Sora-Midjourney comparisons Feb 2014

 https://x.com/nickfloats/status/1758496957591695821

Climate change mythology over time

 

First, you want...

 

Orange Book 

@orangebook_

First, you want to get rich, then you want to be free. First, you want tasty food, then you want healthy food. First, you want to meet a lot of new people, then you want a few deep bonds. First, you want to look fit, then you want to be actually strong. First, you want to travel everywhere, then you want one meaningful home. First, you want to read a lot of books fast, then you want to re-read old books slowly. First, you want to eat constantly, then you want to fast regularly. First, you want to convince the rest of the world of your value, then you want to be left alone. First, you want to chase opportunities, then you want to mind your own business. First, you want constant stimulation, then you want silence and peace of mind. Your values will keep evolving as you keep growing into a smarter and wiser version of yourself.

https://x.com/orangebook_/status/1867892913201713546

Next Level You • Art of Self-Improvement

@NextLevel_You

At first, we chase what seems exciting, loud, and external— riches, recognition, novelty, and validation. These pursuits feel urgent, driven by societal expectations or a desire to prove something to ourselves or others. But as we gain wisdom, our priorities shift inward. We realize that fulfillment comes not from chasing more, but from simplifying, deepening, and aligning with what truly matters.

reality distortion field

 

https://x.com/Tim_Denning/status/1859174109852107188

Tim Denning

@Tim_Denning

12h • 15 tweets • 5 min read •  Read on X

In 1972, Steve Jobs walked in on his girlfriend sleeping with a guy.

Steve became friends with him.

He taught him a philosophy that allowed him to convince anybody of anything. It's why they both became billionaires.

Here’s the philosophy: 🧵

Steve Jobs and Bob Friedland met after Steve came over to sell him a typewriter.

Bob had spent 2 years in jail for trafficking the drug LSD. They bonded over eastern mysticism.

• Jobs was introverted & shy
• Bob was insanely charismatic (red shirt)

Steve said Bob "turned me on to a different level of consciousness."

• Bob introduced him to a philosophy called "The Reality Distortion Field."

• Neither men invented it. The original concept came about 100s of years ago.

• It's been used by humanity’s greatest leaders to achieve the impossible. 

Here's what The Reality Distortion Field does:

1. It's a lens to see the world through, so you reshape how you see reality.

It makes the impossible seem probable.

2. Truths are much more subjective. So you become more open-minded. 

3. It lets a human bend reality in impossible ways to match their desires.

4. It's like a personal force field. It blocks out your:

- Fears
- Doubts
- Distractions
- Negative thoughts

With these limitations removed, you can escape what holds average people back. 

Apple employee Bud Tribble was the 1st person to discover Steve used The Reality Distortion Field

Steve wanted the team in 1982 to ship a new product from start to finish in 10 months.

"We've hardly even started yet. There's no way we can get it done by then."

Steve: "I know," he whispered.

Steve wouldn't accept any other answer than the crazy shipping date of January.

Bud: "In his presence, reality is malleable.

He can convince anyone of practically anything. It wears off when he's not around,

But it makes it hard to have realistic schedules."

The reality distortion field Bud says is:

• an indomitable will
• a charismatic rhetorical style
• an eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand

It gets more wild...

- If one of Steve's arguments failed to convince you, he'd quickly switch to another.

- To mess with your head, he'd adopt your worldview even if he disagreed with it.

When Steve left the room this powerful force of nature disappeared.

Here's how to harness the power of The Reality Distortion Field: 

1. How you see events shape events more than events themselves.

Setbacks can be reasons to give up or opportunities. You decide.

• Change how you think about problems.

• Let optimism guide you when pessimism wants to rule you. 

2. Become an unrealistic badass

Take your 5 year goals and make them happen in 5 days. People's timeframes are too long.

• Adopt a sense of urgency
• Make deadlines shorter
• Refuse to accept limitations 

3. Let your thoughts change your reality

Your inner dialogue affects everything. You can change the conversation.

• Analyze your thoughts

• Are you happy with your thoughts? Or do they sound like a conversation with a madman?

Every extraordinary goal and outcome in life starts as a tiny seed in the mind. 

4. Master the art of persuasion & psychology

If you don't know how humans think, you'll default to what you selfishly want & think.

Steve started out shy but he realized he needed to learn to persuade to get anywhere in life.

Because you can't achieve much alone.

• Learn sales
• Study books on human psychology 

Final Thought

Steve Jobs took The Reality Distortion Field philosophy Bob taught him & built the trillion-dollar Apple business.

That's how powerful it is.

Use this philosophy in your life to achieve extraordinary goals. 

The most powerful way to use the reality distortion field is with writing.

I used it to access personal freedom and no longer get ordered around. You can too.

Ancient map

 https://x.com/Culture_Crit/status/1850600478058467783

This 2,700-year-old tablet is the oldest map of the world. It reveals just how differently the ancients understood the world — but one detail is particularly strange. It sheds light on a VERY ancient story… (thread) 🧵

The "Imago Mundi" is the oldest map of the world — as it was known to the Babylonians around 700 BC. It's carved into a small piece of clay, with annotations explaining it, and the creation myth of the world.

The central parts of the map are easy to read: The Euphrates river runs north to south, straddled by the city of Babylon (modern-day Iraq), and surrounded by cities and regions marked by small circles.

A point of interest is the place marked "Urartu" — this is the ancient name for what we now call Armenia. Encircling these points on the map is the "Bitter River" (meaning salt water).

Like other ancient maps, the known world is encircled by water across which man wasn't known to have ventured. What lies across the water is where it gets interesting...

On the other side lie 7 triangular regions — and this is where the mythological is introduced. These regions are where legendary beasts are said to roam, and the text on the back of the tablet tells us what we can find at each one...

