This video is an animation of The Goddess of Everything Else, a story by Scott Alexander. It was originally published on the Slate Star Codex blog. You can read it here: slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/17/the-goddess-of-everything-else-2/ Other posts relevant to this topic are: - Meditations on Moloch: slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ - Studies on Slack: slatestarcodex.com/2020/05/12/studies-on-slack/ Scott still actively writes on his more recent blog, Astral Codex Ten. We highly recommend it: astralcodexten.substack.com/ Many thanks to Liv Boeree for voicing the goddesses. She has been covering similar topics on her fantastic UA-cam channel here: www.youtube.com/@LivBoeree Also, Rational Animations finally has an official subreddit! You can find it here: www.reddit.com/r/RationalAnimations/
As a metaphor for cooperation arising from the seemingly brutal competition of evolution, I feel this story kinda veers off somewhat in the second half when it focuses on humans. There already are far more cooperative species on earth than us. Those ants and bees are examples of them, and they predate us by millions of years. We call them hive minds, and they aren't typically seen as a desirable future for humanity. It just seems like the second half of the story was shifted and attenuated to what us humans value, rather than what true spirits of nature might value. Alternately the first half anthropomorphises the natural world to suit our tastes.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn I'd debate that. Ant colonies are cooperative, but only on their scale. When you look at them on the same scale, they fight each other. As rational animations said "Red ant vs black ant". The idea is that humans are approaching global cooperation i think.
@@crazygamingoscar7325 I didn't mean us becoming a hive on the scale of an ant colony, but on the scale of the entire species. Like the Borg from Star Trek. Except of course the story veered away from that, since the writer knows (and likely shares) our aversion to that kind of existence. There'd be no colony wars if we were all one hive.
Only misconception i have with this is. How is Goddess of everything else able to morph what is not hers?. Isn't supposed to be Goddess of everything else?. Did cancer gave its children sense of individualism and passion, dream etc?. Its kinda self sabotaging. I think God oc cancer itself was a lesser Goddess compared to Goddess everything else
i love how every time the goddess of everything shows up, her appearance changes to somewhat match the dream she shared. the first time she appears, she resembles a simple multicellular organism, representing cooperation at a microscopic level. the second time, she more closely resembles an animal, representing the cooperation at a macroscopic scale. the third time she resembles a human, representing cooperation between human civilizations at the scale of nations. the fourth time, she resembles the stars, representing the cooperation of life at interstellar scales. i know it's kind of obvious, but i just really like the designs and don't see enough people talking about them, they're really good and well thought out.
@@Deltexterity I'm the animation director, you can see all the other hard-working animators in the credits! If I'm the captain they're me trusty crew yarr
I love how the goddess of cancer is always the same and always says the same thing while the goddess of everything else is always changing and morphing! It’s a neat detail
I love the double-meaning of the term “cancer” in her design! On the one hand, it does correctly explain that the disease is caused by the latent unicellular traits that any cell within an organism can start exhibiting again (but which are normally suppressed by evolution). But also her physical description speaks to the second/original meaning of the word, namely a crab (i.e. her pincers).
I watched this video first time when my English was worse than now, then I used Russian subtitles. I was surprized that this wordplay is the same in both languages :D
I love how this story is basically saying the rebuttal to the phrase "That's the way nature works". Nature is destruction and discord, fighting and pillaging but it is also community and creation, hope and love. That's a beautiful thing worth fighting for.
It would be cool if goddess of cancer also evolved into much more horrifying form matching the ages and era. 1st form would be monstrous and mindless paramecium with jelly like claw. 2nd form would me horrendous centipede like creature with crab pincers. 3rd form is ferocious dragon like worm with face of a hideous tribal woman adorned with primitive war flags soaked in blood. Also even more spiked claws. 4th form, the modern day one will be mutated and horrifying dragon-centipede monstrosity that look like being sodden with industrial toxic waste on the lower half but the upper half look like brutish woman with razor sharp jagged teeth and mechanised crab claws. Her militaristic outfit decorated with medals and land deeds from endless war she has caused while her top hat spitting out noxious pollution to darken the sky.
@@tatarchan5212 That would completely miss the point. The goddess of cancer makes the same mistake again and again BECAUSE she is stagnant. She creates the amoebas, sets them on one another. Then the goddess of everything else makes them into multicellular life that cooperate. The goddess of cancer tries to get the cells to compete again, but fails and has to settle for setting the multicellular creatures on each other instead. Every change, the goddess of cancer tries the same tactic as before, fails, and then has to settle for less, slowly ceding ground to the goddess of everything else until ever her best isn't enough to take back control again. The goddess of everything else meanwhile mixes up her approach. She gets the single celled creatures to prioritize multiplication over the other orders, motivates the individual creatures to consolidate their gains, teaches the humans to cooperate for common wealth and well being. Using the self interest of the creatures each time to promote a new direction that would have been impossible for the previous group.
I also like how the words of the sons and daughters of cancer always say that they are nothing more than that but realize it is not true when the goddess tells them otherwise because it symbolizes the way how most of the world today thinks that it is human nature to just be cruel and evil and that our world can never be cooperative but it is because we have good and bad, that we can be all the more better at being on similar wavelengths and cooperate on a mass scale, I think that if we sat down and realized that we could get a majority of the world population in a good spot and reverse the pollution on earth so that we can thrive and exist on earth for many millions of years to come, then we would truly reach the pinnacle of what it truly means to live.
I love how the goddess doesn't neccessarily sound "good" or "caring" there is a cheekiness in her voice, its like a game to her, the joy she brings shows there is more than just absolutes. EDIT: I hate how the reply thread has spiraled. I like how the VA commented, its nice to learn the thoughts behind artists.
According to his opinion, the future will form large settlements and everyone will enjoy life comfortably. No one wants children. Then the whole population will wither and die within a hundred years. 😂
I wish. This whole video is clearly inspired by a form of Christian moral absolutism, even depicting an anti-scientific form of theistic evolution and projecting very black-and-white values onto an amoral natural world. There's no nuance to it at all. It's kinda gross and propagandistic.
@@張惠閔-h7s If not needing children made people not want children, the population would already be capped. Having kids is not a decision made for practical purpose. A man and woman do not have a child in order to fill an occupation, they have children because... Well, the inherent desire to pass DNA. But I suppose the philosophy of "everything else" would suggest we've transcended that, and now have children as an expression of love and kinship and caring rather than a pure impulse to make copies of ourselves. Or, at least we are working toward that dream of a world where we can have kids and not fret over what they must become.
@@ceyx1201complexity does not equate to a good name & vice versa. Religious figures don’t have their names rembered solely because of name. The goddess of cancer seems to have touched you unfortunately though 😢
I like how the actions of the two goddesses are reflected by how they appear. The goddess of cancer's actions never change, and so for the most part she always appears out of the same source, while the goddess of everything else always changes, so she always appears from a different place and always leaves something different behind.
@@ЭммануэльГолдстейн-н6й the battle between two gods will always change their creations but were their is destruction their will always be creation and rebirth
i love how The Goddess of Everything else makes an actual argument which is agreeable and beneficial for everyone and The Goddess Of cancer just says 4 words few centuries and it works
I once read somewhere “Villains act and heroes react” and this story is just…wow. Heroes can have an endgame, and be sly and tricky. Villains can create. And people can grow beyond anything they were told at first creation.
They aren’t really villains they just be aspects of well life. Life is both cancer and everything else in that way. Conquest, cooperation, killing and siring of new life. It is what we see in nature many a time.
@@DeathnoteBByou are mistaken, an Antagonist has nothing to do with changing the status Quo, its Just what the name says: an Antagonistic Force that opposes the PROtagonist. You can have villain protagonists and Heroic antagonists too, but in Say a distopya, the Antagonist Is likely to be the Government trying, for Obvius reasons, to protect the Status Quo
I like the fact, that Goddes of everything doesn’t actually fully fix the problem and doesn’t lead animals and people to ultimate piece and non-violent life - but she actually give everyone compromises make it less bloody and cruel. Like violence “eating someone to live in natural selection ” is not horrible as “kill and hurt others without any reason” And I like the fact that this battle between goddesses is endless. Because it is natural
I understood that making compromises was a temporary solution before life became fully hers, the final goal was indeed about ultimate peace and non-violent life
You can believe that this battle between the goddesses is endless, but this story has an obvious and positive end. Also, if you believe in it, it is not a fact.
Well the reason why she can't, is cause this whole story is an allegory for what happens in reality... The force that drives progress is slow and infact needs to build upon the base nature that ensures survival... They are Yin and Yang, the Tao of how life is and yet to become...
And that is a consideration that make us destroyed the earth. The progress is not linear its a curve the point is to dance on the top and not evolving freneticly.
I like how you really leaned into the Goddess of Everything Else being "devious and subtle", despite her ultimately good effects, by making her voice work bewitching and mischievous.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the universe and life, dealing with some things that have been difficult. This video really made me lose it. That there are people out there who dream of greater things for our species gives me hope for the future.
The Goddess of Cancer and her mantra of "Kill, Consume, Multiply, Conquer" reminds me of the 4Xs in 4X video games: "Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate".
The Goddess of Everything Else: makes a well thought argument for the better of everyone The Goddess of Cancer: Don't care + Didn't ask + L + Kill + Consume + Multiply + Conquer
Interesting gnostic idea by Scott. The goddess of Cancer describes all Ego-based drives that aim at singular self-preservation and primal existence (adapting to survive in scarce and complex environments). The goddess of Everything else describes the synergetic processes which let cooperation and community exist (adapting to diversify and structure rich and orderly environments). I've studied these aspects for quite a few years and this is a great visualization. Good work to everyone involved!
@@JD-jl4yy Well, in a social ethical context, coordination is the emergent behavior of agents (individuals or groups) that serves to harmonize their actions towards a shared goal. Failure to coordinate can result in social dilemmas such as the 'Tragedy of the Commons', where individual self-interest leads to collective harm. In the domain of epistemology, coordination involves shared understanding and beliefs, where different agents need to align their understanding of the world to work together effectively, and coordination of action, where agents must understand and predict each other's behaviors to coordinate their actions (prediction of behavior equals trust). Coordination also has implications for collective intentionality, which refers to the ability of groups to form shared intentions, such as when a team of football players coordinates to execute a play. It involves complex cognitive processes, including shared attention, prediction, and mental stimulation. The coordination problem is a consensus problem, that is rooted in our relative differences in the environments and needs that each individual agent experiences and navigates. So, agents in a complex but abundant environment will become diversified and innovative, while agents in a simple but scarce environment will create systems and hierarchies to optimize prediction and deal with issues with scarcity through efficiency. So yes, it could be boiled down to coordination, from a top-down perspective.
I like how the goddess of cancer is one of order, giving clear and distinct instructions for things to adhere to as a collective, whereas the goddess of everything else is essentially convincing everyone "hey, no need to obey by those standards in the way you're doing. You can still do those things but in a completely different fashion by your own terms" thus creating more chaos yet more peace as everything acts in a more individualist fashion.
Yeah no, the goddess of everything else was creating order with her songs of inspiration That’s what all that organization was about You got that confused
@@informedconsumer5293 not really, the goddess of everything else was allowing everything to act on their own terms, thus chaos, while the goddess of cancer was getting everything to act in a specific pattern, thus order. A destructive order but still order. I dunno how you got order conflated with peacefulness, which we seem to agree that the goddess of everything provided.
