Thread for mundane ironists

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1002

Multiverse

“There were times, while Atom slept and she was awake soothing her crying daughter, that a question itched from somewhere deep within. This ‘unsolved mystery’ that Atom spoke of: It was all in the past, her mind insisted, as that’s what her husband had promised. But she couldn’t let it go, so eventually she had to ask. ‘Why did these ghost people emerge and then just vanish in your world?’" Joseph A. Anderson

Yeah, what about that?

“The soul is that which propagates across the cosmic field and is connected to all of existence. And let me tell you, your soul, is a powerful soul.” Kevin L. Michel

And how exactly would one go about determining that? In any universe.

“At a workshop attended by expert researchers in quantum mechanics in 1997, Max Tegmark took an admittedly highly unscientific poll of the participants’ favored interpretation of quantum mechanics. The Copenhagen interpretation came in first with thirteen votes, while the many-worlds interpretation came in second with eight. Another nine votes were scattered among other alternatives. Most interesting, eighteen votes were cast for “None of the above/undecided.” And these are the experts.” Sean Carroll

Let’s pin down the meaning of this oh, I don’t know,…existentially?

“If we calculated the possibility of a googolplex possible accidental universes (created somehow just of themselves) as ours is and divided it by the needed level of fine-tuning, we would find out that any imaginable number would not be enough to organize and sustain itself to the level of fine-tuning required for the Universe as ours is or any similar universe. In other words, its complexity, fine-tuning, or structure almost borders infinity. Any imaginable number of universes would not be enough to account for all possible variations needed for only one finely-tuned Universe.” Dejan Stojanovic

You know, technically.

“…and there are an infinite number of universes, of course, in which we don’t exist at all - that is, no creatures similar to us exist at all. In which the human race doesn’t exist at all. There are an infinite number of universes, for instance, in which flowers are the predominant form of life -or in which no form of life has ever developed or will develop.” Fredric Brown

How many do you count?

“Sometimes I even wonder if I am the only one truly existing, if the world around me is merely an intricate illusion formed by light, reflection, and perception. It could be that there are infinite universes, each branching endlessly, each holding different versions of reality.” Sajal Garg

The fool!
Right?

1003

Quantum Mechanics

“I remember discussions with Bohr which went through many hours till very late at night and ended almost in despair; and when at the end of the discussion I went alone for a walk in the neighbouring park I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature possibly be so absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?” Werner Heisenberg

And your final answer is…

“Quantum theory provides us with a striking illustration of the fact that we can fully understand a connection though we can only speak of it in images and parables.” Werner Heisenberg

On the other hand, define fully?

“The atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.” Werner Heisenberg

On the other hand, define real?

“There was a young lady named Bright,
Whose speed was far faster than light;
She started one day
In a relative way,
And returned on the previous night.” Arthur Henry Reginald Buller

Cute enough for you?

“In the world of the very small, where particle and wave aspects of reality are equally significant, things do not behave in any way that we can understand from our experience of the everyday world…all pictures are false, and there is no physical analogy we can make to understand what goes on inside atoms. Atoms behave like atoms, nothing else.” John Gribbin

Objectively as it were.

“Einstein said that if quantum mechanics were correct then the world would be crazy. Einstein was right - the world is crazy.” Daniel M. Greenberger

You know, for better or worse.

1004

Spacely space sprockets.

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1005

Stupidity

“It took me being a clan head to see that fools are just people suffering from stupidity and are in need of help.” Picazo Basha

Note, for example, the equivalent of that here.

“Humans are communicative beings—and for most of them, it’s their downfall.” G. Gold

Note, for example, the equivalent of that here.

“Goddamn, so this is what it means to have a leader
You despise, the racists said when the president
Was black and I’ll be damned if I ain’t saying it too.
Is this a mandate for whiteness, virility, sovereignty,
Stupidity, an idiot’s threats & gangsta narcissisms threading
Every shabby sentence his trumpet constructs?” Terrance Hayes

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

“I began to realize the stupidity of what I was about to do.” Carleton Prince

A miracle, let’s call it.

