again: i slept all day. and, i wish i knew why i'm so physically exhausted recently.
it's cold in here and it's cold outside, and i think that's a big part of it. i felt better last week when the humidity briefly peaked, and i feel better wrapped up in a hot blanket where i can sweat. so, that's really what i've been doing all day - trying to escape the cold by hiding in a hot blanket. it's going to warm up tomorrow, finally.
but, whether it's the weather or something else, i feel tense and frustrated and depressed and angry, and it's been constant now for weeks and i don't really understand it. i have a lot of work to do, but i'm not able to do it because i'm not able to mentally focus.
the best way to describe the situation is that i feel like i'm on drugs, but i'm not doing any drugs, so i don't understand.
let's just hope it gets better.
i'm going to try to wake up, take a shower, get my hydration up and get to finishing this up.
Sunday, May 31, 2020
it's mostly young & healthy people; if it speeds this thing up, it's probably good news.
although there's that diabetes issue to be concerned about with black americans with poor diets.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7008473/george-floyd-protests-coronavirus-outbreak/
although there's that diabetes issue to be concerned about with black americans with poor diets.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7008473/george-floyd-protests-coronavirus-outbreak/
i'd actually rather they brought back the cheaper rates overnight. previously, i could plan my hydro use for off peak hours. now, i'm stuck paying higher rates, whether i like it or not.
but, it's easy to see what the next step is - expect the rates to skyrocket, and for there to be no escape from it.
we probably just lost time of use pricing for good :(.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7007471/coronavirus-ontario-hydro-rates-2/
but, it's easy to see what the next step is - expect the rates to skyrocket, and for there to be no escape from it.
we probably just lost time of use pricing for good :(.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7007471/coronavirus-ontario-hydro-rates-2/
the difference in opinion here comes right out of engels, and i could understand it being confusing to somebody that doesn't have a basic understanding of marxist theory. i hinted at this previously. but, let's talk about the flip side of limited liability, which is corporate personhood.
unlike most of the faux-left, i don't have any particular opposition to the concept of corporate personhood. if anything, i'd like to take the issue to its logical conclusion, although i've been frustrated by that in canada, which separates "legal personhood" from "natural personhood" and allows for different rights protections based on it. so, we can't tax corporations like people, because they're not natural people. alas.
but, this really is right out of engels.
if you haven't read this, do it. i cite it all of the time. it's so very important:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm
Before capitalist production — i.e., in the Middle Ages — the system of petty industry obtained generally, based upon the private property of the laborers in their means of production; in the country, the agriculture of the small peasant, freeman, or serf; in the towns, the handicrafts organized in guilds. The instruments of labor — land, agricultural implements, the workshop, the tool — were the instruments of labor of single individuals, adapted for the use of one worker, and, therefore, of necessity, small, dwarfish, circumscribed. But, for this very reason, they belonged as a rule to the producer himself. To concentrate these scattered, limited means of production, to enlarge them, to turn them into the powerful levers of production of the present day — this was precisely the historic role of capitalist production and of its upholder, the bourgeoisie. In the fourth section of Capital, Marx has explained in detail how since the 15th century this has been historically worked out through the three phases of simple co-operation, manufacture, and modern industry. But the bourgeoisie, as is shown there, could not transform these puny means of production into mighty productive forces without transforming them, at the same time, from means of production of the individual into social means of production only workable by a collectivity of men. The spinning wheel, the handloom, the blacksmith's hammer, were replaced by the spinning-machine, the power-loom, the steam-hammer; the individual workshop, by the factory implying the co-operation of hundreds and thousands of workmen. In like manner, production itself changed from a series of individual into a series of social acts, and the production from individual to social products. The yarn, the cloth, the metal articles that now come out of the factory were the joint product of many workers, through whose hands they had successively to pass before they were ready. No one person could say of them: "I made that; this is my product."
when we speak of corporate personhood, we need to put it into this context of the socialization of production eliminating the ability to separate the specific roles of individuals in a corporation. as nobody can claim that this is their product, nobody can assume liability for it; the product is owned only by the corporation, and only the corporation can be held liable for it's defects. this is corporate personhood, regardless of what else you've heard about it.
but, how does the internet work? am i more like the worker on the production line, engaging in but one of a series of social acts that is bringing a product to market? or am i in truth more like the medieval guildsperson, engaging in an act of individual production? i would argue the latter and, as such, would argue against the idea of sharing liability for the product. i can truly say these words in good faith: i made this; this is my product.
so, we're back to the provider as publishing house again, except to point out that the great conflict that occurred in the medieval period was over the commons, and the question of whether there should be private property or not. there were wars and revolutions fought over this question, ending in the conversion of feudalism to capitalism. so, are we going to relive this conflict, as the technology hits a breaking point? should we have publishing houses that buy and sell copyrights or otherwise offer their services for a fee, or should we hold it all in common and provide free and unfettered access to all?
we will need to figure this out.
but, read the engels pamphlet. it's not esoteric; it's meant for workers. it gets the point across very clearly, as to why it is that i'm approaching these things so differently.
unlike most of the faux-left, i don't have any particular opposition to the concept of corporate personhood. if anything, i'd like to take the issue to its logical conclusion, although i've been frustrated by that in canada, which separates "legal personhood" from "natural personhood" and allows for different rights protections based on it. so, we can't tax corporations like people, because they're not natural people. alas.
but, this really is right out of engels.
if you haven't read this, do it. i cite it all of the time. it's so very important:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm
Before capitalist production — i.e., in the Middle Ages — the system of petty industry obtained generally, based upon the private property of the laborers in their means of production; in the country, the agriculture of the small peasant, freeman, or serf; in the towns, the handicrafts organized in guilds. The instruments of labor — land, agricultural implements, the workshop, the tool — were the instruments of labor of single individuals, adapted for the use of one worker, and, therefore, of necessity, small, dwarfish, circumscribed. But, for this very reason, they belonged as a rule to the producer himself. To concentrate these scattered, limited means of production, to enlarge them, to turn them into the powerful levers of production of the present day — this was precisely the historic role of capitalist production and of its upholder, the bourgeoisie. In the fourth section of Capital, Marx has explained in detail how since the 15th century this has been historically worked out through the three phases of simple co-operation, manufacture, and modern industry. But the bourgeoisie, as is shown there, could not transform these puny means of production into mighty productive forces without transforming them, at the same time, from means of production of the individual into social means of production only workable by a collectivity of men. The spinning wheel, the handloom, the blacksmith's hammer, were replaced by the spinning-machine, the power-loom, the steam-hammer; the individual workshop, by the factory implying the co-operation of hundreds and thousands of workmen. In like manner, production itself changed from a series of individual into a series of social acts, and the production from individual to social products. The yarn, the cloth, the metal articles that now come out of the factory were the joint product of many workers, through whose hands they had successively to pass before they were ready. No one person could say of them: "I made that; this is my product."
when we speak of corporate personhood, we need to put it into this context of the socialization of production eliminating the ability to separate the specific roles of individuals in a corporation. as nobody can claim that this is their product, nobody can assume liability for it; the product is owned only by the corporation, and only the corporation can be held liable for it's defects. this is corporate personhood, regardless of what else you've heard about it.
but, how does the internet work? am i more like the worker on the production line, engaging in but one of a series of social acts that is bringing a product to market? or am i in truth more like the medieval guildsperson, engaging in an act of individual production? i would argue the latter and, as such, would argue against the idea of sharing liability for the product. i can truly say these words in good faith: i made this; this is my product.
so, we're back to the provider as publishing house again, except to point out that the great conflict that occurred in the medieval period was over the commons, and the question of whether there should be private property or not. there were wars and revolutions fought over this question, ending in the conversion of feudalism to capitalism. so, are we going to relive this conflict, as the technology hits a breaking point? should we have publishing houses that buy and sell copyrights or otherwise offer their services for a fee, or should we hold it all in common and provide free and unfettered access to all?
we will need to figure this out.
but, read the engels pamphlet. it's not esoteric; it's meant for workers. it gets the point across very clearly, as to why it is that i'm approaching these things so differently.
and, what about this issue of liability and s. 230?
well, i went through the long version of this previously - either the platform owns the content, or the user does, and this kind of in between reality is sort of muddling it up.
as a heavy user of these services, my primary concern with this discussion is the potential outcome that i may lose ownership over my content. i'm happy to take full responsibility for what i'm posting, for better or worse. just don't mess with my content.
i've argued against the concept of limited liability in investments rather heavily, but i actually don't see the parallel, here, and kind of take exception to the language as it was used in the executive order. limited liability allows shareholders to invest in unethical corporations without being liable for the crimes they commit, which could include genocide, rape and environmental desecration - the worst things that humans can do, and they're done all the time by resource & extraction companies. these are terrible rights abuses that need to be ended and i am quite confident that eliminating the shield that shareholders have from the actions of the companies they invest in would have a huge effect on their investment decisions.
are we going to compare posting a mean tweet to burning down a village in guatemala, or the deepwater horizon oil spill? it's a difference of scale that is so tremendous as to be bluntly comical to even consider.
so, do i think that we should make these companies liable for the content of their users in order to stop them from being so mean on the internet? would this eliminate the profit motive in hosting the content? well, broadly speaking, i'm not sure there'd be a lot of liability in most cases, anyways, so long as users own the content, but it would give the hosting companies a greater excuse to take down content they don't like, and more of a prerogative to be proactive in policing speech - which is a bad thing to anybody that believes in free speech, even if this creepy new breed of progressive/conservative seems to think it's so important for some reason. i actually don't think that the law as it exists is really making much of anybody much of any extra money (just about the only thing you could actually prosecute is libel), but it is allowing for a more open internet by preventing the companies from acting like actuaries.
that said, if people feel that laws against things like libel are not being strongly enough enforced, then steps should be taken to better focus actions against the specific actors being accused of breaking the law.
further, i would support a greater role for the courts in determining what kind of speech is acceptable and what kind of speech isn't. decisions should be subject to appeal and rooted in precedent, not made on the whim of some faceless corporate executive in an empty suit, based on opinions about ad revenue.
limited liability is a major problem in existing capitalism. we shouldn't be allowed to invest in companies that we know do bad things, and be shielded from the consequences of it. but, i just don't see the connection between the need to reign in investor rights and s. 230 of the communications decency act in the united states; the former is a pressing concern that should be at the front of the political agenda on the left, whereas the latter is largely a triviality, except in it's negative implications for the intellectual property rights of internet platform users.
go after the users, not the companies.
well, i went through the long version of this previously - either the platform owns the content, or the user does, and this kind of in between reality is sort of muddling it up.
as a heavy user of these services, my primary concern with this discussion is the potential outcome that i may lose ownership over my content. i'm happy to take full responsibility for what i'm posting, for better or worse. just don't mess with my content.
i've argued against the concept of limited liability in investments rather heavily, but i actually don't see the parallel, here, and kind of take exception to the language as it was used in the executive order. limited liability allows shareholders to invest in unethical corporations without being liable for the crimes they commit, which could include genocide, rape and environmental desecration - the worst things that humans can do, and they're done all the time by resource & extraction companies. these are terrible rights abuses that need to be ended and i am quite confident that eliminating the shield that shareholders have from the actions of the companies they invest in would have a huge effect on their investment decisions.
are we going to compare posting a mean tweet to burning down a village in guatemala, or the deepwater horizon oil spill? it's a difference of scale that is so tremendous as to be bluntly comical to even consider.
so, do i think that we should make these companies liable for the content of their users in order to stop them from being so mean on the internet? would this eliminate the profit motive in hosting the content? well, broadly speaking, i'm not sure there'd be a lot of liability in most cases, anyways, so long as users own the content, but it would give the hosting companies a greater excuse to take down content they don't like, and more of a prerogative to be proactive in policing speech - which is a bad thing to anybody that believes in free speech, even if this creepy new breed of progressive/conservative seems to think it's so important for some reason. i actually don't think that the law as it exists is really making much of anybody much of any extra money (just about the only thing you could actually prosecute is libel), but it is allowing for a more open internet by preventing the companies from acting like actuaries.
that said, if people feel that laws against things like libel are not being strongly enough enforced, then steps should be taken to better focus actions against the specific actors being accused of breaking the law.
further, i would support a greater role for the courts in determining what kind of speech is acceptable and what kind of speech isn't. decisions should be subject to appeal and rooted in precedent, not made on the whim of some faceless corporate executive in an empty suit, based on opinions about ad revenue.
limited liability is a major problem in existing capitalism. we shouldn't be allowed to invest in companies that we know do bad things, and be shielded from the consequences of it. but, i just don't see the connection between the need to reign in investor rights and s. 230 of the communications decency act in the united states; the former is a pressing concern that should be at the front of the political agenda on the left, whereas the latter is largely a triviality, except in it's negative implications for the intellectual property rights of internet platform users.
go after the users, not the companies.
i mean, what twitter is essentially doing is providing a filtering service and then forcing it down on users, who may or may not appreciate it. that's kind of what's being lost, here. we're all arguing about first amendment rights and private property, but what about user choice?
if they feel this is important, that's their prerogative. fine.
but, users should be given the choice as to whether they want their feeds filtered or not, and maybe they could even open it up to different types of filtering that different users would have more interest in.
that's a workable compromise, isn't it?
if they feel this is important, that's their prerogative. fine.
but, users should be given the choice as to whether they want their feeds filtered or not, and maybe they could even open it up to different types of filtering that different users would have more interest in.
