Lost in Translation

*sigh*. What a wonderful movie... "It's the cans! He hates the cans!"

Any business with a million or more followers. For example, a business like Apple could announce a limited time sale with promo-code. They would want this announcement to go out instantly to all their listeners. No. I am not saying that. I am simply pointing out a limitation of peer-to-peer networks.

Facebook is also used for business. Going viral is modern advertising. No, but many celebrities have millions of followers. The technical limitations are fatal at that scale.

I feel for you. It's not easy to care for people, but you can't let caring for someone else take over your life. That's not fair to you. Somehow you'll need to find a way to share your lives with each other while also having your own lives. Perhaps you have a hobby you enjoy? You could set up a shop in the garage. Or maybe you enjoy sport and can join a local team. It doesn't matter, as long as it's something that you can call your own.

What you are describing is a peer-to-peer network. This works for small groups when the data access is intermittent - for example, Napster back in the 2002. The problem with this is scalability and availability. Have a dozen friends? No problem! Have a million friends? It will crash your device. Likewise, you'll only be available when the network is up. In a tunnel or gone camping? No one can see your content.

The first practice I recommend is mindfulness. Learn to notice your emotions as they arise. That's hard, because often the emotion (especially fear or anger) already "has" you and it's not easy to be mindful once your emotions are already running the show. When you notice the emotion, it's common to judge it. For example, you may be happy, so you tell yourself "I'm happy, isn't that good", or you may be angry, so you tell yourself "I'm angry, that's not good - I'm not a good person." When that happens STOP IT! Judging your emotions creates a feedback loop that reinforces whatever emotion you are feeling. Whether good or bad that will ultimately lead to imbalance and become a source of pain for you. Instead of judgement just allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. Feeling is fine, but mind your actions. Emotions are like entities: they want to jump from person to person so don't let them. You may need to honestly tell whomever you are with that you are feeling overly stimulated, and politely withdraw for a few minutes to sit with your emotions. After a few minutes, when you feel some balance, you can explain what you were feeling and talk about it. This is a technique that I use. It works but it takes practice. You'll make mistakes. That's normal. That's OK, just be kind to yourself and try to forgive yourself when you fall short.

^^^^ THIS ^^^^ The Book of Job, written some three thousand years ago, talks about this. I highly recommend it.

"I drink your milkshake!"

This reminds me that I need to make time for practice... When I am still, and focusing on my breathing, I imagine the air entering as clean, bright, white light. As the light enters my body it flows where it will, picking up the filth it finds along the way. By the time I exhale, the light has turned dark and muddy, sometimes oily. It's not pretty. I continue this process for as long I desire. My goal is to reach a point where the light leaves as clean as it enters, or at least isn't completely dark. Success is by no means guaranteed.

Just finished "12 Rules for Life: an Antidote to Chaos," by Professor Jordan Peterson. https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/12-rules-for-life/ It's a heavy book, but absolutely worth it.

I don't see anything artificial about financial scarcity. Money is an abstract representation of work. There is a finite amount of work that can be done over a period of time. Work builds upon itself, and the results of work accumulate (for example, the house you live in represents the accumulation of work used to create it), thus the money that represents this work also accumulates. Calling financial scarcity artificial denies this basic relationship. It demeans the value of work by implying that work can be infinite, or that the results of accumulated work are already infinite. A good way to see this relationship is to imagine a barter-only economy. When people are exchanging chickens for concrete, labor for lodging, and corn for cabbages would you still call the scarcity artificial?

Just as cells are alive and comprise higher level human life with its own intelligence, is it not possible to think that humans, themselves, may live while also being part of a yet higher intelligence? If so, what would this higher intelligence look like? As this higher form of life grows it won't necessarily need to abandon the humans who comprise it, any more than humans abandon their own cells. I do think this is an interesting question to ponder...