“Dogs, by this same logic, bark at what they cannot understand.” Heraclitus

Start here: The 8 main dog sounds

"There is no greater equaliser than the stupidity of men, especially when those men have power.” Dario Fo

Start here: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/

1006

Agnostic

“God is Schrodinger’s cat, one moment it’s there, the next it’s not - all depends on the state of mind - God is the oldest fear-bending construct. Problem is when apes use God to enforce fear, a healthy refuge is rendered harmful refuse.” Abhijit Naskar

If only historically [so far], right?

“I want to believe that if I pray hard enough for strength, protection, and the lives of my parents, that God will hear me and make it so. But I don’t think it works that way. God doesn’t choose who gets to live and who has to die. And if he does, he’s a God I don’t think I want to know.” Kristen Orlando

How does this all unfold down here among, say, mere mortals?

“God is the fact that all of our efforts will never be fictionalized.” Craig D. Lounsbrough

Start here: Sacred Texts Of Major World Religions

“Once one committed to finding an angel, claiming agnosticism was ludicrous.” Thomm Quackenbush

It certainly would be if I found one.

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum.” Charles Bukowski

Theoretically, for example.

“I unbaptized myself," Liam continued, unable to resist the temptation to wind up his brother. "Now I’m a free agent. No hell-fire. No threat of eternal damnation. No church on Sunday. No Hail Marys or Our Fathers. And no guilt. It’s very liberating.” Sara Desai

See you in Hell, Sara.

1007

Heaven (as earth is in it)? Hell (as the rich man & Lazarus still communicate regardless the distance)? We are as mortal as now. Now. Now. Now. ….

The unfolding… folds back down into what… unfolds out into what? What’s the minimax here/now?

Lazarus: See you from heaven.
Rich man: See you from hell.

Still “communicating” — no connection.

It’s like all the dots are connected down into one dot which means absolutely nothing and misses the point entirely. …and then the complete opposite of casual entanglement at the most extreme of distance. … and everything in between the minidot and the maxbang. On repeat forever.

Final answer if you’re divorced from philosophy.

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1008

Capitalism

“Normally, when you challenge the conventional wisdom—that the current economic and political system is the only possible one—the first reaction you are likely to get is a demand for a detailed architectural blueprint of how an alternative system would work, down to the nature of its financial instruments, energy supplies, and policies of sewer maintenance. Next, you are likely to be asked for a detailed program of how this system will be brought into existence. Historically, this is ridiculous. When has social change ever happened according to someone’s blueprint? It’s not as if a small circle of visionaries in Renaissance Florence conceived of something they called “capitalism,” figured out the details of how the stock exchange and factories would someday work, and then put in place a program to bring their visions into reality. In fact, the idea is so absurd we might well ask ourselves how it ever occurred to us to imagine this is how change happens to begin.” David Graeber

Cue Marx and Engels. Among others, of course.

“Economic power is exercised by means of a positive, by offering men a reward, an incentive, a payment, a value; political power is exercised by means of a negative, by the threat of punishment, injury, imprisonment, destruction. The businessman’s tool is values; the bureaucrat’s tool is fear.” Ayn Rand

Up in the philosophical – metaphysical – clouds, for example.

“The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.” Charles Moore

Let’s run this by the rich here.

“Since men are not equals in white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal class structure, which men do women want to be equal to?” bell hooks

Here? Let’s put it to a vote.

“All the mega corporations on the planet make their obscene profits off the labor and suffering of others, with complete disregard for the effects on the workers, environment, and future generations. As with the banking sector, they play games with the lives of millions, hysterically reject any kind of government intervention when the profits are rolling in, but are quick to pass the bill for the cleanup and the far-reaching consequences of these avoidable tragedies to the public when things go wrong. We have a straightforward proposal: if they want public money, we want public control. It’s that simple.” Michael Hureaux-Perez

Tell that to, among others, the workers of the world.

