Daily Archives: March 29, 2017

What Is Nihilism? History, Profile, Philosophy and …

Posted: March 29, 2017 at 11:05 am

The term nihilism comes from the Latin word nihil which literally means nothing. Many believe that it was originally coined by Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev in his novel Fathers and Sons (1862) but it probably first appeared several decades earlier. Nevertheless, Turgenevs use of the word to describe the views he attributed to young intellectual critics of feudal society generally and the Tsarist regime, in particular, gave the word its widespread popularity.

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman review nice dramatic narratives, but where’s the nihilism? – The Guardian

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Any retelling of a tale from times long past must be an interpretation, a translation into language and concepts that the present audience understands. The original myth may have been told as uninterpreted fact, but later re-tellers are and must be conscious of who their audience is and the purpose of the telling. To what extent does this consciousness shape the choice of whats told and the language that its told in? Interpretation may clarify, betray, reveal, deform.

For the Norse myths, we really have no original, only interpretations. Most of the material was first written down by a single monk a century or more after Christianity had outlawed and supplanted the heathen religion of northern Europe. Later came scholarly attempts to translate and present the stories so as to glimpse what the lost original versions may have been.

Then came use of elements of the mythos in drama and opera, free adaptations for modern readers, and the appearance of increasingly familiar tropes in books for young children, cartoons, graphic presentations, animated films, and so on. A luxuriant growth indeed from the few, fragile stems of medieval manuscripts, one ofwhich lay hidden for several centuries in a barn in Iceland.

Their survival is remarkable, for the Norse tales are about as un-Christian asyou can get: no all-powerful creator deity, no human virtue rewarded but courage in battle, and on the Last Day, no salvation for anybody. Their fascination for us may be this near-nihilism: a world created essentially by nobody out of nothing, an existence of endless warfare and the rivalry of brutal, dishonest powers, ending in defeat for all. In contrast, the classical myths retold to us through centuries of splendid verbal and visual art can seem pallid. The stark cruelty and essential hopelessness of the Norse stories suits the artistic taste of the last century, our hunger for darkness.

Neil Gaiman tells us that he first met the Norse tales in the graphic narratives that we go on calling comics or comic books, a stupid name considering the breadth of their subject matter. It is a medium well suited to the material: vivid, sparing of words, long on action, short on reflection though given to pithy wisdom. Heroes, shape-changers, battles, superpowers and superweapons a half-blind wizard, an eight-legged horse, the battlements of Asgard, the Rainbow Bridge all are perfectly at home in the world of comics.

Gaimans characteristically limpid, quick-running prose keeps the dramatic impetus of the medieval texts, if not their rough-hewn quality. His telling ofthe tales is for children and adults alike, and this is both right and wise, itbeing the property of genuine myth to be accessible on many levels.

The language of books loved in childhood retains an authority it is useless to question even when impossible to justify. I grew up with Padraic Colums Children of Odin, published in1920, and the stories exist for me in the fine cadences of his prose. Gaimans version is certainly a worthy shelf-partner to Colums, and perhaps a better choice for a contemporary child reader, used to a familiar tone and afriendly approach.

Gaiman plays down the extreme strangeness of some of the material and defuses its bleakness by a degree of self-satire. There is a good deal of humour in the stories, the kind most children like seeing a braggart take apratfall, watching the cunning little fellow outwit the big dumb bully. Gaiman handles this splendidly. Yet Iwonder if he tries too hard to tame something intractably feral, to domesticate a troll.

It all comes back to the matter of interpretation. In her 2011 book Ragnarok, AS Byatt used the Norse mythos to express her own childhood experience of world war and as a parable of the irrational human behaviours that result in mass ruin and destruction. Such interpretations are perfectly valid in themselves but dont serve well as a retelling of the myths. They are more of the order of meditations ona religious text, sermons on the meaning of biblical stories. Gaiman does not use the Norse material this way; he simply tells us the story, and tells it well.

What finally left me feeling dissatisfied is, paradoxically, the pleasant, ingratiating way in which he tells it. These gods are not only mortal, theyre a bit banal. They talk a great deal, in aconversational tone that descends sometimes to smart-ass repartee. Thischattiness will be familiar to an audience accustomed to animated filmand graphic narrative, which havegrown heavy with dialogue, and inwhich disrespect is generally treated as a virtue. But it trivialises, and I felt sometimes that this vigorous, robust, good-natured version of the mythos gives us everything but the very essence of it, the heart.

