Best Of
Re: Radicalism
@RobinH said:
I often hear that pornography is harmful or can be potentially harmful because it can shape the way you see healthy sexual relations in your own life. I think the algorythm does something similar to how we perceive healthy political relations and discussions.
I’d pick out two golden periods of political thought, one which led to the US constitution, which was a time of discourse in letters and papers between learned men, and the second the time after the Second World War, when the United Nations was formed.
There has been a long slide in learned discourse between then and now. Most people who hold forth on political opinions do not have a historical perspective, and have had their heads in the internet bubble chamber for the past ten years.
I saw an interview with the maker of the film Idiocracy not long ago, and he was saying the film was proving to be remarkably prophetic. It’s about an ordinary man who travels into the future, and discovers that most humans have become stupid, and that he is now hailed as a genius who is put forward to rule the country.
Jeroen
Re: Radicalism
The algorythm is a crazy propaganda tool. It also seems so chaotic...
In the sense of, it does not care which rabbit hole you fall through. It just loosens up the selection and tricks you into more and more of these clever punchlines, highly articulated verbosity or just horror shock with intense facts.
I try to feed it good music.
Kotishka
Re: Space - the final frontier
I have been very enthusiastically following the news about the new ground-based Vera Rubin Telescope in Chile. From what I can tell, it has excited astronomers worldwide on par with the launch of Hubble or James Webb.
It has a mirror of 8.4 meters, which is like the largest ground-based telescopes, so nothing special. But it has a HUGE field of view, something like 500-1000x the field of view of other ground-based telescopes. So the idea is to image the whole sky visible from Chile every 3 days, by making many short exposures of 30 seconds, and to keep surveying the whole sky like that for 10 years.
The effect will be that everything that changes will be detected like never before: asteroids, interstellar objects (that we have only begun to detect), supernovae, novae, variable stars... It will also make the largest catalogue of galaxies and stars to date (10 billion of each).
I was already geeking out, but then I found out that the Director of Construction, and once the telescope is operational the Director of Science, is Željko Ivezić, a Croatian who went.. to my high-school! He's really great in terms of getting people excited but staying scientific and at explaining the science behind it in simple terms but without dumbing it down too much.
To be clear: Since it will be making many very short exposures, we should not expect "beautiful pictures", like eg. Hubble or Keck. However, after 10 years, since the images can be "stacked", it will be possible to have both "beautiful pictures" (stacked images of the region over 10 years) AND a "movie" of the whole sky (a time-series of a region of sky or the whole sky).
A few photos have already been unveiled and the actual survey should start in a few months.
First photos unveiling text:
https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-first-pictures-from-vera-rubin-are-here
First photos unveiling press-conference:
marcitko
Re: Should a Buddhist own a gun ?
@Jeroen said:
If you want to be competent in self defence, why not go and learn martial arts?
I would argue that martial arts isn't going to be much help for a middle aged man trying to defend his family in a home break in against several young men. Or a woman for that matter. To be able to successfully defend yourself or others against several people you'd have to be incredibly good at martial arts.
@Kotishka said:
[Source: Vinland Saga. Dialogue between Thors, a former warrior, and his son]Thors: Do you want a sword Thorfinn? A sword is a tool to kill. Why do you need it? Whose life do you intend to take?
Thorfinn: Enemies...
Thors: Your enemies? Who are they?
Thors: Well, bad guys like Hafden..
Thors: Listen to me, my son: you don't have enemies. The truth is that nobody has them. Nobody in this entire world deserves to get hurt."
I don't want to try to say that owning a gun is justified as a Buddhist. I just feel like people are generally uncomfortable with guns and imagine that when people have one they go into some sort of Rambo fantasy or blood lust.
Buddhism doesn't justify media consumption, meat eating, driving through insects and a bunch of other things many Buddhist do all the time.
A while ago during a large family gathering my cousin who has been a hunter his whole life was showing people a modern musket loading gun he had. While he was doing it I felt totally comfortable. Later a cousin in law, who hadn't grown up with guns and I'm guessing got one to try to fit in with his married into family, did some target shooting with a handgun. While he was doing it I felt nervous. People who've owned guns their whole lives, know guns, how to use them safely and properly don't think about them like someone who has no familiarity.
