there's this debate they're having over whether they need to appeal to the centre or the fringe, and it's something i'm kind of qualified to comment on.

the actual, technically correct answer is that the debate suffers from definitional problems; the kinds of voters that klobuchar is imagining are purplish swing voters are actually historical democrats, through and through, who feel the democrats have turned on them. and, they're not wrong. it follows that the best way to appeal to republican support is to campaign on the left.

i'm talking about voters in pennsylvania, in michigan, in wisconsin...and also in minnesota and in ohio. these people didn't vote for trump because of his messaging on immigration, because of his evangelical phoniness, because of his tax policies or because of any of the other things that we associate with the republican party. they voted for trump because they thought he was less dangerous than clinton - on trade, on foreign policy, on health care and on other issues that historically are associated with democrats.

and, on some of these issues, they were stupid, and they need to be told as much. on others, trump has arguably been less evil than clinton would have been expected to be, and the arguments you hear coming from biden, and sometimes even from sanders, just exacerbate the point as to why they lost.

but, the party has been so out of touch with these voters for so long that they can't even define them any more, and it's an open question as to whether they're even still in play.

the flip side of this is that the voters they need to win in the south - blacks, catholics, and disgruntled whites, too - are actually much more in the description of what a klobuchar imagines exists in wisconsin (and in truth doesn't). if you want to win the south, you run on the right. that should be obvious...

so, there's this weird disconnect where you have the sanders people arguing that you need to run on the left, and then going after demographics that are dominated by conservative values, and you have the klobuchar people arguing that you need to run in the centre, and then mostly going after white liberals. but, it demonstrates the broader point - wherever you are on the spectrum, you need to convince people beyond your base. that's what the job is.

what's the answer? well, you want to maximize your vote totals, which means avoiding thinking in dichotomies. these propositions are not mutually exclusive, you can and must do both at the same time. and, there are challenges on both sides of this, but i might point something out - it's easier to convince a registered voter to vote than it is to register a new voter.

if you want to win back the trump-obama swing vote, the key is to focus on union issues. 

so, i've got inri015 filed away locally, now.

i'm going to make some pasta and watch last night's debate.

and, then, if i'm lucky, i might get the first part of inri021 up before midnight.

i've been clear for quite a long time, actually, that i would support hefty fines for smoking in residential areas, and paid to the people affected by the smoke instead of to the state.

and, i would hope that would act as a disincentive.

go smoke in the woods...

in fact, a lot of anarchists - and i'm one of them - will argue that not only is it the case that we don't need laws to force us to behave, but it's the process of writing and enforcing laws via the state that makes us behave so shoddily. look at isis, for a demonstration of this theory at it's most extreme. in the west, the state often coddles and protects antisocial actors from any sort of meaningful justice. so, the idea is that abolishing the state should lead to more virtuous behaviour, not less virtuous behaviour.

it's not some kind of empty rebellion, it's a critique of the foundational basis of the social contract, and a rejection of the conservative concept of "human nature". the state doesn't keep us in line, it keeps us out of line.

"the policeman is here to preserve disorder".

but, we need some way to right wrongs, then, to undo transgressions, to fix problems. the socialist critique of policing is actually just that it doesn't actually work; putting people in jail is an intimidation tactic to advance the interests of the powerful, it's not a way to advance any sort of actual justice. nothing is undone. nobody is compensated. but, the king has his rule enforced with violence, in the hopes that it will scare people into line. this is simply barbaric, there is no other way to describe it. a tort process may often be incomplete, but it's usually a good start, and generally the right way to think about how to fix antisocial behaviour.

i admit having an affinity for the civilization of northern europe, even more so than that of southern europe, and the legal system is something that i think that british civilization got uniquely right. my anarchism is very rooted in common law. and, i've suggested before that we can perhaps look at the situation that developed in britain after the withdrawal of the legions to get a precedent for the challenges that anarchy would face, in it's initial years - and look at the subsequent development of british common law for some guidance in how to move forward.

we were always anarchists, up in the north, after all.

a good anarchist should agree that if you're going to harm the people around you then you have a responsibility to "make it whole" and undo the damage.

anarchists aren't generally nihilists, in fact we tend to have more developed codes of behaviour that we bring in to replace the state, which, for me, includes a reliance on tort law. we have things like the non-aggression principle that we try and base our ethics around. the idea isn't that we can just do whatever we want and fuck anybody that doesn't like it, it's that we don't need a government to pass laws to tell us how to behave responsibly, we can figure it out on our own.

a good anarchist would know not to smoke in a residential area where there are kids or non-smokers, and they would abide by the agreements they sign to not smoke inside, if they do so. 

