but, the thing with warren, specifically, it's that it's not organic. she's a creation of msnbc, and being propped up by the msm. her polling numbers are not real, but adjusted via careful manipulation of demographics. that's what i learned in 2016: in the united states, this kind of media deception is commonplace, and you have to read the polling from a good distance. i want to apply what i learned, not forget it.
in the end, the media might succeed in creating a candidacy out of her. she's what they want. she's their creation.
but, they're up against a difficult problem around the fact that the numbers on the ground just aren't there for her.
if she wins the nomination due to media bias, she'll get trounced in the end as a result of poor grassroots support.
Saturday, August 31, 2019
so,
1) there is no actual evidence that biden is fading.
2) while i acknowledge that she is doing very, very well with her own specific demographic, i still don't think that warren actually has a serious path to the nomination.
3) i still think that sanders' only real path to beating biden was to rely on splitting the vote in the south, and running up the score in the north and west - something i don't think warren can actually do. sanders cannot displace biden as the christian conservative candidate in the south, although warren perhaps could if she were to run in a certain way, and the idea that he ever could was always stupid. so, i still think that sanders is being badly blocked by biden, and that, while there are some things he could do to try to get around him, he's not doing them - he's instead trying to fight a losing battle head-to-head. the south is just a conservative place.
4) i still think that booker is the most realistic dark horse, although i pointed out a while back that there may be a class disconnect between himself and his intended voting base, that they may actually not see much of themselves in him at all.
5) harris is terrible. she's fading.
the others were never really serious candidates.
1) there is no actual evidence that biden is fading.
2) while i acknowledge that she is doing very, very well with her own specific demographic, i still don't think that warren actually has a serious path to the nomination.
3) i still think that sanders' only real path to beating biden was to rely on splitting the vote in the south, and running up the score in the north and west - something i don't think warren can actually do. sanders cannot displace biden as the christian conservative candidate in the south, although warren perhaps could if she were to run in a certain way, and the idea that he ever could was always stupid. so, i still think that sanders is being badly blocked by biden, and that, while there are some things he could do to try to get around him, he's not doing them - he's instead trying to fight a losing battle head-to-head. the south is just a conservative place.
4) i still think that booker is the most realistic dark horse, although i pointed out a while back that there may be a class disconnect between himself and his intended voting base, that they may actually not see much of themselves in him at all.
5) harris is terrible. she's fading.
the others were never really serious candidates.
people think you need to run to the left in the primary, then pivot to the centre to win the general.
closer to the truth is the opposite - you need to run in the centre to win over the party base (which is more conservative than the general public), and then swing away from it in the general to mobilize independents and non-voters, which also means doing things intended to avoid alienating moderate republicans.
but, that means that it's really hard to beat strong, centrist candidates in the primary.
and, let's remember a point: obama did not run as a leftist. obama told us from the start that he was a conservative, ran as one and won as one - and governed as one. obama was the most conservative president of the last 50 years. the iraq war vote was a major issue, but his argument was not anti-war - he just thought iraq was a bad tactical decision made by a dumb commander-in-chief. he beat clinton by running to her right on social issues - he ran to her right on health care (she supported single payer at the time. he didn't.), he was broadly less supportive of queer issues (across the board), and he promised to cut spending and reign in the deficit. and, he had a penis. so, he was more appealing to the conservative, christian base of democratic primary voters than she was.
so, looking to 2008 as a model for biden's decline by pointing to these "progressive" candidates and suggesting they'll do what obama did, however left they actually are, is a completely false projection and a completely warped narrative (mostly told by very untrustworthy sources of information, all around). to start, biden was a lower tier candidate, at the time. i barely remember his campaign. the front-runner was clinton, you'll recall. the third candidate in closest contention was not biden, but john edwards. that was the guy that was supposed to win in the south, not biden. so, there was never a time in mid-2007 where biden was dominating the polls like this. he wasn't the vp in the last administration back then, either. nor was clinton seen as the dominant front-runner in 2007/2008 - everyone expected she'd be a given a run for it.
rather, what happened in 2007/2008 is that clinton ran on the left, and got beat by a strong centrist to her right. if history is to be repeated, this narrative would be brought out to explain the decline of bernie sanders.
and, if through some twist of history, a candidate like buttigieg holds on and gets a direct face-to-face with sanders in a field of two or three, we might have a tragedy on our hands.
if biden had anybody else his own age to compete with - gore. kerry. even clinton, again - they would probably beat him.
but, with an aging voting base, and a younger field, he's the last one left standing, and is going to get huge amounts of votes more or less by default.
and, it could be another 20 years before these voters finally die off.
closer to the truth is the opposite - you need to run in the centre to win over the party base (which is more conservative than the general public), and then swing away from it in the general to mobilize independents and non-voters, which also means doing things intended to avoid alienating moderate republicans.
but, that means that it's really hard to beat strong, centrist candidates in the primary.
and, let's remember a point: obama did not run as a leftist. obama told us from the start that he was a conservative, ran as one and won as one - and governed as one. obama was the most conservative president of the last 50 years. the iraq war vote was a major issue, but his argument was not anti-war - he just thought iraq was a bad tactical decision made by a dumb commander-in-chief. he beat clinton by running to her right on social issues - he ran to her right on health care (she supported single payer at the time. he didn't.), he was broadly less supportive of queer issues (across the board), and he promised to cut spending and reign in the deficit. and, he had a penis. so, he was more appealing to the conservative, christian base of democratic primary voters than she was.
so, looking to 2008 as a model for biden's decline by pointing to these "progressive" candidates and suggesting they'll do what obama did, however left they actually are, is a completely false projection and a completely warped narrative (mostly told by very untrustworthy sources of information, all around). to start, biden was a lower tier candidate, at the time. i barely remember his campaign. the front-runner was clinton, you'll recall. the third candidate in closest contention was not biden, but john edwards. that was the guy that was supposed to win in the south, not biden. so, there was never a time in mid-2007 where biden was dominating the polls like this. he wasn't the vp in the last administration back then, either. nor was clinton seen as the dominant front-runner in 2007/2008 - everyone expected she'd be a given a run for it.
rather, what happened in 2007/2008 is that clinton ran on the left, and got beat by a strong centrist to her right. if history is to be repeated, this narrative would be brought out to explain the decline of bernie sanders.
and, if through some twist of history, a candidate like buttigieg holds on and gets a direct face-to-face with sanders in a field of two or three, we might have a tragedy on our hands.
if biden had anybody else his own age to compete with - gore. kerry. even clinton, again - they would probably beat him.
but, with an aging voting base, and a younger field, he's the last one left standing, and is going to get huge amounts of votes more or less by default.
and, it could be another 20 years before these voters finally die off.
i suppose there's still an opportunity to reshape the actual party members.
but, so long as the actual people voting in the actual primaries are the same old democratic primary voters, it's hard to see who is going to challenge biden for the centre.
see, and whether that centrist voting base kills them in the general or not doesn't negate it's existence. if these swaths of general election voters can't cast ballots in the primary, they may never get to cast their vote for who they want in the general. as a result, trump may win again, sure. but, you're never going to get this across to them. biden's the last old guy out there, the last member of the generation of leaders they recognize.
so, this isn't a debate about tactics - it's a reflection on voting demographics in the primary, and a realization of how different the primary is than the general.
biden is still winning. comfortably.
but, so long as the actual people voting in the actual primaries are the same old democratic primary voters, it's hard to see who is going to challenge biden for the centre.
see, and whether that centrist voting base kills them in the general or not doesn't negate it's existence. if these swaths of general election voters can't cast ballots in the primary, they may never get to cast their vote for who they want in the general. as a result, trump may win again, sure. but, you're never going to get this across to them. biden's the last old guy out there, the last member of the generation of leaders they recognize.
so, this isn't a debate about tactics - it's a reflection on voting demographics in the primary, and a realization of how different the primary is than the general.
biden is still winning. comfortably.
actually, i still think that warren's support is probably quite weak and prone to deep collapse.
the one strong group she seems to have picked up is wealthy, educated female identity voters. i'll acknowledge underestimating this, and that i should have seen it. and, that group might cling on to the end, a major asset given that it is so well distributed.
but, she has challenges with non-white voters. she has no real actual base, either. in the end, all of the groups are going to pick sanders. so, it's hard to see how she can build a coalition, without becoming the centre, ie. pushing biden out of his spot
that means that warren has to win black voters in the south, for instance. how?
what we're going to see soon enough is that her numbers are being exaggerated. i wouldn't be surprised to see her polling at 12% everywhere, while other candidates come up around her in different areas.
her prognosis to make it to iowa remains sketchy. she will need biden to pull out, i think. she will need harris to collapse. otherwise, she may poll third or second nationally without winning a state.
so, she's doing better than i predicted, and sounds like a serious candidate when she speaks. but, it's still not at all clear that she has any potential path at all.
the one strong group she seems to have picked up is wealthy, educated female identity voters. i'll acknowledge underestimating this, and that i should have seen it. and, that group might cling on to the end, a major asset given that it is so well distributed.
but, she has challenges with non-white voters. she has no real actual base, either. in the end, all of the groups are going to pick sanders. so, it's hard to see how she can build a coalition, without becoming the centre, ie. pushing biden out of his spot
that means that warren has to win black voters in the south, for instance. how?
what we're going to see soon enough is that her numbers are being exaggerated. i wouldn't be surprised to see her polling at 12% everywhere, while other candidates come up around her in different areas.
her prognosis to make it to iowa remains sketchy. she will need biden to pull out, i think. she will need harris to collapse. otherwise, she may poll third or second nationally without winning a state.
so, she's doing better than i predicted, and sounds like a serious candidate when she speaks. but, it's still not at all clear that she has any potential path at all.
Friday, August 30, 2019
i know it sounds like she thinks i provided the sperm. how much more obvious could she make it, right?
you don't get sarah.
it's more like a type of sympathetic magic. out of all of the "signs" she gave me to get my attention, it was the pregnant sex that was most important, as it represented a replacement process. and, she was, in essence, actually admitting that i wasn't - but that she wishes i was.
it was all a kind of ritual, for her.
i always approached her like an anthropologist: i found these kinds of behaviours to be interesting. and, on a level, i guess they were experiments, right? but, the reality is that she was the kind of person that would pray, and expect it to work. i think she grew out of that around the time we stopped talking, and my decision to go back into transition may have had something to do with that, as well.
so, she might have been trying to send me a message, yes - but not the one you're thinking of.
and, i really don't think i am.
but, there's a lingering non-zero possibility, absolutely.
you don't get sarah.
it's more like a type of sympathetic magic. out of all of the "signs" she gave me to get my attention, it was the pregnant sex that was most important, as it represented a replacement process. and, she was, in essence, actually admitting that i wasn't - but that she wishes i was.
it was all a kind of ritual, for her.
i always approached her like an anthropologist: i found these kinds of behaviours to be interesting. and, on a level, i guess they were experiments, right? but, the reality is that she was the kind of person that would pray, and expect it to work. i think she grew out of that around the time we stopped talking, and my decision to go back into transition may have had something to do with that, as well.
so, she might have been trying to send me a message, yes - but not the one you're thinking of.
and, i really don't think i am.
but, there's a lingering non-zero possibility, absolutely.
and, i assure you that i am telling you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me, me.
despite it's flaws, i'll take my oath on the principia.
some other people may remember some things a little differently in terms of context or perspective, but i'm not making thing up. my stories are real. legit.
despite it's flaws, i'll take my oath on the principia.
some other people may remember some things a little differently in terms of context or perspective, but i'm not making thing up. my stories are real. legit.
remember when everybody was upset with warren for not endorsing sanders?
you all thought it was obvious. but, it's because you don't understand warren very well. if you did, you'd know it never was.
and, now you're doing it again - even as she runs hard against him.
there's a definition of insanity, guys.
you all thought it was obvious. but, it's because you don't understand warren very well. if you did, you'd know it never was.
and, now you're doing it again - even as she runs hard against him.
there's a definition of insanity, guys.
reality check: elizabeth warren would neither want to be bernie's vp, nor would she pick bernie as her own.
but, if the two somehow ended up on the same ticket, she would subtly work to undermine him. because that's her mission, as determined by head office.
so, those arguing for disaster are right, but not for the reasons they think.
bernie does not know who his friends are.
the reality is that, so long as biden remains in the race, he remains a longshot candidate. but, he needs to be looking towards somebody that is a little closer to him, ideologically.
but, if the two somehow ended up on the same ticket, she would subtly work to undermine him. because that's her mission, as determined by head office.
so, those arguing for disaster are right, but not for the reasons they think.
bernie does not know who his friends are.
the reality is that, so long as biden remains in the race, he remains a longshot candidate. but, he needs to be looking towards somebody that is a little closer to him, ideologically.
