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So, you seem to have become a fan of the idea that this reality isn't really real, but is in fact a simulation being run in a different reality.

I can see the appeal of such an idea; you've got the rudiments of a modernized religion, there.  It involves computers (something you have daily experience with, unlike all those fishing, farming, and hunting metaphors in those musty old religions), it has the air of being "scientific", it isn't trivially disprovable, and it explains why the universe is here (or at least, adds another turtle to the stack).

The good news, is you're right.  The bad news, is that this reality isn't a product of some future version of our civilization, simulating their own past for research purposes.  Nor does it exist for some other meaningful reason.

It's a goddamn video game.

You've played Warcraft 2, right?  Think about your relationship with the "people" in that game.  They are discrete entities, with a certain amount of autonomy; left to their own devices, they carry on with their jobs, collecting resources, defending the town, and fighting back when they're attacked.  But you wouldn't think of them as intelligent.  They're just a few dozen lines of code, and when you give them an order, they follow it, even if it leads to their death.

Your relationship with "God" (the gamer) is just like that.  "But", you say, "the universe is far too big and complex to be simulated just for a game." Sorry, that's just an artifact of your perspective.  Try to imagine things from the point of view of a peasant in Warcraft 2.  Could you comprehend, or even imagine a pocket calculator?  Wouldn't three dimensional Newtonian physics be completely beyond you?  Well, that's the position you're in.  The next universe up is so far beyond ours in complexity, that you're nothing more than a small amount of code, and a data structure, and you have no possibility of understanding it.

Have you noticed how people sometimes act in completely irrational ways, often against their own interests?  Notice how humans have a very strong tendency to do what they're told?  That's what happens when the gamer exerts manual control, and overrides your AI (because you are just an AI).

Annoyed at the way events in the world are unfolding?  Blame the scenario writer.

Having difficulty reconciling relativity and quantum physics?  Maybe it's because there isn't any consistency to begin with.  The guy programming the physics engine took a couple shortcuts, maybe to conserve CPU cycles, maybe just because he ran out of time and budget to do it properly.  I'm sure complaints about the wonky physics engine showed up in the reviews.

This is all just a game, so try to have a good time.  But don't get any funny ideas about your place in the cosmic hierarchy, or "God" might just reload from her last save file.

Eris will allow me to quit, to change gears, to banish with laughter. Eris is the gate to not taking all that shit so seriously, letting it bog me down, letting my identity get twisted around something that isn't nourishing me. Because maybe it's all bullshit, maybe it's just a silly hat I'm trying on as part of a Reality Safari.

I'm gonna take the person I've been till now
Find the strength to throw it all away
Strip down to nothing at all
Become like a rose petal, blowing free

I've discovered that if I write down what the voice in my head is saying, and post it on this forum, then the voice shuts up for a bit.  Or it starts saying something else, which is fine too.

[Recalibrate]

Don't use these words, or I'll hit you.

1.  Recalibrate
You meant to say "modify" or "reconfigure".  When the Vulculons invent a new deflector shield technology that is immune to your phasers, the solution does not involve recalibration.

Recalibration is for adjusting things to make them accurate.  For example, when your phasers are shooting two miles to the left, it's time for a recalibration.  Another case requiring recalibration would be when Kirk's tricorder measures Yeoman Rand's vital statistics incorrectly, he gets her the wrong size lingerie, and she hits him.

2. Critical mass
Critical mass is when having too much of a certain type of stuff in one place makes things go boom.  "Approaching critical mass" is not a generic term for your space engine / reactor / widget getting dangerously close to the boom point, except maybe if too much phlebotinium got into it (and in that case, it's the phlebotinium approaching critical mass, not your space engine).  If in doubt, just say "approaching critical", and I won't have to hit you.

3. DNA
I can't believe I have to say this about stuff written in 201x.
You don't understand DNA.  DNA is not who you are.  It does not contain your memories, skills, or personality, anymore than the blueprints to your house tell you the contents of the refrigerator.  If someone gets a sample of your DNA, they can't make another you, no matter how much science they have.  The best they can do is make someone with some physical resemblance, who maybe shares a couple of mental disorders.  Sort of like an "identical" twin.
Screw this one up, and I'm gonna punch you in the gut. Hard.

Picture of an idyllic wilderness scene.  Clear lake in the foreground, pine forest on one side, mountain in the background.
Caption: "THIS TOO SHALL PASS".

