#First post hope its good :3

[hinamie]

to moving forward

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

If I was in a lucid dream with a ghost, I would simply impress them with my blunt rolling skills

[pixelatedraindrops]

Yuma Month: Day 31: Post Game

…for the sake of the world’s happiness.

[paimonial-rage]

My favorite works in no particular order:

Tipsy Tales (Anemo Boys)

Symbiosis (Ayato)

What Destiny Has Brought (Fischl)

Hello How Are You (Gorou)

Follow the Wind II (Kazuha)

Of the Same Coin (Mika)

Songs of the Wind (Venti)

Nothing Lasts Forever (Yae Miko)

Sharing a Drink They Call Loneliness (Zhongli)

Of Hopes and Prayers (Zhongli)

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally finished all of one character's entire quests/optional dialogue/questions/etc.... 100,000 words... .... aughhh

[gentaroukisaragi]

Ultraman Blazar's Salutations From Episodes 1-5 (ft. Bazanga, Leviera, and a sleeping Dorgo)

Episode 1 as well as the rest of the series can be found on youtube for free with eng subtitles and an eng audio track if that interests you

[Video description: Ultraman Blazar, a colossal grey humanoid alien with red and blue markings on his body, and blue markings on his face, performs his signature salutation in several different places and times. This salutation consists of raising his arms up to the sky in a circular motion, and bringing his knee up before stepping into a lunge and scooping his arms down and upward.

From episode 1, in a city at night, the camera watches from below, as Blazar performs his salutation and his markings flash red and blue. The shot cuts to a wider one, showing off the buildings and Blazar's opponent, Bazanga, a prawn-like Kaiju. After his salute, Blazar moves his hands into a guarded, fighting stance.

From Episode 2: Blazar stands against the bright blue day sky in a small fishing village, with much shorter buildings. He faces the camera directly as he does his salutation, and the camera zooms in on him as he does it and his markings flash red and blue once more.

From Episode 3: Blazar is framed in a head and shoulder shot and smothered in smoke as his colour time, a big round spot on his chest that is normally blue, flashes red. Once more he faces the camera as he does his salutation, before flying off, kicking up dirt in his takeoff.

From episode 4: The camera pans over a cityscape, with a highway at the front of the scene. Once more it is night time and Blazar faces off against a monster among many many buildings. The monster is Leviera, a sea-angel themed kaiju whose face is open to reveal flashing yellow lights as Blazar does his salutation from the side. Leviera is aggressively ready to go.

From episode 5: Blazar stands behind the sleeping kaiju, Dorgo, who looks mostly like a hill of dirt in this shot. He performs his salutation, and immediately begins to push the sleeping Kaiju back to its proper resting place. The shot switches to one of Blazar from behind, as he continues to push Dorgo back into place, among the green hills and mountains of the Japanese countryside. With a thump, Dorgo returns to his resting spot, and Blazar turns to face the camera as he jumps up into the air to fly away.

End video description.]

[flowersfortheghost]

Ghostflower week day 1

tags: @ghostflowerweek2023

summary: What if the conversation during the clocktower scene went a little differently?

—

Gwen and Miles were both sitting at the Williamsburg Bank Building, talking after they hadn't seen each other for months. Miles then sat next to Gwen before she could start talking. “I mean, how many people can you talk to about this stuff?” She asked. “You don’t even know.” Miles responded. Gwen sighed, which Miles noticed. “What?” He asked.

“You’re the only friend I’ve ever really made after Peter died.” Gwen confessed. She thought she would never make new friends, that she could never move on, but she did. And she wasn’t exactly regretting it.

“Other than Hobie, right?”

“That’s different.” It was very different, to her. Hobie felt like an older brother to Gwen, Miles felt like something more than a friend. Someone she wanted to see more than a friend. Someone who she...was in love with.

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“I don’t know..” But Gwen did know, she just didn't want to admit it or say it.

“You and me, it’s…” Why couldn’t she just say it? Why couldn’t she just pour out all her feelings right now. She knew ways to word it, she just couldn’t do it.

“We’re…the same.”

Gwen looked at Miles with a somewhat confused expression. Did he see her the same way she does, or was this one-sided? “In the important ways.” Miles added, which caused Gwen to chuckle.

“In every other universe, Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man.”

Miles’ eyes widened a bit. He didn’t expect Gwen to say something like that. He was wondering if she had the same feelings as he had. So he moved his hand closer to hers, which Gwen noticed.

