ZombieNet

Simon Volpert | @simon@zombienet.org

Philosophy dropout and self-proclaimed synthesist. Handle with care.

"Know your place, woman!" — "And what place is that?" — "Why, in key positions for ruling the world, obviously!"

Whether or not you can trust your judgement is far from being a banal question. On one hand, there is a significant body of evidence against. On the other, it is the only thing you have!

"I'm a *pragmatheist*. I believe in whatever makes most sense from practical considerations."

Philosophy in cinema: Tommy Lee Jones' famous "There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser" speech, provides a fairly concise depiction of existentialist philosophy; And substituting "do not know about it" with "do not think about it", provides an adequate resolution.

Being a liberal doesn't grant you any automatic moral superiority. If anything, political leanings should be established based on a set of pragmatic or, at least, ideopragmatic considerations.

The problem with any two-party political system is that someday you are guaranteed to be forced to choose between the bad and the ugly.

"While i wasn't looking! Someone went and traded! Three packages of high-quality chocolate! For a single, lame, twelve-piece package of bonbons, barely half the weight! What are you doing? Don't bother showing me your tits! You won't be able to... Distract me... With... What was i talking about, again?"

"You know, if you go on like this for a bit longer, i'm going to start thinking badly of you."

Listening to my own music after a while, having a fair amount of "Oh! I see what i did there!" moments.

If you insist on criticizing someone (who may or may not be several times smarter than you), you might as well show the respect of at least remembering their name.

"I have no concrete opinion on the matter" is not an invitation to start explaining, in detail, what that opinion should be. I invested more thought into my lack of opinion than you did into your presence thereof.

"It's not that i have any qualms about letting you into my world — in fact, i'd love to! It's just that, for some reason, you don't seem to like it there."

"It is uncertain, whether or not there is a special place in hell for agnostics." — A philosophic joke.

An appeal to authority only makes sense if all parties agree on the authority's authority.

I'm having difficulty coming up with a dumb idea that wasn't taken seriously by some people at some point.

"What do you mean, what's the matter with me? I'm having a sad episode. I *am* allowed to have a sad episode from time to time, i would think?"

Death is hard not for the dead, but for the living.

Aesthetic preferences are not supposed to make sense; Aesthetics is not a rational discipline. You can either relate to them — if they are similar to your own — or not — if they are significantly (>37%) different.

I nominate myself for the Least Understood Person Around Here award.

An exercise in reflection: The immortal alien from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy drops out of the sky in his spaceship and throws an insult in your face. This insult just happens to be the worst you could possibly take — the bastard clearly has done his research. What is it?

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