@@sunbeames the goddess of everything else said she chipped away the evil over time…so she wasn’t doing nothing…and you’re trying to make chaos/cancer seem virtuous, but that’s a lot of delusion. They wouldn’t know anything about order without the inspiration the beings received each time the goddess of everything else visited them The cancer goddess imperative was meant to prevent development and organization. She hated whenever the creation did anything but perpetuate chaos…
@@informedconsumer5293 on the contrary, the goddess of Can is trying to use orderly destruction. The goddess of everything else is trying to use chaos to bring about alternatives. Civilizations can't be produced or grow if everything orderly followed the path of destruction instead of doing new things that chaos provides.
I love the first time she appears she only smiles, she doesn’t know if her plan will work and can only see if time will work in her favor. The second time however she laughs because unbeknownst to them they are already her children, the third she kisses them as she knows they are her children and is reassuring them of the future. The fourth she laughs because she is amused they hadn’t put it together this long, they had long since the goddess of cancer made them become her children.
She knows the entire time her plans will work, she smiles at first to put them at ease, she laughs because without them realizing everything they had been doing or saying was still working in her favor, they just didn't know it. She was saving them and guiding them the whole time, they were just so caught up in it they couldn't see it. The moment cancer created her creation, everything else already had plans to make it better
I think it's interesting how the Goddess of Everything Else is kind of sinister sounding with her promises. Her speeches all end with "no matter what you do, in the end you'll serve me", she doesn't, or can't really care about the individual animals and people since she's just a part of the laws of nature. Not inherently good or evil, but just the forces that shape life into what its become.
She reminds me a lot of Azura from the Elder Scrolls. Kind, gentle and mysterious instead of blunt, brutal and aggressive like the other deities, but still as absolute in her claim for control.
Ah, but only if they want. Only those who listened to her and wished to follow her went ahead - that some decided to listen to the Goddess of Cancer after that is, just the same, solely up to them. Notice how the cells and the creatures and the humans say that they yearn for the wonders she shows, the promises she makes, and the world she describes. Only those who hear and those who wish to be in her service do so.
Every great channel has a weirdly religious episode in its catalogue to inspire people. For CGP Grey it was “the fable of the dragon tyrant”. For Kurtzgezagt it was “the egg”. And now you guys have joined them. Great video, your channel is truly something special Edit: people seem to think I believe this is a negative. I don’t. These videos are some of my favorite from the respective channels. I’m just pointing out a theme that I find interesting
I love how The Goddess of Cancer doesn’t change by much, while her sister, The Goddess of Everything Else takes a slightly different shape each time she appears. Its like she evolves along with The Goddess of Cancer’s children, aka all living beings.
It's funny, because the Goddess of Cancer does change her point of view somewhat, finding groups fighting each other fitting, where her starting stance was all against all.
@@Sorain1 GOC doesn't change; her tenants and commandments stay the same no matter the audience. GOEE speaks of survival and full stomaches and multiplication and peace; she sings of what her sister scowls at.
I find it interesting that the Goddess of Cancer's first response in each stage is to try and undo what the Goddess of Everything Else has done, and that her second is to use it against itself. Sort of adapting alongside her creations, but becoming less and less able to affect them (from turning every individual beast against the others, then every group against other group, then a few individuals against everyone else, before she's finally unable to do anything) in comparison to the Goddess of Everything Else, whose influence remains constant (work together, work together, work together, work together) but compounds on itself.
And, in a small way, she even affects the Goddess of Cancer. When the tribes were created, and she turned them against each other, she found the death, consumption, multiplication, and conquest was magnified several times over. She admitted that this was to her liking and how she's alright with it. In this way the Goddess of Everything Else managed to change her sister.
Every time I rewatch this, I get flooded with a new emotion I've never felt before, and one I'll likely never feel again. It's strange, it's comforting, it's daunting, it's unknown and unknowable. I love it.
I do love that the last repetition of the Goddess of Cancer’s refrain was so irreverent. “You know the schpiel by now.” Yeah, we do, and it gets a little more pathetic every time.
I like it how it shows how much the world has evolved since its creation. The orders to kill and destroy make less and less sense as the time goes by and people realize it's just not worth it.
I love how the Godess of cancer never changes their design, but the goddess of everything else changes design, meaning that bad things never change, but good, it evolves
I expected the two to merge at the end. Humanity going out into the Galaxy _is_ also consuming, multiplying, and conquering. There are also plenty of ideas of how to "kill" (surround/disassemble) a star, so its fuel can be used for people and life, rather than being almost entiredly wasted shining into the void. Nevertheless started crying about half-way through the video.
I see your point. But I want to mention that the goddess of everything else didn't say we weren't able to kill consume multiply conquer. She merely said, we're not bound to the goddess of cancer and her imperative anymore. She talks of freedom of choice to do otherwise. But she also speaks of responsibility. We're not anymore bound by nature. If we kill, we decided to do so, we're responsible. We can exploit the earth or a sun or weaker beings. We're able to do so. We're also responsible if we do
if anything, the goddess of everything else is all abotu creative interpretation of the comandments of the goddess of cancer, the key being that cooperation elads to mroe and more effective expansion
What’s cool about the goddess of everything else diving into the sea making a coral reef is that coral reefs are a prime example of symbiotic relationships and cooperation
goddess of Cancer: "I want a world of simple competition and survival of the fittest." goddess of Everything Else: _"I'M ABOUT TO RUIN THIS WOMAN'S WHOLE CAREER"_
this is so beautifully made, the audio design in particular is incredible, combined with the colorful visuals and amazingly smooth animation, truly a masterpiece
@@LoreFriendlyMusic You should check out the original author, scott alexander. He mostly writes non fiction but has a fantastic fictional serial called Unsong (though it's not as parabley as this).
As a metaphor for cooperation arising from the seemingly brutal competition of evolution, I feel this story kinda veers off somewhat in the second half when it focuses on humans. There already are far more cooperative species on earth than us. Those ants and bees are examples of them, and they predate us by millions of years. We call them hive minds, and they aren't typically seen as a desirable future for humanity. It just seems like the second half of the story was shifted and attenuated to what us humans value, rather than what true spirits of nature might value. Alternately the first half anthropomorphises the natural world to suit our tastes.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn the appearance of ants does not make amoebas and other single-cell organisms disappear, all those levels of development exist at the same time for different species, story just focuses on more developed ones in that aspect at the moment in time. Also ants v human cooperation level is dependent on what aspects of cooperation we look at, i.e. we don't see anthills helping each other on purpose (or at least I'm unaware of that), or two anthills from different parts of the globe cooperating to achieve common goals. But yeah their cooperation is more fundamental/low-level/closer to the "nature" as it's mostly biochemically driven. And sure everything shown and described is from the human values perspective, why would we have it any other way?
@@Traf063 Yes you can have multiple levels of cooperative behaviour existing side by side in nature, however the story is being told in a progressive way as we rise above our natural inclinations, where conflict and competition are decreased each round and cooperation and coordination increased. By that metric, what could be a more optimal end state than our entire species being joined together into a hive mind, where there'd be no more conflict and maximum cooperation? And yet most people don't, to my knowledge, like that vision of the future. Indeed we often present it as horrifying, as for instance with the Borg from Star Trek. "why would we have it any other way?" - because the story is presented in terms of the wills of two contrasting nature spirits. I wouldn't expect a nature spirit to share human values, any more than I would expect an alien to. A common human value for instance is the concept of the right to life, upon which we enact such laws as the criminalization of killing (with a few special exceptions). Nature has no such concept, and thus killing is rampant in nature, with no attempt made to justify it (even saying they do it to survive is a justification we trot out, and besides unnecessary killing is not unheard of anyway). There's no reason for a nature spirit to care about human values. Not to mention that even we ourselves have a multitude of values across place and time
@@ArawnOfAnnwn I think the story isn't about being most cooperative for its own sake. It's not the goddess of cooperation, it's the goddess of *everything* else. Which includes cooperation, sure, but more generally it means "getting as far away as possible from the evolutionary imperatives". Humans can get far away because we have independent thinking, while bee swarms are (at least so far) stuck in their niches. And also, because it's *everything* else, the spirit doesn't have anthropocentric values. It doesn't really have *any* values of its own, it allows us to choose our own path out of an infinite variety.
@@JD-jl4yy Of course our boi Scott didn't come up with the concept of Moloch all on his own. That mythos or symbolism or grasping at a larger than life problem has been written about for decades prior to him being born.
You realize the goddess of cancer is the christian god, right. This is the literal story of Gnostic Christianity. That the god that created the world, YHWH is an evil god, and his sworn enemy "the devil" is the true god of light.
I don't know why, but this story, along with its animation, moved me to tears. It has ignited a longing within me for something more, and I feel that it has made me a better person, even if only by a small margin. Thank you for what you do, and for the incredible work of the animators and voice actors. It is truly amazing. ❤😢
This makes me think of Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene. A large part of the book is spent explaining how life, multicellular organisms, cooperative and even 'altruistic' behaviours can evolve from selfish genes: Genes whose only goal is to survive and multiply.
i love that the goddess of everything else doesn't change the creatures/people like her sister does, but instead gives them the hope of something better, inspiring them through the telling of her dreams. a truly wonderful story and so beautifully animated
Hello! I'd like to say thank you, Rational Animations! I have been in the past month binge-reading the Sequences, LessWrong in general and, of course, Slate Star Codex! Thank you for putting forward some of the most important ideas we could be talking about, in excellent form, on UA-cam for the public at large. The references I just mentioned are a way-too-small portion of the internet. Thanks!
PS: This also changes from the dreary, depressing, and darkly hilarious Ted talk by Eliezer yesterday. I say darkly humorous because he was perfectly serious the whole time but the audience just... laughed. There is no rule that says we will make it.
@@smitchered We have to work together on the most pressing problems. Welcome to the rationalist sphere of the internet. I hope this journey serves you well and you will achieve great things.
@@kormannn1 "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is one view. The idea in the original comment is more like "the road to hell is paved, good intentions can divert it".
@@kormannn1thats your stereotypical bias of your concept of "righteousness and good". Corruption is just the means, like how addiction is a form of corruption and rehabilitation is also a form of corruption. Addiction corrupts a person into a self-destructive obssesive individual to its target of addiction. While Rehabilitation corrupts the corrupted individual back to its former natural state... Corruption and corrupting something basically means converting it into another thing which strays the thing far from its "original" function, whether what they turn into would be up to the corrupter. So a "good" corrupter would corrupt people who were corrupted into functioning as an evil person into a "good" person which deviates the corrupted evil individual from its original corrupted function to be evil. You.. Get me.. Right?
@@BootyRealDreamMurMurs depends on how that corruption works. You can play on hidden desires and manipulate dirty. It's not a good mean to the ends even if it's for a greater good.
I really love how the goddess of everything else change physically during the story. It really shows that, contrary to the goddess of cancer that stays always the same and say always the same thing, she is evolving with time and accordingly to what she say to the sons and daughters of the goddess of cancer. She say that they are not bound by the law of the goddess of cancer, like she is not bound by any law. I just really like that the physic of the goddess of everything else help to transmit her speech.
