Ask, Answer, Refine.

convertedinvader:

People in general are rather obsessed with acting by their own free will, regarding external control (or even influence) of their decisions and actions as an inherently bad thing. This notion is something I find foolish, for external control is inherent to everything in this world, and in fact, people have absolutely no thoughts that they created on their own, without external input.

Realize this: you are a machine. A single machine in a gigantic network of machines. You may be familiar with the law of action and reaction; well, that law is the driving force of the entire world. Likening it to a conventional machine, said law makes electricity flow through the circuits of the world.

Or perhaps it’d be better to compare it to a program. Assuming you are familiar with programming, think of yourself as an instance of the Human class. You have your private variables (your mind) and the functions to interface with other elements (everything you do in the world).

Either way, the moment the first nerve develops in your body, way before you’re ever born, the process begins. The machine is booted up, the instance is initialized. It takes a while for the process to be complete, yes, but from the very first moment, the machine - you - does what it’s meant to do: receives input and responds to it with output. And your will is nothing more than another set of variables set by external input. To put it simply, free will is an illusion, a feature or perhaps limitation of the machine that you are, for you are free to do what you want, but what you want is decided by your interfacing with other machines.

Your first urge may be to rebel, to attempt to break free of said universal system - well, good luck to that. The only way to separate yourself from it is to receive no input and provide no output, which is completely impossible. Even death doesn’t let you do that, for the location and position of your rotting corpse is information you provide to any observer, too. So unless you can simply cease to exist in the blink of an eye, you’d better make yourself comfortable in your position as a node in the universal system, because there’s no way out.

(via anticapitalist)

anticapitalist:

All of the candidates are batshit insane:

• Ron Paul - He’s a white supremacist and a dumbass (read this book, it’s so full of shit that you will cry. And he actually wrote it. You can’t blame any ghostwriters for this one)
• Mitt Romney - All his policies suck and he’s a super flip flopper
• Michelle Bachmann - She’s just so insane, I really don’t need to put anything here, but I will anyway. Here are some of her ‘best’ quotes
• Rick Santorum - He just fails at everything
• Newt Gingrich - My “newt gingrich” tag has just a small sample of all the bullshit he has said. (He wants to recreated Jurassic Park, and he thinks Climate Change isn’t real because of his vast experience as an amateur paleontologist)
• John Hunstman - He’s the least insane out of all the GOP, but he’s so behind in the polls that it is hopeless. 
• Rick Perry - Have you seen his ‘Strong’ ad? It’s homophobic bullshit.

It doesn’t matter who wins the GOP nomination. All of these candidates suck.

Have a good second term, Obama (even though you don’t deserve it).

since Extropian was the main runner of this blog.

I (anticapitalist) only contributed occasionally.

Unless anyone wants to take over.

When analyzing the meaning of merp it is best that we start with the definition. Merp, by definition, means to herp a derp. So, logically we seek definitions of herp and derp. Herp and derp have puzzled philosophers for thousands of years. Plato once said:

“All I know is that I derp nothing.”

It’s clear that even Plato could not fully grasp the essence of derp. Since he posed the questions about herp and derp many philosophers following him have attempted to define it. David Hume suggests that:

“Derp is, in every case, advantageous to beauty, and just reasoning to delicate sentiment. In vain would we exalt the herp by depreciating the derp.”

It is clear that the questions surrounding herp, derp, and merp will remain at the forefront of philosophical debate for many more centuries and their meaning may never fully be understood.

My personal favorite response to this comes from Stephen Colbert who says, “If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to hear it, then my illegal logging business succeeds.”

But the bigger question is. Seeing as the sensory input creates the reality, if there is no one receiving the input, then is it really there? 

indridcole asked: To live is to lay impact on the world around you. The smallest act can cause a ripple. To live is to be a catalyst upon the world around you.

Through this definition, wind and matter and everything in the universe is living. As poetic as this sounds, I don’t think it’s entirely true.

What does it mean to be living? 

I can assure you that, Language is the most important thing we’ve ever created. It’s among the most refined forms of communication ever witnessed. It’s what separates us from everything else in this universe and, unfortunately, it’s being taken for granted. People ignore, abuse, and misuse the power of Language constantly. We see our Language evolve, but it never moves forward. There are poor if any efforts being made to make Language more effective. Ideas, Emotions, Intent, and most importantly Experiences are being miscommunicated because our language is failing to update. Misunderstanding is the foundation of 100% of the worlds problems. Language is directly responsible for misunderstanding.

Take the time to define: being wise, being intelligent, being smart, being brilliant, and being knowledgeable. What are the distinctions?

Try it with these: idiocy, stupidity, being unintelligent, and ignorance.