that's a workable compromise, isn't it?
what do i think twitter should do?
well, it needs to be able to allow the user to determine whether it's interested in it's opinions or not, to start. as a user, i don't care what twitter thinks. i didn't subscribe to twitter, and i'm not interested in having them interfere with the content i did subscribe to. so, to begin with, as user, i should have the ability to tell twitter that i don't care what it thinks, and i don't want it to interfere with my feed, ever, at all. that is to say that it's warnings and what not should be a user-configurable setting, rather than a site-wide decision.
that would mean that doing things like disabling comments and shares should never happen, ever.
second, any opinions that twitter wishes to express should be presented in parallel to those expressed by it's users, rather than on top of them. so, rather than put a disclaimer over top of a feed item, they should present a second item in the feed for people to interact with, if they decide to - or not interact with, if they don't want to. as mentioned previously, this should be user-configurable. and, maybe you could even granularize it; i might not be interested in twitter's opinions on what is true and what isn't, but i'd be happy to remove any posts from my feed that have to do with the proselytization of any type of religion.
something like this would be a proper balance that would allow twitter the ability to express it's views without stifling the views of it's users, and while allowing it's users to decide which views it feels are more worthwhile.
well, it needs to be able to allow the user to determine whether it's interested in it's opinions or not, to start. as a user, i don't care what twitter thinks. i didn't subscribe to twitter, and i'm not interested in having them interfere with the content i did subscribe to. so, to begin with, as user, i should have the ability to tell twitter that i don't care what it thinks, and i don't want it to interfere with my feed, ever, at all. that is to say that it's warnings and what not should be a user-configurable setting, rather than a site-wide decision.
that would mean that doing things like disabling comments and shares should never happen, ever.
second, any opinions that twitter wishes to express should be presented in parallel to those expressed by it's users, rather than on top of them. so, rather than put a disclaimer over top of a feed item, they should present a second item in the feed for people to interact with, if they decide to - or not interact with, if they don't want to. as mentioned previously, this should be user-configurable. and, maybe you could even granularize it; i might not be interested in twitter's opinions on what is true and what isn't, but i'd be happy to remove any posts from my feed that have to do with the proselytization of any type of religion.
something like this would be a proper balance that would allow twitter the ability to express it's views without stifling the views of it's users, and while allowing it's users to decide which views it feels are more worthwhile.
Saturday, May 30, 2020
the lieutenant governor of minnesota is claiming that the riots over the death of the black man are being instigated by white supremacists.
let's just think that through for a minute.
but, you should recognize that this is reflective of the level of much of the discourse coming from the democrats, nowadays, who see themselves as so utterly reliant on black voters that they're willing to bend the truth in any direction possible. and, in a state like minnesota, which is overwhelmingly white, it makes you wonder if that narrative came down from head office.
she then claimed that the white supremacists were working with anarchists, which is an equally ridiculous claim. you might not like us, but try to understand us. we reject any sort of hierarchy - including hierarchies of race - on first principles.
it's literally a suggestion that communists and nazis are working together to burn down the city.
but, what's going on, here, in the wider context? there have been similar deaths recently, but these things only seem to happen during economic recessions, don't they? is this happening separately from the fiasco with the virus?
there's two ways to parse this.
1) this is some kind of disaster capitalism, and it's going to be used as an excuse to bring in martial law. i would have argued loudly against this as recently as two months ago, but i told you to read the handmaid's tale. is this the next phase of this?
2) this is what happens when you have millions and millions of unemployed young people. maybe you sent them checks, but they're still unemployed, and they obviously have nothing better to do.
frankly, i could think of worse ways to waste your time than burning down the police station, but that's only a start. and, i wonder. should i be out there on the street? what kind of revolutionary potential is building right now? and how controlled is it, in the sense of being generated to justify an increasingly draconian lockdown on our civil rights?
let's just think that through for a minute.
but, you should recognize that this is reflective of the level of much of the discourse coming from the democrats, nowadays, who see themselves as so utterly reliant on black voters that they're willing to bend the truth in any direction possible. and, in a state like minnesota, which is overwhelmingly white, it makes you wonder if that narrative came down from head office.
she then claimed that the white supremacists were working with anarchists, which is an equally ridiculous claim. you might not like us, but try to understand us. we reject any sort of hierarchy - including hierarchies of race - on first principles.
it's literally a suggestion that communists and nazis are working together to burn down the city.
but, what's going on, here, in the wider context? there have been similar deaths recently, but these things only seem to happen during economic recessions, don't they? is this happening separately from the fiasco with the virus?
there's two ways to parse this.
1) this is some kind of disaster capitalism, and it's going to be used as an excuse to bring in martial law. i would have argued loudly against this as recently as two months ago, but i told you to read the handmaid's tale. is this the next phase of this?
2) this is what happens when you have millions and millions of unemployed young people. maybe you sent them checks, but they're still unemployed, and they obviously have nothing better to do.
frankly, i could think of worse ways to waste your time than burning down the police station, but that's only a start. and, i wonder. should i be out there on the street? what kind of revolutionary potential is building right now? and how controlled is it, in the sense of being generated to justify an increasingly draconian lockdown on our civil rights?
this is not a conspiracy theory.
this is reality.
the tactic was invented by bismarck and has appeared in virtually every public protest for the last 150 years.
https://www.insider.com/minneapolis-protesters-social-media-users-suspicious-of-umbrella-man-2020-5
this is reality.
the tactic was invented by bismarck and has appeared in virtually every public protest for the last 150 years.
https://www.insider.com/minneapolis-protesters-social-media-users-suspicious-of-umbrella-man-2020-5
so, i'm not going to tell people to stay in. go riot.
but, i will ask you to pick your targets more carefully, and question your leadership if they seem to be trying to distract you.
why are they inciting you to burn down a mcdonalds, or a local clothing store? are the people doing that perhaps what is called agents provocateurs? i don't know; i'm not on the ground. work out your own deductions.
instead of burning the shopping district down, why don't you burn down a police station or a city hall, instead?
but, i will ask you to pick your targets more carefully, and question your leadership if they seem to be trying to distract you.
why are they inciting you to burn down a mcdonalds, or a local clothing store? are the people doing that perhaps what is called agents provocateurs? i don't know; i'm not on the ground. work out your own deductions.
instead of burning the shopping district down, why don't you burn down a police station or a city hall, instead?
mike is making what is a common error in reactions to these events - he wants retribution, which he calls "justice". so, he wants to go after the prosecutors. he wants to send these "bad apples" to jail. it's the same response you see over and over...
but, what is the point of sending these cops to jail if the academy just replaces them with four more that think exactly the same way?
this is systemic, and you have to go after the root causes, which are in the way that police are taught to act. it's not an accident that this happens over and over - it's the system. they're not "bad apples". it's by design.
i know you don't want to think of it like this, but sending these cops to jail isn't any more useful than sending some low level crack dealers on the street to jail. it addresses something emotional, it expresses something religious, but it is an absolutely useless step in actually solving the actual problem.
but, what is the point of sending these cops to jail if the academy just replaces them with four more that think exactly the same way?
this is systemic, and you have to go after the root causes, which are in the way that police are taught to act. it's not an accident that this happens over and over - it's the system. they're not "bad apples". it's by design.
i know you don't want to think of it like this, but sending these cops to jail isn't any more useful than sending some low level crack dealers on the street to jail. it addresses something emotional, it expresses something religious, but it is an absolutely useless step in actually solving the actual problem.
this is complete nonsense.
what are they going to do if i just ignore them and walk right in? are they going to call the police? are they going to charge me with not wearing a mask?
you can be sure they'll end up with a charter case, if they do.
they have no enforcement rights, here. at all. nor does their status as private businesses give them the right to discriminate against customers based on their clothing - that's what human rights laws are for.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/mask-rights-covid-questions-answered-1.5590534
what are they going to do if i just ignore them and walk right in? are they going to call the police? are they going to charge me with not wearing a mask?
you can be sure they'll end up with a charter case, if they do.
they have no enforcement rights, here. at all. nor does their status as private businesses give them the right to discriminate against customers based on their clothing - that's what human rights laws are for.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/mask-rights-covid-questions-answered-1.5590534
as far as i can tell, what happened in minneapolis was a very stupid police officer. there's a lot of people with a lot of agendas, but the constant that keeps coming up in these cases is that police officers nowadays are, more often than not, of exceedingly low intelligence. there's not really another way to explain what happened.
the thing is that it isn't an accident - the police training specifically pulls out officers that are obedient, and specifically removes officers that demonstrate any sort of independent thinking.
so, the most frustrating thing you're going to hear about this is how he was a "bad apple", and how he "failed" to "protect". that's all rooted in utter nonsense. he's exactly what he was created to be, and he did exactly what he was trained to do.
everything else aside, you'd have to be halfway to being retarded to keep your knee on somebody when they're yelling at you like that.
and, while other scenarios may lead to other recommendations, the basic truth here is that this officer was obviously simply not intelligent enough to do his job.
if we must have cops, we need to stop making them so fucking stupid.
the thing is that it isn't an accident - the police training specifically pulls out officers that are obedient, and specifically removes officers that demonstrate any sort of independent thinking.
so, the most frustrating thing you're going to hear about this is how he was a "bad apple", and how he "failed" to "protect". that's all rooted in utter nonsense. he's exactly what he was created to be, and he did exactly what he was trained to do.
everything else aside, you'd have to be halfway to being retarded to keep your knee on somebody when they're yelling at you like that.
and, while other scenarios may lead to other recommendations, the basic truth here is that this officer was obviously simply not intelligent enough to do his job.
if we must have cops, we need to stop making them so fucking stupid.
she's a war criminal, and she should be in jail.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/05/biden-vice-president-susan-rice/612115/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/05/biden-vice-president-susan-rice/612115/
and why do you think he said that?
something needs to be done to reduce the power of social media companies to police speech, but revoking s. 230 would be a catastrophe for speech advocates.
yet, it seems like the parties agree with each other. so, it's congress' move, and what they do next could very well be horrible.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/29/21274812/joe-biden-donald-trump-twitter-facebook-section-230-moderation-revoke
something needs to be done to reduce the power of social media companies to police speech, but revoking s. 230 would be a catastrophe for speech advocates.
yet, it seems like the parties agree with each other. so, it's congress' move, and what they do next could very well be horrible.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/29/21274812/joe-biden-donald-trump-twitter-facebook-section-230-moderation-revoke
so, i've been sleepy since wednesday morning and have largely blown the last few days. i mean, i've been working at it, but i've only gotten a few hours done.
the temperature crashed by ten degrees celsius yesterday afternoon, which messed with me, and we're getting a cold and gross weekend. i'm not going to ask for the heat to come on, but it's cold in here, and it really sucks.
i've already used the stove a few times, and i'm going to have to take...i'm probably going to have to shower a few times to warm up. it's just the facts of it.
i've got one last section to cross-reference, and it could really, honestly be done by the morning, or by the afternoon.
the temperature crashed by ten degrees celsius yesterday afternoon, which messed with me, and we're getting a cold and gross weekend. i'm not going to ask for the heat to come on, but it's cold in here, and it really sucks.
i've already used the stove a few times, and i'm going to have to take...i'm probably going to have to shower a few times to warm up. it's just the facts of it.
i've got one last section to cross-reference, and it could really, honestly be done by the morning, or by the afternoon.
Friday, May 29, 2020
greg palast has often argued the opposite position, and does so here.
but, the united states has a very long history of electoral fraud, and stuffing ballots is how they do it. jfk, for example, stole the election in 1960 - as bush did in 2000.
trump may only be accidentally half-right, as is so often the case. but, it's the kind of thing that people should actually be taking very seriously, if they're concerned about electoral integrity.
if you want your vote to count you should walk it in.
and, if you don't want the political class rigging elections, you shouldn't hand them the opportunity to - an opportunity they will take, if you give it to them, because they always have.
https://www.gregpalast.com/rush-to-vote-by-mail-could-cost-dems-the-election/
but, the united states has a very long history of electoral fraud, and stuffing ballots is how they do it. jfk, for example, stole the election in 1960 - as bush did in 2000.
trump may only be accidentally half-right, as is so often the case. but, it's the kind of thing that people should actually be taking very seriously, if they're concerned about electoral integrity.
if you want your vote to count you should walk it in.
and, if you don't want the political class rigging elections, you shouldn't hand them the opportunity to - an opportunity they will take, if you give it to them, because they always have.
https://www.gregpalast.com/rush-to-vote-by-mail-could-cost-dems-the-election/
the court ruling is essentially that hypochondria is not a medical condition.
