Society and circumstance doesn't get to define you and your purpose, no matter how they shape or judge you, only you can do that. Maybe it's true that in the grand scale nothing truly matters, but that doesn't diminish the value of personal experience that is YOUR life. 😎

A big thing, too, with the US, is how do you fight the MIC? They funnel an inconceivable amount of money into it and have munitions far beyond the scope of the average person.

@techrahouse To think of it in terms of "fighting" is to have already "lost". (1) A significant portion of the MIC is comprised of people. (2) The system in which they operate only persists under the assumption that it is somehow helping to "keep peace" and "create order" throughout the world. Clearly demonstrate that violence can never accomplish those aims and you make that system obsolete for everyone's benefit.

The Ursula K. Le Guin comment that daliwali shared is particularly insightful as well. The unspoken aim is that war furthers capitalism, yet everyone ends up poorer in every sense of the word, even those who think that they "benefit" from the situation. Hence, tyrants live in fear of an enemy of their own making.

Tyrants only have "power" because they create mobs who blindly follow them. Therefore, true peacemaking can only be accomplished through unconditional positive regard that increases self-responsibility. Similarly, the assumption underlying capitalism is that it creates "wealth". But what is "wealth"? It is not money, as money is literally a debt. It has no intrinsic value.

I would argue that a strong sense of ethics and a knowledge of how to create an abundance of what we cannot live without (e.g.: clean air/water, healthy food, clothes/shelter, etc.) are primary. If we can freely share that with everyone, then the systems of control naturally fall away.

In short, basic human needs must be met in a sustainable way by everyone, whereas war of any kind is always a zero-sum game. When competition itself is transformed into voluntary collaboration for mutual survival, then everyone "wins".

† This is incredibly sick †

I'm a bit curious on what software you use to make this? (If you are willing to say)

i used nothing but three.js as a graphics lib, blender for editing models, and my own brain for everything else... i improvised my own entity-component system, and collision detections.

Incredible

added an airburst launcher, and an unlockable secret by not using the sin offering.

I tried but the 3rd wave guys r 2 hrd for my pea brain...

which ones, the greys? try to max armor first and then pickup one weapon

so i was able to get the heart but... idk how i can handle whats after tbqh (´･ω･`)

max armor + get railgun and berserk = ez

I imagine the controls are a part of the game design which made the challenge fun imo ヽ(´ー｀)ノ my WoW brain is too used to the camera "following" the character. In contrast, if the character is facing right then A or D makes the character go "up" or "down" on the screen which was hard 4 me 2 follow, so I basically made sure to never turn the character too much

ya.. the controls are intended to be like a first-person shooter, but you're playing from a third-person perspective. part of the challenge is to move just as the NPCs do.

Some people might not be sentient

this seems like a great representation of how rulers tend to see their troops - not real people with thoughts and beliefs but just some NPCs that are only useful as long as they are in the battlefield

Beliefs are only useful to the extent that they inspire constructive actions within ourselves and those around us. Truth is the balance. How do our motivations and our perceptions interface with our experiences and our effects upon others?

One doesn't want to get stuck within "toxic positivity" or "pronoia". But getting stuck within a combination of "negativity bias" and "learned helplessness" is also harmful. Where is each person's "locus of control" in regards to each situation?

Sometimes people, including myself, skew towards complaining about life, yet don't even try to create something constructive instead. Personally, I have gotten to the point where I've recognized that being constantly depressed is harmful to me and hope is the only viable option.

Oh yeah...I most identify, in both theory and in practice, with the "desert mothers and fathers" who lived in self-sufficient "cenobitic monasticism" in order to avoid "theocratic rule" by a corrupt "priesthood" (i.e.: the "Essenes", not the "Pharisees", "Sadducees", or "Zealots").

While some parts of modern "Christian Anarchism" (and its associated "liberation theology") touch upon their ideas with less mysticism, most of the more esoteric strains of Judaism/Christianity seem to derive from them as well, including Gnosticism.

For example, this is evidenced by the origins and contents of the Nag Hammadi Library, as well as their similarities with contemporaneous Merkabah and Hekhalot literature from which Kabbalah springs. I'm particularly interested in this kind of study: https://web.archive.org/web/20160316053521/http://odeion.org/gematria/

I don't think that abandoning hope in a better world here and now, is a good idea. But I also don't think that being concerned about karma, or any form of retributive justice in the afterlife, amounts to anything productive (even if it's real, doesn't affect this life).

One can also make direct connections with other teachings, particularly Pythagoreanism/Plotinism and Buddhism, through groups like the Therapeautae of Alexandria. But I would argue that there is a "primordial tradition"/"perinneal philosophy" that permeates all true "alchemy" and which is present within most esoteric spiritual teachings, independent of time and place.

Fundamentalist interpretations sometimes degrade into justification for tyranny. For example, many of the groups that were persecuted during the Inquisition (like the Cathars and Waldensians) tended to be more egalitarian, holding beliefs opposite to that of "dominion theology", and teaching that no human intermediaries were needed to experience "theosis"/"henosis".

@daliwali - Sorry for the post mix up. That is fair. To me, Justice is always restorative, never punitive. Likewise, constructive knowledge must be applied... I'll shut up now 😂

i relate a lot