The Landfill of the Heapers' Hangout (contains Fossilmaiden's Punnery)
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decanonization defense
should i?
an urban explorer's old headlamp with a burned-out bulb, but as a catgirl
Givenchy, but as a catgirl
Blast Processing, but as a catgirl
Aldo Leopold, but as a catgirl
the one hundred and seventy eighth time Barack Obama picked up a fork in the White House, but as a catgirl
dead brains can't think very hard about things
or use me as a cadaver to educate some people
at least then i can still be useful to someone
no use crying over my dead body; i'd rather not get stained with environment-harming embalming fluid, get stuffed, and have people attempt to preserve my body for stupid reasons
i mean, it's not like i'd even be there anymore
but it doesn't make that much sense because it's Florida
The endless garden awaiting me!
Red bloometh the rose of conviction!
And Red bloometh the rose of hate!
Yes, Red bloometh the rose of conquest!
Only blood will sate!
And the war it wageth on!
The storm it rageth on!
The bold ever fight on!
Their lives echo in song!
Hah!
All, like snow, they fall,
Petals plucked and strewn,
Yet from their seeds grow this war anew!
Blood trickling down from my fullers!
And blood trickling down from mine hands!
Yes, blood trickling down to Hydaelyn!
Until I alone stand!
And the war still wageth on!
The storm still rageth on!
The bold blindly march on!
Their lives lost in a song!
*leaves a can of yellow paint*
*leaves a can of blue paint
*leaves a can of green paint*
*leaves a can of brown paint*
*leaves a can of purple paint*
*leaves a can of black paint*
*leaves a can of orange paint*
*leaves a can of white paint*
It was probably sometime in the mid-to-late 90′s. Back then, Phillip Greenspun (of Greenspun’s Tenth Law fame) had a website that functioned something like a blog, even though no one had yet figured out blogs. In any case, he had articles. They were linked. People could comment. At one point he made a post, which I cannot find, but I clearly remember. In the post, he talked about a certain weakness he observed in the nerd set (that is, hackers, STEM folks, etc.), namely that we suck at topics where questions tend to have more than one right answer.
Now, I’ve heard nerds talk the other way, to try to turn this weakness to a strength. I’ve often heard dismissive comments about the humanities or “soft” sciences, describing them as, “People who only do good in classes where there is more than one right answer.”
Greenspun, if I recall correctly, considered this backward. Some topics, he would say, are in fact really hard, and simple answers do not present themselves. Rigid thinking is not a virtue.
About the same time that Greenspun was (not quite) “blogging,” Paul Graham had begun to make a splash with his own not-a-blog. Unlike Greenspun, however, he was an unrepentant nerd cheerleader. (And to me it seems unsurprising that one of those men became a Silicon Valley superstar, while the other did not.) To him nerds were the anointed ones, the chosen few, who see through the social bullshit and find hard truth. This is why we win. This is why valley tech ascendant.
I’m not sure if Graham ever talked specifically about the “one right answer” problem, but I think we can guess how he’d come out.
Neither of these men limited their interests to “STEM stuff.” Greenspun, for example, ran a popular photography not-a-blog. Graham, of course, did a lot of amateur sociology, finding grand unifying themes, that always present nerds as just the bestest. When he related to the humanities, it is always to present we nerds as the true continuation of culture. In fact, he wrote a book titled Hackers and Painters, which argued that we digital renegades are living the art. We are the visionaries.
Of course, these men were standing on the shoulders of giants. So far as I can see, much of this begins with Douglas Hofstadter, who was in some ways a pioneer of “insight porn,” although like many pioneers, his work stood above the banality of those who come later. But all the same, there is a “mood,” which I might summarize as using the tools of STEM to address topics from the humanities. So we get formal logic tied to animal behavior tied to music theory tied to cognitive science, all mixed together with deep analogies dynamical feedback systems.
In my case, Hofstadter’s work was the first place I encountered many of the styles of thought I now find routine. He was the first to mention “memes” to me. He was the first to present science based skepticism and a general attitude of anti-woo. Of course, later I read Dawkins and Sagan and so forth, where I saw the genesis of many of these ideas.
But still, there is this thing, for which I do not have a name. It tends to come from people with a solid background in mathematics or physics, who try to apply these tools to sociology, philosophy, the humanities, etc.
Or politics. Or Dating.
So we get Robin Hanson, who seems to think every human interaction falls within his totalizing, economics-based model of status and signaling – where again, the nerds see through the bullshit.
In 1996, Alan Sokal convinced us that the humanities were in complete disarray, that it was all unscientific nonsense, all the way down. Nothing good could be found there. They needed us. Only science could save them.
Years later Eliezer Yudkowsky let us know that the entire edifice of analytic philosophy is garbage, and we need him..
To live on my own just seems tragic
But we'll raise our swords high when our day comes
You thought it was gold but it was bronze
So..
Get here in time when our day comes
You thought it was gold but, it was bronze
Get here in time when our day comes
You thought it was gold but it was bronze
So I guess it's goodbye now it's over
Nothing much changed we're just older
But if I see you again back in detox
Put my remains in my snuff box
So...
Get here in time when our day comes
You thought it was gold but, it was bronze
Get here in time when our day comes
You thought it was gold but, it was bronze
Well it's not long now till it's over
Nothing much changed we're just older
But if I see you again back in detox
Put my remains in my snuff box!
So
Get here in time when our day comes,
You thought it was gold but, it was bronze
You thought it was gold but, it was bronze
like, the ones that are technically correct but are totally irrelevant to the point of the conversation, but you really want to say them because you felt it was funny at the time, because disrupting the flow of that conversation seemed like a comedic thing at the time
even if you didn't do it because you knew everyone would just glower at you after you said something like that
n
Warning: Bongs. (marijuana consumption devices
Warning: Tongs. (food-serving utensil)
Warning: Kongs. (fictional mascot primates)
Warning: Longs. (32-bit integers)
Warning: Pongs. (game cartridges)
Warning: Songs. (pieces of music)
Warning: Congs. (Communist Vietnamese fighters)
Warning: Gongs. (musical instruments)
I CAN COME UP WITH ALL THESE WITHOUT MAKING THE OBVIOUS JOKE OF THE FACT THAT IT SOUNDS LIKE A CHINESE WORD, AND I EXPECT YOU TO DO JUST AS WELL, GOT IT???
MAGGOTS!!!
fortunately i sdom't feel ljje eayching the debate bc i'm not hoing to a fin watch party abyway
"Hurt me more!"
"Make me feel alive again!"