25-03-2016: every time i tried to get back to archiving, i found something else to rant about

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

j reacts to (specious) accusations of nihilism

and, i want to be clear about something: i am not a nihilist. i am an atheist and a secular humanist. i believe i've actually argued very strenuously against moral relativism and very strenuously against subjectivity in art. i believe in the objective reality of a world determined via scientific inquiry. there is no god in this world, but there are plenty of things that are true. in fact, i would argue that the truth value of the statement there is no god is true. that is, itself, a truth. i am a positivist. i believe truth is obtainable - and that one of those truths is that there is no guiding force in the universe.

but, i haven't been through this here. not exactly. bits and pieces.

the problem is the way the discussion is framed, to assume various things for granted. i am an anarchist; i reject hobbes. i do not believe that people need the threat of god, or the threat of some sovereign, to fall in line and behave. rather, i think that religion and authoritarianism are corrupting forces. we are not evil in despite of the state but because of it. the collapse of the state would bring us back to a "natural condition" of mutual aid and reciprocal altruism. this is not because we have a selfless nature, it is because altruism and rational self-interest are equivalent, when fully understood.

watch this, it's in the name of general education:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kWuR9Rzzlo

what that actually means is that i think that nietzsche is just a tempest in a teapot, because i reject the assumptions he was working under in the first place. understanding the obvious truth that there is no god will not collapse society, but allow it to reach it's next stage of development. nihilists should consequently be seen as reactionaries that seek to uphold the status quo - at best. at worst, they end up as straussian neocons like hillary clinton and want to take us back into the dark ages.

there is a certain line of thinking that ends with nietzsche, but it was a stupid line of reasoning that was in opposition to the real movements of enlightened thinking, anyways. his supposed crisis was resolved by aquinas, who was himself just quoting aristotle. what you see in his writings is a fool coming to terms with the idiocy of his systems of thought. but, only fools would have ever walked down that path in the first place. this is centuries after galileo!

so, i don't think that nihilism presents us with any sort of a real problem. but, if we want to be stuck in this foolish historical narrative? a very obvious and completely satisfactory solution immediately presents itself in secular humanism. and, there is consequently really no reason to take note of the man or his writings at all. he should be forgotten. instead, we should remember the line of thinking that takes us from aristotle, through aquinas and ends with comte.

ok, i need to back off. i keep saying that. i do. i've wasted way too much time.

i tend to get obsessive. it's a personality issue. it's ubiquitous across issues. but, this isn't worth my time.

j reacts to the inevitability of a third party force on the left in the 2016 election

i want to reiterate that my position in a trump/clinton election is strategic non-voting followed by mass civil disobedience. what i'm suggesting is that hillary is not a lesser evil. that does not somehow imply support for trump.

the spanish anarchists were faced with a choice between hitler and stalin, and they picked stalin. stalin then killed them by the thousands. all objective evidence would have suggested that stalin was the lesser evil, here.

what i'm arguing is that we're in a situation where the logic of a lesser evil collapses, and we're stuck with two equally sized and equally unacceptable evils - both of which necessitate immediate revolutionary action. if you're arguing you should vote for clinton to stop trump, you're back to trying to argue that stalin is preferable to hitler.

sanders is actually right. it's not just empty rhetoric. the spectre of a clinton presidency is no more acceptable than that of a trump presidency. there needs to be a stronger reaction than just voting for clinton and going home.

this is the breaking point.

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if it's trump v clinton, i vote for a general strike.

polling for general election matchups right now is very preliminary. my questions remain hypothetical.

but, i'd be interested to see some polling of a three-way race: sanders, trump, clinton. if we consider that sanders is beating trump by 20 points, in multiple key swing states, how much of that goes to clinton if she runs? that language was chosen consciously.

i'm just wondering if something like this is reasonable, somewhere like michigan:

- sanders: 40
- trump: 35
- clinton: 25

the flip of that is that clinton could beat trump with evangelicals, opening up weird results like the following, somewhere like missouri, where clinton/sanders and trump/cruz both split. as missouri tends to split general elections, let's give them each 25%.

clinton: 25 (base) + 15 (cruz) = 40
trump: 25 (base) + 10 (cruz) = 35
sanders: 25

i would not advise taking any of this seriously until at least labour day. but a little bit of introductory polling may be useful for everybody.

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it's just hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube, with sanders. and that's a good thing. but it means some polling on the hypothetical is useful.