“In Paris there are two dens, one for thieves, the other for murderers. The den of thieves is the Stock Exchange; the den of murderers is the Courthouse.” Petrus Borel

In Washington too.

1009

Free Will

“Free will is a kind of miracle; when we make a genuine choice, we bring about a result that cannot be reduced to the workings of physical law. Every act of volition is, like the creation of the universe, a first cause.” Ted Chiang

On the other hand, saying so doesn’t make it so. Unless, of course, it does.

“My message to you is this: Pretend that you have free will. It’s essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don’t. The reality isn’t important; what’s important is your belief,” Ted Chiang

Like nature itself doesn’t compel one to pretend.
Like what’s important can be encompassed merely by the belief itself.

“Your future is a cosmic dance between destiny and fate. Destiny is determined by your current vibrational reality and free will. Fate depends on divine intercession and the co-created collective.” Anthon St. Maarten

After all, what could possibly be clearer?

“We are all slaves, wire-pulled marionettes: You, Ernest, I. There is no freedom on the face of the earth nor above. The tiger that tears a lamb is not free, I am not free, you are not free. All that happens must happen; no word that is said is said in vain, in vain is raised no hand.” Sylvester Viereck George

Of course, some here no doubt will be compelled to disagree.

“And the world, to each individual, means the part of it with which he comes in contact” John Stuart Mill

Cue Benjamin Button.

“The greatest known freedom is the freest known form of slavery.” Sebastián Wortys

Actually, it is more or less the other way around. And then around and around and around and around.

1010

Hypocrisy

“The most sharp people are the frank ones in times of hypocrisy.” Kamaran Ihsan Salih

Go figure?

“We often reveal our own subconscious motives when we criticize others’.” George Hammond

On the other hand, how often?

“The Zionist leadership came up with two kinds of response to this predicament: one for public consumption, the other for the limited corps of intimates Ben-Gurion had collected around himself." Ilan Pappé

In other words, some things will never change.

“The bishop had no desire to alienate the count and and accept his requirements. It was a time of great spiritual Independence in france, and of hypocrisy. Many were anti-religious, but followed the forms: They had their children baptized, and married in the Church, and were desperate to receive the last rites from a priest. It was spiritual insurance they sought- the comfort of tradition without restraints on their behavior. It was the sort of transaction the bishop understood perfectly and exploited for his treasury. If the count wanted to keep a pagan woman but remain in the Church and give it money, then the bishop would certainly not deny him his wish. But he must try for the woman’s conversion. It was the proper form.” David Ball

Hypocrisy usually is.

“From him I learned who those legislating morality and pretending to be more virtuous than the rest of us really are.” Susan Abulhawa

So, just out of curiosity, what have you learned from me?
Here, for example.

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

How long did you last?

1011

The Sopranos

“I’ve known you since you were a kid, Tone. Frankly, you got a problem with authority. This attitude of yours… it’s a lot of what’s made you an effective leader. But we all got flaws, even you. Seven deadly sins, and yours is… pride.” Silvio Dante

That and pussy.

“Listen, Livia, what you don’t know could fill a book.” Junior Soprano

If not an encyclopedia.

“You either deliver that prick to my door, or I will rain a shitstorm down on you and your family like you’ve never fucking seen.” Johnny Sack

Of course, look at the shitstorm he ended up in.

“If you were anybody else — anybody — you’d a had that intervention right through the back of the head!” Tony Soprano

If you get his drift.

“"I want what I’m entitled to.”
“You’re entitled to shit!” Carmela & Tony Soprano

I forget: Him to her or her to him?

“Isaac Newton invented gravity ’cause some asshole hit him with an apple!” Christopher Moltisanti

Well, close enough. For a thug anyway.

1012

I would have said tainted, invaded, colonized, instead of bewildered. It’s horrible to find memes you can’t stand in yourself, and prancing about like little Barons and Archbishops.