i've stated here many times that i'm a strong advocate of tort law, and would like to see the function of tort expanded to take over large amounts of the criminal law.

so, i support a type of tort reform, but the type of tort reform i support would be to implement more tort law.

it's the criminal law i'd like to get rid of...

if you want to smoke for the express purpose of pissing off your neighbours or tenants, they can't physically stop you from doing it.

but, they can sue you for disturbing them. and, if you're intentionally intending to bother them, it's going to cost you a lot of money to do it...

i'm starting to conclude that he made some sort of change to something after i sued him, and he's unchanged it now that the lawsuit is stopped. it's not coming from under the floor any more, but the stench from upstairs is both complex and ridiculous, and a component of it is clearly somebody smoking.

what do i do to attract these kinds of assholes in my life?

if i convince myself of this, i'm going to have to reopen the suit. if he's going to act maliciously, i will make him pay for it.

if that's what has happened, then what we've learned is that he is able to reverse the smell and has decided not to, and/or or has decided to make it worse to upset me. and, i'll gleefully hold him liable, as that would be landlord harassment, if i can convince myself that that's actually true.

it's only been a few days. it could be a coincidence. and i can't really identify the source, clearly. it's something burning, mostly....

inri015 updated and tested

this is tested and working on the chromebook and on firefox on the windows 7 box.

what's in there, now?

- the 19 songs on the record

- cover.jpg & a jpg of the backsheet for cd-r printing (the insert for the spine)

- a playlist.m3u file stored as raw text
- inertia.mp4

- a 125 page doc file of liner notes over the fall of 2013

- a 125 page pdf file (same)

- an instructions file

- inri015.html.7z.txt is a 200 mb document that must be renamed and unzipped and contains (1) an html version of the liner note package, including an html5 player that can load the purchased audio & video in the browser and (2) deleted masters of the record from 1998 and 2013, in standalone 192 kbps mp3 and embedded into the html file.

the full download, in flac, is 626 mb.

there will be further updates to the liner notes as i run through the alter-reality, and as i run through the remastering period that took place over 2015-2016. but, this is likely the last major revision to my first record, which is nearing a point of final completion.

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-3

it's time to stop to eat and shower.

there is no such thing as happiness, and, the sooner you figure that out, the happier you'll be.

so, the frontend is finished. everything is slower than i want it to be, but i could still conceivably get done inri021 by the end of the weekend. finishing inri015 actually gets me through the bulk of the work of inri021...

i had to fast forward a little to jan, 2016 to get the actual release data in, which means these releases will come packaged with three versions and three subsequent front-ends. they're about 125 pages, each. so, these are major release updates for the first two official records.

i need to dot some is before i upload this, including doing a good testing, but it's coming. soon.

no, really. how did i get those numbers?

i took a look at recent polling results for sanders, buttigieg, warren and klobuchar and then awarded biden the balance, due to the fact that all of the polls had him ahead. i completely ignored the lower tier candidates, thinking they might get 5% between them and it'll come out as error. i gave them 4%. i posted a poll the day of that suggested that large amounts of lower tier candidates had biden as their second choice, which usually means they're strongly considering it.

in hindsight, i should have paid more attention for two reasons. the first is that they got roughly 15% between them, which is a lot. it's basically the difference in the results - if i had given biden 15% instead of 25%, and "other" 14% instead of 4%, i would have nailed it, despite the fact that nobody nails caucuses.

the other is that biden didn't actually win, and, in hindsight, that wasn't completely unseen. if i had instead reasoned that he was just coming up second due to name recognition, and the large amount of people leaning towards nonviable candidates was a warning sign...

but, i'm a mathematician, jim, i'm not a clairvoyant. i work with data, not with feelings. i follow my brain, not my gut. this is an analytical process, not an emotional one.

that's how you put together the actual right prediction, though. and, the data was there.

nobody nails a caucus.

but my basic logic was (buttigieg OR biden) AND (sanders) and (NOT warren) and i got the thing right.

in new hampshire, buttigieg is going to beat biden, and whether he wins or not depends on how badly.

and, we need data for nevada. but it's the same uncertainty.

actually, i think i got the right idea.

i suggested that, if warren ends up viable more often than not, the results in iowa would be:

sanders - 26
buttigieg - 25
warren - 20

i also pegged biden at 31. but, you'll notice that those four results add to 100, and that's what i really did wrong - i wiped all of the nonviable candidates out and folded them into biden as error, rather than string them along.

who else was this close?