“if you
put money into our hands in a dividend, we’re going to spend it right
there in our economy — it’s going to be trickle up..."
see, he really, really doesn't understand the words he's using.
technically, he's actually right - if you give everybody a thousand dollars a month, it will trickle up to the 1%.
but, what the fuck kind of policy is that?
who the fuck wants that?
if you want trickle-up economics, why not just pass more tax cuts for the rich?
see, he really, really doesn't understand the words he's using.
technically, he's actually right - if you give everybody a thousand dollars a month, it will trickle up to the 1%.
but, what the fuck kind of policy is that?
who the fuck wants that?
if you want trickle-up economics, why not just pass more tax cuts for the rich?
so, we're not doing a crazy weekend. there's just not enough to do, and the weather's not going to be very good. so, there's no reason to push myself. i may actually get mostly washed out.
these are my picks this weekend:
fri - likely
20:00-00:00 - saajtak / unnatural ways. art of amageddon beach beach party. $5.
??:??-??:??. if really early then try teener @ ufo. $10.
??:??-04:00. if still early then go home else goto leland. $5.
sat - will likely skip first part and stay in windsor for second
16:00-23:00 - city sculpture extravaganza @ alexandria park. free. <-----does not fit into my schedule
21:00-02:00 - palm haze @ phog. no list price. assume $5 (cdn). <---weather dependent
sunday - strictly weather dependent, as they are calling for rain all day. i will probably just stay in.
option 1:
15:30-17:00 - pat metheny & ron carter. hart plaza. free. <-----super pick.
18:00-20:00 - stanley clarke. hart plaza. free. note: no billed guitarist in band.
home?
option 2:
13:00-02:00 - ambient festival. outer limits. free before 21:00, $5 after..
late party?
monday - depends on what happens on sunday.
15:00-17:00 - pat metheny. hart plaza. free.
19:00-21:00 - stanley clarke. hart plaza. free. note: no billed guitarist in band.
and, these are some tentative picks for the rest of the month, the stars being the almost certain shows.
06: big business
12: massive attack
13 & 14: strange beautiful music festival (*)
16: ride.
21: man man ---> luke vibert (plug) (*)
23: pig (raymond watts)
24: fly pan am (windsor) (*)
27: blanck mass (*)
oct
01: melvins
02: joy formidable ----> defeater. (*)
for now, i need to force myself to get a few hours of sleep if i'm going out tonight.
these are my picks this weekend:
fri - likely
20:00-00:00 - saajtak / unnatural ways. art of amageddon beach beach party. $5.
??:??-??:??. if really early then try teener @ ufo. $10.
??:??-04:00. if still early then go home else goto leland. $5.
sat - will likely skip first part and stay in windsor for second
16:00-23:00 - city sculpture extravaganza @ alexandria park. free. <-----does not fit into my schedule
21:00-02:00 - palm haze @ phog. no list price. assume $5 (cdn). <---weather dependent
sunday - strictly weather dependent, as they are calling for rain all day. i will probably just stay in.
option 1:
15:30-17:00 - pat metheny & ron carter. hart plaza. free. <-----super pick.
18:00-20:00 - stanley clarke. hart plaza. free. note: no billed guitarist in band.
home?
option 2:
13:00-02:00 - ambient festival. outer limits. free before 21:00, $5 after..
late party?
monday - depends on what happens on sunday.
15:00-17:00 - pat metheny. hart plaza. free.
19:00-21:00 - stanley clarke. hart plaza. free. note: no billed guitarist in band.
and, these are some tentative picks for the rest of the month, the stars being the almost certain shows.
06: big business
12: massive attack
13 & 14: strange beautiful music festival (*)
16: ride.
21: man man ---> luke vibert (plug) (*)
23: pig (raymond watts)
24: fly pan am (windsor) (*)
27: blanck mass (*)
oct
01: melvins
02: joy formidable ----> defeater. (*)
for now, i need to force myself to get a few hours of sleep if i'm going out tonight.
when she told me that she named her first-born after me, i initially thought it was some kind of a joke. the name is synonymous with "oracle", "guru" or "wise person".
a couple of years later, she fessed up and told me the whole story.
after we left tofino, we spent some time in the okanagan valley. we were outside of oliver, when we got into a big fight and i stormed off; i guess i just needed to get some air, to take a walk by myself, but at the time it seemed like i wasn't coming back - i was halfway to kelowna before i turned back, and she was in shock.
so, she sat and picked wild herbs, for a few hours, convinced she'd been left in bc by herself.
until i came back.
so, the idea was that i was supposed to come back - like i came back, back then.
but, the fact was that, this time, i didn't want to.
or, at least, not like that.
it's a bittersweet story, all around.
a couple of years later, she fessed up and told me the whole story.
after we left tofino, we spent some time in the okanagan valley. we were outside of oliver, when we got into a big fight and i stormed off; i guess i just needed to get some air, to take a walk by myself, but at the time it seemed like i wasn't coming back - i was halfway to kelowna before i turned back, and she was in shock.
so, she sat and picked wild herbs, for a few hours, convinced she'd been left in bc by herself.
until i came back.
so, the idea was that i was supposed to come back - like i came back, back then.
but, the fact was that, this time, i didn't want to.
or, at least, not like that.
it's a bittersweet story, all around.
it's at the beginning of october, but defeater is the same day as the joy formidable.
ugh.
i might end up skipping defeater. i haven't been that impressed by them in a while, frankly. but i need to check out the new stuff, too.
if necessary, i may have to take a road trip somewhere i've never been before.
ugh.
i might end up skipping defeater. i haven't been that impressed by them in a while, frankly. but i need to check out the new stuff, too.
if necessary, i may have to take a road trip somewhere i've never been before.
i really *did* blow this....this week, really.
i didn't even really do a proper sort over the last week or so. i stopped at last thursday, and then found myself listening to music from 2013 over the last week. i just decided that it was too cold out to bother and that was that. and, i actually wanted to get much more of this done than i have. ugh. it's really, truly been completely wasted.
i kept telling myself that i'd get this finished and then (...). but i've just spent the time ranting and haven't finished anything. it happens sometimes, i know that. i need to get to the next step, now.
in fairness, it *was* cold last friday & saturday, but it hasn't been that bad the last few days, although it was a little bit rainy monday and tuesday. did i miss something? i doubt it, but i'll have time to sort over it, backward, eventually.
i was honestly just in a rut.
for right now, i'm sorting through september as a month, rather than just focusing on this week. as mentioned, i'm not going to be looking at crazy weekends for the rest of the year because i'm not expecting it to be close to warm enough. but, i'm hoping i can get some more normal nights in, with shows that are a little closer to the border, and for bands that i actually legitimately want to actually see. i'll get a short list up soon.
if i go anywhere this week, it looks like it will be centered around the jazz festival. but, it's not obvious that that will actually happen. i've never seen stanley clarke, but...i doubt he even can play that old stuff any more. i'll make space for it, if i go over for something else, though. i might be looking more at next week to start.
i didn't even really do a proper sort over the last week or so. i stopped at last thursday, and then found myself listening to music from 2013 over the last week. i just decided that it was too cold out to bother and that was that. and, i actually wanted to get much more of this done than i have. ugh. it's really, truly been completely wasted.
i kept telling myself that i'd get this finished and then (...). but i've just spent the time ranting and haven't finished anything. it happens sometimes, i know that. i need to get to the next step, now.
in fairness, it *was* cold last friday & saturday, but it hasn't been that bad the last few days, although it was a little bit rainy monday and tuesday. did i miss something? i doubt it, but i'll have time to sort over it, backward, eventually.
i was honestly just in a rut.
for right now, i'm sorting through september as a month, rather than just focusing on this week. as mentioned, i'm not going to be looking at crazy weekends for the rest of the year because i'm not expecting it to be close to warm enough. but, i'm hoping i can get some more normal nights in, with shows that are a little closer to the border, and for bands that i actually legitimately want to actually see. i'll get a short list up soon.
if i go anywhere this week, it looks like it will be centered around the jazz festival. but, it's not obvious that that will actually happen. i've never seen stanley clarke, but...i doubt he even can play that old stuff any more. i'll make space for it, if i go over for something else, though. i might be looking more at next week to start.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
i mean, there's this kind of cultural misunderstanding of contract law, as borne out in decades worth of hollywood film.
"did you read the fine print?"
but, it's a nineteenth century concept of law, it's not reality, and it hasn't been since before the emancipation proclamation. there's all kinds of rules about what can and can't be inside legal contracts, and judges rip them up all of the time.
you can't sell yourself into slavery.
and, you can't consent to much, as a child.
"did you read the fine print?"
but, it's a nineteenth century concept of law, it's not reality, and it hasn't been since before the emancipation proclamation. there's all kinds of rules about what can and can't be inside legal contracts, and judges rip them up all of the time.
you can't sell yourself into slavery.
and, you can't consent to much, as a child.
what i'm saying is that there's a pretty good chance that a judge might look at the situation and say something like:
"sure, she signed it away. it's true. and, the law let her do it. but, she was a child, and how can a child consent? what legality is there in a law such as this?
what should have happened is that the adults in the room should have realized that they had an obligation to do what was in her best interests, which was create a trust in her name that she could access at a certain age, because she wrote these songs and they must belong to her.
so, i therefore rule that the fiduciary obligation of the parties overpowers the existing contract, and give her the rights to her own songs."
and, because she's taylor swift, it just might work.
and, there's a really positive upside to this, as well: if she can get a judge to make that ruling, and it can withhold a few appeals, it will become the new legal reality. so, it will stop people from preying on child artists in the future - they will be legally required by precedent to carry through with their fiduciary obligations.
"sure, she signed it away. it's true. and, the law let her do it. but, she was a child, and how can a child consent? what legality is there in a law such as this?
what should have happened is that the adults in the room should have realized that they had an obligation to do what was in her best interests, which was create a trust in her name that she could access at a certain age, because she wrote these songs and they must belong to her.
so, i therefore rule that the fiduciary obligation of the parties overpowers the existing contract, and give her the rights to her own songs."
and, because she's taylor swift, it just might work.
and, there's a really positive upside to this, as well: if she can get a judge to make that ruling, and it can withhold a few appeals, it will become the new legal reality. so, it will stop people from preying on child artists in the future - they will be legally required by precedent to carry through with their fiduciary obligations.
hey, i'm an advocate of self-ownership all around. but, i'm an artist, too. i'm in support of people owning their own songs, certainly.
if she was 14 or 15 or 16, she would have needed to use some kind of power of attorney, and essentially relied on a concept of fiduciary obligation. they should have put the rights for her into a trust that she could gain access to as she aged. that they didn't would be a breach of the fiduciary obligation they had to her.
this is an over-simplification, of course. and, i don't know the relevant case law. but, given the context, it's worth taking a shot at this - because she could get a novel ruling.
if she was 14 or 15 or 16, she would have needed to use some kind of power of attorney, and essentially relied on a concept of fiduciary obligation. they should have put the rights for her into a trust that she could gain access to as she aged. that they didn't would be a breach of the fiduciary obligation they had to her.
this is an over-simplification, of course. and, i don't know the relevant case law. but, given the context, it's worth taking a shot at this - because she could get a novel ruling.
i'm reminded of the time that michael jackson bought out the rights to paul mccartney's work. and, he wasn't happy about it.
taylor has something going for her, here: she was a minor. that means her rights to consent are questionable.
i think she should sue.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/arts/music/taylor-swift-rerecord-albums.html
taylor has something going for her, here: she was a minor. that means her rights to consent are questionable.
i think she should sue.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/22/arts/music/taylor-swift-rerecord-albums.html
The study found that genetically related people tend to be similar in
their behavior, which tells us that sexuality has influences buried
somewhere in the DNA.
no, it doesn't - because genetically related people tend to share conditioning as a consequence of being from similar, or the same, families. it baffles me that this assumption is still kicking around, all over the place.
