Buddhist and Stoic Perspectives on Death

Your Productive Life is Only as Long as You Retain Your Mental Faculties > Comparison > Meditation Strengthens Focus
Stoicism observes you are only productive for as long as you maintain your mental faculties. Buddhism observes that you must train your mental faculties before they deteriorate before death so that you may remain cognitively vigilant.

 Similes and Metaphors

The Similies > Comparison > Metaphors Bind Concepts Together in Our Minds
A sci-fi culture reliant on real-world similes and how metaphors bind real-world concepts to abstract ones in our minds.

 Mediums and Messages

The Content of Any Medium is Always Another Medium > Comparison > New Mediums Provide New Orientations for Thought
Mediums are ideologies and impose ways of thinking on us as we employ them.

 Post-Literate Society

Written Word Enabled Philosophy, Screen Content Unravels It > Contrast > Criticism of "The dawn of post-literate society"
Point/Counterpoint about literacy, societal dependence on literacy, and the screen era.

 Deception in Gamespace and Simulation

Immersion in the Simulation Makes it Hard to Question It > Example/Illustration > Games Do Not Model/Simulate, but are a Business
Simulations deceive, games do not model.

 Legality Impacted by Complexity

Juridification is the Enemy of Legality > Summary > The Demise of Legality
When there are too many laws and the code becomes unnavigable, only the wealthy or those in power can enforce them to their own benefits and prejudices.

 Abstraction Imperils Empiricism

Abstractions Turned Obfuscations > Emphasis > Don't Let the Simulation's Beauty Convince You It's Real
We live in a world of abstractions built on abstractions. These simulations take us further from reality and make empirical verification increasingly difficult.

 Web Gardens and Digital Streams

The Garden and the Stream as Metaphors for WWW > Additional Support/Evidence > Web Gardens and Streams Elaborated
Web Gardens are contextualized, interconnected spaces online like Wikipedia. Digital Streams are serialized events that flow like Twitter or Facebook feeds.

 Rabbit Holes

Q'non as an AR Game > Example/Illustration > Traits of Yoga Practice That Lead to Conspiracy Theories
Alternative medicine, Q'non, and AR games provide people with deep-dive information webs that are alluring because they privilege the participant with malleable independent knowledge.

 Can AI Make Something Greater than Itself?

The Ultraintelligent Machine will be Civilization's Last Invention > Contrast > Recursive Self-Improvement in Human Civilization
Humans can't make smarter humans, but we can make cognitive tools to help other humans. Computers do make faster computers without human intervention, but is that the same as an AI making a smarter AI?