“And in every other universe…”

Gwen didn’t want to finish her sentence. She knew the faith of Gwen Stacy. She falls in love, then falls to her death. She wants it to end well, for once. She wants to love someone without dying. 

“Miles, can I tell you something?” Gwen had to do it, this was the only chance she could tell Miles this. “Yeah sure. Go ahead.”

“Miles I…” Gwen felt a nervous feeling blossom inside her. She couldn’t keep these feelings and felt like Miles needed to know this. “Maybe in this universe, it can end well…” She thought to herself.

“When Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man, she falls to her death. That’s how the story is supposed to go…” Gwen stopped talking for a second, deciding whether or not she should do this. “But maybe in this universe, things are different.” She said, getting closer to Miles.

“Gwen, what are you-”

Before Miles had finished his sentence, Gwen had softly kissed him. Miles obviously didn’t see that one coming, but he couldn’t deny the fact that he didn’t mind it. In fact, he kissed her back, which was something Gwen didn’t expect.

Gwen eventually pulled away. “So Gwen, what does this mean?” Miles asked, as if the answer wasn’t obvious yet. “I… I love you, Miles.” Gwen said softly, feeling a slight blush appear on her face.

“I love you too, Gwen.”

[afterthelambs]

Oh my god haikyuu is so right volleyball is so FUNNNN

[b4kuch1n]

bobby carruthers I understand u babe but what u have done is spilling blood all over ur sister as she watches her husband she's just learned catastrophic information about die in her arms. gods what a case

[newvision]

Poems/books for being seventeen?

Silas Denver Melvin, from Grit

I saw an exquisite pink and blue shell on the sea-bottom. I dove for it, and held it, smooth and hollow in my hand all the morning. I decided it was a lucky charm, and that I would keep it. I am surprised that I have not lost it, for I lose everything. Today it is still pink and warm as it lies in my palm, and makes me feel like crying.

Françoise Sagan, from Bonjour Tristesse (1954) // movie still from Bonjour Tristesse (1958)

Kara Jackson, Teenagers Are Not Exempt From Poetry (read full prose piece here)

Some recommendations of books I’ve read that deal with girlhood or being a teenager (not my faves, but enjoyable. Probably wouldn’t read them again, but objectively literature that might be of interest to you):

Brutes — Dizz Tate

The Virgin Suicides — Jeffrey Eugenides

The Ice Palace — Tarjei Versaas

Teenage Wasteland — Anne Tyler

Normal People — Sally Rooney

My Dark Vanessa — Kate Elizabeth Russell

We Were Liars — E. Lockhart

my notes on each recommendation:

SEVENTEEN: Exactly what being seventeen felt like to me. He has absolutely beautiful poetry on age, Seventeen is the first of those in the collection. I’ve loved measuring my growth by how I relate to these poems. You can download the entire collection for free, just check out his account @sweatermuppet, I’m sure he has a link somewhere (or drop him an ask)! One of my favourite collections, it really embodies the feeling of being young, so the rest of the poems might also be of interest to you. I find myself rereading them all of the time. Love your work, Silas! Can’t wait for more poetry

BONJOUR TRISTESSE: I don’t remember the protagonist’s age exactly, but the author was seventeen when she wrote it. Very breezy, very summery, contains the whole spectrum of teenage emotions, from raging anger to audacious freedom. The protagonist is both astute and very childish. This book is so obviously written by a teenager, and I mean this as the highest compliment. You don’t get adults writing about being seventeen like that. She is seventeen. Seventeen is this story’s essence. I haven’t seen the movie, but it’s on my watchlist. Heard it’s good though!

TEENAGERS ARE NOT EXEMT FROM POETRY: I read this the other day and think it would have been very affirming for teenage me, who felt insecure about reading and writing poetry. Some lines really stuck with me and I think the writer’s youthful voice captures the solace teenagers might find in poetry very well. There is a freshness to that discovery. I remember reading Ginsberg for the first time and life feeling ten times wider even though my English was not broad enough for me to understand his work in its entirety. Discovering art at that age is a privilege, I believe most people will struggle to feel the same awe and wonder in later years. The author of this prose piece mentions many different poems that might interest you!

BRUTES: Read it last year and honestly found it kind of disappointing. Very interesting style, though, as most (all?) of it is written from the perspective of a group of teenage girls, using ‘we’ and ‘us’ instead of ‘I’ and ‘me’. I think I would have liked it a thousand times more, had I read it earlier in life. Fantastic book cover

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES: Very obviously written by a man, but nevertheless an interesting study of teenage love and obsession (there’s an excellent movie adaptation by Sophia Coppola!)

