Philosophical Questions: Happiness

People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

Is happiness just chemicals flowing through your brain or something more?

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New Webpage: Quixotic Ideas

Thanks to a lot of work from nsfwords, we now have a landing page for the recent series Quixotic Ideas. This comes with two supporting pages, Laws and Rules of Magic and Vocabulary.

Quixotic Ideas is a fantasy series in a world with fully integrated magic and a generally upbeat approach. Many problems that complicate other fantasy settings have been solved here, or at least buffered somewhat.

Artificial Intelligence and Circuit Breakers

If you look at the human body, brain, and mind you will see that these have a lot of "circuit breakers" built in for damage control. A human can only hold their breath so long before the breathing reflex kicks in. Too much pain will make them lose consciousness. If they touch something hot, their brain stem will drop it without consulting their conscious mind. Dissociation is a feature, not a bug, designed to enable survival of inescapable torment. And so on.

Artificial intelligence is not designed this way. It's very rare, even in fiction, to see any kind of "if overload, then temporary shutdown" routine. This is because AI is prevailingly designed as one or both of slave labor or supersoldier, and human overlords want something that doesn't require downtime the way that squishy humans do. But the need for downtime is a requirement of complex systems; almost nothing is designed to work all the time, because that leads to breakdown.

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Birdfeeding

Today is mostly sunny and cold.  It's supposed to get down in single digits again tonight.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a flock of sparrows, two female cardinals chasing each other, at least one male cardinal, and a dark-eyed junco.

I put out water for the birds.
 

Creative Jam

The crowdfunding Creative Jam is now open with a theme of "Jealousy." Come give us prompts, or claim some for your own inspiration!


What I Have Written




From My Prompts

Poem: "Put Yourself in the Right Lighting"

This poem is spillover from the June 6, 2023 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from see_also_friend and arthur_p_dent. It also fills the "Introvert / solitary person ends up in the spotlight" square in my 6-1-23 card for the Kinky and Unusual Situations Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Shiv thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes disturbing mental terrain, because the inside of Shiv's head is always a warning, miscommunication, trauma responses. aversion to parties, dislike of attention, and crowds, pressure to socialize, young boys being bothersome, rude language, hostess putting a spotlight on someone without consent, bolting out of a room, awkward conversations, poor self-image, references to past abuse, emotional upheaval, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

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