The Functionality of the Black Iron Prison

[The Wizard Joseph]

The great thing about humans - maybe the ONLY great thing - is that we can break anything.  We can even break things that don't exist. 

Magic, for example.

"I wish for no wishes."

Science too to some degree. We analyzed the composition of common rocks by grinding them to super fine powder and putting them through solvents and heat in ways that just don't happen in nature, discovered that a teeny tiny fraction of a percent of it was made of super heavy and rather unstable atoms forged in supernovae from long before the sun had ignited and planets formed, refined them, and found that the stuff could basically smash itself and everything else on an atomic level releasing an incredible amount of heat, electromagnetic energy, and chunks of nuclei if you get enough of them close together in one place, and primarily use the shit to either unravel reality instantly to make explosions that rival meteor impacts and super volcanoes for sheer destruction or set it up to unravel a bit slower to boil water and power relatively primitive wheel turbines to spin magnets and get the electricity we use to make machines chew up resources and spit out products at a pace that you just don't see in the natural world unmolested by monkey sciencing. All of the shit is also profoundly toxic and durable.

Also we made the deadly microbes on our only planet that we all know and love into weapons and discovered means to engineer myriad other deadly substances.

There's a certain irony to us in that we used to smash rocks together to make tools for survival and got so good at it that smashing rocks together may also become horrible, firey doom for us and everything else living on the planet.

Humans are as far as I know the most destructive things in a universe just LOADED with destructive things. That's kind of an accomplishment when you think about it.

Everything we do happens in nature because we are part of nature.  That's the whole point.

Just because intelligence is confined to one part of nature doesn't make it less natural.  In fact, the only actual phenomenon that isn't natural is the wasp.  It is not part of the food chain, it exists only to cause pain. 

They are proof of my earlier statement that you cannot appease the gods.

Yeah wasps are an abomination. Fuck hornets too. I was swarmed as a child and never quite got over it. I'm clinically phobic, but instead of irrational terror I get a cold urge to purge the Xenos when I see them. I can control it, but it always rises in me involuntarily when I see them or anything that even kind of looks like them.

So humans being a part of nature makes all of our various works natural? Have I misunderstood you here?

[LMNO]

Technically, it's all just waves of probability at the most fundamental level, so creating plutonium-infused chew toys is just as natural as planting lentils.

[Cramulus]

So humans being a part of nature makes all of our various works natural? Have I misunderstood you here?

[Doktor Howl]

So humans being a part of nature makes all of our various works natural? Have I misunderstood you here?

Yes.  We have built what amounts to really, really baroque termite mounds.

[altered]

fun fact time:

Wasps have a threat pose they make before they attack!

https://images.app.goo.gl/7XBVk1eFnCrAyki17 BACK THE FUCK UP PAL
https://images.app.goo.gl/WtdqbozuPKf1u7Cv9 Thanks dude

Wasps also remember humans by smell and facial features (no shit) and will learn that you aren’t going to bother them over time if you back away when they pose. The radius they will enter threat posture within gets smaller and smaller, because you ain’t there for bothering them. Ever wonder how people get those crazy closeups of wild nests? Yep! They teach the wasps that they’re harmless.

Most wasps don’t sting! Most wasps are parasitic/parasitoidal, in fact, and generally colonize plant-infesting bugs like scale insects, wood boring beetles and so forth. These guys are cool as hell:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Ichneumon_wasp_%28Megarhyssa_macrurus_lunato%29_%287686081848%29.jpg/1280px-Ichneumon_wasp_%28Megarhyssa_macrurus_lunato%29_%287686081848%29.jpg Saving a tree from beetle grubs!

Parasitic/parasitoidal wasps usually have no venom! Stingers are modified ovipositors, and venom and egg laying are mutually exclusive for the genus. (This extends to bees.)

Wasps are cool and I love them thanks.

ETA: by the way, this DOES actually mean you can keep wasps like people do with bees. But not for honey!

For HOME DEFENSE.

[Pergamos]

Have you tried ayahuasca?  Because the something mystical really isn't meaningless, at least it wasn't for me or any of the folks I've talked to who did it,  it gave us insights into our lives and we put those insights into practice and changed things. 

Your point is good, I just don't like your example.