i've been clear for years that i think you want to look more to pavlov than mendel if you want to understand this, which isn't even to suggest "nurture", as though it's something that is taught. the plotline to gravity's rainbow is a kind of a twisted joke, but i actually think he got the right idea about it. the result is that sexuality occurs mostly by accident, mostly by chance.
but, at the end of the day, i also think there's a choice involved - and i do think we can control our conditioning if we want to, although i think it's immoral to enforce it.
they point out that people want to resist a genetic explanation because they don't want to be clinicized, and i think this is a valid point, but i'm ultimately more interested in what the truth of the matter is. the flip side of the debate is that people want to insist on biology as the answer so they can get around religious objections, but this is a bad argument because it shouldn't actually matter what religion says in the first place.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/opinion/genetics-sexual-orientation-study.html
no, it doesn't - because genetically related people tend to share conditioning as a consequence of being from similar, or the same, families. it baffles me that this assumption is still kicking around, all over the place.
i've been clear for years that i think you want to look more to pavlov than mendel if you want to understand this, which isn't even to suggest "nurture", as though it's something that is taught. the plotline to gravity's rainbow is a kind of a twisted joke, but i actually think he got the right idea about it. the result is that sexuality occurs mostly by accident, mostly by chance.
but, at the end of the day, i also think there's a choice involved - and i do think we can control our conditioning if we want to, although i think it's immoral to enforce it.
they point out that people want to resist a genetic explanation because they don't want to be clinicized, and i think this is a valid point, but i'm ultimately more interested in what the truth of the matter is. the flip side of the debate is that people want to insist on biology as the answer so they can get around religious objections, but this is a bad argument because it shouldn't actually matter what religion says in the first place.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/opinion/genetics-sexual-orientation-study.html
and, let's make sure we understand this, too.
this isn't about christians v muslims.
christianity is dead and buried in europe. and it's not coming back from the dead - there will be no zombie jesus ransacking the european parliament.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/report-shows-highest-percentage-of-atheists-in-former-east-germany-a-828526.html
this isn't about christians v muslims.
christianity is dead and buried in europe. and it's not coming back from the dead - there will be no zombie jesus ransacking the european parliament.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/report-shows-highest-percentage-of-atheists-in-former-east-germany-a-828526.html
like i say, this is tricky.
because i want them to organize and represent themselves, if they are here....that is, i don't want an apolitical mass of recent immigrants, i want them to participate....and, yet, i know i'll end up fighting against them if they do.
harmonious multiculturalism is just a burkean conservative fantasy reality. their religion is going to guide their politics, and i'm going to end up on the other side of it - if not brutally targeted by it.
so, what we're left with is two choices: either try very hard to pull them away from their faith and identity and all of the oppression and hate that comes with it, or put up barriers to entry. once again: what doesn't work is laissez-faire neo-liberalism on immigration policy.
in canada, the population is still quite small. we can talk about spending more money on integration, still. in gemany, they let the issue get out of hand, and it's created a mess.
the first step is for the political establishment to take responsibility for creating the problem via insufficient attention to integration programs.
because i want them to organize and represent themselves, if they are here....that is, i don't want an apolitical mass of recent immigrants, i want them to participate....and, yet, i know i'll end up fighting against them if they do.
harmonious multiculturalism is just a burkean conservative fantasy reality. their religion is going to guide their politics, and i'm going to end up on the other side of it - if not brutally targeted by it.
so, what we're left with is two choices: either try very hard to pull them away from their faith and identity and all of the oppression and hate that comes with it, or put up barriers to entry. once again: what doesn't work is laissez-faire neo-liberalism on immigration policy.
in canada, the population is still quite small. we can talk about spending more money on integration, still. in gemany, they let the issue get out of hand, and it's created a mess.
the first step is for the political establishment to take responsibility for creating the problem via insufficient attention to integration programs.
and, i don't want you to misunderstand my points.
muslims are people, too. so, they are entitled to all of the same civil rights i'd give to everybody else, including rights of due process and even freedom of assembly. and, i'm certainly not advocating physically removing their clothing - they deserve bodily autonomy, like anybody else.
but, where i draw the line - and what makes me different than a conservative - is that i reject the idea of "religious rights", and am especially vocal about it when religious belief comes into conflict with other rights. while i insist that i am consistent about this, that i am merely applying the same standards to muslims that i apply to christians and jews, i also recognize that there are differences of scale, because, in the world we live in today, islam poses us challenges that the other religions don't pose us, or at least don't pose us anymore, or at least don't pose us right now.
so, i do not think that you have the right to oppress people because your religion says it, whatever your religion, and whoever you're oppressing.
further, because my end goal is secularization rather than multiculturalism, i am willing to support policies that slow down the rate of immigration for the benefit of social cohesion - partly because i realize that the other alternative is a lot worse.
if forced with a binary choice between (1) living in a society where religious muslims are participating in the political process and potentially fighting for laws that uphold their beliefs while challenging the secular nature of the state and (2) not having any muslims at all, i would find the second option more appealing. see, this is the trick - i ultimately don't particularly care what the people around me think or believe, but i really don't want to have to deal with fighting them off in the political arena, because i've spent the better part of my life fighting off christians, and kind of want to leave that behind and move on. it's deflating to find yourself victorious in the battle between secularism and religion, only to have your own side cave in by bringing your enemy all of these fresh recruits.
reality is not a binary choice such as this; this is a thought experiment. but, it demonstrates where the limits of tolerance exist, and where the actual fears lie. because, in the end, i'm not going to obey their laws. and, of course they're legitimate - because any sizeable group should be politically represented, as well.
as mentioned, the ideal is to let them come and then convince them to abandon their faith when they get here. but, that means that we need to have programs designed to integrate them, and it means that the rate of immigration cannot be so large as to overwhelm them. there are legitimate questions around both of these things, today, here in front of us.
muslims are people, too. so, they are entitled to all of the same civil rights i'd give to everybody else, including rights of due process and even freedom of assembly. and, i'm certainly not advocating physically removing their clothing - they deserve bodily autonomy, like anybody else.
but, where i draw the line - and what makes me different than a conservative - is that i reject the idea of "religious rights", and am especially vocal about it when religious belief comes into conflict with other rights. while i insist that i am consistent about this, that i am merely applying the same standards to muslims that i apply to christians and jews, i also recognize that there are differences of scale, because, in the world we live in today, islam poses us challenges that the other religions don't pose us, or at least don't pose us anymore, or at least don't pose us right now.
so, i do not think that you have the right to oppress people because your religion says it, whatever your religion, and whoever you're oppressing.
further, because my end goal is secularization rather than multiculturalism, i am willing to support policies that slow down the rate of immigration for the benefit of social cohesion - partly because i realize that the other alternative is a lot worse.
if forced with a binary choice between (1) living in a society where religious muslims are participating in the political process and potentially fighting for laws that uphold their beliefs while challenging the secular nature of the state and (2) not having any muslims at all, i would find the second option more appealing. see, this is the trick - i ultimately don't particularly care what the people around me think or believe, but i really don't want to have to deal with fighting them off in the political arena, because i've spent the better part of my life fighting off christians, and kind of want to leave that behind and move on. it's deflating to find yourself victorious in the battle between secularism and religion, only to have your own side cave in by bringing your enemy all of these fresh recruits.
reality is not a binary choice such as this; this is a thought experiment. but, it demonstrates where the limits of tolerance exist, and where the actual fears lie. because, in the end, i'm not going to obey their laws. and, of course they're legitimate - because any sizeable group should be politically represented, as well.
as mentioned, the ideal is to let them come and then convince them to abandon their faith when they get here. but, that means that we need to have programs designed to integrate them, and it means that the rate of immigration cannot be so large as to overwhelm them. there are legitimate questions around both of these things, today, here in front of us.
yeah, i don't think there's any value in seeing life as sacred or unmodifiable or something. i don't even know exactly what the argument is; it just seems reactionary, either way. it's a very conservative position, which is kind of uncharacteristic for this county.
i wouldn't just support liberalizing these laws. i would argue for substantial public funding into the field.
https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/gene-editing-in-canada
i wouldn't just support liberalizing these laws. i would argue for substantial public funding into the field.
https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/gene-editing-in-canada
the thing about these guys is that they won't tell anybody what they're actually doing. so, it's fashionable amongst science-y types to just write it off as nonsense, but that's actually not very rigorous. the more science-y approach is to point out that they can't be analyzed, so we can't know whether what they're doing makes any sense or not. that's fundamentally different from a clairvoyant or a fortune teller, or even a magician, where we can break it down and explain how it works.
they might have a great scientific model. they probably don't. but...
that said, i don't think that this is something that public dollars should be funding reports on, either. cbc should really be embarrassed for running a story like this.
can somebody at wikileaks or somebody get this out there so we can figure it out?
my analysis is not based on a secret formula, and i don't have a crystal ball, so i'm not trying to predict the future. i'm just looking at broad trends around the solar cycle, and what are at this point quite rigorous correlations from ancient ice core tree ring samples.
we are bottoming out right now. so, that means that the conditions for a very cold winter do in fact exist. but, we can also be sure of something else: things will be getting better, soon. the cycle will be clicking back in, and when it does we should expect it to get very, very hot and very, very fast.
so, i'm going to split the difference with their secret wisdom. i'm expecting an early fall, and a brutal start to winter, yes - in this part of the world. it may be very different elsewhere. i'm not talking about global average temperatures, i'm talking about local weather.
but, i think there's a lot of uncertainty around what happens at the beginning of the upcoming year.
if the bottoming out clicks in, and gets stuck for a long time, we could indeed have a late spring and one more shitty summer before it flips back over. but, none of us should have any kind of confidence in that actually happening. given that we don't actually understand the physics of this - all we have is an observed pattern - it's actually just as likely that the cycle could click back in very hard. and, we would then want to expect an early spring and a scorching summer.
so, we should expect to get hit early, but we should also have some hope that this is the end of it for a good while. and, we should get ready to exit this little blip we're in, and be prepared for a much warmer future, as it is coming. soon.
so, we might have one more crappy spring left. or we might not.
it'll be clearer what's going on as we get closer to the solstice.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/farmers-almanac-winter-1.5262555
they might have a great scientific model. they probably don't. but...
that said, i don't think that this is something that public dollars should be funding reports on, either. cbc should really be embarrassed for running a story like this.
can somebody at wikileaks or somebody get this out there so we can figure it out?
my analysis is not based on a secret formula, and i don't have a crystal ball, so i'm not trying to predict the future. i'm just looking at broad trends around the solar cycle, and what are at this point quite rigorous correlations from ancient
we are bottoming out right now. so, that means that the conditions for a very cold winter do in fact exist. but, we can also be sure of something else: things will be getting better, soon. the cycle will be clicking back in, and when it does we should expect it to get very, very hot and very, very fast.
so, i'm going to split the difference with their secret wisdom. i'm expecting an early fall, and a brutal start to winter, yes - in this part of the world. it may be very different elsewhere. i'm not talking about global average temperatures, i'm talking about local weather.
but, i think there's a lot of uncertainty around what happens at the beginning of the upcoming year.
if the bottoming out clicks in, and gets stuck for a long time, we could indeed have a late spring and one more shitty summer before it flips back over. but, none of us should have any kind of confidence in that actually happening. given that we don't actually understand the physics of this - all we have is an observed pattern - it's actually just as likely that the cycle could click back in very hard. and, we would then want to expect an early spring and a scorching summer.
so, we should expect to get hit early, but we should also have some hope that this is the end of it for a good while. and, we should get ready to exit this little blip we're in, and be prepared for a much warmer future, as it is coming. soon.
so, we might have one more crappy spring left. or we might not.
it'll be clearer what's going on as we get closer to the solstice.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/farmers-almanac-winter-1.5262555
like, she wanted me there when she was giving birth. i didn't go, i felt it was not my place. but she invited me repeatedly and was a little upset when i didn't go.
but, it didn't prevent her from peeing with the door open when i did come over.
like, up to five years after we broke up.
she just really doesn't like the idea of me being on hormones. that's all. and, when she admits it, things will get better. i just hope it doesn't take another ten years...
but, it didn't prevent her from peeing with the door open when i did come over.
like, up to five years after we broke up.
she just really doesn't like the idea of me being on hormones. that's all. and, when she admits it, things will get better. i just hope it doesn't take another ten years...
it's the same thing with the bans on the headscarves at work.