The Norse myths were narrative expressions of a religion deeply strange to us. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are divine comedies: there may be punishment for the wicked, but the promise of salvation holds. What we have from the Norse is a fragment of adivine tragedy. Vague promises of abetter world after the Fimbulwinter and the final apocalypse are unconvincing; thats not where this story goes. It goes inexorably from nothingness into night. You just cant make pals of these brutal giants and self-destructive gods. They are tragic to the bone.

Ursula K Le Guins selected stories, The Unreal and the Real, are published by Gollancz. Norse Mythology is published by Bloomsbury. To order a copy for 15 (RRP 20) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99.

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Three Steps Past Galen the Promise of a Young Century – InsideSources

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Galen (129 A.D. - c. 210 A.D.)

Very likely, health care in the year 2090 will be almost unimaginable to an individual in 1990 and vice versa. Digital technologies and other innovations will alter the doctor-patient relationship in unprecedented ways. 1990 is a good starting point because thats around the time the internet evolved from a closed, government-run tool of elites to the mass-market, civilization-changing environment it has become.

To understand how far we might travel in a short time, it helps to understand how far we have come in not too many years. I like to say the Internet Age is building a new medical epoch that carries us three steps past Galen. Galen of Pergamon (c. A.D. 129 A.D. 216.) was a brilliant Greek physician and philosopher under the Roman Empire. Half a dozen or more fields of modern medicine have their roots in Galens work.

But Galens innovations quickly ossified into Galenism a medical orthodoxy that assumed all illness was an imbalance of four bodily humors blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. This now-discredited theory formed the basis of Western medicine for 1,600 years. Over that long period, to question Galen was to commit heresy. In 1799, when George Washingtons physicians bled him to death to cure his flu, they would be among the last Galenist practitioners.

By around 1830, Western medicine took one step past Galen into a mindset we now call therapeutic nihilism. With the propagation of modern scientific methods, the medical profession suffered a profound loss of confidence in its own safety and efficacy and entered into a mindset and mode we now call therapeutic nihilism. In this period, doctors tended to observe and comfort patients, issue diagnoses and prognoses, and inform families on what the future held. To a great degree, however, their shattered confidence led them to adopt a hands-off approach, letting nature run its course.

Then, 20th-century discoveries led medicine a second step past Galen into what we think of as modern medicine. In this period, physicians were philosopher-kings. A long series of remarkable discoveries and inventions elevated doctors to historically unparalleled respect and prestige. The ancient paternalism of doctor over patient reached its likely apogee and deservedly so.

But with the dawn of the internet, we take a third step past Galen, into a period when many of the 20th-century physicians tasks can be safely and effectively conducted by nurses, other non-physician professionals, machines and even patients themselves. Modern computing and telecommunication allow us to reduce a great deal of medical logic to algorithms and to convey the outputs instantly and inexpensively around the globe.

In 2015, my mothers life was likely saved by her iPad. While engaged with her in a FaceTime video conversation, her grandson, a young medical doctor, ascertained from her comments and appearance that she might be in the early stages of septic shock; from hundreds of miles away, he made sure she received immediate treatment. Her long life, which finally ended in 2016, covered 50 percent of the years since Galenism faded from Western medicine.

So today, we are two long lifetimes away from Roman-era medicine, and we can no more envision what the next step will bring than the doctor who delivered my mother in 1922 could have envisioned her diagnosis by iPad and salvation by antibiotics.

In 2017, American policymakers of all ideologies share three fundamental goals of reform: higher-quality care; more comprehensive care for more people; and less expensive modes of care. Public policy debates have focused mostly on how to divvy up relatively fixed health care resources not on innovation and enhanced and improved supply. Such a debate effectively limits us to an uneasy choice: Better care, more care, and lower costs pick any two. The results of such a zero-sum game can never be universally satisfying. There will inevitably be winners and losers.

In contrast, my previous articles on an Innovators and Obstacles theme explored telemedicine, patient-operated diagnostic devices, artificial intelligence, remote telemetry and imaging, 3D printing, mental health via social media, biohacking, frontiers of voluntarism, and new structures of business in health care and more.

Changing technology is the only way to achieve all three fundamental goals simultaneously. And that is the promise of our young century.