THE ICE PALACE: If I remember correctly, the protagonists are younger than seventeen, but it’s a very moving story about how young people grieve. Norwegian author, which I found very interesting, as I haven’t read a lot of Scandinavian literature

TEENAGE WASTELAND: Not for me, this one! But you might have different taste. After reading some reviews, it seems like people either hate or love this short story

NORMAL PEOPLE: I am not a huge Sally Rooney fan, but I do understand why people adore her so much. I thought Conversations With Friends was a better book, but that’s partly because I found it more relatable. Normal People is a very intelligent story on young love, class differences and the reality of many relationships. The opposite of a ‘happily ever after’ book, left me feeling unresolved and unsatisfied, as I believe it intended

MY DARK VANESSA: I’m not sure if recommending this too a teenager is wise, but it is certainly a very good book. Heavy stuff, though. Deals with emotional manipulation and violence directed at a teenaged girl in form of a predatory relationship. Rarely read something that made me feel so uneasy by manipulating me as the reader. I read it as a teen and it impressed me very much! Be safe, please. If you are easily disturbed, check any content warnings!

WE WERE LIARS: Something suspenseful that will suck you in, a summer-y and kind of light book. Definitely entertainment literature, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Probably won’t change your life, but also won’t bore you. Cool friendship dynamics between teenagers!

[mayo-is-an-instrument]

I made a boo oc!! I'll make more drawings to use them for when I start making "serious" YouTube videos :3

[lususnatura]

🎤 🎤 🎤

a song that i associate with my muse meme!

AHH, hey, ramone!! thank you for sending in this prompt :D since you sent in three of the mic's, i shall now be treating you to three songs that make me think of blamore when i hear them / that i associate with it. an explanation of why i chose them will be in the tags <3

hozier - who we are.

icehouse - crazy.

depeche mode - personal jesus.

[potter-inthe-tardis]

Hi okay it's me again. I started watching the bear and it's really good (although it's makin me stressed how stressed they are) The other two i will come to next, intriguing. I could have specified I'm only into fiction shows and not really stuff like Taskmaster but it sounds like you enjoy it which is cool. I remain open to any other suggestions!

Hello! I'm glad you're watching The Bear, yeah I think the show was made to stress people out lol! I would say even if you think it wouldn't be your thing, even just give a short clip from Taskmaster a chance its worth it, but thats the lasts ill push that. Other fiction shows is still a super broad category but let me think.

It's really popular right now, so you've possibly already seen it, or at least heard about it, but I'm lowkey obsessed with it at the moment so I have to mention it and that's Bridgerton. If you're unfamiliar its a romance/drama show in a stylized regency era. I really love it, but I would say skip season 1 and go right to season 2, its the better season. Like I will warn some people act like its regency porn, which its not, but there are some sex scenes that are a little more graphic then a lot of shows show, so just so you know if thats not your thing, but they're easy to fast forward through.

Lowkey inspired by the last suggestion, is Derry Girls, their is an actress in both this and Bridgerton that I'm a big fan of, so I've been rewatching this of recent. Its a comedy about a group of high school girls in Derry, Ireland in the 90s, and their teen mischief while in the background is the troubles going on in the country. And its a really funny show, great characters, and if your like me you will be trying to copy their accents cuz they're amazing.

School Spirits, it's a teen drama/mystery about a girl who becomes a ghost, and she's trying to discover how this happened to her, with the help of other ghosts shes meets and a living friend of hers who can somehow see her. I got really hooked on this show when I first saw it, and I need it's second season asap. I will say there is potentially triggering content so I'd recommend looking into that first if thats a concern.

Extraordinary, omg I don't know why I didn't think of this one sooner or for the first list, but it's another show I was hooked on when I first saw it. It's a comedy, where everyone has a super power except for our protagonist, and we see how she deals with that/her trying to discover her power somehow. It's a lot of fun to watch, some characters have absolutely ridiculous powers, where you think they'd probably be better off without a power.

I hope you maybe like some of these please do come back and tell me any thoughts you have on them if you check any out!

