Stream of Consciousness
The Banality of Evil
We often imagine crime as the work of monsters—people so different from us that we can safely put them in another category. Serial killers, corrupt officials, war criminals: they’re “other,” right? But history and psychology tell a more unsettling story. Ordinary people, people who look like us, who live next door, who go to work and pay bills, can and do commit extraordinary crimes.
By The Crime Canvas6 days ago in Humans
Essence, Embodiment, and Relational Reality
The Failure of Reduction and the Need for Synthesis There is a persistent failure in many modern attempts to explain what a human being is. Some frameworks reduce the person entirely to matter, insisting that identity, consciousness, morality, and meaning are nothing more than emergent properties of physical processes. Other frameworks move in the opposite direction, detaching spirit from reason and grounding belief in intuition alone, often at the cost of coherence or accountability. Both approaches fail because both misunderstand essence. One denies that essence exists at all. The other treats it as something vague and undefinable.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast8 days ago in Humans
When Intelligence Becomes Artificial, What Happens to the Human Beneath It?
Intelligence used to be something we admired only in people. It lived in curiosity, creativity, empathy, and the ability to make meaning out of chaos. Intelligence was flawed, slow, emotional—and deeply human.
By Mind Meets Machine8 days ago in Humans
A Very Wicked Man
You told me I was worth my weight in gold, a priceless diamond. Yet behind those words, the beatings I endured spoke a different truth. The comments you made cut deep, leaving me shattered. I hid my bruises from my dad, covering the pain that echoed in fractured bones. My brother would have fought you, would have killed you if he had only known.
By Marie381Uk 8 days ago in Humans
Resistance Is Not the Enemy
Iron sharpens iron. Brakes save lives. Friction preserves form. Modern culture treats resistance as failure. Anything that slows momentum is framed as obstruction, anything that introduces friction is assumed to be opposition, and anything that interrupts progress is labeled a setback. But this instinct misunderstands how both physical systems and human growth actually work. Resistance is not inherently hostile. In many cases, it is the only thing preventing collapse.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast8 days ago in Humans
The Refiner’s Fire Is Not the Whetstone
There is a difference between being sharpened and being transformed, and confusing the two leads to frustration when growth does not feel productive. Sharpening implies refinement of existing form. Fire implies change in composition. Both processes are uncomfortable, but they operate on different levels and for different purposes. When people expect sharpening and receive fire instead, they often assume something has gone wrong, when in reality something deeper is taking place.
By Peter Thwing - Host of the FST Podcast8 days ago in Humans
