Everyday Junglist
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About me. You know how everyone says to be a successful writer you should focus in one or two areas. I continue to prove them correct.
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It is With Much Regret That I Must Inform You I Cannot Accept the Position of Your Boyfriend
Author's preface: While digging through my vast archives I stumbled across this humor piece from 2018. It was a response to an article in which the author informed a sometimes hook up partner that she would accept him as her boyfriend were he to meet a series of very specific requirements. She wrote it in the form of a job acceptance letter in which she was the company CEO and he the job applicant. It was hard to tell if she was being serious or if it was all tongue in cheek. In any case I had to respond in kind and what you see below is that response. Unfortunately I cannot locate the original article upon which this was based and did not link it for reasons I cannot recall, but most likely simple laziness. This post was particularly popular (for me) and it spurred a lot of discussion in the comments section. Not sure if this is going to make the 600 word cutoff or not so going to pad this preface with just a couple of sentences worth of nonsense in order that I might play it safe. Hmmm. Maybe just one or two more filler sentences and then I should be good. This would be the second filler sentence. And, to play it really safe, here is the third. Thank you six hundred word count minimum for another waste of thirty seconds of mine, and whoever is reading this, day. Dumbest rule, ever. In any case, enjoy!
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Filthy
The Simulationist Church
Author’s note: I just can’t get away from this stuff. I haven’t written anything about the simulation hypothesis in over a month and sort of figured I was basically done with it. The weird phone calls from unknown numbers and strange emails with domain names I don’t recognize had stopped as well. It seemed all the nutjobs had given up on messing with me. Then a voice recording from a number I did not know came through on my personal cell phone. With the recording was a text which read — “listen SH quit” My transcription of the voice recording is below. The man reading the message sounded quite calm and completely rational, maybe a little sleepy, but it was not a voice I recognized. It ended suddenly as these things seem to always do.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Futurism
What is Evolution For?
Author's preface: This story was originally spiked by Vocal's censors and not approved for publication due to "religious content" As I have pointed out over and over again Vocal's censorship policies are absurd, unjust, and unsustainable and they must end eventually. However, until that day, if one wants to continue publishing here, one must abide by the will of the censor. I have "adjusted" the original article to remove any "religious content", or at least, I think I have. It is impossible to know for certain as what exactly qualifies as "religious content" is wildly debatable which is an example of just one of the reasons Vocal's censorship policies are unjust. In any event, read on and see if you can spot the altered content.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Earth
The Simulationist Church
A translated excerpt from the Italian Codex Simulationista (S1.s3.2) Transubsimulation is defined in the Simulationist faith as the point in time at which the base code that makes up/represents/is the universe in which all simulations (ourselves included) reside became/becomes real/simulated. Unlike the concept of transubstantiation in the Catholic faith, which occurs every time the wine and eucharist is made real (into the blood and body of Christ) during the Catholic mass, transubsimulation only occurs once (per level of the simulation, if such levels actually exist/are simulated). Some Simulationists have argued that the concept of time itself is only relevant in the simulation, and therefore to suggest that transubsimulation occurs at a point in time is incorrect. For these atemporal transubsimulationists the “birth” of the simulated universe occurs at no time but instead represents the first moment of (simulated) time itself. The correctness of either view may be impossible to ascertain until the coming of the Simulator(s).
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Futurism
The Simulationist Church
There are a group of people for whom the simulation hypothesis is no longer a hypothesis. They believe with their entire beings, their whole hearts and minds, that we are indeed simulated beings living in a simulated world. In the mid to late 1980s, some of them, how many it is impossible to say, banded together to found a church, the Church of Simulationalism also known as the Simulationist Church. Through the process of simulational submersion (also known as transsubsimulationtiation or just transsubsimulation for short), in a sop to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, they come to know of our “real” position in this universe as simulated beings living in a simulated world. The Simulationalists have borrowed heavily from Catholic tradition for their “faith” as you will learn if you read more on the topic. This “religion” was founded on a set of 18 core principles, their foundational maxims or Simulationist’s Creed, which are published below as part of an introduction to the church, and as a first entry in what will be a series of stories on the topic. If you need some grounding or a refresher on the simulation hypothesis parts of my extensive (non-church based) collection of writings on the topic can be found here (Currently all you will find is message describing that my account has been suspended. Hopefully that will change someday but until then I plan to post a few articles here on Vocal that discuss some of the basic aspects of the simulation hypothesis at some point. When that will happen I cannot say.)
