Hivemind Times Issue #44

Welcome To The Hivemind Times!

ALL ABOOOAAARD! 

Conductor G man here welcoming the lot of you to the Hivemind Times Express edition 44! On the heels of the Young Thug bracket coming out yesterday I truly believe support for this channel will be at an all time low so I’m here to defend our honor and prove that I’m still a fun cool guy. One good thing is that Quinn finally finished editing the light hearted treat that is bumper stickers tier list that will be premiering on unlimited too and it’s a true joy and display of friendship (which is stronger than nuclear bombs). 

In other news the office has expanded for some mysterious reason and it is bound to spawn some exciting new content as we can experiment with new closets to trap Cronk in! 

As for the reading adventure you are about to embark on I’m sure the shit we’ve thrown at the wall this time will leave your legs shaking with entertainment. 

Fuck I.C.E power to the people! One love and Long Live Sly Stone!

- Riley & Graydon

ALBUM RECS

I was gonna make an essential Sly Stone playlist but I believe digesting entire bodies of work is more productive/cathartic, whether you are mourning or using his passing as a time to finally dive in and get familiar with his work, so spin a record or two in his honor. 

There was music before Sly and then music after Sly. A true fucking powerhouse who transcended the boundaries of race in and outside of the arena of entertainment/music - he changed my life and his music will continue to do so if I have any say in it.

The ‘70 release of greatest hits encapsulates the full band's boundless sound. They took over the world for a reason. Huge amounts of Joyx3 going on here.

The aptly named Questlove documentary that came out just this year will tell you that this era, although it is the most pioneering of his career, was riddled with turmoil, both due to his own trouble with vice but also the damaging ridicule of the album and continuous struggle to perform live.

This record is in title a response to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going on and it is charged with a lot of anger and frustration but what is at its core is a man, through forced solitude and necessity created the groundwork for the future of dirty funk, RnB, and later a lot of hip hop. It took time for everyone to catch up.

Maybe my personal favorite album by the man. Fresh still utilizes many of the tactics displayed on TARGO but optimism begins to peek through the cracks at times and with joy I feel like we see some of Sly’s powers elevated. It is not without sorrow or pain though…

Oh-ho, if I could do it all over again
Oh-ho-ho, I'd be in the same skin I'm in
The clothes I wear, and the things they dare me to do
Oh, the places I go
Oh-ho, people I know
The things I gain, ooh, sometimes they rain on me
Hey, skin I'm in
Hey, and the things I never never win
Hey, well well well 
Hey hey…

Finally the album that just can never get the love it deserves. The last record cut by the original band members. A softer exit laced with some lovey dovey familial sentiments by Sly. Several tracks take you back to the band's roots and serve as a reminder that they still had their fastball.

Sly’s production mastery is flexed big time on this one as strings and new elements are woven into the band's sound seamlessly. “Mother Beautiful” will play in the hospital on the day I have a child god willing and even if not, will be a constant source of pure happiness for me whenever I need it.

We are truly so lucky to live in a time where we can access Sly’s music at our fingertips and I never want to stop spreading the good word of his talents. An eternal flame cannot be extinguished.

- Graydon

QUINN’S PHILOSOPHY FREAKTIME 

Are We Really Free?

Lately I have been dipping my toes into philosophy. This is a topic I never really looked too much into besides very surface level studies at school and almost never in my free time, until recently. I am very much still a beginner when it comes to any type of advanced philosophical discussion or classical logic, so I may get some things wrong in my write-up. I know there is at least one philosophy major reading that is about to cringe massively at this, but I will give it my best shot with my current understanding.

This week I’ve been reading about the concept of free will and whether or not we actually have free will. Free will is the idea that humans are able to act independently of any previous events or state of the universe. When we make a decision, there is no external force or reason that causes us to make that decision, the decision is a result entirely of our own. 

The opposing school of thought which denies the existence of free will is “Determinism”, which postulates that all events (including human action) in the universe are caused by previous events and all current events will cause future events. More generally, that some external force determines all actions or events. A causal chain that goes all the way back to the beginning of the existence of the universe. 

In other words, determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In a causally deterministic universe, given sufficient knowledge of the state of any system, all future and past events could theoretically be calculated and known. 

Another source of determined events would be from an omniscient and all-powerful god, or equally unknown external force, that knows and/or controls what is happening, will happen, and has happened. 

