fractalguy.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

About an hour ago I was in a conversation with one person who said "the algorithm knows you" and another person who visited my Wiki site and got confused because they never clicked any of the links. Not the first time--this week! And then the algorithm suggests this video on algorithmic complacency.

submitted 11 hours ago • 0 comments

Great overview of the anti-fascist canon, and the show notes has links to free PDF copies of most of them.

submitted 19 hours ago • 0 comments

Primal World Beliefs is one of the most insightful theories in positive psychology. Take the survey and find out how good you think the world is. 4.96/5 for me! #psychology #optimism #meaning

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

On this day in 1993, Carl Sagan wrote the first draft of what would become his timeless Pale Blue Dot monologue. Here it is, animated:

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Psilocybin generates psychedelic experience by disrupting brain network – WashU Medicine medicine.washu.edu/news/mushroo...

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

Social media is enabling health symptoms and mass psychogenic illnesses to spread quickly around the world. But by knowing how it happens, you can protect yourself

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

To celebrate #FebruARTy big & small day, have a look at this interesting abstract fractal I made using Chaotica Studio. #Art #DigitalArt #Fractal #FractalArt #ArtYear

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Just attended a most fascinating presentation. Wolfram discussed this, the Ruliad, modeling machine learning with cellular automata, and many other topics. Gonna have to crack open my copy of A New Kind of Science I bought years ago that has been intimidating me from my bookshelf ever since!

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

#BannedBookSkyClub Don't forget, March 2025's book is #ParableOfTheSower Schedule: Feb 2025: The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin March 2025: Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler April 2025: Banned Book Club, Kim Hyun Sook, et al. May 2025: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Stephen King #BookSky

submitted 7 days ago • 117 comments

The debate over when consciousness arises has been revitalised by new tests of awareness in infants – raising the possibility that it emerges just before birth www.newscientist.com/article/mg26...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Great interview with Ross Douthat @dkthomp.bsky.social There is a scientific basis for having a concept of God, but there is no need for it to be supernatural to be psychologically effective. Pantheistic omnibenevolence can help you develop a healthy sense of pronoia without undermining rationality.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Contrarianism is the best explanation for our current political climate. #Brokenism, horseshoe theory, antivaxxers, and antichrists, are all results of the #contrarian mindset. Is it easier to remove the mental #logic gate or add a second one to make them anti-contrarians?

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Star spiral rose #PursuitCurve #CurveOfPursuit #ParadoxTangle #Zentangle #MathArt

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

This hits on one of my favorite things to harp on (pun intended) about the concept of Arts Integration: Music & art are a fantastic learning tool for other subject areas, but Arts Integration is at its best when students learn about both disciplines simultaneously. #MusicEd #EduSky

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

"One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all." Arthur C. Clarke

submitted 10 days ago • 432 comments

I so want to be merry again - instead of being overpowered by existential dread

submitted 11 days ago • 3 comments

Everyone calling this a coup is missing out on a great opportunity to use the word "autogolpe" which more accurately and elegantly describes the situation.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Do I understand this paper? Not at all. But it's dripping with fractal realness.

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Aspiration is useless without a foundation. The right glorifies an invented foundation while the left dismisses the real one. derekberes.substack.com/p/is-this-di...

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

Pantheism is like taking a white label placebo. Studies have shown the placebo effect works even if you know it's a placebo. Even more so if you believe in the power of placebos! Beliefs and rituals still work even if you know the reality behind them. #pantheism #placebo #neuroscience

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Named my business "Meta Enterprises" back in 1998. Was annoyed when a tech oligarch decided to rename his company Meta, and more so when that company started undermining democracy. Boycotting and divesting from the "bad" Meta, Amazon, Google, Tesla, and Apple is taking real action against oligarchy.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Why cant one of the delivery apps team up with local libraries to let people check out books and have them delivered to their homes? A lot of people still buy books from Amazon just for that convenience. #BookSky #Libraries

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

From 2022: And the way conservatives can actually win in America, [Yarvin] has argued, is for a Caesar-like figure to take power back from this devolved oligarchy and replace it with a monarchical regime run like a start-up... www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04...

submitted 17 days ago • 2 comments

Why care...?

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

The Papua New Guinea Courier is in rare form.

submitted 16 days ago • 1215 comments

Changing consequences due to technology changes the moral considerations. In situations like this, utilitarianism self-corrects, while deontology dies in dogma.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

This is AMAZING news! Fuck Amazon www.salon.com/2025/01/28/b...

submitted 17 days ago • 258 comments

submitted 17 days ago • 572 comments

"It's us vs them." Is it always? …and if it isn’t, when might it be them = us, or even them > us?? In a new paper, Cody Ross and I find that perceived cooperativeness and need can flip the equation. Here’s a thread 👇🏻 and here’s the paper: doi.org/10.1017/ehs.... /1

submitted 18 days ago • 2 comments

"To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love." A classic field guide to the heart from the great Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 18 days ago • 134 comments

I went to a local humanist group meeting yesterday and asked how many people had heard of Curtis Yarvin. Only one person out of 25 raised their hand. We need to be talking about techno-feudalism.

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

This is excellent

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Billionaires are money addicts, and the person with the worst case of addiction ever seen is now in charge of the world's largest supply of their heroin.

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

Iconic Pillars of Creation. MIRI + NIRCam composite image. 🔭 🧪

submitted 21 days ago • 61 comments

Morning thoughts about #democracy and its discontents, and why so many are keen to explore the alternatives that, as Churchill points out, are all worse. Understanding the tech-bro philosophy of network states, the game theory behind 2-party gridlock, and how to create a new consensus.

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments