@furrypony  
Well, some of this was already discuss over the DM, as I have said before, even I can’t find and ultimate purpose to live other that to perpetuate life, in the great scheme of thing we are nothing but a pale blue dot wondering aimlessly in the depths of space, but I think that if you only get to live once, why not enjoy the time we got? after all, the universe is going to be indifferent whatever we are alive of dead, and be sure that in 100 years we all are going to be dead, so why not have some fun? like discover something new and exiting while you still can?  
I believe that the human being has evolve to solve the problems around him, if they’re not problems to solve, a human would start to get bored and will not find a purpose for living, but with current technologies a lot of previous hard problems are now not existing, you will probably would not lack food, water, shelter or all the other things to live a relative comfort live, so you star to focus on other aspects of your life, like talking to other people on the internet, but if start to do the same all day everyday you are going to start to get bored, so humans not only need problems but also they have to be different from time to time….
 
regarding your estimation for the raise of hive-minds, I think is too optimistic, seeing that even now we are reaching the point were quanton mechanics is causing problems on our smallest transistors, so unless we manage to find a way around this problem the computational power required for it is way out of our reach for now….
 
Also, regarding the semantic apocalypse, seeing that language evolve over time in function of the needs at the time, I don’t think that it would actually happen, yes, maybe it will morph to something that we are not able to understand, but to the inhabitants of the inevitable globalized world it would be as easy to them as it is to us to understand each other (I mean, just look at us, I speak spanish and you mandarin, but through or second language we are able to communicate), obviously it will not be perfect, because evolution only goes for “good enough”…

@The Luna Fan
 
I have severe problems with living rationally, and how to live a meaningful life. I tried applying rational thought to life, and found a black abyss. Every rational argument for life falls apart when I stared at the details. Consider the most basic problem  

 
Really, why live? Let’s pose this question to a society of hamsters. They run on hamster wheels all day, as it’s the sacred duty and entertainment for hamsters. Then one day a hamster fell off the wheel and asked, “But why?” The others told her to go back to the wheel and stop with the questioning.  

 
It is very dangerous to ask “why”, because it’s hard to know when to stop, and if you ask “why” too much, you are either an annoying kid or an annoying philosopher.
 
And in any case, reasons are so weak when it’s a matter of life and death. When you want to live, no arguing can turn you suicidal. When you are suicidal, arguments for living sound stupid. Which is the right side, then, if both sides are caused by passions? Passion for life, passion for death.
 
Reasons for hope are ridiculous when you are like me, who has a deep sense of wrongness. “Something is wrong. I don’t want to exist. The table is wrong. The blood is wrong. Sex is wrong. Happiness is wrong. Pain is wrong.”
 
And reasons for despair are ridiculous for you, who has a deep sense of rightness.
 
I struggle greatly just to not be laughed at and ignored. It is very difficult to despair and still be understood by optimists. A lot of despair is very repetitive and unconvincing to the optimists, but, from the night-side of philosophy, I can tell you that they are very convincing.
 
If people gain an appreciation for living only when they are about to die, doesn’t that make them sufferers of the Stockholm syndrome? Is it rational, a life-love born from a brush with death? People pray to any god that listens when they are about to die, but is that a proof that gods exist, or a quirk of human psychology, a vestige of their childhood habit of calling for parents’ help when in danger?
 
And what of those who suicide several times? The strongest predictor of successful suicide is a previous unsuccessful suicide attempt. What to make of those persistent suiciders? They couldn’t prove that death is worth it. So why are those who love life after a brush of death, prove that life is worth it?
 
When there is no air, all I want is air. When there is no water, all I want is water. When the basics of life are available to me, I look in a mirror and wonder “What is all that for?”. I want water not because water is true and noble. I want it because of feedback loops in my body keeping up a water homeostasis. And love is like food. It is just more feedback loops driving a seeking behavior.
 
But enough of philosophical whining, as if I have eaten too much to be happy, and I should go back to my hamster-wheel. Sure, that would make me happy, but happiness is not enough. There are real dangers that come for all of us, even those that have not eaten too much. I see monsters, monsters hiding in plain sight, monsters inside us, outside us. Perhaps the real monster is the friends we made along the way.
 
