Worse Than Peak Oil? We're Quickly Running Out of a Chemical Essential to Growing Food

viborg

Pretty much what I was thinking. Whoever wrote this headline needs to look up the definition of the word "essential".

viborg

D.H. Lawrence - Lady Chatterly's Lover. Seriously, give this book a read.

Real knowledge comes out of the whole corpus of the consciousness; out of your belly and your penis as much as out of your brain and mind. The mind can only analyse and rationalize. Set the mind and the reason to cock it over the rest, and all they can do is to criticize, and make a deadness. I say all they can do. It is vastly important. My God, the world needs criticizing today… criticizing to death. Therefore let's live the mental life, and glory in our spite, and strip the rotten old show. But, mind you, it's like this: while you live your life, you are in some way an organic whole with all life. But once you start the mental life you pluck the apple. You've severed the connexion between the apple and the tree: the organic connexion. And if you've got nothing in your life but the mental life, then you yourself are a plucked apple… you've fallen off the tree. And then it is a logical necessity to be spiteful, just as it's a natural necessity for a plucked apple to go bad.

viborg

I downvoted because it's not so much meant for entertainment or any deeper meaning, it's more of a trite manifesto from someone who was borderline sociopathic, and it seems to be frequently used by other borderline sociopaths to justify their own narcissistic inclinations.

viborg

The Ursula Le Guin interpretation:

"Scholarly translators of the Tao Te Ching, as a manual for rulers, use a vocabulary that emphasizes the uniqueness of the Taoist 'sage,' his masculinity, his authority. This language is perpetuated, and degraded, in most popular versions. I wanted a Book of the Way accessible to a present-day, unwise, unpowerful, and perhaps unmale reader, not seeking esoteric secrets, but listening for a voice that speaks to the soul. I would like that reader to see why people have loved the book for 2500 years.

"It is the most lovable of all the great religious texts, funny, keen, kind, modest, indestructibly outrageous and inexhaustibly refreshing. Of all the deep springs, this is the purest water. To me it is also the deepest spring."

I could really care less about male vs unmale, but it is the most accessible, and most touching, of the versions I've read.

viborg

I just started Norwegian Wood, and finished The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle a little while back. So far, Norwegian Wood seems like the better read. Wind-Up Bird was entertaining in a whimsical and convoluted kind of way, but Norwegian Wood seems to present more universal themes that almost anyone could relate to.

viborg

It's probably nothing.

viborg

I kind of know what you mean, but I find that if I only consider single opinions there end up being a lot of gaps in my musical knowledge. I was glad to see him incorporate some electronic gems in there though...I actually don't know too much about Pere Ubu but nothing I've heard by them convinces me they could have written the best album ever. Kate Bush, maybe.

Weren't you the guy from the reddit JetBlue experiment? Following that adventure, it seemed like you had pretty damned good taste in music. Do you know about I Love Music? They put together some well-done lists of top albums, usually by decade. Here's their picks for top albums of the 80s. I'd say it's a pretty comprehensive list. There are some obvious omissions but it's hard to argue with the top ten IMHO. I just linked to the comment summarizing the list, threads on there get pretty weighty with images, embedded YouTube videos, and navel-gazing.

EDIT
Hmm...don't see any Pere Ubu on there. Maybe they are kind of selective in their tastes. I think I like them cause they affirm my faith in Kate Bush.

viborg

Some great stuff there, but I find it hard to believe a Pere Ubu record is the greatest of all time.

viborg

Thanks for the tip!

viborg

Good question. I don't pay too much attention to reddit in general these days. It's a good way to kill time if you're bored, that's about it. Do you know about I Love Music? Also, have you heard this very nice tune?

viborg

How would that be possible?

viborg

The problem I've had with moderating my subreddit, and this has been addressed in this one too, is the anonymous downvotes. At a small enough level there really isn't any need for downvotes. I haven't been paying very close attention around here lately but for a long time this subreddit got so few submissions that it's not like the good ones were getting buried in spam, and yet submissions would still get hit with anonymous downvotes. It's really senseless.

viborg

It's like they're not even conscious of what's happening. They are so wound up, they don't have time to think.

I wonder if at some level shopping taps into some primal urges that civilization otherwise represses. Like maybe this is how people used to act when they were slaughtering a big buffalo or something.

viborg

Lurkers usually don't read comments, either.

viborg

Ok, to be clear - where the fuck did I say I would downvote other people's mixes? I said I downvoted this submission, and that's it.

Because, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

viborg

This thread is nothing without some Brazilian tropicalia. Words can't do it justice, but probably the best example would be "Bat Macumba" (actually it only has about two different words in the entire lyrics if you don't count the yelps, etc). Enjoy.

Other great examples of tropicalia: "Ponta de Lanca Africano" and "Baby" (that last definitely as much samba as rock but still kicks ass).

EDIT
Whoops, didn't see Adelaidey' comment with the Os Mutantes from five hours ago. He beat me to it.

viborg

Me:

I usually see these kinds of submissions as a borderline waste of time

You:

it's meant to be there to get rid of content which doesn't add to the community

Not to belabor the point, but that seems like quite a fine distinction to me.

viborg

It still might not help. I tried removing the downvotes in my subreddit, but users can still downvote easily if they are viewing the subreddit any other way than by itself. (Of course, that subreddit had a serious problem with borderline psycho stalkers for a while so it's kind of exceptional.)

On a side note, I agree that senseless downvoting is a shame, but I did in fact that downvote this submission, for two reasons:

In general, I don't have time to listen to a whole hour+ mix of some amateur's idea of what music I should be listening to. Sorry, but it's true - this doesn't mean I want to see the mixes downvoted, but that I'd just as soon see really good songs hosted on YT getting more upvotes.
The only point of this submission was to impose the submitter's opinion on us. It doesn't contain any outside links or much else to lend it substance. I usually see these kinds of submissions as a borderline waste of time, and disagreeing with the opinion being advocated makes me more likely to downvote.

With any luck, expressing my dissenting opinion here will instigate a wave of vindictive stalking and downvoting everything I comment on or submit for a few days. Cheers!

viborg

There are no more typographical ways for me to emphasize this, but imagine there are, and imagine I'm using them.

Too many words, too little to say.

viborg

To each their own.

viborg

They don't. There have been several realistic proposals to legalize marijuana in California recently.

viborg

Really nice song here. I love this whole EP. In fact, I think I listen to these guys and Fila Brazilia more than anything else.

viborg

Yogurt.

viborg

Tasteless? Aphex Twin?? Never!

viborg

TROPHY CASE

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