I had a bad accident with a knife when I was younger. For a good time after knives, or just the thought of knives gave me anxiety and I'd imagine violent scenarios. Over time with use and Buddhist and psychological techniques I was able to overcome my inner defilements around knives. A Buddhist gun owner ought to be able to control their impulses better than the average human being.
person
Re: Radicalism
@RobinH Happened across this lecture and found it incredibly informative about the state of the political world today. The speaker knows his stuff and is very engaging to listen to.
person
Sweaty zazen?
I have noticed a pattern where I will go back into no zazen at all periods and then return. They are now shorter gaps in between these shikantaza cycles. However, the beginning is always so demanding. It seems I have been going way too fast. It is like I'm slowing down and leaving traffic through a specific path designed for this case scenario. All thought about. No worries, just sit down!
The beginning: the back ache, noticing the left shoulder rising -as if contracted, with a muscleknot or something- and a sensation of inner heat. Quensland, harsh summer heat sweat...
Hope you are all having a great practice and life. It is incredible how much tension we can build up sometimes... and how much is avoidable. Some not so much.
Kotishka
Re: Radicalism
You can derail it as you wish, it was more of a rant, really. I often hear that pornography is harmful or can be potentially harmful because it can shape the way you see healthy sexual relations in your own life. I think the algorythm does something similar to how we perceive healthy political relations and discussions. We see a lot of bad faith stuff, how people try to win debates instead of learning to find common ground, how the opponents are characterized as evil or inhuman even and that must be contributing a lot to why a lot of people feel like things are inevitably shifting towards a civil war in the US for example. It's not the ability to debate with each other that we've lost, it's just that a good will approach to people with different political beliefs now takes more effort.
RobinH
Re: Should a Buddhist own a gun ?
The question, "Should Buddhists own Guns?"
The question should rather be,"What attitude or mind set should Buddhists who own weapons have regarding their ownership and use of said weapons?"
Lionduck
Re: Drugs
Thus have I heard:
Ram Dass once gave Neem Karoli Baba AKA Maharaj-ji,a handful of LSD tablets, about 300 to 900 micrograms in total, a very strong dose. According to Ram Dass, Maharaj-ji swallowed them without hesitation, showed no sign of being affected, and simply carried on as usual, smiling and teaching.
That story became famous in counterculture circles because it seemed to suggest that someone deeply established in meditation and inner discipline could remain unaffected by a substance that profoundly alters most people’s consciousness.
For some lay people, a single psychedelic experience is so powerful and transformative that it shakes their entire worldview. For others, the urge arises to take more and more in an attempt to prolong the experience, while some find the intensity overwhelming and end up in psychiatric care.
Shoshin1
Drugs
On Social media and the cyberverse in general, you may hear of short cuts using psychedilics or other drugs.
They will not compare to real time and pratice
Came across this on social media from an experienced practitioner:
A very close friend of ours is going through an incredibly harrowing experience after some specific types of spiritual dabbling and attempting to shortcut discipline and effort with drugs to find some of the answers she was looking for. Yesterday she was admitted to a psych hospital, and we're coming to terms with the fact that while we hope she comes back to us, and we are remaining optimistic, she may not. She's experienced, essentially, a psychotic break, being tormented by voices constantly, for the last few months. No one knew - it took a huge and unfortunately timed breakdown for her to come out to anyone with what she's been going through.
Whether the voices are the result of purely biological, neurological changes due to excessive psychedlic use, or they're (as she believes) entities that have become attached to her, materially it doesn't matter. This is ultimately why I vehemently argue for discipline and thoughtfulness -and caution- in spiritual practice. This includes the use of psychoactive substances - particularly psychedelics. Regardless, it sounds like she was experiencing some severe mental health effects from the way she was conducting spiritual practice before she began effectively self-medicating and looking for spiritual guidance in drugs, which is one reason why we're concerned this may go deeper than temporary drug-induced psychosis.
JUST SO YOU KNOW
lobster