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Put on your party shoes it’s time for political hedonism – The Guardian

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It is clear that hedonism is a potent ingredient of grassroots activism. Women wearing pink hats against Donald Trump in Washington DC. Photograph: Jose Luis Magana/AP

Heard about blackout culture ? Its sweeping across Americas universities and its lethal. Students down cocktails of alcohol with the singular aim of passing out. Nearly 2,000 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related injuries each year, and there are increasing calls for college authorities to stamp out binge drinking.

No wonder hedonism has a bad name. For many people, its nothing more than a byword for immoral and irresponsible self-indulgence, evoking the heroin overdoses and drunken rampages made infamous by films such as Trainspotting.

This disdain for hedonistic pleasures is reflected in a growing puritanical streak in the modern happiness industry, which would have us all staying calm doing mindfulness courses and sticking strictly to clean-eating wholemeal diets. You wont find sex, drugs and rocknroll in the index of many self-help books: western culture is becoming addicted to moderation and self-control.

I am not, of course, suggesting we embrace blackout culture. Rather, we need to recognise that we are neurologically wired to seek pleasure and that it is central to most peoples sense of wellbeing. The desire for pleasure is part of human nature, points out the neuroscientist Morten Kringelbach adding that perhaps we have to accept that the human brain makes us disproportionately interested in pleasure.

We should welcome hedonistic pleasure-seeking into our lives because of our brain chemistry and because, for centuries, it has been an incredibly enriching ingredient of human culture.

When Franciscan missionaries first arrived in Mexico, they witnessed Aztec rituals that began with the eating of a black mushroom, probably Psilocybe cubensis, a hallucinogen. Hedonism has also fuelled some of literatures greatest works, from Samuel Taylor Coleridges opium-dream poem Kubla Khan to Robert Louis Stevensons 60,000-word novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which he allegedly wrote during a six-day cocaine binge in 1885.

But perhaps the greatest hidden virtue of hedonism has been its role in catalysing social change. The roaring 20s saw an explosion of carpe diem pleasure-seeking in response to the horrors of the first world war. Here was a new generation, wrote F Scott Fitzgerald in This Side of Paradise, grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, and all faiths in man shaken. The result was an outbreak of vitality and experimentation that challenged social conventions, from open lesbian relationships to the spread of jazz that helped to bridge black-white divides.

Then came the drug-fuelled counter-culture of the 1960s, where any hippy worth their salt was turning on, tuning in and dropping out on a psychedelic bus tour, and spending the summers living it up in a free-love commune. Yet personal and social liberation went hand in hand: it was these same tie-dyed hedonistic explorers who turned their backs on Vietnam and joined anti-war sit-ins at Berkeley where they lit up joints instead.

Half a century on, I believe we are in danger of losing touch with our hedonistic selves. The time has come to rediscover this vital part of who we are, for both personal and political reasons.

On the personal level, a healthy dose of hedonistic experience is an antidote to our age of mediated proxy living, where we are caught in a state of continuous partial attention checking our phones, on average, 80times a day and spending more than nine hours each day staring at screens. We are becoming more interested in being spectators of life on our iGadgets than actually living it for ourselves, increasingly trapped in a matrix of vicarious experience. Hedonism is a route to reconnecting with direct experience, returning us to touching, tasting and feeling the world.

At the same time, hedonism has barely tapped potential to revitalise politics. Think back to the carnival tradition of the Middle Ages, which was about raucous boozing and dancing in wooden clogs, but also an expression of anti-authoritarian defiance: peasants would dress as priests and lords in mockery of their masters while, from the 16th century, slave revolts were common during carnival time in the Americas.

Such defiance is urgently needed today. Representative democracy is crumbling before our eyes, with a wave of far-right anti-system politicians stepping in where traditional parties have been failing to deal with issues such as widening inequality, migration and terrorism. The consequences have ranged from the authoritarian xenophobia of Donald Trump to a blinkered charge for hardline Brexit.

We need to reignite that carnival spirit with a new wave of collective hedonism. It is our greatest hope for creating a seize-the-day mass politics for the 21st century that can deliver progressive democratic renewal.

Todays grassroots movements can look for inspiration in medieval festivities and in more recent instances of political hedonism, such as the carnivalesque protests in eastern and central Europe in 1989, when the Orange Alternative movement in Poland held anti-government demonstrations led by people wearing fancy dress, while in Prague the Society for a Merrier Present held a silent march called A Fruitless Action wearing helmets made from watermelons and holding up blank banners. Such protests grew into the mass movements that brought down whole regimes. As the historian Padraic Kenney writes, what started as just a carnival became a revolution.