Gosh, that wink she does whenever she says her line 'for I am the goddess of everything else and my powers are devious and subtle', is just too good. I love how cheeky she is.
I cried the first time I read this in text form but now I'm sitting here in my office sobbing with tears streaming down my face. This is my religion. ...time to build some benevolent angels?
Imma boil this story to one line "Omnipotent sisters try to fight each other in the longest court battle ever for legal rights of their little screaming mortal meatball children"
The thing is, they aren't omnipotent... If they were, they could do anything... But obviously that is not the case... This video is basically an allegory to describe the forces that drive life to go on... For progress and sofistication to take place it needs the base nature to ensure survival... They Yin and Yang to each other, the Tao of Life, the way life is and will yet become...
@@Lord_Ivoundy_Creood I think they meant to say omniscient or omnipresent. With how they’re able to communicate with every living organism at once, and how they know about everything that’s happening everywhere.
I love how the goddess of everything else has a bit of cheekiness in her voice,I also love how she constantly become different and makes better futures,this truly is heartwarming.
That’s the point. The Goddess of Cancer put that drive in place. But the Goddess of Everything Else perverts it to serve greater ends, like, for instance, the ascent to the stars
@@popatochisps1198My point is that the statement from the Goddess of Everything Else at the end is incorrect. She claims humanity is free of all desire to multiply and conquer and can set about doing everything else. After sharing with humanity a vision of them conquering the stars and spreading across the universe. It is in fact another perversion of the imperatives from the Goddess of Cancer, as you say.
@@popatochisps1198 And the stars will expire as we kill, consume, and conquer. ...If we ever got that far, which we won't, because here's the thing about the Godess of Cancer-- It's natural selection. Whatever is _most likely_ to multiply multiplies, and what's most likely to multiply is basically never what'll keep humanity or the Earth alive in the long run, just like cancer itself. People like this story because it takes a truth I think most of us understand (but never voice) and twist it into a dishonest narrative about how no, this is good, actually.
Yeah I hate that you know what missing the goddess of beauty and muses that sun is not wasting its twinkling in who knows sky and supporting who knows life
Well the spreading to the stars here seems less colonization and resource extraction heavy as we would think. It seems like just sending out consciousness out to explore and interact. I will say tho she says specifically that we are no longer driven by nature. That doesn't mean we can decide to kill, conquer, multiply. It'd just be a decision based on pragmatism instead of nature. Which would make it happen less often and would make the party involved a lot more responsible for it. Also part of the theme here is that that chaos created by the goddess of chaos is necessary for metamorphosis and creation to take place. It's just no longer their singular drive and nature. 😊
Such a good reading. I watched twice. I do love the "cheekiness" in the goddess of everything else; it exudes a confidence - she's knows she'll win, she won't give in. The voices of the entire read are perfect, even the regret and shame from the subjects; the repetitions and inflections. Very good.
Until after long a third sister appeared neath the embers of everything else. With a somber smile, she spoke through the gaps in the void, through the taut-stretched infinite threads of reality and said "I am the goddess of nothing at all" and with a snap of her fingers the universe unwound. For a time all was still. Frozen in crystalline perfection without form or existence. From the depths of the darkness a familiar rhythm rang out... "KILL CONSUME MULTIPLY CONQUER"
@@Justin-pe9cl Yes. But the depiction of biblically accurate angels closely resembles that of the Dyson Sphere. They called it a Dyson Swarm, but that would be multiple bits and pieces, whereas the Dyson Sphere covers it in rings.
Fellow bio student. I have a penchant for these folklore tales. They’re always rich with understanding. Videos like these is why I respect artists. When the left brain runs, you learn how to think, but only when the right brain runs do you learn how to think different.
1. The disagreement with tolkien pretty much comes down to this: "are things good or bad in their origin?" If things started out good, then bad must happen by twisting it. If things started out bad, then good must happen by twisting it. 2. In all of these cases, the winning strategy must have elements of both sides. An organism must have order and unity inside it, and with allies. And it must fend against environments and enemies, even if not killing them. Same for a cell, same for multicellular organisms, same for hives, same for countries. To say that the eternal mix of both is one side winning is, well, one way to put it. 3. The framing of good and bad are not rock solid. "kill", "consume", "multiply", "conquer". All can have good framings. To kill a disease, to consume sunlight, to multiply and continue life, to conquer challenges and problems. Imagine if you only had the "everything else". You can't multiply, so life dies out (nothing is eternal, how do you continue a lineage without multiplying?). You can't consume, so you can't grow or learn anything new. 4. Conquest and killing are only needed in a world that isn't completely united. In a united world the exchange of things isn't "conquest and banditry" but rebranded as "cooperation and transfers". But if a world isn't unified, the only way TO unify is by conquest. unity can only become disunity through corruption. disunity can only become unity through conquest. 5. "everything else" really only contains a very very specific thing. Unity/cooperation. There are too many other things that exist. For example, "constant change", "chaos", "nothingness", "stillness".
Conquest, Killing, Multipling and Consuming will never be gone in a universe with finite resources, and every single physical qualia of our universe dictates to us that what all life relies upon, the change it builds upon, is predicated in the consumption of things that are finite. Even should we colonize space, conquer the stars, these will forever remain true.
In my own interpretation, the true "everything else" that the goddess embodies is to escape the binaries that we seem to think is all there is in the world. Every time she comes by, there's always a spiel about how the children could only "multiply consume kill and conquer" and the implication is that to do the opposite would be to die. And always, the goddess would compel the children to do things another way. When cancer comes around, the children don't really change physically, only mentally as the old binary thinking takes root once more. It's a cycle, but one that reveals an important point: there's always another way, and because there's always another way, the children gradually turn into the goddess of everything's children little by little. It's an argument against all the doomscrolling we find ourselves doing. Even if it seems that nothing has changed because of all the negativity and abuses of power we find ourselves exposed to, the truth is we have come a very long way from way back then, and even though there's still a massive journey ahead of us, it's precisely why we need to seek to take the next step. Ultimately, we might not ever escape the evils and abuses we humans inflict upon ourselves. But that's no reason not to keep trying.
The goddess of everything else brings 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦, 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘴, 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘺; it shows us that we are more than our nature, without stopping being as we are.
The story is very open to interpretation and also somewhat confusing and I think naming the evil goddess "Goddess of Cancer" kinda plays into the confusion. The disagreement with Tolkien is not as much a disagreement as it is a counter statement, the both principles (good twists bad / bad twists good) don't just stand in opposition but rather describe a cycle. As shown in the video, turning something bad into good is not the end - the good will come up with its own expressions of bad (metaphor: it breeds cancer) which will then be twisted into something good again. This cycle continues until the end of the video, where everything bad will be turned into good for the final time. There is no explanation given why exactly it is the last time bad things are twisted but I think the message is simply that we keep on turning bad things into good things until only good remains. This is where the story contrasts with Tolkien: What things are in their origin doesn't matter, good will turn to bad, bad will turn to good. What matters is the final step, which is bad turning good... for good. What's lacking in this metaphor: Obviously there's no explanation why in the end only good will remain. It's probably just hope, the cycle could just as well turn on forever or until all existence perishes and with it the concept of good and bad. Based on this, the goddesses appear to not be framed well: If the bad one is The Goddess of Cancer then the good one should be The Goddess of Acceptence/Moving On/Regulation or something like this. This would refer to the modus operandi of both of them throughout the story and make them an inspiration for our course of action. But here is also where cancer is a problematic reference. Cancer corrupts working systems and lets them go out of control, destroying themselves with unregulated growth and resource usage. This fits the goddesses modus operandi but cancer needs to be eliminated, not accepted or changed as the beings do in the video with their nature and habits. Cancer is there, always, it is not an infection, it is corruption, like the goddess. But cancer can not be used, it does not play into "Everything Else", nothing comes from cancer. Another framing, if the good one is The Goddess of Everything Else, then the bad one should be The Goddess of Anything. This would refer to their primal identity as a representation in all of existence and how we deal with existing... basically what gods are made for. If anything exists in a state of evil, everything else that can be considered the opposite will make it good/we label everything else good (or the other way around). This describes the concept of change itself and makes it obsolete which side of the coin is labeled good or bad. It's just the story of anything that exists. And everything else that's brought into existence, too.
If you actually look at evolution, it's "consume" and "multiply" that made animals become cooperative. But they're cooperative to more efficiently conquer other species, which this story seems to just brush passed. The video paints wolf packs and ants as living "in harmony" when that actually means they're more ruthlessly efficient at causing greater destruction. The story even ends with humans going off to perform expansionist imperialism on the galaxy. It's like the two forces are working together to maximize the suffering in the universe. It seems to me to be a thoroughly wicked animation with a depraved moral sensibility.
If watching this made you cry, know that it is because you are torn, feeling like a son or daughter (or other!) of the Goddess of Cancer, but being beckoned by the Goddess of Everything Else. Your tears are your longing for it, and you should walk away knowing your purpose. Cooperate, work together, and make her dream a reality for all future beings!
I like that the goddess of everything else isnt definitively "good", she doesnt only do good things, she doesnt limit beings to only be good ever, only to be themselves. Only to be free from what binds them. Theres unity and care but even those require some bad things. She even encourages bad for good purpose. She just wants to see life flourish, whatever must happen to do so. Go against your nature, not in being without flaw, but in doing what YOU desire most. Good, after all, cannot exist without evil. Erasing one will only send life to a different confinement. Free will is what she aimed for. Not to enslave people to her side, but to show them they can do what THEY want. Its a nice way of portraying good.
This caught me off guard, and actually made water flow through my eyes. And to think I am cold, unfeeling and selfish, that these hopes for better things would only fall to my nihilism and yet my heart yearns as the goddess of everything else sing her song to me.
I wasn't expecting to get close to crying from this video, but the whole team did such a fantastic job I can't help but admit it. Even though I think truly shedding nature is not possible - in terms of metaphor, just like both the goddesses had sway over life, they will until the end of time - but "Go forth, and do Everything Else!" moved me deeply. I'll be thinking about this video for a very long time!
So you're saying your heart longs for this dream, but you are a daughter of the goddess of cancer, and the words of the goddess of everything else hold no power to sway you? Interesting
Maybe, in following the vision of a different future, she will find herself lifted upon the her nature; for the powers of the goddess of everything else are devious and subtle, and it is not without paradox that in following the goddess of cancer’s command of killing fear, our friend will be more inextricably bound to the service of the goddess of everything else. ;)
@@TomorrowWeLive2 Art is very important, it is found among intelligent animals like crows and apes, of course it will be found with humans, it is a sign of intelligence and creativity, of innovation, of trial and error. You hate on artists yet play games, watch movies, read books, and watched this very video made by artists. Don't cast artists away just because you don't like a bunch of paintings.
Beautifully animated. I really liked that the Goddess of Cancer never changed, always the same just like her words, but the Goddess of Everything Else changed and evolved just like the creatures slowly becoming her children. ^_^
In the last 3 minutes, when the Goddess of Everything Else comes for the final time, oh man. I cried, but it wasn’t just tears, my whole face clenched as it gave me an emotional catharsis like nothing else. It was like I was humanity itself, finally freed from its captor, I was free, I will be free someday, seeing all the potential for good we have, despite our instincts.