if you see that as an attack on a minority group, i can understand why you might oppose it. but, i rather see it as a way to prevent a repressive system from attacking actual repressed minorities - and people that are pushing back against it as upholding a system of oppression.
we can have definitional debates all day, right?
but, i'd ask you to sit down and be honest about it.
muslims, like jews, and east asians, are actually a pretty well-off group. the data's pretty clear on that point. and, islam is a pretty shitty system, too - all you need to do to realize that is to educate yourself about it.
if you see that as an attack on a minority group, i can understand why you might oppose it. but, i rather see it as a way to prevent a repressive system from attacking actual repressed minorities - and people that are pushing back against it as upholding a system of oppression.
we can have definitional debates all day, right?
but, i'd ask you to sit down and be honest about it.
muslims, like jews, and east asians, are actually a pretty well-off group. the data's pretty clear on that point. and, islam is a pretty shitty system, too - all you need to do to realize that is to educate yourself about it.
it's ultimately a definitional question.
i'm not interpreting muslims as a repressed minority; if i did, i might see the situation differently. queers are a repressed minority, certainly. native americans are. african-americans are. i tend to stand with them, against the systems that repress them. but, muslims, like other asian groups, actually tend to do fairly well. who is oppressing the muslims?
rather, i'm interpreting islam as a system of repressive rules that wants to oppress people. like christianity. or capitalism. or, yes, fascism. so, i'm pushing back against the ideology on that level - this is a system that wants to hurt people.
to draw an equivalence between queers and muslims would consequently be to draw a parallel between the oppressed and the oppressors. and, i won't do that.
because i'm not phishing for votes.
i'm not interpreting muslims as a repressed minority; if i did, i might see the situation differently. queers are a repressed minority, certainly. native americans are. african-americans are. i tend to stand with them, against the systems that repress them. but, muslims, like other asian groups, actually tend to do fairly well. who is oppressing the muslims?
rather, i'm interpreting islam as a system of repressive rules that wants to oppress people. like christianity. or capitalism. or, yes, fascism. so, i'm pushing back against the ideology on that level - this is a system that wants to hurt people.
to draw an equivalence between queers and muslims would consequently be to draw a parallel between the oppressed and the oppressors. and, i won't do that.
because i'm not phishing for votes.
why?
because queer rights are a civil rights issue - these are positive rights.
but, tolerating islam is about turning a blind eye to civil rights due to cultural relativism, it's allowing them to uphold their systems of oppression via these processes of intellectual acrobatics. that's what you're tolerating.
because queer rights are a civil rights issue - these are positive rights.
but, tolerating islam is about turning a blind eye to civil rights due to cultural relativism, it's allowing them to uphold their systems of oppression via these processes of intellectual acrobatics. that's what you're tolerating.
and, no - i'm not going to retract....concerns....about the legitimacy of the last election in ontario.
i don't want to do the research right now and find the sources - i'm too far behind on what i'm doing - but i will draw your attention to the curious fact that ford's approval rating a few months after he was elected was essentially the same as his approval rating a few months before he was elected.
if you were to collect this data and graph it, you'd get this weird normal curve, or parabola, depending on your analogy.
so, we're left with two ways to analyze the situation.
1) ford managed to dramatically increase his popularity exactly where and when he needed to, and then lost all the support he somehow gained immediately after he gained it.
2) bullllllshiiiiiiit.
given that he brought in the same people that were accused of doing this in the 2011 federal election, and it happened in the same places, i'm leaning towards 2).
and, i wonder.
what are these guys up to just right now, anyways?
i don't want to do the research right now and find the sources - i'm too far behind on what i'm doing - but i will draw your attention to the curious fact that ford's approval rating a few months after he was elected was essentially the same as his approval rating a few months before he was elected.
if you were to collect this data and graph it, you'd get this weird normal curve, or parabola, depending on your analogy.
so, we're left with two ways to analyze the situation.
1) ford managed to dramatically increase his popularity exactly where and when he needed to, and then lost all the support he somehow gained immediately after he gained it.
2) bullllllshiiiiiiit.
given that he brought in the same people that were accused of doing this in the 2011 federal election, and it happened in the same places, i'm leaning towards 2).
and, i wonder.
what are these guys up to just right now, anyways?
like, i just want to...
he smokes with the windows closed, and the shades drawn. he stays inside for days at a time. i see a stray butt here and there outside, but i can't prove anything. i'd have to do something stupid to get in and take a picture or something, and i'm obviously not going to.
it's just an absolutely absurd situation.
but, at least the gas is clearing out. before he lit up, all i could smell down here was the orange air fresheners. it was a pleasant change.
he smokes with the windows closed, and the shades drawn. he stays inside for days at a time. i see a stray butt here and there outside, but i can't prove anything. i'd have to do something stupid to get in and take a picture or something, and i'm obviously not going to.
it's just an absolutely absurd situation.
but, at least the gas is clearing out. before he lit up, all i could smell down here was the orange air fresheners. it was a pleasant change.
i want to stand with the people that are trying to get out of islam. my solidarity is with the apostates. fully. unwaveringly. that leads me to a position where i shouldn't oppose immigration itself, so much as i should actively work to convert muslims to atheism when they get here. and, in practice, that's how i actually act.
but, i know enough to be mindful of the possibilities of muslim voting blocs, and the threats they may pose to freedom in a secular democracy. and, at the end of the day, the people will speak, and when they do they must be listened to.
it's a careful line to walk.
and, it would be very helpful if the more responsible parties would take more responsible positions.
but, i know enough to be mindful of the possibilities of muslim voting blocs, and the threats they may pose to freedom in a secular democracy. and, at the end of the day, the people will speak, and when they do they must be listened to.
it's a careful line to walk.
and, it would be very helpful if the more responsible parties would take more responsible positions.
and, it's not a question of tolerating queers, either.
there's nothing wrong with being queer. what are you tolerating, exactly? consensual sex? that's not tolerance, it's the absence of oppression.
i mean, it's like saying that letting women vote is being tolerant. it's an abuse of language.
with islam, the language is properly defined, and you're talking about tolerating this huge list of things that are actually illegal in virtually every liberal democracy. you're talking about turning a blind eye to basic human rights for entire classes of people. i know that the newspeak is increasingly being indoctrinated, but it's incredibly challenging from an intellectual standpoint; we want the laws to be universal, to apply to everybody, to be void of these exceptions that harm people. and, it's a struggle to come face to face with it, and turn away from it, often on a daily basis.
there's nothing wrong with being queer. what are you tolerating, exactly? consensual sex? that's not tolerance, it's the absence of oppression.
i mean, it's like saying that letting women vote is being tolerant. it's an abuse of language.
with islam, the language is properly defined, and you're talking about tolerating this huge list of things that are actually illegal in virtually every liberal democracy. you're talking about turning a blind eye to basic human rights for entire classes of people. i know that the newspeak is increasingly being indoctrinated, but it's incredibly challenging from an intellectual standpoint; we want the laws to be universal, to apply to everybody, to be void of these exceptions that harm people. and, it's a struggle to come face to face with it, and turn away from it, often on a daily basis.
one of the non-crazy parties in germany (in france, in the uk) needs to run on a platform of decreasing immigration from countries with right-wing value systems.
this game of chicken that they're playing is running it's course. and, somebody's going to get killed.
the people are speaking. and, the rulers need to listen.
this game of chicken that they're playing is running it's course. and, somebody's going to get killed.
the people are speaking. and, the rulers need to listen.
well, what would the saudis do if five million german techno deutsche bags showed up out of nowhere and decided to party outside the mosque in mecca?
"c'mon, barbie, let's go party..."
the end result would probably look a lot like a concentration camp.
the germans have an opportunity to demonstrate that they've evolved a little, but i'm not interested in jumping around the fundamental point. i think they have a right to self-determination, and in a non-colonial society like germany, that could very well mean putting up walls and telling people they just really aren't welcome there.
because they really might not be.
and, they don't have an obligation to get colonized.
now, i know - it's a fraction of the population. it's not a horde of muslims, banging on the gates of vienna - or at least not yet.
but, the mainstream narrative needs to adjust itself to the reality of the situation, which is that there's an integration problem, and this keeps happening over and over again for a reason: islam is a very difficult culture to be tolerant of because it crosses lines that arguably shouldn't be tolerated.
"c'mon, barbie, let's go party..."
the end result would probably look a lot like a concentration camp.
the germans have an opportunity to demonstrate that they've evolved a little, but i'm not interested in jumping around the fundamental point. i think they have a right to self-determination, and in a non-colonial society like germany, that could very well mean putting up walls and telling people they just really aren't welcome there.
because they really might not be.
and, they don't have an obligation to get colonized.
now, i know - it's a fraction of the population. it's not a horde of muslims, banging on the gates of vienna - or at least not yet.
but, the mainstream narrative needs to adjust itself to the reality of the situation, which is that there's an integration problem, and this keeps happening over and over again for a reason: islam is a very difficult culture to be tolerant of because it crosses lines that arguably shouldn't be tolerated.
google threw this at me. i didn't look for it. i guess i recently posted about journalism, and about the hell's (in the rebuild), and it constructed it for me via the magic of algorithms. great.
but, it's an interesting thing to watch re: the question of google stealing profits from journalists.
i guess what's underlying this, really, is a question of a division of labour. and, i suppose a fast way to summarize my position is to simply state that the accounting process is so reductionist, so difficult to calculate, that doing so is virtually impossible. and, again: that's a standard position on the left.
i think i'd expect warren to push through a policy based on a reductionist concept of the division of labour. sanders, less so.
but, it's an interesting thing to watch re: the question of google stealing profits from journalists.
i guess what's underlying this, really, is a question of a division of labour. and, i suppose a fast way to summarize my position is to simply state that the accounting process is so reductionist, so difficult to calculate, that doing so is virtually impossible. and, again: that's a standard position on the left.
i think i'd expect warren to push through a policy based on a reductionist concept of the division of labour. sanders, less so.
i mean, there's a reason i can have all of these debates.
i went to school for a very long time, and i studied a lot of things.
- math
- math-physics
- math-economics
- computer science (and math-comp courses)
- law
also: courses in english, biology (and some math-bio, but mostly in game theory), music, history, philosophy, psychology...
philosophy is another course with big overlaps with math, but i'm mostly self-taught / dabbling on that front. it's an experiential thing, though. like, math and physics and comp. sci profs will tell you stories about liebniz or newton or descartes or whatever. you don't get credits for it, or get quizzed on it, but it's a part of the process.
i went to school for a very long time, and i studied a lot of things.
- math
- math-physics
- math-economics
- computer science (and math-comp courses)
- law
also: courses in english, biology (and some math-bio, but mostly in game theory), music, history, philosophy, psychology...
philosophy is another course with big overlaps with math, but i'm mostly self-taught / dabbling on that front. it's an experiential thing, though. like, math and physics and comp. sci profs will tell you stories about liebniz or newton or descartes or whatever. you don't get credits for it, or get quizzed on it, but it's a part of the process.
having a math degree means you take a lot of interdisciplinary courses that also count as credits in other fields, like physics and economics. and, as such, i would also qualify for a number of minors, almost by accident. i'd have to look into it to be comprehensive, but i know i have enough for physics and economics, to be sure.
but, i mean, voting for a republican is not an option for me, and can't be. it's more like that i'd end up voting green, with the understanding that it would help the republicans win, and either be apathetic about it, or actively hoping for it.
there are obvious reasons why i can't support them, directly.
there are obvious reasons why i can't support them, directly.
so, these studies and polls that are trying to...
the premise is that people are voting for things they believe in, that they actively support. and, i think that is wrong.
it is probably the case that most trump voters did some kind of calculation that led them to conclude that he wasn't as bad as clinton, rather than found some kind of policy that they actively supported. and, it is likewise the case that most clinton supporters were mostly acting out of fear at what trump would do if he were to actually win.
the premise is that people are voting for things they believe in, that they actively support. and, i think that is wrong.
it is probably the case that most trump voters did some kind of calculation that led them to conclude that he wasn't as bad as clinton, rather than found some kind of policy that they actively supported. and, it is likewise the case that most clinton supporters were mostly acting out of fear at what trump would do if he were to actually win.
in hindsight, the biggest measurable differences are twofold.
1) trump has been terrible on the climate. clinton may not have been very good, but trump is clearly worse. i think that much is not controversial.