From the pink bloc protesters in fairy costumes who taunted police with feather dusters in the global justice movements Carnivals Against Capital in the noughties, to the pink hats of the anti-Trump Womens March this year, it is clear that hedonism is a potent ingredient of grassroots activism. Too many marches today end up deadening passion with strings of well-meaning but tedious speeches from inaudible speakers. We need to revitalise protest movements with a hedonistic carnival spirit that keeps us engaged and hopeful by making us feel fully alive.

Its time to forge a new political hedonism and dance to the tune not only of carpe diem but its plural, carpamus diem. Lets seize the day together.

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Burgers, Not Boobs: Carl’s Jr. Brilliantly Flips the Script by Tearing Down Its Own Smutty Ads – Adweek

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Folksy and charming, Carl Hardee Sr. is a no-nonsense kind of guy who doesnt care much for provocative ads featuring bikini-clad women. He aims to put the focus on food, not boobs, with a new marketing strategy.

Thats quite a departure for the Carls Jr and Hardees burger chains, where millennial playboy Carl Hardee Jr. has been running the place like a baller, using exposed skin and double entendres to grab consumers attention. Looks like the partysover, dude.

This is the fictional scenario, with a cheeky nod to real life, for a new campaign launching todayand kicking off a major brand overhaul for the fast-food restaurants. It also introduces the first-ever spokesman for the CKE-owned Carls Jr and Hardees sister chainsthe logically named Carl Hardee Sr. (an amalgam of actual founders Carl Karcher and Wilbur Hardee).

Played by actor-musician Charles Esten from the soapy series Nashville, the weathered and bearded character takes control of the company from his wayward son in the opening moments of the new spot. Flanked by movers who quickly get to work tearing down the displays of branded hedonism, Senior quickly gets the attention of his out-of-control progeny and his long-suffering employees.

Its unclear where Papa Hardee has been all this timethose risqu commercials go back at least 15 yearsbut its obvious that stuff just got real. (The mechanical bull in the corner office can stay, though).

Ad agency 72andSunny has created the Hardee character with the goal of changing the conversation around the burger chains (known as Hardees in the South and Carls Jr. in most other markets), which broke ground with industry firsts like made-from-scratch biscuits and grass-fed beef. (There is a meta element, of course, in seeing72andSunny tear down its old advertising with the new.)

Theyre also rolling out a new tagline: Pioneers of the great American burger.

Theyve never really gotten credit for their quality, and we want that message to land with consumers, said Jason Norcross, executive creative director and partner at 72andSunny. We want to reclaim their bona fides.

It was time to evolve. Some of the product attributes got lost because people were too busy ogling girls.

-Jason Norcross, 72andSunny

But theres no point in denying the controversial and much-maligned approach of the past, he said. Instead, the new campaign embraces previous ad stars like Charlotte McKinney, Genevieve Morton, Emily Sears and Elena Belle in a winking way (theyll appear only ascardboard cutouts and artwork).

It was time to evolve, Norcross said of the previous made-you-look tactics. Some of the product attributes got lost because people were too busy ogling girls.

The target audience is the sameyoung, hungry guysbut Norcross said the brand wants to be considered as a lower-priced alternative to competitors like Shake Shack, The Habit and others in the currently hot better-burger category. The campaigns ongoing emphasis will be on ingredients and sourcing, two hot topics in the broader food world.

Carl Hardee Sr. will show up in TV spots, on digital and social media and in GIFs from emerging artists. Theres a planned YouTube takeover where he physically pushes aside the former ads, which some critics have likened to soft-core porn, and replaces them with straight-up food porn.

The character will likely be integrated into programming or branded bits on networks like Comedy Central via media partnerships. (His girl-crazy son, played by comedian Drew Tarver, may have a recurring role as well).

The chain has new packaging, too.

72andSunny execs also revamped the chains logo, uniforms, menus and packaging streamlining the look and stripping out the bright red cartoonish touchesfor what Norcross called a big brand reboot that we hope becomes a brand transformation.

On the get-it-done scale, Carl Hardee Sr. is obviously an overachiever. As seen in the new 3-minute mini-movie, it doesnt take him long to effect some radical change at his old stomping ground, lining the walls with hero shots of burgers instead of eye candyand revoking his sons parking privileges.

