acalc:

Last night, I was watching a basketball game I could hardly see, after having scratched my right eye earlier; it was kind of blurry. But, at the same time, there was something interesting happening. I could still follow the action and who was doing what fairly well. The interesting part is that…

A great post. I love your description of sightless basketball.

It seems like I always have to oppose, doesn’t it? But I have to offer this, because so many people are of the same opinion (albeit sometimes true) that we’re missing something by not having in-person conversations, and it’s mostly group think (not that yours is, also). Just like everybody tends to think this or that is “unnatural” without even questioning it or thinking about what that word, natural, means.

So you say we miss out on the quirks of each-other’s movements, the body language. But I’ll say this: I’ve had a number of distance relationships (both friendly and romantic), without the options of always seeing, hearing, smelling, or touching the other person. Even with an Anon, just like you’re experiencing with Basketball, it’s possible to become attuned to the intricacies of even just someone’s writing. Everybody has a way they say things, and things they say… it’s interesting. Ways they take pauses, process thoughts, ideas they have or pictures they share. It becomes a different kind of dance: sometimes with a “persona”, and other times with someone more “real” than that person allows themselves to be in “real life”.

So it’s not necessarily a counter to your point, but it can be intimate — if we allow for that idea, and don’t simply latch on to the internet-is-so-impersonal bandwagon of thought.

Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?
Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich

Environmental problems have contributed to numerous collapses of civilizations in the past. Now, for the first time, a global collapse appears likely. Overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich and poor choices of technologies are major drivers; dramatic cultural change provides the main hope of averting calamity.

via {I fucking love science }.

Please read.

I don’t know about that, Albert. What does that mean? What are we to be? Do stick insects and those birds who make flower art also share our stubbornness, then?

(via universalnomad)

Lenoardo da Vinci (via inthenoosphere)

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OS:

And when Nature does lack, she simple eats the thing doing the lacking. Problem solved.

Love you Leo, but so pre-Darwin.

Karl F. Kuhn, Basic Physics: A Self-Teaching Guide

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That is a simple example of why it’s important to have at least a basic understanding of chemical compositions, if not simply the scientific literacy and common sense to research them when it matters —

For example, prior to using the word “chemicals” as if they’re all equally poisonous, and not the constituents of everything in our reality,

And, prior to touting “Natural” and Organic products without understanding that a “natural” formula may be no better than an artificially-created one,

And, prior to eschewing all types of a compound (for example, sulphates in hair products) without really grasping that [sulphate] compounds are different from one-another, and that if one type is hazardous to your health, it does not mean that all types are. [I actually don’t know whether all sulphate-based additions are or not, but it’s important to research.]

When you’ve realized you’re human, it’s all laughable. Things we do, pants we wear. Then what’s there to do but to try to go beyond that? That’s silly too (transcendence is), but it’s interesting — it’s interesting to try to unwind our stories and our age-old notions of how things are or how they might work and… let nature talk, instead. What else can we be — how can we rearrange our systems, our sets of atoms and body-stuff? We can’t even know. It’s an act of creation. The greatest art work. To know would require knowing the plan of nature, and apparently nature doesn’t have one (despite what we may have liked to think, again, for centuries.) Funny. Good one, really. So, how far can you go, what can you become, how can you experience what’s extra-trans-post-super-uber-outer-sans-human, without dying?

(via wildcat2030)

Hank Pellissier { writes }:

Metaphorically, for me, the “nakedness” of mental transparency is identical to physical nudity. The complex data of our yearning craniums won’t be shrouded any longer, won’t be buried and disguised under fabricated obstacles and artifice.

But, naked isn’t free.

Can I climb mountains, naked? Can I travel to outer space, naked? Can I “be myself”, naked? Definitely not, definitely not, and no, I don’t think so.

Whatever { appendages } we choose to attach to ourselves daily or permanently, whatever artifice we handle and live with and use and surround ourselves with… it’s our costume, our armor, our shelter, our extremities, our transformation into what we are and everything we’re capable of being, would like to be, or are becoming.

I want to be buried, { disguised }, fabricated, obfuscated, clarified, extended through artifice.

(via wildcat2030)

Jürgen Schmidhuber

{ When creative machines overtake man }
March 31, 2012

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Schmidhuber’s { Formal Theory of Creativity }.

I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but can’t wait. It sounds like deep, murky, dangerous waters he’s treading into… full of horrifying art theories and theorists :(

And yet, { I think it’s an excellent pursuit }.