Not the first time my emotions caught me off guard hearing this story. Thank you for bringing this to me again with your art. Thank you further for giving me another way to share it with others.
The disturbing conclusion to this story, for me, is that, yes, the goddess of cancer is the "evil" one but she's just as essential as the goddess of everything else. If our ancestors hadn't had the drive to multiply and conquer, we wouldn't exist.
@@FunkyJeff22 maybe the point was that there is a turning point, the end of the story, when the mantra of kill consume conquer is no longer necessary to grow
@@1nf3ct3dTT at what point tho? there was not such point. The goddes of everything else promised humanity what they alwas did: to kill, consume, multiply, conquer. but in space.
I'm a cold, cinical and atheist bastard, but this actually made me cry. This is too well made, it's message and the way it is presented is too beautiful. To everyone involved in the creation of this masterpiece of animation and narrative: Thank you!
Omg I truly wept. We all need this more than ever. Many have been shouting this message, and few have heard their cries. Thank you for creating this video. I truly thank you from the depths of my heart. ❤❤
At first I thought the division between the god of cancer and the god of absolutly everything else, was really one sides but surprisingly it really wasn't, trully surprisng how much of our society and history since the start of time has simple been driven by that imperative of "Kill, Multiply, Consume, Conquer"
Im a simple person but when the Godess of Everything Else said that they didnt need to Kill, Consume, Multiply & Conquer, but could now do Everything Else, it clicked in my head. Really hope one day humanity and ife in general will reach the extant it reaches in the video.
This legit made me cry. Haven't read the original story, but I'm sure your artwork did it justice. I was never the one to love fairytales, but this modern fairytale is my favourite now. I love the art and all the smooth animations, this is a wonderful artpiece, you did a great job! Thank you for making this.
I love how the goddess of cancer doesn’t really evolve or adapt to the civilizations, she just dose not care. In the other handle the goddess of everything else adapts and tries to help, changing his appearance constantly.
My sibling and I often talked about this as our philosophy. My sibling believes that to bring peace to earth, we must follow our nature, return to how animals live, and live off the earth. However, I argued that while I agree civilization has advanced far past what we're capable of evolutionarily, I believe with the right technology we can advance enough that we can live as if we live off the Earth, but in a civilized truly peaceful fashion. If you wish to eat an apple from a tree, then grab an apple from a tree. But not because that's all that's available to you, but simply because you can.
This is a interesting story, Both The Goddesses are not purely what they seem, from the first glance, one is evil but the other is good but, if you look closer it seemed goddess of cancer, is only following her way of life, a way that we find acceptable because it how we work, and then the goddess of everything else, sounded mischievous or cheeky based on someone commented, liked that word to describe it voice. But her action lead to greater things nothing is wrong with her actions, both having a purpose to our way of life. The goddess of cancer is a fitting name because like cancer it doesn't just die, it consume your body, just to follow it program to live. And the goddess of everything else is also a fitting name as everything is affected by everything.
Cancer is the cells in our body replicating too much and too fast. It is a natural and necessary process taken to the extreme. That is the real meaning of the goddess of cancer’s name. She creates greed. it is natural and necessary to look out for yourself, but harmful when taken to the extreme. Everything else includes the goddess of cancer’s tenets: kill, consume, multiply, and conquer. Only dampened by nuance, temperament, and everything else. Those are my thoughts on names.
This is such a cool alegory for evolution, like creation can only grow because of mutation that serves it in the short term, but it can only prosper enough to stay by larger bonds that also serve it in the long term.
My heartfelt thanks to this beautiful work of yours and Scott Alexander. As a Christian and Ecologist, this piece of art has perfectly encapsulated the marriage between my faith with science, as they are one. The ruthless competition between genes to multiply themselves blossoms into the magnificent array of biodiversity. The unforgiving, meaningless, aimless process of evolution births species that are capable of true altruism that is motivated, not by inclusive fitness, but by love… Thank you. You have rocked the very bottom of our hearts.
In mainstream Christianity The Evil transforms the creation of the Good, in this story The Good transforms the creation of the Evil. Literally the opposite. Maybe you are a Gnostic, though.
@@pavelgorokhov2976 I think most mainstream Christians are effectively gnostics even if they don't officially describe themselves as such, since they see the world as basically fallen and ruled by Satan, and Christ is the "goddess of everything else" hero figure who comes down like Prometheus to give the fire of salvation to humanity so that they can be freed from sin (the essence of the fallen mortal state) reunited with the true god. This is *particularly* evident in Mormonism.
Scott's written a lot of cool stuff but this one has always stood out for me. Great evocation of the layered nature of reality, and of moloch and coordination. Feels like such a valuable insight to have.
13:23 that dyson swarm ai turning into an Ophanim angel (wheel within a wheel with an eye) was one of the most stunning things I think I've seen in a long time. Perhaps we are already a part of a civilization like this. One that is allowing us to grow and develop wonderful ideas like this without interference, so that one day we can join the rest of them with our own wonders
This video is an animation of The Goddess of Everything Else, a story by Scott Alexander. It was originally published on the Slate Star Codex blog. You can read it here: slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/17/the-goddess-of-everything-else-2/
Other posts relevant to this topic are:
- Meditations on Moloch: slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
- Studies on Slack: slatestarcodex.com/2020/05/12/studies-on-slack/
Scott still actively writes on his more recent blog, Astral Codex Ten. We highly recommend it: astralcodexten.substack.com/
Many thanks to Liv Boeree for voicing the goddesses. She has been covering similar topics on her fantastic UA-cam channel here: www.youtube.com/@LivBoeree
Also, Rational Animations finally has an official subreddit! You can find it here: www.reddit.com/r/RationalAnimations/
Noice!
As a metaphor for cooperation arising from the seemingly brutal competition of evolution, I feel this story kinda veers off somewhat in the second half when it focuses on humans. There already are far more cooperative species on earth than us. Those ants and bees are examples of them, and they predate us by millions of years. We call them hive minds, and they aren't typically seen as a desirable future for humanity. It just seems like the second half of the story was shifted and attenuated to what us humans value, rather than what true spirits of nature might value. Alternately the first half anthropomorphises the natural world to suit our tastes.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn I'd debate that. Ant colonies are cooperative, but only on their scale. When you look at them on the same scale, they fight each other. As rational animations said "Red ant vs black ant".
The idea is that humans are approaching global cooperation i think.
@@crazygamingoscar7325 I didn't mean us becoming a hive on the scale of an ant colony, but on the scale of the entire species. Like the Borg from Star Trek. Except of course the story veered away from that, since the writer knows (and likely shares) our aversion to that kind of existence. There'd be no colony wars if we were all one hive.
You guys chose a baaaad time to make an official subreddit
“Though our hearts long for you we are not yours too have” that is the most bitter sweet sentence I ever heard.
It's just so poetic, it makes me wanna cry ngl 😭😭
"And your words have no power to move us."
We wish it were otherwise. 😢
This animation and hearing those words did make me cry, this video made me feel things 😢
Only misconception i have with this is. How is Goddess of everything else able to morph what is not hers?. Isn't supposed to be Goddess of everything else?. Did cancer gave its children sense of individualism and passion, dream etc?. Its kinda self sabotaging.
I think God oc cancer itself was a lesser Goddess compared to Goddess everything else
i love how every time the goddess of everything shows up, her appearance changes to somewhat match the dream she shared. the first time she appears, she resembles a simple multicellular organism, representing cooperation at a microscopic level. the second time, she more closely resembles an animal, representing the cooperation at a macroscopic scale. the third time she resembles a human, representing cooperation between human civilizations at the scale of nations. the fourth time, she resembles the stars, representing the cooperation of life at interstellar scales. i know it's kind of obvious, but i just really like the designs and don't see enough people talking about them, they're really good and well thought out.
Thank you, I'm happy you noticed the theme!
@@vezanmatics ooh, are you the animator? it looks absolutely stunning, all of it! i'm in love with your work
I love her designs too!! :D
@@Deltexterity I'm the animation director, you can see all the other hard-working animators in the credits! If I'm the captain they're me trusty crew yarr
@@vezanmatics oh okay, then a huge props to the whole team! this is really impressive stuff!
I love how the goddess of cancer is always the same and always says the same thing while the goddess of everything else is always changing and morphing! It’s a neat detail
I especially like her harpy form
Furry
(Ps: i swear to her greatness I was JOKING)
@@Nightslikethesearerare😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@Nightslikethesearerare or were you?
@@asbdowasduwagibberish4700 *Vsauce music intensifies*
I love the double-meaning of the term “cancer” in her design! On the one hand, it does correctly explain that the disease is caused by the latent unicellular traits that any cell within an organism can start exhibiting again (but which are normally suppressed by evolution). But also her physical description speaks to the second/original meaning of the word, namely a crab (i.e. her pincers).
EVERYTHING EVOLVES INTO CRABS
I watched this video first time when my English was worse than now, then I used Russian subtitles. I was surprized that this wordplay is the same in both languages :D
NERD
@@joshuakelly9390this is basic knowledge, it's not looking good for you lil bro
@@Clownish.mp4 ok loser
I love how this story is basically saying the rebuttal to the phrase "That's the way nature works". Nature is destruction and discord, fighting and pillaging but it is also community and creation, hope and love. That's a beautiful thing worth fighting for.
In a sense, it's a rebuttal to reductive thinking - like the kind that would summize our lives in just four verbs.
@@Psykogedwhat are those verbs :0
@@thesteelsquid863Did you watch the video??
@@e5858 He's ins't wrong and the video isn't a scientifical prove.
@@ig100magnaguard ??
I like that the goddess of everything else changes with each phase while the goddess of cancer doesn't. The symbolism in that is just wonderful.
It would be cool if goddess of cancer also evolved into much more horrifying form matching the ages and era.
1st form would be monstrous and mindless paramecium with jelly like claw.
2nd form would me horrendous centipede like creature with crab pincers.
3rd form is ferocious dragon like worm with face of a hideous tribal woman adorned with primitive war flags soaked in blood. Also even more spiked claws.
4th form, the modern day one will be mutated and horrifying dragon-centipede monstrosity that look like being sodden with industrial toxic waste on the lower half but the upper half look like brutish woman with razor sharp jagged teeth and mechanised crab claws. Her militaristic outfit decorated with medals and land deeds from endless war she has caused while her top hat spitting out noxious pollution to darken the sky.
@@tatarchan5212 you have created a monstrocity. I already know exactly what it'll look like in my mind, but im not a good one when it comes to drawing
That is so true !
@@tatarchan5212 That would completely miss the point. The goddess of cancer makes the same mistake again and again BECAUSE she is stagnant. She creates the amoebas, sets them on one another. Then the goddess of everything else makes them into multicellular life that cooperate. The goddess of cancer tries to get the cells to compete again, but fails and has to settle for setting the multicellular creatures on each other instead.
Every change, the goddess of cancer tries the same tactic as before, fails, and then has to settle for less, slowly ceding ground to the goddess of everything else until ever her best isn't enough to take back control again. The goddess of everything else meanwhile mixes up her approach. She gets the single celled creatures to prioritize multiplication over the other orders, motivates the individual creatures to consolidate their gains, teaches the humans to cooperate for common wealth and well being. Using the self interest of the creatures each time to promote a new direction that would have been impossible for the previous group.
