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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • When people had analogue technology (radio/phonograph) there was no solid concept of the universe being a simulation

    I’d argue that Neoplatonism is very close to the idea of the world being a simulation. “The One” is a creative power that made all things, itself being beyond existing. That neatly corresponds to the idea of a machine simulating us, as it itself is not simulated, but simulates.

    Even Plato can be seen in that light. There exists a world of perfect forms, and this is but a projection = There is a reality the simulation is based on and computed. Our souls know everything in their pure states outside the bodies = The class is on the same level as all other data until you instantiate it.

    Of course nobody talked about computers, but the general idea was there. The simulation theory could be seen as just fleshing out the technical details, but the architecture was there for a while. Not that I necessarily agree with either, I just think that the simulation theory is not really a new concept in its core.



  • Anarchism is a lack of hierarchy where nobody has power over another. If you get a job, you need to tell the state. You need to pay taxes to the state. If you buy something, the seller must have a bill to register the transaction with the state. If you want to give your property (like a house) to someone, you must tell the state. Every significant transaction between two induviduals needs to go through the state, otherwise that very state will use force (police) to punish you. We don’t live in a state of anarchy as thought of by political anarchism.

    Even if the “state” is a cooperative project, it still lies above you in the hierarchy and has power over you, that’s why we don’t live in a state of anarchy.





  • I actually did this once. My USB was on /dev/sda instead of sdb and I didn’t bother to check. It took me like 2 days to fix it because you can’t just delete partitions and start over normally, it changes some flags on your drive that you need to manually reset for them to be usable again. Fun times.


  • I mean, sure, but that absolutely devalues the meaning of the word. Absolutely every single thing you do is preceeded by a choice to do that, and choices are reflective of ones inner self, and if making a choice is power, and politics is all about power, then every single thing you do is political. Waking up before sunrise is political, waking up later is political, saying hello to your neighbour is political. Recording a guitar riff that just sounds cool is political. I created croissants yesterday, that was political.

    Words are created to be used, and “political” cannot be used in any meaningful way if it refers to everything. While you probably could soundly argue that a child drawing random lines with crayons is political, it’s really pointless since it’s just pedantry that doesn’t add value, but rather devalues the word.


  • Well, art is political by its very nature

    Is it though? I once made a little tree out of wires as a birthday present because trees grow. How was that political? A friend of mine did a digital portrait of one of her friends for fun, how was that political? A whole genre of art is: “I saw a beautiful sight in nature and wanted to paint it”. Nothing political about that. I mean, “Art for art’s sake” was a whole movement. If it’s political by nature, removing the politics would mean that it’s not art anymore. And some musicians refuse to tell people what their music is about because they believe that everyone should give it their own personal meaning. But, as I said, a lot of art has no “meaning” besides: this looks/sounds nice/calming/cool/energizing.

    Yes, it stems from the beliefs and feelings of the artists, but if we extend the meaning of politics so far that someone painting a mountainside transfers a political message, the term becomes pretty unusable.