Christian Scheopner

looking forward to tomorrow

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

If you’re interested in learning why I switched Starship from carbon fiber to stainless steel

[The Mind Scourge @TheMindScourge]

Herbert is more nuanced (or conflicted) than this.

He wrote Messiah (in part) to undermine the Paul as Great Man thesis. He was apparently discomfited by Paul’s reception on the part of much of his readership, which typically saw Paul as a hero.

But Herbert was too smart to be content with the obvious thing (Paul = Great Man = bad). If you stop at Messiah, this might be your impression. But the later books show something else

Paul has prescience. This is the product of a long Bene Gesserit breeding program; the sisterhood believed that humanity required a leader with the ability to see the future if civilization was to survive.

Paul understands that prescience would create stagnation. Oracular power is a trap. It would rob humanity of choice and reduce humanity’s ability to adapt to the future

Jihad emerges as the solution to this. It serves as an evolutionary pressure to force humanity onto a new trajectory.

The tragedy of Paul is that he comes to understand his place within the larger pattern. His foresight enables him to see that the system has a greater intelligence or logic that is inhuman on the individual level. (Feel free to apply AI analogies here, though Herbert doesn’t explicitly do this). Paul is a free agent; he could choose to not act. But doing so would not solve anything. The jihad might happen anyway. Paul would certainly be destroyed. The outcome may very well be worse than if he did act. There are all these higher level logics and forces that are pushing humanity in a certain direction. The irony is that the man who can see the future is the most constrained. He isn’t exactly powerless but he has much less choice than it might at first appear. He is a creation of his circumstances, but must act within them.

f

Leto II, Paul’s son, evolves a fuller understanding of all this. He conceptualizes the trap Paul finds himself within. But whereas Paul eventually chooses the ancients’ final argument against fate - he walks out to his death in the great desert - to take back control over his destiny, Leto embraces it. He becomes an a-mortal being, and forces humanity onto the Golden Path, Leto’s strategy to break the cycle of humanity’s innate desire to be controlled (whether by charismatic leaders or vast social, historical, and economic forces. He was to "teach humanity a lesson that they will remember in their bones".

The irony is that the only thing that can end the threat of Great Men is to become a Great Man yourself. This Leto II does with singleminded ruthlessness. All this is done to create the conditions for the Scattering, where humanity will seed the cosmos. By spreading far and wide, the threats inherent in a consolidated single “world system” or civilization will be avoided. Humanity will be too diverse, too wide spread, for a single crisis no matter how great to threaten it again

So is the jihad necessary? Are totalitarian Great Men and great violence necessary? Herbert might actually say yes. It’s a core tension that he deliberately leaves unresolved

[Halo @Halo]

A mysterious ring. A lone Spartan.

This is Halo completely rebuilt.

This is Halo: Campaign Evolved.
#HaloCE

[Beyond All Reason RTS @BAR_RTS]

From community roots to modern RTS ambition, this is the story of Beyond All Reason, featuring the one and only Chris Taylor. Watch now!

https://t.co/6mccjco75f

Thank you @FortressSydney for making this documentary happen!

#RTS #indie #gamedev

[Andrew J. Harding @AndrewHard96304]

"I do not want to throw away billions of taxpayer dollars, and time we do not have, on a flavor of a rocket that is not necessary to return astronauts to the moon."

[NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman @NASAAdmin]

Artemis II has reached its maximum distance from Earth.

On the far side of the Moon, 252,756 miles away, Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy have now traveled farther from Earth than any humans in history and now begin their journey home. Before they left, they said they hoped this mission would be forgotten, but it will be remembered as the moment people started to believe that America can once again do the near-impossible and change the world.

Congratulations to this incredible crew and the entire NASA team, our international and commercial partners, but this mission isn’t over until they’re under safe parachutes, splashing down into the Pacific.

[Aaron Slodov @aphysicist]

the mad lad is going to do it.

[Z3nY @z3n_y]

Halo: Thunder Run
-
Based on the iconic Battlefield 3 mission
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#halo #HaloSpotlight

[Femboy Firearms @femboyfirearms]

"We grew a human brain fused to a computer, sent it to a digital rendition of Hell, and gave it a gun"

[David Shapiro (L/0) @DaveShapi]

This is a cosmically rare event

[NASA Mars @NASAMars]

After a year of scientific scrutiny, a rock sample collected by the Perseverance rover has been confirmed to contain a potential biosignature. The sample is the best candidate so far to provide evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars. https://t.co/0BAO1dhMG8

[TheSpaceEngineer @mcrs987]

bringing back this banger

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Nice shot