Random Thread

[malloc]

So malloc is indeed Eddy - but I can't remember him posting about his conworld, about the Terps, their biotheremins and all that. I doubt that his conworld (which wasn't really good, but IMHO did not break any rules) was one of the topics he should refrain from.

It has been a long time since I worked on my conworld unfortunately. Quite honestly I have come to agree with people like you that it wasn't very good and decided to take a break and hopefully start fresh at some point. Looking back, the whole setting strikes me as rather half-baked and eclectic, full of interesting but underdeveloped ideas but also all kinds of silly and improbable stuff left over from earlier iterations. For instance the name "Terra Pulchra" for the main culture originated from an early and brief interest in Latin but stuck round long after I had moved onto other inspirations. Unfortunately the past decade has left me increasingly disillusioned with humanity and the world and I really struggle to imagine a positive future setting these days.

[keenir]

. Unfortunately the past decade has left me increasingly disillusioned with humanity and the world and I really struggle to imagine a positive future setting these days.

isn't that a reason to create your own conworld, so you aren't limited by Earth?

and-or, just use something other than humans.

[Qwynegold]

Unrelated: Has there ever been a known human culture in which there was a tradition that a monarch, high priest, or high official, would, every morning before dawn, ritually order the Sun to rise?

I think Terry Pratchett wrote something like this. But it's a while since I read it, so I could be misremembering.

[WeepingElf]

So malloc is indeed Eddy - but I can't remember him posting about his conworld, about the Terps, their biotheremins and all that. I doubt that his conworld (which wasn't really good, but IMHO did not break any rules) was one of the topics he should refrain from.

It has been a long time since I worked on my conworld unfortunately. Quite honestly I have come to agree with people like you that it wasn't very good and decided to take a break and hopefully start fresh at some point. Looking back, the whole setting strikes me as rather half-baked and eclectic, full of interesting but underdeveloped ideas but also all kinds of silly and improbable stuff left over from earlier iterations. For instance the name "Terra Pulchra" for the main culture originated from an early and brief interest in Latin but stuck round long after I had moved onto other inspirations. Unfortunately the past decade has left me increasingly disillusioned with humanity and the world and I really struggle to imagine a positive future setting these days.

I understand that it is not easy to come up with a hopeful future history in these days of multiple crisis. But we are probably just in one of the periods when the wheel of progress is in reverse, like the 1930s, and better times will come. Because overall history is a story of progress, though with interruptions, not of impending doom. And it helps finding hope and confidence to work on a hopeful future history. When you are doing research for a hopeful yet realistic future history, you will find plenty of ideas how the current crisis can be overcome, and read or hear of many people who are trying to implement these ideas and make the world a better place. I have had times when I felt much like you (though not really as badly as you apparently do), but seeing how much can be done about the current situation strengthened my confidence that it can be overcome. (Also, the genre of hopeful near-future fiction has a name: it is called solarpunk, and it is a good way of showing people what kind of solutions exist. Become a part of the solution by writing solarpunk stories!)

[WeepingElf]

Unrelated: Has there ever been a known human culture in which there was a tradition that a monarch, high priest, or high official, would, every morning before dawn, ritually order the Sun to rise?

I've been wondering about this ever since, as a teenager, I first heard that Hemingway once wrote a novel called The Sun Also Rises. I thought, then, that this would make a good title for a story that starts with this scenario, and then the king is overthrown in a revolution, and the people, after much initial anxiety, are comforted to see that the Sun still rises afterwards.

AFAIK the Aztecs believed that human sacrifices were necessary to persuade the Sun to rise.

[Man in Space]

The hip of Theseus: If you get a total hip replacement, is the replacement nonetheless your hip? What about that which was replaced?

[keenir]

The hip of Theseus: If you get a total hip replacement, is the replacement nonetheless your hip? What about that which was replaced?

both are your hips.

[Raphael]

But do hips lie?

[hwhatting]

I've seen some sex educators argue that there should be more emphasis on how to have enjoyable sex in sex education classes in school.

This sentence reads very differently depending on where "in school" attaches to.

Obligatory reference.

[Starbeam]

I feel like we should have "best quotes of the year", from pages of the zbb quote thread

[Raphael]

I feel like we should have "best quotes of the year", from pages of the zbb quote thread

Interesting idea. How would we go about that? I worry that voting on it and counting the votes might lead to people getting into pointless arguments.

[Raphael]

On a silly whim, I decided to try my hands at translating Erich Kästner's classic poem Die Entwicklung des Menschen ("The evolution of humans") into English. I tried to be as literal as possible, without caring about rhyme or meter, so I turned a rhyming poem Into something more like blank verse. Any remaining rhymes are purely coincidental.