I think the Semantic Apocalypse is coming. Society keeps itself from falling apart by shared symbols and meanings. The global society is already struggling to keep itself from breaking apart due to all the different meanings. It manages to still hold together because, despite their differences, people are made of human genes with human biology, and that means they have human moral intuitions. Only a small minority do not (they are called “psychopaths”).
 
Now, what would happen when brains are modified way beyond the normal human shape? A society of weird aliens, normal humans, psychopathic humans, praying mantises, lions… so many groups of brains, all insane and evil relative to each other. Imagine a future humanity made of a dozen tribes, each tribe is insane and evil seen by any other tribe. They have empires in a perpetual world war, or an uneasy peace.
 
Some empires could be made of hive-mind brains. I think technology for hive-mind is already here, just requires some polishing. The brain-computer interface by Neuralink is pretty good. As the BCI become safer and grow more bandwidth, the link between brains would become so strong that the individual personalities would be snuffed out, allowing a unified personality to emerge for the hive-mind. I once did an estimate and found that if Moore’s law hold for BCI, then hivemind should arrive in 150 years. It is not a long time.
 
And those are just two of the more scary situations that I find rather inevitable, unless some other bigger event takes place first, say an AI takeover.

@furrypony
 
Problems:
 
Non-static happiness As I’ve said animals only die, because the alternative is being frozen in time-space.  
Elemental particles always motions. To stop a particle or an animal in a state of perpetual happiness strong gravitational sources are needed (4 black holes intercrossed by event-horizons upon a living creature so that they won’t tear them apart). The animal won’t move an inch ever, won’t feel a thing, but won’t be allowed to die or to age. From other’s perspective of observing.
 
Pain = pleasure You’re free to choose sides. Lions only hunt down sick or old gazelles, which would die horribly in natural habitats. If not, they’ll starve and suffer. It’s pure utilization. Lion’s Destiny is to make the population of gazelles young and shiny. To maintain the Circle of Life. To prevent the Spirit of Chaos from ruining their prescious bodies with quantum mistakes by a process of improper aging. Gazelle renew the ecosystem around. And sometimes make a way for a new king, they are hor… gifted with horns, you know.  
Sometimes it happens so that a lioness pick up a young gazelle and keeps her as a daughter. Sometimes next lion kills cubs. Drugs works like candy bars, …just faster.
 
Please, notice my Ego Albert Einstein lived his life to the fullest. He studied the science, mostly because he liked the very process. Yet the fruits of this studying everyone is using now. Just don’t live in vain, and it’ll be ok.
 
Your art of suffocating Cosmia hunts me for years now (and now the animatic will be too, ya-aay). So, you’ve rached the point where your works as of artist moves people.  
List of songs, that Cosmia may like #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s64_FQY9-1c  
Been listening to this lately to dis extinguish the mental dullness. And funny enough, they sing about Mona Lisa too.  
It’s hard to be happy. But, please, try it out.

Sorry, Guys…
 
@The Luna Fan  
Welp, for some reason imgur won’t open on me. It’s probably because of my anti-ads software.  
Thanks for getting through all the trouble of posting pics elsewhere. I really like the room designs,  
It’s very close to what I thought it might be, except the blue panel wall, I thought it would be more Luna-shaped in design. With a thrown back wet mane.
 
Oh, and a late happy Easter, I guess!
 
 
@The Luna Fan  

 
…if only
 
 
@furrypony
 
Hey… feel any better yet? …any safer? Please don’t be like Artax!  
Me myself? Just a random, I swear, pony-ish fandom member, a potential friend, I guess.  
I’ve lost my own phd variation due to a depression a few years ago, and that’s it. I don’t really have a famous ponysona or anything, neither I am using social networks as often as I would like to. Like, do you guys have a Discord server where you chit-chat happily ever after?
 
Okay, I’m not pointing hooves with this, but  
I belive that Mal-da-what-pony-now is a self-fulfilling fantasy, to begin with.
 
Our Universe currently is conserved. Yet it’s, kinda, a work in progress. Planetary ecosystems steady develops through Circle of Life/pain. There are two aspects of Creation and Destruction.  
Destruction only exists, because it’s impossible to freeze the Universe in one (happy) state, or it would be a dead Universe, perfect still. So it’s kinda not a real destruction, but a way to meet new people.  
Speaking of God’s omnipotence, maybe there is one, but we’re stumbling here upon physical matter’s properties/limitations.  
The Universe by current design is made of physical matter, stiched together by (divine) Laws and maintained by (fundamental) Forces.  
At low ground we have vacuum, which is boiling on a quantum level with new particles generation and thereafter it structuring itself to immense depth up to entangled particles and dark matter skeleton of a Universe and furthermore to the Net of Stellar Superclusters.  
So nopony out there tells you strictly how to act or to live your life, which makes it possible for good and evil to coexist. Too much of either is poisoneous.
 
