Nacarbac

I remember the Excel Saga dubbers put in a huge effort translating the humour, which had a ton of wordplay that wouldn't make sense to western viewers. And just voicing Excel's very rapid nonsense ranting is a feat.

Though that doesn't mean it's better, per se. Just that they did far more work than is normally required.

Best way would be to just read the Dao De Jing (essentially a short collection of poetic philosophical points), which is the core text, and then the Zhuangzi (a larger text created over centuries, expanding on the topic with various characters - quite humorous). With the latter, being the product of dozens of authors, in a few chapters you can feel the philosophy being bent towards "actually, political hierarchies and wealth disparity are natural law and therefore cool", but they rather stand out.

Ursula Le Guin's translation is my favorite, but the differences between translations are interesting - both texts have a lot of fun with the ambiguity of language.

Land ownership is a leading cause of inherited wealth, a chronic condition that with careful management is being successfully limited to a small percentage of the population. The average person should generally try to avoid land ownership where possible, though up to one house at a time across a lifetime is considered healthy. However individuals with inflamed wealth may possess extensive land holdings without ill-effect, and should seek to acquire more - which can protect those without wealth from the risk of acquiring it.

Avocado toast, mobile phones, and small luxuries are all considered effective anti-wealth treatments for those with minimal wealth. Those with higher levels of wealth must resort to burying their gold, taking their children to see the Titanic, stocking doomsday bunkers, and buying Twitter - though in a terminal case, this may not be enough.

Given the absurd cash incentive I wonder if that's just an actual scam (well, slightly more of a scam) where they split the 8k to hire someone to be a date.

They're great - I was quite surprised when I got a bag recently, ground some up and licked a palmful (as you do).

I'd confused them in my mind with pink peppercorns, so I became a little worried...

Possibly part of his techbro fetishisation of immortality. Get the NPCs to crash test the implants and speed development, then something something, post-singularity godmind ruler of the internet (who the meatspace slaves all think is Really Cool because of their nerve staples).

Yeah, I first ask what they watch before responding in the affirmative. It's always something like AoT or isekai stuff, which isnt something I want to engage with - well, Escaflowne and The Twelve Kingdoms were cool, but not really part of the modern isekai trajectory.

One day, someone will say "Land of the Lustrous", and I will be delighted.

That's why you hack the printers to make the turret installation blueprint come out upside-down.

It's those darned Gentlemen Space Adventurers who kept bringing back Skinmelting Hellflowers (Giant Hogweed) on their rocketships as an ornamental. It's not even prettier, it's just taller.

Aww, the Lovecraft Ghouls are (mostly) just our misunderstood corpse eating relatives. They don't wanna bother us unripened fruits, and actually killing us is heresy.

(but I'm probably mixing in a lot of Delta Green's Mythos lore here)

The Existential Comics dude is way ahead of us.

Irenicus' backstory and the overall plot post-Spellhold are random and silly.

Irenicus' voice acting and most of his lines are great.