....which is technically actually wrong...:
...even if i kind of like the tone used by the judge.
what i'd like to see around mail-in voting is a better paper trail. i'm not really concerned about voter fraud in the sense of voters voting twice or ineligible voters casting ballots; what i'm concerned about is ballot-stuffing by elected (or not yet-elected) officials, and those concerns are well-grounded, if more so in california than in texas.
twitter is sending a very clear message - it doesn't want to be a public square, and it doesn't care about speech rights.
it wants to be a private club for middle class liberals, and is happy enough to check you at the door if you speak out.
on some level that's fine. but we need a public square, too - even if the elite prefer to avoid it.
it wants to be a private club for middle class liberals, and is happy enough to check you at the door if you speak out.
on some level that's fine. but we need a public square, too - even if the elite prefer to avoid it.
i personally have very little interest in what trump does or does not tweet, and care little about slapping warnings on his posts. i'm a very idealistic free speech advocate, but i ultimately just don't fucking care.
my actual interest is in ensuring that i maintain ownership over my own content - that these companies don't steal my labour from me.
and, independent artists need to be cognizant of what's unfolding and the threat it poses to them, as they give in to their ritualistic two minutes of hate, in a deeply pyrrhic shot to their own face.
my actual interest is in ensuring that i maintain ownership over my own content - that these companies don't steal my labour from me.
and, independent artists need to be cognizant of what's unfolding and the threat it poses to them, as they give in to their ritualistic two minutes of hate, in a deeply pyrrhic shot to their own face.
see, this is why i don't use twitter.
it's not a helpful response.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/29/twitter-hides-donald-trump-tweet-glorifying-violence
it's not a helpful response.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/29/twitter-hides-donald-trump-tweet-glorifying-violence
we're not going to do the next part in sharpie font. i can't edit html headers on a per-post basis, and the process of converting and cutting is rather time consuming.
so, the order is over here:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/
i'm going directly to the source because i don't trust the capitalist press to report on the capitalist president carrying out what looks like a capitalist power grab. i know they like to make it look like they're in conflict, but the world runs on class divisions, not political partisanism. the republicrats and silicon valley are on the same side, here. so, what are they doing, then?
the news reports were confusing, to say the least. but, reading the order directly isn't helping much. this appears to be a true exercise in trumpian logic, and it's probably going to take a logician to understand the multivalued logic system - and i've had to sit down and write it out to get it, and just concluded that it's incoherent.
so, what does the law say, first?
what it seems to say - and i'm a canadian that has never looked into this before, but does have legal training - is (1) that only the direct author of any content uploaded through any service should be considered to be it's owner and publisher and (2) that no "provider" of an "interactive computer service" should be held liable for any good faith attempt at restricting access to legitimately lewd material. that's clear enough, and i think we take it for granted as obvious.
and, what is trump trying to do?
well, he's arguing that if you edit the post then you should be liable for it. but, what that really means is that he's trying to scratch out the first part, without which no liability could be legally erected. there's no law against aiding and abetting offensive speech; if google or facebook (i don't use twitter...) is to become liable for the content of it's users, that necessarily implies it owns their content, otherwise there would be no basis for liability. that's what the analogy to a publishing house implies, in the end - that these companies will take ownership of the content via copyright. and, i'll get to that in the end.
but, of course, it's ridiculous and incoherent for the president to try and push something like that down. rather, he seems to be trying to threaten twitter into laying off on the censorship. this is where the trumpian logic comes in - he seems to legitimately think that making an absurd threat will create the outcome he wants, and the weakling tech companies will cower in fear of his greater manliness, or some stupidity such as that (or that's at least the surface delusion).
but, what's going to actually happen, of course, is that the lawyers for twitter and facebook and ... are going to look at this and scratch their heads and say "ok. what? this makes no sense.". and, they're not going to cower in fear and comply until they can at least make sense of it. and, at some point, they're going to ask the question "what if we don't comply?".
trumpian logic, which is not rooted in game theory, doesn't seem to allow for dissent or free will, which is why it doesn't ever work out in reality. it's just bully logic - you do what he says, because he says so, because he said so. there's no good reason for it besides dominance and alpha male superiority. which is laughable...
so, what happens if they just shrug it off and don't comply? which is what keeps happening over and over...
well, they may lose liability, but they'll gain ownership. well, in theory anyways. i couldn't imagine them arguing against that particularly loudly, to be entirely honest with you. i might wonder how long they've actually been lobbying for it...
see, trumpian logic is also cartmanian logic in the sense that it tends to skip a lot of steps. there is an endpoint here that seems to make some sense, at least. i've been arguing that we should have public ownership in order to constitutionally protect users (and, in context, the president should be treated like a garden variety user, not like a government entity with special powers), but the other way to bring in constitutional protection would be to have the corporations take copyright over the content. you'd have to break these entities up, so you'd have competing services, but this is the publishing house analogy taken to it's logical conclusion - the services would be liable for defamation, but they'd also have free speech.
so, if twitter ignores the threat, and trump follows through with it, what happens next?
what trump is thinking is something along the lines of "we gave you immunity from defamation, and you're still fucking with my posts. so, i'm going to take away your immunity, and expose you to lawsuits. fuckers.".
twitter is supposed to become fearful and remove the censorship.
but, what they will no doubt actually do is just delete trump's account, because it exposes them to liability.
and, this is why trump always loses - he thinks that he can bully people into submission with these threats, and they usually just laugh at him when he tries.
is any of this going to happen?
well, it's up to congress, really, isn't it?
but, i think he's at least laying down a binary choice and we are going to have to make it at some point. the status quo is not sustainable - we can't have private tyrannies policing speech like this. this has to change. but, will we adopt the model that trump is hinting at, where online companies are treated like publishing houses? or will we take public ownership of the commons?
so, the order is over here:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/
i'm going directly to the source because i don't trust the capitalist press to report on the capitalist president carrying out what looks like a capitalist power grab. i know they like to make it look like they're in conflict, but the world runs on class divisions, not political partisanism. the republicrats and silicon valley are on the same side, here. so, what are they doing, then?
the news reports were confusing, to say the least. but, reading the order directly isn't helping much. this appears to be a true exercise in trumpian logic, and it's probably going to take a logician to understand the multivalued logic system - and i've had to sit down and write it out to get it, and just concluded that it's incoherent.
so, what does the law say, first?
what it seems to say - and i'm a canadian that has never looked into this before, but does have legal training - is (1) that only the direct author of any content uploaded through any service should be considered to be it's owner and publisher and (2) that no "provider" of an "interactive computer service" should be held liable for any good faith attempt at restricting access to legitimately lewd material. that's clear enough, and i think we take it for granted as obvious.
and, what is trump trying to do?
well, he's arguing that if you edit the post then you should be liable for it. but, what that really means is that he's trying to scratch out the first part, without which no liability could be legally erected. there's no law against aiding and abetting offensive speech; if google or facebook (i don't use twitter...) is to become liable for the content of it's users, that necessarily implies it owns their content, otherwise there would be no basis for liability. that's what the analogy to a publishing house implies, in the end - that these companies will take ownership of the content via copyright. and, i'll get to that in the end.
but, of course, it's ridiculous and incoherent for the president to try and push something like that down. rather, he seems to be trying to threaten twitter into laying off on the censorship. this is where the trumpian logic comes in - he seems to legitimately think that making an absurd threat will create the outcome he wants, and the weakling tech companies will cower in fear of his greater manliness, or some stupidity such as that (or that's at least the surface delusion).
but, what's going to actually happen, of course, is that the lawyers for twitter and facebook and ... are going to look at this and scratch their heads and say "ok. what? this makes no sense.". and, they're not going to cower in fear and comply until they can at least make sense of it. and, at some point, they're going to ask the question "what if we don't comply?".
trumpian logic, which is not rooted in game theory, doesn't seem to allow for dissent or free will, which is why it doesn't ever work out in reality. it's just bully logic - you do what he says, because he says so, because he said so. there's no good reason for it besides dominance and alpha male superiority. which is laughable...
so, what happens if they just shrug it off and don't comply? which is what keeps happening over and over...
well, they may lose liability, but they'll gain ownership. well, in theory anyways. i couldn't imagine them arguing against that particularly loudly, to be entirely honest with you. i might wonder how long they've actually been lobbying for it...
see, trumpian logic is also cartmanian logic in the sense that it tends to skip a lot of steps. there is an endpoint here that seems to make some sense, at least. i've been arguing that we should have public ownership in order to constitutionally protect users (and, in context, the president should be treated like a garden variety user, not like a government entity with special powers), but the other way to bring in constitutional protection would be to have the corporations take copyright over the content. you'd have to break these entities up, so you'd have competing services, but this is the publishing house analogy taken to it's logical conclusion - the services would be liable for defamation, but they'd also have free speech.
so, if twitter ignores the threat, and trump follows through with it, what happens next?
what trump is thinking is something along the lines of "we gave you immunity from defamation, and you're still fucking with my posts. so, i'm going to take away your immunity, and expose you to lawsuits. fuckers.".
twitter is supposed to become fearful and remove the censorship.
but, what they will no doubt actually do is just delete trump's account, because it exposes them to liability.
and, this is why trump always loses - he thinks that he can bully people into submission with these threats, and they usually just laugh at him when he tries.
is any of this going to happen?
well, it's up to congress, really, isn't it?
but, i think he's at least laying down a binary choice and we are going to have to make it at some point. the status quo is not sustainable - we can't have private tyrannies policing speech like this. this has to change. but, will we adopt the model that trump is hinting at, where online companies are treated like publishing houses? or will we take public ownership of the commons?
uch-o
and, i'm actually in full agreement with the president up to this point.
this is where he loses me.
if big brother edits my post, does that mean he now owns it? all of a sudden, this seems less like it's about free speech and more like it's actually a power grab by the tech companies.
i must interject - google did not create this content. this is my content. dammit.
ok, i agree with this, entirely.
but, how do we get from this valid concern to the conclusion that google and facebook (and bandcamp?) now own my content?
i'm going to continue this in a new post - but you see what my concern is.
the internet is not like a factory. i'm not an employee of the sites i post to, and i'm not contributing to a product that is being produced by these sites, in the end. i know that americans have a hard time understanding what "socialism" means, but social media doesn't have much to do with socialization in production.
this needs a marxist deconstruction, because it's looking a lot like a 21st century analogue to the appropriation of labour that happened in the industrial revolution, without any of the logic underlying it.
this is still my product. i still made this. and, if google is going to be given property rights (and responsibilities.) over it, that's just an example of how property is theft.
but, this is still capitalism. we had to expect this, right?
section 2 forthcoming.
(executive order here:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/)
Thursday, May 28, 2020
i need to be able to sweat in the summer.
it's so weird and unnatural - and unhealthy - to stop yourself from sweating. i don't understand why anybody would do such a weird thing to their environment and their body...
i guess it's a male thing, in the end, isn't it? men are taught to bottle everything up inside - their emotions, their feelings, and, i guess, their sweat, too.
but, they need to let it out.
they need to relearn to cry and stink at the same time, it would seem.
but, i don't want to turn off my glands - i want to sweat. and i will.
it's so weird and unnatural - and unhealthy - to stop yourself from sweating. i don't understand why anybody would do such a weird thing to their environment and their body...
i guess it's a male thing, in the end, isn't it? men are taught to bottle everything up inside - their emotions, their feelings, and, i guess, their sweat, too.
but, they need to let it out.
they need to relearn to cry and stink at the same time, it would seem.
but, i don't want to turn off my glands - i want to sweat. and i will.
i was feeling better earlier in the week when the humidity first came in and warmed the place up, but i've been tired and having difficulty focusing over the last few days, as the machines upstairs have adjusted. i'm going to keep the windows open as the humidity falls, in order to short them out. if i'm stuck with cooler air one way or the other, i'd rather have fresh air from outside than dry air from the refrigerants.
it's different this year. last year, i was able to get outside quite a bit, so that when i did come in, i didn't notice the air as much. this year, i'm going to be inside for 98 out of 100 days and i'm going to need to find ways to acclimatize the surroundings. otherwise, i'm just going to sleep all summer as i hide from the air under hot blankets, and i don't want to do that.
for right now, i'm going to try to warm the place up by using the stove and then taking a hot shower. hopefully, i'll be more alert and focused when i get out of it.
it's different this year. last year, i was able to get outside quite a bit, so that when i did come in, i didn't notice the air as much. this year, i'm going to be inside for 98 out of 100 days and i'm going to need to find ways to acclimatize the surroundings. otherwise, i'm just going to sleep all summer as i hide from the air under hot blankets, and i don't want to do that.
for right now, i'm going to try to warm the place up by using the stove and then taking a hot shower. hopefully, i'll be more alert and focused when i get out of it.
it doesn't matter if "they work" or not, it's a discriminatory policy, regardless. you don't have the right to tell me what to wear because "it works" in stopping the spread of a disease - that's a red herring.
i would be more likely to vote with my feet and boycott the business than launch legal action.
but, i hope somebody drags him through court over this and stops this process of legalized discrimination in it's tracks. it sets a terrible precedent that can't be allowed to stand in a free society.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/499942-cuomo-to-sign-executive-order-allowing-businesses-to-deny-entry-to
i would be more likely to vote with my feet and boycott the business than launch legal action.
but, i hope somebody drags him through court over this and stops this process of legalized discrimination in it's tracks. it sets a terrible precedent that can't be allowed to stand in a free society.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/499942-cuomo-to-sign-executive-order-allowing-businesses-to-deny-entry-to
i have to warn you, though.
you need to expect massive levels of ignorance from the press on this issue, from all sides. we've been through this over and over - almost nobody seems to understand speech on this continent. the response from the aclu (who seems to lose every case they file, nowadays) is going to be just as bad as the response from fox news. it's just going to be complete nonsense from every direction...
if this ends up in court, the ruling will not be about political bias, and it won't be about first amendment rights - although you might stop to pause for a moment and realize that the precedent twitter would be citing would be citizen's united if it came down to it.
the question before the court will be about property rights, and the legal ruling in the end will be that there are no first amendment rights on private property.
that's what the issue here is.