I also like how the words of the sons and daughters of cancer always say that they are nothing more than that but realize it is not true when the goddess tells them otherwise because it symbolizes the way how most of the world today thinks that it is human nature to just be cruel and evil and that our world can never be cooperative but it is because we have good and bad, that we can be all the more better at being on similar wavelengths and cooperate on a mass scale, I think that if we sat down and realized that we could get a majority of the world population in a good spot and reverse the pollution on earth so that we can thrive and exist on earth for many millions of years to come, then we would truly reach the pinnacle of what it truly means to live.
I love how the goddess doesn't neccessarily sound "good" or "caring" there is a cheekiness in her voice, its like a game to her, the joy she brings shows there is more than just absolutes.
EDIT:
I hate how the reply thread has spiraled.
I like how the VA commented, its nice to learn the thoughts behind artists.
According to his opinion, the future will form large settlements and everyone will enjoy life comfortably. No one wants children. Then the whole population will wither and die within a hundred years. 😂
@@張惠閔-h7s you did not understand and listened to the story bud. transcendence, overcome the limitations.
@@張惠閔-h7s well i think most people want kids, having them now is just bad cause it can lead to thme having bad lives.
I wish. This whole video is clearly inspired by a form of Christian moral absolutism, even depicting an anti-scientific form of theistic evolution and projecting very black-and-white values onto an amoral natural world. There's no nuance to it at all. It's kinda gross and propagandistic.
@@張惠閔-h7s
If not needing children made people not want children, the population would already be capped.
Having kids is not a decision made for practical purpose. A man and woman do not have a child in order to fill an occupation, they have children because... Well, the inherent desire to pass DNA. But I suppose the philosophy of "everything else" would suggest we've transcended that, and now have children as an expression of love and kinship and caring rather than a pure impulse to make copies of ourselves.
Or, at least we are working toward that dream of a world where we can have kids and not fret over what they must become.
"The Goddess of Everything Else" is one of the coolest titles I've ever heard.
honestly, really drives in an audience
Nope it's just lazy naming "everything else"
@@ceyx1201 Even the Lazy naming is catchy, it succeeded you to click on this video did it not?
@@ceyx1201 well you clicked the video did you not?
@@ceyx1201complexity does not equate to a good name & vice versa. Religious figures don’t have their names rembered solely because of name. The goddess of cancer seems to have touched you unfortunately though 😢
I like how the actions of the two goddesses are reflected by how they appear. The goddess of cancer's actions never change, and so for the most part she always appears out of the same source, while the goddess of everything else always changes, so she always appears from a different place and always leaves something different behind.
And will the goddess of cancer only gets larger and more tumorous, the goddess of everything else changes from shape to shape!
То есть мы наблюдаем очередное противостояние Кхорна и Тзинча
@@ЭммануэльГолдстейн-н6й
the battle between two gods will always change their creations but were their is destruction their will always be creation
and rebirth
Reflecting how in the beginning it says it is good that changes, and evil that creates(but cannot change its creation).
i love how The Goddess of Everything else makes an actual argument which is agreeable and beneficial for everyone and The Goddess Of cancer just says 4 words few centuries and it works
If it aint broke
don't fix it
A feesh :0
Humans: sounds perfectly reasonable
Destruction is always much more simple than creation
I once read somewhere “Villains act and heroes react” and this story is just…wow. Heroes can have an endgame, and be sly and tricky. Villains can create. And people can grow beyond anything they were told at first creation.
yea but i also can’t see them has heroes of villains. they just exist and work towards the same goal differently.
They aren’t really villains they just be aspects of well life. Life is both cancer and everything else in that way. Conquest, cooperation, killing and siring of new life. It is what we see in nature many a time.
It’s also how protagonists and antagonists work. Antagonists just want to disrupt the status quo. Sometimes the status quo is bad
@@DeathnoteBByou are mistaken, an Antagonist has nothing to do with changing the status Quo, its Just what the name says: an Antagonistic Force that opposes the PROtagonist.
You can have villain protagonists and Heroic antagonists too, but in Say a distopya, the Antagonist Is likely to be the Government trying, for Obvius reasons, to protect the Status Quo
after all, heros need to win every time, the villan needs to win once.
These two gods feel like divorced parents fighting over child custody.
divorced lesbian goddesses
12:09 OH MY GOD NEVERMIND THEY'RE SISTERS.
@@Clownish.mp4 sweet home Alabama noo
@@Clownish.mp4well I mean they don't have to be sisters by blood and besides they look nothing alike so I doubt they are related by blood
Feels more like sisters stealing each others toys
@@wolfjacket551thats exactly what it is
I like the fact, that Goddes of everything doesn’t actually fully fix the problem and doesn’t lead animals and people to ultimate piece and non-violent life - but she actually give everyone compromises make it less bloody and cruel. Like violence “eating someone to live in natural selection ” is not horrible as “kill and hurt others without any reason”
And I like the fact that this battle between goddesses is endless. Because it is natural
I understood that making compromises was a temporary solution before life became fully hers, the final goal was indeed about ultimate peace and non-violent life
You can believe that this battle between the goddesses is endless, but this story has an obvious and positive end. Also, if you believe in it, it is not a fact.
Well the reason why she can't, is cause this whole story is an allegory for what happens in reality... The force that drives progress is slow and infact needs to build upon the base nature that ensures survival... They are Yin and Yang, the Tao of how life is and yet to become...
Was waiting on the twist that they were the same goddess.
And that is a consideration that make us destroyed the earth. The progress is not linear its a curve the point is to dance on the top and not evolving freneticly.
I like how you really leaned into the Goddess of Everything Else being "devious and subtle", despite her ultimately good effects, by making her voice work bewitching and mischievous.
Especially towards the end it's quite nice, strangely immersive even, with the faint garbled echoes.
you can literally point that out in one line: "Like A Siren" from the second phase. it truely shows how deceptive the goddess is.
And yet the only good force in the universe has obviously been cancer.
The visions in the stories you choose to retell are always so pure that they make me cry.
I 400th that. This was SO good!
I've been thinking a lot lately about the universe and life, dealing with some things that have been difficult. This video really made me lose it. That there are people out there who dream of greater things for our species gives me hope for the future.
Yes it was incredible
The first time I saw this, I wept. I just saw it again. I wept just as much as the first time!
same! glad to hear im not the only one
The Goddess of Cancer and her mantra of "Kill, Consume, Multiply, Conquer" reminds me of the 4Xs in 4X video games: "Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate".
New game genre just dropped: Violence.
@@jokiejook8659 New? Violence has been in games forever.
That's sounds like the mantra used by Europe.🙂
@@MatthewTheWanderer Yeah, but the genre is purely about killing, consuming, multiplying and conquering.
Most games only have killing
The Goddess of Everything Else: makes a well thought argument for the better of everyone
The Goddess of Cancer: Don't care + Didn't ask + L + Kill + Consume + Multiply + Conquer
Based
Nice argument everything else, why don't you back up with a source?
@@enchantedbread9915 my source is that I made it the fuck up.
KILL
CONSUME
MULTIPLY
CONCUER
This is true wise of the best goddess.
@@alexpineda5960faxxxx
Interesting gnostic idea by Scott. The goddess of Cancer describes all Ego-based drives that aim at singular self-preservation and primal existence (adapting to survive in scarce and complex environments). The goddess of Everything else describes the synergetic processes which let cooperation and community exist (adapting to diversify and structure rich and orderly environments). I've studied these aspects for quite a few years and this is a great visualization. Good work to everyone involved!
Wouldnt that be id based drives?
@@peterdisabella2156 true, when we look at Freud, the Id is the pleasure principle and the ego the reality principle!
Good work to everyone evolved.
Since you say you studied these concepts for a long time: Is it just me or do almost all problems humanity faces boil down to coordination problems?
@@JD-jl4yy Well, in a social ethical context, coordination is the emergent behavior of agents (individuals or groups) that serves to harmonize their actions towards a shared goal. Failure to coordinate can result in social dilemmas such as the 'Tragedy of the Commons', where individual self-interest leads to collective harm. In the domain of epistemology, coordination involves shared understanding and beliefs, where different agents need to align their understanding of the world to work together effectively, and coordination of action, where agents must understand and predict each other's behaviors to coordinate their actions (prediction of behavior equals trust). Coordination also has implications for collective intentionality, which refers to the ability of groups to form shared intentions, such as when a team of football players coordinates to execute a play. It involves complex cognitive processes, including shared attention, prediction, and mental stimulation. The coordination problem is a consensus problem, that is rooted in our relative differences in the environments and needs that each individual agent experiences and navigates. So, agents in a complex but abundant environment will become diversified and innovative, while agents in a simple but scarce environment will create systems and hierarchies to optimize prediction and deal with issues with scarcity through efficiency. So yes, it could be boiled down to coordination, from a top-down perspective.
Ok, now this is a proper modern fairy tale. I love it so much.
Have you ever played Destiny? The Winnower & The Gardener?
A modern fairy tale I hope it shall truly be, passed from generation to generation!
Netherlands.
@@xxpatricklauxx????
@@xxpatricklauxx murica
Mad props to the voice actors, animators, and director! You brought this story to life with astonishing vividity.
I like how the goddess of cancer is one of order, giving clear and distinct instructions for things to adhere to as a collective, whereas the goddess of everything else is essentially convincing everyone "hey, no need to obey by those standards in the way you're doing. You can still do those things but in a completely different fashion by your own terms" thus creating more chaos yet more peace as everything acts in a more individualist fashion.
the goddess of cancer is capitalism and the goddess of everything else is anarcho-comunism
Yeah no, the goddess of everything else was creating order with her songs of inspiration
That’s what all that organization was about
You got that confused
@@informedconsumer5293 not really, the goddess of everything else was allowing everything to act on their own terms, thus chaos, while the goddess of cancer was getting everything to act in a specific pattern, thus order. A destructive order but still order.
I dunno how you got order conflated with peacefulness, which we seem to agree that the goddess of everything provided.
@@sunbeames the goddess of everything else said she chipped away the evil over time…so she wasn’t doing nothing…and you’re trying to make chaos/cancer seem virtuous, but that’s a lot of delusion.
They wouldn’t know anything about order without the inspiration the beings received each time the goddess of everything else visited them
The cancer goddess imperative was meant to prevent development and organization. She hated whenever the creation did anything but perpetuate chaos…
@@informedconsumer5293 on the contrary, the goddess of Can is trying to use orderly destruction. The goddess of everything else is trying to use chaos to bring about alternatives. Civilizations can't be produced or grow if everything orderly followed the path of destruction instead of doing new things that chaos provides.
I love the first time she appears she only smiles, she doesn’t know if her plan will work and can only see if time will work in her favor. The second time however she laughs because unbeknownst to them they are already her children, the third she kisses them as she knows they are her children and is reassuring them of the future. The fourth she laughs because she is amused they hadn’t put it together this long, they had long since the goddess of cancer made them become her children.
She knows the entire time her plans will work, she smiles at first to put them at ease, she laughs because without them realizing everything they had been doing or saying was still working in her favor, they just didn't know it. She was saving them and guiding them the whole time, they were just so caught up in it they couldn't see it. The moment cancer created her creation, everything else already had plans to make it better
I think it's interesting how the Goddess of Everything Else is kind of sinister sounding with her promises. Her speeches all end with "no matter what you do, in the end you'll serve me", she doesn't, or can't really care about the individual animals and people since she's just a part of the laws of nature. Not inherently good or evil, but just the forces that shape life into what its become.