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and....clinton has already tried to appeal to the christian conservative vote, which there is quite a bit of in the democratic party base. she's a politician. she'll do what she thinks she needs to do to win. if trump is the nominee (and he is) then it opens up a vacuum on the christian right that she will pounce on. and, the gays will be thrown under the bus - the christian right is a far larger and far more stable voting block to integrate into her base of southern conservative minorities.

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i know that what i'm saying is going to upset or confuse some people. but, you simply haven't been paying attention. this is precisely why she creates such a horrible reaction in the left-wing grassroots - she'd sell her own husband down the creek for the right endorsement, and all the smart people fully grasp that.

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so, this logic that you're voting for her to stop the christian right?

hillary clinton is the christian right.

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and, if trump wins (and he will), that's going to be a big aspect of the election. she won't beat him with working class whites. her best strategy is to beat him on the right.

setting the bar for accusations of racism this low is extremely dangerous, as it sets up a cries wolf scenario. and, in fact, trump's likely opponent has not just supported but was integral in the development of some of the most racist legislation of the past fifty years.

j reacts to the idea that cuba is poor due to not being a market economy

let's be dialectical. well, ok.

but, this is a crazy argument, this idea that america is wealthy because of markets and cuba is poor because of no markets.

1) does america really have markets? it has lots of cartels. study the price of bananas - it changes everywhere at the same time, all the time. it has lots of corporate welfare. i'm not so sure about this.
2) america is the global empire. it's extracted massive wealth through theft, slavery and imperialist exploitation. meanwhile, cuba was a forgotten backwater in a collapsed empire. markets? hmmm.
3) there were these sanctions that were put on cuba. i think the president knows a thing or two about them.

i don't want to argue against his point too much. i think he's making an error in looking at capitalism and communism as competing systems rather than as expressions of the same system. what we need is not really a dialectic, but a reapproach to a different organization of society brought on by deindustrialization. but, in the end that could very well approximate a dialectic, because the deindustrialization does, in some ways, bring back aspects of the preconditions of liberalism. i don't know how you approach automation without social ownership, but that's just the initial conditions - the point is to open up greater freedom in social interaction by eliminating want.

but, you can't just stand there and say america is rich because of capitalism and cuba is poor because of communism and expect people to take you seriously because you're the president. it's crazy, no matter who you are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BadFTesAPzY

j reacts to being misinterpreted as a millenial (and not liking it)

i just want to remind people that i identify as gen x, i've always identified as gen x and i've never claimed otherwise. in fact, what i have claimed on multiple occasions is that i feel a very large generational gap with millennials, and have always had a very hard time understanding them.

i've pointed out repeatedly that i'm on the cusp. which means i don't actually have a generation. i'm too old to be a millennial, and they've always seemed weird and distant to me. gen x has always made more sense, and so i've always identified that way, but i do realize that i'm too young to really be gen x.

the point is that i want to be clear about what my audience is: both for my music and for my vlogs. i'm not quite middle-aged, but i nearly am. i'm not making any particular attempt to appeal to young people. i would expect that both my music and it's marketing will appeal to an above 30 audience, and not an under 30 audience. it's about a 30-50 demographic that is most likely to find the various things i do interesting. this is the cusp, plus the latter half of gen x.

so, if you're a younger person and you think i'm out of touch, that's ok. i would agree that you're probably right. and, i'm not particularly upset by it; i wasn't interested in being the cool kid when i was your age, and i'm not interested in being the cool kid now, either. older people don't need your approval to exist. and, realize i was on usenet before you could walk...

shit hillary said vol 9

"Marriage has got historic, religious and moral content that goes back to the beginning of time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man and a woman. But I also believe that people in committed gay marriages, as they believe them to be, should be given rights under the law that recognize and respect their relationship."

furnace is leaking...

hi.

the drip was forming at the corner. i've just taped it over. hopefully that's good enough. i don't know if the drip was coming out of the corner or just rolling down towards it. my concern is just keeping the water off the floor, so if that doesn't work then i'll tape the connector over. but i think i have the responsibility to inform you.

i still don't have a phone. i've lived long enough without one that i've learned how to exist without one, and decided it's more of a luxury than a necessity. and given that it is essentially a government spying device, i've actually decided that i even actively don't want one.

so, i know you're transferring ownership. let me know if there's a better email address to use.

but, yeah. it's dripping. slowly. it seems like the plastic cracked. but it may be the seal, too.

j

24-03-2016: fighting the weather, obnoxious jocks & the police state to catch the stargazer lilies in detroit

concert footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihjxbf0htWo

review:
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2016/03/24.html

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1