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

hello hello hope u are having a good timezone! as u might have noticed re: my tags on that shl gifset lmao i'm interested on yr thoughts on this as a wenzhou poem.. cannot stop thinking about the come hope too much. come with all your ghosts. come clown around when the timing's bad. come promise me the world. come trust me to do my best even when i don't. come ask me to give you everything i have. anyway. !!! <3

honestly, i dont know how to present my thoughts without wanting to cry. there is something so raw about this poem that hits me where it hurts. i think this visceral need, of hope, is so essential to tyk, and at the same time, the novel is making a study of hopelessness.

i mean. the main character starts out killing himself; and it is hard not to understand this wish if the very world he lives in is so bleak and devoid of warmth. and after that very important decision, zhou zishu rejoices in every single mundane thing life has to offer; and he can do that, like, he has given himself the allowance to it because he paid for it with his death.

Death was not frightening. It had not been easy for him to survive over the past twenty years; all of the methods he used to pressure Zhang Chengling were ones he had endured in his childhood, but even harsher, and despite him not having the kid's innate talent for withstanding that harshness completely unharmed. (Ch. 45, tl. chichilations) "Why wouldn't i? My junior used to be taught by my hand." .. "Then what did you do if our junior couldn't recite the mantras, or couldn't practice some move?" .. "I made him copy the introductory breath-regulation mantra three hundred times. If he couldn't even practice slowly, then he wouldn't need to eat, nor… need to sleep. In the middle of the night, I would get someone to lock his bedroom up so that he would go into the snowdrifts and come to a comprehension on his own." (Ch. 33, tl. chichilations) He had experienced enough to fear no one and nothing in the world. If he lived in no fear, what was so scary about death? (Ch. 45, tl. chichilations)

and i feel like... like!! he has spent his entire life trying to carve out a place for himself: he perfected four seasons manor’s martial arts into an, uh, art, he dabbled a little in game of thrones politics entirely uncalled for, he discovered he has basically no bottom line, he sold his sect to the empire and built a new organization by himself, he became the most powerful person of the nation second only to the son of heaven. he has, like, done lots of things, and made mostly only bad choices.

but this struggle has always been about living his own life, and it has always been in a transactional way, and now that he has all but killed himself, he is doing it all over again.

However, what was making him uncomfortable was that he had to count the days down until his death. / Having endured so much, his heart's will was stalwart, and never had he had a will for death. Wasn't it ironic that his most free, most unworried, and most cheerful days would be the ones where he was waiting to die? / This was most likely yet another stupid thing that was his own doing. (Ch. 45, tl. chichilations)

and wen kexing is kind of the opposite. wen kexing has never really lived a life for himself, and over his time in the valley, he must have become accustomed to the thought of never having a life of his own ever. he is entirely unashamed of being seen as well, at least regarding the things that are socially unacceptable, like homosexuality and murder, or his general unhinged self; unashamed in a way that speaks of a trial by fire. but he once says that,

"For all my life, whenever I want to happily play around, I can't be happy. When I grew up a little, I wanted to learn arts both martial and literary with my parents, but no one was around to teach me. Tell me… isn't that some very poor timing?" (Ch. 29, tl. chichilations)

in short, he is always slightly out of tune. when he meets zhou zishu, he is slightly out of tune as well. zhou zishu is going to die (at this point, it is all but set in stone), and wen kexing has this plan that ends with a bang, with him going up in flames while he burns all of his past grievances and the devils and demons of jianghu, and that includes himself, away.

"This is the human world," he continued, "and the human world should not have ghosts and demons. The … prestigious Hero Ghao Chong is ridding the world of calamities for the common folk. If we don't lend a hand, would your many years of reading sagely texts not be in vain? I heard that only many years of cultivation can then give you a fulfilled life, but if you don't do anything notable, wouldn't those decades have been for nothing?" / Zhou Zishu didn't answer, but Wen Kexing still turned to ask after him. "Wouldn't you agree, Ah-Xu?" (Ch. 16, tl. chichilations) When cold rain falls, autumn makes itself known; the wutong tree ages and dies. Thin robes offer no protection from a night of bitter winter, years and lives wasting, whiling away... nothing more than this: resentment, that we met so late. (Ch. 29, tl. hunxi-after-hours)

but oh. while they meet, in that space between them, they carve out a place for them that fits just right; a space where they can explore and discover, play and fuck around, and be human. something neither really knows how to. ("and I started feeling myself open, / started feeling my yes coming back / and it was the sweetest thing I had ever known / the reverse of being haunted, / like taking a deep breath / and pulling the fog of the glass.")