don't let them confuse you.
you need to expect massive levels of ignorance from the press on this issue, from all sides. we've been through this over and over - almost nobody seems to understand speech on this continent. the response from the aclu (who seems to lose every case they file, nowadays) is going to be just as bad as the response from fox news. it's just going to be complete nonsense from every direction...
if this ends up in court, the ruling will not be about political bias, and it won't be about first amendment rights - although you might stop to pause for a moment and realize that the precedent twitter would be citing would be citizen's united if it came down to it.
the question before the court will be about property rights, and the legal ruling in the end will be that there are no first amendment rights on private property.
that's what the issue here is.
don't let them confuse you.
ok.
i'm going to guess that this executive order is going to be political theatre. again - he gets my hopes up, but he's not going to follow through with anything substantive.
the claim from the whitehouse is that twitter is engaging in "political bias". but, so what? they own the servers - it's their private property. they have no legal obligation to maintain neutrality. and, that's the actual legal fact, here.
i think it's a lamentable reality, but it's the current legal order.
so, what is he doing, then? he's just riling up his base.
as mentioned repeatedly, i'd like to see a total reversal of the way this is approached legally, but it would require overturning the courts, so it would need to go through congress, and i don't see any hope of that going anywhere.
just about all he can do is post a tweet condemning the censorship on twitter, and that's about all you're going to see actually happen.
there's a lot of ways that the state can approach something like this if it doesn't want to nationalize the servers, which is what i'd actually argue for. the thing is that trump isn't going to be interested in anything like that because it would undo his own relevance. i'm approaching this from a very idealistic perspective about the sanctity of speech; he's just looking to maximize marketing reach.
it does open a lot of questions, though, about how speech advocates move forward in restricting corporate censorship, in the future. but, don't think trump is an ally, here. he's just in it for himself.
so, i've decided.
the last time i went through this, i was trying to find a way to work blueberries into my diet, decided on the juice and then couldn't find any actual blueberry juice for a decent price; everything at the store was blueberry-cocktail or blueberry-concentrate. so, i just started buying blueberries. but, blueberries make sense in my diet in a way that carrots don't. if i can't find a decent source of carrot juice at a decent price, i'm not going to start buying carrots. maybe, one day, if i ever get a juicer....
the more i look into it, the less sense that green peppers are making to me. as mentioned, i just always got the greens because i liked how they tasted better. i knew they were high in c, and that was of importance to me, but it didn't really cross my mind to look into the different vitamin profiles of the different colours of peppers. now that i have, i realize i should be getting the reds. can i find reds that are bitter, though? or can i adjust to the sweeter taste?
i'm going to give it a try, next time i'm out, and see how i react. the reds have more c, so if my goal with the greens was the c, i'm not losing anything by moving to the reds. however, they have 10x as much beta carotene, which you can't overdose on. this simple switch would be enough to get me up past the daily recommended value for vitamin a at what is probably a moderate price difference.
if i don't like the sweet peppers in my pasta, i'll switch back. and, then what?
what i'll do is go shopping for carrot juice and see what i can find. the point of this is to get a lot of vitamin a, so i'll need to make sure i can actually get what i want. if all i can find is, like, v8 mixer and shit, then i'll need to find something else.
what if i find pure carrot juice and it's expensive? well, maybe i can add it in, without replacing the apple juice explicitly. the pure carrot juice will give you 300% of the rdi in a small glass. so, something i could do is mix the carrot juice with the apple juice. that could stretch it out and make it more affordable.
yes - i get 1000x more c than i need, but i kind of want to keep it that way.
let's hope i can handle the switch to the reds to start with. then, the carrot juice is just an added benefit on top of it.
the last time i went through this, i was trying to find a way to work blueberries into my diet, decided on the juice and then couldn't find any actual blueberry juice for a decent price; everything at the store was blueberry-cocktail or blueberry-concentrate. so, i just started buying blueberries. but, blueberries make sense in my diet in a way that carrots don't. if i can't find a decent source of carrot juice at a decent price, i'm not going to start buying carrots. maybe, one day, if i ever get a juicer....
the more i look into it, the less sense that green peppers are making to me. as mentioned, i just always got the greens because i liked how they tasted better. i knew they were high in c, and that was of importance to me, but it didn't really cross my mind to look into the different vitamin profiles of the different colours of peppers. now that i have, i realize i should be getting the reds. can i find reds that are bitter, though? or can i adjust to the sweeter taste?
i'm going to give it a try, next time i'm out, and see how i react. the reds have more c, so if my goal with the greens was the c, i'm not losing anything by moving to the reds. however, they have 10x as much beta carotene, which you can't overdose on. this simple switch would be enough to get me up past the daily recommended value for vitamin a at what is probably a moderate price difference.
if i don't like the sweet peppers in my pasta, i'll switch back. and, then what?
what i'll do is go shopping for carrot juice and see what i can find. the point of this is to get a lot of vitamin a, so i'll need to make sure i can actually get what i want. if all i can find is, like, v8 mixer and shit, then i'll need to find something else.
what if i find pure carrot juice and it's expensive? well, maybe i can add it in, without replacing the apple juice explicitly. the pure carrot juice will give you 300% of the rdi in a small glass. so, something i could do is mix the carrot juice with the apple juice. that could stretch it out and make it more affordable.
yes - i get 1000x more c than i need, but i kind of want to keep it that way.
let's hope i can handle the switch to the reds to start with. then, the carrot juice is just an added benefit on top of it.
there's a third reason, and it's ethical.
"it's ok to eat bugs, 'cause they don't have any feelings."
they literally have no brains....
https://www.popsci.com/story/diy/insect-bug-eating-guide/
"it's ok to eat bugs, 'cause they don't have any feelings."
they literally have no brains....
https://www.popsci.com/story/diy/insect-bug-eating-guide/
on second thought, i seem to be overestimating the amount of vitamin a that is in a serving of milk. it's only 6-10%. the soy i buy is actually 10%, which would be better than fortified cow's milk.
again - i just prefer the taste of soy milk more than anything else. it's a habit that stuck from a vegetarian phase i went through years ago and had to reverse because i just wasn't absorbing enough plant iron, and might not have been getting enough b12. that's not a universal condition - some people can be vegan, and, frankly, i actually wish i could be, too. but, it just left me anemic.
so, i buy small amounts of processed meat, and just eat enough of it to keep my b12 levels up. i might buy a burger at a fast food restaurant once in a while, and i'll buy bacon once every couple of years, but i'm actually almost 40 years old and have never purchased actual meat, ever, in my whole life. no steak. no ground beef. no chicken. no ham. nothing - ever.
what i actually want to do in the long run is move to insect protein, so i've been waiting for years for something to come up and it just hasn't materialized. if i could replace the salami in my pasta with caterpillars, i'd feel a lot better about myself....
the eggs & milk don't bother me in principle and at the end of the day i'd rather the animals get eaten than wasted. i'm more about minimizing suffering; the reality as it exists is largely unnecessary, and we're only harming ourselves by doing it. i mean, look at what's happening just right now - people are dying by the thousands of diabetes-related complications as a consequence of a virus that is essentially a mutated common cold. it's as much about their lifestyle choices as it is anything else. at the end of the day, the unavoidable consequence of strict veganism adopted en masse is that you're going to have to kill billions of animals and dump them into mass graves. so, if you really want to do this right, you want to move towards co-existence, which means toning it down more than cutting it out.
so, i'd be happy with myself if i could get my daily protein from insects and just rely on eggs and milk for the rest of it.
for the a, specifically, moving to carrot juice is probably the best approach. i get enough c from my daily fruit bowl - i don't need the apple juice.
again - i just prefer the taste of soy milk more than anything else. it's a habit that stuck from a vegetarian phase i went through years ago and had to reverse because i just wasn't absorbing enough plant iron, and might not have been getting enough b12. that's not a universal condition - some people can be vegan, and, frankly, i actually wish i could be, too. but, it just left me anemic.
so, i buy small amounts of processed meat, and just eat enough of it to keep my b12 levels up. i might buy a burger at a fast food restaurant once in a while, and i'll buy bacon once every couple of years, but i'm actually almost 40 years old and have never purchased actual meat, ever, in my whole life. no steak. no ground beef. no chicken. no ham. nothing - ever.
what i actually want to do in the long run is move to insect protein, so i've been waiting for years for something to come up and it just hasn't materialized. if i could replace the salami in my pasta with caterpillars, i'd feel a lot better about myself....
the eggs & milk don't bother me in principle and at the end of the day i'd rather the animals get eaten than wasted. i'm more about minimizing suffering; the reality as it exists is largely unnecessary, and we're only harming ourselves by doing it. i mean, look at what's happening just right now - people are dying by the thousands of diabetes-related complications as a consequence of a virus that is essentially a mutated common cold. it's as much about their lifestyle choices as it is anything else. at the end of the day, the unavoidable consequence of strict veganism adopted en masse is that you're going to have to kill billions of animals and dump them into mass graves. so, if you really want to do this right, you want to move towards co-existence, which means toning it down more than cutting it out.
so, i'd be happy with myself if i could get my daily protein from insects and just rely on eggs and milk for the rest of it.
for the a, specifically, moving to carrot juice is probably the best approach. i get enough c from my daily fruit bowl - i don't need the apple juice.
so, i never really refocused after eating yesterday morning, then i slept a while, and got up and finished eating. i want to get back to it.
but i'm wondering this morning if i'm getting enough vitamin a.
i don't drink milk, and i don't eat much of any kind of processed food at all so i'm not getting it fortified anywhere. i eat a lot of cheese, but it's actually not stated how much vitamin a is in it. also, the amount of vitamin a in the soy milk i buy is actually disappointingly low.
i eat four eggs/week, in one sitting, and i eat a lot of tomatoes. your body can at least store vitamin a, so eating a bunch of eggs all at once should be a good start, at least. but, i'm crunching the numbers, and it seems a little low, regardless - four eggs in one sitting is more like a daily amount than a weekly amount.
the reason i'm wondering is that my eyesight has been declining. i've been nearsighted since i was a kid, so it's nothing new, but it doesn't seem to have recovered fully from the last round of migraines. i eat a lot of fruit, but hardly any vegetables. i don't drink milk. i hardly eat any meat, and the little bit i do is mostly for the fat content. i'm not sure where i'd work more vegetables in, except maybe the pasta.
my pasta plate has one tomato and one green pepper, and i eat half the plate, six days a week. so, six out of seven days a week, i'll have roughly half a tomato and roughly half a green pepper. i've mostly been worried about c rather than a, but the actual truth is that i prefer the more bitter taste of the green peppers over the sweeter taste of the red peppers and that's really the reason i buy the greens - i just like the taste better. but, an easy way to boost my vitamin a would be to buy red peppers instead of green peppers.
i could also consider replacing the apple juice (which, again, is for vitamin c) with carrot juice. i'm sure i can find some carrot juice with some vitamin c in it.
i just didn't really realize how low my vitamin a intake actually is. i'm kind of surprised by it, actually. i should adjust to that....
but i'm wondering this morning if i'm getting enough vitamin a.
i don't drink milk, and i don't eat much of any kind of processed food at all so i'm not getting it fortified anywhere. i eat a lot of cheese, but it's actually not stated how much vitamin a is in it. also, the amount of vitamin a in the soy milk i buy is actually disappointingly low.
i eat four eggs/week, in one sitting, and i eat a lot of tomatoes. your body can at least store vitamin a, so eating a bunch of eggs all at once should be a good start, at least. but, i'm crunching the numbers, and it seems a little low, regardless - four eggs in one sitting is more like a daily amount than a weekly amount.
the reason i'm wondering is that my eyesight has been declining. i've been nearsighted since i was a kid, so it's nothing new, but it doesn't seem to have recovered fully from the last round of migraines. i eat a lot of fruit, but hardly any vegetables. i don't drink milk. i hardly eat any meat, and the little bit i do is mostly for the fat content. i'm not sure where i'd work more vegetables in, except maybe the pasta.
my pasta plate has one tomato and one green pepper, and i eat half the plate, six days a week. so, six out of seven days a week, i'll have roughly half a tomato and roughly half a green pepper. i've mostly been worried about c rather than a, but the actual truth is that i prefer the more bitter taste of the green peppers over the sweeter taste of the red peppers and that's really the reason i buy the greens - i just like the taste better. but, an easy way to boost my vitamin a would be to buy red peppers instead of green peppers.
i could also consider replacing the apple juice (which, again, is for vitamin c) with carrot juice. i'm sure i can find some carrot juice with some vitamin c in it.
i just didn't really realize how low my vitamin a intake actually is. i'm kind of surprised by it, actually. i should adjust to that....