2) trump has been better on foreign policy, clearly. it wasn't clear how he'd govern - he said a lot of things that didn't make sense. but, he's largely withdrawn from syria, which is good. and, he's mostly avoided starting new wars anywhere. clinton was crystal clear that she would have been far more aggressive in using force.
obviously, you want an option that is better than either - you want a better climate policy than trump's, and a better foreign policy than clinton's. but, that didn't exist, or at least not in the form of a major candidate.
and, if we're debating which is worse for the planet in the long run, it's not an easy answer; they're both bad, granted, but somebody has to govern.
1) trump has been terrible on the climate. clinton may not have been very good, but trump is clearly worse. i think that much is not controversial.
2) trump has been better on foreign policy, clearly. it wasn't clear how he'd govern - he said a lot of things that didn't make sense. but, he's largely withdrawn from syria, which is good. and, he's mostly avoided starting new wars anywhere. clinton was crystal clear that she would have been far more aggressive in using force.
obviously, you want an option that is better than either - you want a better climate policy than trump's, and a better foreign policy than clinton's. but, that didn't exist, or at least not in the form of a major candidate.
and, if we're debating which is worse for the planet in the long run, it's not an easy answer; they're both bad, granted, but somebody has to govern.
obviously, i don't like the options on the table very much: i neither like clinton nor trump. i didn't want either to win. but, one of them was going to...
and, in weighing lesser evils, i do not think that trump comes off nearly as poorly as others would suggest - or, in hindsight, that clinton would have offered much of an actual improvement.
if you actually look at the evidence, clinton's positions are largely aligned with trump's on the vast majority of topics that he's criticized for the most loudly. so, if you're angry about immigration, it's not clear that clinton would have been more to your liking. if you're angry about abortion, it's not clear that clinton would have been more to your liking. etc.
and, in weighing lesser evils, i do not think that trump comes off nearly as poorly as others would suggest - or, in hindsight, that clinton would have offered much of an actual improvement.
if you actually look at the evidence, clinton's positions are largely aligned with trump's on the vast majority of topics that he's criticized for the most loudly. so, if you're angry about immigration, it's not clear that clinton would have been more to your liking. if you're angry about abortion, it's not clear that clinton would have been more to your liking. etc.
as mentioned: i don't exactly think that trump has had a good presidency.
but, i don't think he's had a horrible one, either. i would rather rank him in the middle of the pack over the last fifty years - he's been about average.
he's not as bad as either bush, he's not as bad as nixon and he's not as bad as reagan. and, he's about a coin toss with the clinton that actually governed.
i understand that, if you want to run against him, you want to exaggerate how bad he is. and, he'll do the same thing in reverse, too. but, the fact is that the economy is not so bad right now, and he hasn't started any wars - low bars, granted, but relevant in a reality where his immediate predecessors were pretty shitty.
but, i don't think he's had a horrible one, either. i would rather rank him in the middle of the pack over the last fifty years - he's been about average.
he's not as bad as either bush, he's not as bad as nixon and he's not as bad as reagan. and, he's about a coin toss with the clinton that actually governed.
i understand that, if you want to run against him, you want to exaggerate how bad he is. and, he'll do the same thing in reverse, too. but, the fact is that the economy is not so bad right now, and he hasn't started any wars - low bars, granted, but relevant in a reality where his immediate predecessors were pretty shitty.
so, to be clear.
- i do not want to be a mathematician.
- i do not want to be a computer scientist.
- i do not want to be a lawyer.
- i do not want to be a politician.
- i do not want to be a school teacher.
- i do want to be a (studio) musician.
- i do want to be a blogger.
- i do want to be a polemicist.
- i do want to be a social activist.
- i don't care if i have money or wealth or status or family.
- i do care if i have a safe, healthy environment to create in.
- i do not want to be a mathematician.
- i do not want to be a computer scientist.
- i do not want to be a lawyer.
- i do not want to be a politician.
- i do not want to be a school teacher.
- i do want to be a (studio) musician.
- i do want to be a blogger.
- i do want to be a polemicist.
- i do want to be a social activist.
- i don't care if i have money or wealth or status or family.
- i do care if i have a safe, healthy environment to create in.
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
i graduated with a four year honours degree in mathematics in 2006. it's neither a b. sc nor a b.a. but a b. mathematics.
i went back to school from 2008-2010 to complete a similar 4-year degree in computer science, which would have been a b. sc., and because i had a lot of overlap from the previous degree, i walked away with 19.5/20 credits towards that goal. i decided, in the end, that i did not want to work in the industry.
during my second stint, i also brought my number of math credits at the graduate level up to more than enough than is required to earn a masters degree in mathematics. however, i neither registered for this program, nor applied for the degree. i had decided long ago that i did not want to work as a mathematician, in any context.
rather, i went back for three further semesters over 2012-2013 and in the process completed the requirements for a three-year b.a. in the sociology of law. this is not law school, and i was not training to be a lawyer. rather, they were undergraduate courses in case law (civil and criminal), as well as in constitutional law. i decided a third time that i did not want to work in this field.
i am a white person with a university degree, and then some.
i do not believe that i have ever made more than 20,000/yr, although there was one year where it may have been close or a bit above it. but, i haven't tried very hard, either.
i identify as a struggling artist, and a member of the lumpenproletariat.
i went back to school from 2008-2010 to complete a similar 4-year degree in computer science, which would have been a b. sc., and because i had a lot of overlap from the previous degree, i walked away with 19.5/20 credits towards that goal. i decided, in the end, that i did not want to work in the industry.
during my second stint, i also brought my number of math credits at the graduate level up to more than enough than is required to earn a masters degree in mathematics. however, i neither registered for this program, nor applied for the degree. i had decided long ago that i did not want to work as a mathematician, in any context.
rather, i went back for three further semesters over 2012-2013 and in the process completed the requirements for a three-year b.a. in the sociology of law. this is not law school, and i was not training to be a lawyer. rather, they were undergraduate courses in case law (civil and criminal), as well as in constitutional law. i decided a third time that i did not want to work in this field.
i am a white person with a university degree, and then some.
i do not believe that i have ever made more than 20,000/yr, although there was one year where it may have been close or a bit above it. but, i haven't tried very hard, either.
i identify as a struggling artist, and a member of the lumpenproletariat.
what happens on twitter should stay on twitter.
it is an absolutely miniscule slice of the voting public.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/the-case-of-al-franken
it is an absolutely miniscule slice of the voting public.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/the-case-of-al-franken
i know, i know, steve.
it's your opponents' ideas that are half-baked, not yours. that's your message. i get it.
and, maybe i'm exposing a bias towards people from the geographical area you're from. maybe it's just your accent. maybe it's not your fault.
but, it would really help if you didn't come off the way you do, which is as somebody that has a done a lot of drugs.
it's your opponents' ideas that are half-baked, not yours. that's your message. i get it.
and, maybe i'm exposing a bias towards people from the geographical area you're from. maybe it's just your accent. maybe it's not your fault.
but, it would really help if you didn't come off the way you do, which is as somebody that has a done a lot of drugs.
actually, i want to hope that the germans can figure out how to restrict immigration, subject to what is a growing popular consensus, without resorting to gassing people.
there's a lot of space to operate, between concentration camps and complete amnesty.
but, the mainstream parties need to pull their heads out of their asses.
https://news.yahoo.com/far-vies-lead-german-regional-130010332.html
there's a lot of space to operate, between concentration camps and complete amnesty.
but, the mainstream parties need to pull their heads out of their asses.
https://news.yahoo.com/far-vies-lead-german-regional-130010332.html
ok.
so, we can start talking about how trudeau's foreign policy is harper-redux if you really want.
because it clearly is.
the trudeau campaign seems to literally be intent on repeating every single mistake that hillary clinton made, in an environment where those kinds of errors are likely to be more costly (because we have a multi-party system) rather than less costly.
it underlies the basic point about this government: the people running the country right now are just flat out stupid people. and, i mean the lot of them, all of the staffers and people in the pmo. regardless of what you think about politics, the main focus in the election should really be in finding some way to get rid of, or at least put a check on, the stupid.
so, i have a better way to steal clinton's campaign slogan:
so, we can start talking about how trudeau's foreign policy is harper-redux if you really want.
because it clearly is.
the trudeau campaign seems to literally be intent on repeating every single mistake that hillary clinton made, in an environment where those kinds of errors are likely to be more costly (because we have a multi-party system) rather than less costly.
it underlies the basic point about this government: the people running the country right now are just flat out stupid people. and, i mean the lot of them, all of the staffers and people in the pmo. regardless of what you think about politics, the main focus in the election should really be in finding some way to get rid of, or at least put a check on, the stupid.
so, i have a better way to steal clinton's campaign slogan:
an independent media will be far more robust, far more independent, far more valuable, if you completely remove their dependence on ad revenue than it will be if you try and game the system so they get a bigger cut of it.
it's a weird thing to hear from bernie sanders. it's like he's undoing himself, swallowing himself whole. would he apply the same model to himself? no - he doesn't take money from corporate sources, he operates on crowd funding.
i'm going to have to pay close attention to this, because if this policy was written by who i think it was written by then it's aim is not to promote independent media, but rather to enrich the author. and, that's what i've been saying from day one.
it's a weird thing to hear from bernie sanders. it's like he's undoing himself, swallowing himself whole. would he apply the same model to himself? no - he doesn't take money from corporate sources, he operates on crowd funding.
i'm going to have to pay close attention to this, because if this policy was written by who i think it was written by then it's aim is not to promote independent media, but rather to enrich the author. and, that's what i've been saying from day one.
advertising is a horrific source of revenue. it promotes horrible things, at the expense of user enjoyment. it destroys us, as individuals. it eats away at our brains. it's an awful business model.
i'd much rather hear a candidate tell me that they want to completely ban advertising altogether, even if it's not entirely possible. pander to me that way - don't tell me you're going to share this dirty money around more.
because, i don't want it.
and this is what i do.
just cut me a check and let me do what i want. don't make it dependent on clicks or views. and, don't allow a collectivist system like a market to tell me whether it has value or not.
i'd much rather hear a candidate tell me that they want to completely ban advertising altogether, even if it's not entirely possible. pander to me that way - don't tell me you're going to share this dirty money around more.
because, i don't want it.
and this is what i do.
just cut me a check and let me do what i want. don't make it dependent on clicks or views. and, don't allow a collectivist system like a market to tell me whether it has value or not.
regarding this wang v sanders thing, though.
it's a false debate.
wang claims that his thousand dollars a month will create jobs, which is just silly. the only jobs it's likely to create are federal jobs in sending out the checks. sanders wants a job guarantee, instead, and claims people want to work - as though a thousand dollars a month is offering them any kind of serious way out of employment. it's less than i get on disability, actually, which is currently roughly $1260/month.
and, the ideas are not in contradiction with each other, either. socialism in it's purest state would see these ideas as working together, rather than against each other.
so, post-work anarchists will flip the question on it's head - we'll argue that it is precisely because we want to do meaningful work that we want the escape from market forces that prevent us from doing so. so, i'm not exactly opposed to a federal jobs guarantee - sure, i think that anybody that wants a job should be able to have one - but i am opposed to a system that tells you that you don't have an actual choice in the matter, and that opposition to what the left calls wage slavery is pretty foundational, as well. so, jobs if necessary, but not necessarily jobs (sorry.).
and, this is why it's important to point out that yang actually isn't doing this right. if he was presenting his policy in terms of an actual guaranteed minimum income - rather than a universal handout of what amounts to a pittance - then it wouldn't seem like there was a debate. sanders could present his jobs guarantee for those who want it, and still support minimum living standards for artists and other people that want to get out of the wage system.
i'm a musician, but i do a lot of writing, right? and, i don't want to charge you for this. i don't want to get paid per word. i don't want to sell this to a bourgeois layer. and, i don't want to bother you with stupid advertisements for useless garbage, either. i just want a nice little monthly check that lets me write what i want, when i want and how i want - and then lets me publish it where i want, too.
i understand that i'm not everybody. lots of people want to get up to go to work and get a pay check for it. that's fine. but, lots of people don't...
it's a false debate.
wang claims that his thousand dollars a month will create jobs, which is just silly. the only jobs it's likely to create are federal jobs in sending out the checks. sanders wants a job guarantee, instead, and claims people want to work - as though a thousand dollars a month is offering them any kind of serious way out of employment. it's less than i get on disability, actually, which is currently roughly $1260/month.