1950's advertising style picture.  Man seated in chair, reading paper, smiling as his children play at his feet.  Woman walking into room carrying food.  (This should feel like an ideal, but an ideal from the wrong era.  It's okay if it's ambiguous whether this is supposed to be about concern for the future, or about feminism; the viewer brings their own baggage).
Caption (using a sans-serif, narrow font with a dystopian feel): "THIS TOO SHALL PASS".

Picture of a young child eating an ice-cream cone in a park setting.
Caption (cutesy, cursive font): "THIS TOO SHALL PASS".

Industrial scene.  Maybe something from the Victorian era, with buildings spewing smoke into the air, or possibly a modern oil refinery.
Caption: "THIS TOO SHALL PASS"

Picture of a beached whale.
Caption: "THIS TOO SHALL PASS"

Starbucks Logo.
Caption: "THIS TOO SHALL PASS"

Portrait of Trump.  Make him look noble and patriotic.  American flag in the background, etc.
Caption: "THIS TOO SHALL PASS / and the sooner the better"

"Dogpunk" science fiction wherein all technological purposes are achieved through specially bred animals (like a more serious version of The Flintstones without the caveman aesthetic)

Frank Herbert had "chairdogs" and "beddogs" in the last couple books of the Dune series (the ones that no-one likes to talk about).

Farscape and Babylon 5 both used the idea of living spaceships.

He would never step on stage.

"Speech cancelled due to poor attendance" works for me too.

You can "win" if you bring enough friends.  Although impossible to execute in practice, the idea of a Trump rally attended entirely by his critics appeals to me.
This man lives by his ego.  Can you imagine him being booed continuously at one of his own rallies?

Claiming all the tickets to his rallies online, and then not showing up would be funnier yet (and safer), but apparently they overbook these things, so I'm not sure it's even possible to create a situation where he would be ranting at an empty stadium.

But if I saw Trump, I'd still throw a rock or a dogshit or something.

Tickets to Trump rallies are free.

I'm just sayin'.

Here is my first delusion:

Part of me is never crazy.  Part of my mind is perfectly objective and entirely rational.  This is That which Watches.  It calmly and stoically observes my limitations, my irrationality, my stupidity, and comments on them.  It is limited only by the accuracy of the information it possesses, and the processing capacity of its platform.  It can provide advice, which is always correct, and almost always useless.  "If you don't want to do that, then stop doing it."

The Me that Watches is not in control.  I can, with significant focus and a huge expenditure of energy, put it in control for brief periods of time, but this is not helpful.  Perfect objectivity simply doesn't apply to the human experience.  It can tell you how to reach a certain goal, but it can't tell you what goals you should have.  And it doesn't want anything.

The Me that Is has good days and bad days.  The pills help.  But bad day or good, crazy or not, it's all me.  The me who has to fight to make eye contact and the me who likes to try new restaurants may seem very different, but we have the same memories, wear the same skin, and we both have the same Watcher lurking backstage.


My second delusion is that, if I am confronted with my delusions, I will correct them, no matter how painful and traumatic.  I've already gone through this at least once.

My third delusion is that I don't have many delusions left to confront.

The Me that Watches, having read this post, suggests that considering it to be a separate entity is a fundamentally flawed viewpoint.  But I'm too sleep-deprived to work through that.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
    --Kurt Vonnegut

I HAVE BEEN IN THE SAME FACEBOOK ARGUMENT ABOUT NANCY PELOSI FOR THE PAST 24 HRS SOMEONE KILL ME.

Will it change anything if you win?
If not, take control of the situation, and lose in the most glorious fashion possible.

Lose so that future generations will speak your name in a hushed whisper.  "Never has anyone in the history of the internet lost an argument so spectacularly."

But whatever you do, the important thing is to have a good time doing it.

....WHAT IF 'D.O.G.' SPELLED.... "CAT"?

Tac, I hoge Entlish arghatrophy.

Creation and destruction, although opposites in one sense, both imply change.

There is another dichotomy possible, that between dynamic and static.  For example, a bunch of boulders scattered randomly in a field would be representative of static disorder, while a row of stone pillars might represent static order (at least until the wind and sand wear them away).

You could arrange preservation/stagnation opposite creation/destruction, but somehow splitting stasis into two elements feels like cheating, since they're just two ways of viewing what is basically the same thing.  So that leaves me at creative/destructive/static vs. ordered/disordered/???.

An odd sort of boycott, since Fox is so far silent on the subject, and we hear of it only from third parties.

What's the point of a boycott if you don't tell anyone?