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
i remember one time i was having sex, and my girlfriend at the time was sitting right on top of me and leaned down to bite my nipple, causing me to reflex in such a way that my back arched, which threw her off of me rather violently. she hit her head on the nightstand, creating a nasty bruise.
she was ok. thankfully. and, i don't blame myself - i reflexed, it was involuntary.
but, if she had landed a few cms one way or the other? yeah - it could have killed her. certainly.
she was ok. thankfully. and, i don't blame myself - i reflexed, it was involuntary.
but, if she had landed a few cms one way or the other? yeah - it could have killed her. certainly.
the husband may not be the best person to analyze the data, frankly.
you'd obviously need an autopsy to know for sure, and i understand that foul play was not suspected, but when you tell me that a woman has been found dead of head injuries in her boss' office, apparently consistent with head trauma, a seizure is not the first thing that comes to mind.
i'm not saying joe killed her. at least not on purpose.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-tweet-scarborough-1.5576546
you'd obviously need an autopsy to know for sure, and i understand that foul play was not suspected, but when you tell me that a woman has been found dead of head injuries in her boss' office, apparently consistent with head trauma, a seizure is not the first thing that comes to mind.
i'm not saying joe killed her. at least not on purpose.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-tweet-scarborough-1.5576546
and, what about the claim about mail-in ballots?
well, i've seen some results in primaries that don't seem quite right, to say the least. i have some strong reservations about their use and would like to see stronger paper trails attached to them.
i would not consider trump's claim to be objectively false - his concern has some merit.
well, i've seen some results in primaries that don't seem quite right, to say the least. i have some strong reservations about their use and would like to see stronger paper trails attached to them.
i would not consider trump's claim to be objectively false - his concern has some merit.
and, what about the people that actually want the government to crack down on free expression?
well, those are the actual conservatives.
but, our legal system doesn't actually take these people seriously, on either side of the border. they have no mechanism on which to actually act - they would need private companies to do the deed for them. well, unless we rip up our respective constitutions...
well, those are the actual conservatives.
but, our legal system doesn't actually take these people seriously, on either side of the border. they have no mechanism on which to actually act - they would need private companies to do the deed for them. well, unless we rip up our respective constitutions...
but my basic position is clear enough - social media is central enough to public discourse at this point that it should be removed from private oversight and nationalized, so that speech over social media is constitutionally protected.
we shouldn't have private companies determining what you can or can't say, it should be up to the courts.
and, that's a left wing position, not a conservative one.
we shouldn't have private companies determining what you can or can't say, it should be up to the courts.
and, that's a left wing position, not a conservative one.
given the current legal paradigm of private property and free markets, trump has the choice to abide by the rules put in place by the owners of the social media or not; if he doesn't like the speaking rules put in place by the owner of the property, he has the right to leave the premises and speak elsewhere.
but, if he wants to try to change that, i'd actually support him.
well. let's see what he has in mind, first, before i commit to that.
but, if he wants to try to change that, i'd actually support him.
well. let's see what he has in mind, first, before i commit to that.
this is yet another situation where i'm sort of agreeing with trump, from the far left. i've been over this before, but i'm going to summarize what i've already posted.
the issue of speech on social media is confusing for a lot of people, and conservatives are often the most confused. legally speaking, social media is considered to be private property. what that means is that the government really has no more of a right to get involved in this than it does in a private speaking event, and the social media companies have as much right to basically do what they want as the owner of a private venue does.
so, trump's claims are actually rather dubious, especially in the united states, where property is so constitutionally protected. any attempt made by this administration to regulate social media in this manner would be ripped apart by the courts.
but, as a leftist, i don't like that - i think this is an example where property rights are a bad thing, and should be abolished. as an anarchist, my opposition to private property is more or less my most fundamental axiom, and forms the starting point of almost all of my politics. what that means from where i'm standing is that i want to treat social media not as private property but as a public forum, something that the courts have already thoroughly rejected, and that liberals seems to think is reasonable.
so, we're in a situation where liberals want to support social media as private property and let the companies regulate it (and may or may not want stricter enforcement), and self-identified conservatives seem to actually agree with the socialists, who want to treat it as a public forum, which would bring in constitutional protections for freedom of speech.
do i think that twitter should place a parental discretion warning on trump's tweets? i don't, no. and, if twitter was a public forum rather than private property, they would be prohibited from doing so by the first amendment. it's the fact that it's private property that lets them do that.
and, the way out of this is to nationalize social media, which is something i've been calling for for a long time.
i hope i've clarified the actual legalities here and where i stand on them.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-social-media-twitter-fact-check-1.5586285
the issue of speech on social media is confusing for a lot of people, and conservatives are often the most confused. legally speaking, social media is considered to be private property. what that means is that the government really has no more of a right to get involved in this than it does in a private speaking event, and the social media companies have as much right to basically do what they want as the owner of a private venue does.
so, trump's claims are actually rather dubious, especially in the united states, where property is so constitutionally protected. any attempt made by this administration to regulate social media in this manner would be ripped apart by the courts.
but, as a leftist, i don't like that - i think this is an example where property rights are a bad thing, and should be abolished. as an anarchist, my opposition to private property is more or less my most fundamental axiom, and forms the starting point of almost all of my politics. what that means from where i'm standing is that i want to treat social media not as private property but as a public forum, something that the courts have already thoroughly rejected, and that liberals seems to think is reasonable.
so, we're in a situation where liberals want to support social media as private property and let the companies regulate it (and may or may not want stricter enforcement), and self-identified conservatives seem to actually agree with the socialists, who want to treat it as a public forum, which would bring in constitutional protections for freedom of speech.
do i think that twitter should place a parental discretion warning on trump's tweets? i don't, no. and, if twitter was a public forum rather than private property, they would be prohibited from doing so by the first amendment. it's the fact that it's private property that lets them do that.
and, the way out of this is to nationalize social media, which is something i've been calling for for a long time.
i hope i've clarified the actual legalities here and where i stand on them.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-social-media-twitter-fact-check-1.5586285
doug ford has no legal background and is completely fucking wrong in every way. as usual.
if this were to show up in a court, it would be a clear issue of discrimination, and the business would be forced to pay a fine. and, that is the correct ruling under any concept of human rights law.
that said, if i show up at a grocery store and they tell me i can't come in unless i wear a mask, i'd be just as happy to take my business elsewhere. permanently.
i'm halfway done the final cross-reference, if measured chronologically. however, it's closer to being two thirds of the way done, if measured in terms of amount of content - more than that, really, because a lot of the posts left are very lengthy, and the remaining process is about running the 'compare' program in notepad++.
i might get this finished by noon.
right now, i'm stopping to eat.
i might get this finished by noon.
right now, i'm stopping to eat.
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
i am not a religious person, but there is a popular saying that religious people often trot out:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
unfortunately, a lot of people in government seem to have more courage than wisdom right now.
and, maybe they should go watch the wizard of oz.
https://nationalpost.com/news/fatalism-effect-study-says-people-who-overestimate-covid-19-spread-are-less-likely-to-follow-rules
to be clear - recognizing the futility of fighting this virus is not "fatalism", it's just sound reasoning and rational thinking.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
unfortunately, a lot of people in government seem to have more courage than wisdom right now.
and, maybe they should go watch the wizard of oz.
https://nationalpost.com/news/fatalism-effect-study-says-people-who-overestimate-covid-19-spread-are-less-likely-to-follow-rules
to be clear - recognizing the futility of fighting this virus is not "fatalism", it's just sound reasoning and rational thinking.
listen.
i'm not getting my information from anywhere at all besides a sense of deductive reasoning. if i have a source to share, i'm not shy to do so.
but, i don't read social media and i don't follow really any "alternative media" at all, for the reason that i find so much of it to be so controlled. those quotes are there for good reason; i'd be more likely to rip apart much of what you see in the "alternative press" as statist bullshit than to follow it with any kind of seriousness.
i'm not a bot, i'm just an independent thinker. that's all. and, what you're afraid of is the example of somebody carrying through with actual critical reasoning, not some imaginary russian propaganda that doesn't actually exist.
what's changed with me over the years is that i've stopped reading the news. so, this page doesn't have the kind of media deconstruction that it may have had in previous years, because i've decided that i have better things to do and don't want to waste my time with it...
i try to get my information from the most basic sources possible, to try to minimize bias, and then draw my own conclusions based on my own knowledge base, and my own reasoning skills.
that is what scares you.
and, your fear is what scares the fuck out of me.
i'm not getting my information from anywhere at all besides a sense of deductive reasoning. if i have a source to share, i'm not shy to do so.
but, i don't read social media and i don't follow really any "alternative media" at all, for the reason that i find so much of it to be so controlled. those quotes are there for good reason; i'd be more likely to rip apart much of what you see in the "alternative press" as statist bullshit than to follow it with any kind of seriousness.
i'm not a bot, i'm just an independent thinker. that's all. and, what you're afraid of is the example of somebody carrying through with actual critical reasoning, not some imaginary russian propaganda that doesn't actually exist.
what's changed with me over the years is that i've stopped reading the news. so, this page doesn't have the kind of media deconstruction that it may have had in previous years, because i've decided that i have better things to do and don't want to waste my time with it...
i try to get my information from the most basic sources possible, to try to minimize bias, and then draw my own conclusions based on my own knowledge base, and my own reasoning skills.
that is what scares you.
and, your fear is what scares the fuck out of me.
there's unfortunately a new interface on the backend of this site that looks like it's going to make it a lot harder to use. i tried it for a few seconds and switched back, because i don't have the interest in relearning how to use something that i already know how to use.
why do they do this? what's the purpose of it? it doesn't make them any money. it doesn't make anybody's lives better. it's just a pointless annoyance.
i suppose i'll have to figure this out eventually, but the first thing i noticed is that they eliminated the separation on the side between published posts, drafts and all posts. how do i find drafts, then? i don't really want to figure it out right now, but i guess i'll have to, eventually.
they're also eliminating the search function, apparently - frustrating for a large site like this, that has over 20,000 posts. hopefully, i can bring it back. but, it's there because i want it there. why take it away, only to force me to re-implement it? do you think i have nothing better to do, or what?
lastly - and this is going to be an incredible annoyance if they don't fix it - they appear to be listing the posts by their post title strictly, meaning a post like this would show up as "untitled post". are they trying to force me to title every single fucking post? why? i don't want to title this post - it doesn't deserve a title, it's just a thought. so, are they going to make me come up with some stupid title as a place holder every time i post a thought? again, why?
this site isn't broken, google. don't fix it. it's not wanted...
why do they do this? what's the purpose of it? it doesn't make them any money. it doesn't make anybody's lives better. it's just a pointless annoyance.
i suppose i'll have to figure this out eventually, but the first thing i noticed is that they eliminated the separation on the side between published posts, drafts and all posts. how do i find drafts, then? i don't really want to figure it out right now, but i guess i'll have to, eventually.
they're also eliminating the search function, apparently - frustrating for a large site like this, that has over 20,000 posts. hopefully, i can bring it back. but, it's there because i want it there. why take it away, only to force me to re-implement it? do you think i have nothing better to do, or what?
lastly - and this is going to be an incredible annoyance if they don't fix it - they appear to be listing the posts by their post title strictly, meaning a post like this would show up as "untitled post". are they trying to force me to title every single fucking post? why? i don't want to title this post - it doesn't deserve a title, it's just a thought. so, are they going to make me come up with some stupid title as a place holder every time i post a thought? again, why?
this site isn't broken, google. don't fix it. it's not wanted...
this government had a choice of models to pick from, including it's own research, and it picked the most authoritarian, most draconian, most heavy-handed, most right-wing, most conservative models that it could find.
countries like singapore, china, south korea and taiwan - fascist states.
and, we're seeing the obvious result of it - we are now afraid of our own government.
congratulations; that's an accomplishment. no more than ten years ago, we had one of the strongest levels of trust in our government on the planet, justified or not.
we were once like sweden.
now we're like singapore.
welcome to the dark ages, canada. they could last a while...
countries like singapore, china, south korea and taiwan - fascist states.
and, we're seeing the obvious result of it - we are now afraid of our own government.
congratulations; that's an accomplishment. no more than ten years ago, we had one of the strongest levels of trust in our government on the planet, justified or not.
we were once like sweden.
now we're like singapore.
welcome to the dark ages, canada. they could last a while...
i actually don't think the pandemic in ontario has even started yet, but the low testing numbers are sending the government the message that we don't want to co-operate with the lockdown.
what i think is happening is that people are deciding that the facts are that the disease is not likely to be harmful to them, which is true. maybe they're making an attempt to avoid the weak, like they should. maybe they're not. but, they're making a decision that this isn't serious enough to seek medical attention.
and they don't want to be told to self-isolate at the butt of a shotgun.
we saw this happen in singapore, and it blew up in the end. that is the likely end outcome.
who do you blame for that, when it happens? well, i told you that was going to happen in the first place, and i'm telling you it's going to happen again. the authoritarian response in ontario has made people afraid to seek treatment. the entity that you blame is the government, and all three levels are responsible for this. this is a complete failure in government policy...
don't listen to me, listen to the scientists - they'll tell you this is still spreading, and that it's increasingly spreading undetected.
you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. and, while i didn't expect much better from the dumbass at queen's park, or the conservative mayor of toronto, the authoritarian response from the feds has been very saddening.
what do you do now?
it's probably too late to unscare people. you'll just have to sit and wait.
but, you should also recognize that people are voting with their feet.
we do not consent to this and we want the government to stop.
what i think is happening is that people are deciding that the facts are that the disease is not likely to be harmful to them, which is true. maybe they're making an attempt to avoid the weak, like they should. maybe they're not. but, they're making a decision that this isn't serious enough to seek medical attention.
and they don't want to be told to self-isolate at the butt of a shotgun.
we saw this happen in singapore, and it blew up in the end. that is the likely end outcome.
who do you blame for that, when it happens? well, i told you that was going to happen in the first place, and i'm telling you it's going to happen again. the authoritarian response in ontario has made people afraid to seek treatment. the entity that you blame is the government, and all three levels are responsible for this. this is a complete failure in government policy...
don't listen to me, listen to the scientists - they'll tell you this is still spreading, and that it's increasingly spreading undetected.
you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. and, while i didn't expect much better from the dumbass at queen's park, or the conservative mayor of toronto, the authoritarian response from the feds has been very saddening.
what do you do now?
it's probably too late to unscare people. you'll just have to sit and wait.
but, you should also recognize that people are voting with their feet.
we do not consent to this and we want the government to stop.
