All Thoughts Being Equal

This was provoked by Scott Alexander's wonderful story "... And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes." I decided to take the original Tumblr meme and put a pessimistic, Needful Things-esque spin on it. Comments and critiques are welcome: I wrote this all at once in a mad haste of inspiration (thus my earlier word choice) so it may or may not be rough. "Let's just say you don't pay... with money. " — Mr. Needful *** YELLOW "Gives you the ability to read and search the minds of anyone you can see, even if it's a picture. You can also turn their minds 'off' to put them into a coma." Yes, now everyone's mind is an open book to you. But alas, the man never said whether you'd be able to understand these books. The first time you attempt to use this power, on a photograph of the President, it felt like that time you had to read Immanuel Kant in college, except that now "A Critique of Pure Reason" was co...

It may or may not be a secret that I am a huge fan of the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, and the other writers of pulp fiction who knew him. In contrast to more modern creators of horror, who legitimately frighten with in-your-face monsters and death (but not too obvious)—I'm thinking of the movie The Descent along with Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot , very much inspired by Lovecraft actually—Lovecraft's "cosmic horror" conveys that sense of bleakness in the face of a universe that very much does not give a fuck about you. The realization that mankind's petty notions of morality, our flimsy models and scientific pretexts, all fail to grasp the true unwavering indifference of the rest of reality... that's a pretty weird feeling. And while I don't accept Lovecraft's philosophy that the universe is ultimately unknowable—science marches on!—it's easy to see the creeping horror of just how much of the universe is hostile to human life, or barely co...