Generating background Energy income from suffering is pointless, sinse there are much more good and efficient sources for that. Energy can be transformed unlimitedly (thanking Laws of Energy and Mass conservation & E=MC2), so  
your soul energy is as good as the one generated by a pair of quasars, or by spinning a Galaxy around a supermassive black hole core, since it can be transformed to each other freely.  
They say that carbon, and I’ll guess, hydrogen in your body was once the insides of a bright star.  
It reminds of one of plotlines of the Rick and Morty Show, where evil Morty created a colossal Dome of suffering Morties and Rick mentions that the same amount of pain energy could be gathered by using only 5 Morties and a jumper cable.  
Fundamental Laws of Conservation subtly hints of what to expect from being alive - saving.
 
The only Law that can affect your behavior directly is your Destiny which manifests itself in a form of a Cutiemark and is a safeguard route for a case if you’ll become too lazy with your life, so it’s dormant untill awakening.
 
On the other hoof the Elements of Harmony exists, rooted deeply inside the world’s construct. These are very real things and you can feel how they are affecting your life yourself, if you’ll touch them, should the chance occur. Should they happen to be utilized alltogether - they’ll create the perfect Harmony.
 
Now people of this world (and before them, animals of this world) always wonder why “bad” or “good” things happen. Each event being a part of the chain of other events. In reality there’s no good and bad, alive or dead, alien or collective.
 
One can’t claim elemental particles for themselves for forever, again, because it would “freeze” them in Time, if done so. The same way one can’t claim a person’s life for themselves, except sometimes they can. It’s Uncertainty, thanks Einstein :P  
So we ought to share from time to time, not always, though. The body cells, that were in your body, back then (I mean years ago), when somepony rejected you, have all been shared with the outer world since then, I believe. So, please, don’t poison your shiny new body with grim thoughts and regrets.
 
 
Some dinos horribly died. Because of it some remains have been perfectly preserved. Because of it we learned of their species. Because of it some people liked them. Because of it some would like to genetically engineer a new dino species. Should this new species say thanks for being alive to old species for being ded? Or should old dinos complain for being ded and protest by spoiling new species to pain of not being alive? Okay - too much philosophy is poisoneous, anyway.
 
Therefore in such a free Universe people mostly choose by themselves how to feel about things and how to act. Celestia forbid, if war happens - it could be seen as a mass suffering or as an anticipation of ending the event, happiness of victory… Truth be told - in case of a suicide it would lift some of body’s energies and sorrows, but it also woluld leave crying friends in the corner.
 
So, talking psyche - it is how you feel deep inside yourself. The more you think you feeling the pain - the more you becoming like Artax in the Swamps.  
It’s only a virtual feeling of helplessness and suffering. Every sadness have an origin, and always you can effectively do something about this origin.  
So, please, try to force yourself to feel little bits of happiness from life by watching little things around yourself. It won’t be easy at first, especially if you’re used to feel sad all the time. But should the time pass and for you choosing to become more happy with each passing day it’ll change your life, I promise.
 
God, I’m so happy you’re still living, still breathing. You yourself are one of the most important things in the Universe, pls remember, dear.

@furrypony  
Well, it seems that you have been thinking about this problem for a lot more time and with a lot more dedication than I, It’s seems that all everything ends up being meaningless when you looks at it at the scale of the universe, which to be fair it’s pretty accurate given that our entire solar system is so small and so uneventful at this scales, but even tho everything we make is not going to changue the fact that we all are going to die, even the universe itself, we can still enjoy the time we still have in our meaningless lives, you don’t need to have an important purpose to be happy, the brain will end up numbing your pleasure if you only give it the same stimulus over and over again, but this is a big planet compared to our size, you can try new things everyday just like the CMC, you may suck at some of them, and you will probably will never want to try again others, but along the way you will find the things that gives you pleasure in some way of another, like mathematics! you can explore that subject alone and the immensity of it will keep you intrigue for quite some time, and even when you thing is done you can always try something new that no one else has tried before, like finding properties of the transcendental numbers, or you can use your math knowledge to understand how the universe works and even catch a grimse of what is behind the curtain.
 