Monday, May 25, 2020
i'm not likely to see myself going out and protesting outside city hall that things should be allowed to go back to normal.
rather, at some point i'm going to start looking for speakeasies and basement shows - and i'd expect that they're not too much further in the future from developing, either. at some point, we're going to collectively shrug it off and just move on.
rather, at some point i'm going to start looking for speakeasies and basement shows - and i'd expect that they're not too much further in the future from developing, either. at some point, we're going to collectively shrug it off and just move on.
my guess is that this is complete nonsense.
they think i'm a bot, and i'm not.
more likely is that it's a tactic to try to marginalize dissent by pretending that these people don't actually exist, and it says a lot about the direction that the state is moving with this.
there's no apparent end in site. so, at what point do we lose our patience and just get on with it?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/nearly-half-of-coronavirus-related-tweets-are-sent-by-bots-spreading-misinformation-research-finds-1.4953501
they think i'm a bot, and i'm not.
more likely is that it's a tactic to try to marginalize dissent by pretending that these people don't actually exist, and it says a lot about the direction that the state is moving with this.
there's no apparent end in site. so, at what point do we lose our patience and just get on with it?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/nearly-half-of-coronavirus-related-tweets-are-sent-by-bots-spreading-misinformation-research-finds-1.4953501
i will not consent to receiving this vaccine.
ever.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/vaccine-clinical-trials-1.5580436
ever.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/vaccine-clinical-trials-1.5580436
Sunday, May 24, 2020
that took longer than i wanted to because the 90s laptop is soooo sloooow, but i downloaded all four of the blogs to usb, and will be able to cross-reference them properly tonight.
it is, counter-intuitively, exceedingly cold in here. what i've done is open the windows, but it's only half-effective because so much of the problem appears to be in the piping. it's some kind of italian cooling system, or something - it's based on the weeping tiles. i'm sure of that...
so, it's 40 degrees outside and i'm wearing a sweater :(.
i don't have screens on the windows, but if i'm stuck inside all summer then i'm going to need to find a way to get some. i can probably just get a roll of something at home hardware next time i'm out.
for now, what i've done is tape over the windows and then poke holes in them. my first attempt wasn't enough, so i poked a whole bunch more in them. it's a balancing act - i want enough holes to let the hot air in, while still keeping the bugs out. i'm hoping the tape helps.
that should be stable for the next week or so. i won't be out again until the weather cools down a little.
for now, i'm overdue on a shower, but i'm starving, so i'm going to eat first.
there is a distinct possibility that there may be some uploads before sunrise. we'll see.
it is, counter-intuitively, exceedingly cold in here. what i've done is open the windows, but it's only half-effective because so much of the problem appears to be in the piping. it's some kind of italian cooling system, or something - it's based on the weeping tiles. i'm sure of that...
so, it's 40 degrees outside and i'm wearing a sweater :(.
i don't have screens on the windows, but if i'm stuck inside all summer then i'm going to need to find a way to get some. i can probably just get a roll of something at home hardware next time i'm out.
for now, what i've done is tape over the windows and then poke holes in them. my first attempt wasn't enough, so i poked a whole bunch more in them. it's a balancing act - i want enough holes to let the hot air in, while still keeping the bugs out. i'm hoping the tape helps.
that should be stable for the next week or so. i won't be out again until the weather cools down a little.
for now, i'm overdue on a shower, but i'm starving, so i'm going to eat first.
there is a distinct possibility that there may be some uploads before sunrise. we'll see.
well, if you didn't close down the whole city and tell people to sit inside for months at a time, people wouldn't flock to the park as the only thing open when it finally warms up.
you fucking idiots.
i'm not a park person or a beach person; i'd rather sit inside and read. there aren't any bands playing....
but, my solidarity is with the maximization of freedom, not with the enforcement of draconian laws.
we've approached this completely backwards - we should have focused on protecting the weak, not on repressing the strong. and, the state only has itself to blame for it's failure to enact reasonable policies.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6979921/coronavirus-video-toronto-park/
you fucking idiots.
i'm not a park person or a beach person; i'd rather sit inside and read. there aren't any bands playing....
but, my solidarity is with the maximization of freedom, not with the enforcement of draconian laws.
we've approached this completely backwards - we should have focused on protecting the weak, not on repressing the strong. and, the state only has itself to blame for it's failure to enact reasonable policies.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6979921/coronavirus-video-toronto-park/
so, the rebuild is done, and i need a nap.
i spent a lot of time with that origins project, and those files on a handful of german tribes are just a tease. there's not thousands of files, there's tens of thousands of files. i'm going to run out of time, and i'm ok with it.
i'll need to cross-reference everything, but it looks like the politics archive is coming in around 230 pages, while the music document is coming in around 175. deathtokoalas is coming in around 90 pages. and, the travel blog is very short, as will be the norm.
let's hope i can get this published in the next 24 hours.
i spent a lot of time with that origins project, and those files on a handful of german tribes are just a tease. there's not thousands of files, there's tens of thousands of files. i'm going to run out of time, and i'm ok with it.
i'll need to cross-reference everything, but it looks like the politics archive is coming in around 230 pages, while the music document is coming in around 175. deathtokoalas is coming in around 90 pages. and, the travel blog is very short, as will be the norm.
let's hope i can get this published in the next 24 hours.
i am in the process of publishing some genealogical/archaeological/pre-historical/paleoanthropological notes on german migrations that happened in the late empire.
this came out of a genealogical project that i started doing in the early 00s that was attempting to build a constructive proof of the existence of a north american aristocracy, something i felt was necessary at the time (and nowadays more or less think is so obvious that it isn't worth proving). these ethnic groups will fall down in the tree to historical people, whose descendants can be traced to living people. over time, the family tree became the structure in a more detailed historical site that i've largely put on hold, and in truth may never really get back to. my music is the primary priority...
these notes are in varying states of usefulness. some of it is original "research" - in fact not research at all, but careful deductive reasoning of other people's research. i tend to rather frequently argue against the deductions made in published research, which is what my actual academic purpose would be, even if i'd rather just throw this up online and let people sort through it than try and actually get it published. some of it is in a state of purgatory, where i've been waiting to more carefully source it for years. some of it is things that i would take a step back from at this point, or otherwise seek to clarify before i defended.
you will note that i have not uploaded any of this to the appspot site, and it is for the reason that i have minimal confidence in it. yet, the purpose of what i'm doing right now is to be comprehensive in documentation, and this blog is intended to be rough, as an intrinsic property. so, take this for what it is.
when i am more confident in these notes, i will publish them to the appspot site. for now, if you're particularly intrigued or upset by something, feel free to drop me an email. the contact address is on the side.
https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2014_01_28_archive.html
https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2014_01_29_archive.html
https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2014_01_30_archive.html
https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2014_01_31_archive.html
this came out of a genealogical project that i started doing in the early 00s that was attempting to build a constructive proof of the existence of a north american aristocracy, something i felt was necessary at the time (and nowadays more or less think is so obvious that it isn't worth proving). these ethnic groups will fall down in the tree to historical people, whose descendants can be traced to living people. over time, the family tree became the structure in a more detailed historical site that i've largely put on hold, and in truth may never really get back to. my music is the primary priority...
these notes are in varying states of usefulness. some of it is original "research" - in fact not research at all, but careful deductive reasoning of other people's research. i tend to rather frequently argue against the deductions made in published research, which is what my actual academic purpose would be, even if i'd rather just throw this up online and let people sort through it than try and actually get it published. some of it is in a state of purgatory, where i've been waiting to more carefully source it for years. some of it is things that i would take a step back from at this point, or otherwise seek to clarify before i defended.
you will note that i have not uploaded any of this to the appspot site, and it is for the reason that i have minimal confidence in it. yet, the purpose of what i'm doing right now is to be comprehensive in documentation, and this blog is intended to be rough, as an intrinsic property. so, take this for what it is.
when i am more confident in these notes, i will publish them to the appspot site. for now, if you're particularly intrigued or upset by something, feel free to drop me an email. the contact address is on the side.
https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2014_01_28_archive.html
https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2014_01_29_archive.html
https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2014_01_30_archive.html
https://dsdfghghfsdflgkfgkja.blogspot.com/2014_01_31_archive.html
there is apparently some suggestion in the classical literature that the persian achaemenids (cyrus, darius, xerxes, etc) took particular exception to the existence of child sacrifice in semitic religion and ordered it ended by force.
so, while modern historians need to take anything classical very carefully (any statements by classical historians need to be treated as hypotheses to be proven using archaeology, rather than accepted at face value), there is at least some consistency in deriving this story - which does not appear to be more ancient than the hebrews - from the babylonian captivity, which is where judaism as we understand it was actually invented, under heavy influence from zoroastrianism.
so, while modern historians need to take anything classical very carefully (any statements by classical historians need to be treated as hypotheses to be proven using archaeology, rather than accepted at face value), there is at least some consistency in deriving this story - which does not appear to be more ancient than the hebrews - from the babylonian captivity, which is where judaism as we understand it was actually invented, under heavy influence from zoroastrianism.
i'm sure i've posted about this before, but i can't find it...
what's my hyper-rationalist, atheistic take on the whole god-telling-abraham-to-kill-isaac story?
unlike much of the old testament, i don't think that this story has a known alpha source. so, for example, the flood story is thought to derive from a much older babylonian myth, and the exodus story might have something to do with the sea peoples. but, this particular story seems to be inherently and originally jewish (or canaanite) in origin - at least, as far as we know.
i've also seen some suggestions that the story may hold a memory of child sacrifice in ancient hebrew culture, and that it was changed due to changing social attitudes. i think this is close, but it perhaps reverses the causality.
my general perception of what the bible is is an elaborate ploy for the existence of the jewish state. there are still bedouins in the region, to this day; these are what the ancestral hebrew populations in the region would have been like. the bible is essentially a fairy tale to try and assert statist control over these nomadic sheep herders. this story is best understood in this context, along with the rest of the bible.
in the modern era, we reject the idea that jews are baby eaters as racist and hateful and trace the history of this exclusionism back through the christian persecution of judaism that supposedly started in the middle ages. but, if you look at the history in more depth, you realize that the roman persecution of judaism is actually largely rooted in the punic wars - and that the romans were calling the carthaginians baby killers hundreds of years before the common era. in fact, carthaginian religion does appear to have had a place for child sacrifice in it, going back to the early part of the first millennium. the carthaginians lived in modern tunisia, but they were semitic migrants from phoenicia that would have been extremely similar to the ancient jews. roman hegemony was built on the destruction of carthage in the punic wars.
carthago delenda est
...and that feeling was still going on, apparently, for quite a while after it actually was.
what i might suggest, then, is that the people that wrote this particular story were living amongst people that were sacrificing their kids to (the) god(s), for whatever reason - to ward off diseases, to maximize the harvest, so that it would rain once in a while in the fucking desert, etc - and that there was an intent underlying writing it to teach the people to stop fucking do it. it might not even have been particularly moral.
there is evidence of child sacrifice in italy fairly late into antiquity, as a consequence of the calamity that resulted from the onset of the european dark ages. these people were sacrificing their children to their pagan gods in order to stop the collapse of their society - something that was of course foolish, and ultimately would have merely led to lower population growth. it would have been hard for the romans to compete with the invading germans, let alone with the accursed christians, if they were murdering their own children to curry advantage with their imaginary gods. as terrible as the twin threats of christianity and german barbarism no doubt were on the late empire, milesian thought had clearly left these people, as well.
years later, the byzantines would open the gates to the turks because they thought jesus would come back after they did. the turks just laughed at them; that was the end of the byzantines. it's really amazing how religion can weaken and destroy a culture and lead it to cannibalize itself...
but, whether due to moral teaching, or just due to the elite trying to maximize population growth, perhaps even for war, my guess is that the intent of the story is to teach these bedouins to stop sacrificing their own kids - that if they must sacrifice something, they should kill a fucking goat instead.
what's my hyper-rationalist, atheistic take on the whole god-telling-abraham-to-kill-isaac story?
unlike much of the old testament, i don't think that this story has a known alpha source. so, for example, the flood story is thought to derive from a much older babylonian myth, and the exodus story might have something to do with the sea peoples. but, this particular story seems to be inherently and originally jewish (or canaanite) in origin - at least, as far as we know.
i've also seen some suggestions that the story may hold a memory of child sacrifice in ancient hebrew culture, and that it was changed due to changing social attitudes. i think this is close, but it perhaps reverses the causality.
my general perception of what the bible is is an elaborate ploy for the existence of the jewish state. there are still bedouins in the region, to this day; these are what the ancestral hebrew populations in the region would have been like. the bible is essentially a fairy tale to try and assert statist control over these nomadic sheep herders. this story is best understood in this context, along with the rest of the bible.