He also gives viewers a history lesson about the brand, founded in 1956, showing in flashback how the chain popularized charbroiled meat and the drive-thru window. (Carl Jr. shows up in the time-shifted snippets when hes cute and young, pre-obnoxious bro phase).

Esten, who also has a comedy and improv background, plays Hardee Sr. with a mix of disciplinarian dad and straight-shooting Southern gentleman. (And he drives a vintage Corvette, so hes old-school badass).

Hardee Sr. will be the face of the brand for the rest of the year (at least), touting, among other things, new burgers with unique flavor combinations. 72andSunny execs also pulled in trap-music artist Oiki to reveal the brands new tagline in short films and announce all-natural chicken and other product launches. Watch the first, called Pioneer, below.

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Burgers, Not Boobs: Carl's Jr. Brilliantly Flips the Script by Tearing Down Its Own Smutty Ads - Adweek

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Steppingstones – The Gleaner

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Pastor Joey Durham, Sturgis Baptist Church 12:02 a.m. CT March 29, 2017

Todays devotion is Perilous Times? Lovers of Pleasures MORE Than Lovers of God! My text is 2 Timothy 3:1-4, where we see, This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebeakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; (KJV) In our text, the first things said about people in general in the last days is that they would be lovers of their own selves. When a people have an inordinate love for self, it is manifested in a lack of love for God, which is perilous. In these last days, people are giving themselves more and more to loving pleasures which is hedonism. Rather than putting the Lord Jesus first, they are devoted primarily to pleasures that gratify their selfish desires.

Please notice with me the context of this scripture. People are loving pleasures MORE than they love God. In the context, people have not totally kicked God out of their lives, but they have relegated God to the back-seat in their life. This is a peril causing action of immense proportions! In other words, they love the lake and fishing more than God. They love ball games more than God. They love working their job more than God. They love catching up with family or friends more than God. Yet, when trouble and tragedy strikes their life, they want to run to God and act like Hes the most important thing in their life, depending upon Him like Hes their closest, most relied upon companion. In Matthew 15:8, the Lord declares the true condition regarding this perilous characteristic. This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. (KJV) The Lord knows what you love most. He knows if you love HIM most, or if youre just using Him only when you need Him. Such a relationship will certainly lead to perilous situations in your life!

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Steppingstones - The Gleaner

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From Greece, Suntan Takes on the Madness of Old Schlubs Pursuing Young Beauties – Houston Press

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Tuesday, March 28, 2017 at 3 p.m.

Argyris Papadimitropoulos Suntan begins in such grim, static, deadpan fashion that you might be forgiven for assuming youve traveled back in time to an international film festival circa 2002. All sharp angles and stony faces and oblique interactions, the movie opens with glum, portly middle-aged doctor Kostis (Makis Papadimitriou) arriving to the tiny island of Antiparos to be the local physician. Its a desolate place: empty streets, dim buildings, sour people. Watching these early scenes, I found myself settling in for a wry, dry wallow in minimalist miserabilism.

And then summer starts. Its first announced with the arrival of Anna (Elli Tringou), a beautiful young woman who has suffered a nasty leg wound from a moped accident. As Kostis tries to treat it, her chums long-haired, scantily clad and quite possibly high wreak havoc in his clinic. Shy but also eager to act cool, the doctor tolerates them, even playing along a bit. He should be annoyed, but that grin suggests something else.

Before we know it, the gray, strained milieu has transformed into one of heaving bodies and hedonism. The camera loosens up, moving more and pressing closer to faces and limbs. A hat over his balding head and sunscreen smothered over his pale face, dumpy Kostis hesitates as he walks onto the islands crowded nude beach, with its half-thongs and waving dongs. But Anna welcomes him and even seems to like him though we cant tell at first if she sees him as a friend or a pet. He reminds her to cover up the wound on her leg; thats about the only thing she bothers to.

Structurally, theres little thats new in Suntan. The tale of a middle-aged man delusionally pursuing youth and beauty reaches back to Thomas Mann and beyond. But Papadimitropoulos has a feel for the physicality of this world, for contrasting postures and gestures. Anna and her friends are whirligigs of abandon and pleasure, jumping and dancing and somersaulting their way through seas and beaches and clubs. Kostis, tight and tense, struggles to keep up he cant seem to do anything right, try as he might. But he persists, because theres something magical about these kids and their otherworldly freedom. When Kostis hangs out with fellow townspeople his age, the partying is more depressing, more transactional they prowl bars and dance floors in search of one-night stands, dreaming of the loads of pussy that summer drops on their otherwise sad little shore.