Not meaningless, functionally meaningless. I meant that however profound and life-changing your experience may be, it's rooted in a subjective experience that would lose its value if it wasn't subjective. It can be as meaningful as you like, but it can't be conveyed to anyone who doesn't also have the experience. Like satori.

Changing your life is about as functional as anything can be.

[MMIX]

Changing your life is about as functional as anything can be.

ooooh I love that!

[Hagtard Celine Dion Mustard]

I should have known this thread would devolve into an ignorant circle-jerk, completely devoid of any semblance of genuine conversation stemming from what at least a few of you recognized as a good-enough jumping-point for discussion.

And this has nothing to do with whether I was "right" or "wrong".

You're all just a bunch of stupid, self-absorbed ignorangt jackasses who don't deserve what you've been gifted with; the mantle of the closest thing to "official" Discordianism that exists (it doesn't).

I wish I had something more clever to say. As much as I disappoint myself, you lot (with a few exceptions) disappoint me ever more.

There are thinking men among you, but not many.

[Faust]

I should have known this thread would devolve into an ignorant circle-jerk, completely devoid of any semblance of genuine conversation stemming from what at least a few of you recognized as a good-enough jumping-point for discussion.

And this has nothing to do with whether I was "right" or "wrong".

You're all just a bunch of stupid, self-absorbed ignorangt jackasses who don't deserve what you've been gifted with; the mantle of the closest thing to "official" Discordianism that exists (it doesn't).

I wish I had something more clever to say. As much as I disappoint myself, you lot (with a few exceptions) disappoint me ever more.

There are thinking men among you, but not many.

Ok you are in charge: What do you want to talk about Pelvis?

[Doktor Howl]

You're all just a bunch of stupid, self-absorbed ignorangt jackasses who don't deserve what you've been gifted with; the mantle of the closest thing to "official" Discordianism that exists (it doesn't).

Huh?  We're just a half dozen or so people who go way back. 

[Cramulus]

I should have known this thread would devolve into an ignorant circle-jerk, completely devoid of any semblance of genuine conversation stemming from what at least a few of you recognized as a good-enough jumping-point for discussion.

And this has nothing to do with whether I was "right" or "wrong".

You're all just a bunch of stupid, self-absorbed ignorangt jackasses who don't deserve what you've been gifted with; the mantle of the closest thing to "official" Discordianism that exists (it doesn't).

I had some good thought & conversation. I'm sorry you think that, as the OP, the thread is all about you.

I called all of this way in advance. Elvis has a very fine and specific point he wants to discuss using only his own terms, he's not going to get the exact reaction he wants, and his provocative & judgmental discussion style is going to pull provocative & judgmental energy right back towards him -- so he's eventually going to get drunk, snap, and blast everybody indiscriminately with a bunch of personal attacks and call us all names.

And knowing this, I said to myself, Ah well, the admission is free... might as well get on the ride anyway.

[Doktor Howl]

I had some good thought & conversation.

Same.  Not sure why he's pissed. 

[minuspace]

It's the same, every time. The moment you get comfortable they tell you to "roll it up!"

[chaotic neutral observer]

I had some good thought & conversation.

Same.  Not sure why he's pissed. 

An (apparently) major element of his world-view was questioned, which in turn cast doubt on his self-image as a "logical person who sticks to the rules of critical thinking".  It's not surprising that he became upset.

Also,

After all, as far as I know, my own experience is the only one that matters. From my point of view, I'm the player in the game.

He seems to be stuck in his own head.  I mean, we all are, but I like to think that the tapping I hear through the cell wall is a real person, and not just my imagination or woodpeckers or whatever.


I think there's a bad physics analogy here.  Like how relativity doesn't allow for a preferred reference frame, a valid model of human experience shouldn't allow for a preferred point-of-view.  You can only (measure things) / (perceive reality) from your (current reference frame) / (brain-meat), but that doesn't imbue it with special characteristics.

...okay, now that I've written that, I think it clumsy, but I'm going to leave it in in case it inspires someone to come up with a better bad physics analogy.

[Doktor Howl]

An (apparently) major element of his world-view was questioned, which in turn cast doubt on his self-image as a "logical person who sticks to the rules of critical thinking".  It's not surprising that he became upset.

Sort of like the "I am the only conscious being in a world of sheep" trap.