in the modern era, we reject the idea that jews are baby eaters as racist and hateful and trace the history of this exclusionism back through the christian persecution of judaism that supposedly started in the middle ages. but, if you look at the history in more depth, you realize that the roman persecution of judaism is actually largely rooted in the punic wars - and that the romans were calling the carthaginians baby killers hundreds of years before the common era. in fact, carthaginian religion does appear to have had a place for child sacrifice in it, going back to the early part of the first millennium. the carthaginians lived in modern tunisia, but they were semitic migrants from phoenicia that would have been extremely similar to the ancient jews. roman hegemony was built on the destruction of carthage in the punic wars.
carthago delenda est
...and that feeling was still going on, apparently, for quite a while after it actually was.
what i might suggest, then, is that the people that wrote this particular story were living amongst people that were sacrificing their kids to (the) god(s), for whatever reason - to ward off diseases, to maximize the harvest, so that it would rain once in a while in the fucking desert, etc - and that there was an intent underlying writing it to teach the people to stop fucking do it. it might not even have been particularly moral.
there is evidence of child sacrifice in italy fairly late into antiquity, as a consequence of the calamity that resulted from the onset of the european dark ages. these people were sacrificing their children to their pagan gods in order to stop the collapse of their society - something that was of course foolish, and ultimately would have merely led to lower population growth. it would have been hard for the romans to compete with the invading germans, let alone with the accursed christians, if they were murdering their own children to curry advantage with their imaginary gods. as terrible as the twin threats of christianity and german barbarism no doubt were on the late empire, milesian thought had clearly left these people, as well.
years later, the byzantines would open the gates to the turks because they thought jesus would come back after they did. the turks just laughed at them; that was the end of the byzantines. it's really amazing how religion can weaken and destroy a culture and lead it to cannibalize itself...
but, whether due to moral teaching, or just due to the elite trying to maximize population growth, perhaps even for war, my guess is that the intent of the story is to teach these bedouins to stop sacrificing their own kids - that if they must sacrifice something, they should kill a fucking goat instead.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
i would support shutting down the tar sands entirely and permanently, immediately.
but, kenney is right - biden is a lying piece of shit. he won't do it, and these are the reasons why.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6975521/kenney-biden-keystone-xl-alberta-oil/
but, kenney is right - biden is a lying piece of shit. he won't do it, and these are the reasons why.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6975521/kenney-biden-keystone-xl-alberta-oil/
1:11:15
just another conspiracy theory coming from the faculty at stanford.
apparently, sine and his sidekick co-sine are in cahoots to eliminate the term. is that what you think, susskind?
somebody take away this guy's tenure, he's pushing schizophrenic conspiracies to impressionable students.
just another conspiracy theory coming from the faculty at stanford.
apparently, sine and his sidekick co-sine are in cahoots to eliminate the term. is that what you think, susskind?
somebody take away this guy's tenure, he's pushing schizophrenic conspiracies to impressionable students.
In the developing world, the coronavirus is killing far more young people. Fifteen percent of the dead in Brazil were younger than 50 — more than 10 times the percentage in Italy or Spain.
in fact, the correct way to read this statistic is not that it's killing more young people, but that it's killing less old people.
life expectancy in brazil is almost ten years less than it is in italy.
that statistical fail came from the washington post.
in fact, the correct way to read this statistic is not that it's killing more young people, but that it's killing less old people.
life expectancy in brazil is almost ten years less than it is in italy.
that statistical fail came from the washington post.
is there a connection between the rise of neo-liberalism (and the marketization and productification of everything) and a reality where undercover police officers legally smoke drugs in the house that they're supposed to be on a stakeout in, thereby pissing off the largely straight-edge yet supposedly dangerous radical that they're supposed to be spying on - and that knows they're being spied on because they can fucking smell the dirty, fucking pig smoking up?
i'm sorry if you don't see it, actually.
i'm sorry if you don't see it, actually.
i've had an absolutely terrible night, full of yelling and screaming at the disgusting pig upstairs. i just kind of snapped. i guess the pot tripped my cortisol levels and pushed me into an anxiety attack.....
i simply don't want to be dealing with migraines all of the time, and i know that the second-hand smoke is what's causing them. on top of that, i was trying to do laundry. what could be more frustrating and disgusting than dealing with unwanted second-hand smoke in your own home, when you're doing laundry? the point of laundry is to get rid of the stink, after all.
she seems to have stopped, but who knows for how long.
so, i'm going to stop to eat, and get back to finishing up the journal afterwards, after that detour through the playlist, which is something i'd been wanting to do for a while but kept putting off.
i simply don't want to be dealing with migraines all of the time, and i know that the second-hand smoke is what's causing them. on top of that, i was trying to do laundry. what could be more frustrating and disgusting than dealing with unwanted second-hand smoke in your own home, when you're doing laundry? the point of laundry is to get rid of the stink, after all.
she seems to have stopped, but who knows for how long.
so, i'm going to stop to eat, and get back to finishing up the journal afterwards, after that detour through the playlist, which is something i'd been wanting to do for a while but kept putting off.
Friday, May 22, 2020
it's the lockdown that's hurting people, not the virus.
and, if you want a sense of shared loss or shared sacrifice, it's going to come in digging ourselves out of this very substantive economic mess that was neither necessary nor asked for, and will take years and years.
i care little for these dying boomers that destroyed the planet and ate themselves to death in the process.
my concern is for the young, the living - the future. not the past...
and, we are under attack - not by the virus, but by one last dying gasp of baby boomer neo-liberalism, that is carrying out a scorched earth policy on it's way out.
and, if you want a sense of shared loss or shared sacrifice, it's going to come in digging ourselves out of this very substantive economic mess that was neither necessary nor asked for, and will take years and years.
i care little for these dying boomers that destroyed the planet and ate themselves to death in the process.
my concern is for the young, the living - the future. not the past...
and, we are under attack - not by the virus, but by one last dying gasp of baby boomer neo-liberalism, that is carrying out a scorched earth policy on it's way out.
in 2011 and 1941, the country got attacked.
in 2020, it shut itself down to stop the common cold from killing geriatrics and extremely unhealthy people - and largely failed to even do so.
the responses are incomparable because the situations are incomparable.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-05-22/little-sense-of-shared-grief-as-virus-deaths-near-100-000
america did this to itself.
and, it seems to want to just move the fuck on.
in 2020, it shut itself down to stop the common cold from killing geriatrics and extremely unhealthy people - and largely failed to even do so.
the responses are incomparable because the situations are incomparable.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-05-22/little-sense-of-shared-grief-as-virus-deaths-near-100-000
america did this to itself.
and, it seems to want to just move the fuck on.
Thursday, May 21, 2020
actually, strangely, mexico is now the most obese country in the world. i should have checked that before posting; i thought it was obvious. but, no - they've recently even passed the united states as most obese country, flat out.
so, it could actually be relatively bad there, then, and you might see a mortality curve that it's actually skewed a little younger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_Mexico
so, it could actually be relatively bad there, then, and you might see a mortality curve that it's actually skewed a little younger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_Mexico
i think we should get through the first wave before we start talking about a second wave. this is virology, not punk rock.
most of north america hasn't peaked yet. it's starting to pick up in mexico now, but remember that they have that low life expectancy card to play, and much lower levels of obesity as well. in the end, you should probably expect the mortality rate in mexico to actually be quite a bit lower for that reason. they're seeing it ramp up there now, though...
but, is a second wave inevitable?
it depends on if it substantively mutates.
that's what these historical waves are - different mutations.
so, it's not inevitable, no, and it really has little to do with government, except in the sense of the importance of actually tracking the thing. the only thing the government can really do to stop a second wave is to overtest as much as possible, and be ready to do extremely aggressive contact tracing if it finds a more vicious mutation.
but, if the thing stays relatively stable, or if we've already seen the most substantive mutations, then a second wave isn't likely at all.
the thing you really need to be worried about is how flu-like it really is, and the little bit of evidence i've seen suggests that it is recombining, and that this might make vaccines fleeting - they may need to be updated quite frequently. in that case, you're going to be looking at waves pretty much every year, and they're no longer waves but seasons. that's probably the most likely outcome, in the long run.
most of north america hasn't peaked yet. it's starting to pick up in mexico now, but remember that they have that low life expectancy card to play, and much lower levels of obesity as well. in the end, you should probably expect the mortality rate in mexico to actually be quite a bit lower for that reason. they're seeing it ramp up there now, though...
but, is a second wave inevitable?
it depends on if it substantively mutates.
that's what these historical waves are - different mutations.
so, it's not inevitable, no, and it really has little to do with government, except in the sense of the importance of actually tracking the thing. the only thing the government can really do to stop a second wave is to overtest as much as possible, and be ready to do extremely aggressive contact tracing if it finds a more vicious mutation.
but, if the thing stays relatively stable, or if we've already seen the most substantive mutations, then a second wave isn't likely at all.
the thing you really need to be worried about is how flu-like it really is, and the little bit of evidence i've seen suggests that it is recombining, and that this might make vaccines fleeting - they may need to be updated quite frequently. in that case, you're going to be looking at waves pretty much every year, and they're no longer waves but seasons. that's probably the most likely outcome, in the long run.
the reality is that these people were mostly so old and sick that they were going to die of the first thing they got hit with - not just the flu but, in some cases, the common cold. this is what got them, but the reality is that they were mostly really honestly sitting around waiting to die.
but, the things that could have been done are not esoteric truths that require deep study to uncover. the white paper i posted earlier predicted all of this, and a little basic reasoning uncovers the following:
1) they should have prevented all visitation into these homes immediately. they didn't. in fact, the state run media actually encouraged older people to "hug their grandchildren", in a truly retarded display of conservative anti-science anti-intellectualism that would make jonathan swift proud.
2) they can't have workers moving around between homes like that, or even going out and about. it's insanity. when a pandemic hits, you really need to lock these people in place and you have to realize what's at stake.
they need to build firewalls around these institutions that they can lock in place when they need to - and if their bleeding hearts won't allow them to, they'll have to realize the consequences of their squeamishness.
we're all forced to sleep, sometimes. i had a nice, long day yesterday, at least, but it came to a really screeching halt with a hard pass out around 5:00, midway through eating.
i got all of my shopping done. all the fruit is put away. laundry is half done. and, i really just need to do lingering laundry before i finish up what i was doing.
soon.
i got all of my shopping done. all the fruit is put away. laundry is half done. and, i really just need to do lingering laundry before i finish up what i was doing.
soon.
i don't want to see a dime cut from anything. nobody voted for this.
the government pushed this down on us unilaterally without so much as a referendum, so let's raise corporate and property taxes to offset the deficit, instead.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6965183/coronavirus-rec-centres-ice-rinks-could-be-first-victims-of-budget-cuts-as-cities-forced-to-balance-books/
the government pushed this down on us unilaterally without so much as a referendum, so let's raise corporate and property taxes to offset the deficit, instead.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6965183/coronavirus-rec-centres-ice-rinks-could-be-first-victims-of-budget-cuts-as-cities-forced-to-balance-books/
if anybody tries to force me to wear a mask, i will refuse to do so, and sue them for a charter breach.
this is getting ridiculous.
but, is that how it starts?
listen, it's increasingly becoming clear that the reason that the swedes are being targeted is that they didn't do what they were told. they're being treated as a rogue state, and punished for their insolence. but, who is orchestrating this? and why?
do you realize who owns twitter? it's a part of the reason it weirds me out so much. that's a major channel of communication, and is controlled by just about the worst actor possible.
if i were to measure my concern on a scale from 1 to 10, it remains on the low side, but all of this strangeness persists, and i'm wondering if it's getting closer to the midpoint. frankly, though, i'm less concerned about realizing what's happening, and more concerned about reacting to it.
we're on a very disturbing trajectory, and it doesn't seem random, it seems incremental.
this is getting ridiculous.
but, is that how it starts?
listen, it's increasingly becoming clear that the reason that the swedes are being targeted is that they didn't do what they were told. they're being treated as a rogue state, and punished for their insolence. but, who is orchestrating this? and why?
do you realize who owns twitter? it's a part of the reason it weirds me out so much. that's a major channel of communication, and is controlled by just about the worst actor possible.
if i were to measure my concern on a scale from 1 to 10, it remains on the low side, but all of this strangeness persists, and i'm wondering if it's getting closer to the midpoint. frankly, though, i'm less concerned about realizing what's happening, and more concerned about reacting to it.
we're on a very disturbing trajectory, and it doesn't seem random, it seems incremental.
