the possibility of someone like Tetsuo existing is the inevitable result of humanity's intersection with the numinous. if this sort of thing is *possible at all*—if it's possible for an ordinary human being to acquire godlike powers over matter and energy—then Tetsuo is possible. Image
magic doesn't exist, so the #Christians and @michaelshermer both say (curious how they always agree in almost every way) but the human _fiction_ about magic seems to grasp this fundamental truth: magic + humanity = world-shaking catastrophe, with appalling ease.

~Chara
it's not clear that humanity *can* safely wield "true magic", which for the sake of discussion I'll define roughly as "magic capable of causing objectively measurable changes on matter and energy". casting a fireball ought to be *measurable*—producing real heat and flame.

~Chara
humanity does have *some* kind of magical knowledge; we've lightly brushed the outer edges of this tremendously intricate and enormously varied body of lore. every culture on Earth has probably had *some* form of magical practice. magic is at least as varied as *music*.

~Chara
but the achievements claimed from such magics are rather modest: getting glimpses of the future, changing someone's *luck* (for good or ill), trying to deflect the course of human events in some small way.

nobody's trying to cast mage lights or "Trace On", I don't think.

~Chara Emiya Shirou, holding a len...
"Trace On" is one of the *smallest* acts of "true magic" that I can imagine—and it is, so far as we know, completely impossible. nobody serious thinks this can be done. (yet.)

and maybe there's a reason for that. maybe humanity *shouldn't* be pulling crap like this.

~Chara
I'm not saying that from doctrinaire #Christian reasons—it's never even been clear to me whether Christianity and magical practice are incompatible. there's lots of people who felt they could live together just fine. and there's been Jewish and Muslim authorities, too.

~Chara
the real problem is something quite *personal*: it's too easy to imagine the sort of person who'd casually break the sky in two with magic, if they thought it would get them something. Kingpin from "Into the Spider-Verse" is just the sort of person—a self-pitying hoodlum.

~Chara Image
he's fiction, but @elonmusk is real life, and he seems just about as heedless and self-centered as Kingpin with "his" particle collider. would you trust Elon Musk with "true magic"? I'm not sure I'd trust him with a pair of scissors.

~Chara of Pnictogen

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Kris Dreemurr of the Pnictogen Wing (at Large)

Kris Dreemurr of the Pnictogen Wing (at Large) Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @KrisAtLarge

Feb 3
I ask my few readers to consider the following possibility: ALL "#conservative" ideology these days—whether it's from @GOP ideologues or the @Conservatives' ideologues or #Christian ideologues or "gender critical" ideologues of the @bindelj sort—has a very specific motive.

(1/x)
not the motive you might be thinking!

I suggest that ALL these people—@DouthatNYT, @realchrisrufo, @Docstockk, @michaelshermer, whoever—adapt their ideology specifically according to who humiliates them in arguments the most reliably. because these people *can't argue*.

(2/x)
right-wing ideology can't be supported *logically*, because the core and center of "movement #conservatism" is irrational and emotional: they like old beliefs and old concepts, old ways of wielding power and regulating human beings, and they don't want anything to change.

(3/x)
Read 13 tweets
Feb 2
yes, @HistoryBoomer, it's entirely credible for @Yascha_Mounk and @conor64 and @bariweiss (who likes trying to get professors fired, if they're insufficiently deferential towards @Israel's genocidal tendencies) to want to ban books. it's almost _necessary_ for them to want that.
why do I say that? because the political beliefs of @bariweiss &c. are intellectually absurd, indefensible except via suppression of competing ideas. Weiss, for example, subscribes to "gender criticism", which pretends that masculinity is a scientific trait of the human penis.
the *only way* to preserve the ideologies of @bariweiss (and @conor64 and the rest of that gang) is through *cheating*.

and they all do compare notes, @HistoryBoomer; I rather hope you're not clinging to some illusion that these propagandists are independent of one another.
Read 5 tweets
Feb 2
wow, I "love" how @elonmusk is such a contemptibly *cowardly* man-child that he's convinced himself that only "bots" hate him. @mtaibbi's bestest buddy really is THAT gutless—he's so scared of being hated, that he's forced to pretend that the people who hate him aren't "real".
@Twitter / @TwitterDev bot functionality was legitimately useful—and now @elonmusk's taking it away from us because he and his wretched fanbase have all been daydreaming that "bots" are why Musk's name is mud on #Twitter.

no, Elon—that's just you. you're a turd of a person.
you're a human turd, @elonmusk, a turd with lots of money so you've been able to buy yourself some chums who tell you day and night that you're the saviour of the world. but it's not true. @mtaibbi and @stillgray and @lhfang and the rest of them are *using* you.
Read 5 tweets
Feb 2
we've said it before but we really like the #KamenRider Build theme: "Be the One", by Pandora.



🎵 be the light / be the light
we'll take darkness into brightness, yeah
leading you into the light
be the light
oh, you'll be alive
be the one / be the one 🎵
#KamenRider Build and its overflowing heroic anguish served as emotional counterpoint to some of the most painful months of our lives—working in the slippery and dangerous biodiesel factory, then having to drop everything to go to San Diego and be with our dying father.

~Chara
Evolt was gearing up yet another diabolical plan (he had so many of them!) about the time that we were watching our father expire.

a lot of #KamenRider (and #SuperSentai) has chanced to line up with our life's worst moments—tokusatsu is woven into the fabric of our life.

~Chara
Read 16 tweets
Feb 1
I've been talking about how Western culture tends to loathe its children, and how a large subset of the West thinks that the best way to raise children is by hurling abuse and threats at them, military boot-camp style.

that reminds me of this poor guy: Todd Marinovich.

(1/x)
he's one of those sad sacks who ends up on "NFL's Greatest Bust" lists. his pro football career followed a rather familiar trajectory: he'd been schooled into a star football player, seemed really impressive (if erratic) in college, and then bombed on the national stage.

(2/x)
and then decades later people laugh over amusing #sports #journalism pieces about what a massive flop he was, and maybe search YouTube for some amusing clips of old games in which Marinovich threw an interception, or whatever. (I didn't find any myself.)

(3/x)
Read 12 tweets
Feb 1
Tetsuo isn't Akira but the onlookers don't know that; all they knows is that a freaky kid has popped up in Neo-Tokyo and is blowing up tanks—they're prepared to take this as *good news*.

they've been living under the bootheel of militarized oligarchy; ANYTHING is better.

~Chara
of course Tetsuo turns out to be bad news indeed but at least he's mostly blowing up military equipment; to the people of Neo-Tokyo, it must have felt (at first) like a relief from an intolerable deadlock. at *last*, the avenging rage of the people had some visible shape.

~Chara
the funny thing about our stylishly marketed faux-revolutionary "independent" crowd—the folks currently clustering around @elonmusk and @mtaibbi and @Timcast and all that gang—is that they're actually _terrified_ of that genuine full-blooded *wrath*.

~Chara
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(