this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2025
758 points (95.6% liked)

AMUSING, INTERESTING, OUTRAGEOUS, or PROFOUND

879 readers
337 users here now

This is a page for anything that's amusing, interesting, outrageous, or profound.

♦ ♦ ♦

RULES

① Each player gets six cards, except the player on the dealer's right, who gets seven.

② Posts, comments, and participants must be amusing, interesting, outrageous, or profound.

③ This page uses Reverse Lemmy-Points™, or 'bad karma'. Please downvote all posts and comments.

④ Posts, comments, and participants that are not amusing, interesting, outrageous, or profound will be removed.

⑤ This is a non-smoking page. If you must smoke, please click away and come back later.

Please also abide by the instance rules.

♦ ♦ ♦

Can't get enough? Visit my blog.

♦ ♦ ♦

Please consider donating to Lemmy and Lemmy.World.

$5 a month is all they ask — an absurdly low price for a Lemmyverse of news, education, entertainment, and silly memes.

 

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] rowrowrowyourboat 36 points 6 days ago (5 children)

The simple solution is that there is no "evil."

I like the story The Egg by Andy Weir. It gives an example of that idea.

Alan Watts also talks a lot about that sort of thing.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 days ago (2 children)

You remind me of my wife.

When we met, she introduced me to lots of short stories that made me reconsider my perspective on things. This was one of them. She still makes me reconsider my convictions whether I want to or not. I sure do love her for that.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago

This is the most wholesome, loving thing I've read on Lemmy. You're truly a gem.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Can you share some of the others?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Sure, but I'm not sure I remember many offhand and some have become popular since then so you may have already read them.

Two that come to mind:

edit: another one that came to mind, though my wife didn't introduce me to this one, was ~~All You Zombies~~ by Robert Heinlein. I think that one has a movie adaptation called ... Predestination maybe?

One my wife did recommend to me, though I found it less impactful than she did, was [https://ia801904.us.archive.org/35/items/the-jaunt-stephen-king/The%20Jaunt%20-%20Stephen%20King.pdf](The Jaunt) by Stephen King.

Also, though I don't recall if I ever ended up reading it, she really liked All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury.

edit 2: Not sure why the Stephen King link isn't working. The % maybe?

edit 3: Replaced all instances of %20 with a space. Link still didn't work on my client. If it doesn't work on yours, I'm afraid you'll have to search for the story or manually copy the URL... Sorry.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I would like a list of some as well!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Happy to share the ones I remember offhand, see above in the thread.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

thank you! the ones I've read so far are awesome, I appreciate you sharing :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

My pleasure, happy I could spread the joy!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago

No one can convince me that abuse is not evil. Is it common? Banal? Sure. Is it good? No. Never. Causing truama is evil. I don't think there's a valid argument that it isn't.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

Not that I necessarily agree with it, but having listened to a lot of Alan Watts, he gives the impression that he somewhat believes in a just universe.

To him every experience and every challenge is an opportunity for growth, especially the most difficult experiences.

He posits a belief in a karmic universe, where every lifetime of experiences and choices leads into the next lifetime of experiences and choices.

It rubs me wrong, because that type of thinking, to me, stems from the childish belief in a just universe, that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people.

Therefore, if terrible things are happening to you, then you must deserve it because your karma created your lifetime of circumstances...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I can get the appeal from someone recovering from truama, I've been there and putting yourself back together is a long hard road out of hell. That being said, the truama is a disadvantage that prevents people from typical level of functionality, it doesn't make you more able to deal with anything, it typically leaves you with disorders and disfunction. The people that overcome are outliers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

In the karmic line of logic, it is focused towards spiritual development on the scale of seemingly infinite lifetimes.

Becoming a functional or self-actualized human is secondary to the experiences each lifetime provides in the infinite karmic cycle of death and rebirth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

If I redefine evil and child abuse and power then God is the best scarecrow humans have ever created.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Nice premise but I can't stop giggling that the universe created for the child to mature has to be hellscape for parent, for all those instances of the same talks they will be having util that day (finally) comes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

For an intellect that vast, and with such a different experience of time, would it really be so difficult?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

As the nature of the parent is no further explained than hinting at a "human" origin we will never truly know. Can't imagine though that a couple billion same-ish talks not take a toll on the parent.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

I do love that concept. I don't think it removes evil, just shifts its perspective