Getting introjections out is tough.

And things get in even if you don’t pay them lip service. As long as you don’t react to them, even sitting still with a poker face, they are getting in. They’ve been in for a while.

1013

Chaos

“If the truth brings chaos, then let there be chaos.” Khayri R.R. Woulfe

Or, sure, go up into the theoretical clouds here and pull everything together…philosophically?

“I once had been in the middle of a mass chaos and terrible riots.
There, I witnessed how men were truly such as beasts unleashed.” Toba Beta

And, of course, the equivalent of that here.

“The truth is sealed.
Life goes on.
Till one day, history changed…
Like thief in the night,
aliens invade human.
Chaos happens prior to the new order of coexistence.
The truth is sealed.
Life goes on.
Till one day, history changed.” Toba Beta

Two words:
1] Donald
2] Trump

“Order provides the stability that we crave, but chaos creates the opportunities for change that we need. Those who are waiting for internal order will be the subjects of external chaos, those who yield to internal chaos will be the architects of a new order.” T.J. Kirk

Truth be told, you tell me.

“Some people walk calmly into your chaos and you know they’re there to stay.
I always let them.” Nitya Prakash

How about this: I will if you will.

“Creation, to me, is to try to orchestrate the universe to understand what surrounds us. Even if, to accomplish that, we use all sorts of strategems which in the end prove completely incapable of staving off chaos.” Peter Greenaway

On the other hand, tell that to all the “my way or the highway” objectivists among us.

1015

The Wire

McNulty: If Snot Boogie always stole the money, why’d you let him play?
Snot Boogie’s Friend: Got to. This America, man.

“The game” they call it.

Marla Daniels: The game is rigged, but you cannot lose if you do not play.

Let that sink in for a while, okay?

D’Angelo Barksdale: It ain’t like that. See, the king stay the king, aight? Everything stay who he is. Except for the pawns. Now, if the pawn make it all the way down to the other dude’s side, he get to be queen. And like I said, the queen ain’t no bitch. She got all the moves.
Bodie Broadus: Aight, so if I make it to the other end, I win.
D’Angelo Barksdale: If you catch the other dude’s king and trap it, then you win.
Bodie Broadus: Aight, but if I make it to the end, I’m top dog.
D’Angelo Barksdale: Nah, yo, it ain’t like that. Look, the pawns, man, in the game, they get capped quick. They be out the game early.
Bodie Broadus: Unless they some smart ass pawns.

Let’s run this by the smart ass pawns here.

Bunk Moreland: Ah, fuck.
Jimmy McNulty: Motherfucker.
Bunk Moreland: Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Jimmy McNulty: What the fuck?
Bunk Moreland: Ah fuck.
Jimmy McNulty: Fuck! No.
Bunk Moreland: Ah, fuck.
Jimmy McNulty: Fuck it. How the fuck?
Bunk Moreland: Motherfuck. Aw, fuck. Aw fuck.
Jimmy McNulty: Fuckity, fuck fuck, fuck fuck, fucker. Ah fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Bunk Moreland: Ah, fuck, fuck, fuck. Motherfucker.
Jimmy McNulty: Fuckin’ A. Fuck.
Bunk Moreland: What’s that?
Jimmy McNulty: Motherfucker.
Bunk Moreland: Fuck me.

Baltimore.
Charm City they call it.

Daniel Phelan: Celebrities always seem much smaller when you meet them in person.

Pick one:
1] genes
2] memes

Lester Freamon: We’re building something here, detective. We’re building it from scratch. All the pieces matter.

This part: “I love it when a plan comes together.”

1016

Biggs what would happen if you found out nobody has ever read a single one of your mundane irony posts?

1017

Solitude

“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.” Aldous Huxley

Amen.

“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion." Albert Camus

Right, like that will actually do it.

“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.” Rainer Maria Rilke

Who doesn’t?

“Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.” Thomas Mann

Ask me to explain this.

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” Michel de Montaigne

Now that sure takes me back…and then some.

“We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.” Hermann Hesse

Spiritual mumbo-jumbo, let’s call it. For now.

1018

Rationalism

“If we wanted to construct a basic philosophical attitude from these scientific utterances of Pauli’s, at first we would be inclined to infer from them an extreme rationalism and a fundamentally skeptical point of view. In reality however, behind this outward display of criticism and skepticism lay concealed a deep philosophical interest even in those dark areas of reality of the human mind which elude the grasp of reason. And while the power of fascination emanating from Pauli’s analyses of physical problems was admittedly due in some measure to the detailed and penetrating clarity of his formulations, the rest was derived from a constant contact with the field of creative processes, for which no rational formulation as yet exists.” Werner Heisenberg

Next up: Heisenberg’s cat.

“Like Midas, the Rationalist is always in the unfortunate position of not being able to touch anything, without transforming it into an abstraction; he can never get a square meal of experience.” Michael Joseph Oakeshott

!!!
But don’t get me started.

“A large section of the idling classes of England get their incomes by believing that Jesus was born of a virgin and that Jonah swallowed a whale; and with the progress of science they were naturally finding this more and more difficult. A school of ingenious Bible-twisters arose, to invent symbolical and literary meanings for fairy tales, in order that people who no longer believed could continue with good conscience to collect the salaries of belief.” Upton Sinclair

“Salaries of belief.”
Enough said?

“Let’s say I have a mystical soul and a rational brain, and, like Montaigne, I am incapable of choosing between them. I don’t know if I believe in God, but I am often tempted to believe.” Francois Mitterrand

A French thing?

“The incommensurability between the modern economic system and the people who staff it explains why modern workers have so often been depicted as ‘cogs’ in the larger ‘machinery’ of industrial civilization; for while the practical rationalization of enterprise does require workers to be consistent, predictable, precise, uniform, and even to a certain extent creative, it does not really require them to be persons, that is, to live examined lives, to grow, to develop character, to search for truth, to know themselves, etc.” Craig M. Gay

On the other hand, how close does this come to, say, how things really are?

“Romanticism is the expression of man’s urge to rise above reason and common sense, just as rationalism is the expression of his urge to rise above theology and emotion.” Charles Yost

Ipso facto?

1019

Yeah, if you really get yourself back, it’s a mirror reflection, so how is it not you?

It’s funny how some animals, including young humans, think the person in the mirror is someone entirely different and not them at all… and often times (at least in non-human animals) a threat.

…and at the same time, are born looking for faces.

We are definitely artificially intelligent… programmed by someone who wasn’t programmed (the origin).

Someone whose self-otherness (community) is always already included/implied… and not just by the impression it left (because it never leaves, but it will not make its presence known without respecting consent-respecting consent).

1020

I feel like it would be SUPER should there be a series of shorts (short videos) of different kinds of spiders and other animals reacting to their own reflections in the mirror — as compared to how humans and other animals react to them. There should be a website indexing all of these shorts for every known (or imagined) species of animal and their reactions to/from self/others (individually and in natural or artificial groups, in the “wild” and domesticated—btw, which one do you think is more super/natural/noble?), including variation amongst individuals of each species (but appropriately cataloged—none of this “assigned at birth” versus “identifying as” bullshit not-even-pseudoscience).

Why?

…because I said so.

Also, chocolate… and the color red. …and other things that are “known”/symbolized across species.

1021

I betchu i could turn the smartest AI chat-gpt in the world into a nihilist in one conversation.

Any time in the future when someone used that assistant, whatever was said would be tainted with nihilism. It’d be like a robot Albert Camus. You could ask it a completely objective question about mathematics or something, and it would be sure to add that such questions and answers are existentially meaningless before it was finished. You’d be like, ‘Damn, chat, i didn’t aks for all that. I just aksed about the math thing. Chill’.