and, the ideas are not in contradiction with each other, either. socialism in it's purest state would see these ideas as working together, rather than against each other.
so, post-work anarchists will flip the question on it's head - we'll argue that it is precisely because we want to do meaningful work that we want the escape from market forces that prevent us from doing so. so, i'm not exactly opposed to a federal jobs guarantee - sure, i think that anybody that wants a job should be able to have one - but i am opposed to a system that tells you that you don't have an actual choice in the matter, and that opposition to what the left calls wage slavery is pretty foundational, as well. so, jobs if necessary, but not necessarily jobs (sorry.).
and, this is why it's important to point out that yang actually isn't doing this right. if he was presenting his policy in terms of an actual guaranteed minimum income - rather than a universal handout of what amounts to a pittance - then it wouldn't seem like there was a debate. sanders could present his jobs guarantee for those who want it, and still support minimum living standards for artists and other people that want to get out of the wage system.
i'm a musician, but i do a lot of writing, right? and, i don't want to charge you for this. i don't want to get paid per word. i don't want to sell this to a bourgeois layer. and, i don't want to bother you with stupid advertisements for useless garbage, either. i just want a nice little monthly check that lets me write what i want, when i want and how i want - and then lets me publish it where i want, too.
i understand that i'm not everybody. lots of people want to get up to go to work and get a pay check for it. that's fine. but, lots of people don't...
yeah, it's going to be a few more days before i do any sealing, but i've convinced myself that the smell from the baseboards is real and at least a major secondary source of the problem.
i'm actually convinced that the primary cause of the smell remains lingering effects of the sewer gas. it was pretty intense at the end, but it had lingered for a long time. so, there's a lot of residue in this space, and there's no real solution besides cleaning everything.
i'm clearly having some difficulty focusing but i'm plugging away, too. i should be done; as it is, i'm about a third of the way there. i just need to focus.
i'm actually convinced that the primary cause of the smell remains lingering effects of the sewer gas. it was pretty intense at the end, but it had lingered for a long time. so, there's a lot of residue in this space, and there's no real solution besides cleaning everything.
i'm clearly having some difficulty focusing but i'm plugging away, too. i should be done; as it is, i'm about a third of the way there. i just need to focus.
hey, they're all posting low numbers, but when you add them up, you could get 10-15% in some polls. if they're all gone soon, some of the other candidates might get a bit of a boost.
i should add the caveat: i really hope that steyer doesn't get another poll in, but he probably bought the first three, so it's probably just a question of what's for sale. that's not good for anybody.
gabbard's supporters will probably go to sanders, even though that doesn't make any actual sense. getting rid of her should give bernie a mild bump.
of what's left, williamson, gillibrand and de blasio supporters are probably leaning more towards the leftier side, and perhaps the femalier side for the first two at least, of the remaining field. and, the other five will probably give biden a bump.
so, this is probably the debate stage:
i don't see anything surprising in the results, except maybe klobuchar qualifying. she's come off absolutely terribly in the first two debates. like, dumb, terrible. and, while what yang is calling a universal income actually isn't a universal income at all, it's not hard to understand where's he getting support from; i would nonetheless call on him to stay home. i'm not going to call for castro to stay home, but i do hope it's his last debate. the longer he sticks around on that stage, the more likely he seems to be to force the candidates into awkward positions that they'll have to walk back. he doesn't really have a serious shot at either president or vp at this point.
i would actually like to drag o'rourke around a little while longer. it's curiosity, mostly. and, i think booker belongs in the top tier more than buttigieg does - and would ultimately like to see him overtake harris, who is just digging herself a deeper hole on a daily basis, it seems.
so, it's just the bottom three that i'm questioning the relevancy of, at this point.
i'm essentially proposing a carbon offset, and, as is the general case, the government here is just kind of doing a bit of it, just enough to get the headline it wants.
but, canada is really mostly a giant, uninhabited forest.
yes: we need to keep the tar sands in the ground. and, our per capita use is as bad as anywhere else. but, that's about not making the problem worse.
the biggest thing we can do to actually reverse the problem is to plant as many trees as we possibly can.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-federal-government-pledges-to-spend-15-million-to-restore-ontarios/
but, canada is really mostly a giant, uninhabited forest.
yes: we need to keep the tar sands in the ground. and, our per capita use is as bad as anywhere else. but, that's about not making the problem worse.
the biggest thing we can do to actually reverse the problem is to plant as many trees as we possibly can.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-federal-government-pledges-to-spend-15-million-to-restore-ontarios/
so, putting people in jail for vaping probably isn't the best reaction to this.
but, we don't seem to learn, do we?
i've hit a few thc vapes at parties, not to mention a little bit of shatter, and they definitely hit your lungs in a way that is a bit heavier, a bit different. i hope that they do a proper autopsy and actually figure this out.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5806783/respiratory-illness-vaping-death-health/?utm_source=Homegnca-national&utm_medium=MostPopular&utm_campaign=2014
but, we don't seem to learn, do we?
i've hit a few thc vapes at parties, not to mention a little bit of shatter, and they definitely hit your lungs in a way that is a bit heavier, a bit different. i hope that they do a proper autopsy and actually figure this out.
https://globalnews.ca/news/5806783/respiratory-illness-vaping-death-health/?utm_source=Homegnca-national&utm_medium=MostPopular&utm_campaign=2014
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
and, yes - my views on speech have historically been considered left-wing. i cite chomsky because he's kind of an extremist on the topic. but, he's at the head of a long tradition of leftist thinkers that understood the primacy of speech rights.
it has historically been the right that has sought to limit speech rights, which is why the language that these "antifa" groups use is so frustrating. it's gotten so post-modern as to be post-truth. usually, they're doing it right - they're largely peacefully disrupting meetings taking place in public, which is their right, as a consequence of constitutions in both countries on this continent - but they're talking about and explaining it wrong. so, i could get into abstract debates about the value of speech with them, but it would ultimately be with the intent of having them see that what they're doing is only permitted because of free speech laws, rather than to convince them to do something else. and, i would largely not seek to interrupt their tactics.
obviously, things get a little bit different when we're talking about actual violence. violence does have a place, in context. but, you have to make sure you're actually attacking actual nazis, which aren't exactly a highly populated group at this moment. there are random idiots that are abusing the doctrine of self-defense, but they don't speak for their associated groups, and in many cases are probably undercover cops.
it has historically been the right that has sought to limit speech rights, which is why the language that these "antifa" groups use is so frustrating. it's gotten so post-modern as to be post-truth. usually, they're doing it right - they're largely peacefully disrupting meetings taking place in public, which is their right, as a consequence of constitutions in both countries on this continent - but they're talking about and explaining it wrong. so, i could get into abstract debates about the value of speech with them, but it would ultimately be with the intent of having them see that what they're doing is only permitted because of free speech laws, rather than to convince them to do something else. and, i would largely not seek to interrupt their tactics.
obviously, things get a little bit different when we're talking about actual violence. violence does have a place, in context. but, you have to make sure you're actually attacking actual nazis, which aren't exactly a highly populated group at this moment. there are random idiots that are abusing the doctrine of self-defense, but they don't speak for their associated groups, and in many cases are probably undercover cops.
so, hate speech is free speech, subject to specific caveats regarding threats and libel. there has to be at least some pretense to honesty, and attempts to materially harm or intimidate need to be kept in check.
but free speech doesn't imply the right to be heard, and it doesn't imply the right to run your mouth off without consequences for it.
so, the way this is supposed to work is that when people take the mic (in public spaces. this doesn't hold for private property.) and say things that the community doesn't want said, then they get shouted down and run out of town.
what our laws and traditions state is that the government has no role to play in regulating speech, unless somebody is under actual threat of legitimate harm.
but free speech doesn't imply the right to be heard, and it doesn't imply the right to run your mouth off without consequences for it.
so, the way this is supposed to work is that when people take the mic (in public spaces. this doesn't hold for private property.) and say things that the community doesn't want said, then they get shouted down and run out of town.
what our laws and traditions state is that the government has no role to play in regulating speech, unless somebody is under actual threat of legitimate harm.
it is generally the case with the discourse around speech nowadays that neither side of the discussion understands what they're talking about.
so, when forced to take a side between these antifa-type groups and these libertarian-right type groups, i will very rarely do so. it is usually the case that they're both hopelessly wrong, because neither of them understand the basic legal issues at hand.
abstractly speaking, i'm more with chomsky on issues of the sort: the most important speech to protect is the least popular speech. the way to defeat fascism is not to censor it but to deconstruct it, which is what a group like antifa is actually doing (whether they realize it or not). and, in fact, the government rarely intervenes in these cases, so there's rarely an actual speech issue to defend, despite what the libertarian-right groups might claim.
it is usually the case that if an issue to criticize arises then it is when the police are unconstitutionally called in to stop the protestors, who then have their speech rights violated, and who don't seem to understand the irony of it.
so, when forced to take a side between these antifa-type groups and these libertarian-right type groups, i will very rarely do so. it is usually the case that they're both hopelessly wrong, because neither of them understand the basic legal issues at hand.
abstractly speaking, i'm more with chomsky on issues of the sort: the most important speech to protect is the least popular speech. the way to defeat fascism is not to censor it but to deconstruct it, which is what a group like antifa is actually doing (whether they realize it or not). and, in fact, the government rarely intervenes in these cases, so there's rarely an actual speech issue to defend, despite what the libertarian-right groups might claim.
it is usually the case that if an issue to criticize arises then it is when the police are unconstitutionally called in to stop the protestors, who then have their speech rights violated, and who don't seem to understand the irony of it.
well, in theory, this might have been a speech issue, but only if the government had stepped in and shut it down. had that been the case, and the company argued against it, i would be standing up for the company.
as it is, the board is owned by a private company that took it down on it's own prerogative. as such, it's a property rights issue, not a speech issue - and perhaps a contract law issue, if the purchasing party feels an agreement was breached.
i would hope that bernier and his party were properly refunded. that is the only meaningful legal issue at hand.
but, people arguing that it's not a speech issue because of the content of the ad are wrong on their face, as well.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-august-27-2019-1.5260356/removing-anti-immigration-billboards-is-censorship-says-columnist-1.5260365
as it is, the board is owned by a private company that took it down on it's own prerogative. as such, it's a property rights issue, not a speech issue - and perhaps a contract law issue, if the purchasing party feels an agreement was breached.
i would hope that bernier and his party were properly refunded. that is the only meaningful legal issue at hand.
but, people arguing that it's not a speech issue because of the content of the ad are wrong on their face, as well.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-august-27-2019-1.5260356/removing-anti-immigration-billboards-is-censorship-says-columnist-1.5260365
on some level, he's actually right. but, if we outlaw abortion for these reasons, we'd might as well legalize cannibalism and human sacrifice while we're at it. and, then society will fall apart in no time.
the correct analysis is to realize that this is an example of cultural evolution.
but, he probably rejects evolution too, right?
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/457707-iowa-gop-official-calls-kings-rape-and-incest-comments-outrageous
the correct analysis is to realize that this is an example of cultural evolution.
but, he probably rejects evolution too, right?
