you're going to tell me a cricket has a brain.

a cricket has an eye, but it doesn't really have a brain. the nervous system is actually really localized, so it's able to function independently when parts of the body get chopped off. one wonders if that's a first step to regeneration, or a mostly lost memory of it. but, what that means is that the neurons in the head of the insect, in addition to the optic neurons, are just the local cluster for functions in the head (like eating), and are not any different than the local clusters elsewhere in the body, that are for movement and reproduction.

a brain is supposed to be a centralized processing unit that oversees the control of the entire organism, and insects do not have that; they have an optic bundle that controls for functions in the head and a series of other bundles that control for other localized functions.

so, then, do they have six brains? it's a meaningless compound phrase, a contradiction in terms. i was taught that they have a ganglia that exists throughout their body, rather than multiple brains. but, we can call things what we want, i guess, so long as you realize that "six brains" is sort of an incoherent idea, and that what you're calling brains are very limited and segmented in the scope of their functions.

it's interesting to look at insects that have eyes, though, because it seems to suggest that brains may have evolved from eyes, rather than the other way around. further, who knows; in a few million years, maybe some insects with eyes may develop actual brains, as the optic nerve takes control of the ganglia system.

i've been over this a few times before; i understand that i'm an omnivore, that this is necessary, but if you look at the animals that we choose to eat...

like, go hang out with a pig some time. these are intuitive, playful creatures that are considerably more intelligent than the animals we keep as pets, cats and dogs. they have individual personalities that you learn when you rear them for slaughter, will respond to names if you give one to them and can even be effectively toilet trained. they seem far too intelligent to be raised in cages for the purposes of consumption.

humans and pigs share some weird similarities as well, like brain structure and skin composition. i've even wondered if pigs may be currently phylogenetically miscategorized as ruminants when they're really descendants of a horrid lost human culture that enslaved and converted a conquered tribe into livestock; the dna may suggest otherwise, but one wonders how powerful a role the environment can play in convergence, via epigenetic expression. hey, humans can grow tails and horns; i'm sure we have the code to grow hooves, too. some back-crossing with the right mutation, and you'd get hooved homo sapiens in no time.

i've never lived on a farm myself, but i've heard from multiple people that there's an almost traumatic rite of passage involved with coming to terms with the fact that the animal friend that you've been playing with in the yard for the last two years is going away because your family is going to eat it. that's a very difficult memory that multiple people i've met have, which demonstrates the point - you feel empathy for the animal, because you've experienced it's cognition.

these issues just don't exist with a species like crickets, who have primitive neuron-like structures but do not technically have brains. it's hard to understand what the signals they experience are like, but we can state confidently that they don't have personalities, that they don't respond to names and that they have no meaningful cognition or intelligence. i wouldn't view raising and eating crickets that differently than i view plant-based agriculture; the best way to do it is probably even in a greenhouse.

i think i've seen enough to produce a ranked ballot. however, i'm not going to analyze this further. it gets a little blurry after 4 or so.

i'm not looking up spelling, and don't care if i spell their names correctly right now.

1. glen murray
2. courtney howard
3. amita kutner
4. dmitri lascaris
5. judy foote
6. miriam haddad
7. david merner
8. annamie paul
9. andrew west

while dmitri & glen may have broader disagreements about the benefits of capitalism (and i think these are likely even minimal, as glen is further left than he's projecting, and dmitri is actually a little further right than he's projecting, too), the difference between "enforcing your will on the corporate sector" and "working with the corporate sector" has more to do with language than a meaningful difference in policy.

while dimitri might perceive that an authoritarian articulation of positive law is a more effective means forward, he must certainly realize that he can't just pass a proclamation, and then it will just be. if we could all just chant a spell that emissions shalt recede, right? why stop there, though? i hereby declare that atmospheric carbon concentrations will recede to pre-industrial levels! make it so. what, in actuality does imposing one's will on the corporate sector mean? it means working with them to help them meet legislated targets.

likewise, glen is surely cognizant of the reality that any interaction with the corporate sector will require explicit legislation regulating it, as a basis for action in the first place. the regulators that he sends will be there to enforce the legislation, unless somebody pays them off between now and then, or the body overseeing it gets captured.

they're saying the same thing, they're just restating equivalent statements to emphasize different parts of a machinated process, rather than focus on the machinated process itself, as a holistic entity. it's a truly dumb argument.

as an aside, i've watched a few of these now and, while glen ought to win this thing easily, the format of these debates is not helping him get a wonkish message across and neither the moderators nor the other candidates seem to like him much. i would like to see a very data-oriented person in the leadership role, and he does strike me as the best candidate from that perspective, by a good margin. i haven't seen any polling; your guess is as good as mine. but, i'm getting the feeling that i'm going to walk out of this process with more respect for a defeated glen than the party, which is maybe moving away from climate change as a central point of concern.

