The Goddess of Everything Else

This 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-every… Other posts relevant to this topic are: - Meditations on Moloch: slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloc… - 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 YouTube channel here: youtube.com/@LivBoeree Also, Rational Animations finally has an official subreddit! You can find it here: www.reddit.com/r/RationalAnimations/

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.

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

These two gods feel like divorced parents fighting over child custody.

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).

“Though our hearts long for you we are not yours too have” that is the most bitter sweet sentence I ever heard.

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.

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.

When your mom is scary control freak but your aunt is that cool hippy lady

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 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

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" is one of the coolest titles I've ever heard.

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.

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.

I love how the goddess isn’t controlling or even instructing. She’s guiding

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.

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

Ok, now this is a proper modern fairy tale. I love it so much.

I really love how the goddess of cancer's whole modus operandi is extremely simple, whereas the opposition to her, the goddess of everything else, is more nebulous, adaptive and inherently involves more complicated solutions to simple problems. It's exceedingly simple to kill, destroy, and disrupt, but it takes real effort to create, nurture, and order the world around you. We may never fully eliminate the need to kill, multiply, consume, and conquer, but we can certainly reduce the suffering inherent to these processes which are a natural part of life. Excellent video! Like a modern fairytale.