Colin > Recent Status Updates

Just as lichen have no “I” so does psilocybin dissolve the barriers that separate ego from the other

Zombie fungi control muscles but not the brain - ultimate mind horror to be the host?

But also. The stoned ape hypothesis - hominids gaining sentience from eating psychoactive mushrooms

Lichens are more than just the symbiosis of alga and fungus, master and slave. They are systems of multiple things - fungi, bacteria in a system. Lichenologists can’t define the subject of their entire field of study. But then aren’t all living organisms systems? Humans can’t live without their gut micro biome after all

Worm-hunting mycelium! Paralyze nematodes so the hyphae can grow through their mouth, or HK-spores that gun for worms. Damn nature you scary

The history of kitchen implements is a history of reducing the necessary labor in the kitchen, which in olden times would have involved armies of servants or even slaves - and the foods prepared by them would all be soft and rich as a testament to the wealth and prestige of those who could afford the labor to make and eat them

The perfect pan doesn’t exist

Victorian food wasnt always terribly overcooked - pot volumes mattered (batterie de cuisines)

Liu cixin wasn’t the first to think of wandering planets

A surprising number of English loan words are from the Taino language, first encountered by Spanish explorers on Hispanola - hurricane, canoe, potato

For want of a nail - conversion of romans to Christianity means no more frankincense, leading to collapse of yemeni wealth and subsequent clearing of slate of local gods leading to Islam

Zoroastrianism gave the world Manichaean morality through propagating it through the other Abrahamic religions - god Kong as warrior against evil

All living cows are Asian stock. So ancient Egyptian depictions are of an extinct breed but clearly they began to worship it too

Ain Sakhri lovers - classic overreading into art (tender? Lol)

Just finished Genjitsu House

Hornedjitef’s story is about how artifacts are not static - what can be revealed about them grows as our methods improve. Also first stirring of colonial issue

Re read murakami’s story which is a distillation of his whole shtick - the otherworldly disquiet of loneliness and the (unexpected) curative properties of the everyday

Everything’s going rather too well for pug at the moment

“The angel of history says, “Terrible”, but the Angel of Alternate History says, “Could be worse.” They’re both right, but the latter angel gives us grounds to act. “ - p. 72

“Wheel you face a politics that adores to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.” -p24

Sapolsky rejects the notion of free will - we are the sum of complex biological factors that we don’t understand. Analogy to people who burned epileptics - we understand now that it’s the disease and not the spirit. What more today, when we attribute good and evil to an immaterial spirit? Consequently, justice should be rehabilitative and harm-preventing, not “pleasurably” punitive