This cant end well, and the movie traverses some truly scary places. Your heart may go out to Kostis initially, but thats part of Papadimitropoulos long game. Its reminiscent, oddly enough, of how Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader set up the viewer to identify with Travis Bickles alienation early on in Taxi Driver before revealing the full extent of his madness. In similar fashion, Suntan pulls you into this strange mans world before slyly and slowly turning the tables. You wont like the darkness you find there.

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From Greece, Suntan Takes on the Madness of Old Schlubs Pursuing Young Beauties - Houston Press

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The Dems Aren’t Brights – FrontPage Magazine

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FrontPage Magazine

The Dems Aren't Brights
FrontPage Magazine
Brights was the term popularized by evangelical atheists Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett to describe people who think like them: materialist determinists who scoff at faith and traditional wisdom, and proclaim their devotion to rationalism ...

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Everything, a Must-Play Game Like Nothing You’ve Seen Before – WIRED

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Slide: 1 / of 3. Caption: David O'Reilly/Sony

Slide: 2 / of 3. Caption: David O'Reilly/Sony

Slide: 3 / of 3. Caption: David O'Reilly/Sony

I am a polar bear, careening over snowy hills in continuous cartwheels. Then, I am a pack of Douglas firs, our branches undulating like snakes. Then an elk. A galaxy. A desert. A streak of light imported from deep space. In Everything, out now on PlayStation 4 (and slated for PC next month), I am the essenceof creation moving through all these things. That title isnt a feint or an oversell: In this game, you can be everything.

Everything is the brainchild of David OReilly, an artist and digital creatorwhos probably best knownfor designing the videogame interfaces used in Spike Jonzes Her. In the videogame world, though, hes celebratedas the creator of Mountain, a beguiling and confounding titleabout the life of a single mountain, suspended in space. It lived on your computer. Life grew on it. It talked to you. Eventually, it would leave. Mountain was a polarizing work, the sort of thingthat provokescritical debate about what a videogame actually is. At its heart, though,Mountain was an eccentric, playful meditation on existence from a narrow field of viewa sort of ontological toybox.

Everything takes that same sensibility and projects it to the heavens.

You begin the gameat a determined, procedurally generated pointa specific object in a specific place, at a specific time of day. In my case, I was a moose on an ice continent. How you proceed, though,is entirely up to you. You can spend the entire game as that single object, settling in to your surroundings, listening to the thoughts of fellow creatures and objects, and considering the weight of your solitary life. Or you can write your own cosmic encyclopedia, jumping from object to object using the games simple set of verbs: Press one button to look for objects larger than you; another for objects smaller. Ascend and descend by way of comparison, from galaxies to atoms to one-dimensional plasma beings.

OReillys playground is a superb adventure of intuition. I allowed myself to soar through the universe as whatever caught my fancy. Its an experience that lends itself to lists: I spent half an hour as a flower blooming at the bottom of the ocean. I spread my consciousness over so many cars that I couldnteven move them all. I wasa snowman; I gathered my family together and danced.

[Mountain and Everything] are what I think is interesting about games, OReilly told me at last months Game Developer Conference, which is the ability to describe worlds through systems. Those systems, though, are all beholden to something larger.Everything depicts a world where all objects are both combined and separated, paradoxically of the same substance yetwith unfathomable gaps between them. Scattered throughout the environment are prompts that bring up audio narration fromBritish philosopher and theologian Alan Watts, whose blend of Western rationalism with Buddhist thought made him a popular (and divisive) figure in the 50s and 60s. As you occupy the life of a family of algae or read the thoughts of a television with relationship problems, Wattstells you about the basic interconnectivity of all things, the way in which we are all a part of one grand, luminescent thing. Its symbiosis on a mass scale, writ across the innumerable bodies that populate the universe.

OReilly, sees that broad, integrative thinking as having its roots inMountain. Whats interesting about a mountain is that its not a sectioned-off thing, he said. Its earth pushed through the ground over millions of years. Theyre moving things, but we dont see that. And they have tons of life on them. Its hard to say exactly what a mountain is. Its more of a blurred thing.