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Futurism
The Simulationist Church
We the people of the Simulationist church [Church of the Simulator(s)] having met on Feb. 1, 1999 within our level of the simulation on the planet designated earth, city of San Jose, State of California, and having duly debated, have agreed upon the following political principles to guide ourselves in all manner of civic life within the simulation.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Humans
The Logical Problems of Monontheism
The logical problems of omniscience/omnipotence in monotheistic religions The biggest (logical) problem with most (not all) monotheistic religions is the supreme being is almost always omniscient/omnipotent. This raises a host of problems but the one I like to point to most often is the to good to be true problem (tgtbT). Incidentally, the simulation hypothesis falls victim to this issue as well, though in a slightly different way. Essentially tgtbT says that it is simply too easy to account for any aspect of why the universe is the way it is or why certain things happen and others don’t by pointing to the omnipotent/omniscient being and saying “because he/she/it made it that way….” Basically, it is the fall back position of all fall back positions and it can never be verified or disproven. Another way to put this is to say that an all powerful God can be used as an “excuse” to explain any feature of the world, humanity, or individual person including oneself, that one desires. The answer “Because God made it/wants it that way” can be used in any situation whatsoever to answer any question whatsoever and all discussion ends.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Futurism
The Simulationist Church
Author’s note: Fragments (2 torn and blurred pages) of a handwritten note were recently uncovered during a local library tear-down in Fresno, California. The fragments appear to be a “debate” between two unnamed members of the simulationist church. They had been stuffed into the back of a metal filing cabinet in the basement of said library. The reasons for the strange location of the documents are anyone’s guess. I was informed of the find by letter, which arrived at my home address early last week. A random reader of some of my stuff (I have written and published extensively on both the simulation hypothesis and the simulationist church in the past) thought I might be interested in seeing them because of my frequent writings on the topic. In case you were wondering, yes I was a bit disturbed at how easy it apparently is for someone to determine exactly where you live. The two church ‘officials’ are referred to as simply S1 and S2 throughout, and the handwriting in the document alternates as each one makes their case. Unfortunately the back and forth that was legible was limited to what is transcribed below. There is a short preface in a third handwriting of which only a few sentences were legible and no dates were anywhere to be found, though the appearance of the paper itself suggests it is not that old, maybe 10–15 years max.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Futurism
Bloody Penlander-Pencilvanian War Continues With No End In Sight
The ink stains of the dead Penlanders are as fresh as the horror and dismay over the fates of the many Pencilvanians erased from the front lines. This centuries old conflict shows no signs of abating as fighting renewed again yesterday at the contested border between the two warring nation states. Hardest hit by loss were the famed Penlander fountaineers claiming some 500 dead in the first five minutes of fighting alone. They stormed the Pencilvanian front lines early and with numbers but ran head first into a hail of graphite re-enforced artillery shells lobbed from deep behind enemy lines. The battle tested #2 company of the Pencilvanian army then counter attacked with a neat pincer move attempting to sever the head of the Penlander BiC brigade, so named for its legendary leader General Brad (ironside) Cotton. General Cotton called for a counter-attack but the Pencilvanians gelled as a unit, hardened their lines with their mechanicalized troops, and repulsed the counter easily with a simple brush stroke. In a last ditch maneuver to salvage something from the horrendous string of losses the General fielded razor company and the 101st lighter brigade consisting of several thousand battle tested Penlander shock troopers. They attacked in ball point formation exploiting a small crack in the Pencilvanian lines. At the point of impact ink and black carbon flew in all directions as the ancient enemies met in bloody tip to tip fighting. This reporter will never forget the horror of that sight and prays for a swift end to this seemingly never ending war.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Fiction
Science Fiction Without the Literary Aspirations
“Omnipresent surveillance is as certain as, artificial intelligence permeating every institutions, every transaction — as sure as algorithms transformed the world wide web from a human endeavor, into something owned by tech corporations.”
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Futurism
The Importance of Precision in Language
It is generally accepted that for a machine to considered ‘intelligent’ and therefore classified as having ‘artificial intelligence’ it is only required to have a tiny fraction of the ‘intelligence’ of a human being. Nowhere that I have been able to find is this fraction quantified, nor is it suggested how such a thing is to be measured. It is difficult to quantify and measure something which we do not even agree what it is so I can’t be too hard on the AI crowd on that point. However I can and will continue to be hard on the use and abuse of the term and never stop calling out people who use it incorrectly, illogically, incoherently, and/or inappropriately.
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Futurism
