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Before everything else, if you read nothing else in this post, take a mental health break. It will break your mental health in all the best ways.
Riotous Eater of Flesh
A carnivorous tribal warrior-race from ______, a sweltering, ecologically volatile forest/ocean planet revolving around a yellow giant deep in the Orion Arm. Naturally resistant to damage and poisons, they have no claws or venoms of their own but rely entirely on things fashioned from available materials or forcibly extracted from other beings. Most of their brain matter is optimized towards problems of food, weapons and territorial displays, with a small non-reproductive caste dedicated to inquiries not directly related thereto. Capable of some limited hivemind-swarming, partially coordinated through their otherwise primitive displays.
Their homeworld rotates on an unusal axial tilt that is just enough to create significant climate differences on the surface while preventing any part of it from being permanently frozen over the year; it is speculated that their natural aggressiveness created a need to rapidly spread out across their world and adapt to its numerous varied climates and sources of nutrients. Their legends say that the planet has been subject to several mass extinctions in the past, apparently the last one perpetuated by these creatures themselves.
...
The reverse furry's face would lack the muscles and coordination necessary to form human expressions, and its eyes would have almost no visible whites.
...
Two dichotomies have been on my mind about what realities exist for us:
Bytranscendental real I mean like a rock: no matter what you say, it - or at least the underlying matter constituting it - is still there. (And if what you say is "You with the jackhammer, break this rock and clear our path", the resulting multitude of rocks and dust remains.) There is underneath the surface perception that, if known, becomes a connection to a greater world beyond our subjective interpretation.
Byinstitutional arbitrary I mean the fact that we would call a certain composition a rock and not a pebble, gravel, lava or dust.
Generally, to say it without making an authorial value judgment, people will prefer the personal over the impersonal.
I would rather not imagine a society of people who would categorically value theinstitutional arbitrary over the transcendental real, rather than valuing the latter as the important one and the former as a necessary evil to be tolerated. A predominantly urbanized, industrialized subculture with an economy where the biggest commodity is information can get very close to such a thing.
The world of the rationalist istranscendental real and impersonal. The personal is relegated to a separate universe, a multitude of isolated wills that observe and act upon a mechanical, passive it that constitutes our (however grudgingly) shared environment.
The world of the ancients, with their gods and ancestors and karma and appeasements, is personal andinstitutional arbitrary: it's all about who you know, and the what eventually follows.
The core of Christian belief, immediately beneath the Resurrection, is of a transcendental [let's keep "transcendental" here for what follows] personal Reality that is the only true and self-sufficient one over all the others.
Following a childish, Manichean logic, h Hell would then be on the opposite corner: institutional arbitrary and impersonal, a fungible anonymity in which love is literally nonsensical (not merely dismissed as irrational for being against self-interest) in which everything is dictated by arbitrary merely institutional, unaccountable systems of deeming and pretence that are real only in the injustice and suffering they create. A modern, comprehensive bureaucratic state is often invoked as an example, though there are less immediately brutal implementations.
A frequent apparent contradiction, that God made "the world" good but "the world" is also a sordid mess ruled by Satan for the malefit of all, is resolved when the references are understood to mean two distinct worlds on opposite corners of this simple grid.
Following a more traditional distinction, t The remaining two corners aren't that lovely either.
Anyway, here's a thing about how guns work:
[AK-47 Underwater at 27,450 frames per second (Part 2) - Smarter Every Day 97]
[2015-11-11: Made some long-overdue changes to theterminology names. (Short words beat long ones.) Mostly motivated by Fr. Stephen going along similar lines.]
[2020-03-01: A cleaned-up version of this has been uploaded here.]
Riotous Eater of Flesh
A carnivorous tribal warrior-race from ______, a sweltering, ecologically volatile forest/ocean planet revolving around a yellow giant deep in the Orion Arm. Naturally resistant to damage and poisons, they have no claws or venoms of their own but rely entirely on things fashioned from available materials or forcibly extracted from other beings. Most of their brain matter is optimized towards problems of food, weapons and territorial displays, with a small non-reproductive caste dedicated to inquiries not directly related thereto. Capable of some limited hivemind-swarming, partially coordinated through their otherwise primitive displays.
Their homeworld rotates on an unusal axial tilt that is just enough to create significant climate differences on the surface while preventing any part of it from being permanently frozen over the year; it is speculated that their natural aggressiveness created a need to rapidly spread out across their world and adapt to its numerous varied climates and sources of nutrients. Their legends say that the planet has been subject to several mass extinctions in the past, apparently the last one perpetuated by these creatures themselves.
...
The reverse furry's face would lack the muscles and coordination necessary to form human expressions, and its eyes would have almost no visible whites.
...
Two dichotomies have been on my mind about what realities exist for us:
Transcendental, InstitutionalReal, Arbitrary- Personal, Impersonal
By
By
Generally, to say it without making an authorial value judgment, people will prefer the personal over the impersonal.
I would rather not imagine a society of people who would categorically value the
The world of the rationalist is
The world of the ancients, with their gods and ancestors and karma and appeasements, is personal and
The core of Christian belief, immediately beneath the Resurrection, is of a transcendental [let's keep "transcendental" here for what follows] personal Reality that is the only true and self-sufficient one over all the others.
A frequent apparent contradiction, that God made "the world" good but "the world" is also a sordid mess ruled by Satan for the malefit of all, is resolved when the references are understood to mean two distinct worlds on opposite corners of this simple grid.
Anyway, here's a thing about how guns work:
[AK-47 Underwater at 27,450 frames per second (Part 2) - Smarter Every Day 97]
[2015-11-11: Made some long-overdue changes to the
[2020-03-01: A cleaned-up version of this has been uploaded here.]