and it also reminds me of this:

(excerpt from 'baked goods' by aimee nezhukumatathil, found here)

seriously, the lines youre quoting in your ask, like (grabs wenzhou and shakes them around) thats them!!! its them!!! but the poem has no single line that isnt a banger, almost no line that doesnt fit them. how it starts is absolutely devastating, it reminds me of wen kexing and the valley and his general attitude re: his lack of autonomy. ("I wanted the yes to last forever so badly later on I told myself: / We’re built like drums. We couldn't make songs / if we had never been hit. It was a desperate theory.") it reminds me of zhou zishu's journey (gestures at qi ye at large) and his unceasing downwards spiral, that ends with him (figuratively but also not) in his own grave. ("And that’s how I lived. I mean, that’s how I’d been living. / Decades of no no no no no no / And that’s okay, an accordion could not make a song / if it never closed.") like, zhou zishu is a survivor. the fact that he decides to kill himself has been a long way coming emotionally, but only really comes to pass in the physical world when liang jiuxiao's death kicks him off over edge, and half a decade later, he still remembers him with that misunderstanding in mind; otherwise, im fairly sure, he would have never done so, despite being unhappy and miserable.

"Who?" Zhou Zishu laughed dourly. "You mean the girl at the restaurant? I'll handle her. Liang Jiuxiao … he… he said murderers pay with their lives. Told me to pay with my life." (Qi Ye, Ch. 62, tl. chichilations) Murdering someone should be paid with one's life? Why should it be? In this world, there was a way to make living worse than dying. (TYK, Ch. 20, tl. chichilations)

but wen kexing, even despite being highly aware that he has never really lived, tries to find light in the darkness even in his last days on earth. ruth @specialability said the other day when i was rambling about wen kexing's general attitude re: his own impending death in my tags, "I do think that Wen Kexing is sort of removed from his reality in a dissociative way but he doesn't want to be. He is trying to have life experiences that are not so shitty and I do think there are times when he is very 'present', especially with Chengling," and i agree. they are both in their last days on this earth, and they are desperately making the most of it, because in all honesty, neither really wants to die. this shift from "not wanting to die" to "living", in tyk, happens incredibly slow and not all at once, i think. its a gradual process, a lot must be chosen and decided upon, and before all, wenzhou must allow themselves to believe in hope again.

thats what rattles me so about 'good light', its about how there hasnt always been hopelessness, but now, it is hard to remember how it used to be; having faith. believing in the good. this ardous, sometimes agonizing process of starting to believe in it again, of opening yourself to possibilities again. in the chapter when wu xi and jing qi return to examine zhou zishu again, after they already pronounced him incurable once before, and savable only if he paid a price that turns out to be his bottom line, zhou zishu says, in his pov:

Even though the time he had spent alive could not be considered ‘long’, Zhou Zishu felt that it was sufficient for him to understand this lesson--that there was no such thing as a free lunch. Even if these two people before him could be considered ‘friends’ if he were hard-pressed to, even if he was familiar with how the Great Shaman operated, he still dared not believe it so easily. / Because… it could hurt, this thing called hope. (Ch. 64, tl. wenbuxing)

but oh, it can be so sweet as well, cant it? when youve opened yourself to it, when youve begun to discover life, the world, yourself and who you might be; a second chance, at life, at being a person. like, wenzhou are so weird, but they are also trying out this thing called courtship, called friendship, called mundane life. and its so funny because they dont know how, and the novel absolutely drags them for it and they drag each other constantly and themselves too, no thing is left untouched. but also it is funny, it is hilarious, in this tragic sort of way that makes me want to cry, and also in the funny way because these two guys are just so perfect at being clowns.

but it is also sweet and lovely and raw, and thats who they are, and thats what they allow themselves to be, allow each other to be when they are together. they have, somehow, carved out this safe space with each other, where they can be fragile and human.

(quote above from 'i will' by mistki, found here)

[todayisafridaynight]

We’re having an emergency meeting to discuss Chris Johnson and the whitest name ever

absolutely fitting for our white man now innit

[gracien-system]

We are extremely far from being able to create a truly sentient AI.

The most optimistic estimates of the amount of processing power the human brain possesses are orders of magnitude off from the amount of processing power every computer on earth has, combined.

And that's not even including the tax that you incur from emulation.

The ML shit that is currently happening is nothing like a true AI. It is a collection of linear programming and statistical models which create the illusion of intelligence by recombining data in statistical fashions which make it seem like there is intent when there really isn't.