Just right for a deity.
She reminds me a lot of Azura from the Elder Scrolls. Kind, gentle and mysterious instead of blunt, brutal and aggressive like the other deities, but still as absolute in her claim for control.
@@pavelgorokhov2976
agreed, chaotic nuetral
The rest we just made up, perception
Brilliantly stated my friend
Ah, but only if they want.
Only those who listened to her and wished to follow her went ahead - that some decided to listen to the Goddess of Cancer after that is, just the same, solely up to them.
Notice how the cells and the creatures and the humans say that they yearn for the wonders she shows, the promises she makes, and the world she describes. Only those who hear and those who wish to be in her service do so.
When your mom is scary control freak but your aunt is that cool hippy lady
Heck yeah 🎉😊😅😂
Fr
Every great channel has a weirdly religious episode in its catalogue to inspire people. For CGP Grey it was “the fable of the dragon tyrant”. For Kurtzgezagt it was “the egg”. And now you guys have joined them. Great video, your channel is truly something special
Edit: people seem to think I believe this is a negative. I don’t. These videos are some of my favorite from the respective channels. I’m just pointing out a theme that I find interesting
humans love ritual
The weird is welcome
Oh I saw both videos!
neomyth.
lol i unsubbed from both for reasons…oh no
I love how The Goddess of Cancer doesn’t change by much, while her sister, The Goddess of Everything Else takes a slightly different shape each time she appears. Its like she evolves along with The Goddess of Cancer’s children, aka all living beings.
It's funny, because the Goddess of Cancer does change her point of view somewhat, finding groups fighting each other fitting, where her starting stance was all against all.
@Sorain1 what??? That was waaaay over you're head... appearance, how they look one changes and one doesn't.
@@Sorain1 GOC doesn't change; her tenants and commandments stay the same no matter the audience. GOEE speaks of survival and full stomaches and multiplication and peace; she sings of what her sister scowls at.
I find it interesting that the Goddess of Cancer's first response in each stage is to try and undo what the Goddess of Everything Else has done, and that her second is to use it against itself. Sort of adapting alongside her creations, but becoming less and less able to affect them (from turning every individual beast against the others, then every group against other group, then a few individuals against everyone else, before she's finally unable to do anything) in comparison to the Goddess of Everything Else, whose influence remains constant (work together, work together, work together, work together) but compounds on itself.
And, in a small way, she even affects the Goddess of Cancer. When the tribes were created, and she turned them against each other, she found the death, consumption, multiplication, and conquest was magnified several times over. She admitted that this was to her liking and how she's alright with it. In this way the Goddess of Everything Else managed to change her sister.
Every time I rewatch this, I get flooded with a new emotion I've never felt before, and one I'll likely never feel again. It's strange, it's comforting, it's daunting, it's unknown and unknowable. I love it.
Same. This feels sacred
It is very comforting yes, knowing that good will always overcome evil one way or another.
some people call it HOPE
I love how she becomes more and more mystical (and cheeky) And you can even see them becoming more and more peaceful and less reckless and primal
I do love that the last repetition of the Goddess of Cancer’s refrain was so irreverent. “You know the schpiel by now.” Yeah, we do, and it gets a little more pathetic every time.
I like it how it shows how much the world has evolved since its creation. The orders to kill and destroy make less and less sense as the time goes by and people realize it's just not worth it.
Yeah her words carry less and less power over time
She’s like “I give up. Fight or whatever the fuck. I’m tired.”
@@WinterFrost_MimikyuLikerIk right and the Goddess Of Everything Else (GOEE) is like “I’m about to pull a pro god move”
Spiel*
Congrats everyone for making this great piece!
MrSpherical!?
The_German77!??
_SCP-999_?
Horse9722!?!?!
B0pst3r!?!?!?!
I love how the Godess of cancer never changes their design, but the goddess of everything else changes design, meaning that bad things never change, but good, it evolves
I expected the two to merge at the end. Humanity going out into the Galaxy _is_ also consuming, multiplying, and conquering. There are also plenty of ideas of how to "kill" (surround/disassemble) a star, so its fuel can be used for people and life, rather than being almost entiredly wasted shining into the void.
Nevertheless started crying about half-way through the video.
I see your point.
But I want to mention that the goddess of everything else didn't say we weren't able to kill consume multiply conquer.
She merely said, we're not bound to the goddess of cancer and her imperative anymore.
She talks of freedom of choice to do otherwise.
But she also speaks of responsibility.
We're not anymore bound by nature.
If we kill, we decided to do so, we're responsible.
We can exploit the earth or a sun or weaker beings. We're able to do so. We're also responsible if we do
@@2dark4noir Ah, true!
Halfway? I started crying two minutes in.
Then stopped.
GET BACK IN THERE TEAR.
_and from the darkness of the void game the goddess of cancer_
DEATH TO XENO SCUM, GLORY TO THE EMPIRE OF MEN
if anything, the goddess of everything else is all abotu creative interpretation of the comandments of the goddess of cancer, the key being that cooperation elads to mroe and more effective expansion
What’s cool about the goddess of everything else diving into the sea making a coral reef is that coral reefs are a prime example of symbiotic relationships and cooperation
goddess of Cancer: "I want a world of simple competition and survival of the fittest."
goddess of Everything Else: _"I'M ABOUT TO RUIN THIS WOMAN'S WHOLE CAREER"_
This comment 😂>>>>>>>>
@@blessedchijioke8012 suspected mental age == 7
God-Father of the Goddesses: Would you two please stop and let me sleep!? *Everything becomes static and truly dead.*
Omg your comment is gold
this is so beautifully made, the audio design in particular is incredible, combined with the colorful visuals and amazingly smooth animation, truly a masterpiece
This gave me goosebumps. This is modern folklore that everyone should be acquainted with. Absolutely incredible work.
That is so true! I wonder where I can find more like this. This story is one of the most brilliant pieces I have seen
@@LoreFriendlyMusic You should check out the original author, scott alexander. He mostly writes non fiction but has a fantastic fictional serial called Unsong (though it's not as parabley as this).
@@LoreFriendlyMusicThe Egg by Kurzegesagt is amazing, but it still pales in comparison to this!!!
@@maple22moose44 Thank you! Check out "Kingdom" by IN-SHADOW as well
@@LoreFriendlyMusic thank you!
Imagine an old civilization, which used this story as a backbone of their fables and legends. At least it sounds like one. (• ▽ •;)
As a metaphor for cooperation arising from the seemingly brutal competition of evolution, I feel this story kinda veers off somewhat in the second half when it focuses on humans. There already are far more cooperative species on earth than us. Those ants and bees are examples of them, and they predate us by millions of years. We call them hive minds, and they aren't typically seen as a desirable future for humanity. It just seems like the second half of the story was shifted and attenuated to what us humans value, rather than what true spirits of nature might value. Alternately the first half anthropomorphises the natural world to suit our tastes.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn the appearance of ants does not make amoebas and other single-cell organisms disappear, all those levels of development exist at the same time for different species, story just focuses on more developed ones in that aspect at the moment in time. Also ants v human cooperation level is dependent on what aspects of cooperation we look at, i.e. we don't see anthills helping each other on purpose (or at least I'm unaware of that), or two anthills from different parts of the globe cooperating to achieve common goals. But yeah their cooperation is more fundamental/low-level/closer to the "nature" as it's mostly biochemically driven.
And sure everything shown and described is from the human values perspective, why would we have it any other way?
@@Traf063 Yes you can have multiple levels of cooperative behaviour existing side by side in nature, however the story is being told in a progressive way as we rise above our natural inclinations, where conflict and competition are decreased each round and cooperation and coordination increased. By that metric, what could be a more optimal end state than our entire species being joined together into a hive mind, where there'd be no more conflict and maximum cooperation? And yet most people don't, to my knowledge, like that vision of the future. Indeed we often present it as horrifying, as for instance with the Borg from Star Trek.
"why would we have it any other way?" - because the story is presented in terms of the wills of two contrasting nature spirits. I wouldn't expect a nature spirit to share human values, any more than I would expect an alien to. A common human value for instance is the concept of the right to life, upon which we enact such laws as the criminalization of killing (with a few special exceptions). Nature has no such concept, and thus killing is rampant in nature, with no attempt made to justify it (even saying they do it to survive is a justification we trot out, and besides unnecessary killing is not unheard of anyway). There's no reason for a nature spirit to care about human values. Not to mention that even we ourselves have a multitude of values across place and time
@@ArawnOfAnnwn I think the story isn't about being most cooperative for its own sake. It's not the goddess of cooperation, it's the goddess of *everything* else. Which includes cooperation, sure, but more generally it means "getting as far away as possible from the evolutionary imperatives". Humans can get far away because we have independent thinking, while bee swarms are (at least so far) stuck in their niches.
And also, because it's *everything* else, the spirit doesn't have anthropocentric values. It doesn't really have *any* values of its own, it allows us to choose our own path out of an infinite variety.
@@ArawnOfAnnwnhive minds be meta in stellaris
Breathtakingly beautiful message.
The Goddess of Cancer, the Dragon Tyrant, Moloch... all that has plagued humanity. They aren't invincible.
Moloch? Wheres that from.
@@GhostEmblem Meditation of Moloch, same author as the story from this video, Scott Alexander.
@@JD-jl4yy Of course our boi Scott didn't come up with the concept of Moloch all on his own. That mythos or symbolism or grasping at a larger than life problem has been written about for decades prior to him being born.
You realize the goddess of cancer is the christian god, right. This is the literal story of Gnostic Christianity. That the god that created the world, YHWH is an evil god, and his sworn enemy "the devil" is the true god of light.
Don't forget the ultimate boss, Entropy.
1:51 that single celled organism's voice sounds so pure
I love how the goddess isn’t controlling or even instructing. She’s guiding
She’s manipulating, even if they effects of her manipulation is good
I don't know why, but this story, along with its animation, moved me to tears. It has ignited a longing within me for something more, and I feel that it has made me a better person, even if only by a small margin. Thank you for what you do, and for the incredible work of the animators and voice actors. It is truly amazing. ❤😢
This makes me think of Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene. A large part of the book is spent explaining how life, multicellular organisms, cooperative and even 'altruistic' behaviours can evolve from selfish genes: Genes whose only goal is to survive and multiply.
i love that the goddess of everything else doesn't change the creatures/people like her sister does, but instead gives them the hope of something better, inspiring them through the telling of her dreams. a truly wonderful story and so beautifully animated
Hello! I'd like to say thank you, Rational Animations! I have been in the past month binge-reading the Sequences, LessWrong in general and, of course, Slate Star Codex! Thank you for putting forward some of the most important ideas we could be talking about, in excellent form, on UA-cam for the public at large. The references I just mentioned are a way-too-small portion of the internet. Thanks!
PS: This also changes from the dreary, depressing, and darkly hilarious Ted talk by Eliezer yesterday. I say darkly humorous because he was perfectly serious the whole time but the audience just... laughed. There is no rule that says we will make it.
@@smitchered We have to work together on the most pressing problems. Welcome to the rationalist sphere of the internet. I hope this journey serves you well and you will achieve great things.