IIRC, the entirety of the original German poem was used as the epigraph of my high school introductory evolutionary biology textbook.

Content warning: brief mention of sexualized violence, and aside from that, two fairly yukky lines.

The evolution of humans

Erich Kästner

Once the guys sat on the trees
Hairy and with evil faces
Then they were lured from the jungle
And the world was paved and built up
Up to the 30th floor

There they sat now, escaped from the flees
In centrally heated rooms
There the sit now on the telephone
And still ruled by the same tone
As once back on the trees

The hear far. They watch wide
They are in contact with outer space
They brush their teeth. They breathe in modern ways
Earth is an educated star
With many flushing toilets

They shoot messages through a tube
They hunt and breed microbes
They equip nature with all types of comfort
They fly straight into the sky
And stay up for two weeks

That which their digestion leaves behind
They process into cotton
They split atoms. They cure incest
And they determine by means of style examinations
That Caesar had flat feet

So they have, with their head and their mouth
Created the progress of humankind
But aside from that and
Seen in proper light they are basically
Still the ancient apes

[Starbeam]

I feel like we should have "best quotes of the year", from pages of the zbb quote thread

Interesting idea. How would we go about that? I worry that voting on it and counting the votes might lead to people getting into pointless arguments.

Just doing a poll would be good enough. People would suggest options and anything that reaches over a threshhold gets collected into a post at the end of the year

[Raphael]

I feel like we should have "best quotes of the year", from pages of the zbb quote thread

Interesting idea. How would we go about that? I worry that voting on it and counting the votes might lead to people getting into pointless arguments.

Just doing a poll would be good enough. People would suggest options and anything that reaches over a threshhold gets collected into a post at the end of the year

Sounds good to me.

[Man in Space]

Interesting idea. How would we go about that? I worry that voting on it and counting the votes might lead to people getting into pointless arguments.

Just doing a poll would be good enough. People would suggest options and anything that reaches over a threshhold gets collected into a post at the end of the year

Sounds good to me.

I’m getting flashbacks to when Wikipedia had its BJAODN (“Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense”) area. Eventually it was removed (I think part of it was because it did, on some level, drive vandalism) but I know there used to be multiple mirrors if it. I seem to recall at least some of them had many images missing. I’ll go check.

EDIT: Hey, I think I found the primary one.

I think that’s too formal a process for board purposes. It only really makes sense to me if it’s being collected to be showcased to an outside audience.

[Starbeam]

I think that’s too formal a process for board purposes. It only really makes sense to me if it’s being collected to be showcased to an outside audience.

You don't have to spring for it, but i mainly suggested that process because it's something a lazy person like myself could run.

[alice]

For some reason the word "iatrochemist" kept floating around inside my head yesterday.

[Raphael]

For some reason the word "iatrochemist" kept floating around inside my head yesterday.

Does it appear a lot in that book you told us you've been reading?

[malloc]

I understand that it is not easy to come up with a hopeful future history in these days of multiple crisis. But we are probably just in one of the periods when the wheel of progress is in reverse, like the 1930s, and better times will come. Because overall history is a story of progress, though with interruptions, not of impending doom. And it helps finding hope and confidence to work on a hopeful future history. When you are doing research for a hopeful yet realistic future history, you will find plenty of ideas how the current crisis can be overcome, and read or hear of many people who are trying to implement these ideas and make the world a better place. I have had times when I felt much like you (though not really as badly as you apparently do), but seeing how much can be done about the current situation strengthened my confidence that it can be overcome. (Also, the genre of hopeful near-future fiction has a name: it is called solarpunk, and it is a good way of showing people what kind of solutions exist. Become a part of the solution by writing solarpunk stories!)

Maybe so, but the intense enthusiasm for right wing populism over the past decade has really tarnished my impression of humanity quite honestly. Part of me worries that humans as a species are simply too stupid and evil for progress to continue.

[keenir]

(Also, the genre of hopeful near-future fiction has a name: it is called solarpunk, and it is a good way of showing people what kind of solutions exist. Become a part of the solution by writing solarpunk stories!)

Maybe so, but the intense enthusiasm for right wing populism over the past decade has really tarnished my impression of humanity quite honestly. Part of me worries that humans as a species are simply too stupid and evil for progress to continue.

have you worked out how humans survived long enough to attain right wing populism?

if it causes you physical pain to contemplate a better world, Malloc, please let us know - that is a genuine medical condition.