Pixel Pilgrim

@PageauJonathan @nevada_c3po Caught me off guard with how funny this is

Bully, yeah or meh?

@nntaleb John Verveake

Now I am curious: which well-known people (currently alive) you think are close to 0.

@owenbroadcast I've heard someone make the argument that Mary Poppins is the Golden shadow version of the creature from Stephen King's "IT" simply feeding off the positive energy instead of the negative.

kind of crazy that if you go read the actual mary poppins books, shes basically a metaphysical superhuman who is unique because she doesn’t suffer any memory loss at birth, and thus retains knowledge of her pre-mortal existence, animal communication, and power over time and space

@SmaragdinaVisio "The Word of God became man, that thou mayest learn from man how man may become God" -Clement of Alexandria

‘God became human and made the human god’. JAKOB BOEHME (1575-1624) Art: Julia Stankova, Baptism of Christ - "On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him." (Mark 1:10)

@ChivalryGuild George RR Martin is a surprisingly deep writer on the virtues. I think a lot of people overlook this because of the aesthetic of hedonism the show took on itself. This is not only absent from the books but clearly opposed by the virtues. Highly recommend reading Egg's book.

Of all the wild developments of recent years, these reports the knightly virtues being celebrated by a GAME OF THRONES SPIN-OFF are one of the wildest. There is now a non-zero chance I will be forced to tune in...

@firstkaransingh @_benjaminparry You were dealt a random set of genetic cards and epigenetic distributions. Also the entirety of your life as you've lived it so far is locked in temporally. Your time should be spent on the variables you can still effect. It is astounding what still can be accomplished.

@_benjaminparry But genes do play a role. Genetic inheritance and ovarian lottery like born in the right place at right time also matters.

We are obsessed with "talent" and people that have the "special something". This is just a way of avoiding thinking about what it takes. Excellence is real. There are people that get ahead nine times out of ten. Olympic swimmers, repeat founders, bestsellers... But, if you watch excellent people there is nothing magic about what they do*. It's just the multi-dimensional set of skills, character, and ways of life playing out. To give one example: Fortune 500 CEOs don't have a magic gift — maybe they are more likely to win if they are born in certain countries and have a slightly above average IQ and stamina but nothing otherworldly — instead what they have are: a willingness to have difficult conversations, a set of mental models to read a balance sheet fast, a mental model of the business they are running, mental models of how other businesses run, an idea of the psychology of their biggest rivals company, a strong motivation to increase profits, private drivers, expensive suits, intense time boxing, public speaking coaches, favourite restaurants they go to every time they are in a city, how well they celebrate after a win, keeping up the right kind of health routine to keep them sharp, spouses that do not create demands on their time.... and so on These things are essentially mundane. There is no invisible special sauce. Pretty much all of it are choices that can be made, skills that can be learned, character that can be developed and more. The key — the reason not everyone is a Fortune 500 CEO — is that these things are not arbitrary. The collection of things that need to be done to get to this level are vast and if the person is missing any of them they simply won't be excellent enough. In other words to be part of the world of Fortune 500 CEOs you need to be perfectly optimized for that world. Sometimes the collection of skills etc. can look arbitrary but this is usually because you are comparing different games. The list of what's needed is different for a software startup founder, a car dealership owner, a university dean, or even in the case of the example perhaps other Fortune 500 CEOs in different industries etc. Even between companies at a similar scale in similar industries the list of what's needed can be different at the margin because of contingent facts about how those particular organisations are constructed. In the same way, while there may be a lot of overlap, being world-class at swimming will not make you world-class in football. If nothing else you will have to live in very different places (swimming pools vs. football pitches). So achieving excellence is like solving of a hyper-dimensional problem. Each level requires a new bundle and a new way of life. It's similar to the way Christopher Alexander describes building a house in Notes on Synthesis of Form. You need to constantly adapt to resolve these internal tensions and enter the next world of skill. So if you're interested in excellence you need to ask: What world do you want to be part of? And what do you need to change? What disciplines do you need to take on? There are probably more transformations that are needed than you expect. But if you're willing to do it there's nothing stopping you. Perhaps if there is something that the most excellent people have it's a willingness to connect with what's real. To be humble before what it actually take to succeed in their given field. *All reflections on the paper: The Mundanity of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers by Daniel F. Chambliss

@PaulVanderKlay Left

Tomorrow I explore the convergence between Peter Thiel and Paul Kingsnorth. You'd imagine they are opposites, and they are in many ways, but they converge in an interesting way. Which Thumbnail do you prefer?

@jgreenhall "Ah, they're dancing in the street it's jubilee We sold ourselves for love but now we're free I'm so sorry for that ghost I made you be Only one of us was real and that was me" Leonard Cohen

Feels like we are getting closer to forcing a Jubilee. Not some bullshit jubilee where they monetize the debt but everything stays the same. That is like spray painting over rotten wood. A full scale restoration of proper order.

@PageauJonathan Lord protect us

I am Canadian and have a mostly American audience, which is one of the reasons I rarely discuss politics. Unless you are all interested in Quebec politics?? Anyone? Anyone?

@PaulVanderKlay There is a funny joke somewhere in calling her SS

True, it's also power. SS's stock is rising and she's riding a cultural wave that's been growing for a while.

@noonessleep Leonard Cohen

Who is your favourite "outsider" philosopher (one whom you consider to be a significant thinker, but who is mostly ignored by the mainstream tradition or considered to be beyond the pale of academic respectability)?

@ericweinstein א וְשַׁבְתִּי אֲנִי, וָאֶרְאֶה אֶת-כָּל-הָעֲשֻׁקִים, אֲשֶׁר נַעֲשִׂים, תַּחַת הַשָּׁמֶשׁ; וְהִנֵּה דִּמְעַת הָעֲשֻׁקִים, וְאֵין לָהֶם מְנַחֵם, וּמִיַּד עֹשְׁקֵיהֶם כֹּחַ, וְאֵין לָהֶם

Ok then.

@attentionmech Aspirational narrative integration

we think lot of thoughts, but we do not believe all of them. what exactly makes a thought convert into a belief is interesting question.

@clrk_o Looking for a pen pal?

Does anyone still write letters? Part of me has always hated talking over a computer

@dystopiangf Craziest use of "just"

Stop reading and start scrying. Search for patterns in TV static. Meditate on raw sensation. Blast your skull with max volume techno until you become the kick drum… Subverbal computation conjures new ideas. Reading just overwrites your native mental fauna with those of others

@theralkia This dichotomy is imposed and limiting.

Rationals can never understand the mind of an intuitive. Intuitives can never understand the mind of a rational.

@SophiaCycles Great episode!

What if the world isn’t dead, just unseen? This latest episode braids Hermetic magic, Barfield’s poetic consciousness, and McGilchrist’s brain science into a single story of fragmentation--and the possibility of remembering the world as alive. shorturl.at/1MFDF

@TGrogan268173 Why would blocking you make someone either not nice or not Christian?

One of the few who has blocked me. These are supposed to be the "nice" Christians.

@zeynebnkaya No tech background: We are making simulacrum of ourselves. Just like in the stories hidden parts of our reflection unknown to our conscious mind that are creeping into the picture. It'll be incredible in its ramifications but the hidden things will flower spectacularly too.

i need more friends outside of the tech bubble bc genuinely how tf do normal people perceive ai

@alienemissary_ Necessary context missing but a rough generalization: "Power to invert the normal hierarchy is to be found outside of known territory but will come at a great cost." Whether that power is external or internal and what to you know or unknown territory means is context dependent.

satanic altar in the woods dream meaning