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/457707-iowa-gop-official-calls-kings-rape-and-incest-comments-outrageous
the excuse she made to come over to see my new place when i moved to bronson was that she had to do feng shui. so, she made sure that i understood how important it was, and how important it may be to move some furniture around, if the energy insists on it.
i let her do it. but, let's all be clear on this point: when your ex-girlfriend shows up two years later and starts talking about moving furniture around, it's not about the psychic energy.
i let her do it. but, let's all be clear on this point: when your ex-girlfriend shows up two years later and starts talking about moving furniture around, it's not about the psychic energy.
and, no, i wasn't a "do gooder". i don't believe in morality, and i never did, which is just the point - there's nothing moral or immoral about sex. that's a conservative, religious perspective; i'm a godless socialist. if anything, i was actually the biggest badass. she didn't undress anybody else on a draw bridge on vancouver island, or pull anybody else into the santa claus exhibit in the wee hours of the morning. i'm sure other people have stories, but they're not like mine.
i keep pointing out that she didn't want to break up with me. i walked out on her. well, i didn't feel like i had a choice - the situation was driving me nuts. she'd literally take off for days, leaving me to the expectation of a break-up when she got back, and then, instead, fuck me when she did get back; my emotions were just off the chart from it, i was completely fucked up and confused by it. and, she came crawling back after. more than once. the reality is that the premise that she wasn't attracted to me is completely backwards; more accurate is that she had difficulties talking with me (she was very "spiritual", for example.) and that all she wanted to do was fuck.
in fact, that was her catch-phrase: i don't care what you're talking about, j, just shut up and fuck me.
she just had really weird issues with attachment, and, as mentioned, was coming from a pretty damaged capitalist culture where she kind of romanticized sluttiness as an ideal. pushing back against that isn't a question of morality. it's more a question of mental health. i was concerned about her self-worth. and, more than anything else, what i wanted was for her to go to fucking school.
one of the places we had sex after i moved out was in the sauna in the apartment complex i moved into. i just wouldn't let her move in. but, she did ask. i know: i moved out on february 1st because she wouldn't commit, and she was trying to move back into my new place by the start of march. and, yeah, that fucked me up; of course it did.
so, it actually seemed, at first, that nothing had really changed, except that i'd been kind of emancipated from being fucked up about the situation. i would have probably been relatively comfortable with a long-term fwb situation - going out on friend-dates a few times a month. it may have even been more healthy than the previous situation, and i remember pointing that out.
but, as mentioned, she then managed to get impregnated by an old man that she barely knew. and, that kind of messed everything up.
she was a vegan, at the time. so, i took her out for fajitas. and, she came over a few times to talk, when she was pregnant. it might have been the only time we ever spent together when there wasn't a lot of sexual tension. although...yes. once. she insisted. because she was pregnant.
one of the first things she did after giving birth was bike to my house to surprise me, but i wasn't home.
etc.
so, criticize me if you want. i can deal with that. but, get your facts straight. she actually, honestly wanted an open relationship, and i actually really, legitimately couldn't deal with it.
i keep pointing out that she didn't want to break up with me. i walked out on her. well, i didn't feel like i had a choice - the situation was driving me nuts. she'd literally take off for days, leaving me to the expectation of a break-up when she got back, and then, instead, fuck me when she did get back; my emotions were just off the chart from it, i was completely fucked up and confused by it. and, she came crawling back after. more than once. the reality is that the premise that she wasn't attracted to me is completely backwards; more accurate is that she had difficulties talking with me (she was very "spiritual", for example.) and that all she wanted to do was fuck.
in fact, that was her catch-phrase: i don't care what you're talking about, j, just shut up and fuck me.
she just had really weird issues with attachment, and, as mentioned, was coming from a pretty damaged capitalist culture where she kind of romanticized sluttiness as an ideal. pushing back against that isn't a question of morality. it's more a question of mental health. i was concerned about her self-worth. and, more than anything else, what i wanted was for her to go to fucking school.
one of the places we had sex after i moved out was in the sauna in the apartment complex i moved into. i just wouldn't let her move in. but, she did ask. i know: i moved out on february 1st because she wouldn't commit, and she was trying to move back into my new place by the start of march. and, yeah, that fucked me up; of course it did.
so, it actually seemed, at first, that nothing had really changed, except that i'd been kind of emancipated from being fucked up about the situation. i would have probably been relatively comfortable with a long-term fwb situation - going out on friend-dates a few times a month. it may have even been more healthy than the previous situation, and i remember pointing that out.
but, as mentioned, she then managed to get impregnated by an old man that she barely knew. and, that kind of messed everything up.
she was a vegan, at the time. so, i took her out for fajitas. and, she came over a few times to talk, when she was pregnant. it might have been the only time we ever spent together when there wasn't a lot of sexual tension. although...yes. once. she insisted. because she was pregnant.
one of the first things she did after giving birth was bike to my house to surprise me, but i wasn't home.
etc.
so, criticize me if you want. i can deal with that. but, get your facts straight. she actually, honestly wanted an open relationship, and i actually really, legitimately couldn't deal with it.
but, when you look at these different civilizations, like...
they don't all want the same thing. liberal naivete is a bad idea, here. you have to listen to what they're actually saying. if you treat the chinese the same way as the europeans, you shouldn't be surprised when you get spit on.
i do think there's a real dividing line between the east v the west, but it can be stated as defining the west as greek civilization and the east as chinese civilization. you have to essentially write off africa, australia and the americas as "indigenous barbarians" under this analysis, but the facts at least uphold an unequal level of development. another way to look at this is that the west is judaic in character, whereas the east is vedic. you would draw the line, then, somewhere through historical persia. a maximum extent of western civilization would probably be alexander's conquests; even the most minimal concept would fully absorb both islam and russia. on the other hand, both zoroastrianism and the historical celtic civilizations would be on the eastern side of the divide, which had it's maximum western extent during the hunnic and mongol invasions.
so, i consider the muslims to be a part of the western world, not a part of the eastern world. and, they're pretty clear on what they want: they want to eclipse. they want to be the hegemon, but not via conquest, so much as via transformation. their maximum extent may encircle the far west of the old world, up through spain to southern france on one side and pushing into vienna on the other, but europeans inevitably misunderstand the context: they were just completing their conquest of rome. they are barbarian usurpers, historically, as were the gemans, but islam is a successor culture of the roman empire. america's interaction with islam should be seen in terms of a conflict within western civilization, rather than in terms of a clash of self-contained civilizations. the fuckers were at least right about one thing: it is a battle for hearts and minds. and, you know what side i'm on. i suppose that if you are standing in america and are a muslim, you may have a different perspective on this issue than i do. but, i see this simply as a struggle between religion and secularism. the cultural and ethnic layers of it are mostly illusory - the muslims are just as greek, just as roman, just as judaic, just as european, and even just as white, broadly, as any other western subculture.
russia is also a part of the western world, and is the actual cultural successor of the eastern empire. they are the closest direct descendant of late greek civilization. and, despite america's best efforts to cast them as an adversary (something that is so old that thomas paine made note of it, even going so far as to erect russia as the new french, a concept that is particularly daunting in the context of the thousand year war between britiain and france over feudal land ownership), the russians do not hate us. the russians see us as lost cousins, which is what we truly are. they wanted to join nato, for fuck's sake. treating the russians as an enemy or a threat is largely ignoring the evidence.
the fact about india is that it is developing too slowly to have these discussions, yet. and, climate change will be particularly damaging to them, even as they keeping spewing the carbon out. from the vedas, through to alexander, to the mughals and the british, india has actually always remained in what is today called the global south. they have an ancient culture, but they are not an ancient empire. a united india is probably not going to make it through this century. the thing the west should be concerned about regarding india is the question of it's instability, and what that means in terms of things like migration.
but, the chinese are a different animal. they are a vedic civilization, like india, but they are also an empire. they have almost no shared historical norms with the west. they are not judaic, not greek, not roman, not carthaginian - and only persian in deep abstraction. so, they see the world through an entirely different concept of history. but, the thing i'm trying to get across is that they're actually pretty much our mirror reflection. like us, they are expansionist. they have a history of colonialism. they see the world outside of their borders as existing for their own benefit. they are an actual, legit alien civilization that is never going to see us as cousins or siblings. and, we will need to find a way to compete or co-operate, at least until we can effectively integrate.
they don't all want the same thing. liberal naivete is a bad idea, here. you have to listen to what they're actually saying. if you treat the chinese the same way as the europeans, you shouldn't be surprised when you get spit on.
i do think there's a real dividing line between the east v the west, but it can be stated as defining the west as greek civilization and the east as chinese civilization. you have to essentially write off africa, australia and the americas as "indigenous barbarians" under this analysis, but the facts at least uphold an unequal level of development. another way to look at this is that the west is judaic in character, whereas the east is vedic. you would draw the line, then, somewhere through historical persia. a maximum extent of western civilization would probably be alexander's conquests; even the most minimal concept would fully absorb both islam and russia. on the other hand, both zoroastrianism and the historical celtic civilizations would be on the eastern side of the divide, which had it's maximum western extent during the hunnic and mongol invasions.
so, i consider the muslims to be a part of the western world, not a part of the eastern world. and, they're pretty clear on what they want: they want to eclipse. they want to be the hegemon, but not via conquest, so much as via transformation. their maximum extent may encircle the far west of the old world, up through spain to southern france on one side and pushing into vienna on the other, but europeans inevitably misunderstand the context: they were just completing their conquest of rome. they are barbarian usurpers, historically, as were the gemans, but islam is a successor culture of the roman empire. america's interaction with islam should be seen in terms of a conflict within western civilization, rather than in terms of a clash of self-contained civilizations. the fuckers were at least right about one thing: it is a battle for hearts and minds. and, you know what side i'm on. i suppose that if you are standing in america and are a muslim, you may have a different perspective on this issue than i do. but, i see this simply as a struggle between religion and secularism. the cultural and ethnic layers of it are mostly illusory - the muslims are just as greek, just as roman, just as judaic, just as european, and even just as white, broadly, as any other western subculture.
russia is also a part of the western world, and is the actual cultural successor of the eastern empire. they are the closest direct descendant of late greek civilization. and, despite america's best efforts to cast them as an adversary (something that is so old that thomas paine made note of it, even going so far as to erect russia as the new french, a concept that is particularly daunting in the context of the thousand year war between britiain and france over feudal land ownership), the russians do not hate us. the russians see us as lost cousins, which is what we truly are. they wanted to join nato, for fuck's sake. treating the russians as an enemy or a threat is largely ignoring the evidence.
the fact about india is that it is developing too slowly to have these discussions, yet. and, climate change will be particularly damaging to them, even as they keeping spewing the carbon out. from the vedas, through to alexander, to the mughals and the british, india has actually always remained in what is today called the global south. they have an ancient culture, but they are not an ancient empire. a united india is probably not going to make it through this century. the thing the west should be concerned about regarding india is the question of it's instability, and what that means in terms of things like migration.
but, the chinese are a different animal. they are a vedic civilization, like india, but they are also an empire. they have almost no shared historical norms with the west. they are not judaic, not greek, not roman, not carthaginian - and only persian in deep abstraction. so, they see the world through an entirely different concept of history. but, the thing i'm trying to get across is that they're actually pretty much our mirror reflection. like us, they are expansionist. they have a history of colonialism. they see the world outside of their borders as existing for their own benefit. they are an actual, legit alien civilization that is never going to see us as cousins or siblings. and, we will need to find a way to compete or co-operate, at least until we can effectively integrate.
their discography is truly quite spotty.
but, this is really a legit opus.
i don't know what this is really about. it's almost more like he's using vietnam war era imagery to align with the psychedelic rock sounds, but it could just as easily be generalized to an attempt to neutralize an east v west mentality.
the chinese have one major thing going for them that makes them a preferable partner, moving forward: they don't believe in god. when you look around at the world for potential partners, that fact is very appealing to me.
but, this is really a legit opus.
i don't know what this is really about. it's almost more like he's using vietnam war era imagery to align with the psychedelic rock sounds, but it could just as easily be generalized to an attempt to neutralize an east v west mentality.
the chinese have one major thing going for them that makes them a preferable partner, moving forward: they don't believe in god. when you look around at the world for potential partners, that fact is very appealing to me.
i want people to be clear on this point: if china could they would conquer, invade and colonize us. and, they might even choose to slaughter most of us.
but, we'd do the same thing to them if we could, too.
in fact, the difference in this relationship is that we once tried to conquer and enslave them, and failed. they haven't had the chance yet.
but, that just demonstrates how important it is to try to bridge differences and work together. when the inevitable outcome of history unfolding is eventual conflict, you have to work as best you can to minimize it.
further, to blame "china", whatever that even means, for the economic reality in front of us is disingenuous. these rules were mostly written by white executives in western corporations. and, while things are better there now than they were, it is our own habits that fuel the worst abuses that exist in that country. vilifying the chinese on a racial or cultural level is not going to be productive in reforming global trade regulations.
but, don't be naive about it. if they could...
but, we'd do the same thing to them if we could, too.
in fact, the difference in this relationship is that we once tried to conquer and enslave them, and failed. they haven't had the chance yet.
but, that just demonstrates how important it is to try to bridge differences and work together. when the inevitable outcome of history unfolding is eventual conflict, you have to work as best you can to minimize it.
further, to blame "china", whatever that even means, for the economic reality in front of us is disingenuous. these rules were mostly written by white executives in western corporations. and, while things are better there now than they were, it is our own habits that fuel the worst abuses that exist in that country. vilifying the chinese on a racial or cultural level is not going to be productive in reforming global trade regulations.
but, don't be naive about it. if they could...
so, i don't think the amp is the cause of the smell.
but, it does reek.
so, i've taken it away from my typing area for a bit, meaning my structure is a little wobbly. it won't be for more than a few more days. i'll need to fully disassemble everything to properly clean in here, after i've sealed the baseboards, anyways...
i just want to be sure that i'm fixing the right problem, and the thing is just too rank. i guess i'll need to really scrub it down hard.
i should be tired, but i'm not, so i'm going to get back to work.
but, it does reek.
so, i've taken it away from my typing area for a bit, meaning my structure is a little wobbly. it won't be for more than a few more days. i'll need to fully disassemble everything to properly clean in here, after i've sealed the baseboards, anyways...
i just want to be sure that i'm fixing the right problem, and the thing is just too rank. i guess i'll need to really scrub it down hard.
i should be tired, but i'm not, so i'm going to get back to work.
it's a valid question.
what if they aren't actually agents provocateur?
what if they're really employees of the window cartel?
https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2013/10/windowdoc.html
what if they aren't actually agents provocateur?
what if they're really employees of the window cartel?
https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2013/10/windowdoc.html
i think that 30% is a low estimate.