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
sweden peaked something like a month after everywhere else, so of course they had the highest per capita rate...last week.
this is like something from a fox news article, it's just blatantly absurd, it has no remote intent to be honest, which gets me asking the same question yet again - what is going on here?
why are they going to such ridiculous lengths to flat out smear the swedes on this?
the signals are that undoing all of this bullshit might be a lot harder than anybody assumes.
https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/sweden-recorded-the-most-coronavirus-deaths-in-europe-per-capita-over-the-last-week-according-to-data/articleshow/75841917.cms
this is like something from a fox news article, it's just blatantly absurd, it has no remote intent to be honest, which gets me asking the same question yet again - what is going on here?
why are they going to such ridiculous lengths to flat out smear the swedes on this?
the signals are that undoing all of this bullshit might be a lot harder than anybody assumes.
https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/sweden-recorded-the-most-coronavirus-deaths-in-europe-per-capita-over-the-last-week-according-to-data/articleshow/75841917.cms
shocked, huh?
if we were to actually run an electric current through doug ford, would it polarize a field in the direction perpendicular to his gut and simulate a reaction of vomiting bullshit out of his mouth?
https://www.kitchenertoday.com/coronavirus-covid-19-local-news/ford-shocked-by-covid-19-testing-numbers-vows-they-will-increase-2365234
if we were to actually run an electric current through doug ford, would it polarize a field in the direction perpendicular to his gut and simulate a reaction of vomiting bullshit out of his mouth?
https://www.kitchenertoday.com/coronavirus-covid-19-local-news/ford-shocked-by-covid-19-testing-numbers-vows-they-will-increase-2365234
We’re creating the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance Program. This benefit will provide forgivable loans to landlords so that they can reduce by 75 per cent the rent for small business tenants that have lost the majority of their revenue because of COVID-19.
what is this, some kind of twisted joke?
it's 2020 and canada is bringing in trickle down economics.
they're stuck in a fucking time warp, or something.
what is this, some kind of twisted joke?
it's 2020 and canada is bringing in trickle down economics.
they're stuck in a fucking time warp, or something.
maybe i'm very emotionally and sexually immature, but i simply could not deal with being cheated on. it tore me up inside, over and over again; i simply wasn't able to deal with it.
i never tried to tell her what to do. remotely. i made no attempt to interfere with her decision making, and fully respected her bodily autonomy.
but, i had to get up and walk out because it was just ripping me apart, and the fact that my decision was final was very much centered in the fact that i never wanted to feel like that ever again.
i never tried to tell her what to do. remotely. i made no attempt to interfere with her decision making, and fully respected her bodily autonomy.
but, i had to get up and walk out because it was just ripping me apart, and the fact that my decision was final was very much centered in the fact that i never wanted to feel like that ever again.
listen...
i dumped sarah in late 2004 and moved out unilaterally in very early 2005. she was cheating on me and refused to stop; she wanted an open relationship, and i said 'no' and i walked out on her.
she couldn't pay the rent, and ended up homeless. so, she ended up at my apartment, and i told her 'no'.
but, we maintained a friendship of varying distance from 2004 to about 2010 or so that involved going for coffee from time to time, and meeting up for walks. and, yes - we were still having sex for quite a while after.
around 2010 or so, she decided she didn't want to talk to me anymore. i never really got a straight answer, and i've gone through various hypotheses, but as far as i can tell, she rejected me because she decided i was gay. and, after almost ten years of a friendship that was very important to me (she's the only person i've ever had sex with), i reacted very badly to that. i valued her friendship very strongly, and hoped to maintain it forever.
but, i've never had any interest in rekindling any sort of romantic relationship with her, at all, and any suggestions otherwise are just flat out wrong - something that i think she actually understands. if anything, she seems to be mad at me because i don't want to get back together with her. but, the decision i made in late 2004 was permanent, and i've held to it as closely as i can. she's had two children, since then - something that i've tried to be emotionally supportive of, but that i ultimately can't and won't accept in any official capacity. she asked me to be her first child's godparent, and i turned it down.
at this point, it's been so long that trying to rebuild some kind of a friendship seems pointless. that's something that makes me sad, certainly - that was perhaps the only friendship that i've ever had that i very much wanted to maintain.
but, the fact is that i dumped her a long time ago, and i've made no attempt at all to win her back since.
i hope that point is as clear as it can be - and it can't be very clear from a distance, i get that.
i dumped sarah in late 2004 and moved out unilaterally in very early 2005. she was cheating on me and refused to stop; she wanted an open relationship, and i said 'no' and i walked out on her.
she couldn't pay the rent, and ended up homeless. so, she ended up at my apartment, and i told her 'no'.
but, we maintained a friendship of varying distance from 2004 to about 2010 or so that involved going for coffee from time to time, and meeting up for walks. and, yes - we were still having sex for quite a while after.
around 2010 or so, she decided she didn't want to talk to me anymore. i never really got a straight answer, and i've gone through various hypotheses, but as far as i can tell, she rejected me because she decided i was gay. and, after almost ten years of a friendship that was very important to me (she's the only person i've ever had sex with), i reacted very badly to that. i valued her friendship very strongly, and hoped to maintain it forever.
but, i've never had any interest in rekindling any sort of romantic relationship with her, at all, and any suggestions otherwise are just flat out wrong - something that i think she actually understands. if anything, she seems to be mad at me because i don't want to get back together with her. but, the decision i made in late 2004 was permanent, and i've held to it as closely as i can. she's had two children, since then - something that i've tried to be emotionally supportive of, but that i ultimately can't and won't accept in any official capacity. she asked me to be her first child's godparent, and i turned it down.
at this point, it's been so long that trying to rebuild some kind of a friendship seems pointless. that's something that makes me sad, certainly - that was perhaps the only friendship that i've ever had that i very much wanted to maintain.
but, the fact is that i dumped her a long time ago, and i've made no attempt at all to win her back since.
i hope that point is as clear as it can be - and it can't be very clear from a distance, i get that.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
so, we're done up until the 25th, and it's time to stop to eat.
after i finish eating, i will have one more segment to complete before i can start posting this and moving on to the next thing, which is filing a complaint against the divisional court judge in federal court, and just generally checking up on the court stuff.
after that, i will need to work through the various liner notes for all of those records that i released or re-released over january, 2014. and, then, i can finally pivot to period three.
after i finish eating, i will have one more segment to complete before i can start posting this and moving on to the next thing, which is filing a complaint against the divisional court judge in federal court, and just generally checking up on the court stuff.
after that, i will need to work through the various liner notes for all of those records that i released or re-released over january, 2014. and, then, i can finally pivot to period three.
there will inevitably be some people that will be unable to define any meaningful reason to exist when given the freedom to do so, and will choose perpetual drunkenness in the face of objective meaninglessness as a rational conclusion of their own futility.
and, that's really ok.
we should stop pretending that it isn't, or that there's any better way around it - that's a choice, and it should be respected for what it is.
and, that's really ok.
we should stop pretending that it isn't, or that there's any better way around it - that's a choice, and it should be respected for what it is.
i think there's little question that drinking can form a bad habit, or that psychiatric intervention may be useful in helping people break that bad habit, as it may be in any other habitual or compulsive behaviour.
and, i don't really doubt that physical addiction to alcohol is theoretically possible in the most extreme scenarios, even if i think it's over-diagnosed as a bad excuse for smelly drunks.
what i think is flatly absurd is the idea that it's genetic, or an inherited condition, and that "alcoholics" are essentially powerless because their dna renders them helpless. that's just fucking ridiculous, and any organization pushing that idea is a dangerous cult that should be driven into the sea with pitchforks.
what "alcoholics" need is some kind of drive, some kind of purpose. they need something they'd rather do than get fucked up. and, i do think it's that simple - they really just need some focus in life where they're able to say "i'd rather do this than get drunk".
you might ask "are the kids not enough?" or "is their partner not enough?" or "is (insert whatever) not enough?", and you might even get defensive about it or question a person's morals if they give you the "wrong" answer. but the answer is rather clearly that, no, it isn't enough, and that's why the person is resorting to the bottle. an empirical analysis is that the kids and the partner and the (insert whatever) are actually the source of the problem for this person, who rather obviously doesn't want kids or isn't happy with their partner or wants out of (insert whatever). and, they need to be helped to realize that - that kids aren't for everybody, and sometimes relationships cause more problems than they solve, and that society doesn't provide one-size-fits-all solutions.
i'm just approaching this from a basic existentialist position: it's really just a question of defining some reason to exist and following through with it. objective purpose may be a delusion, and realizing it may make drunkeness rational, to a certain extent. but, transcending that means making up your own purpose, defining your own reasons, setting your own goals and then following through with them.
for a lot of people, the hard part is going to be in telling society to fuck off - and the help they really need is in building the self-confidence to actually do it.
don't let your loved ones get eaten by these cults. help them to see that they're alone in this universe, and need to define their own purpose all by themselves.
https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/is-alcoholism-a-disease-heres-the-evidence-and-logic/
and, i don't really doubt that physical addiction to alcohol is theoretically possible in the most extreme scenarios, even if i think it's over-diagnosed as a bad excuse for smelly drunks.
what i think is flatly absurd is the idea that it's genetic, or an inherited condition, and that "alcoholics" are essentially powerless because their dna renders them helpless. that's just fucking ridiculous, and any organization pushing that idea is a dangerous cult that should be driven into the sea with pitchforks.
what "alcoholics" need is some kind of drive, some kind of purpose. they need something they'd rather do than get fucked up. and, i do think it's that simple - they really just need some focus in life where they're able to say "i'd rather do this than get drunk".
you might ask "are the kids not enough?" or "is their partner not enough?" or "is (insert whatever) not enough?", and you might even get defensive about it or question a person's morals if they give you the "wrong" answer. but the answer is rather clearly that, no, it isn't enough, and that's why the person is resorting to the bottle. an empirical analysis is that the kids and the partner and the (insert whatever) are actually the source of the problem for this person, who rather obviously doesn't want kids or isn't happy with their partner or wants out of (insert whatever). and, they need to be helped to realize that - that kids aren't for everybody, and sometimes relationships cause more problems than they solve, and that society doesn't provide one-size-fits-all solutions.
i'm just approaching this from a basic existentialist position: it's really just a question of defining some reason to exist and following through with it. objective purpose may be a delusion, and realizing it may make drunkeness rational, to a certain extent. but, transcending that means making up your own purpose, defining your own reasons, setting your own goals and then following through with them.
for a lot of people, the hard part is going to be in telling society to fuck off - and the help they really need is in building the self-confidence to actually do it.
don't let your loved ones get eaten by these cults. help them to see that they're alone in this universe, and need to define their own purpose all by themselves.
https://www.alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org/is-alcoholism-a-disease-heres-the-evidence-and-logic/
i'm just updating some posts, and i want to resummarize something that i've posted about a few times, because i think it's one of the more substantive ideas i've posted in this space over the years.
natural selection should always be treated as a hypothesis to be demonstrated, and should never be treated as an assumption to be uncovered.
i'm not actually arguing with the modern evolutionary synthesis, although i might be reproportioning it - all biologists agree that randomness and selection don't just work at cross-purposes, but are necessary for each other. what i'm actually trying to do is formalize this, because so much of what happens in evolutionary biology really isn't actually science, for the reason that they're so hardwired into their assumptions.
so, let's say you have a species of spider that eats it's mate before it breeds, and this behaviour is observed to decrease reproductive rates. oops. i've read papers where serious biologists try to argue that this is natural selection at work, which is retarded, but why are they doing that? because the synthesis has it drilled into them - everything is selection.
but, everything is not selection, and a spider that eats it's mate before it fucks it is obviously malfunctioning at a pretty brutal level. pointing out that this is obvious, while obvious, is not actually science either, though. so, what is science?
well, you need to throw a statement down and try and disprove it! that's how you do science, and the exact opposite of what evolutionary biologists do on a day-to-day basis.
science, in context, means doing this - you assume drift, and try to prove it wrong. it's only once you've ruled out drift that you can deduce selection.
in fact, this is obvious, and no biologist would disagree with me, when presented in such flamboyant terms as this. so, why don't biologists just fucking do it right, then? why do they need a logician, of all things, to yell at them to use the scientific method?
it's cultural. no, really, that's the right answer; biology is less removed from religion than the other sciences are. that's the actual correct answer, here. but, this excuse is fading, and even reversing.
nowadays, biologists are far more data driven than, say, physicists are. it's the physicists that are stuck with unfalsifiable theories nowadays, and the biologists that are basically doing applied chemistry.
so, this is a call to the field of evolutionary biology to clean itself up and start being more rigorous. you can't just assume any old trait is selection - you have to actually prove it.
natural selection should always be treated as a hypothesis to be demonstrated, and should never be treated as an assumption to be uncovered.
i'm not actually arguing with the modern evolutionary synthesis, although i might be reproportioning it - all biologists agree that randomness and selection don't just work at cross-purposes, but are necessary for each other. what i'm actually trying to do is formalize this, because so much of what happens in evolutionary biology really isn't actually science, for the reason that they're so hardwired into their assumptions.
so, let's say you have a species of spider that eats it's mate before it breeds, and this behaviour is observed to decrease reproductive rates. oops. i've read papers where serious biologists try to argue that this is natural selection at work, which is retarded, but why are they doing that? because the synthesis has it drilled into them - everything is selection.
but, everything is not selection, and a spider that eats it's mate before it fucks it is obviously malfunctioning at a pretty brutal level. pointing out that this is obvious, while obvious, is not actually science either, though. so, what is science?
well, you need to throw a statement down and try and disprove it! that's how you do science, and the exact opposite of what evolutionary biologists do on a day-to-day basis.
science, in context, means doing this - you assume drift, and try to prove it wrong. it's only once you've ruled out drift that you can deduce selection.
in fact, this is obvious, and no biologist would disagree with me, when presented in such flamboyant terms as this. so, why don't biologists just fucking do it right, then? why do they need a logician, of all things, to yell at them to use the scientific method?
it's cultural. no, really, that's the right answer; biology is less removed from religion than the other sciences are. that's the actual correct answer, here. but, this excuse is fading, and even reversing.
nowadays, biologists are far more data driven than, say, physicists are. it's the physicists that are stuck with unfalsifiable theories nowadays, and the biologists that are basically doing applied chemistry.
so, this is a call to the field of evolutionary biology to clean itself up and start being more rigorous. you can't just assume any old trait is selection - you have to actually prove it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)