I have little-to-no interest in Classics, but I find Tolkien deeply appealing. :)
SpectrumDT
Karma: 373
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is my favourite Lovecraft story.
There were, in such voyages, incalculable local dangers; as well as that shocking final peril which gibbers unmentionably outside the ordered universe, where no dreams reach; that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic Ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, tenebrous, mindless Other Gods whose soul and messenger is the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.
I am a simple rationalist. I see boob scholarship, I click-and-hold to strongly upvote.
Second, breasts are costly, both metabolically and potentially from a fitness perspective. Metabolically, because they are fat deposits requiring calories and fitness-wise, because the tissue easily lends itself to malignancy.
Moreover, I gather that large breasts are highly inconvenient when running.
But how buxom are those Mongolians?
I too like the hedonium shockwave, for the same reasons as you.
Some may argue I have just read too much Buddhism, but I think wellbeing and freedom from suffering is worth the loss of personal identity.
myriad tiny computers … repeatedly computing some basic circuit representing maximum bliss.
Surely you mean experiencing maximum bliss. That is completely different from merely “representing” it.
“Representing” maximum bliss would be like writing “I love school” 100 times on the blackboard. That does not make me actually love school...
You think so? To me, the part in Tolkien’s world that sounds closest to the Fall from Eden is the part where Melkor gradually corrupts the race of Men by making them fear death.
That, plus the Flight of the Noldor.
It seems that regulation can do some good
Was there ever doubt about that?
Tolkien describes some themes/messages here which I think he failed to express well in his fiction.
The Ring of Sauron is only one of the various mythical treatments of the placing of one’s life, or power, in some external object, which is thus exposed to capture or destruction with disastrous results to oneself. If I were to ‘philosophize’ this myth, or at least the Ring of Sauron, I should say it was a mythical way of representing the truth that potency (or perhaps rather potentiality) if it is to be exercised, and produce results, has to be externalized and so as it were passes, to a greater or less degree, out of one’s direct control. A man who wishes to exert ‘power’ must have subjects, who are not himself. But he then depends on them.
This analogy does not work great IMO. Why does Sauron become much weaker than ever before after his Ring is destroyed?
...these ‘wizards’ were incarnated in the life-forms of Middle-earth, and so suffered the pains both of mind and body. They were also, for the same reason, thus involved in the peril of the incarnate: the possibility of ‘fall’, of sin, if you will.
Sauron and the Balrogs “sinned” and “fell” without being bound to a limited body like the Istari were.
The Enemy in successive forms is always ‘naturally’ concerned with sheer Domination, and so the Lord of magic and machines; but the problem: that this frightful evil can and does arise from an apparently good root, the desire to benefit the world and others – speedily and according to the benefactor’s own plans – is a recurrent motive.
Tolkien barely ever shows this in his fiction. He tells us this, through Gandalf and Galadriel. But we do not see it. The only example I can think of is when Boromir tries to take the Ring from Frodo. I don’t remember that The Lord of the Rings even mentions the topic that Sauron might once have had good motives. Neither is it at all clear that the evil deeds of e.g. Fëanor derive from good motives.
The Fall of Valinor
Do you mean the Darkening of Valinor, after the destruction of the Two Trees?
standard advice is don’t grocery shop while hungry, but I wouldn’t buy enough otherwise.
I would be interested in hearing more about this.
Civilized people have emotions and limits willpower. They cannot be expected to always act in a rational or civilized manner. Errare humanum est. Society needs to account for that fact.
Your point 1 makes sense. But as for your point 2, it seems to me that the observer would need to have just as good social skills in order to tell who is wearing the newest fashion.
Alas, I suck badly at ballgames and most sports, and I have been severely soured against team sports in school. :(
Thanks!
I over-solved the problem by meditating a lot and woke up enough to find merely existing to be pretty pleasant. Then exercise was not so bad, because it’s also just existing.
How long did this take you (i.e., how many years or hours of meditation)? :)
Some people think that computer chess players are already near the standard where they could draw against God.
It is known that God likes tabletop games as long as they do not involve dice.
I understand the second part of your post. But I do not understand the first part:
It’s cheaper, you can customize your HRT regimen to your specifications
Why does crypto enable this?
Valid points. Thanks.
Sounds like something a shoggoth would say.