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/global-ad-blocking-behavior-2019-infographic/551716/
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/global-ad-blocking-behavior-2019-infographic/551716/
so, this is a better idea than censoring facebook and bailing out postmedia (which is what the liberals are.....can i say threatening to do, rather than promising to do?).
i have one thing to interject.
i doubt that bernie spends much time reading news on social media. it's a generational thing. and, that's ok. but, while he's right to point out that the advertising model on social media is lopsided, a lack of experience might be obscuring him to what is actually a natural monopoly. and, if you're a smaller independent news source, you don't want to focus on bought advertising - you want word of mouth. you want sharing. and, you want it organic.
small news organizations absolutely require robust social media presences to survive today, which doesn't even mean that they have great pages or that they pay into the system much. what it means is that they have people like me that are doing what i'm doing right now, which is posting one of their articles in a place where people will see it. it's not the paid-for advertising that's important, it's the free advertising that is - the sharing.
and, as such, breaking up these social media sites would just make it harder for small organizations to exist.
i just posted a link to manufacturing consent. i completely understand where he's coming from, and he's absolutely right in focus. but, it is in many ways an old media critique of new media, and it needs a bit of a cross-reference to be more robust.
https://www.cjr.org/opinion/bernie-sanders-media-silicon-valley.php
i have one thing to interject.
i doubt that bernie spends much time reading news on social media. it's a generational thing. and, that's ok. but, while he's right to point out that the advertising model on social media is lopsided, a lack of experience might be obscuring him to what is actually a natural monopoly. and, if you're a smaller independent news source, you don't want to focus on bought advertising - you want word of mouth. you want sharing. and, you want it organic.
small news organizations absolutely require robust social media presences to survive today, which doesn't even mean that they have great pages or that they pay into the system much. what it means is that they have people like me that are doing what i'm doing right now, which is posting one of their articles in a place where people will see it. it's not the paid-for advertising that's important, it's the free advertising that is - the sharing.
and, as such, breaking up these social media sites would just make it harder for small organizations to exist.
i just posted a link to manufacturing consent. i completely understand where he's coming from, and he's absolutely right in focus. but, it is in many ways an old media critique of new media, and it needs a bit of a cross-reference to be more robust.
https://www.cjr.org/opinion/bernie-sanders-media-silicon-valley.php
Institutional critiques such as we present in this book are commonly
dismissed by establishment commentators as "conspiracy theories," but
this is merely an evasion. We do not use any kind of "conspiracy"
hypothesis to explain mass-media performance. In fact, our treatment
is much closer to a "free market" analysis, with the results largely an
outcome of the workings of market forces. Most biased choices in the
media arise from the preselection of right-thinking people, internalized
preconceptions, and the adaptation of personnel to the constraints of
ownership, organization, market, and political power. Censorship is
largely self-censorship, by reporters and commentators who adjust to
the realities of source and media organizational requirements, and by
people at higher levels within media organizations who are chosen to
implement, and have usually internalized, the constraints imposed by
proprietary and other market and governmental centers of power.
you really should at least browse through this if you haven't before.
https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-NekqfnoWIEuYgdZl/Manufacturing+Consent+%5BThe+Political+Economy+Of+The+Mass+Media%5D_djvu.txt
https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-NekqfnoWIEuYgdZl/Manufacturing+Consent+%5BThe+Political+Economy+Of+The+Mass+Media%5D_djvu.txt
but, i wasn't the only person that predicted that the headgear would go over like a lead balloon.
are some people racist? of course they are.
but, the guy thinks he has a magic beard, amongst other things. there are legit competence questions that are not reducible to racial animus, and quebeckers - more so than other canadians - are not going to gloss over that as meaningless.
he's running for prime minister. it defines his mindset. it's not a triviality.
are some people racist? of course they are.
but, the guy thinks he has a magic beard, amongst other things. there are legit competence questions that are not reducible to racial animus, and quebeckers - more so than other canadians - are not going to gloss over that as meaningless.
he's running for prime minister. it defines his mindset. it's not a triviality.
the point is that those frustrated "anti-everybody voters" are probably mostly not conservatives.
first off, if they were, they'd tell pollsters that. they're not doing that. second, when you compare to recent elections - the fact is that the conservatives have struggled to get over 25% in quebec since the meech lake accords - they're clearly recent ndp and bloc voters, as both parties have taken huge hits.
at this point, if they were going to vote liberal, they'd probably just admit it. but, the fact is that they've avoided voting liberal for this long because they actually don't want to do that. canada is not a two-party system - there are many, many people that are fundamentally to the left of the liberals, base their entire identity on that fact and will never, ever vote for them. in quebec, 23% is probably an underestimate of this type of voter.
so, it's hard to believe they're going to vote for the conservatives all of a sudden. and, it's not much easier to believe that they'll vote for the liberals. likewise, maxime bernier is not likely to do well amongst this group of people - not for his views on immigration, but for his economic views. these people are leftists.
more believable is that they'll stay home.
first off, if they were, they'd tell pollsters that. they're not doing that. second, when you compare to recent elections - the fact is that the conservatives have struggled to get over 25% in quebec since the meech lake accords - they're clearly recent ndp and bloc voters, as both parties have taken huge hits.
at this point, if they were going to vote liberal, they'd probably just admit it. but, the fact is that they've avoided voting liberal for this long because they actually don't want to do that. canada is not a two-party system - there are many, many people that are fundamentally to the left of the liberals, base their entire identity on that fact and will never, ever vote for them. in quebec, 23% is probably an underestimate of this type of voter.
so, it's hard to believe they're going to vote for the conservatives all of a sudden. and, it's not much easier to believe that they'll vote for the liberals. likewise, maxime bernier is not likely to do well amongst this group of people - not for his views on immigration, but for his economic views. these people are leftists.
more believable is that they'll stay home.
sorry, maybe i should translate.
liberals - 30%
bloc - 16%
conservatives - 16%
ndp - 6%
but...
i'm not voting - 5%
i'll destroy my ballot -7%
undecided - 9%
no answer - 2%
so, 23% of voters are telling pollsters that they really don't like the options. and, given recent trends in quebec, most of them were probably bloc voters twenty years ago and ndp voters ten years ago.
if they all go back to the bloc, you get this:
bloc - 39%
liberals -30%
conservatives - 16%
ndp - 6%
which would be roughly the results of a random election in the 1993-2011 period.
if they all give up and stay home? that's what the conservatives are dreaming about.
but, if they all get really fed up and vote green....that's a shift, alright.
liberals - 30%
bloc - 16%
conservatives - 16%
ndp - 6%
but...
i'm not voting - 5%
i'll destroy my ballot -7%
undecided - 9%
no answer - 2%
so, 23% of voters are telling pollsters that they really don't like the options. and, given recent trends in quebec, most of them were probably bloc voters twenty years ago and ndp voters ten years ago.
if they all go back to the bloc, you get this:
bloc - 39%
liberals -30%
conservatives - 16%
ndp - 6%
which would be roughly the results of a random election in the 1993-2011 period.
if they all give up and stay home? that's what the conservatives are dreaming about.
but, if they all get really fed up and vote green....that's a shift, alright.
see, i think this is probably a better snapshot of quebec, and it's the same phenomenon i've been pointing to in canada for years - when the number of non-committal voters goes up, the conservative numbers get badly inflated.
there's a kind of naive narrative that quebeckers are going to vote for the conservatives because they don't like jagmeet singh's head gear. but, this is ignoring the fact that the ban on religious symbols was initially brought in by the quebecois left, before being rammed through by the right as a consensus policy. four years ago, the ndp would have been juggling potatoes on this, because they knew a lot of their voters supported it. if the issue is solely to do with the head gear, you'd think these voters would fall back to the bloc, which is where they came from.
instead, they're coming in as non-committal, which is inflating conservative numbers.
when these voters decide what they're doing - which is, in most cases, probably a choice between the liberals and bloc - the numbers will shift downwards for the conservatives.
but, i'd have to argue that these voters are probably much, much more likely to lean towards the bloc.
there's a kind of naive narrative that quebeckers are going to vote for the conservatives because they don't like jagmeet singh's head gear. but, this is ignoring the fact that the ban on religious symbols was initially brought in by the quebecois left, before being rammed through by the right as a consensus policy. four years ago, the ndp would have been juggling potatoes on this, because they knew a lot of their voters supported it. if the issue is solely to do with the head gear, you'd think these voters would fall back to the bloc, which is where they came from.
instead, they're coming in as non-committal, which is inflating conservative numbers.
when these voters decide what they're doing - which is, in most cases, probably a choice between the liberals and bloc - the numbers will shift downwards for the conservatives.
but, i'd have to argue that these voters are probably much, much more likely to lean towards the bloc.
consider the following outcome:
liberals: 145
conservatives: 141
bloc: 30
ndp: 15
greens: 7
145 + 15 + 7 = 167.
you need 170 votes to pass a budget.
and, the last time the bloc agreed to vote for a liberal budget, they got creamed in the next election.
you could also imagine something like this, if the greens kill the liberals in swing ridings and the ndp hang on just enough:
liberals: 130
conservatives: 141
bloc: 30
ndp: 30
greens: 7
130 + 30 + 7 = 167, still. but, the governor-general may let the conservatives form a government, because the bloc are unstable. and, it would be the liberals that the conservatives would be looking to help prop them up.
it is pretty clear that the ndp are not going to rebound in quebec, and i remain exceedingly skeptical of the idea that the conservatives are going to make a breakthrough there. the liberals surprised everybody by over-performing in quebec in 2015, which is how we get here (most people, including myself, predicted a strong liberal minority rather than a weak liberal majority; it was a difference of 15 seats). it's really the liberals v the bloc, there.
unless - and i'll point out again that this is not impossible - the greens show up out of nowhere and sweep, which ironically could save the government. it's remote, but quebec does crazy things like this fairly frequently: they vote tout ensemble, and they do so in protest.
liberals: 145
conservatives: 141
bloc: 30
ndp: 15
greens: 7
145 + 15 + 7 = 167.
you need 170 votes to pass a budget.
and, the last time the bloc agreed to vote for a liberal budget, they got creamed in the next election.
you could also imagine something like this, if the greens kill the liberals in swing ridings and the ndp hang on just enough:
liberals: 130
conservatives: 141
bloc: 30
ndp: 30
greens: 7
130 + 30 + 7 = 167, still. but, the governor-general may let the conservatives form a government, because the bloc are unstable. and, it would be the liberals that the conservatives would be looking to help prop them up.
it is pretty clear that the ndp are not going to rebound in quebec, and i remain exceedingly skeptical of the idea that the conservatives are going to make a breakthrough there. the liberals surprised everybody by over-performing in quebec in 2015, which is how we get here (most people, including myself, predicted a strong liberal minority rather than a weak liberal majority; it was a difference of 15 seats). it's really the liberals v the bloc, there.
unless - and i'll point out again that this is not impossible - the greens show up out of nowhere and sweep, which ironically could save the government. it's remote, but quebec does crazy things like this fairly frequently: they vote tout ensemble, and they do so in protest.
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