the reason i got out of it was the echo chamber effect, combined with the authoritarian power of the written media. but, both of these problems do have a solution - critical thinking skills. it's only when you add the third ingredient of a public school system that has minimized the importance of critical thinking that we end up with the problems we're facing, today.

apparently, studies suggest that people don't read the articles before they share them, but just get the information out of the headlines. headlines are even more authoritarian than stories, partly because they're so short.

what i found was that it was almost impossible to argue with people using facts once they fell down this rabbit hole of accepting headlines as authoritarian sources of knowledge. they would just respond by repeating more authoritarian headlines. or, the lovely "i don't believe your facts because they contradict the memes.".

i had to stop because i was driving myself crazy. my feed was just full of trash, and i had to debunk it, because i'm like that. so i found myself spending hours educating people that refused to be educated, and eventually gave up altogether.

if we can get to the kids then this shall pass. if we can't? it could be a problem.

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-the-pessimists-might-be-right-social-media-may-have-plunged-us-into-a-new-dark-age

what anarchists believe is that our rights end where the rights of others begin.

and, that is simply a statement that respect is the fundamental idea that society should be built around.

nihilism is consequently the anti-thesis of anarchism. and, as much as the new left is increasingly libertarian, the new right is increasingly nihilist...

in a very real sense, the contemporary alt-right is about elevating disrespectfulness to an ideal.

there's a broad consistency around these positions taken by these alt-right political commentators. on almost every single issue, the thing reduces to a refusal to behave respectfully - and this inherently american idea that freedom means the ability to be disrespectful towards the people around you.

it's this kind of evolution of thatcherism, this neo-randianism, this coalescence of these ideas that selfishness is a virtue and society doesn't exist, into this vehement insistence of the right to be disrespectful as a fundamental speech issue.

and, there probably isn't a solution besides treating these people the way that they insist on treating others, and hoping their nihilism means they die quickly.

tory media,

can you write me an essay explaining to me why it is that you have such a hard time understanding why it's disrespectful to gender people without their permission? in the process, can you explain to me what the purpose of nonchalantly gendering people as an irrelevant triviality in unrelated conversations is in the first place?

the last part is important.

thanks,
dtk

wait, it's puppy day?

http://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.ca/2015/09/rrrring-trudeau-hello-obama-id-just.html

i'm going to file a formal complaint for the tenants downstairs due to the smoke, but i'm going to wait until they're not expecting it.

i'm not sure when.

i'm not broadcasting it...

they're growing plants in there. i want to make sure the landlord catches them red-handed.

in the mean time, i'm going to be very quiet, and just carefully go about doing things that are designed to upset them - because i'm convinced that their behaviour is malicious, at this point.

the only tattoo i ever seriously considered getting was i'm not a trendy asshole, in the tramp stamp location.

or, maybe it was my arm. it was a long time ago....

it's perhaps useful to enumerate the ways in which a chinese presence exists here, but it's disingenuous to suggest that the russian influence here is much less - or that our own influence in asia is much different.

the fundamental difference is how they see us.

russia views canada as an old british colony - a former ally against the nazis, and, as a descendant of roman christianity, a cultural cousin. russia legitimately wants peace. russia truly wants friendship.

the chinese view canada as a satellite of the united states, and the continent of north america, more broadly, as an open land to colonize - not dissimilarly to how europeans once saw this continent.

so, the russians seek co-existence; the chinese seek control and dominance.

might that change? it's unlikely, really, because it's cultural. the chinese are supremacists. they want to dominate the world, and subjugate everybody else. we were once like that, too, but we only changed by assimilating the conquered peoples - which means that if the chinese are to follow us into cosmopolitanism, they will have to defeat us, first.

i don't think there's some easy solution. china prides itself on the age of it's civilization, but that perception of itself as central to history is exactly what the problem is.

china probably has to be destroyed.

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/china-is-a-bigger-threat-than-russia-but-you-wont-hear-trudeau-say-it/

i'm not upset about politicians harvesting facebook data.

you posted it on the internet. what did you expect?