Universal Orlando Meetings & Events’ Post

What comes to your head when you hear the word Cosmic Horror??? if you have no idea then feel free to check out about it in my new Substack Post 😁 https://lnkd.in/g2GvBkac

Is postmodernism over? Are we entering the era of metamodernism? In a nutshell, irony and sarcasm is out, cringe and sincerity is in. I love this conversation. Some links if you're curious in exploring this further: - David Foster Wallace and the problem with irony: https://lnkd.in/ea25iDUr - Why do movies feel so different now? https://lnkd.in/edbwBkSA - The metamodern resurgence of Creed: https://lnkd.in/eukGT3Eg

Marco Brambilla - Heaven’s Gate (Megaplex), 2022 Heaven's Gate is the latest in video artist Marco Brambilla's Megaplex series of video collages. A lavish and satirical take on the silver screen spectacle of Hollywood dreams and excesses, Heaven’s Gate both celebrates collective storytelling consciousness and satirizes its saturated glamour. The continuously looping video work ascends through the seven levels of Purgatory, each stage its own landscape of looping samples lifted from iconic moments of cinematic history. "In the work, Brambilla makes visible the concomitant tensions present in religion, industry and celebrity, ascension and fall, innocence and experience, vanity and pageantry, sexuality and awakening, simplicity and excess. Speaking the language of Hollywood’s dream factory, it communicates a nostalgia that feels at once familiar and uncanny and seemingly appropriate to the mood of 2020, where media saturation created a convergence of fact and fiction in a voracious cycle of introspection and collective anxiety. Heaven’s Gate likewise unravels into a dreamlike spectacle of virtual chaos. The work produces an overpowering labyrinth of labyrinths, a sinuous spreading visual maze seems to encompass the past and the future. In some way it involves stars." Extract from Daniel Birnbaum's essay "Marco Brambilla’s Labyrinth of Labyrinths" https://lnkd.in/dAivdpFs

Explore a dark clockwork noir setting that is ideal for mysteries, conspiracies, and supernatural thrillers, using 5e rules. Follow along with the journey by clicking the link below: https://lnkd.in/d_mAzTsq

Here’s your first peek at some of the animated figures wreaking havoc in Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment.

Very interesting story. Looking back at history, I'm really appreciate these discoveries and invetions that have contributed to the progress we enjoy today. I hope to learn more and do something valuable in return. You can also find the Vietnamese version here : https://lnkd.in/gX7MityT

Giz’Urd the Lizard Wizard (Sorcerer, technically speaking). Or, as many know him, The Orphan of Blackwell. Dungeons and dragons is often much more a psychological deep dive than it is just a game enjoyed by friends around the table. The characters that we create are often manifestations of various forms of self. The interactions we share may give insight to how we would handle a real interaction of comparable weight and stress. Even something as simple as what race or class and individual chooses to play, can give deep insights into their real life ambitions or perceived form of self. Have you ever played dungeons and dragons? In your own life, do you see yourself as the dungeon, master? A nimble rogue and search of treasures and riches? Brave warrior, perhaps, on a path of redemption. Or even a holy knight sent out into the world and attempt to heal and fix as many people and problems as humanly (or otherwise) as possible. I believe that life is the greatest MMORPG ever created. I am curious to know, what is it that makes you roll the dice? Or do you prefer to take as little risk as possible? What class do you see yourself as? What quests do you believe you are following? Which alliances do you support? What enemies have you identified? And most importantly… who, or what, is the dungeon master in your life? I tend to be the DM and introduce characters I would like to play as NPC’s in the game world. My world is Aethrazia. And it is growing every day. Drink more water. God bless. And, drink more water.

What is broken about public discourse in the US, an example of it & why going backwards isn’t the answer either. A great place to start in understanding this issue is to listen to the latest episode of The Gray Area podcast (https://lnkd.in/gWEe8e_s if you use Bundlr, https://lnkd.in/gV7_7-hd if you use other platforms). The title “Everything’s a cult now” is a good headline but the meat of the discussion is more nuanced & important. The key argument is that we have moved from a model of centralized nodes of influence i.e. mass media, to a plurality of influential nodes. And that these pluralities gain influence by opposing the system itself. This plurality is a mix of individuals & institutions but also fundamental ways of thinking & seeing the world. Ultimately these nodes have tended to create localized points of view which occupy people's minds to the exclusion of others. Let’s take a current example. The “discussion” around the Israel Palestine war. It’s impossible to have a reasoned discussion at the moment, at least in public. On the “left” you have a way of thinking that is captured by postmodern nihilism (& clearly some anti-semitism). So you get a reasonable position about protesting the Israeli response, taken to unreasonable extremes e.g. Columbia students, which wouldn’t otherwise frankly have the scale & energy without the groundwork being laid over the past two decades of a twisted perspective on oppression & power. But… While the genesis of their argument is sound, any reasonable & empathic human is going to say that what happened to Israel was a terrorist attack & existential threat to their country & it has a right to & SHOULD respond. But clearly the approach has now gone too far. In a war where nearly 50% of the casualties are children (https://lnkd.in/geXv3yvm), we can’t just sit back & say, well that’s war. But we have Prof G https://lnkd.in/gtTDEiA4 (someone I have immense respect for but completely disagree with here) providing WW2 & Iraq as reference points for what is or was acceptable. WW2 was globally existential but was Nuking Japan & killing 100s of thousands necessary? And Iraq WAS (effectively & ultimately) a genocide built on false information. The war itself was one of the key reasons we are where we are now…living with completely decimated institutional trust! In both cases prevailing public opinion was engineered by mass media. So going backwards isn’t the solution. We should celebrate the plurality. We just need better platforms & tools to navigate the landscape & get out of our own pockets & in-group clusters. Free speech should win the day but the idea is to expose bad thinking with better thinking, however this requires better distribution models that scale across the whole of society not just pockets of it.

In my latest for Wealth of Geeks (via MSN) I talk about the 25 things the wealthy have ruined for the rest of us.

The Decaying Mechanism of FoE and Reality at the Present Phase. https://lnkd.in/dz38a33q