All they're doing is looking at the last thing they did and predicting the most likely next step, then doing that and repeating the process until the task is complete.

All of this is to preface an entirely different conversation/argument we've been seeing way more than we'd like, recently. That being "we will never achieve sentient AI, it's impossible".

And I would like to counter this in a few different ways, and then leave it alone, because frankly, we hate the discussions about what is/isn't possible via technology, and hate discussions about machine learning with a particular passion.

So, why do we believe sentient AI is possible at all.

Well, when we talk about AI, we aren't limiting our discussion to binary computation. Using a classical or quantum computer and trying to create a consciousness with it is a bad idea. It's theoretically not impossible -- the universe is built on a foundation of information, of bits, of yes/no questions, but frankly, you're not just trying to simulate a consciousness at that point, you're trying to simulate the things that make a consciousness, and doing that makes the computational requirements just absolutely fucking outrageous.

Even if we're talking about a quantum computer, the advantage that it has over regular computing is that you can find every possible solution to an equation in the same time it takes to get one solution, because it does them all simultaneously, and then collapses the computation into the solution you were (hopefully) looking for.

That technology isn't the technology that you're going to want to use if your goal is to create a sentient AI. Not anywhere near it. And I think that's what people get stuck on when they talk about how we will never create sentient AI -- limiting themselves to traditional and quantum computing.

There are other forms of computation which are much closer to the human brain, though -- and much closer to what you would want to use if your goal was to create an artificial intelligence.

Analogue computing comes to mind -- using physical electrical currents to do imprecise, but nearly instant calculation. However, the main thing about analogue computing is that it's... analogue. It's specific. You have a device which can do one thing, and to make it do something else, you need to take it apart and reassemble it in another configuration.

Analogue computing is not what will create AI, not on its own. I think it will be part of that solution, but it won't be the soul component.

So, you might ask what will be that soul component, what computational technology will let us create a sentient AI -- what will allow us to play god in that way?

Frankly, I'm not an oracle. I can't predict which one of the dozen different technologies being worked on as we speak will be the main component of a future AI, if any of them end up being that technology.

But I do know this:

Nature created us. Humanity. It gave us consciousness, it gave us sapience -- and it likely gave some other animals that trait, too.

And frankly? I believe that if nature did it with no guiding hand or intention, humanity can do it with intent in an order of magnitude less time.

If we were forced to make a bet on which technology creates AI first, we would bet on lab-grown neurons interfacing with electrodes. Does that count as artificial intelligence? In the strictest sense, I think it would. It's certainly artificial, and it would certainly be an intelligence. And I think that it would have the best chance of making a sentient AI in our lifetime, or shortly thereafter.

And now it's tangent time.

I know where the arguments about this kind of thing come from, and I know that if this post breaks containment we're going to have people from a dozen different communities all throwing different points at us as to why we're wrong. I'm going to address at least one or two of them here.

One of the things we've seen thrown around about this is that under capitalism, there is no profit incentive to create a sentient AI, and that if people claimed they had created one, they would likely be lying, or have some ulterior motive for why they claimed so.

That is correct! You're fucking right! There is no reason for sentient AI to be made under capitalism! That does not mean it isn't possible for it to be made under capitalism! Or in a post capitalist world!

Just because capitalism doesn't create optimal or semi-optimal conditions for something to be created doesn't mean that it won't be created anyway. Humans are curious and motivated and even in a system which actively hates technological progress which can't be monetized, it can still happen. That doesn't mean it will happen, but that also doesn't mean it can't happen.

Yes, machines and people are fundamentally different things. Creating a sentient AI is playing god. Creating a sentient AI is creating a living thing.

The morals of this are questionable. I can see the argument behind why we shouldn't try to create sentient AI. I can see the argument why we shouldn't create artificial life.

But I really hate the narrative that doing it is impossible. That it is beyond technology, or beyond human reach.

There are some science fiction concepts which are likely impossible. FTL travel and time travel, for example.

But this absolutely isn't one of them. The universe created life without intent and without a guidebook. The universe created sentience without intent, and without a guidebook.

Humanity has a blueprint, and humanity has intent.

Nature did it first. We can do it too. Should we? I don't know. But the fact that we can is important to recognize.

Alright, that's about all we've got. I hope the rant was coherent enough to be understood, and that we were persuasive. Good luck and good tidings, even if you disagree with us.