These are all front-end technologies. For best results, consider full stack. This means back end technologies (Java/.Net REST API & SQL/No SQL databases along with server-side dev, e.g. Linux and corresponding web servers). I also suggest learning a low level language (C and C++, possibly assembly), a logical language (e.g. Prolog), and extensive learning in functional programming (LISP, scheme, Haskel). It's a lot to take in, but take it slow and in a few years you will be able to do it. Then you can focus on the business side of programming (e.g. domain knowledge and project management). Finally you'll be in a position to learn the "soft skills", e.g. communication and leadership. If you want a successful freelance career then this is the path. It's a lot of work, but that's life.

Carl Jung once said "People don't have ideas. Ideas have people." I think this is true. We seem to have a world-level consciousness, of which individual people are synapses. Ideas flow from people to people across the planet, and as our technology improves, the speed of the flow also improves. This consciousness is starting to become self-aware. It is like a birthing, or an awakening. Who can say what is coming into existence even as you read this..?

I don't think the world is messed up. Asking why the world is messed up implies that it could be otherwise, that it is broken, and I don't think that is correct. What I do think is that the world is varied, and the variation extremes can be quite harsh. I also think that living beings are inherently fragile, and limited in both perception and capacity. This makes us easy to break, and because we are alive, and we feel, we take the breaking personally. This is, to me, the crux of what @silent thunder was saying when he called suffering a "crisis of perception." But what choice do we have other than to feel our fragility and to take it personally? Some may be able to remain objective through suffering, but everyone has a limit. Can you feel the pain of a broken leg and not suffer? Sure, some can do that. Can you develop cancer and not suffer? Maybe. But what if your child gets cancer, or your country is engulfed in civil war, or your wife is murdered? What if all happen at the same time? Everyone has their limit. Faced with this reality it is tempting to reel back in terror and look for a scapegoat. It's comforting to blame someone else for our pain, and sometimes the blame is justified. But more often it is not. This is just what it means to live.

This world is harsh, and living beings have a rough time of it, some much more than others. That's axiomatic. It's not going to change. But what can we do, as individuals, to ease the burden of ourselves and our fellow living beings? That's a question worth asking.

In my opinion, this is the very best book to start your learning into programming. https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-2nd-Brian-Kernighan/dp/0131103628 The book is small, concise, and covers the basics (variables, functions, iteration, etc) very well. I won't teach you anything about graphics for web development, but it will show you the foundation needed to build on top of. I highly recommend it.

It's a longish video, but worth watching it its entirety. Jordan Peterson at his absolute best. I highly recommend it.

I would start with a good textbook. Read each chapter and work on the exercises. Javascript is probably the best first language, since it's incredibly forgiving and on every computer. I have programmed professionally for twenty years. Feel free to PM me, or I can help you in this thread.

It's always been this way. The only difference is now we have a greater ability to share information so it seems worse than it actually is.

I approve of this message.

I enjoyed reading about Pellucidar as much as anyone. It's great fun to imagine a hollow Earth, warmed by a floating molten core and populated by dinosaurs and sexy, naked cave-women with spears... ... but that's just a book. The real world doesn't work that way.

It may be helpful to keep a journal throughout the day. Writing your thoughts in a small, pocket sized diary will help you remember what you are doing and keep you on track when your own memory isn't as trustworthy as it once was.

I've heard it said that a person must "exhaust the urge" to engage in negative action before they can turn around. This is another way of saying you must hit "rock bottom" in order to begin working back up. About a month ago I hit rock bottom. I felt rage well up in me at something someone wrote. It was stupid, and not worth getting upset about, but it tore me up enough for me to "suspend" myself for about three weeks to give me time to cool down. I'm glad I did that. It helped me see how foolish many of us have collectively been, are collectively being. I for one, don't enjoy being a cannibal. I suspect no one else here enjoys that either. None of us came here looking to tear each other apart. I encourage everyone who reads this to spend some time in reflection on this matter. Are you happy with the direction we're going? Can we learn from this? Can we grow from this? Can we be better? I believe we can. Let's give it a try. Let's start today.

Human is the pattern of human experiences, just as a book is the pattern of words. Human experiences are experiences of humans. Tautology complete.