Owledge

referring to this: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=4991235 (Is Hollywood Whitewashing Ethnic Roles?) So main movie actors are cast of an ethnicity that deviates from the original material. Why? The explanation is always that the producers don't want to fail and they 'know' that the audience won't accept ethnicities for the protagonist. This is at least a very convenient way of being afraid and blaming someone else, and maybe even outright racism. Because, by behaving like that, the producers are perpetuating those beliefs in the movies and thus influencing the audience in that way. This reminded me of an experience I had a while ago which is just as messed up: At a McDonald's restaurant I realized they had the especially hot "Western Sauce", sold under-the-counter. I wondered why it's not on the menu, whether it's because it's too hot, although that would still be weird, but I noticed that hot sauces openly advertised in Germany are everything but hot. The manager was complaining about how the sauce tends to spoil, because they don't sell a lot of it, and thus they don't order it often. I pointed out that of course they won't sell much of it if it's not listed on the menu as the other sauces are. He then said they used to have it on there a long time ago, but it didn't sell well, so they removed it. I could hardly graps the madness of that line of thought. I said, maybe people's taste has changed the last years, and if it's not on the menu, people won't know that it is sold, and he replied: 'Oh, people know we have the sauce!' In my view this shows how much modern society is in the grip of madness without realizing it, and those self-fulfilling belief systems are preventing social evolution all over the place.

Little bit of a rant, but why not... That ET-fearmongering gets old. (with the ETs being super-powerful and super-stupid) And it might not be advisable as mass entertainment in a time where ET influences on human civilization are relatively well researched. Making movie scripts like Independence Day or 2012 is, in my view, a sign of low creativity. It's damn easy to imagine evil aliens from space or this or that natural catastrophe hitting. I think, considering the development of human society, Hollywood doesn't catch up. Probably because it's easier and cheaper to do the same old stuff again and again, and that way they breed a generation of viewers that don't know anything else and shape an evolving society with old ideas. Art is supposed to inspire society, to introduce new ideas. When movies merely enforce old stuff that has no place in a future society, it's not art, it's propaganda. I think this partly stems from storywriting being a craft that is taught, thus many movie-makers are mostly just using established tools. ... All the while someone who is very creative and never learned anything about writing can come up with an awesome, innovative script, fueled by an innate sense of what feels entertaining and enriching. Funny is this: Those story tools called tropes, they begin to become old and worn. People recognize them and know what will happen. Then, trope-breaking becomes the new discipline. This plays with people's expectations. After a while, people got used to tropes being broken. Now there has to be a hint of a trope-breaking that is then averted in order to surprise people. Wouldn't it be easier to forget about all that stuff in the first place? I mean, it's almost an arms-race mentality, or antibiotics scenario. If writers didn't use tropes, there wouldn't be common expectations based on them. But I guess that's the writers' personal 'order inclination / fear of chaos' manifesting.

Anybody got an opinion on the holocaust?

Nothing but heads and tails. ... Snakes are coins.

Hmmmm... apparently you are not as enlightened as I am , because for me the answer is there instantly and clearly with the question: If the donut didn't have a hole, it wouldn't be a donut. It is part of the donut's identity, and because there were no round handy cakes with a hole in the middle, it was only a matter of time before they appeared. A shaman told me that on the path of the shaman, you don't ask "why" anymore. I guess because the answer is always "why not?". Oh please tell me. Because as far as I was shown, there is no objective meaning. Fundamentally, it's all utterly pointless, and that reality can drive the mind crazy. Life celebrates its own existence, and it exists because it can, and because when you start with utter nothingness, it's merely a matter of no-time before you have everything. You know ... statistical probability. This is the mind deceiving itself. You can wear white before memorial day if you want to. P.S.: If you realize the infinity of space and time, and that both is an illusion, it means that in that whole continuum, everything that anybody could possibly imagine ... exists. I mean EVERYTHING. YOU. COULD. IMAGINE. ... Now imagine the experience of seeing all that. Now imagine that experience of imagining being a part of all that you can imagine. And that being a part of that, too. Now follow that line of thought until your head explodes. Seriously... I just remembered the part of one of my ayahuasca experiences where I was in that state where everything I imagined was instantly realized and I began to feel the pointlessness in it ... the lack of challenge. It was like a wise and patient teacher was watching me playing with everythingness, with the process of creative manifestation through consciousness, saying "You play around with that until you get bored.", and when I got impatient/bored, "BOO! - there is nothing else!". I think I even remember what music played during that part. It was from an ayahuasca experience I had at a later time. Of course, considering how fucked up all this is, I could be mistaken.

