Scott Alexander (reading by Solenoid Entity / Astral Codex Ten podcast host)

So you always have to be striving after something.

Here is a complex graph.

Scott has captioned it, the Lacanian conception of desire.

At the bottom of desire is an input-output port, represented by IO, and money, represented by a dollar sign.

On the next level, you get E, approximately 2.71828, and another smaller input-output port.

The rest of desire is left as an exercise for the reader.

See here for more information if you dare.

Link in post.

So this is a fairly complicated diagram.

If you're using a podcast player that supports it, you can probably see it now on your screen.

Otherwise, I'll have a little attempt at describing it.

So as Scott mentioned at the bottom, there is an I-O and a dollar sign.

The I-O has an arrow pointing out and the dollar sign has an arrow pointing in.

Then there's sort of two main branches that move up and outwards so that it's like a column that's narrow at the bottom and wide at the top.

And then along the outside we have two circles on each side.

So there's a group of four circles along those outside edges.

And inside the circles are symbols like O, SO, dollar sign, bracket D. For each of those circles we have a path into or out of this diagram.

So paths into come from signifier and jouissance.

And out of the diagram we get castration and voice.

Then there are some complex interlinks in the middle of the diagram, so lines that branch between one and the other of these two outwardly diverging lines.