A friend recently asked me, Is there hope for the world? I said, We're fucked*. Does anyone seriously that that Russia, Nigeria, Canada or Australia will give up its main source of revenue - while there is one cc left to sell? Will Nigeria voluntarily become a basket case by refraining from selling its one major resource? Can we imagine India and China stopping from pulling on that chain until they have reached a level of comfort common in the "first world", with all its destructive consequences? I love the image of Pandora. I imagined that we pulled coal, oil, nuclear energy out of the box and thought they were wonderful gifts. We pulled and pulled, filling the world with cheap energy and the wonders it creates. Now we are faced with the fact that all these miracles can't be stuffed back into box before they destroy the world as we know it. The climate peril slipped beyond our control decades ago, yet people repeat the "if we don't do something soon" ma...
The fundamental flash of insight Buddha had under the banyan tree is that suffering is the result of attachment. The strongest attachment we have is to the "self itself" - fear of dying, fear of letting go entirely. Part of his insight was that all things are impermanent, including the "self". My comments reference both the impermanence of "self" and the importance of the self-created illusion of self-who we imagine ourselves to be. Attachment to our self-image causes a lot of suffering. Attacks on this self-image (challenges to the story we tell ourselves about who we are) are met with the vigorous defense which attempts to defend our "selves" or re-define them in some way that seems to turn away the attack. This has the effect of strengthening our attachment to our "self", weakening our ability to hold it lightly and detach. This is the wrong direction to take in life - at least according to Buddha - and the net effect is increasing ...
A Peek at Quest App "Star Wars - Tales From The Galaxy's Edge" A quick " sales brochure " for the Quest is worth a look if you are totally new to the device. The next thing people want to know is - how much? In Canada, from Amazon , it's $399. $299 in US. My own feeling is that this is not a bad entry point if you want to see what it's all about, but it's "pong" compared to what's coming. I expect to replace my Oculus Quest I with the next one, not the Oculus Quest II, which is simply a polished version of I. I look for fundamental upgrades in capability. What else do you need? Just WIFI. No computer needed (most competing headsets are peripherals to a PC application, requiring a cable connection to the PC. Even then, you need a compatible PC graphics card). One thing that's easy to miss in all this is that the WIFI, Quest, the smart phone and Facebook (er "Meta") are kinda bound at the hip. In my view, this combination i...
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