Better not fall into the folly of doing comparisons like that. Many psychedelics have the same tryptamine root. Differences will be due to secondary effect on the psyche (like soothing or mind-clarity), the outer setting (environment, shaman's influence, spirit of the plant) and probably the most influential is the inner state. The spectrum of experiences is so huge that the degree of overlap will be tremendous. The things you described about iboga(ine) can also be experienced with DMT. It depends a lot on the personality, the whole situation. This is emphasized by the fact that some people have profound experiences the first time while others are taking it regularly and don't, or that sometimes the amount consumed has very little influence on the depth of the experience. The inner state is so profoundly relevant to the experience that the 'mind' can even instantly and completely end a DMT trip like someone flipped a switch. (not really voluntarily though) Thus, much of the said differences might originate from people's belief in them. It's explainable psychologically. The mind is an analysis (separation) tool. Take two substances with a huge spectrum of experiences and sooner or later people will shape a difference. I've recently gotten a few iboga documentaries, but didn't watch them yet. I like that it is easier to handle, e.g. not needing a MAO inhibitor. Again... the inner process, from a biochemical view, is very similar with all psychedelics. You open up third eye, crown, higher chakras, that kind of stuff. I also suspect that people claim that DMT is so different from other psychedelics in how real it is perceived because DMT is produced by the body, so it is fully familiar and innately associated with the creation of our perceived reality. Some people even claim to have had 'out there' experiences with heavy use of cannabis. Take this metaphor: You can fasten a screw by hand, with a screwdriver or a power drill. Same result, same path, but different process. Deeply rooted fears, misconceptions, beliefs are blocks to the process of removing them and enabling spiritual progress, if you will. From my experiences, expectations and attitudes are no problem at all, because ayahuasca will just dump all those into the trashcan. Ayahuasca will very likely show you what you don't expect, and that's part of why it's so effective. During my 'ayahuasca time', I had one trip where I re-encountered a familiar point from an earlier trip, and I backed off again, and with that experience, I tried to prepare myself for next time, so that I could strengthen the intent to break through this time. Well, guess what, ayahuasca waited and waited and waited until I lost concentrtion due to boredom and then eventually I again got surprised with the same old stuff as before.

Ask someone who is versed in dream analysis what continuously repeating death experiences in dreams mean. By the way, if the dreams are really lucid, that would mean that death can't scare you that much, right? Maybe you should try ayahuasca or something like that; Maybe life is telling you to become a shaman.

A pattern that consistent should be a very good clue for dream analysis, figuring out what it's trying to tell you.

Purging your mind of all deep fears. There are various techniques for doing that. Using psychedelics can temporarily create a huge leap on that path, but then all that stands in the way of making that state more stable will come to the surface, and then you can try to transcend that stuff. It is a process of conditioning the mind to be able to handle higher truths. Internal alchemy and meditation is a softer way, because it is the mind itself, without external support, that approaches those states.

I've dreamt a lot lately, and it was so much stuff with no clear meaning. I can recognize a lot how stuff from waking life is recycled and put together for my dreams. Many things that might be special symbolisms turn out to be inspired by recent experiences and thoughts. Thus, at least for me personally, I tend to pay more attention to my behavior in dreams - how I deal with what's going on and what the dream's plot might tell me. You know, like a kind of mix of behavioral analysis and testing/training grounds.

