“Why does the third of the three brothers, who shares his food with the old woman in the wood, go on to become king of the country? Why does James Bond manage to disarm the nuclear bomb a few seconds before it goes off rather than, as it were, a few seconds afterwards? Because a universe where that did not happen would be a dark and hostile place. Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain.”
— Terry Pratchett, “Let There Be Dragons” (A Slip of the Keyboard)
Controversial Truths About Ancient Egypt Masterpost
The pyramids were built by contemporary workers who received wages and were fed and taken care of during construction
The Dendera “lightbulb” is a representation of the creation myth and has nothing to do with electricity
We didn’t find “““copper wiring””” in the great pyramid either
Hatshepsut wasn’t transgender
The gods didn’t actually have animal heads
Hieroglyphs aren’t mysteriously magical; they’re just a language (seriously we have shopping lists and work rosters and even ancient erotica)
The ancient Egyptian ethnicity wasn’t homogeneous
Noses (and ears, and arms) broke off statues and reliefs for a variety of reasons, none of which are “there is a widespread archaeological conspiracy to hide the Egyptian ethnicity”
Humans can make fresh brain cells until they are well into their 90s, but the production of new neurons falls in those with Alzheimer’s, even when the disease has recently taken hold, scientists have found.
The findings may help doctors to diagnose Alzheimer’s at an earlier stage, and identify those most at risk who may benefit from exercise and other interventions that could boost the production of new brain cells.
Me, wearing a blanket as a cloak, stirring my mac'n'cheese in a dimly lit room: potion
I really like what this physicist, Lamar Glover, has to say in Behind the Curve.
+ this part from Spiros Michalakis:
my favorite piece of modern art is Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds, over one hundred million hand-painted ceramic sunflower seeds made by dozens of craftsmen
“The only way to handle danger is to face it. If you start getting frightened of it then you make it worse because you project onto it all kinds of bogies and threats which don’t exist in it at all.
Whenever you meet a ghost, don’t run away. Because the ghost will capture the substance of your fear and materialise itself out of your own substance. It will kill you eventually because it will take over all your own vitality.
So, then, whenever confronted with a ghost walk straight into it. And it will disappear.”
— Alan Watts
“[Keanu] Reeves said a recent conversation about “The Matrix” with a 15-year-old put things into a terrifying perspective. The actor explained to the teenager that his character, Neo, is fighting for what’s real. The teenager scoffed and said, “Who cares if it’s real?” “People are growing up with these tools: We’re listening to music already that’s made by AI in the style of Nirvana, there’s NFT digital art,” Reeves said. “It’s cool, like, Look what the cute machines can make! But there’s a corporatocracy behind it that’s looking to control those things. Culturally, socially, we’re gonna be confronted by the value of real, or the non-value. And then what’s going to be pushed on us? What’s going to be presented to us?” “It’s this sensorium. It’s spectacle. And it’s a system of control and manipulation,” Reeves continued. “We’re on our knees looking at cave walls and seeing the projections, and we’re not having the chance to look behind us.””
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They did that thing on TikTok again, except this one guy did the arrangement
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