Is the Italian place a lamp store?

I’ve re-watched that Gojira performance like 10 times. The beheaded Marie Antionettes were <chef’s kiss>.

I’m getting old and have watched a lot of opening ceremonies with all of this art that they have to explain the meaning to you.

In front of an in-person audience of hundreds of world leaders and live to the entire world, the French chose to depict their final monarch that they deposed and beheaded while playing death metal and opera. That’s one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen. And the announcers didn’t have to explain to you how badass it was.

It even goes beyond this.

Everyone thinks they’re smarter than everyone else. Smarter than doctors, scientists, and engineers. Definitely smarter than whatever the political or ideological “other side” is.

It’s ruining our society. When George Carlin did his bit about “how stupid the average person is”, he forgot to mention how 99% of us assume we skew into the “smarter than average” side.

I can’t have conversations with people I used to respect, relatives, old friends, or even casual acquaintances without everyone blathering on about how stupid these people are or that group is. I hate it.

Me no lurk. Me comment.

Yup. The realization that we’re all just making it up as we go is when it happens. Welcome to adulting.

Yep. I sneezed and now my back hurts.

This is it. Paying bills? Nah. Owning property? Nope. The realization that there’s no such thing as an “adult”. BOOM. Now you’re an adult.

Yes and No. 48.

There was never a horizon or dividing line I crossed between youth and adult. It just happened.

I’m still the same person I was when I was 10/20/30/40. Still like cool things, still confused about why we’re all here.

Other than my body getting real creaky and doing all kinds of weird old things, the only real difference between youth and adult is the realization that this very thread addresses. We’re all just making it up as we go. There’s no such thing as “adult”. There’s no Council of Super-Smart People running the world.

The only thing that makes you an adult is the realization that you have to be the change you want to see in the world. That you have to be the super-smart person running things.

I switched.

I searched for a community named “FacebookSaysItsFine” and haven’t yet seen anything.

Be the change you want to see in the world!

The 90s industrial/nu metal band?

My kid’s school just implemented an app-based pickup process this year.

You have to download an app and register your phone and email and child, then when you get in the line to pickup your child you have to press a button in the app.

I literally cannot retrieve my child from school without a smartphone.

Well my house is an Animahouse and can do that whenever it wants.

Hopefully my clone likes me as much as I like me.

Agreed. That’s my point. I don’t really know if we have a soul. If transporter technology existed and worked as theorized, then it would answer a bunch of questions that have been plaguing humanity.

If everything that I am can be duplicated by making a perfect copy of me atom for atom, then there is nothing to fear from transporter technology.

Isn’t it still kind of the same thing though?

Star Trek calls that “matter stream” energy your “pattern”. Pattern sounds a lot like Information. Data. Which is very easy to transmit and duplicate. Data can also be lost or corrupted.

So it’s as if they convert all your atoms to a file, then FTP your file to somewhere else where the technology turns your pattern back into matter.

“You” can’t exist as just data, so at that point you’re already dead. I think…

There are episodes where your pattern is stuck in the pattern buffer. You’re only information being stored at that point.

If you have no soul and you just exist as matter, then in a horrible transporter accident where your clone and your original still exist, now there are two of you. You are both you. There is no difference if you are both perfect copies of each other. 1=1.

Sounds like a win/win to me, finally a best friend who really gets me.

“Soul conceit” is the right term here. The belief humans can’t seem to shake that I am more than just the sum of my parts.

I don’t know if I have a soul or if my consciousness is really just electric meat. But it seems that if I am more than the sum of my parts, the soulless me that comes out the other side will just be “my parts” and will be obviously different than the original me.

If we really are just our atoms, and the technology can be trusted to reliably replicate me atom for atom on the other side then there’s nothing to be afraid of. The original you hasn’t died, it’s just ceased to exist. No big deal. The clone of you is also you, so you still exist.

Oof…everybody being able to go to whatever the latest viral pool above a waterfall or cronut shop is all at once…

Agreed. Fuck hormones. I’m over here trying to be logical, and my hormones are telling me other things.

Thank you, fellow human.