Point is, we are beings thet have adapted to solve problems, we need to do it to survive, if we don’t do it we end up spiring down in an endless circle of pai and suffering, we crave knoledge to understand the world, and we need people around us to show them what we have solve today, i’m guessing that that’s why I’m studying Civil Engenieering, I’m not smart enough to undersant the complexity of all mathematics, but i don’t need to, I just need to know the basics in order to be able to solve problems, In colombia a lot of people don’t even have acces to water, shelter or even some place to make their bialogical needs, and as a result they suffer everyday, but we can changue that, I may not be able to hep everyone, but to the people that I do help would be surely be less misareble afterwards, reducing the suffering in the world by just an almost neglectable amount….altmost…
 
To be honest, I don’t want that you to expend your live lamenting over the suffering in the world and just watch it pass day after day until you give your last breath, I know for a fact that you are way smarter than me, maybe that’s why you can think of the world in a more realistic way that I, I want to see you make great things because I know that you have the potential yo do it, I want that you could watch humanity conquer new world and find new mysteries to solve in this enigmatic universe of ours, but you can’t do any of that If you don’t try to do something, If humanity stops creating and innovating we would loose all the progress that we have so far, and then the secrets that the universe has would never be discorded, it doesn’t matter how discovers what, but it matters that it was discovered, we have limited time here, the universe has and expiration date, that’s why we have to use this time wisely, maybe talking to friends, maybe helping others, or maybe just doing what we love…
 
[From the same artist]
 

@The Luna Fan  
I think there are multiple deep reasons for pessimism that interlock together to create a world full of suffering.  
They are deep, in the sense that they seem to be based on the deepest principles of biology and mathematics, and so their solutions must also be deep.  
They are multiple, interlocking, so progress towards solving one problem could make other problems worse.
 
Let’s take the most famous problem: the problem of death and decay. There are immortal animals (such as the hydra), but most animals decay and die. This must mean that death and decay are adaptive. A species is strong only when individuals are weak. Earth could have been a dreamy paradise full of peaceful, meditating, immortal ponies, but instead we got this bloodbath of creatures that live short and breed fast.
 
Next up is the problem of pain vs pleasure. It’s a well-known fact that the psychological impact of bad is stronger than of good, and if you want a paper detailing the many ways of this, see (Baumeister et al 2001). In the brain, pain and pleasure are represented quite differently. One can get used to pleasurable events quite fast, diminishing the pleasure to nothing. Pain does not diminish, and at most one gets used to living with the pain. Candybars lose their pleasure when you eat one every day, but toothache hurts for years. And if you have any doubts about which is more present in the world, pain or pleasure, compare the happiness of a feasting lion with the dying agony of a gazelle.  
And even when pleasure is certain (say by a combination of opioids and psychedelics), people seem unable to take the leap because of their search for meaning. Happiness is not enough.
 
The problem of meaning – unlike the previous problems, it is unique to humans. Humans want life to have meaning, but it is extremely difficult to live meaningful lives. I have reviewed so many schemes for living a meaningful life, and they all come up short. I believe it’s not an accident that all these schemes are insufficient. Rather, they are bumping up against a basic paradox in living a meaningful life: necessity and personality are incompatible.
 
Suppose you want to live a meaningful life as a scientist. Scientists discover things in the world. Their discoveries are necessary. If Einstein didn’t discover relativity, Hilbert and Poincare would a few years later. If Newton didn’t discover gravity, Huygens and Hooke would. In this way, when a scientist gets something named after them, it’s like “first!”, rather than “mine!”. You are replaceable. You are unnecessary because your work is necessary. The fruits and purpose of science are profoundly impersonal.
 
Suppose you want to live a meaningful life as an artist. Artists’ creations are unnecessary. Without Da Vinci, there would be no Mona Lisa, because Mona Lisa is after all just a painting of a certain human in Italy. There’s no Mona Lisa in the laws of physics. In this way, art is personal, but unnecessary. Nothing of cosmic significance is lost if Mona Lisa never appeared in this universe.
 
Thus, there is no way to achieve something that’s both cosmically significant and attached to your person.  
And that’s if you can create something great. Most people can’t manage even that.  