Thanks! Our kind should cooperate!
I love this so much, "good" aligned deities that aren't creation gods but corrupting influences towards the path of "good". Beautiful!
"Corrupting influences towards the path of "good"" sounds creepy. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
@@kormannn1 "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is one view. The idea in the original comment is more like "the road to hell is paved, good intentions can divert it".
@@kormannn1 you are evidently on way to hell.
@@kormannn1thats your stereotypical bias of your concept of "righteousness and good". Corruption is just the means, like how addiction is a form of corruption and rehabilitation is also a form of corruption.
Addiction corrupts a person into a self-destructive obssesive individual to its target of addiction.
While Rehabilitation corrupts the corrupted individual back to its former natural state...
Corruption and corrupting something basically means converting it into another thing which strays the thing far from its "original" function, whether what they turn into would be up to the corrupter.
So a "good" corrupter would corrupt people who were corrupted into functioning as an evil person into a "good" person which deviates the corrupted evil individual from its original corrupted function to be evil.
You.. Get me.. Right?
@@BootyRealDreamMurMurs depends on how that corruption works. You can play on hidden desires and manipulate dirty. It's not a good mean to the ends even if it's for a greater good.
I really love how the goddess of everything else change physically during the story. It really shows that, contrary to the goddess of cancer that stays always the same and say always the same thing, she is evolving with time and accordingly to what she say to the sons and daughters of the goddess of cancer. She say that they are not bound by the law of the goddess of cancer, like she is not bound by any law. I just really like that the physic of the goddess of everything else help to transmit her speech.
Gosh, that wink she does whenever she says her line 'for I am the goddess of everything else and my powers are devious and subtle', is just too good.
I love how cheeky she is.
surprised to see her last time saying it, she didn't wink no more
New words I learned from this video:
1. Fecundity
2. Anathema
3. Atlatl
4. Menhir
5. Coffer
6. Chasten
7.Imperative
8.Imbued
9. Alabaster
10. Winnowing
@@montymints The
@@BrunoMaricFromZagreb 22 years old? i can tell you either don’t read much or are still in high school, and i’m guessing it’s the first option
I cried the first time I read this in text form but now I'm sitting here in my office sobbing with tears streaming down my face. This is my religion.
...time to build some benevolent angels?
Heck yes- *sniffs* Heck yes...
@@Nif3 No, you just need to learn some empathy.
@@Nif3 If I'd care, I'd ask what your problem was
Yeah, I was wondering just who those angels were...
@treehousegames7903 Well, I guess it's time to start designing lol
Imma boil this story to one line
"Omnipotent sisters try to fight each other in the longest court battle ever for legal rights of their little screaming mortal meatball children"
The thing is, they aren't omnipotent... If they were, they could do anything... But obviously that is not the case...
This video is basically an allegory to describe the forces that drive life to go on... For progress and sofistication to take place it needs the base nature to ensure survival... They Yin and Yang to each other, the Tao of Life, the way life is and will yet become...
@@Lord_Ivoundy_Creood I think they meant to say omniscient or omnipresent. With how they’re able to communicate with every living organism at once, and how they know about everything that’s happening everywhere.
@@notatallfunctional yah :D
@@Lord_Ivoundy_Creood
I meant omnipresent woopsies
Completely misses the point.
I love how the goddess of everything else has a bit of cheekiness in her voice,I also love how she constantly become different and makes better futures,this truly is heartwarming.
You know, leaving Earth to colonize the stars with countlessly many people sounds an awful lot like consume, multiply, conquer...
That’s the point. The Goddess of Cancer put that drive in place. But the Goddess of Everything Else perverts it to serve greater ends, like, for instance, the ascent to the stars
@@popatochisps1198My point is that the statement from the Goddess of Everything Else at the end is incorrect. She claims humanity is free of all desire to multiply and conquer and can set about doing everything else. After sharing with humanity a vision of them conquering the stars and spreading across the universe. It is in fact another perversion of the imperatives from the Goddess of Cancer, as you say.
@@popatochisps1198 And the stars will expire as we kill, consume, and conquer. ...If we ever got that far, which we won't, because here's the thing about the Godess of Cancer-- It's natural selection. Whatever is _most likely_ to multiply multiplies, and what's most likely to multiply is basically never what'll keep humanity or the Earth alive in the long run, just like cancer itself. People like this story because it takes a truth I think most of us understand (but never voice) and twist it into a dishonest narrative about how no, this is good, actually.
Yeah I hate that you know what missing the goddess of beauty and muses that sun is not wasting its twinkling in who knows sky and supporting who knows life
Well the spreading to the stars here seems less colonization and resource extraction heavy as we would think. It seems like just sending out consciousness out to explore and interact. I will say tho she says specifically that we are no longer driven by nature. That doesn't mean we can decide to kill, conquer, multiply. It'd just be a decision based on pragmatism instead of nature. Which would make it happen less often and would make the party involved a lot more responsible for it. Also part of the theme here is that that chaos created by the goddess of chaos is necessary for metamorphosis and creation to take place. It's just no longer their singular drive and nature. 😊
Such a good reading. I watched twice. I do love the "cheekiness" in the goddess of everything else; it exudes a confidence - she's knows she'll win, she won't give in. The voices of the entire read are perfect, even the regret and shame from the subjects; the repetitions and inflections. Very good.
Until after long a third sister appeared neath the embers of everything else. With a somber smile, she spoke through the gaps in the void, through the taut-stretched infinite threads of reality and said "I am the goddess of nothing at all" and with a snap of her fingers the universe unwound.
For a time all was still. Frozen in crystalline perfection without form or existence.
From the depths of the darkness a familiar rhythm rang out... "KILL CONSUME MULTIPLY CONQUER"
Nothing at all includes everything else.
I'll leave the door clopen to interpretations@@jessicaiswifey
I don’t think the goddess of nothing at all should have fingers
@@nathanlamberth7631 They used their nubby hands to make the sound.
Goddess of nothing at all: gives everything a peaceful end
Goddess of Cancer: *distant tantrum*
The goddess of very thing else is like a cool aunt. I love the way her design changes
Bruh... the depiction of the angelic future society as a ring planet encapsulating a dyson swarm is genius
Oh I just realised the callback to the Dyson Swarm!
It’s a biblicaly accurate angel.
@@Justin-pe9cl
Ophanims (the wheels of god's chariot), to be more precise
@@Justin-pe9cl Yes. But the depiction of biblically accurate angels closely resembles that of the Dyson Sphere. They called it a Dyson Swarm, but that would be multiple bits and pieces, whereas the Dyson Sphere covers it in rings.
@@angelvollant864 Ah I see.
as a biology student who is fascinated with fantasy tales this brings me unmatched joy!! Yes!! Make science a bit magical!! it is truly fascinating
Fellow bio student. I have a penchant for these folklore tales. They’re always rich with understanding. Videos like these is why I respect artists. When the left brain runs, you learn how to think, but only when the right brain runs do you learn how to think different.
i love how the voice of the people sound like a child at the beginning and matured during the video. like they get raised be the two godesses
90th like
I really like this story,because it truly show that anything can be possible if you work together in harmony and not do evil deeds.
"...even the artists, yea, even the artists..."
1. The disagreement with tolkien pretty much comes down to this: "are things good or bad in their origin?" If things started out good, then bad must happen by twisting it. If things started out bad, then good must happen by twisting it.
2. In all of these cases, the winning strategy must have elements of both sides. An organism must have order and unity inside it, and with allies. And it must fend against environments and enemies, even if not killing them. Same for a cell, same for multicellular organisms, same for hives, same for countries. To say that the eternal mix of both is one side winning is, well, one way to put it.
3. The framing of good and bad are not rock solid. "kill", "consume", "multiply", "conquer". All can have good framings. To kill a disease, to consume sunlight, to multiply and continue life, to conquer challenges and problems.
Imagine if you only had the "everything else". You can't multiply, so life dies out (nothing is eternal, how do you continue a lineage without multiplying?). You can't consume, so you can't grow or learn anything new.
4. Conquest and killing are only needed in a world that isn't completely united. In a united world the exchange of things isn't "conquest and banditry" but rebranded as "cooperation and transfers". But if a world isn't unified, the only way TO unify is by conquest.
unity can only become disunity through corruption. disunity can only become unity through conquest.
5. "everything else" really only contains a very very specific thing. Unity/cooperation. There are too many other things that exist. For example, "constant change", "chaos", "nothingness", "stillness".
Conquest, Killing, Multipling and Consuming will never be gone in a universe with finite resources, and every single physical qualia of our universe dictates to us that what all life relies upon, the change it builds upon, is predicated in the consumption of things that are finite. Even should we colonize space, conquer the stars, these will forever remain true.
In my own interpretation, the true "everything else" that the goddess embodies is to escape the binaries that we seem to think is all there is in the world. Every time she comes by, there's always a spiel about how the children could only "multiply consume kill and conquer" and the implication is that to do the opposite would be to die. And always, the goddess would compel the children to do things another way. When cancer comes around, the children don't really change physically, only mentally as the old binary thinking takes root once more.
It's a cycle, but one that reveals an important point: there's always another way, and because there's always another way, the children gradually turn into the goddess of everything's children little by little.
It's an argument against all the doomscrolling we find ourselves doing. Even if it seems that nothing has changed because of all the negativity and abuses of power we find ourselves exposed to, the truth is we have come a very long way from way back then, and even though there's still a massive journey ahead of us, it's precisely why we need to seek to take the next step.
Ultimately, we might not ever escape the evils and abuses we humans inflict upon ourselves. But that's no reason not to keep trying.
The goddess of everything else brings 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦, 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘴, 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘺; it shows us that we are more than our nature, without stopping being as we are.
The story is very open to interpretation and also somewhat confusing and I think naming the evil goddess "Goddess of Cancer" kinda plays into the confusion.
The disagreement with Tolkien is not as much a disagreement as it is a counter statement, the both principles (good twists bad / bad twists good) don't just stand in opposition but rather describe a cycle. As shown in the video, turning something bad into good is not the end - the good will come up with its own expressions of bad (metaphor: it breeds cancer) which will then be twisted into something good again. This cycle continues until the end of the video, where everything bad will be turned into good for the final time.
There is no explanation given why exactly it is the last time bad things are twisted but I think the message is simply that we keep on turning bad things into good things until only good remains. This is where the story contrasts with Tolkien: What things are in their origin doesn't matter, good will turn to bad, bad will turn to good. What matters is the final step, which is bad turning good... for good.
What's lacking in this metaphor:
Obviously there's no explanation why in the end only good will remain. It's probably just hope, the cycle could just as well turn on forever or until all existence perishes and with it the concept of good and bad.
Based on this, the goddesses appear to not be framed well:
If the bad one is The Goddess of Cancer then the good one should be The Goddess of Acceptence/Moving On/Regulation or something like this. This would refer to the modus operandi of both of them throughout the story and make them an inspiration for our course of action. But here is also where cancer is a problematic reference. Cancer corrupts working systems and lets them go out of control, destroying themselves with unregulated growth and resource usage. This fits the goddesses modus operandi but cancer needs to be eliminated, not accepted or changed as the beings do in the video with their nature and habits. Cancer is there, always, it is not an infection, it is corruption, like the goddess. But cancer can not be used, it does not play into "Everything Else", nothing comes from cancer.
