Anarhija Tata

@anarhijatata

21

one fun thing about being a teacher in march 2023 is that chess is a literal epidemic among teens. we are starting to have meetings about how we can STOP teenagers from playing too much chess which is like if we were trying to figure out how to stop them from reading for fun. When i was in high school five years ago chess was nerd shit only but now it is transcending every social and language barrier and is absolutely rampant. kids aren’t on their phone texting in class anymore it’s ONLY chess.com. kids are playing chess on their phones while playing chess in real life. this is still better than tiktok because at least the kids are developing an attention span from this

the worst part of this is that they’re on chess dot com instead of getting an education. but the BEST part of this is watching high schoolers develop the weirdest goddamn strategies I’ve ever seen. One of my students invented something he calls the “evil advisor gambit” where he gets a third person to give out constant terrible advice to both teams hoping that his opponent falls for it straight-up or that his opponent thinks HE fell for it and will act accordingly thus worsening their own strategy. he has won every game he has been able to pull off a coordinated evil advisor gambit in. this is chess innovation never before seen in its 700 years on earth

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Small and weirdly specific things I sometimes do while thinking of Theoi (pt.1) UPG of course

Apollon 🌞

* solo waltzing around my bedroom while listening to Merry-go-Round of Life (from Howl’s Moving Castle by Studio Ghibli, 2004)

* silently waving and saying “Hi” to the crows I happen to see

* smiling at the Sun

* saying “Good morning/night” to his portrait (that I drew) near the entrance to my room

* using the perfume “Lazy Sunday morning

* cleaning my room on weekends

* gently holding the small citrine stone I own

* sharing pads/tampons, pills from tummy ache and headaches with whose who need it

* watching random educational documentaries on YouTube

* spending quality time with my mom

* cheering up my loved ones

* drinking black tea with honey and lemon 🍋 🍯

***

Share yours!

I don't know; I kind of think that our culture is based around systematic denial of human limitations. I mean, there's the eight-hour work day (which is about 4 hours longer than most people are consistently able to remain productive); buffing your qualifications on job applications (which everyone needs to do to some extent, because everyone else is doing it); the expectation of multitasking, even though it's not really possible; academics are running around with impostor syndrome, ultimately because there's only so many books that an individual is capable of reading, while a bunch of liars and grifters pretend that they're experts at *everything* and are held up as thought leaders. Billionaires are held up as if they're just incredibly hard workers, photoshopped movie stars held up as if they're just incredibly beautiful. We feel guilty for not being something that never has and can never exist.

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Creating an Altar

Rule 1: Do not give a single solitary fuck for what anyone else thinks

This is the only rule.

Altars are a space for you to meet with your higher self and whatever gods or entities you may work with. For that reason, unless you are following a certain path that requires you have a specific set up, you and those entities (or just you alone) decide how it should look.

It can been as minimalist or maximalist as you want. It can have bones and ritualistic daggers or sea shells and river water. You can use neutral colors, pastels, neons, clashing colors, or simply have everything black if you so desire. It can be themed or completely random, it is all up to you.

Suggestions (These are purely suggestions, not requirements)

Inner Child Altar

Place a childhood picture somewhere on your altar, maybe with some toys or odds and ends you loved when you were a kid. Leave yourself little wrapped gifts to be opened on your birthday, candy, and other things you would have liked as a child.

Altar Guardian

Charge a statue, figurine, or poppet with the intent to protect and have them "live" at our altar. Optionally a tulpa or servitor may be created to do this.

Altar Shrouds

Though I don't do this myself, many people prefer to shroud their altar with a light cloth when not in use in order to protect their sacred space. Any workings on your space will also be kept from prying eyes as well. Though always double check that all candles are out before shrouding.

Multiple Altars

You most certainly can create multiple altars either dedicated to specific gods, entities, or intentions. Keep an Aphrodite or beauty altar where you apply makeup. Romance altar in the bedroom, meditation altar in your quiet space, whatever you can think of really. Though the upkeep may be a bit much for low-energy practitioners.

Secular Altars

You don't need to worship any deities or work with any spirits to have an altar. The space can be dedicated purely to you, do not let anyone ever try to tell you otherwise.

Pet Altars/Altar Spaces

Regardless of whether your pet is alive or has departed, having a little area dedicated to them and their health is a good idea. Try to stick to pet safe stuff and avoid incense, oils, and heavily scented paraffin candles (try beeswax or fake candles instead). Use instead: pet safe plants, pet treats, keep new toys there to replace old ones they use as needed, and a paw print from them (or one of their sheds for all those reptile lovers).