@furrypony  
If this is not the worst posible world, and if Maldoror is to lazy to do anything different than the bare minimum, then there’s still hope for improvement over time, even tho we already forgot about it, humanity has come a long was this past millennia, world huger always tends to decrease, slavery is almost unheard of in the modern world, and a lot of deadly diseases are now preventable, I’m guessing that the problem is that evolution has given us the tools to solve problems around us, but we are actually so good at solving those that when there’re not more problems to solve we have to find more problems, so I’m guessing that we are doom to live solving increasingly smaller problems and thus get less satisfaction solving them…..

@The Luna Fan  
If suffering actually drops drastically, then my faith is wrong.  
Universal suffering is my faith. I would be glad to see my faith proven wrong.  
However, the fact that average happiness level has not increased despite thousands of years of technological improvement, and that every utopian scheme has failed, and the fact that the great source of creativity – evolution – is based on death and pain, suggests to me that life is made for suffering.
 
Christians have a problem of evil: why is there evil when God is so great?  
Their answers are “theodicies”.  
I have a problem of good: why is there good when God is so evil?  
My answer is “dys-theodicy”. Maldoror is lazy. It created the rules of the world to produce enough suffering rather than maximal suffering. To produce maximal suffering, it must either create so many rules, or constantly intervene in the world with miracles, a flood here, a genocide there. Maldoror is too lazy for that. It simply created a few simple rules of physics and biology, and let the world run.  
We do not live in the worst of all possible worlds. Maldoror can’t be bothered to create such a world. We merely live in a really bad world.

@furrypony  
What would happen is suffering drops to drastically in the world? Would it provoque Maldoror to cause a disaster so that the despair on the people soul’s goes up once again? Is the world optimized to maximize suffering? and is there a way to prove it with math or Science?

@Background Pony #8DB5  
who are you? Thanks for caring for me…  
But really, my sorrows are much deeper than just a lost relationship or two. It’s not just a lack of friendship, or sex (I’m not sexual), or something like those. It is a general weariness with the design of the world. I think the world is created by an evil god, Maldoror, and I am on a divine mission to suffer  
Even if I get to live next door to my two best friends, I would still suffer, just less intensely.

@Background Pony #8DB5  
It’s semana santa, and also, that’s weird, imgur opens in most devices, and yeah, it has a lot of luna’s colors in it!  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

@The Luna Fan  
As in The Holy Week in Popayán Jesus Passions Parade? Or is’s Semana Santa? Very Intersting. I wonder what people do out there. And we still have The Great Lent period, due to, I guess, calendar differences. What’cha do for a projects? Imgur won’t open in my browser for some reason for quite some time now, but I bet it’s some cool design with a majestic Luna colour palette? Wow, I’m actually so glad you’re having nice time.

@Background Pony #8DB5  
Really nice actually, in my country we have the “holy week” so I’m taking a little break from studying, the bad part is that most teachers make you do some project during this time, and also, I’m going to paint my room during this week, I have the design ready!, check it out!

@The Luna Fan  
Me 2.  
Tnx for the little chat. How is your own day?

@Background Pony #8DB5  
I really hope so….

@The Luna Fan  
Wow, cool. And so sad about the relationship. Maybe she’ll meet a special somepony not too long from now?

@Background Pony #8DB5  
Thank you for caring, the main reason why she’s depressed now is because she ended a relationship a few months ago, so now she doesn’t have the will power to do anything, she’s actually really smart, she was about to do a PhD but she postpone it….

@The Luna Fan  
Oh dear, intense stuff. I got myself worried sick to the point of physical pain.  
I wonder what she’s really depressed about. And people seem trying to cheer her up. But she keeps saying  
they’re not doing it hard enough??? And I feel like she’s deep inside her mind imagining to herself stuff that simply isn’t true and stuck like Artax in the Swamps of Sadness. I only hope this art dedication works in some way.  
Guys, please cheer her up if you’re about to. May she find what she seeks in friends.  
May Luna Bless your path and your skills.

@Background Pony #8DB5  
She’s going through a tough time, she feels like her friends always abandon her in some way or another, I always try to cheer her up but it’s quite hard to do, luckily a lot of her friends and people from the internet have noticed and are trying to make stuff for her, last time someone dedicated a song for her , that’s basically the situation rn.

@The Luna Fan  
Do you know what’s up with Cosmia?

@Background Pony #8DB5  
Thank you!

actually cool drawing