50 Awesome Quotes on Possibility 4. "In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd." - Miguel de Cervantes 5. "The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do." - Henry Moore 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. Idea Champions
A map of Bay Area memespace The main reason we picked the Bay Area as a home for the Center for Applied Rationality was simply because that's where our initial fiscal sponsor, MIRI, was located. Yet as I’ve gotten to know this region better in the year and a half since then, I’ve been struck by how good the fit has turned out to be. The Bay Area is unusually dense with idea-driven subcultures that mix and cross-pollinate in fascinating ways, many of which are already enriching rationalist culture. This map is my attempt at illustrating that landscape of subcultures, and at situating the rationalist community within it. I’ve limited myself to the last 50 years or so, and to subcultures defined by ideology (as opposed to, say, ethnicity). I’ve also depicted some of the major memes that have influenced, and been influenced by, those subcultures: (Click to enlarge) Below, I expand on the map with a quick tour through the landscape of Bay Area memes and subcultures. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Everything I Know: 42 Hours of Buckminster Fuller's Visionary Lectures Free Online (1975) Think of the name Buckminster Fuller, and you may think of a few oddities of mid-twentieth-century design for living: the Dymaxion House, the Dymaxion Car, the geodesic dome. But these artifacts represent only a small fragment of Fuller's life and work as a self-styled "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist." In his decades-long project of developing and furthering his worldview — an elaborate humanitarian framework involving resource conservation, applied geometry, and neologisms like "tensegrity," "ephemeralization," and "omni-interaccommodative" — the man wrote over 30 books, registered 28 United States patents, and kept a diary documenting his every fifteen minutes. In January 1975, Fuller sat down to deliver the twelve lectures that make up Everything I Know, all captured on video and enhanced with the most exciting bluescreen technology of the day. Parts 1-12 on the Internet Archive: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Parts 1-6 on YouTube: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Related Content:
A Map Of Your Favorite Fictional Places, From Oz To Loompaland We nerds all know that Tatooine was in a galaxy far, far away. But if you wanted to visit its filmed location on planet Earth, where would you go? What if you wanted to see where the Oompa Loompas supposedly toiled before Willy Wonka entered their lives, or plan a scuba diving trip to find Spongebob Squarepants? Here to aid in your travels to fantasy lands from your favorite movies are Will Samari, Ray Yamartino, and Rafaan Anvari of Wondernode. Based on data gathered from IMDB, online interviews, and Wiki fan pages, they’ve mapped out the supposed and filmed locations of fictional places, from Hogwarts to Loompaland to Oz. Some of these locations are actually highly visitable, such as Star Wars’ Forest Moon of Endor, home to many an Ewok, filmed in the Redwood National Park of Crescent City, California. [Image: Willy Wonka and Oompa Loopas]