Shihan

Why does this give me Skynet feelings? "Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug."

There is way too much regularization in Europe. I get it, we want to be clean, nice and modern. But everything has a cost, there needs to be some balance.

Yeah, communism hasn't been really tried yet - let's try it again, I believe this time it will just work out.

On a sidenote, please read "The Gulag Archipelago".

yes, that was what I meant.

Switched to KeePass when they introduced the subscription model. I believe the only app that I tolerate as subscription is Lightroom CC. I want to minimise subscriptions because otherwise it is 5$ here, 10$ there and at the end it can be a surprising amount I have to pay each year. But yes, for some apps it may be worth it, but for 1Password I found suitable alternatives.

yes, that's also what surpised me and I have my concerns with it. They don't have to know my affiliation (if I have any), it's none of their business.

I hope you topple the rat king sooner than later!

They do it, because we let them do it. They obviously can get away with it.

I ran the same route as you, and bought a eGPU enclosure and a GTX 1060 some years ago but then gave up after it frustrated me enough. Well it didn't work that bad but I had the feeling that OSX wasn't as stable as in the past and I was mostly using Windows 10 at work anyway (Visual Studio for SharePoint development) so I switched back after 6 years of using a Mac to a PC and haven't regretted it. Windows 10 works great, there is WSL or I can run ubuntu on a Hyper-V or VBox. The only thing I directly missed are Final Cut Pro X - but I now use DaVinci Resolve and Garage Band (I now use LMMS).

I can tell, it never crossed my mind. Never saw anything related to slavery/race in this and still don't see anything now. In German the word Meister is also used, for example "Meisterberuf", "Lehrmeister", "Bäckermeister", "Weltmeister" - it has nothing to do with slavery, in most of the cases it just means a person who has mastered something. You have this to, e.g. "Master of Arts". So now what, should this also be renamed? "Skillful Person of Arts" maybe? This word bastardization reminds me really of 1984 and I fear it dumbs us all down.

"leaving without drugs" -> "living..."

But that might be exactly the problem. This Buddha-Nature, the enlightenment thing, to me honestly is just like the believe in a God in other religions. It is very cult like for me.

I heard there are lot of stories out there of so called Zen Masters who claim to have achieved enlightenment (those according to your example, who can drink alcohol, kill animals for eating them) who get drunk and otherwise act weirdly and it is excused with "well, we cannot understand them, they are enlightened and we not, so we cannot see the wisdom in their actions".

I have not much personal experience with Zen, but heard that this is not so uncommon.

But of course, this doesn't say, that there are personal benefits in meditating, leaving a life without drugs, have a focused mind etc. - but maybe this things are mainly a new, western construct, attached to the base religion of Buddhism.

I heard this story a few weeks ago and it made me realize a thing that I dislike in Zen Buddhism, at least the perception of Zen Buddhism I have. Isn't this way (and surely other ways) of Buddhism not also some "tainted" way of life. For me it looks very Nihilistic. Shouldn't Buddha be a good role-model - so how can he have left wife and kid? In Buddhism or at least Zen Buddhism I believe there is great emphasis on the concept of non-attachment, you should not cling on to things. You must let go of everything to find your Buddha nature. So it makes sense, that Buddha has left his family to sit under the tree. But for me this is such a denial of the human nature and thus it feels unnatural, unwise and just like other religions and sects with their doctrines and dogma. I'm a big "fan" of Robert Sapolsky and his courses of Human Biological Behavioral Evolution. Buddhism, especially Zen, gets often seen as a God-less, very logical, very humanistic religion. But there are elements, like in any cult. Dogma which would lead to the human race going extinct if everybody would follow it. I don't believe in Gods but I must admit but I am rather attracted to the (crazy :-) ) Mythology of Asatru, because it feels much more natural and in symbiosis with the human nature to me.