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allisthemoiston The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

Want something incredible to read that will fundamentally alter your conception of power? Look up Foucault's work [0].

[0] https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/newhistoricism/mod...

allisthemoiston The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

This is precisely why many Buddhist scholars have worried about the integration of Buddhist thought into Western culture: the divorce of these concepts from their underlying meaning can render them ineffective, or worse, harmful.

Without an understanding of the foundational concepts of impermanence, nonself, and nirvana (the three jewels), activities like meditation lose much of their transformative power and much of their effects on creativity and mindfulness. This is important as these effects appear to mirror the very aptitudes that "Abundance Philosophy" is attempting to target.

allisthemoiston Canada to introduce legislation to legalize recreational cannabis

In other words, regulated in a way that is very close to how alcohol is currently sold in Ontario.

allisthemoiston The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

Very much agreed.

The very beautiful potential consequence of this kind of teaching is that it will get more and more people onto the path regardless. And once you are on the path you will recognize the suffering inherent in the pursuit of wealth, fame, and power.

allisthemoiston Cisco’s Attempt to Dodge Responsibility for Facilitating Human Rights Abuses

Find me a specific incident perpetrated by GOOG/FB that has directly facilitated human rights abuses. This is not an accusation of a vague misuse of information. This is a direct action by the company that they knew would facilitate torture, etc.

allisthemoiston The Advantage of Abundant Thinking

Called Paths to Power, it emphasizes the importance of neutrality: The world is not fair or unfair. It simply is. The more you can suspend judgment, the more you can learn and grow your power.

Not to be cynical about this approach, but having studied some of these concepts from a Mahayana Buddhist perspective, the idea of utilizing the perspective of Beginner's Mind to "grow your power" is a gross misappropriation and misunderstanding of the entire framework. In fact, within the traditions that originally conceived of these approaches, attachment to power, fame, and/or wealth is seen as the root cause of suffering and mental disenfranchisement and the very conceptualization that is to be let go [0].

Perhaps I need to look into this course a bit more to understand their approach but it seems that this is right in line with what many Buddhist scholars have worried - i.e., that these ancient traditions will be misunderstood and reformed in a way that may have wholly unhealthy effects on those who practice it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths#Second_truth...

allisthemoiston Brane Craft

I mean aren't we all?

allisthemoiston Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?

> “You’re not going to get proof that we’re not in a simulation, because any evidence that we get could be simulated,” Chalmers said.

This is where the argument starts to sound like creationist claims that god put the bones of dinosaurs on Earth just to test our faith.

allisthemoiston Discovery of 1,000-year-old Viking site in Canada could rewrite history

> Plato must have been cognizant of the great size of our globe, and of other continents, because he said in Phaedo that the Mediterranean people occupied 'only a small portion of the earth.'

> That's inspiring. So, before the Vikings, the New World wasn't an impossibility. It was in fact as old as any other point on Earth.

Very well said. If nothing else this also shows the deep origins of the development of the scientific method: propose a theory based on (in this case) extrapolation, then prove it later on with evidence. In many ways, human civilization, and especially human knowledge can be thought of as a manifestation of this simple formula.

The existence of a kind of extrapolation-based forethought prior to the actual process of exploration undertaken by humankind evidenced here would fall neatly into this progression.

allisthemoiston A programming language for living cells

The most intricate April Fools joke this year