Ace Fury

Coercion is a loaded term. We generally consider coercion as an individual performing a particular action against their fully-free will, generally under the threat of violence or harm; that is, a person does something not because they want to, but because they are forced to, to whatever degree. This definition is mostly adequate for the purposes of discussing the first tenet of the Savior Self: Humans should live free of coercion. However, we must reframe our concept of coercion to […]Read more »

Now that we have thoroughly negged the modern world and everything in it, let us begin to discuss more constructive things; specifically, let’s focus on the vision of the Savior Self, and what is intended to be a path forward. First and foremost, let us establish the intent of the Church. As the unholy name implies, the Savior Self is not a messianic institution, proscribing salvation for the planet or the species. The Savior Self does not offer any practical […]Read more »

Life is meaningless and the knowledge of mortality is crippling. These are the truths of our modern scientific worldview. Any atheist who claims to not fear death is a liar or delusional; anyone who spends adequate time contemplating non-existence will teeter on the verge of madness. So of course it makes sense that our prehistoric ancestors would craft mythology to soothe their burgeoning neocortices and keep the existential dread at bay. And of course it makes sense that this mythology […]Read more »

Before we delve into the main topic of this discourse, take a moment to reflect on the human brain. Our brains are capable of such incredible feats that they may ultimately craft their own evolutionary successor (see On Progress, Progress) and render itself extinct– actually, let us digress from this digression. The very idea that are knowingly and deliberately attempting to create their own evolutionary successor (via some form of artificial intelligence) is fascinating. It is a slap in Darwin’s […]Read more »

What beliefs do you have that you would die for? Would kill for? Not that you say you would, but that you actually would? For most of us, the honest answer is probably “nothing.” This is our fundamental belief in tolerance. At its core, liberal democracy is an ideology of tolerance. The fundamental concept is that diverse populations of people can democratically establish a “baseline” set of universal rules by which they can all abide, regardless of their specific personal […]Read more »

Civilization is effectively synonymous with humanity. Beyond our physiological traits, it is our defining feature: the ability to organize, cooperate, and adhere to rules and norms and behave in a (mostly) predictable manner. It is this cooperation that enables our technological progress and continues to make our lives safer and more stable. The more predictable and uniform we are, the smoother this cooperation will be, and therefore the faster our progress. Civilization (or society, if you prefer; we will use […]Read more »

Now that we have established that existence is objectively meaningless, we must determine whether life must be so as well. To clarify this distinction, let us consider existence as the experiential condition of all other living organisms, and life as our own, subjective condition… in solipsistic terms, existence is what happens to everyone and life is what happens to me. How, then, can we ascribe any meaning to life when it is built upon the foundation of a ? We […]Read more »

Life is meaningless and death is terrifying. These are the simple truths that we humans have spent all of recorded history trying to come to terms with. On a purely experiential level, it is not difficult to connect the dots between biological death, the fundamental absence of the deceased from our realm of experience, and the idea that once a person dies they no longer are. When this idea is coupled with the empathic notion that we are the same […]Read more »

Our species is nothing without technology. From the first pointed sticks to Voyager I now transmitting from interstellar space, humans stand (mostly) alone in using abstract ideas to overcome our biological limitations and to craft the world around us to satisfy our needs and desires. We have come to regard future technological advancement as an inevitability, some inherent chronological fate for which we must wait impatiently, tapping our toes and sighing heavily as we fumble through this uncomfortable adolescence, narrowly […]Read more »

Buddhist teaching is built on the concept of samsara, the perpetual cycle of birth, suffering, and death that we must struggle to overcome by attaining nirvana, or freedom from desire and ignorance. Buddhist or not, we all are trapped in samsara. Our lives are a figurative cycle of death and rebirth, with endless suffering in between. We suffer and inflict suffering on others, though society has found ways to obscure both of these. We are blinded by veils of ignorance […]Read more »