Liminal Space/Astral Altars

Try having a space dedicated to all your metaphysical workings. If you work with mental portals/gateways creating physical representations of them can help further your ability. They also provide some direction and protection for the traveling mind.

Conclusion

This was just a very short list of suggestions, there is so much more you can do. Hell, invent something if you damn well please.

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A weird background assumption in discussions of language models that it's impossible to learn about things through textual depictions. E.g.

In order to illustrate the challenges in attempting to learn meaning from form alone, we propose a concrete scenario. Say that A and B, both fluent speakers of English, are independently stranded on two uninhabited islands. They soon discover that previous visitors to these islands have left behind telegraphs and that they can communicate with each other via an underwater cable. A and B start happily typing messages to each other. Meanwhile, O, a hyper-intelligent deep-sea octopus who is unable to visit or observe the two islands, discovers a way to tap into the underwater cable and listen in on A and B’s conversations. […]
Nonetheless, O has never observed these objects, and thus would not be able to pick out the referent of a word when presented with a set of (physical) alternatives. […] A has invented a new device, say a coconut catapult. She excitedly sends detailed instructions on building a coconut catapult to B, and asks about B’s experiences and suggestions for improvements. Even if O had a way of constructing the catapult underwater, he does not know what words such as rope and coconut refer to, and thus can’t physically reproduce the experiment. […] Finally, A faces an emergency. She is suddenly pursued by an angry bear. She grabs a couple of sticks and frantically asks B to come up with a way to construct a weapon to defend herself. Of course, O has no idea what A “means”.

“Of course” nobody could figure out what a rope is by mere reading, unlike looking with your eyes which gives you an unmediated connection to the noumenal world.

The point they're making is a little more subtle than that. Of course someone can learn what a rope is by reading, if they already know English and have experience of other long thin floppy things made of twisted fibers. But the problem is that to understand a written description of a "rope" you need to know what "long" means, or "thin", or "floppy", or "twisted", or "fibers". And you could certainly learn about those by reading, but in order to do so you would have to know the meaning of the terms they were defined in. This underwater octopus is trying to pick up English from scratch, just by observing the words in the cables, not based on any interaction with the surface world. They don't have a base in reality to start from.

If it's wordles all the way down, you may be able to say "a rope is a long thin floppy thing made of twisted fibers" but you won't be able to pick one out because you don't know the meaning of the words in that definition. If you wanted to go look for something "thin" or "floppy", how would you know what those are? You're just an underwater octopus who has never heard English before. You've seen the word "thin" in a telegram but you've never seen the thing being described as thin. If you already know English but don't know what a rope is you can learn from a textual description, sure. But figuring out what English words refer to from first principles simply by observing the language and nothing else is much harder.

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My point is that none of us have a base in reality to start from. A newborn baby has no concept of fibre or thin or floppy, it has to figure it all out from scratch based on the raw pixel values impinging its optic nerve. It also learns "meaning from form alone", but nobody notices because it feels so natural.

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playing around w. microsoft office as a child was crazy. it felt transgressive. magical. a portal into the beautiful world of business. i imagined myself one day becoming proficient with every menu in excel and word and powerpoint, expertly choosing between them in a manner similar to a samurai deciding on whether to use the wakizashi or the katana. like stepping into the tabernacle without genuflecting. the sensual mystique of the coffee room. an entire imaginary world of grey-blue carpeted hallways and black plastic caster wheels on chairs. the bright ideas of the future, all springing to life as i am assisted by a paperclip shaped homunculus. slayer of demons of profit loss. the holy armor of the suit and tie. the will of god channeled through commerce. kneeling to the invisible hand, and transcribing its will into an infinite scroll of beautiful white pages.

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The King had now augmented his guards with a new sort of dragoons, who carried also granados, and were habited after the Polish manner, with long picked caps, very fierce and fantastical.
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this shit owns it’s just a number go up idle game except the idle mechanic comes from you writing JavaScript to automate tasks it seems like the end goal of the game is to perfectly optimize against this little arbitrary system they’ve created. There’s not any plot to speak of so far but even though nothing is happening people send you messages through the computer telling you to trust no one as they all have ulterior motives. Very relatable.

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guys be careful. this game may look fun but it’s actually a ploy to get you to learn javascript

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God made this post