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2020/02/there-going-to-be-wide-variability.html

i also presented three likely outcomes, and two of them worked out:
http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2020/01/this-gets-right-idea-across-but-i-think.html

you would have to tie me down and inject me, kicking and screaming, to get me to take that shit.

there's no way i'd volunteer. ever.

the "field" that jordan peterson "works" within was debunked as complete and utterly nonsensical pseudoscience decades ago.

i know he sells a lot of books. but, he doesn't really deserve to be taken seriously enough to dedicate much time towards rebutting him.

ahahahahahahaha.

no wonder he needs those benzos.

wasn't it common knowledge that his writing was kind of, umm, subpar? i mean, he's pushing freud and jung in 2020. that puts him on about the same level of academic credibility as your average creationist. it's a lot of fucking bullshit.

i've been asked to address his writing a few times, and i won't even bother with it, it's just a waste of time.

it's funny how they all end up addicted to painkillers though, isn't it? 

i'm a bit of an existentialist, and am convinced that we're better off coping with the tragedy of existence than pretending there's some path to some concept of happiness that doesn't actually exist. so, you won't see me smile very often, and you won't hear me pretend i'm ass-slappin' happy all that often. but, i don't intend to show up in a hospital bed in russia, strung out on benzos, either..... 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/cambridge-uni-peterson-1.5066342

ahahahahahaha.

what a loser.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/jordan-peterson-treatment-russia-1.5456939

but, like i say.

this is only relevant, in context, in the question of a systemic abuse of power.

i'm not actually accused of doing anything. 

leftists would never argue that women are incapable of lying.

leftists would argue that empirical studies should demonstrate the expectation that men and women are equally dishonest, and if they do not uphold that expectation then they should be examined closely for bias. we may need some explanations in terms of social conditioning in order to smooth out the data, but that is the ideological left.

these arguments that you hear from these fake feminists, and that are masquerading as the pseudo-left, are actually reactionary and culturally conservative.

if you think that girls can't lie, you're very conservative.

women are perfectly capable of telling horrible lies.

and, they do.

i did try to call the court office on friday, and the person i want to contact was not in the office. they claim the package did not arrive, which is...it should have. it might be on her desk, waiting for her to come back.

i want to clarify a few points if they weren't clear.

i pointed out that this is the kind of case the mras warned us about, but this case is not about women's rights, and i don't feel i'm being attacked by a consortium of fake third-wave "feminists", although it may be the case that some dumb people that call themselves feminists may have fallen for the line of argumentation (something the court has yet to fall for, and i don't expect it will fall for, in the end). i have not been accused of any kind of sexual misconduct. rather, it is agreed by everybody that i have never met this woman, and it is clear from the emails that i didn't even know she was a woman (i thought she was a man named ryan.) until she filed charges.

that's not what what i was charged with. i was charged with "repeated communication" which, in context, is repeated application for housing. they put me in jail for applying for an apartment over and over again. the charges do not claim any sort of sexual behaviour or motive on my behalf at all; nobody has accused me of any sort of sexual harassment, and it is clear that none took place, that i was strictly interested in the apartment. that sounds absurd, and it is - that's why i'm launching a human rights complaint, and trying to get the arrest declared to be illegal, for preparation of an eventual constitutional rights challenge and an expensive lawsuit. but, those are the actual facts in the case. 

- i have never met this woman.
- i do not know what she looks like. still. i've never even seen a picture of her.

- all communication was with a ryan myon that later claimed he was the property owner, caroline chevalier. this ryan did not identify himself as female at any point in the application process. i am not certain that this is actually true. there may be a dude named ryan myon out there that was the actual person i was communicating with. that will come out in the human rights case.

so, if i don't think i was being attacked by a feminist cabal, what do i think was happening?

and, i think the answer is clear enough - i informed the property owner that she was discriminating against me and i would be taking legal action, and she had me arrested as retaliation for it. the police then used a transphobic pretext to build a case that was immediately thrown out as complete bullshit, and the oiprd repeated it in their factum last week (to their great discredit). but, it's not what the appeal is about, it's not what the charges were about and it really has essentially nothing to do with the situation.

the precautionary component of the case is that this is what happens when you buy into conservative narratives about the inherent honesty of the weaker sex. i'm not sure that i can prove that she explicitly lied to the police, but the premise that i might go to her house was invented completely out of thin air (i couldn't pick this person out of a lineup - and i literally thought it was a dude named ryan), for the apparent purposes of preventing me from suing her.

when you eliminate the need for evidence-based reasoning, you open up the system to these kinds of abuses. and, we can't allow ourselves to go down the rabbit hole like that - we have to insist on the primacy of evidence, regardless of the genders involved in the conflict.

i had to sleep. it wasn't a choice.

it's almost done. soon.