right?
The problem isn't in being defined by others' ideas; its in being defined by others' RESULTS. There were plenty of people who thought of powered flight before that first bicycle-powered glider got airborne, and I've seen enough comical attempts to fly to estimate that, of the limited number who got off their asses and tried, most of those thinkers failed miserably. Its not the people that think of new things that matter, its the ones who are willing to try, and (far more importantly) willing to fail that are really living.
What I'm trying to say is, if you didn't have an epiphany today, don't sweat it. If you didn't have a goal, time to evaluate.
Quote from: Jesrad on July 23, 2008, 12:48:14 PM
STOP JUST PERPETUATING THE EXISTENCE OF OTHERS
GET STARTED EXISTING YOURSELF BEFORE YOU DIE
YUO'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME! WHAT IF I WANT TO PERPETUATE THE EXISTENCE OF OTHERS?
Quote from: Jesrad on July 23, 2008, 12:48:14 PM
This is a counterthought of a much older post of mine where I called upon the statistically-expected geniuses of the world to Get Up And Do Something Already: with 6 billion people alive, we should have about as many Great Artists / Scientists as there have been during the last several millenia, yet we don't, so I shall blame them for their own inaptitude at living up to my mathematically-backed expectations of them. This text thakes the opposite stand: that we do not have those many geniuses, and why. Maybe playing on those two conflicting views can bring something up in unsuspecting readers ?
Assuming that there are the same percentage of geniuses as in the past, and assuming that not as high of a percentage of them do great work:
In science, things have changed. As a friend of mine who is a scientist explained it to me, in Albert Einstein's day, a scientist could get money because, "I want to check this out because it looks interesting and we might learn something."
Nowadays, science has turned into a business. "How will your project help national defense? Is it going to give us a worthwhile energy source?" Einstein essentially said, "Well, if this element existed, which it doesn't, and if this process were possible, which it probably isn't, it might do something interesting but I really don't know what." Had Einstein been forced to answer those questions before getting any money to do the thinking and research that transformed both national defense and energy (atomic bomb/nuclear power), Albert might have been a plumber.
I just found this quote. Don't know if the source is accurate or not, but if the quote fits....
"When a man of true Genius appears in the World, you may know him by this infallible Sign, that all the Dunces are in Conspiracy against him."
- Jonathan Swift
:lulz:
Your bloated sense of self-importance tickles me.