Hi Jason! (I think we briefly met or at least I saw you at DGS in 2nd half of 2011.) To me, spiritually, the fear of death is connected to a feeling of unfulfillment. Old people that have lived a fulfilled life can face death in a relaxed state, so the fear of death is probably amplified by the idea that we put so much effort into this life and that should not go to waste. But if you believe in life-surpassing karma, then no effort is wasted. In this life, you are working on your soul for the benefit of future lives. Apparently, fear of death is also fueled by the mind's urge for self-preservation. That is a kinda unfounded fear of obliteration. Maybe this little mind experiment can help: You are you, in this life, and you don't want to die. But now imagine that in your past life you were someone else, and that being didn't want to die either. But that being had to die in order to present you with your current life. Now you fear death. But who knows how your next life might be? Do you feel the obstacles in this life are too great? Then they'll probably be easier to overcome in the next life, and that one can only happen after this one ends. The whole illusion that creates existential fears has to do with forgetting. You are afraid of death because you don't remember your past lives. In your last life, you might have been a person who was absolutely horrified of the thought of dying and who did die in extreme fear and worry. And now you're here and you don't remember any of it. Isn't it hilarious?

I've just learned in a documentary (and I assume it's true) that part of the agreements about the SETI project is that if definitive signals of intelligent ET origin are found, first it is to be kept secret and the US government is to be informed, and they then decide what to do with the information. This was even explained with the worries that this might tumble governments and religions if becoming known to the worldwide public. What a joke. So people giving their personal computer power to SETI get nothing really in return, because even if it led to success, it's extremely likely that they'd not hear about it. I think considering all evidence so far, it's pretty certain that projects like SETI are futile anyway, because they're looking far out there for something that they can find right in front of their nose.

OK, this is for people who have played Half-Life 2. Do you remember the design of structures built by the antagonist Combine forces? The dark metallic material with that very distinct look? The artless, practical, often towering shapes? The force fields? The game was released in 2004. The seed vault was built in 2006-2008. Take a look and tell me whether you get a creepy feeling. ;D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault_main_entrance_1.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault)

"The seed vault is an attempt to provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large-scale regional or global crises." Or of fear. No hope without a problem mindset. It's an insurance measure for asset protection. Because ... you know ... loss of crop diversity will kill us all. Well, nevertheless ... why not. Relatively well spent money compared so some other stuff. BTW there's also a vault for human and animal genomes. And that one is allegedly initiated by a London museum.

Same night/day I had a dream that ended with me going to sleep in the dream and then a woman idly staring at me, like looking through me, and she made very weird eye movements, and then my vision unfocused (interesting that this can happen in a dream) and her eyes became one and a deep, eerie chanting voice began, and when I tried to focus, her eyes drifted apart again, and then with a slight flockering my whole vision turned grey and I heard myself make panicked noise and struggled to wake up into waking perception. After that, my crown/third eye region felt like during an ayahuasca trip. I didn't have a nightmare for many years, but this felt like one. Whatever initiated this - probably not a good idea to try and break through barriers like that during sleep.

IMMORAL -> IMMORTAL :lol:

If you equal sex with love, then yes.

I think that one was inspired by Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

"When in Athens, do as the owls do." - Ancient Geek saying

Not just one ... many! And people afraid of Germans ... are germaphobes.

There's delicious miso in misogynist.

Re-using the top floor of a parking garage will totally not work, considering the problematic parking situation in cities, but I agree that there is so much unused rooftop space. For that, then, providing modular, standardized, convenient solutions is a great idea, and this doesn't seem unrealistic on a large scale. It has the potential to greatly restore the size of the 'green lung' of the planet. I also like the whole urban farming thing because it is power-to-the-people technology.

The year is 2040. Turok had a very nice girlfriend, Tweeyo. But one day when Tweeyo had a brunch talk with her mother, Britney, she casually mentioned that Turok uses his comm client with an external number pad and calls people by entering their numerical IDs. And that was when her mother told her: "I forbid you to date a hacker!"

Here's another one, inspired by ayahuasca. (Don't want to make another thread for it.) "One day I thought I woke up, but then realized that I was still dreaming. Turns out it was just a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in a dream in...