There’s some narrative wiggle room if you want to be generous with the interpretation of the ending, but essentially yeah that’s the ending. Total dumpster fire.

Here’s actually why: They took the story about Eric and Shelly, two sweet and innocent beacons of light in their community of poverty and crime, whose lives were snuffed out for standing up for their community against a criminal slumlord, with Eric’s undying love for his bride-to-be transforming him into a vessel for righteous retribution and they fucking turned it into a story about a couple lustful hedonists on a two week bender after escaping rehab. Shelly and Eric are murdered by the most forgettable villain who for some reason can ASMR you into killing yourself not to unlike the first half of this boring snooze fest of a plot finally punctuated by a cool action sequence when Eric goes to the Opera, kills every security guard on duty. I’m pretty sure one of those guys was one day away from retirement and another wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. To bad Eric is gonna murder hobo your ass because some patron inside killed his new fuck-buddy. And to top it all off SPOILER ALERT the whole fucking thing never happened because surprise surprise the EMT only had one NARCAN injection left and he used it on Shelly. I guess it was all a drug-fueled near death experience. 1/10 don’t even pirate it.

Make it so number one.

That consciousness arises from matter as some emergent phenomenon. Integrated information theory, micro-tubules, or whatever: no.

I believe consciousness is fundamental.

Humans as a power source was the dumbed-down plot point. The original concept was the human brains acting as parallel processors, but the writers thought the average movie-goer wouldn’t get it.

• No offense taken

• These are salient points

• I edited my post

• I hope it’s easier to digest now

• Thank you for the constructive criticism

“You are under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago” - Alan Watts

This one is a bit hard-won for me. You see I used to be an asshole. It was my brand. I thought “it’s just in my nature”.

Fortunately, I was also a student of religion (mostly because I was a militant atheist. Know your enemy and all that). Studying Buddhism, I began to observe the nature of self. I found enough distance from it to see its transient nature.

I realized being an asshole was a choice and I could just as easily choose otherwise. Soon I began to discover this was true of most character traits.

I’m not saying you don’t have consistent patterns of behavior. I’ll hopefully always be curious and analytical. But for the most part, the way you conduct yourself and where you focus your attention is a choice.

So, if you’re not happy with who you are maybe don’t be so attached to the idea of 'who you are". And if that seems hard, observe what you pay your attention to and try to find the distance between observation and behavior. In that gap lies the choice you make, consciously or not, to be “you”.

Strength Before Weakness

Use a vacuum cleaner with a detached hose. While applying suction from the screen side, slide the nozzle up while dragging the card with it.

This one was actually quite entertaining. When the episode switched from the Live Action “previously on” recap to the animated Lower Decks crew, I was tickled. The second Jack Quaid came through the portal as Boimler, I was invested. He nails the live action portrayal. I also loved him as Hughie in The Boys.

“What is better: to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?” — Paarthurnax, Skyrim

For an example -NSFW strong language-, here’s an AI imitating/mocking the US presidential debate

I know. You’re right. It’s just an old habit.

I’m not certain, but perhaps some games are pre-cracked. For instance, some from that girl who’s fit.