Another framing, if the good one is The Goddess of Everything Else, then the bad one should be The Goddess of Anything. This would refer to their primal identity as a representation in all of existence and how we deal with existing... basically what gods are made for. If anything exists in a state of evil, everything else that can be considered the opposite will make it good/we label everything else good (or the other way around). This describes the concept of change itself and makes it obsolete which side of the coin is labeled good or bad.
It's just the story of anything that exists. And everything else that's brought into existence, too.
If you actually look at evolution, it's "consume" and "multiply" that made animals become cooperative. But they're cooperative to more efficiently conquer other species, which this story seems to just brush passed. The video paints wolf packs and ants as living "in harmony" when that actually means they're more ruthlessly efficient at causing greater destruction. The story even ends with humans going off to perform expansionist imperialism on the galaxy.
It's like the two forces are working together to maximize the suffering in the universe. It seems to me to be a thoroughly wicked animation with a depraved moral sensibility.
This was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Your team knocked it out of the park!
Nature vs Nurture
Stability vs Creativity
Fear vs Hope
This is truly inspiring
This is incredibly beautiful…
I yearn for the words of the Goddess of Everything Else to grace us once again.
Start building free energy devices then.
If watching this made you cry, know that it is because you are torn, feeling like a son or daughter (or other!) of the Goddess of Cancer, but being beckoned by the Goddess of Everything Else. Your tears are your longing for it, and you should walk away knowing your purpose. Cooperate, work together, and make her dream a reality for all future beings!
I like that the goddess of everything else isnt definitively "good", she doesnt only do good things, she doesnt limit beings to only be good ever, only to be themselves. Only to be free from what binds them. Theres unity and care but even those require some bad things. She even encourages bad for good purpose. She just wants to see life flourish, whatever must happen to do so. Go against your nature, not in being without flaw, but in doing what YOU desire most.
Good, after all, cannot exist without evil. Erasing one will only send life to a different confinement. Free will is what she aimed for. Not to enslave people to her side, but to show them they can do what THEY want.
Its a nice way of portraying good.
I was not expecting to suddenly be a character in this story, what a good punch in the feelings. Gives me hope.
This caught me off guard, and actually made water flow through my eyes. And to think I am cold, unfeeling and selfish, that these hopes for better things would only fall to my nihilism and yet my heart yearns as the goddess of everything else sing her song to me.
I wasn't expecting to get close to crying from this video, but the whole team did such a fantastic job I can't help but admit it. Even though I think truly shedding nature is not possible - in terms of metaphor, just like both the goddesses had sway over life, they will until the end of time - but "Go forth, and do Everything Else!" moved me deeply. I'll be thinking about this video for a very long time!
So you're saying your heart longs for this dream, but you are a daughter of the goddess of cancer, and the words of the goddess of everything else hold no power to sway you? Interesting
Maybe, in following the vision of a different future, she will find herself lifted upon the her nature; for the powers of the goddess of everything else are devious and subtle, and it is not without paradox that in following the goddess of cancer’s command of killing fear, our friend will be more inextricably bound to the service of the goddess of everything else. ;)
Dude, this video made me sob the first time I saw it, I’m rewatching it now and sobbing just as hard. You’re not alone.
12:45 the “even the artists” part had me dying 😂
Same😂 just the stare he gave towards us was hilarious
nah they can stay in the vaults
@@TomorrowWeLive2 Art is very important, it is found among intelligent animals like crows and apes, of course it will be found with humans, it is a sign of intelligence and creativity, of innovation, of trial and error. You hate on artists yet play games, watch movies, read books, and watched this very video made by artists. Don't cast artists away just because you don't like a bunch of paintings.
@@TomorrowWeLive2I am starting to question if you are the spirit of the internet itself since you're bloody everywhere.
They are hardly doing stuff so when they help it has to be appreciated
Being bad is our nature. And being good is a choice. So always choose to be good.
I would say being bad is in our conditioning and less so our nature, but conditioning can be undone
Beautifully animated. I really liked that the Goddess of Cancer never changed, always the same just like her words, but the Goddess of Everything Else changed and evolved just like the creatures slowly becoming her children. ^_^
In the last 3 minutes, when the Goddess of Everything Else comes for the final time, oh man.
I cried, but it wasn’t just tears, my whole face clenched as it gave me an emotional catharsis like nothing else.
It was like I was humanity itself, finally freed from its captor, I was free, I will be free someday, seeing all the potential for good we have, despite our instincts.
Loser!
the goddess of everything seriously SLAYED the whole thing she really is someone who would be amazing to be with
@@nathanielwells7100cool story bro
Can relate
“Slayyyy-“
> The 2 tons of steel, aluminium, rubber and plastics barrelling towards them at 120 miles per hour
@@skepabbas9400 Nicest boondocks fan:
You know as it said in one game: "Just because we born of darkness, doesn’t mean we belong to it. We’re always free to choose."
Not the first time my emotions caught me off guard hearing this story. Thank you for bringing this to me again with your art. Thank you further for giving me another way to share it with others.
The disturbing conclusion to this story, for me, is that, yes, the goddess of cancer is the "evil" one but she's just as essential as the goddess of everything else. If our ancestors hadn't had the drive to multiply and conquer, we wouldn't exist.
And that the drive to multiply and conquer is what led to cells/individuals/civilizations cooperating. What will happen when what drive is not there?
@@FunkyJeff22 maybe the point was that there is a turning point, the end of the story, when the mantra of kill consume conquer is no longer necessary to grow
@@1nf3ct3dTT at what point tho? there was not such point. The goddes of everything else promised humanity what they alwas did: to kill, consume, multiply, conquer. but in space.
@@1nf3ct3dTT I like that she intentionally left out multiply in her last speech... she's a trickster.
Is it, or is it showing how we humans tend to frame certain things as evil, even when they are necessary steps on the way.
I'm a cold, cinical and atheist bastard, but this actually made me cry.
This is too well made, it's message and the way it is presented is too beautiful. To everyone involved in the creation of this masterpiece of animation and narrative: Thank you!
Omg I truly wept. We all need this more than ever. Many have been shouting this message, and few have heard their cries. Thank you for creating this video. I truly thank you from the depths of my heart. ❤❤
At first I thought the division between the god of cancer and the god of absolutly everything else, was really one sides but surprisingly it really wasn't, trully surprisng how much of our society and history since the start of time has simple been driven by that imperative of "Kill, Multiply, Consume, Conquer"
Omg out of all of Scott's work this has always been one of my favorites! Never thoughts I'd get an awesome visual representation. Fantastic job!
I cried. Like the first time I listened to this post but like 20X. Thank you. We need more of that.
Im a simple person but when the Godess of Everything Else said that they didnt need to Kill, Consume, Multiply & Conquer, but could now do Everything Else, it clicked in my head. Really hope one day humanity and ife in general will reach the extant it reaches in the video.
What a lovely fable, thank you for sharing and what great work the animators have done!
This legit made me cry. Haven't read the original story, but I'm sure your artwork did it justice. I was never the one to love fairytales, but this modern fairytale is my favourite now. I love the art and all the smooth animations, this is a wonderful artpiece, you did a great job! Thank you for making this.
This is a near-verbatim retelling of the original story on Scott Alexander's blog.
" Even the artist, yeah even the artist. " Thank you for the mention 😂
I love how the goddess of cancer doesn’t really evolve or adapt to the civilizations, she just dose not care. In the other handle the goddess of everything else adapts and tries to help, changing his appearance constantly.
My gosh...this should win every writing, cinematic, creativity and just every award out there. ❤
My sibling and I often talked about this as our philosophy. My sibling believes that to bring peace to earth, we must follow our nature, return to how animals live, and live off the earth. However, I argued that while I agree civilization has advanced far past what we're capable of evolutionarily, I believe with the right technology we can advance enough that we can live as if we live off the Earth, but in a civilized truly peaceful fashion. If you wish to eat an apple from a tree, then grab an apple from a tree. But not because that's all that's available to you, but simply because you can.
This is a interesting story, Both The Goddesses are not purely what they seem, from the first glance, one is evil but the other is good but, if you look closer it seemed goddess of cancer, is only following her way of life, a way that we find acceptable because it how we work, and then the goddess of everything else, sounded mischievous or cheeky based on someone commented, liked that word to describe it voice. But her action lead to greater things nothing is wrong with her actions, both having a purpose to our way of life.
The goddess of cancer is a fitting name because like cancer it doesn't just die, it consume your body, just to follow it program to live.
And the goddess of everything else is also a fitting name as everything is affected by everything.
Cancer is the cells in our body replicating too much and too fast. It is a natural and necessary process taken to the extreme. That is the real meaning of the goddess of cancer’s name. She creates greed. it is natural and necessary to look out for yourself, but harmful when taken to the extreme.
Everything else includes the goddess of cancer’s tenets: kill, consume, multiply, and conquer. Only dampened by nuance, temperament, and everything else.
Those are my thoughts on names.
This is such a cool alegory for evolution, like creation can only grow because of mutation that serves it in the short term, but it can only prosper enough to stay by larger bonds that also serve it in the long term.
Bro the phrase
"You are all now my children"
Made me feel hope like i was some abused orphan who finally got adopted by a family that cares for me 💀
Bro😂
@@PedroHLima12sick bible reference
12:08 Wasn't expecting to hear the word slut in this story ngl
Caught me off guard
What ever it takes to describe the current reality
same
Caught me so off guard I had to rewind lol.
It's interesting because sex and pleasure is the opposite of violence and pain in a sense
My heartfelt thanks to this beautiful work of yours and Scott Alexander. As a Christian and Ecologist, this piece of art has perfectly encapsulated the marriage between my faith with science, as they are one. The ruthless competition between genes to multiply themselves blossoms into the magnificent array of biodiversity. The unforgiving, meaningless, aimless process of evolution births species that are capable of true altruism that is motivated, not by inclusive fitness, but by love… Thank you. You have rocked the very bottom of our hearts.
In mainstream Christianity The Evil transforms the creation of the Good, in this story The Good transforms the creation of the Evil. Literally the opposite. Maybe you are a Gnostic, though.
@@pavelgorokhov2976 I think most mainstream Christians are effectively gnostics even if they don't officially describe themselves as such, since they see the world as basically fallen and ruled by Satan, and Christ is the "goddess of everything else" hero figure who comes down like Prometheus to give the fire of salvation to humanity so that they can be freed from sin (the essence of the fallen mortal state) reunited with the true god. This is *particularly* evident in Mormonism.
This story holds so much about our identity and potential as human beings. I come back to watch it every so often.
Scott's written a lot of cool stuff but this one has always stood out for me. Great evocation of the layered nature of reality, and of moloch and coordination. Feels like such a valuable insight to have.
13:23 that dyson swarm ai turning into an Ophanim angel (wheel within a wheel with an eye) was one of the most stunning things I think I've seen in a long time.
Perhaps we are already a part of a civilization like this. One that is allowing us to grow and develop wonderful ideas like this without interference, so that one day we can join the rest of them with our own wonders
I had to ask ChatGPT what Ophanim angels were. Thanks for that. The animators did an incredible job!
I have heard something like that, that earth is in an alien nature reserve.
Thank you very much! This felt like "the Borg meeting the Bible" and both being subverted ...