SAMSARA = "World" - Not the Linden Lab project  Ideas Disastrous regimes of the South Simplicity Totalitarians seized control of resources A few short months Jury-style, issue-based government The problem of integrating policies Education Mass timber and rammed earth dwellings No money "Gift economy" City design (unclear) High-speed rail Solar panels Hydropower Wind turbines Translation earbuds Learning at your own pace (old idea) Tiny scope-village Faith-based ideas Especially about death Recycling bodies Commentary This is a version of running off into the forest to escape the evil world. Nothing much new here. The timescale is unclear. The physical scale makes no sense. The mixture of the amazing high-speed rail and hand-waving energy sources is counterfactual and a mixture of scales. Who built the hydro dam and the high-speed rail. Or, for that matter, where does the tech for the translation earbuds come from. As a skeptic, I see embracing "spiritual practi...

For the moment, let me talk about the world of human experience as "E". The world that Science investigates is assumed to exist a part from human experience , although we can only know it through human experience. Without really thinking about it, we imagine the "real world" to be about the shared experience: verifiable, consistent and augmented by what we call "reason". But we have long admitted that Universe, which I will call U, is not the same as "E". In fact, we assume that we can never know "U" entirely, directly or completely. We all know that "E" is not the same for each of us. In fact, it is quite remarkably different between different cultures and different times or even for a single individual throughout his or her lifetime. The question at hand is, is there anything "out there" apart from E and U? In most religious traditions the answer is "yes".  Most religions postulate a universe in ...

D&D dance  around the terrible reality of death. It's fascinating to watch two of the world's leading atheists grapple with the big issue that religion supposedly deals with. Typically, Dawkins waxes eloquent, firing off an impressive display of wordy fireworks that almost makes you forget what he's talking about. We see them both grasping for "big ideas" that make life make sense. To my mind, they both avoid what Buddha saw: that suffering is inevitable. Suffering must be faced head-on. The "self" is ephemeral. All things come to an end. What D&D are doing is making death part of a grand and compelling story, which is exactly what "religion" does. Death is a terrible tragedy. Is it not possible to face it without fear, without rationalization?