One area is marked: "where the sun is not seen." This likely refers to the legendary journey of Gilgamesh to lands of perpetual darkness, as in Sumerian myth.

Next, a "great wall" occupies one region (likely the home of a demon from Sumerian myth). To reach it, "you must travel seven leagues". The Babylonian worldview was steeped in mystery and myth — with the mythological firmly entangled with the physical world...

But most interesting of all are the (fragmented) inscriptions relating to the next triangle: "To the fourth, to which you must travel seven leagues…. Are as thick as a parsiktu-vessel..."

There's only one other cuneiform tablet known to exist that uses that language: "thick as a parsiktu-vessel". It's the "Ark Tablet" — 1,000 years older than the map, it provides instructions for the building of a great Ark...

This tablet describes the boat built by Atraḥasis to carry humanity through the Flood at God's instruction. That ancient measuring unit relates to its giant ribs: "I set in place in thirty ribs, that were one parsiktu-vessel thick."

So, the map seems to imply a rough location of where the Ark came to ground according to Babylonian myth. If an intrepid explorer went from Babylon, through Urartu and across the Bitter River, they'd find the Ark's wooden ribs upon the mountainside...

Intriguingly, that's in the direction of the Ararat mountains — where Biblical tradition states Noah's Ark landed. Albeit, the map implies you must keep going, and cross the water (unclear which) before you'll find it.

To modern archeologists, the location of Noah's Ark lies firmly in the realm of myth. But that wasn't true of first-century historians. Josephus said it lay "in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans" — now thought to be Turkey's Mount Ararat.

For the Babylonians, the Ark lay at the very edge of their world — unaccessible, but a tangible distance (7 leagues) away. That is, perhaps, until someone would just be bold enough to venture there...

If topics like this interest you, I go deeper every week in my FREE newsletter! 92,000+ people read it: history, art and culture 👇 https://t.co/8ySIHj8VX9

The very last paragraph on the back of the tablet reads quite poetically: "In all eight regions of the four shores of the earth …, their interior no-one knows."

If you enjoy these breakdowns, please give the original post a retweet! 🙏 And I'll keep doing more like this... https://t.co/4raxWAVNNF

"The best art divides the audience."

 

Tim Denning

@Tim_Denning

5h • 16 tweets • 5 min read •  Read on X

This is Rick Rubin.

He's a music producer who's worked with Jay-Z, Kanye & Lady Gaga.

He doesn't know anything about music & made $300M. His badass philosophy for creativity is why artists come to him.

Here's the philosophy:

1. “I have no technical ability. And I know nothing about music.” - Rick Rubin

• Being an expert is overrated
• Creative people are great at the intangible
• Theory/education often drowns out the art

Being creative doesn't mean being productive or talented. 

2. "The best art divides the audience."

• Take off your safety pants
• Let people disagree with you
• The haters help your work go viral

If everyone agrees with you, what you've created is sh*t. 

3. "Everything we do is art.

It doesn't matter if it’s picking out clothes, or working on a song, or making dinner. It’s all about how it feels and how it resonates."

• We're all creative even if we don't think we are
• Art is making people feel something 

4. “Get the full idea down as quickly as possible. When you see the whole thing, you see opportunities for connections.”

The first draft needs to happen.

Move your ego out of the way.

Let it flow out of you.

Finished work beats a folder full of drafts that make you an amateur.

5. “Go on with a blind belief something good will happen until proven impossible.”

• Much of creativity is just confidence

• If you believe it's good others will. Convince yourself first.

• Creativity is subjective. Hit publish & let the world decide. 

6. “Perfection is achieved not when there’s nothing more to add, but when there’s nothing left to take away.”

• For true creativity to exist you must remove all the filler no killer stuff in the way

• Rarely is there not enough. Often there's too much.

Masterpieces are simple & have fewer layers.

7. “Creativity is not a rare ability.

It is not difficult to access. Creativity is a fundamental aspect of being human. It’s our birthright. And it’s for all of us”

• We're born creative

• Corporations & society beat the creativity out of us

Make creativity a habit to get it back 

8. “Impatience is an argument with reality”

The creative journey leads nowhere if you're looking for overnight success

• Slow down
• Put in the work
• Daily flow states
• Chase obsession 

9. "There’s a tremendous power in using the least amount of information to get a point across"

• Morons make things complicated

• Creative people talk simple because that's how movements are built

If it sounds smart it's bullsh*t or it comes from a McKinsey consultant. 

10. "Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience"

• What you think you know is a distraction

• True creativity is humility. It's knowing you know nothing

• Creativity doesn't follow a plan/strategy. It's chaos, madness & insanity all in one.

11. "You can't control people's interpretation. And why would you want to?"

• No one knows if your creative output is good
• Stop trying to be a fortune-teller

The best reactions to your work are unexpected. 

12. "Some mistakes are actually subconscious problem solving."

Creativity is full of mistakes.

That's why perfect people are uncreative.

True art is full of flaws & the flaws make the art better not worse. 

13. "Sometimes the mistakes are what makes something great.

Humanity breathes in the mistakes."

• Humans are imperfect, so imperfect art feels more human & that's why it resonates more

Go write something full of typos. 

14. "Do not think about what you want to be remembered for

Instead, focus on what you want to create"

Creating a legacy is stupid

Why focus on what your life will be like when you're dead?

What's fulfilling is creative work done today. What happens to that work when you're dead is none of your business. 

All forms of creativity start with writing.

Get the ideas out of your brain and onto the internet. Watch it transform your life.

My free email course will help you get started:

Start Writing on Social Media - Xhttps://timdenning.com/startonsocial-x