Everything, then, is an exercise in blurring. Jumping fromanothervessel to anotherisnt the only thing you can do; you can also dance, via abutton that makes the objects in your control move in strange, rhythmic patterns. Its an effective metaphor for what the game itself accomplishes. Everything is a dance through objects and space, a playfuland mindfulwaltz through a simulated space. In trying to approximate something unfathomable and infinite, it conjuressomething deeply emotional, a play experience that evokes the naturalistic optimism of Waldo Ralph Emerson as much as it does the system-based entertainment of Will Wright. Its a wonderful accomplishment; the kind of videogame you want to bringhome to meet your parents.

OReilly told me that Everything is designed to run forever. He described it to me as an organism that keeps going. Left its own devices, it will, in fact, play itself, running in an autoplay mode based on settings that you can calibrateto your own whims. Strangely, this might be the most remarkable showcase of Everythings power:watching the perspective tumble through OReillys pocket dimension like a sort of high-tech nature documentary, moving from thing to thing until you discover something youve never seen, an object whose life you need to learn more about, and youre movedto pick up the controller all over again and take it for a spin.

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BGLTQ Office Prepares For Visit of Anti-Transgender ‘Free Speech … – Harvard Crimson

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The Colleges Office of BGLTQ Student Life reaffirmed its support for transgender students ahead of a scheduled campus visit Thursday from an anti-transgender Free Speech Bus.

Co-sponsored by conservative action groups the National Organization for Marriage, Citizen Go, and the International Organization for the Family, the bus is intended to to promote a renewed policy debate [on transgender issues] that tries to accommodate for everyone, according to Joseph Grabowski, director of communications for the National Organization for Marriage. The vehicle will travel to Boston and Harvards campus on Thursday as part of its larger tour through the East Coast.

Featured prominently on the side of the bus, in bold-letter font, are the words: Its Biology: Boys are boys and always will be. Girls are girls... and always will be. You cant change sex.

In response to the buss scheduled visit, the BGLTQ Office hosted a banner signing event Tuesday afternoon, where students stopped by the Offices Linden St. quarters and added their names to a sign reading Trans Lives Matter. The banner will be hung in the Science Center Plaza Thursday, according to Sheehan D. Scarborough 07, the director of the office.

We'll be hanging the banner in the Science Center Plaza as a visible message of support for the trans community at Harvard andto provide a counter-message to the rhetoric offered by the bus, Scarborough wrote in an emailed statement Tuesday.

Scarborough also emailed a Message of Support to BGLTQ undergraduates over the weekend.

Whether or not this bus shows up on campus this week, we will still be here, Scarborough wrote. Our lives are the punctuation mark on this debate, because at the end of the day, queer, and trans, and gender non-binary people exist.

No message on a bus can cast a shadow on the radiant spectrum of light that is the awesome diversity of our human experience, Scarborough added.

Adams House BGLTQ resident tutors prepared for the Free Speech Bus by hosting a supportive space for students to come together Tuesday evening.

As of late Tuesday afternoon, the Trans Lives Matter banner had garnered more than 80 student and administrator signatures. Lily M. Velona 18, who signed the banner, said, I think its terribleits purposeful that this bus is calling itself a Free Speech Bus.

Ive been seeing lot of this as of late, where people are conflating free speech and hate speech, Velona added. Hate speech is not protected speech. Its not free speech. No one has the right to use hate speech.

Benjamin M. Kruteck 19, who also signed the banner, said he chose to add his name because he wanted to show support for his transgender peers.

Its a sense of being, being trans is a sense of being, and so its important to support people in who they are and I dont understand why anyone wouldnt, Kruteck said. So for me its important to sign because I want to represent the fact that I support people being who they are.

Staff writer Hannah Natanson can be reached at hannah.natanson@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @hannah_natanson.

Staff writer Derek G. Xiao can be reached at derek.xiao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @derekgxiao.

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Daily Archives: March 29, 2017

What Is Nihilism? History, Profile, Philosophy and …

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Three Steps Past Galen the Promise of a Young Century – InsideSources

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Steppingstones – The Gleaner

From Greece, Suntan Takes on the Madness of Old Schlubs Pursuing Young Beauties – Houston Press

The Dems Aren’t Brights – FrontPage Magazine

Everything, a Must-Play Game Like Nothing You’ve Seen Before – WIRED

BGLTQ Office Prepares For Visit of Anti-Transgender ‘Free Speech … – Harvard Crimson

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