I find causal determinism to be the more convincing school of thought, I do not believe there is a god. Besides, an omniscient and all powerful god trivializes the argument, in my opinion, as free will is impossible if there is a being that knows what will happen. Any argument I’ve seen from theists that try to reason that free will can exist alongside an omniscient god has not convinced me or provoked any interesting line of thinking. 

There is also “compatibilism” which states that free will and determinism are not mutually exclusive and can both be true or not true at the same time. I honestly have trouble grasping compatibilism so I won’t touch on it.

You might immediately say, “Well, obviously free will exists. I know that I can decide whether I want to eat an apple or an orange, to wear this shirt or that shirt, to punch this random person in the face or walk past them.” What is causing you to make that decision? Your brain of course, but why did you choose the apple instead of the orange? Maybe you like the taste of apples more, or you are allergic to oranges. Why do you like the taste of apples more? Because of your specific genetics, or past experiences eating apples, or any number of things specific to your unique experience as a human. 

You can follow this chain of questioning until you get to the fact that you deciding to eat the apple is a result of millions of neurons firing off in your brain that tell your subconscious to choose the apple and your subconscious gives your conscious thought the illusion that you chose to eat the apple. 

Our “decisions” are made by our subconscious before we even know that we decided them. Our subconscious thoughts are determined by instinctual and experiential neural pathways in our brains that we have no control over. So are our decisions really even ours? Or, are they a purely physical process, a result of millions of electrical signals firing off in a meat machine that have “learned” to fire off in a specific way over our lifetime and the millions of lifetimes leading up to ours? 

A solely physical body can NOT have free will. It has to work in a systematic way that is subject to the laws of physics. You cannot transcend your physicality. Everything you do is evolved behavior, all of it can be explained and even predicted by biology and psychology. Your emotions, your desires, your pains, your aspirations. 

This argument can be simplified and put more generally as well. We can ask, of any kind of mental activity, is it determined or is it not? That is, determined by anything else or is it completely undetermined by anything? If it is undetermined, then it is completely random, which would make it, by definition, outside of your control. If it is determined, then it is determined by something deeper inside yourself, or by something external to yourself. If it is determined by something external to yourself, then you are not in control of that mental activity. If it is determined by something deeper inside yourself, then you have to ask the original question. Is that thing determined or undetermined? 

This line of questioning will ultimately terminate in something outside of the self, something undetermined which is random (either of which result in mental activity being outside of your control), or terminate in something like “the soul”, “the mind”, or “the brain”, which all bring you back to the original question. In this line of thinking, free will can not exist.

I haven’t made my mind up just yet on this topic. I lean towards there not being any free will. There is just too much we don’t know about the mechanism of action and decision that takes place in the brain and how it works. Maybe there really is something outside of the physical being that allows us to make an independent decision. Maybe there are some physical quantum interactions that introduce stochasticity, breaking the causal chain, that take place in the brain that result in free will. 

There are a number of consequences to the lack of any free will, but this article will get way too long if I get into that. I hope this made you think a little bit about something most of us never question.

- Quinn

LIVE SHOW REVIEW

What’s popping y’all,

Copes here bringing you the inside scoop of the tour I’m on with Eem Triplin. Tonight is the last show in New York City and I couldn’t be happier to be sleeping in my own bed soon. It’s been a very fun past 2 months on the road, I’ve been shooting photos and playing pool all across America.

Been keeping track of each city I play in to see if I can conquer the best or not. Here’s my stat list. If a city was conquered it means I beat the best guy I could find majority of games.

Made a lot of friends on the road and have had some legendary nights. One of my favorite stories is when I was playing in Atlanta at this placed called the Northside Tavern. I won a couple games and all of a sudden a guy watching hands me $20. I was like “what’s this for?” And he was like “we side bet $100 a game here, I just won $300 off your past 3 games keep going.” And I proceeded to win 6 more before nobody would take bets against me. I love playing pool more than anything and can’t wait to be back on the road doing so again.

As far as the tour goes we had several problems with our bus breaking down, the AC going out, or popped tires every other day. If you are ever in the touring business, never use the company BREEZE, they are by far the worst I have ever seen in my 7 years of touring. 

I want to give a shoutout to Eem Triplin for taking me on this one, he is one of the funniest people I’ve come to know and has an incredible career ahead of him. No spoilers but be looking for his name this month because things are going up up up. I’ll be posting the rest of the photos from tour on my Instagram this weekend if you want to see a closer look of what we’ve been up to.

- Copes

MERCH