but, if you're reading this, do also realize this truth:

i am the elusive educated swing voter; statistically, i don't exist, but we know i'm the ultimate arbiter of elections, when they are free. you may in the end only succeed in reducing my scorn from active to passive hate, but i am the key to victory, on all sides, and my opinion is of paramount concern.

the reality is that they're both unelectable and they're both unfit for office.

i'm not going to pretend otherwise, or trick myself into thinking differently.

so, i understand that biden people might read this blog and conclude i must be a trump supporter, but it's just the fallacy of the excluded middle at play; the idea that not(biden) = trump is a logical fallacy, and i'm happy to demonstrate it for you.

conversely, trump people might read this and conclude i must be working for biden, but they're wrong for all the same reasons.

and, in my view, if you both think i'm working for the other party, that means i'm demonstrating a proper level of impartiality.

call me post-partisan.

even if i'd really rather send a pox on both your houses.

and, i might get it.

and, no, i don't care if you don't like how i behave, because i'm not on your side, anyways - even if i endorse you, in the end.

and i don't care if you don't want my endorsement; you're getting it anyways, if i decide i hate your opponent more than i hate you.

i need to make this point very clear. i do it every election, because you people always want to take sides, and create friends and enemies, and split people apart...

i don't approach elections like they're sports tournaments, or competitive games, and consequently don't take sides or pit groups against each other in the process.

i hate the democrats
i hate conservatives
i hate the liberals
i hate the republicans
i hate the ndp
and i hate the greens, too

ok?

i hate you all to your core, from my core, all the time, in every way.

so, i may very well post the most vicious attacks you've ever seen on biden one minute, then suggest i'm endorsing him the next. if you interpret my attacks from a partisan perspective, you're going to be run astray.

no, attacking your opponent doesn't mean i'm on your side - and i might not be. and, attacking you doesn't mean i won't endorse you.

i am not a team player, i do not want to cooperate and i'm not interested in repeating party lines.

i have no party membership and don't want to join one. if i were going to join a party, it would be something more like the communist party.

and, i can't vote in this election or any other american election.

the choices in this election are truly particularly disgusting, even relative to a long series of uninspiring choices; i thought 2016 was bad, but biden really makes clinton look pretty compelling, in comparison (not enough to seriously endorse her).

so don't try to put me on a team, or assign me to a side.

i'm an independent agent, a loose canon, a free radical. and, i'll happily demonstrate all manners of bipolarism in my analysis, and not care if you think that's "inconsistent"; it's only inconsistent if you see it as a competition between two antagonistic forces, of which you have to choose a side.

when you have no intention of choosing either side, there's no process of the sort at play.

i will no doubt produce an opinion in the end, but not before ripping my endorsement to shreds, first, and perhaps no more than five minutes after i correctly and convincingly explain why they're unfit to govern.

it's the reality of existing in (or near) a system where democratic choice is really little more than an illusion.

"but, he's a decent guy."

he's really not, he's a total creep.

is gretchen whitmer a reasonable choice?

let's hope this isn't creepy joe at play, here. listen - this is a potential problem that could develop with a number of people around him. i keep saying he's the mirror reflection of trump...

trump seems to have a kind of specific hate-on for her, as well, which could work to his advantage if he's subtle (which he never is.) but could backfire if he gets desperate, or just overwhelmed with misogyny. that's a real wildcard. my impression is that she's a strong campaigner, and might be able to push the right buttons so that he self-destructs. pence is more self-disciplined, and also more hateful to his core being, so that's a weird dynamic.

it would seem to me that a whitmer pick would put her at the front of the ticket, in the sense that she would be the media front for a biden-overseen background operation. she's relatively young, comfortable in front of the camera and fairly photogenic. the fact that she's still in contention suggests that, creepy joe or not, he is valuing these qualities rather highly.

her main strike against her would be a lack of meaningful executive experience, although she has a lot of legislative experience, and a feeling that she's kind of jumping the gun. she's a bit of a black box as to what she might actually do.

her pandemic rules appear to have deeply over-reacted to the scenario and had little effect on reducing the spread of the disease, but that's a problem with all democrats, who are not interested in following the science on the issue, even when they play political games about it. so, we know she has a fascistic streak to her, which is a downside - but to the party in general, not just her.

iirc, she ran on an infrastructure mandate, and all she's really had time to do since elected is focus on disaster relief. i remember some encouraging words to the effect that queer people actually have rights coming from the attorney general's office, but that's a separate election, right? it would be helpful from an analytical standpoint to have data from less chaotic times to get a chance to see how she might govern a few years from now; as it is, and from what i can tell, she seems to be about a middle-of-the-road centre-left democrat that should check all the boxes for most of the big single-issue voters but isn't going to be very appealing to leftists, who don't really matter, anyways.

so, it's electorally reasonable, and perhaps more so than it is a reasonable governing option. but, i'd assign a wide margin of error; what i'm saying is that we don't really have the data to know.

so, i'd need to focus on the campaign to determine whether i'd want to vote for her or abstain.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/07/politics/gretchen-whitmer-joe-biden-meeting/index.html