pzmyers 🦑 @pzmyers@octodon.social
Biologist at the University of Minnesota Morris. Atheist and loud about it. Feminist, the noisy kind. Antifa. Etc.
PhD Researcher the Bartlett school of Architecture, UCL, London, UK
Former Community Manager of #Diaspora. Editor of #WeDistribute. I write about alternate dimensions and decentralization. Computer-obsessed queer man-boy.
1.
After the times of hostility https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-everyone-on-the-internet-so-angry/, information overload https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overload, echo chambers, trolls and sarcasm, memes and ironical irony, will come an era where people will start to assemble online for the sheer pleasure of forming clans made up of imperfect, unique and interdependent friends. Those clans will be small, or huge (200 persons appears to be the limit for our species). Those clans will evolve, collide, split in some places, but the very idea of an homo gestalt https://www.avclub.com/more-than-human-by-theodore-sturgeon-1953-1798216618 will be integrated into the way of living online -- and ultimately in real life (offline, you know).

Cover of More Than Human (1953), by Theodore Sturgeon
Apart, they’re freaks. Working together, they form an organism spread across multiple bodies, essentially a new species called homo gestalt.
2.
Don't say you (fucking ) love science if you're not prepared to consider the data from the field of parapsychology. You can be forgiven for thinking that there has been no convincing evidence for the last 100 years, because that's what you're fed by the good media and 101 courses on critical thinking. But once you'll see that even prominent skeptics have admitted that the data (or at least data from some fields of research) is solid, but still claim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" -- thus moving the goal post -- you'll have to decide.
Are you a scientist, or pro-science? If you are, you should reject this pseudoscientific argument. It does not belong in science.
Do you go with it? If you do, you're with "well-established" science just because it's trendy.
Or because you don't want to ruin your reputation (I do understand that).
3.
If only everybody knew that...
Several simple truths could change the world. Dissolve illusions. Make entire intellectual edifices crumble.
If you get close to those people who specialize in any of those truths, you might discover that they are unable or unwilling to actually take the steps to make these truths known.
Many are conspiracy-oriented (this does not mean that they are wrong about their world-changing truths). They prefer to focus on enemies, real or imagined, rather than accept that conformism, this socially-transmitted disease, is endemic. They do not want to make the effort to convince normal people, preferring to think that normal people are unwilling agents of their powerful enemies. Convincing people is hard. Facing the demon of conformism, the total vacuousness of the arguments contra, the "well, that's just your opinion, man" requires tremendous courage. It's easier to think that elites rule everything (I'm not saying that elites do not exist, I'm saying that they are not that omnipotent).
This being said, the funny thing is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for conformists around the world to sing the same tune.
My name is pronounced "perik"
After the times of hostility https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-everyone-on-the-internet-so-angry/, information overload https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overload, echo chambers, trolls and sarcasm, memes and ironical irony, will come an era where people will start to assemble online for the sheer pleasure of forming clans made up of imperfect, unique and interdependent friends. Those clans will be small, or huge (200 persons appears to be the limit for our species). Those clans will evolve, collide, split in some places, but the very idea of an homo gestalt https://www.avclub.com/more-than-human-by-theodore-sturgeon-1953-1798216618 will be integrated into the way of living online -- and ultimately in real life (offline, you know).

Cover of More Than Human (1953), by Theodore Sturgeon
Apart, they’re freaks. Working together, they form an organism spread across multiple bodies, essentially a new species called homo gestalt.
2.
Don't say you (fucking ) love science if you're not prepared to consider the data from the field of parapsychology. You can be forgiven for thinking that there has been no convincing evidence for the last 100 years, because that's what you're fed by the good media and 101 courses on critical thinking. But once you'll see that even prominent skeptics have admitted that the data (or at least data from some fields of research) is solid, but still claim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" -- thus moving the goal post -- you'll have to decide.
Are you a scientist, or pro-science? If you are, you should reject this pseudoscientific argument. It does not belong in science.
Do you go with it? If you do, you're with "well-established" science just because it's trendy.
Or because you don't want to ruin your reputation (I do understand that).
3.
If only everybody knew that...
Several simple truths could change the world. Dissolve illusions. Make entire intellectual edifices crumble.
If you get close to those people who specialize in any of those truths, you might discover that they are unable or unwilling to actually take the steps to make these truths known.
Many are conspiracy-oriented (this does not mean that they are wrong about their world-changing truths). They prefer to focus on enemies, real or imagined, rather than accept that conformism, this socially-transmitted disease, is endemic. They do not want to make the effort to convince normal people, preferring to think that normal people are unwilling agents of their powerful enemies. Convincing people is hard. Facing the demon of conformism, the total vacuousness of the arguments contra, the "well, that's just your opinion, man" requires tremendous courage. It's easier to think that elites rule everything (I'm not saying that elites do not exist, I'm saying that they are not that omnipotent).
This being said, the funny thing is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for conformists around the world to sing the same tune.
My name is pronounced "perik"
One part dreamer, one part idealist, and three parts curmudgeon.
Designer/Programmer of Glittermitten Grove and Something Unannounced.
Official Cloudy Cuckoo Cosmos Mastodon. Archives character messages from CCC social media. Non-canon. Creator @DuthOlec #CloudyCuckooCosmos
